In fact, according to the NDP, up to 7,000 advance ballots had already been mailed in by the time the Westmount—Ville-Marie by-election was postponed. These ballots will remain with Elections Canada in Ottawa for a year before being destroyed. They were not counted as part of the general election on October 14th.

This is one of the reasons NDP candidate Anne Lagacé-Dowson feels the dynamic changed in favour of the Liberals in the downtown riding. No one will ever know if those advance ballots were all duplicated for the October ballot, but the former CBC Radio Noon host believes not all absentee voters would have voted twice in the space of six weeks.

“There were bad feelings at the cancellation of the by-election,” she said. “The timing was disrespectful of Harper toward the electoral process.”

She maintains that the nature of a by-election would have been much more conducive to an NDP win. Thomas Mulcair's 2007 victory in Outremont is a testament to this theory. He retained his seat last week, becoming the first NDP candidate to win a riding in Quebec in a general election. “A by-election is an opportunity for voters to send a message,” she said. “It is a vote of protest against the conduct of the Liberals in Parliament.”

“In the last Parliament they waited on the NDP and the Bloc to make a decision every time. They voted with Harper, or abstained, 43 times.”

But the mother of two is far from disillusioned with her election result. “Most importantly, I'd like to say thank you to the 9,000 people who chose to support us,” she said. “It was an incredible experience and it was extremely encouraging.”

Contesting the Liberal bastion of Westmount—Ville-Marie against "star" candidate Marc Garneau, an astronaut, was a huge task for any candidate. She finished with almost 23 per cent of the vote, less than half the Liberal haul, while Conservative candidate Guy Dufort finished third with 15 per cent.

Dowson thinks the NDP could capitalize and take some left wing votes in Quebec whenever Gilles Duceppe decides to stand down as Bloc Quebecois leader. “Quebecers have shown that they are comfortable with the government assisting the population. This flies in the face of the Conservative ideology,” she said. “The NDP aims to prevent suffering in the population. There was a 60 per cent increase in support for us in Quebec since 2006.”

The party's overall support in the province has risen from 4.6 per cent in the 2004 election to 12.2 per cent in 2008.

Dowson didn't want to confirm whether she would return to the CBC or stay in politics. “I don't know. I suspect my future will involve politics, but I'm sitting back after a long double campaign,” she said. “I don't have a plan at the moment.”

Her phone rang just as the interview was about to end. It was NDP leader Jack Layton. The man with a plan, perhaps.