The majority of Canadians voted against the Liberals too

I've seen a few people talk about how a majority of Canadians voted "against" the Conservatives lead by Harper in the last federal election. This supposed "majority" of popular opinion therefore should allow for a Liberal-NDP minority coalition to be more supported by the public than the Conservative minority we have now. (Yes, even with the Liberals and NDP combined, they would still have a minority parliament and require assistance to pass bills from the Conservatives or Bloc, who has promised to prop them up for 18 months, but there's no guarantees).

Since we have no system that tallies primary and secondary support, all we can really say is this:

• The federal Conservatives are the only party who elected members in every region of the country (except NFLD).
• The Conservative party received 36% of the popular vote, and 143 seats in the house.
• The Liberals (26%), NDP (17%) and Green (4%) combined are still under 50% of the popular vote (and fewer seats than the Conservatives at 114).
• The Bloc Québécois received just 10% of the popular vote but has 51 seats in the House of Commons

While the Conservatives are shy of a majority, the competing coalition attempting to defeat them would hold 29 fewer seats in the house than the Conservatives currently do, and would still represent only 43% of the popular vote. No, the Green Party isn't in the coalition (which would bring them no seats, and another 4% of the popular vote for sake of argument). No, the Bloc isn't part of this coalition either because the Prime Minister is right and officially allying with the Bloc is bad for politics for either the NDP or Liberals. I'd love to see the wording Liberal leader Dion used when trying to convince the Governor General that his smaller coalition would better serve the interests of the majority of Canadians.

This is not the Ontario NDP + Liberal coalition of the 80's either, where between the two parties they held a balance of power. This is also not some great "gotcha" moment Harper sprung on the opposition either; much of what is being spelled out as being wrong with the Conservative agenda after the economic statement was already supported by the same opposition leaders during the throne speach.

May I point out that the majority of Canadians polled are against the present Liberal leader running the country? Or that by the same logic the new coalition is using, an even greater majority of Canada voted against the Liberals? Why exactly should the leader who was just a few weeks ago expected to step down as soon as possible for a perceived lack of leadership be taking over our country?

PS, what's with Dion calling for more "cooperation" when he's trying to defeat the government instead of cooperating? Nice try on the double-speak.