What lessons did the three main federal parties learn in 2015?
Navdeep Bains knows all about the power of the comeback.
Elected as a Liberal MP in 2004 at just 26 years old, Bains lost his seat in 2011 before running in and winning the new riding of Mississauga–Malton in the Liberal tidal wave of 2015.
What does he credit his — and his party's — success to this time around?
"Hope and hard work," Bains told The House.
"We worked really, really hard. We started the nomination process really early," he said.
It helped that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was also on side, he added.
"Trudeau really understood the importance of renewing the party and investing in the party machinery — collecting data, building up the database, building up a ground game," Bains said.
"So it was all about building that support base and recruiting candidates early so we could start knocking on doors early."
Bains himself estimates he and his team knocked on 150,000 doors in his riding, and credits that "ability to connect" with constituents as having a "profound impact" on the outcome of the election.
He also said the Liberals' focus on "policies that would impact communities" helped secure the win.
"This time around, focusing on immigration reform, focusing on building cities, having a growth agenda, tax cuts for the middle class, the Canada Child Benefit...these transcended cultural communities and I think the policies really resonated," Bains said.
"We were able to counter some of the targeted micro-policies of the Conservative Party, and were able to build a broad coalition.
Conservatives: party should focus on economy, security — and empathy
The Conservatives not only have to take stock of what happened on October 19, they also need to readjust to new seats on the opposition benches and gear up for a leadership race.
Towards the end of the campaign, Steven Fletcher, former cabinet minister and candidate in Manitoba, could tell that another mandate was becoming more unlikely.
"I think maybe two weeks before the election date, I had a sense that things weren't going as well as anticipated," Fletcher told The House.
So what happened?
"This was an emotional election," Fletcher said. "In my view, there was a completely irrational, emotional, visceral distaste for the Conservative leader that was not based in reality but was widespread and we, as the Conservative Party, should have and could have dispelled many of the false things that were said about Prime Minister Harper."
Fletcher argued that the campaign didn't do a good enough job at defending Stephen Harper, and didn't manage to shift the focus back to what he considers to be the party's strengths: the economy and public safety.
"There was an emotional response to the Prime Minister that gathered momentum throughout the election that was not rebutted by the campaign and that cost us first a majority, to a minority, to the final outcome which was a majority Liberal government," Fletcher said.
Despite that, the former cabinet minister believes the party has a solid base upon which to rebuild. But there are a few things it also needs to work on.
"We have 99 seats distributed across the country, except, as you mention, Atlantic Canada. But we will overcome," Fletcher explained. "I would say, money matters, justice matters, and empathy matters. And empathy needs not only to be done, but to be shown and expressed."
NDP: a different kind of opposition
The outcome of the federal election was a shock for Paul Dewar and several of his colleagues.
The party had entered the race in what appeared to be a strong position.
But Dewar, who had represented the riding of Ottawa Centre since 2006 and is now helping the party through its transition to third-party status, told The House that eventually, the change vote massively migrated to "red team."
"It was around the period halfway around the niqab in Quebec," Dewar explained. "Where we lost more than 15 points within a couple days in Quebec. The effects after that hit us in Ontario and the rest of the country. That was a period when you started to feel the winds not only subside, but start to go the other way."
"The choice could have been to be quiet about it or to water down our position, and maybe that would have done us good stead. Who's to know? The reality is, it did happen," Dewar said.
The idea of campaigning on the notion that the NDP would balance the books right away is also part of the party's post-mortem. "That's a discussion we're having," Dewar admitted.
"The mistake I think we can all acknowledge is we didn't put in front of Canadians the policy of: 'let's make sure that corporations are paying their fair share,' before we think about running a deficit. I don't think we made that argument well enough. Canadians weren't hearing us on the corporate tax increase which would help to pay for all the things we were talking about."
Now Tom Mulcair and the NDP have to figure out how to be a different kind of opposition party, one with fewer resources and an agenda that's not diametrically opposed to the government's the way it was when they sat across from the Conservatives.
"It's a different challenge. To be propositional, to be supportive, to be encouraging while at the same time making sure we get this right...and follow up on the agenda," Dewar said.
Amid all the disappointments, Dewar and the NDP are trying to find the positive, and determine how to best adjust to their new reality.
"I'll be very frank with you - when a party grows quickly, sometimes it becomes a hindrance to be able to pivot, to be able to get a message out quickly or to respond in a way that's timely. We had some problems there," Dewar said.
The focus in the coming months, he outlined, will be to argue that the Liberals' tax policy won't help who earn less than $40,000, that increasing corporate taxes would help the government's "revenue problem," and highlight issues around childcare, the Trans Pacific Partnership and the future of the mission again ISIS.