You’re looking at seat count for seat count’s sake; I’m looking at their ability to achieve policy objectives, which is generally my measure of a party’s efficacy.
I would like to see the LPC govern as much from the center as possible. Hopefully CPC, or enough of them, recognize that for the next while things a time to work together on a consensus basis for national objectives.
Maybe the CPC go for it; maybe they take their ball, go home, and Pierre goes to IKEA to buy a new chair.
If LPC don’t get traction from CPC, the NDP are easily in a position to continue to haggle support for policy advancement as they did previously, and with some success, during the supply and confidence agreement. While NDP appear poised for an historic low one seat below Audrey McLaughlin’s 1993 showing of 9 seats, McLaughlin was at the helm of a fourth party against a Liberal majority- not dissimilar from the impotence NDP would have faced had they forced an election that returned a CPC majority.
While they got their asses kicked seat wise, if they’re still in the kingmaker role, then bluntly they’ll be in a better position in Parliament than the CPC despite have 5% of the CPC’s seat count.
The basic calculus has never changed for the NDP. They cannot and will not win an election outright, their interests are always best served by leveraging their seats to prop up a minority. While more seats is better, 7 seats that leverage their ability to prop up a minority is more meaningful than 100 seats heckling a majority. Jack Layton had 104 seats for 4 years against a CPC majority. How much did he achieve?
