CTV.ca | Conservatives dominate in 'battleground' gains

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper waves to supporters as he takes the stage at his election headquarters in Calgary after winning a second minority government, Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008. (Tom Hanson / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Conservatives dominate in 'battleground' gains

Updated Wed. Oct. 15 2008 3:13 AM ET

Bill Doskoch, CTV.ca News Staff

Of the 45 "battleground" ridings in B.C., Ontario and Quebec, 14 changed hands in Tuesday's federal election.

The 45 "Battleground 2008" ridings were tracked nightly for CTV and The Globe and Mail by The Strategic Counsel, and were considered key to the Conservative Party's goal of winning a majority.

Those ridings were distinguished by margins of victory of less than five per cent in 2006. For example, Conservative Health Minister Tony Clement won by only 28 votes that year, although he was comfortably re-elected in Ontario's Parry Sound-Muskoka riding on Tuesday.

It's telling that the Liberals, who suffered one of the party's worst electoral performances in the last 30 years, picked up only one of those 13 seats -- none outside Quebec. The NDP gained three and the Bloc gained one.

The Conservatives, who went into the election holding 127 seats, gained a total of nine seats in those ridings -- five in Ontario (where 20 were at stake) and four in B.C. (10 were up for grabs).

Here are the standings:

Conservatives - 143
Liberals - 76
NDP - 37
Bloc Quebecois - 50
Independent - 2

The Tories were 12 seats short of a bare majority.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper had hoped to make big gains in Quebec, where there were 15 battleground seats. However, the Tories failed to gain a single one of those seats.

"He went from hero to zero in the course of this campaign," said The Strategic Counsel's Peter Donolo on Tuesday about Harper's missteps on the issues of culture and crime.

The Bloc Quebecois picked up Louis-Hebert (west of Quebec City) from the Conservatives while Justin Trudeau, son of legendary former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, won the Montreal riding of Papineau. He took it from the Bloc. The Liberals also took Brossard-La Prairie from the Bloc.

In the other 12 battleground ridings in Quebec, the incumbents prevailed.

Ontario proved to be much more fertile for the Conservatives, where they gained five battleground ridings -- six in total. Those ridings included:

Oakville, Greater Toronto Area (GTA)
Halton, GTA
Brant, southwest Ontario
Huron-Bruce, southwest Ont.
London West, southwest Ont.

The NDP also picked up three Ontario battlegrounds, part of their five-seat gain in Canada's largest province:

Thunder Bay-Rainy River, northern Ont.
Thunder Bay-Superior North, northern Ont.
Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing, northern Ont.

The Liberals lost a total of 16 Ontario seats from 2006, finishing with 38 seats instead of 54.

B.C.'s 10 battleground ridings were the last to be counted, but they didn't do anything to determine the election's outcome.

On Tuesday, they were merely icing in the cake for the Tories, who gained four ridings in the province, among them:

Vancouver Island North
North Vancouver
Richmond (suburban Vancouver)
West Vancouver -Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country

Neither the Liberals nor the NDP gained in any of the battleground seats in B.C.

The Battleground 2008 Ridings (winning party in brackets, asterisk indicates a gain):

British Columbia:

Vancouver Quadra (L), Vancouver Island North (C*), West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country (C*), Fleetwood-Port Kells (C), Newton-North Delta (L), Burnaby-Douglas (NDP), Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca (C), Richmond (C*), Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission (C), North Vancouver (C*).

Ontario:

Parry Sound-Muskoka (C), Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (C), St. Catharines (C), Hamilton East-Stoney Creek (C), Brant (C*), Thunder Bay-Superior North (NDP*), Oakville (C*), Thunder Bay-Rainy River (NDP*), Huron-Bruce (C*), London-Fanshawe (NDP), Ottawa-Orléans (C), Simcoe North (C), London West (C), Barrie (C), Kitchener-Conestoga (C), Halton (C*), Peterborough (C), Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing (NDP*), Burlington (C), Mississauga South (L).

Quebec:

Louis-Hébert (BQ*), Ahuntsic (L), Beauport-Limoilou (C), Brossard-La Prairie (BQ), Papineau (L*), Charlesbourg--Haut-Saint-Charles (C), Hull-Aylmer (L), Honoré-Mercier (L), Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot (BQ), Pontiac (C), Jeanne-Le Ber (BQ), Laval-Les Îles (L), Gatineau (BQ), Chicoutimi-Le Fjord (BQ), Brome-Missisquoi (BQ).