Montreal: 'Hurricane Jack reshaped the Quebec political landscape'

By Liam Chapman (Montreal, QC)

The "orange wave" metaphor really crested as election day dawned, and by the day after journalists had rebranded it as the "orange tsunami" phenomenon.

Hurricane Jack reshaped the Quebec political landscape.

The Bloc and the Grits were easily washed down with some orange juice.

The potentially dangerous overuse of hyperbole and recklessly silly metaphors aside...

I took a post-election Facebook sightseeing trip to see what my Quebec friends thought about the election results. There was a lot of disappointment. Many seemed upset that the Conservatives had won a majority.

One friend took issue with the current system of representation: "Strong Conservative majority with less than 40% of the popular vote. Disturbingly phony majority, but that's our system."

Another was surprised so many had supported the NDP and reminded those upset about the majority remember that the "Conservatives didn't call the election and they didn't want it."

Two others took a lighter view of the results:

"One thing Conservative majorities are good for: nascent punk rock movements."

"The irony of Quebec finally electing all these NDP candidates, is that they'll all be gone when we separate from Canada (with my blessing) a year from now."

A few of my post-election posts have triggered avalanches of responses which hotly debate everything from the legitimacy of a majority government which only got 17 per cent of the votes and six seats in Canada's second most populous province, to the surreal stories of the young, inexperienced and politically unsavvy NDP candidates moving to Ottawa, to what becomes of Quebec under a majority Harper government its voters almost unanimously rejected.

The NDP MPs are going have to learn, and learn FAST, how to efficiently act in opposition and get results for their new heartland: La Belle Province.

Thanks for reading my blogs. Follow me on Twitter @lichapman.