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Everyone agreed this was not an election about interests. Canadians thought the Conservatives had done a good job managing the economy. As Tom Flanagan remarked on another occasion, quoting Hunter S. Thompson, it was about fear and loathing, where loathing of Harper trumped fear of leaving the country hostage to profound inexperience.

Last week, Flanagan added that the long campaign did not benefit the Conservatives, because so many unforeseen events happened — from the migrant crisis to the niqab. Worse, by agreeing to respect the fixed election date and delivering a spring budget, the Conservatives telegraphed their platform and ensured they had little to announce during the campaign. Thus, they were outflanked by the Liberals and their photo ops were a bore.

No one said much about the nature of the three elements of Liberal coalition. So here goes.

First came the revenge of the Laurentian elites, exemplified by the media party. The journalists’ union, the Canadian Media Guild, for example, registered as an anti-Harper Super-PAC with Elections Canada. Nor was it a surprise that southern Ontario, and especially Toronto, went solidly Liberal. A decade of self-inflicted pain in Ontario was blamed on the West.

Quebec, the linchpin of Laurentian Canada, restored its tradition of tribal voting. Including Justin Trudeau, for 50 of the past 70 years, the prime minister has come from Lower Canada.

A second factor was the revenge of what the leading literary critic of Maritime fiction, Janice Keefer, called the “loser ethos.” The Conservatives reduced the presence of bureaucrats in Canadians’ lives. In Atlantic Canada, they reduced citizens’ dependence on pogey. Thus, the red wave began in the part of the country most addicted to chunky-style pork barrelling.