Despite that, Gilles Duceppe managed to gain a massive number of seats, leaving the Liberals with mostly the seats that would never go Bloc no matter what. So Gilles Duceppe can claim this as a victory for Québec nationalism; he is a truly successful leader who has matured into his role. But he now walks a fine tightrope. He cannot now alone hold the balance of power. Most of his platform is still represented in the NDP, so he cannot claim credit for progressive reform so long as they hold the balance of power (and this is presently tenuous, see below). He has to find an issue on which the Bloc is isolated without it looking like a transparent attempt at fanning separatist flames. And he has to find issues on which the other parties can claim the Bloc is irrelevant. Only if he walks that tightrope very carefully will he come closer to his party's ultimate goal.

As for losers, it's a toss-up between Layton and Harper. It's only a toss-up because Layton's hold on the balance of power is presently (before all the seats in BC have been completely settled) rather tenuous; otherwise Harper would be the clear loser. Layton got bitten by the first-past-the-post system, and by the strategic voting rhetoric of Paul Martin. But he didn't do much worse than the polls suggested, and throughout Canada he greatly increased the NDP vote and seat count from the last election. If he manages to still hold the balance of power (by the time all the counts are completely finished) and hold Martin's feet to the fire as an external partner, the next election may generate a higher seat count for him. It's clear that in this election, devoting too much time to Québec was a mistake, but perhaps it was a forward-looking one.

Harper is a definite loser in this election. Not only did the giant gains in Ontario not materialize (well, some did), but he also managed to lose some of BC (while gaining some of Saskatchewan). He now sits once again as opposition. But there is a silver lining—another few months or use with which to launder the Conservative Party into something still further more acceptable. There is an irony in a putative Liberal government with external NDP support. It means that the Conservatives and a strong Bloc are together in Opposition. The Mulroney Coalition redux? Probably not, but still interesting to think about.