Last week Canadians made their choice, and Steven Harper is the new Prime Minister of our country.

Over 150 students living within the London-Fanshawe boundaries cast their vote at the on-campus polling station, which was a first for Fanshawe.

FSU programmer and building manager, John b. Young, said the school is planning to have a polling station made available to students for future provincial and federal elections.

Like the previous Liberal government, Harper's Conservative Party was elected as a Minority, taking home 124 seats. To everyone's surprise, the Tories gained seats in Quebec, which is typically considered a left wing province.

The Liberals, plagued by constant scandal rumours and dwindling voter confidence, lost 30 seats and became the official opposition with 103 MP's elected to the House of Commons. Soon after Harper was officially declared the winner, Paul Martin announced he was stepping down as leader of the Liberal Party.

Jack Layton and the NDP gained 11 seats, one of them belonging to Irene Mathyssen who won in the London-Fanshawe riding. The NDP won 29 seats across the country, the largest number the socialist party has held since 1988.

During the campaign one of Harper's biggest promises was to lower the GST from seven per cent to five per cent over the next five years. It was the former progressive Conservative party that developed the national tax in 1991 under former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.

To entice younger voters, Harper said he would eliminate parental income as a factor on loan applications and make apprenticeship programs more enticing for skilled labourers who do not have a certified ticket. The Tories also promised a $500 tax credit to help with the cost of books for students.

Instead of sticking to Kyoto, which Harper says is flawed, the new Conservative government said they would spend their money locally and introduce monthly tax credits for public transit passes.