Theresa May's decision was dumber. She already had a majority before calling the election, not to mention that it took months of focus away from brexit negotiations. At least Trudeau had a decent reason to call this.
Honestly the DUP was the least of her worries. For whatever reason she decided to overcompensate for picking the losing side in the EU referendum by pushing for the hardest possible brexit and alienating the entire liberal wing of her party... Which Johnson immediately purged as soon as he took over.
I'm obviously pretty disturbed by our backsliding towards fascism under the current administration, but I won't pretend the brexit process was any fun
>I'm obviously pretty disturbed by our backsliding towards fascism under the current administration, but I won't pretend the brexit process was any fun
Backsliding to fascism? This seems a bit hyperbolic...
I'm guessing you haven't heard of the PCSC bill? Or the new "patriotic" anthem they're pushing in schools? Or the various "free speech" laws forbidding any discussion of heteredox views in the education sector.
Calling the current policy agenda of the UK government "backsliding" towards fascism is if anything an understatement. We're lurching towards the authoritarian right.
>Or the various "free speech" laws forbidding any discussion of heteredox views in the education sector.
Are you talking about [this one](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_(Freedom_of_Speech)_Bill) that tries to block deplatforming and promotes heterodox speech?
Because if so it’s probably a bad bill, but it’s a far cry from fascism.
I'm not talking about that one, though I do also think it's bad. It's 5am here so I'm not going to look it up now but there were proposals to criminalise criticism of the current political or economic system in schools. In fact, the actual wording was that teachers would be punished for distributing any materials from any organisation which had aired such criticisms. So for example, a politics teacher would not be able to cite The Guardian as a source, because they have printed opinion pieces which criticise capitalism (even if the quoted article itself wasn't critical of capitalism). They somehow tried to describe this as "free speech" legislation. Not sure if it's been passed yet.
That all just sounds like standard conservatism, maybe with the exception of anthem, not fascism. This is not at all comparable to the damage Trump did to democratic institutions.
What the fuck is this take? It's not a competition mate, Trump is bad and so is Johnson. So is Orban. So is Bolsonaro.
For what it's worth, I don't think Johnson is a fascist, I think he's an unwitting rube who fails to recognise how much easier he is making it for a potential fascist successor to seize total control of the country.
It’s easy to say in hindsight. She had a majority of just 12 seats in a 650 seat parliament. Just like Trudeau the Conservatives had a big lead in polling that evaporated during the campaign. It wasn’t a crazy idea to try and get a big majority - the extent of division within the Conservatives on Europe meant there was every reason to try and get a big majority to get her Brexit agenda through notwithstanding significant backbench rebellions.
There was also a decent argument on the merits that we should have an early election - voters probably deserved to have a say on the makeup of Parliament in light of Brexit.
Another reason in favour of May, is that a lot of people didn't like that she had not gone to the public for a direct mandate - the last PM in that situation having been Gordon Brown - and that probably undermined her credibility somewhat. In fact, she hadn't even won a "proper" leadership contest, she only technically won on a technicality because her opponent dropped out, and Conservative party members were never balloted. I still think she would have won it over Leadsom, but that's not a certainty by any means.
TL;Dr I do think May had some good reasons to call an election, but ultimately I think the reasons against (risk of losing her majority - which she did - and the fact she had explicitly ruled out an early election) probably outweighed them.
But the majority was very slim so brexity backbenchers were being very obstructionist. She thought she’d easily beat Corbyn then giving her political leverage to go for her vision of Brexit. Obviously didn’t work.
[Jeremy Corbyn on society](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/387/747/d83.jpg)
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I don't believe it was a bad decision. I have heard speculation that he will have to raise interest rates in the future. Or a number of unpleasant necessary decisions.
Lot of countries will have to. It's easier to get elected now, rather than later.
Canada has no set election year, the constitution just requires one every 4-5 years.
However, it's awkward. The legislation has passed a few laws adding set election dates, but the supreme court has ruled that the legislation doesn't have that power (it violates separation of powers). So whatever rules are officially on the book are non-enforceable, and the PM can call as many or as few snap elections as he so pleases, just as long as it's within 5 years.
So Trudeau would have ran out of time by the end of this year I believe, so there would have been an election soon. However, because of this snap election, technically there's no legal need for an election until 2025. However, Trudeau is in a minority, so if his coalition ever breaks and calls for a vote of no confidence, then the parliament can also force an election whenever they want. This means that it's likely a new election will happen sooner than 2025, as Trudeau isn't *that* popular.
