The 2011 federal election seemed to have fundamentally changed Canadian politics. And maybe it did. Just not quite in the way it was imagined.
In theory, that vote heralded the arrival of a new political era. The Liberal Party’s day was done — the broadly centrist institution that dominated Canadian politics in the 20th century was no longer fit for purpose. Canada would finally become more like its sister democracies, with a clear contest between a distinct party of the political right and a distinct party of the left. The future seemed to belong to the Conservatives and the NDP.
Then things changed
