In the 2011 federal election, the NDP won 103 seats, thus becoming a “second party” – the so-called Official Opposition. The Liberals were reduced to 34 seats, about the lowest number they have ever held in the federal Parliament.
Indeed, one of the biggest illusions of Canadian politics is that the federal and provincial New Democratic Parties – and the extra-parliamentary left-wing coalition groups that often work with the NDP -- are comparatively weak, and rarely able to significantly exercise power. Until this breakthrough federal election of 2011, when they have won 103 seats (59 of them from Quebec), the NDP had held only about 25 to 30 seats (out of a total of about 300) in the successive federal Parliaments. Currently, they hold only one provincial government (Manitoba). However, they have great influence on municipal politics, especially in Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg. Until this election of 2011, the official NDP might have appeared to be a comparatively minor force in Canadian politics. There had also been some talk in the 1990s of the supposed triumph of free-market neoconservatism in Canada – which would appear to make things more difficult for the NDP.
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