We learned a lot on election night, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.
Locally, Robert Kitchen of the Conservative Party romped to a second term as the member of Parliament (MP) for Souris-Moose Mountain. That wasn’t a surprise. What was stunning was that he received more than 84 per cent of the vote.
The most encouraging sign locally in this election is that more than 77 per cent of voters casted a ballot. A lot of them were probably voting against Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party, but when our voter turnout is that high, we should be happy, regardless of who we voted for.
Nationally, we know that the Liberals will form a minority government. It’s a solid minority with 157 seats. We don’t know how long they’ll last or whether they’ll form a coalition with the New Democratic Party or the Bloc Quebecois, or how these Liberals will operate in a minority government situation.
The Liberal minority government is large enough that they should be able to run the country without resorting to a hard coalition.
You can expect, though, that they’ll likely be in power for about 18-24 months before the opposition parties decide to force an election. It likely won’t be a full-term government.
There’s one other thing we know: the election has exposed the divisions that currently exist in the country.
This isn’t new, but these rifts are likely more pronounced than ever, and stronger than ever in the west.
All 14 ridings in Saskatchewan went to the Tories. Many in Saskatchewan were popping champagne corks over the defeat of long-time Liberal MP Ralph Goodale in Regina-Wascana, but his defeat leaves this province without an MP in the government caucus, or a seat in cabinet.
In Alberta, 33 of the 34 ridings were Tories. The other went to a New Democrat.
From Portage La Prairie, Man., to Surrey, B.C., the electoral map is almost exclusively Tory blue, with a few exceptions in the large northern ridings.
We’ll see if this causes Trudeau to change his approach, or if he continues with the same policies that have stirred western alienation to the point where a lot of people are now calling for western separation.
If the Liberals partner with the Bloc, it will only fuel the disdain the west feels for Trudeau.
It’s a damming statement about the Liberals that they went from a strong majority to a solid minority government in a four-year span. It’s also a damning statement that the Liberals lost the popular vote to the Tories. Yes, it reflects the overwhelming support the Tories had in the west versus the close results in ridings in the east, but the Tories still won the popular vote.
Trudeau has bungled a lot of fronts, from energy to the budget, he’s been dogged by scandals and missteps, and his Mr. Dressup antics have embarrassed the country on multiple occasions. It’s time for him to act like the leader of a country, or step down and let someone who will bring the serious leadership needed to lead one of the most important countries in the world.
As for Andrew Scheer and the Tories, this was an election that was theirs to lose. And they did. He didn’t do enough to woo the undecided and the independent voters. He didn’t have a commanding presence. Had he won, a lot of Canadians would have been asking “Andrew Who?”
He also suffered from something that was beyond his control: the Doug Ford factor. Even though Ford was invisible throughout the campaign, Trudeau seemingly delighted in bringing up Ford’s name at every turn, and reminding Canadians as to how terrible Ford has been as premier of Ontario. It’s a message that struck a chord; Trudeau did as well in Ontario in 2019 as he did in 2015.
The Tories tried to distance themselves from Ford. It didn’t work.
Trudeau will celebrate this victory, but it should be an uneasy one. He has seen his support drop significantly and he won fewer seats. And if he didn’t believe there’s significant anger with his leadership, he should believe it now.
