On the Canadian general election of 2019: Others still trail tainted Trudeau
The Canadian federal election of 2019 did not result in the Conservatives overtaking the Liberals-but it did result in Justin Trudeau losing his majority in the Canadian House of Commons.
Controversy over Justin Trudeau's use of brownface (in 2001 before he became the MP for the riding of Papineau) during the Liberals' campaign, a failure to deliver on promised electoral reform, and the SNC-Lavalin Affair were key reasons for the Liberals' loss of support, although in the end they emerged with 157 seats out of 338, losing only 27 despite incurring a 6.4% decrease in their vote share, although this was most pronounced in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the most Conservative provinces of Canada, and Quebec in the rural ridings. One key province where the Liberals did relatively well was Ontario, due to Premier Doug Ford's rising unpopularity, where they made a net loss of only one seat (they lost four ridings to the Conservatives, but gained two ridings from them and the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh from the National Democratic Party, or NDP). One notable Liberal loss was Ralph Goodale, who was the longest-serving MP to be defeated in Canada this year having represented Regina-Wascana since 1993 and who was effectively Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. This leaves them 12 seats short of a majority although minority governments have governed Canada several times, even if usually for brief periods before calling an early election.
The Conservatives actually won the popular vote in Canada with 34.4%, although this represents a percentage increase of only 2.5% and it is the lowest pole position vote by a party in Canadian history. The Conservatives and Liberals were neck and neck in the run up to the election although the Conservatives were consistently ahead, if narrowly. Further highlighting the need for proportional representation in Canada, the Conservatives only won 121 seats despite finishing first in the popular vote, 36 less than the Liberals, due to their extremely uneven vote distribution with already rock-solid ridings in rural Alberta and Saskatchewan simply becoming safer still for them and recording their highest ever Conservative vote shares (exceeding 80% in some cases). They made a net loss of seats in Quebec, gaining only the riding of Chichoutimi-Le Fjord and losing three ridings to the resurgent Bloc Quebecois, which had been in the doldrums for the last 8 years following their drubbing of 2011; in fact Becancour-Nicolet-Saurel is the only Bloc Quebecois riding (counting its predecessors) held continuously since before 2011, by Louis Plamondon, who remained Dean of the House (equivalent to Father of the House in the United Kingdom; he has been in Canada's House of Commons continuously since 1984, first as a Progressive Conservative and then as a BQ MP) with his majority of 20,269 (39.0%) over the Conservatives, the highest majority by any BQ MP in Canada since their debut in 1993. Of the gains it made this election, more than half of them were in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan; they are already overwhelmingly dominant in Alberta except for Edmonton and Saskatchewan and have no chance of winning the majority of British Columbia ridings anyway, although they did gain seven, more than in any other Canadian province, indirectly due to a slump in the NDP vote which is strongest in this province.
Despite the NDP being seen as last generation's party, its appeal to younger voters worked out better expected, retaining 24 seats and ensuring their vote share only decreased by 3.8%, although this meant they were overtaken by the Bloc Quebecois who won 32 seats. 11 of their 20 losses were in Quebec, although as mentioned earlier this was mainly due to the resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois than anything else, mirroring the SNP landslide in 2015 in Scotland which came at the expense of Labour most of all. Justin's loss of some francophone voters in Quebec proved no help to the NDP at all, and in fact 4 NDP losses were to the Liberals in Quebec alone. Their deputy leader, Alexandre Boulence, did however hold his riding of Rosemont-Saint Patrie against prior expectations. They were however able to make 3 gains from the Liberals in compensation; two of these were in ridings where neither the Conservatives nor the Greens were remotely competitive, and Nunavut, where the Liberals selected a European Canadian candidate, Megan Lyall (the retiring ex-Liberal MP, Hunter Tootoo, was half-Inuk) but where the NDP candidate, Mumilaq Qaqqaq, was Inuk, as was Leona Aglukkaq, who was Nunavut's Conservative MP from 2008 to 2015; she finished third.
