Monday October 21, 2019 ~ NATIONAL – 7 pm PT
~ Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
The Liberals appear to be returning a leading number of seats in the federal election tonight, October 21.
As posted on CTV National News, the Liberals are leading or elected in 101 seats, with 71 for the Conservatives, 17 for the Bloc Quebecois, 9 for the NDP and 2 for the Greens (with 200 of 338 ridings reported).
The common view of political observers is that the final balance of power could be set in place by the voting results from British Columbia in this election. In previous elections the BC count didn’t effectively matter so much, given the sheer volume of seat wins to majority status as a result of ridings won in Ontario and Quebec.
At 7:05 pm, CTV declared a Liberal win to come tonight — not yet determined whether a minority or majority government. It takes 170 seats to produce a majority.
A majority government is not usually lost in its bid for a second term. The Trudeau Liberal government of 2015-2019 now looks like it might have a majority second term.
At dissolution of the previous (42nd) parliament, the standings were: Lib. 177 | CPC 95 | NDP 39 | BQ* 10 | GP* 2 | PPC* 1| CCF* 1 | Ind. 8 | Vacant 3 | Total 336 (* = a party requires 12 seats to be called a ‘recognized party’)