It was a pretty safe bet going into election night that regardless of how the vote broke that there were four words from Premier Christy Clark's 2013 victory speech which would be left unsaid this year: "Well, that was easy."

"The criteria is simple: books that I have read or re-read in 2015 and want to recommend."

The trend is clear: when voters are faced with a left-leaning party campaigning on centrist economic ideals, they will pick the real deal every time. Every. Single. Time. At its best, Mulcair's NDP can inspire. Bill C-51 is the best example, but its universal child-care policy and promise to abolish the senate also fall into this category. But there have been too many blunders. Mulcair's sudden love for balanced budgets not only affirms the faulty framework that inexplicably lauds Stephen Harper as a responsible steward of the economy, it cedes precious ground to Trudeau at the moment Canadians want an alternative to neoliberal pabulum.