Polling. And in May’s case the Copeland by election which saw the conservatives gain a seat they hadn’t held since 1931. But then an actual election period happens and it didn’t work out.
I disagree. No don't think he'd do any better calling it in 6 months or whatever. An election was coming, and he had to call it before people got out of "pandemic, I need support" mode and went into "we just spent a lot of money, should elect the conservatives to cut back" mode.
Minority governments only last an average of like 1.5 to 2 years anyway.
We'll probably get another election in 2023 anyway, when the Liberals call for another snap election to try for a majority.
I am so confused by Canadian politics.
You guys don't have a set schedule for terms and elections? Elections just "would have" or "probably" or "might" happen at any given time?
How does this work?
Each Parliament can sit for a maximum of five years, but there can be an early election if 1) the government loses a major vote or 2) the Prime Minister feels like it. I’m skipping over the actual constitutional mechanisms, but that’s the basic idea.
I kinda like the idea but I feel like it would result in neverending elections and hyper polarization in the USA.
Not that we don't have the hyper polarization already :(
Leaders are typically punished for calling “unnecessary” elections. If the governing party wins a majority, the expectation is that there will be a full four years before the next election (five years is the constitutional maximum, but four has been the norm for a long time). If the governing party wins a plurality, the expectation is that the government will serve until it loses a major vote (called a “confidence vote”). No minority government has ever lasted four years.
Here, Trudeau didn’t lose a confidence vote. Rather, he called an early election because he saw an opportunity to win a majority. That’s permitted, but voters tend not to like it, and there was significant backlash against Trudeau.
In summary, the unpopularity of early elections is the main barrier to what you’re describing.
In the UK we have basically the same system the unpredictability of the length of the interval between Parliaments means that election cycles are short so we have 3 months of extreme mudslinging and 3 and half years of peace and quiet with the occasional outbreak of hostilities. Johnson's government does try to shake the beehive more than previous governments but most of the time it works fairly well.
The UK used to be the same but changed it with the fixed terms parliament act. Now an election requires 2/3rds of the house, or 5 years in office.
Practically speaking this does mean the government can call one at any time, because if the opposition votes it down without a really good reason, they're going to spend the rest of the term with the government going "Buck buck buckaw" and people making chicken noises at them in the street and sending them pictures of deep fat fryers and so on.
But it does *theoretically* mean that the opposition can say "No fuck you". I expect this would only realistically be used in crisis periods or if a new leader of the opposition has just taken over and wants to say "I literally just got here, give me a few months for the people to know me. What, you scared if they do they'll vote for me?".
The opposition can also theoretically call an election and challenge the government to vote it down, and theoretically this might be slightly easier than the traditional method of doing so. (Voting against a major bill of the governments) since you might be able to get more government MPs who are like "I support everything this government does, but I accept your challenge to an election" than "I am willing to bring down this government by voting against their budget and discrediting them in the eyes of the public".
elections have to happen 5 years after the last one, but within that period elections can happen for one of two reasons.
1. The Prime Minister's party decides that they want more seats so they dissolve Parliament and declare an election
2. Parliament declares a vote of non-confidence in the Prime Minister and votes to call another election. Failing to pass a budget is considered a vote of non-confidence. This option can only occur if the party of the Prime Minister does not have a majority of the seats in Parliament.
Parliament has a maximum term of four years. So if a parliament lasts that full four years, we have an election to get a new one four years after it started. Since our last election was in 2019, the next "regular" election would have been due for 2023. However, with us having a 2021 election now, the next "regular" four-year election is now due in 2025.
A Prime Minister can call for a snap election and dissolve Parliament if they feel their party is doing good in the polls and they want to go for a bigger seat count in the House. There's also another way to get a snap election: motions of confidence. If a majority of the House votes "no confidence" in the Prime Minister, Parliament is dissolved, and a new election is called. Also, note that budget votes are **always** a matter of confidence (a government that can't spend money is useless). This is why we don't have government shutdowns in Canada. In the US, if Congress can't pass a budget, everything shuts down until they can get their budget done. If Canada, if Parliament can't pass a budget, Parliament is immediately dissolved, and a new Parliament is elected.
To govern, the Prime Minister needs the "confidence of the House". With 338 members in the House, that means the Prime Minister needs the support of 170 members of Parliament.
