It appears that our Canadian brothers and sisters

[GliderGuider]

29. Canadians got fed up in a big way.

This was the largest example of strategic voting in our history. It was effectively vote of non-confidence in Heartless Harper himself.

The NDP lost ground both to the strategic nature of the voting, and probably also because Harper made the niqab an issue in Quebec. Tthe NDP had gained a large number of seats there in the last election. However, Quebec is a stronghold of anti-niqab, anti-immigrant sentiment, but the NDP couldn't support that exclusionary position. So their support softened, which made the strategic anti-Harper switch to the Liberals much easier. As a result the NDP lost much of their socialist support (and seats) in Quebec.

That doesn't let the NDP themselves off the hook, though. They ran a stodgy campaign, with nothing new to offer - we'd heard all their promises and platforms before. Tom Mulcair's 1970s professorial look didn't help either. Canada was in the mood for new, so we elected the sexy kid from a party we'd forgiven for past scandals.

IMO