So Trudeau waited the usual 18 months (just to be polite) and tried for a majority. It didn’t work. What was the result?
Erin O’Toole spent his whole election budget on TV ads complaining about Trudeau calling the election. I mean, what else did he have to say? You gotta have sympathy for the guy. He’s got an albatross — in the form of the Lunatic Fringe — hanging round his neck. He tried to distance himself but at the same time refrain from offending them on the vaccination issue. Which lost him a lot of votes from the moderates. He was in a no-win situation, and he didn’t. The Conservatives are lucky to get out of it with the minor losses they had.
Justin Trudeau proved once more that he’s a political lightweight, blithely forging ahead with his plans on the assumption that everyone will support him because…well, because he’s Justin Trudeau, and that’s what everybody does.
It turns out, they don’t.
He thought he could win on his COVID record, and people would forget all his broken promises and unfinished projects.
They didn’t forget.
At least he had the grace in his “victory” speech to acknowledge the message that the voters had sent. Couldn’t say the same for all the candidates.
And if you think about it, the Liberals now have a full four more years to govern. Maybe they’ll get some of their projects finished.
Jagmeet Singh played it straight, had a decent platform, and gave more real answers to questions from the press than the others did. He gained a few seats, but more importantly, he showed himself to be a credible leader. With his new role as kingmaker, he’ll get even more chances to shine.
The Bloq Quebecois got a bunch of seats in Quebec. Whoopee ding. They couldn’t even get the support of the provincial premier.
Annamie Paul brought her feminist, Zionist, anti-racist agenda and her holier-than-thou attitude to the job of keeping the disparate Greens together, and failed utterly. Fourth place with eight percent of the votes sounds like poor planning. It’s too bad that a person with such good intentions should throw her opportunities away, but the Green Party was the wrong podium. I suppose you could call it a win. She got almost a year in the limelight to push her agenda and she used it to the best of her ability.
I couldn’t help but notice that the CBC coverage of her final speech was cut off halfway through, replaced by a reporter discussing the situation, with her still talking in the background. A pretty good indication of her importance to the nation, in their view.
The Canadian Public got a chance to jerk Parliament’s chain and tell it to stop playing political games and get back to work. They got a parliament that has to cooperate to get things done, and a clear picture of what needs doing. That might be worth the price right there.
$600,000,000: The Price for First Past the Post
As it happens, Canada has had minorities five out of the last seven governments, and none of them lasted a full term. For everyone who is upset about the cost of all these extra elections, keep this in mind. In a Proportional Representation voting system, minorities are the rule, not the exception. Politicians expect to cooperate to achieve 50% agreement from the elected representatives for every bill, and have no motivation to call new elections, because their chances of getting a majority are too slim.
Minority governments keep politicians from getting too big for their britches. Let’s see if the National Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform comes up on this parliament’s agenda.