So it would seem as if the Tories are too clever by half, and their arrogance has been the primary protagonist in their defeat. The opposition parties are in the last stages of forming a new coalition government. However the Tories do have a few tricks in their bag, and will do everything they can to resist their fall, including potentially proroguing parliament until the new year.
Yet the door is open and the opportunity for a new political era in Canadian politics is upon us. The Conservative party regards this as an attack from the left, however I think a more accurate description of this conflict is of an urban uprising.
It is often taken for granted that Canadian politics is regional, what with the Bloc Quebecois consistently dominating Quebec and the Conservatives dominating the West.
Yet the real divide is urban vs rural, with the last two elections virtually shutting the Tories out of major Canadian cities, in west, central, and eastern Canada. Even urban Alberta had a few non-Tory MPs elected.
The irony of course is that cities are where the action is, the engine of the global economy, and the front line for the pains and gains that result. In Canada the federal government has either treated the cities with neglect or disdain, limiting and restraining their potential.
Now that this same government teeters on the brink of collapse, their reactionary language will lead them to accuse the opposition of staging a coup d'etat, of hijacking the government for their own agenda.
Well that agenda is the urban agenda, and what we might be witnessing here is the rise of the city state, at least the Canadian version, i.e. non-violent and still within a geographically broad national federation.