While it's fresh-

So, a big train ride from Toronto to Montréal ahead of me tomorrow, but before I spend all day flooding the internet with post-election thoughts, strategies, and messages, I thought I'd write some things down while I'm still 'fresh' from Jack Layton's amazing party downtown. 

1. Holy Shit Québec!

We did it! The Bloc are in tatters, M. Duceppe is gone from the Commons after a long dignified career, and Québec has said resoundingly YES to working with Canada to solve our common problems and secure our common future prosperity. The NDP will need truly massive support over the coming weeks to build an organization in a province that didn't have one less than three weeks ago. Young Canadians, especially young professionals, should get down to their constituency office tomorrow and see how they can help.

2. Goddamn Ontario, let's talk about Proportional Representation

The NDP vote split massively in Ontario, and Mr. Harper won a national majority with slightly less than 40% of the vote at last count. Now that the NDP are the Official Opposition and the Liberals are a rump party needing a new leader, this is the perfect time to start getting a PR system set up before 2015. The crucial thing here is that the NDP need to propose a real alternative and sell people on it who didn't vote for them, and that requires research, discussion, and strong marketing and PR. As Mr. Layton said, don't oppose, propose.

3. The youth turned up in record numbers, and we're not going anywhere. 

Mr. Layton reeled off a whole bunch of important priorities which we as young Canadians need to discuss and debate. We need to bring First Peoples into the fold dés maintenant, we need to integrate the NDP party mechanism into multiple linguistic and cultural opportunities, both representing ourselves to them and adding their voices to our debates. We need a plan for public transit, a plan for sustainable urban renewal, a plan to end senior poverty, and a plan for the North that doesn't involve jets and jails. We need to propose now.

The real work, friends, starts tomorrow, so I'll let you all sleep now- congrats to all the candidates and volunteers, and to all the millions of Canadians who voted for change today. Bonne fin de soirée!