Although the Bloc Quebecois will never quite reach their old glory days before 2011, their win of 32 ridings is by far their best since 2008, although still their third lowest in their history. In the 2015 to 2019 Canadian Parliament the Bloc was rocked by the defection of seven of its MPs to form a Quebec debout group, although they returned to Bloc Quebecois following the resignation of Martine Ouellet, whose authoritarianism was blamed by ex-BQ MPs, including former leader Gilles Duceppe, for the brief defection. Its impact proved to be limited since Yves-Francois Blanchet turned it around enough for BQ to win Beloeil-Chambly, for which he had not stood before. With the Liberals no longer having a majority and the Conservatives not in a position to form a government in Canada, they once again hold the balance of power, along with the NDP, so Quebecois issues will likely play a key part in the next Canadian government.
It was the Greens who proved to be the right party for the times in Canada, winning three riidngs: Saanich-Gulf Islands which Elizabeth May has held since 2011, Nanaimo-Ladysmith won by Paul Manly in a 2019 by-election, and Fredericton in New Brunswick, building on their provincial win of Fredericton South in 2014. They polled 6.5%, level with their national vote share in 2008, although this time it was mostly concentrated in their stronghold of British Columbia. They came close to winning two other ridings in that province, Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke and only missed Victoria by 2,444 votes, although given that NDP MP Murray Rankin was standing down and the fact they have come close in this riding before this is a considerable disappointment for the Greens. Nor were they able to capitalise on their recent provincial success in Prince Edward Island, finishing only second in Charlottetown to the Liberals. They did not perform particularly well in Quebec, either, with former NDP MP Pierre Nantel finishing a poor third in Longueuil-Saint Herbert.
The People's Party, led by ex-Conservative MP Maxime Bernier, despite being predicted to have a significant impact on the Conservatives and fielding 315 candidates (although in one the candidate pulled out two hours before the close of nominations), proved to be mainly just noise and rhetoric with no substance. Even in Alberta, where demographic indicators normally give parties with politics similar to the People's Party reasonable support (as demonstrated by the now defunct Wildrose Party) they failed to poll above 5% in a single riding, and Maxime Bernier lost his riidng of Beauce by 6,045 votes, despite Beauce having a reputation amongst ridings for electing maverick MPs of sorts (including his father, Gilles Bernier, who in 1993 won it as an Independent after being barred from running as a Conservative because of fraud charges he was later acquitted of) and being one of only a handful of Quebec ridings to have never elected a Bloc Quebecois MP at any time.
Jody Wilson-Raybould, despite being deselected by the Liberals in relation to the SNC-Lavalin Affair, held her riding of Vancouver Granville in a tight three-way race, despite polling only 32.3% in that riding. Jane Philpott, meanwhile, running as an Independent in Markham-Stouffville having been expelled from the Liberal caucus along with the aforementioned Jody Wilson-Raybould, finished a bad third with 20.8%; ex-NDP councillor Archie McKinnon managed 14% in Sydney-Victoria in Nova Scotia, the best result for an Independent who was not an incumbent. The majority of other independent candidates in Canada struggled to register more than 100 votes apiece, with John "The Engineer" Turmel polling 143 votes on his 99th attempt for public office in the riding of Brantford-Brant, although he did avoid coming last in that riding; by contrast his long gone UK counterpart, Bill Boaks, almost always finished last in elections he stood in including his last two attempts in 1982. His 100th attempt will be in the not too distant future, undoubtedly. Other parties made no impact on this election, polling 0.1% of the vote apiece or less overall and fielding no more than 51 candidates, many of whom polled as poorly as unknown independents; one candidate of note from the minor parties is Maxime Bernier of the Rhinoceros Party who stood against the People's Party's Maxime Bernier in Beauce, undoubtedly playing some part in the latter's loss through candidate confusion (and no, the Rhinoceros Party candidate did not deliberately change his name to run in this election; the fact they have the same name is purely coincidental)
Even though the campaign was portrayed across Canada as a tight race between Justin Trudeau and Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, with the Greens and Bloc Quebecois clearly on the rise, and despite a record number of candidates, turnout actually decreased this year by 2.8% to 66%, partly due to Trudeaumania so prominent in the 2015 election having turned sour especially in outer metropolitan areas. Justin Trudeau, at any rate, is almost certain to remain Canadian Prime Minister, even though he will be reliant on confidence and supply from Bloc Quebecois and/or the NDP.
