Besides the fact that this majority government represents a minority of the electorate, it is also an anomaly of a split vote on the left, most especially in the Greater Toronto Area. This is another way of confirming that most voters were looking for a way not to vote for the Conservatives.

Don’t let lazy reporting or even lazier punditry obscure the facts: a large majority of Canadians — just over 60% — voted to the left of the Harper Conservatives.

Thomas Walkom explains:

For Canadians unnerved about a Stephen Harper majority government, two facts about Monday’s election stand out.

The first is that virtually all of the Conservative gains occurred in and around Toronto. Of the 24 new seats Harper won across Canada, 18 came from the Greater Toronto Area — including nine from Toronto itself.

Or, to put it another way, Harper owes his majority to the voters of the GTA. His gains elsewhere were minimal. In fact, the Conservatives lost seats in both Quebec and British Columbia.

The second notable fact is that most of these GTA gains resulted from vote splitting between Liberals and New Democrats — vote splitting that, ironically, was fuelled by a last minute surge of support toward Jack Layton’s NDP.

In Toronto’s Don Valley West, for instance, the NDP won 1,182 more votes than it had in 2008 — just enough to deny victory to Liberal incumbent Rob Oliphant.

This NDP vote increase occurred even though the party’s candidate, Nicole Yovanoff, spent virtually no time in the riding, instead flying off to Kenora to manage another New Democrat’s campaign.

Conservative gains resulting from vote-splitting also occurred in suburban ridings outside Toronto like Bramalea-Gore-Malton that, until Monday, had been Liberal strongholds.

All of which is to say that pressure will be redoubled on both Liberals and New Democrats to unite the so-called left.

As to that last point, yes, it may be time. The left must unite so that it can do what most Canadians want them to do, and that is to govern.

An earlier effort to suppress the student vote occurred at the University of Guelph two weeks ago. It now appears the region from Guelph to Kitchener in Ontario was specifically targeted for vote suppression right up to election day.

From yesterday’s National Post:

OTTAWA — Elections Canada is warning voters to be wary of any telephone calls suggesting a change in the location of their polling station.

The federal agency has received reports from ridings across Canada of people calling voters to give false information about polling locations or other changes in voting polls.

“It’s happened in some isolated pockets across the country,” said Elections Canada spokeswoman Diane Benson. “We’re concerned about it. We’re concerned if electors are being given false information.

“We do not communicate with electors by telephone,” she added.

The bogus calls have been made to voters in Guelph, Ont., as well as in Manitoba and B.C., according to media reports.

Frank Valeriote, the Liberal candidate for Guelph, took to Twitter to warn voters in his riding about the bogus calls.

“Guelph voters receiving calls indicating their polling station has changed,” he wrote. “Disregard these calls. It’s a lie to suppress the vote.”

Benson said voters should check their voter information card and can verify their polling station using their postal code at www.elections.ca.

Voters can also call their returning office.

Similar incidents from other parts of the country are being reported by the CBC, along with some telling variations. An excerpt:

A different type of voting problem was experienced by several Montreal voters.

When Robin Warren showed up to vote on Monday, she said her name had been crossed off the voter list.

She had to sign an affidavit swearing she had not voted already.

While Warren was at the polling station, she said another woman who lives in the same apartment complex had an identical problem.

“On my way back home after we dealt with all this I ran into another group of ladies outside and all their names were crossed off the list, and they had to go through the same thing of signing affidavits. There’s something not right here. There’s too many people in one building,” Warren said.

All of these are familiar Republican tactics over the past decade.

Who is most likely responsible for this? Liberals, New Democrats, or Conservatives? Frank Valeriote is the Liberal incumbent in a Liberal stronghold, and the youth vote trends strongly to the New Democrats. That leaves the Conservatives, who we know tried to shut down the University of Guelph special ballot — and who, of course, also happen to employ Republican consulting firms.

How many incidents like these do we not know about?  Will Elections Canada be allowed to launch a full investigation? Will those responsible be held accountable?

For the record, it does not matter whether or not these tactics can be regarded to have succeeded on any scale large or small. It only matters that they occurred at all. This needs to be traced to the source.

Here’s where we are today, based upon an aggregate of the latest polls:

Almost 63% of Canadians are set to vote against the Conservatives. Here’s hoping we get a parliament representative of that.

Vote. If you are not registered, you can still go to your local polling station and vote if you produce ID and a piece of mail with your address on it.