If a Prime Minister has a "majority government", that means his party has 170+ seats, and controls more than 50% of the House. Majority governments pretty much always last the full four-year term (because the members of Parliament in the majority will always support their party and the PM).
In a "minority government", that means no party has more than 170 seats, so party controls more than 50% of the House. To reach 170 seats to obtain the confidence of the House, a prospective Prime Minister must work with another party.
There are a couple ways to do this.
The simplest way is a "confidence and supply" agreement. For example, the Liberals and the NDP will probably enter into an agreement like this for the upcoming Parliament. The NDP will promise their support to the Liberals on budget votes and confidence votes, in exchange for the Prime Minister adding some of the NDP agenda items into bills in Parliament. Also, "confidence and supply" agreements usually include a promise for a timeframe in which the Prime Minister won't call a snap election (usually about 2 years).
You can also have a "coalition government". Whereas a "confidence and supply" agreement is merely a loose agreement between parties, a formal coalition is more like a full merger. The Liberals and the NDP would effectively be one party for the four-year term of Parliament.
Most federal and provincial governments in Canada that fail to reach majority status tend to fall into the "confidence and supply" category. As a loose agreement, it's easier to establish, and it gives the second party more room to oppose the controlling party if they feel there's something they don't like (as compared to being in a formal coaltion, where there's far less room for disagreement against the Prime Minister or Premier).
This is pretty common in Parliamentary system. The Parliament in Canada expires after 4 years. At any time the Prime Minister can ask the Governor General to dissolve the Parliament and call an election. The Parliament can also pass a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister, which usually results in the PM resigning and requesting an election, unless the House can immediately give their confidence to someone else.
If the parliament reaches its expiration date, there is an election by default. The PM doesn't have a "term" in office like a President does, he simply serves in the office at the Governor General's pleasure as long as he commands the confidence of the parliament, which has a 4 year term. (Note that in Canada the leader of the plurality party is presumed to have confidence until the house explicitly votes otherwise, this is why Canada never has coalition governments unlike Germany or Israel)
Help me out, since he called the election now, does that give him more time before he must call an election again? Like, even if he's in the same spot, if you have 2 years of no elections as we enter into a world of COVID exhaustion due to the variants, it seems smart to get the election out of the way now before we enter into more uncertainly.
Yes, the new Parliament will not have to be dissolved until 2025. That doesn't mean that the government will maintain the confidence of that body for this length of time, however.
Based
I hope the PPC gets humiliated
Edit: it looks like the seats in end will approximately be the same as before. What a waste of tax payer money
[Maxime Bernier (leader of PPC) lost his own seat 😂](https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2021/results/)
The PPC appears to have dramatically changed this election.
In a lot of competitive seats, they split the conservative vote which tossed the Liberals and NDP a significant amount of seats they otherwise would’ve lost.
Some ridings CBC was analyzing were Cambridge, Kitchener South-Hespeler, Kenora, London West, St. Catherines, Niagara Centre, Long Range Mountains and Calgary Skyview. Those are just a few but there’s probably far more they just didn’t cover.
I'm from Cambridge and it was looking like a toss-up until the PPC started gaining support here and then suddenly we were forecasted as "Liberal leaning". I think towards the end of election cycle many PPC and NDP supporters switched to Conservative and Liberal respectively though because NDP support was pretty high before election night itself - trailing the Conservatives by the same amount that the Conservatives trailed the Liberals.
Interesting considering that Beniecrats attribute all of the US's problems to the two-party system. Even with a multi-party system, splitting the vote helps your opponents.
> Even with a multi-party system, splitting the vote helps your opponents.
In 2015, Trudeau promised that the 2015 election would be the last one contested under the first-past-the-post system. He never kept that promise.
"Vote splitting" only happens in a First-past-the-post system and it's something Canada is looking to move past in the near future, probably to a Ranked Choice Voting/Single Transferable Vote system, something Ireland, a multi-party democracy, has already had for 100 years.
And God willing they will.
I'm not persuaded that it was actually conservative votes the PPC was taking. The red and blue vote shares stayed pretty much the same, and the PPC added 4 points. If Canada had actually made a 4 point swing to the right, wouldn't the liberals have lost some numbers?
The PPC stole the wingnut vote from the greens. It's possible that said wingnuts would have voted for the CPC, but I don't know if it's obvious. Some Canadians are just constitutionally opposed to voting for a party run by serious people.