Controversy over Justin Trudeau's use of brownface (in 2001 before he became the MP for the riding of Papineau) during the Liberals' campaign, a failure to deliver on promised electoral reform, and the SNC-Lavalin Affair were key reasons for the Liberals' loss of support, although in the end they emerged with 157 seats out of 338, losing only 27 despite incurring a 6.4% decrease in their vote share, although this was most pronounced in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the most Conservative provinces of Canada, and Quebec in the rural ridings. One key province where the Liberals did relatively well was Ontario, due to Premier Doug Ford's rising unpopularity, where they made a net loss of only one seat (they lost four ridings to the Conservatives, but gained two ridings from them and the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh from the National Democratic Party, or NDP). One notable Liberal loss was Ralph Goodale, who was the longest-serving MP to be defeated in Canada this year having represented Regina-Wascana since 1993 and who was effectively Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. This leaves them 12 seats short of a majority although minority governments have governed Canada several times, even if usually for brief periods before calling an early election.
The Conservatives actually won the popular vote in Canada with 34.4%, although this represents a percentage increase of only 2.5% and it is the lowest pole position vote by a party in Canadian history. The Conservatives and Liberals were neck and neck in the run up to the election although the Conservatives were consistently ahead, if narrowly. Further highlighting the need for proportional representation in Canada, the Conservatives only won 121 seats despite finishing first in the popular vote, 36 less than the Liberals, due to their extremely uneven vote distribution with already rock-solid ridings in rural Alberta and Saskatchewan simply becoming safer still for them and recording their highest ever Conservative vote shares (exceeding 80% in some cases). They made a net loss of seats in Quebec, gaining only the riding of Chichoutimi-Le Fjord and losing three ridings to the resurgent Bloc Quebecois, which had been in the doldrums for the last 8 years following their drubbing of 2011; in fact Becancour-Nicolet-Saurel is the only Bloc Quebecois riding (counting its predecessors) held continuously since before 2011, by Louis Plamondon, who remained Dean of the House (equivalent to Father of the House in the United Kingdom; he has been in Canada's House of Commons continuously since 1984, first as a Progressive Conservative and then as a BQ MP) with his majority of 20,269 (39.0%) over the Conservatives, the highest majority by any BQ MP in Canada since their debut in 1993. Of the gains it made this election, more than half of them were in the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan; they are already overwhelmingly dominant in Alberta except for Edmonton and Saskatchewan and have no chance of winning the majority of British Columbia ridings anyway, although they did gain seven, more than in any other Canadian province, indirectly due to a slump in the NDP vote which is strongest in this province.
Despite the NDP being seen as last generation's party, its appeal to younger voters worked out better expected, retaining 24 seats and ensuring their vote share only decreased by 3.8%, although this meant they were overtaken by the Bloc Quebecois who won 32 seats. 11 of their 20 losses were in Quebec, although as mentioned earlier this was mainly due to the resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois than anything else, mirroring the SNP landslide in 2015 in Scotland which came at the expense of Labour most of all. Justin's loss of some francophone voters in Quebec proved no help to the NDP at all, and in fact 4 NDP losses were to the Liberals in Quebec alone. Their deputy leader, Alexandre Boulence, did however hold his riding of Rosemont-Saint Patrie against prior expectations. They were however able to make 3 gains from the Liberals in compensation; two of these were in ridings where neither the Conservatives nor the Greens were remotely competitive, and Nunavut, where the Liberals selected a European Canadian candidate, Megan Lyall (the retiring ex-Liberal MP, Hunter Tootoo, was half-Inuk) but where the NDP candidate, Mumilaq Qaqqaq, was Inuk, as was Leona Aglukkaq, who was Nunavut's Conservative MP from 2008 to 2015; she finished third.
