Canadian Snap Elections Settle Nothing

It looks like the Liberals in Canada will be forming another minority government. 

PM Justin Trudeau called a snap election in the hopes that his management of Covid-19 would give him an outright majority, but, as is often the case with young Justin, it did not quite work out that way.

The preliminary numbers indicate that Liberals lost 1 seat, the Conservatives gained 1 seat, the Bloc Quebecois lost 2 seats, the New Democratic Party gained 4 seats, and the Greens kept their seats.

I'm not sure if Trudeau can pull off having a minority government without a coalition partner this time around.

Personally, if I favor the NDP, and if I were in the position of Jagmeet Singh, the head of the NDP, I would do my best to ensure that Trudeau was forced a coalition with my party, but if I were an NDP rank and file member, I'd want to dump Singh after two VERY lackluster electoral performances:

Canadian voters handed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau a third term in government in an outcome that nearly mirrored the electoral result in the 2019 election and reflected ambivalence if not anger toward the prime minister who triggered a snap election in a pandemic.

After an uninspired and uninspiring campaign that failed to catch voters’ imagination, preliminary results showed the Liberal party leading or elected in 156 seats. The Conservatives were leading in 122. The Bloc Québécois was at 31 seats and the NDP at 26.

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole conceded after midnight in a private call to Trudeau. But he was publicly defiant about the result and his own attempts to drag his party towards the political centre.

Yes, the right in Canada has been increasingly unhinged over the past 2 decades.

………

The question now is how the Liberal leader, who remains prime minister until he resigns or loses a confidence vote, will secure allies among the other smaller but progressive parties — the New Democrats, Bloc Québécois, and Greens — to support his agenda, and at what cost to his own plans.

New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh said on the weekend his priority in order to support another party is to ensure the wealthiest “ultra-rich” pay higher taxes, but late Monday, a top New Democrat strategist told the Star that is not a condition of support, and that those kinds of conversations and negotiations would likely only come closer to a throne speech once the dust on this divisive election settles.

This sort of prevarication is why the NDP is now the #4 party instead of #3.

………

Trudeau lost two cabinet ministers, Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan and Gender Equality Minister Maryam Monsef.

It's a pity that Chrystia Freeland, who has literally made a career of lying about her grandfather's Nazi past did not lose her seat.

Basically, this whole election was, to quote Billie Shakespeare, "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."