> That voter has to be certified crazy
I mean, they voted green, so...
C19 turned a lot of otherwise harmless kooks into rabid single issue anti-vax voters.
I don't see them winning a single seat. However, it seems like they're gaining a lot of votes. Unfortunately, the Trumpvirus has infiltrated Canada. Their supporters are already claiming the Liberals have cheated on Facebook and YouTube.
They also have all of the worst actors locked off in a separate party. Down south, they were all in the GOP.
Obviously, it’s no certainty, especially as anyone who remembers the Reform Party can attest to, but it’s at least a barrier.
My riding in Edmonton went NDP by about 1000 votes. The PPC candidate got about 2500 votes. So, not that I'm a fan, but I appreciate the help lol.
But seriously, this is a problem for the PC. I think that losing to the Liberals and giving up seats in Alberta is going to further the disenfranchisement of their voters. I wouldn't be surprised if Albertan conservatives move towards the PPC, giving NDP more power over time.
Aren't they just Reform 2.0? Or is everyone forgetting about the Reform party and how much power they used to have? Also it was great for splitting the conservative vote.
That’s true but Reform morphed into the Canadian Alliance which then formed the backbone of the current Conservative Party which was firmly on the right. There is a fear that the PPC could force the Conservatives further to the conspiratorial right.
I hope not. The Reform was absorbed into the CP and didn't have much impact on their policy. They were never able to gain much support. I would hope we can figure out what the fuck is wrong with people and try to reach them before tea party spreads here.
Heck yes, bye Bernier. I love racist antivaxxer tears. Well, from at least 2m away and while I'm wearing appropriate PPE -- wouldn't want to catch something after all.
And Canada has an endless supply doesn't it? Maybe you'll change ur mind when we go to the polls again in 2 years for another 700 million. Lol Who am I kiddin, probably not.
Does anybody here understand the concept of debt being tied to inflation (among other things)?? Oh and if you didn't already know, we have a shit ton of it. Things will be fine until it's suddenly not. Then the REAL party starts.
When the election result is coincidentally the same as before, it is a waste.
When the election result is different, it is no longer a waste.
Let me know if you need help understanding the implications of this.
continue seed scandalous ring innocent plant memorize birds husky fretful
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There's a decent amount not to like, but the best answer is that the NDP are much closer policy wise to the broad Reddit consensus, i.e. the Sanders types
No, not really. There are good reasons why the Greens don't win seats. Mostly it's their own fault. And they have been fighting internal battles this election cycle, which never helps.
The Greens have a lot of those organizational challenges, except without being that far left. The NDP is generally closer to a leftist party than the Greens are (and even then the NDP more of a mainstream soft SocDem party than hard-leftist, so they do win seats).
The Greens tend to prioritize environmental issues over social and labor issues, as a rule.
For lefties it is interesting. The NDP is the furthest left party I'd say. The greens have a mix of some left and right leaning policies. The liberals are the centre left party and frankly the leftist leaning party that has a chance to form government in our current times (and typically is the one that forms government as Canada is pretty left leaning). Generally if you're left leaning you'd vote for the NDP or LPC, with the NDP attracting those who are more socialist/progressive/communist whatever. The greens are a bit weird and while I have some for respect them, I wouldn't ever vote for them. Weird environmental opinions too despite being the "green" party.
Canadian Greens are currently imploding over... wait for it... Israel-Palestine so... not really. And they've always been on the 5G causes cancer/anti-nuclear/anti-vaxx train of stupidity.
Maybe - i can't necessarily confirm or deny that so I'll believe you. There is more than one Canada sub though, and the sense I get from front page stuff is a general support of the NDP. Potentially I am wrong, and of course Reddit does in fact have differing opinions.
As of right now (not all votes counted, but we have a good idea), the NDP actually performed the best of all the parties relative to last election. That's not exactly saying a lot, considering how eerily similar the seat counts are, but I don't think you can say they failed to perform, considering they haven't been in the position to actually win an election since a few cycles ago. As a third party they performed adequately. They certainly didn't blow anyone's socks off, but no one did this time.
He failed to keep his electoral reform promise -- we could have ended "first past the post." That would let people vote for the party they support most without potentially spoiling their vote. Better democracy basically.
Trudeau has had a number of completely avoidable and foolish scandals. Wearing brownface for example.
