Canada’s Justin Trudeau headed for victory but not a majority

Canada’s CTV Network and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation both estimated that the current Liberal Party was poised to win enough seats in parliament to form a minority government.

Preliminary data indicated that the results of Monday’s election were almost identical to the 2019 national vote. As of Tuesday morning, the Liberals were leading in 158 electoral districts, less than the 170 needed for a majority in parliament. The Conservative Party, led by Erin O’Toole, was second with 119 seats. The results are based on over 98% polling reporting. In the 2019 national vote, the Liberals won 157 seats and the Conservative Party won 121 seats.

While the Liberals have secured re-election, the minority result will be seen as a setback. It would force Trudeau to rely on another party—perhaps the left-leaning New Democratic Party—to help implement a progressive agenda with a focus on expanded child care, affordable housing and climate change.

In Montreal, Mr Trudeau said he was ready to deliver on his party’s promises and help end the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic at homes.

“What we have seen tonight is that millions of Canadians have chosen a progressive plan,” he said. “The moment we face the demand for real significant change, and you have given real direction to this Parliament, to this government.”

Mr Trudeau, 49, called mid-term parliamentary elections halfway through his four-year term in mid-August, when Canada’s Liberal Party was riding high in the polls after Mr Trudeau’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr Trudeau invoked his powers to dissolve parliament and vote, gambling his party could get a legislative majority.

Since the last election in October 2019, Mr Trudeau has led a minority government that needs the support of other parties to pass the law. A majority in Monday’s election would have allowed Trudeau to advance his agenda without making deals with opposition parties. It would also have given his party control over parliamentary committees, whose investigations into financial links between the prime minister’s family and a youth charity, as well as alleged sexual misconduct between the military leadership, have proven politically shameful.

Mr Trudeau framed the election as a turning point in the country’s history. “We have to make big decisions based on what we learned from this pandemic,” he said ahead of election day.

Yet Mr. Trudeau’s pre-election gamble did not work out as planned. His main political rivals and some voters slammed the prime minister for putting their own political interests before the public, which remains preoccupied with COVID-19. Pollsters said Mr Trudeau was unable to quell voters’ anger over the decision to trigger a nationwide vote called during the early stages of the fourth wave of Covid-19 cases.

In a poll released last week by Ipsos Global Public Affairs, more than two-thirds of respondents indicated it was the wrong time to hold an election. Ipsos chief executive Darrell Bricker said: “The anger at the election call is an anvil that Trudeau has tied around his waist as he tried to swim in this election ditch.”

Julia Mauric, a resident of Toronto’s west end, said on Monday that there was no need to hold an election and she believed the exercise was a waste of taxpayers’ money. “Everyone is walking around wearing masks, voting in a pandemic,” he said outside a church where voting took place. “I’m not sure the country needs it.”

He said he believed Mr Trudeau’s initial election call was motivated by polling numbers, as opposed to his argument that it was time to give voters a say in what Canada should look like after the pandemic. “That’s putting a spin on an opportunistic decision,” she said.

Mr Trudeau acknowledged in his victory speech that there were some reactions from his initial election call.

“I hear you when you say you just want to go back to the things you love, don’t worry about this pandemic or the election, that you just want to know that your Members of Parliament of all stripes go through this Will have a pat on your back. Crisis and beyond,” he said.

Through the campaign, Mr Trudeau refused to answer reporters’ questions about his future if he did not get a majority. His speech indicated that he had no plans, despite falling short of the majority.

“I think retiring from politics would be the furthest thing on his mind. They just got a new mandate,” Trudeau’s longtime friend and former senior colleague Gerald Butts told Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Donald Trump lost the 2020 US presidential election due to his administration’s handling of the pandemic. Although Mr Trudeau received high marks among Canadians for his management of the public-health crisis, that appears to have not helped on the campaign trail.

“Adequate pandemic management is no longer enough to win re-election in a post-Covid world,” said Daniel Beland, a professor of political science at McGill University in Montreal.

Mr Beland pointed out that voters in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia ousted the incumbent liberals in an election last month, even though the province’s COVID-19 strategy earned widespread praise.

Mr Trudeau, Mr Beland and pollsters say other factors had an impact. Chief among them, analysts say, is Trudeau’s personal popularity. It became a hit during his six-year tenure after a series of ethical scandals cast doubt on his decision. And, he says, he is no longer the new face with the positive demeanor that helped propel liberals back to power in 2015.

A Liberal Party spokesman said the election campaign “has seen an extremely positive response to Mr Trudeau’s progressive plan to end the fight against COVID-19.”

Ottawa resident Diane Gadiant said she cast her vote to oust Mr Trudeau’s liberals and that his moral lapse was one of the main reasons. She said she is also troubled by Mr Trudeau’s aggressive spending deployed during the pandemic to stabilize the economy and help affected workers. “They are giving money to the left, right and centre. Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

Mori Berglas, a tech-company employee in Ottawa, said she cast her vote for the Liberals. “I don’t think the liberals have done such a bad thing,” Mr. Burglas said. “Nothing is stellar, but it could be a lot worse.”

Political analysts say Mr O’Toole, the relatively new leader of the Conservative Party, has established himself as a moderate. Unlike previous campaigns, the Tory platform did not advocate an immediate return to a balanced budget.

Mr O’Toole, a former military officer and cabinet minister, criticized Trudeau’s plans to force federal government employees to be fully vaccinated and to force plane and train passengers to show proof of vaccination.

Mr O’Toole said he would respect individual health choices and he favors rapid testing and screening over mandates.

In a speech to supporters, Mr O’Toole said conservatives would learn from the campaign and be prepared if Trudeau tries to hold another early election.

“We will take stock of what worked and what didn’t, and we will continue to devote time to showing more Canadians that they are welcome in the Conservative Party of Canada,” he said.

Meanwhile, the leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, said on Tuesday that he was ready to fight for Canada’s less fortunate and indicated that the party’s support for Mr Trudeau in parliament would be higher for those with higher incomes. may depend on taxes.

“We will keep fighting to make sure the super rich pay their fair share, that the billionaires pay their fair share, so that the burden doesn’t fall on you and your families,” Mr Singh said.

Peter Donolo, Vice President of Hill+Nalton Strategies in Canada and a senior aide to former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said that M/s. Both Trudeau and O’Toole failed to address the main questions that plagued their campaigns. Mr Trudeau, he said, could not answer why he called the election “because the honest answer he asked was to get a majority, which is not an acceptable answer to the people.”

As for Mr O’Toole, Mr Donolo said the Tory leader struggled in opposition to Covid-19 and vaccine mandates.

This story has been published without modification to the text from a wire agency feed