So, what was the point of this again?

Well the Conservatives have won again. I'm disgusted, but at least they only managed to increase their minority and fell short of a majority. However, everyone is pretty frustrated...

The Conservatives failed to get their majority.
The Liberals had their biggest loss in history.
The New Democrats didn't get substantial gains.
The Bloc Québécois didn't get any gains.
The Greens still didn't win any seats at all.

And Canadian voters are irritated at Harper for wasting our time and $300 million we can ill afford on an election that turned out pretty much like the one 2 years ago... especially annoying because this was an obvious grab for more seats and yet he was the one railing against such opportunistic elections and passing laws for fixed date elections. This is also the 3rd election in 4 years. Worse, the Conservatives have "won" again even though they got less than 38% of the votes. A whole lot of people are now clamouring to get rid of first-past-the-post elections, since of course they're wondering why we now have a near-majority ruling party that almost 2/3 of the people voted against. (37.7% is hardly a "mandate," though Harper likes to think it is.) And a mere 1% increase in Conservative support translated into a 6% jump in seats. They also question a system that gives the Bloc Québécois 50 seats with 8% of the vote and the Greens get 0 seats with 6% of the vote.

Last October, Ontarians (to my great annoyance) overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have replaced first-past-the-post voting in Ontario with a mixed-member-proportional system. Humph, betcha they don't think it's such a stupid idea now.