The party standings on election day and now - I am including Etobicoke Centre as vacant even though it is not yet officially vacant, but I do not see Ted Opitz's appeal succeeding.
Conservative 166 163
NDP 103 101
Liberals 34 35
Bloc 4 4
Others 1 3
Vacant 0 2
Government 165 162 (163)
Opposition 142 143 (142)
Speaker 1 1
One of the Others is an independent Conservative Peter Goldring who I assume is likely to vote for the government. Other is a former NDP MP, now independent.
The government retains a healthy majority but it has eroded slightly.
Could deaths become a problem? One of the Senators appointed by Stephen Harper died earlier this year, deaths among the MPs could very well happen.
There are four Conservative MPs over age 70, the oldest being Ray Boughen who is just over 75 years old. He is too old to be in the Senate. Liberal Irwin Colter is also over 70 years old. 22 more MPs are over retirement age, most of them are Conservatives. 30 more will be over retirement age by the time of the next election. The odds of a couple of these 57 MPs dying between now and the next election is actually very good and since a majority of them are Conservatives, especially among the oldest, there are good odds of a Conservative MP dying. Deaths will not be enough alone.
The Conservatives have been government for coming up to six and a half years. I would expect in 2013 various Conservative MPs to consider resigning to take up positions that are less stressful and pay much better than being MP.
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