I guess Brandon was right after all, at least for those of us who do not live in Toronto's inner city, Scarborough, Jane-Finch, Malton, or Bramalea.
Of course I was right. Quebec is on a completely different playing field than the rest of Canada, there is no Conservative base there at present day. The NDP surge didn't translate into a surge in Atlantic Canada or Ontario... In most of Canada a vote for the NDP is simply a vote for Harper Majority Government. Now Canada is stuck with it for 4 years. Oh well... I did my part to try and fight against it.
I sympathize with the NDP on so many levels, but when the end of the day comes the NDP tends to form governments that aren't any different from the Liberals. Most NDP governments on the provincial level govern either similar to a Liberal government, or even in some rare cases to the right of a Liberal government. Jack Layton played all the right tunes, and he's a good politician. The Liberal party I think made many mistakes, including nominating Ignatieff leader.
I could go on and on about strategy, but here is why the NDP rise happened, and why it is temporary:
1) PQ and BQ held meeting in the middle of the election cycle, boasting about how they are eager to bring back a referendum. It gets noticed in French media, but gets totally overlooked in English media. Quebecers aren't looking to separate, so they run into the hands of the NDP.
2) Stephen Harper's Conservatives have ran a 24/7 anti-Liberal, anti-Ignatieff campaign since day one. It is worse than the American system IMO... Even the Tea Party caucus of the Republicans aren't running 24/7 anti-Obama ads year round. This facilitated people hating the Liberals and Ignatieff, and it ran voters right into the hands of Jack Layton.
3) Jack Layton did remarkably well in the debates, he scores his own points here.
4) Ignatieff simply is not the best Liberal leader that could have been chosen. Nominating someone who spent the majority of his adulthood out of Canadian identity, out of the sphere of the issues isn't easy to defend.
5) The NDP rise is temporary simply because the party has many candidates that aren't qualified for governance. The wave in Quebec was simply a wave of enthusiasm that might not be sustainable, I hear one riding has a non-french speaking pole dancer from a strip club that won.
6) Stephen Harper's Conservatives got assistance with two things, primarily: a small percentage of voters in other parties, particularly the Liberals and "Blue Liberals" if you will, got afraid of what was happening in Quebec and didn't want to vote for a possibility of a coalition. Another issue that helped him win a few extra percent is low overall voter turnout. I hear this election actually had lower turnout than the last, surprisingly enough... Whether this is true or not we'll find out soon enough.
For the mean time we'll have 4 long, hard years to examine these results. I did my part to help against this and actively campaigned for the Liberals, it was hurtful to see the Conservative majority. But it isn't the end of the world.