Canada’s Conservatives won a clear Commons majority in yesterday's federal election on a minority of the vote

The political landscape has been utterly transformed.

The Conservatives on 40% of the vote have 168 MPs in the 308 seat House of Commons.

I suppose John Reid and his “No to AV” campaign would describe this as a triumph of democracy. First-past-the-post delivering a clear victory on a minority of the votes.

151 seats were won on less than 50% of the vote.

The Liberal Party of Canada attracted the support of fewer than one in five voters. In their worst showing ever they have been reduced to a rump of 34 seats, losing their leader, Michael Ignatieff, in the process. It was a catastrophic performance.

This morning, as the smoke clears, a battered Ignatieff announces he is stepping down from the leadership.

The Bloc Quebecois has been decimated. It now has 4 seats, losing its Party status in the House of Commons which requires a minimum of 12 MPs to secure federal funding.

The Bloc’s humiliation is complete when its leader, Giles Duceppe, loses his seat to a new kid on the block.

Throughout the campaign Duceppe comes across as angry and agitated, turning off huge numbers of Quebeckers. They look instead to the smiley Jack Layton, leader of the social democrat NDP, and like what they see.

Layton is the big winner. He is now the leader of the Official Opposition, cresting into Parliament on a wave of new MPs who never expected to be there.

Three of the new NDP MPs from Quebec are students at McGill University in Montreal. Another student, Pierre-Luc Dusseault, is, at 19, the youngest ever member of the Canadian House of Commons.

Ruth Ellen Brosseau, the new MP who spent a chunk of the campaign on holiday in Las Vegas now represents a constituency that is 98% francophone and she can barely speak a word of French.

Although their share of the popular vote is down on last time (2008) the Greens emerge with their first MP, Elizabeth May.

But victory goes to the Conservatives. The Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, with the Commons majority he coveted in his pocket, will now move Canada sharply to the right.

The Conservatives focussed their efforts on a relatively small number of target constituencies and came through the middle in others where the non-Conservative vote split.

And for the 60% who didn’t vote for the Conservatives? They will just have to lump it.

That’s the system.

David Cameron would approve.