A gamble by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mr Jean Chretien, in calling an early election paid off handsomely as his Liberal Party gained a larger majority in the House of Commons and gave him a third consecutive victory, according to official results yesterday.
Canadians elected Liberals to 173 of the 301-seat House, a gain of 12 seats for the party compared to the parliament's makeup prior to Mr Chretien's October 22nd call for a new election.
"The little guy wins big," read the headline of the Globe and Mail, referring to Mr Chretien by his nickname, the "Little guy from Shawinigan", the industrial town in Quebec where was born in 1934.
His convincing victory is bittersweet as many critics and rivals said his election call came too early - about 3-1/2 years into his five-year mandate instead of the usual four years - and without reason.
The Liberals, who now hold seats in all 10 of Canada's provinces, took victories in Atlantic Canada, taking back constituencies from the left-of-centre New Democratic Party and votes split between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, the main opposition party.
The Alliance - formed out of the western Reform Party and some federal Tory defectors - won 66 seats in the House compared to 58 prior to the election. The National Post's headline stated simply: "Chretien wins majority - Alliance fails to grow."
The Vancouver Sun said in website headlines: "Voters boost Liberal grip" and "Canadians also squashed Alliance's pursuit of national-party status." etien record-setting PM".
The other major parties all lost votes to the Liberals with the New Democrats retaining 13 seats (losing six compared to seats prior to the election), the Progressive Conservatives holding 12 seats (losing three) and the Bloc Quebecois - which supports independence for the French-speaking province of Quebec - winning 37 seats (losing seven).
Mr Chretien, now 66, served successively in 10 different government portfolios starting in 1967, including minister of finance and minister of energy, mines and resources.
In 1980, he led a successful federal campaign in 1980 against the first Quebec sovereignty referendum organised by the province.
Ten years later, he was elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and after his party won a majority of seats in the 301seat House in 1993, he was sworn in as prime minister.
AFP reports from Vancouver:
A bus, believed to be carrying Taiwanese nationals, collided head-on with a truck in a tunnel on a mountain highway in western Canada, killing at least six people, police said yesterday.
Some 24 people were injured and have been taken to regional hospitals after Monday's crash on a remote stretch of the Trans-Canada highway, 680 km east of Vancouver.