The Liberal Party

The conventional wisdom when the election writ was issued back in March was that it was going to be boring, a waste of time and that in the end, we end up pretty much where we were when the opposition parties defeated the Government on a no confidence motion on March 25th.

Well as the wise ones like to mutter...a 35-day election campaign is a long time and as we all know, despite the conventional wisdom, the result of Monday's vote is a true shift in the Canadian political landscape. We have a majority Conservative government, the official opposition party is the NDP, the Liberals were reduced to an historic low in terms of representation in the House and the Bloc Quebecois were almost wiped out.

Each of these results is a stunner but in terms of the long term political future of this country, the relegation of the Liberal Party of Canada, long known as the Natural Governing Party of Canada, to third party status maybe the most significant aspect of last Monday's vote.

Or at least that's what veteran watchers and analysts of the Liberal party are chewing over and we've brought together three of this country's most astute observers of that once august institution.

Ron Graham is a journalist and author. His most recent book is The Last Act: Pierre Trudeau, The Gang of Eight, and the Fight for Canada and Stephen Clarkson, professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and Senior fellow of Centre for International Governance Innovation and author, most notably of Trudeau and Our Times and Big Red Machine: How The Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics. They were in Toronto.

Antonia Maioni, Director the McGill Institute for The Study of Canada, was in Montreal.