There are really three stories about this election the media, and most folks, seem to have missed actually.
The first story is how truly dominant the Tories have become in non-Quebec Canada.
Rest of Canada (Canada - Quebec)Tories: 5,204,751 votes
Dippers: 2,879,991 votes
Grits: 2,244,758 votes
In Non-Quebec Canada, the Tory vote actually exceeded the
combined Grit + Dipper vote. (!)
The second story the media has missed is how fairly evenly the Grit vote in Ontario split between the Tories and the Dippers.
The Dippers increased their Ontario vote by about 485,000 votes, the increase in Tory vote was not that far behind at about an increase of 435,000. - A bit more of the Grit vote went to the Dippers, but is was far less one sided that many would suppose.
Back in the 90's when the "Unite the Right" folks were trying to get the PC and Reform parties to merge they always assumed that the "Unite the Right" vote would equal the PC + Reform vote, they were wrong, just as the Unite the left folks now thing the "Unite the Left" vote will equal the Dippers + Grits.
A final story that has been missed is how the Tories could, at least in theory, pursue a F%$K Quebec strategy if they wanted to.
The Tories won 161 seats outside of Quebec - an outright majority. When the new census comes in, there will likely be ~~about~~ 30 new seats added, all of them in Tory friendly Ontario, BC, and Alberta.
If the Tories were to "reallocate" the current $ 11 Billion annual subsidy from the rest of Canada to Quebec, combined with an increase in the proportion of non-Quebec seats in Parliament, this could be a viable strategy.
The NDP, with half+ of it's caucus being from Quebec could be marginalized as, effectively, the "new bloq" and the more the NDP complained about Quebec no longer being subsidized, the stronger the Tories would become in English Canada...
Note:
the formula proposed by the Tories in 2010 would have allocated the following additional seats
Ontario + 18
Alberta +5
BC + 7
All other provinces would remain the same
http://www.democraticreform.gc.ca/index.asp?lang=eng&page=news-comm&doc=news-comm/20100401