We waited until 11:00 p.m. to put on the television, last night, to view results of the 2011 federal election. To discover news that pleased us. We were hoping that this would occur, although it seemed, through poll results nearing the end of the election campaign that there might be complications to our expectations.

There were, but under the circumstances, nothing that cannot be at least partially ameliorated by the willingness of at least one party leader to handle too-unreasonable demands by the other, and to accept those demands which seem desirable and feasible to implement for the greater good of the Canadian social contract.

Generally speaking, the voting public worked its way well enough through the maze of electoral promises and the haze of direly-warned implications to come to their own conclusions; not quite as suggestible as many might have believed. With the exception of the mass of Quebec voters who moved on their ballots like lemmings tossing themselves over the proverbial cliff.

One positive result was the near-annihilation of the Bloc Quebecois when Quebecers voted massively for the NDP, whose leader promised them all that the Bloc had represented to them, in the process taking out an excellent Conservative cabinet minister in favour of someone who had decided only in the last two weeks to contest the seat for the NDP.

The other result, far more negative and perhaps in retrospect inevitable, was the abject poverty of seats left to the once-great Liberal Party, resulting in a speech by its leader, Michael Ignatieff, that revealed his excellent ability to communicate as a leader and a passionate patriot, concluding with his resignation a day later, with the loss of his own seat as a Member of Parliament.

Enough voters across the country were in favour of continuity and stability based on a solidly reliable performance record to grant the Conservative Party of Canada and Prime Minister Stephen Harper a full majority government enabling him now to move forward with confidence in pursuit of policies and initiatives that will continue to benefit the country.