Although the Bloc Quebecois will never quite reach their old glory days before 2011, their win of 32 ridings is by far their best since 2008, although still their third lowest in their history. In the 2015 to 2019 Canadian Parliament the Bloc was rocked by the defection of seven of its MPs to form a Quebec debout group, although they returned to Bloc Quebecois following the resignation of Martine Ouellet, whose authoritarianism was blamed by ex-BQ MPs, including former leader Gilles Duceppe, for the brief defection. Its impact proved to be limited since Yves-Francois Blanchet turned it around enough for BQ to win Beloeil-Chambly, for which he had not stood before. With the Liberals no longer having a majority and the Conservatives not in a position to form a government in Canada, they once again hold the balance of power, along with the NDP, so Quebecois issues will likely play a key part in the next Canadian government.
It was the Greens who proved to be the right party for the times in Canada, winning three riidngs: Saanich-Gulf Islands which Elizabeth May has held since 2011, Nanaimo-Ladysmith won by Paul Manly in a 2019 by-election, and Fredericton in New Brunswick, building on their provincial win of Fredericton South in 2014. They polled 6.5%, level with their national vote share in 2008, although this time it was mostly concentrated in their stronghold of British Columbia. They came close to winning two other ridings in that province, Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke and only missed Victoria by 2,444 votes, although given that NDP MP Murray Rankin was standing down and the fact they have come close in this riding before this is a considerable disappointment for the Greens. Nor were they able to capitalise on their recent provincial success in Prince Edward Island, finishing only second in Charlottetown to the Liberals. They did not perform particularly well in Quebec, either, with former NDP MP Pierre Nantel finishing a poor third in Longueuil-Saint Herbert.
The People's Party, led by ex-Conservative MP Maxime Bernier, despite being predicted to have a significant impact on the Conservatives and fielding 315 candidates (although in one the candidate pulled out two hours before the close of nominations), proved to be mainly just noise and rhetoric with no substance. Even in Alberta, where demographic indicators normally give parties with politics similar to the People's Party reasonable support (as demonstrated by the now defunct Wildrose Party) they failed to poll above 5% in a single riding, and Maxime Bernier lost his riidng of Beauce by 6,045 votes, despite Beauce having a reputation amongst ridings for electing maverick MPs of sorts (including his father, Gilles Bernier, who in 1993 won it as an Independent after being barred from running as a Conservative because of fraud charges he was later acquitted of) and being one of only a handful of Quebec ridings to have never elected a Bloc Quebecois MP at any time.
Jody Wilson-Raybould, despite being deselected by the Liberals in relation to the SNC-Lavalin Affair, held her riding of Vancouver Granville in a tight three-way race, despite polling only 32.3% in that riding. Jane Philpott, meanwhile, running as an Independent in Markham-Stouffville having been expelled from the Liberal caucus along with the aforementioned Jody Wilson-Raybould, finished a bad third with 20.8%; ex-NDP councillor Archie McKinnon managed 14% in Sydney-Victoria in Nova Scotia, the best result for an Independent who was not an incumbent. The majority of other independent candidates in Canada struggled to register more than 100 votes apiece, with John "The Engineer" Turmel polling 143 votes on his 99th attempt for public office in the riding of Brantford-Brant, although he did avoid coming last in that riding; by contrast his long gone UK counterpart, Bill Boaks, almost always finished last in elections he stood in including his last two attempts in 1982. His 100th attempt will be in the not too distant future, undoubtedly. Other parties made no impact on this election, polling 0.1% of the vote apiece or less overall and fielding no more than 51 candidates, many of whom polled as poorly as unknown independents; one candidate of note from the minor parties is Maxime Bernier of the Rhinoceros Party who stood against the People's Party's Maxime Bernier in Beauce, undoubtedly playing some part in the latter's loss through candidate confusion (and no, the Rhinoceros Party candidate did not deliberately change his name to run in this election; the fact they have the same name is purely coincidental)
Even though the campaign was portrayed across Canada as a tight race between Justin Trudeau and Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, with the Greens and Bloc Quebecois clearly on the rise, and despite a record number of candidates, turnout actually decreased this year by 2.8% to 66%, partly due to Trudeaumania so prominent in the 2015 election having turned sour especially in outer metropolitan areas. Justin Trudeau, at any rate, is almost certain to remain Canadian Prime Minister, even though he will be reliant on confidence and supply from Bloc Quebecois and/or the NDP.
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