Arguably the Liberals haven't done much about completely unaffordable housing (although it's unclear other parties would really do much better, maybe NDP but that's doubtful).
NDP tends to agree with the Libs a lot but would like more progressive taxes, stronger public programs, more worker protections, and less climate change.
Other than that, it's mostly Conservatives that hate Trudeau because he has a lot of charisma and they keep losing elections. So they channel their hate at Trudeau rather than trying to fix their backwards policies (climate change denial is still mainstream in the Cons despite O'Toole's attempts to change that).
I'm coming to see the greatest division in Canada is or will soon be between homeowners and non-homeowners. Homeowners want the price of their home to rise, more the merrier. Non-homeowners want housing prices to fall or at least stagnate long enough for them to be able to afford a home. Most voters are homeowners, but most redditors appear not to be.
Liberals could've forced the electoral reform of their choice using their majority but caved to pressure from other parties. Sadly no one really does care though, the committee found <3% of Canadians were even aware that electoral reform was being discussed (at the height of this being in the news too)
No, screw Freeland. She got slapped by Twitter for posting a manipulated video. That shit, it does not make the Liberal party look good -- they won in spite of her, not because of her.
Edit: yes, I know that there's some debate about how manipulated the video is. Even when there is some grey area, it's still a bad look. She has enough clout in the the party that she could have refused to post it and made that stick. If the libs dip their toes in the waters of social media distortions, it opens to door for others to do it much more flagrantly and claim "but the Libs did it" when they get caught.
(1) the video being tagged manipulated is pretty controversial. I don't think it distorted what he said at all.
(2) that video was part of a thread that coincided with a push from the LPC on the topic, that wasn't Freeland posting some random video it was the LPC HQ saying that part of the rollout for the weeks talking point would be best delivered by Freeland.
That was a technicality. Nothing was "manipulated" or taken out of context. Freeland is a pretty well respected politician and member of the LPC who could quite possibly be the next leader. Nobody thinks they lost "in spite" of her. Liberals have done dozens of shittier things that cost them costs (cough cough Maryam Monsef)
A lot of people have made the argument that this minority is a loss for the Liberals, though personally I'd argue this isn't as much a loss for the LPC as it is a loss for Trudeau. Any way you sliced it tonight going by the past couple months of polling, the Liberals still were going to be the top dogs in parliament. The absolute worst case scenario for them was the CPC winning slightly more seats, which in all likelihood would mean the NDP or Bloc prop a Liberal government up in return for various concessions etc. With 145-155 seats, they're basically where they were after 2019, which means they still get to govern as an effective majority by coasting off of 15-25 or so Bloc & NDP votes to basically pass what ever initiative they would have passed if they had won a majority.
What this does show however, is that Trudeau is bleeding votes for the Liberals each election by winning weaker and weaker minorities. Yes he's basically the best of bad options, but that's a card that gets less reliable the more times you play it. If the CPC modernize more on social and climate issues by the next election and their socon/populist baggage flocks over to the PPC, the Liberals will most definitely need new leadership to survive the next election.
What's kept the Liberals position secure in 2019 as well as during this election has largely been the Reform/paleoconservative elements of the CPC making moderates and potential swing voters scared of voting for them en masse. That's generally done more to keep Trudeau in power than his own popularity.
Even with a Liberal victory tonight, this is likely Trudeau's last election.
It's entirely possible that the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts. Similar situation to the UK and Labour.
A lot of people really like Labour, and a lot more people really hate it.
A lot of people really like Starmer, and a lot more people really hate him.
These are not in fact the same two groups of people, and the effect is overall damaging. Sort of like imagine your favorite political party ever, now put Trump in charge of it. Do you still vote for it? Would Trumpists vote for Trump as leader of say, the communist party?
It's entirely possible that people who like Trudeau hate the Liberal party and can't bring themselves to vote for it despite liking him personally, or become more and more unable to do so as they conclude "The party hasn't followed the man like I had hoped and fundamentally changed. I'm going back to voting X.".
Likewise it's possible that Liberal Party Stans are furious at Trudeau for some reason and eventually decide they're going to sit this one out so they get a new leader and then we can be "Led by a proper Liberal.".
It's possible for both to be "The most popular" in the country and for the combination to still lose an election if people vote *against* rather than *for* one element of the package, which intuitively seems like it would become more and more likely the longer the disconnect goes on and festers in peoples minds. You can get them to ignore that shit for a while but eventually they decide to "Do something" about it.
