Justin Trudeau is still the prime minister of Canada but with a lot less power. The Liberal Party fell from a good majority to a strong minority. There were a number of factors but the primary factor was light blue, as in the Bloc Quebecois.
The Liberals won a 14-seat majority in the 2015 election. That total fell to a 7-seat majority before the selection. At 157 seats, the Liberals are 13 seats short of a majority.
The Conservatives had 95 seats going into the election, down from 99 to 2015. The total has gone up to 121.
The NDP, likely to be the sway in power in a minority government, fell from 44 in 2015 to 38 seats at the beginning of the election. The party is down to 24 seats.
The Greens, hoping for better things, stayed at 3 seats. The 13 others (8 independent MPs, 5 vacant seats) is reduced to a lone independent.
Bloc Quebecois was the biggest winner going from 10 seats from 2015 to 32 seats in 2019. The People's Party of Canada aka Maxime Bernier went from 1 to 0.
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Fans of Justin Trudeau will be disappointed over the results. A good economy, though with affordability issues. Marijuana legalisation, though if that had gone faster. Last night, Scheer mocked the pundits who thought Trudeau would last a long time.
Justin Trudeau can extend his run with smart management and maybe learn a few lessons. Pierre Trudeau, father of Justin Trudeau, had a minority government in his second term.
Canada went from 1980-2004 without a minority government. Canadian history is filled with successful minority governments such as Lester Pearson and Tommy Douglass that led to single-payer health care for Canada. Perhaps this minority government will lead to pharmacare.
R. B. Bennett (1930-1935) was the last Canadian PM elected to a majority government but only got a single term.
Canada elected a minority government in 2004 (Paul Martin), 2006 (Stephen Harper), and 2008 (Stephen Harper). British Columbia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador currently have minority governments.
Trudeau gets a chance to learn lessons, but that doesn't mean he will learn them. If Trudeau can put those lessons to heart, the Liberals and Canada will be better off.
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The Greens held onto their 2 seats in British Columbia: Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands) and Paul Manly (Nanaimo-Ladysmith). Pierre Natel, who flipped from the NDP to the Greens, was defeated. Jenica Atwin is the first Green elected outside BC in Fredericton in New Brunswick. As May pointed out, 2/3 of the Greens in Ottawa are women.
Winning as an independent is tough. Jody Wilson-Raybould came from behind to win in Vancouver-Granville; Jane Philpott failed in her quest in her Markham-Stouffville riding. Wilson-Raybould's power increases in a minority government if a vote comes down to her.
George Canyon had been the Calgary Flames anthem singer. Canyon left the post to run in Central Nova in his home province of Nova Scotia. Sean Fraser won re-election in that riding. No word on whether Canyon will go back to his old job in Calgary.
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Lisa Raitt, Ralph Goodale, and Ruth Ellen Brosseau were not the only incumbents to lose last night. A word for a Conservative and Liberal and NDP who had respect outside their parties. The Conservatives in Ontario, Liberals in the prairies, and NDP in Quebec were going to struggle. Raitt, Goodale, and Brosseau likely got swept up as elections sometimes go. The concessions from Raitt and Goodale were captured on TV; they were classy but we didn't expect less.
If Raitt or Rona Ambrose, who was the party's interim leader, has been in charge of the Conservative Party, that party might have done a lot better. Goodale gave the Liberals a voice that the party didn't replace in the election. Brosseau went from being a unilingual Ottawa bartender in 2011 to the house whip for the NDP.
These 3 politicians made a difference for all of Parliament and they will be missed in the House of Commons.
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There was the consensus that the NDP would lose a lot of seats in Quebec. The orange wave in 2011 from Jack Layton brought a new colour to the Quebec map. In 2019, Alexandre Boulerice was the only NDP candidate to maintain a seat in the Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie riding.
This isn't an illustration of the race or to ignore Elizabeth May (Green Party) or Yves-Francois Blanchet (Bloc Quebecois). Jagmeet Singh (NDP) was speaking when Andrew Scheer went to the stage. Tradition and etiquette allows for waiting until the previous person has finished. Once Scheer was speaking and Singh was speaking, Justin Trudeau started speaking. That produced what you see in the above picture.
Elizabeth May did the smart thing and wait until the 3 of them spoke and then gave her speech.
The numbers from the CBC News panel said the Conservative vote total only increased by about 200,000. The Liberals vote total fell by more than 1 million. More people definitely voted for the Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party. Ironically, the Liberals and NDP, the parties likely to form government, need to get those total votes higher.
The turnout dropped 3.3 percentage points to 64.9%. Imagine if Canada had an 80% turnout.
Elections Canada got reports of misleading robocalls in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec. The general theme was to tell people the election was October 22, not October 21.
photos credit: CBC News Network
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