Canada's Liberal leader loses seat, steps down

Canada's Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff announced on Tuesday that he was stepping down after he lost his seat and his once-mighty party suffered a humiliating election defeat.

The 63-year-old former Harvard academic and human rights champion earns the dubious distinction of becoming only the second leader of the Liberal Party not to go on to become prime minister.

His party, which government for most of the past century, saw its share of seats in the House of Commons drastically reduced from 77 to just 34 as Prime Minister Stephen Harper was re-elected with his first majority government.

The Liberal decline was in large part due to the rise of the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), which tripled its representation in the Canadian parliament to become the official opposition.

For the first time in almost 150 years of being, the Liberals have now been relegated to Canada's third party.

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