The world of politics is one which seems at times to take on a life of its own, and that was certainly the case Monday as Canadians headed to the polls.
It was an election in which Canadians set history with their ballots.
To begin with the New Democrats have jumped into the role of official Opposition.
If there is one story out of this election which history will remember it is the emergence of the NDP into a role it has never previously come close to. With a previous historic high of 44 seats, the NDP more than doubled their previous best to eclipse 100 seats and earn the Opposition role.
In the process of gaining their seats the New Democrats broke through in Quebec and in so doing all but knocked the Bloc Quebecois from Parliament.
The Bloc has been a sore spot for Canadians outside the province of Quebec since the party had a desire to have the province separate from Canada.
To have the separatist leaning Bloc reduce to less than five seats, relegated to so few seats it will not hold official party status in Parliament.
For Canada as a country the Bloc's demise has to be viewed as a great step forward in confederation.
It is to be hoped the NDP, which gained most of the Bloc seats, can speak effectively with a nationalist voice for Quebec residents to keep the Bloc as a historical footnote.
Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe lost his seat, and has already announced he will step down.
The demise of the Bloc is most likely the second most memorable result of the election.
As the NDP gained, the Liberal Party was decimated, declining from 77 seats in the last Parliament to less than 35. It is the first time the party has fell to third in this country's history.
It will likely signal the end of Michael Ignatieff as Liberal leader, having lost his own seat, but the bigger question is whether the party can find a way to rebuild.
Provincially we have seen the Liberal Party struggle to regain relevance with voters, and that might be reflecting nationally moving forward.
And while there are certainly more historic story lines from Monday, the Conservatives were re-elected, this time with Stephen Harper leading a majority government.
The majority is somewhat surprising since the emergence of the NDP would suggest a backlash against the status quo. Of course with the NDP and Liberals splitting opposition voting in many ridings Conservatives ended up winning.
The result is we have a situation where the Conservatives have a majority of seats, but have less than 50 per cent of the popular vote.
It is a situation which has Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who became the first member of her party to win a federal seat, calling for some form of representation by popular vote.
In a multi-party system the situation is not that unusual outcome, but it is one we should collective question as to whether it is the best result for representative democracy, since the government does not represent the majority.
In the end a historic election for our country, setting up a Parliament unlike any we have seen before.
