As the Globe and Mail reported this morning, the Communist Party of Canada won in convincing style over the Marxist-Leninists, strongly cementing the radical/protest/smartass/inattentive vote into a convincing 160 vote bloc. Still, danger lurks for the Commies, as a stronger than expected showing by the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party suggests that they can no longer bank on the critical critter vote.

To noone's surprise, the Liberals kept the riding, with the still young-looking Mario Silva retaining his seat over the NDP. The Green Party did well, with 10.5% - less than 200 votes behind the perennially moribund Conservative candidate.

Now we'll see what happens nationally. The knives will be out for Dion, but he has proven to be very resilient. He may well decide to stay on, in which case it would come down to a leadership review, in May I understand. And if he limps out of there, he won't be much of a candidate in the next election. And if he gets voted out, there will be the usual dusting for fingerprints to see whose supporters were behind he ouster.

I would personally prefer if he resigned and the party regroups around Michael Ignatieff.  Iggy has proven to be a strong politician, he's still a striking figure on the national stage, and the negatives he had going into the last leadership race - his American residency, his support for the Iraq war - have pretty much gone away. He would be a formidable opponent to Harper the next go round. In fact, with Ignatieff leading the Liberals, the pressure would be on Harper to take it to the next level - if he can't win a majority against Mr Bean, he's unlikely to do well against the urbane Ignatieff.