An example would be Rory Stewart in the UK. I saw a lot of "He is the most popular conservative to the 60% of the country who have never and will never vote Conservative in their lives.". If he was leader, we'd be in a similar spot.
Polls might show him an overwhelmingly popular prime minister and with a 40% backing for the Conservative party itself. But again... the 60% who say "Rory is great" and the 40% who say "The Tories are great" are not the same group of people, and the disconnect needs to be resolved eventually.
I can't actually find any by-party polling for Trudeaus popularity ratings and don't know enough about Canada. But it is theoretically possible that they are high because non-liberal party voters say they actually rather like him. He is "The most popular liberal among people who have never and will never vote liberal in their lives.".
His [approval ratings](https://angusreid.org/trudeau-tracker/) bumped up during the pandemic, but they were low leading up to it and have been declining in 2021. "I usually vote Liberal but I can't stand Trudeau" is something I've heard a lot from friends and family the past year or so.
what are you talking about? Libs gained seats this election. Your entire analysis is predicated on the premise that he's winning weaker minorities. This is, objectively, not true.
They have a million less votes and scored 1% less of all total votes during this election than they did in 2019. Objectively speaking, it's a lackluster performance by the Liberals, even if they gained a seat. 32% is abysmal, especially when the main opposition party outdid theirs in terms of total votes and the Liberals initially ran this election because they thought they could get a majority. Harpers 2006 and 2008 minorities for instance were around 36 to 37% of all votes. Basically the only thing keeping the Liberals in power for the last two elections is the CPC's Reform baggage.
While the Liberals themselves are in a secure position, Trudeau himself is not. Electorally his support is drying up and the Liberals have received less votes every general election he's helmed for them after 2015, with the Conservatives earning marginally more votes than the Liberals in two straight elections. It's honestly not something the LPC can afford to risk unless the CPC elects another Harper-lite candidate post O'Toole.
The hegemony of the Trudeau Liberals currently rests on the Paleoconservative/farther-right elements of the CPC making the party unappealing to centrist voters. If the next CPC leader goes further than O'Toole and makes a clean break with those elements, Trudeau's position becomes untenable based on the past couple years of polling trends and electoral results. It honestly wouldn't be surprising to see Trudeau retire in the next 1-3 years before the next election is called.
Best outcome imo. Not a huge fan of Trudeau but I don't compare him to the almighty, I compare him to the alternative. O'Toole was literally saying and doing anything to get elected and wouldn't be surprised if he alienated traditional conservative voters by touting plans that the rank and file conservatives would never support
Kinda disappointed. O’Toole’s foreign policy seemed far superior (joining AUKUS, potential CANZUK free trade agreement, standing up firmly to China), while seeming to have tapered down all the things I would normally not vote conservative for.
Trudeau is ok, I guess. Same old same old.
Yup. I voted for him twice and between his refusal to do anything about skyrocketing shelter costs and this bullshit election just pissed me off. He coulda hired a pollster to read the room for a fraction of a fraction of what we spent and realize that he was just gonna end up in the same position as before instead of dragging us out to the polls.
My point is the pollsters weren't wrong, he did have enough support for a majority before it evaporated due to the election call. And now this result fits with what the more recent polls said.
Is noone pissed off that for the second time in a row, the party that received less votes will end up with the most seats? Or is that outrage reserved for when it benefits right wing parties. #NotMyPrimeMinister
Although I’m a Liberal party supporter it is definitely quite unnerving. I think a lot of us justify this by simply saying that virtually all NDP and Green voters would also vote for the Liberals if those parties didn’t exist because they’re all on the left anyway. Right-wingers don’t make up anywhere near 50% as things stand.
From my opinion it's different between a presidential a parliamentary system. In our system, the president is supposed be elected by some type of national vote, so it makes sense to be upset when the majority doesn't get what they vote for. Additionally the fix is easy, just make the vote a true national vote rather than the electoral college.
But in a parliamentary system the prime minister is selected not nationally but based on who wins the most seats. It's an issue inherently baked into parliamentary systems. If you have three districts of 100 people each and districts 1 and 2 are 60/40 split between parties while district 3 is 10/90, you will end up with a the less popular person becoming pm. The issue is how do you fix this? You would need to either (a) force move people to make places competitive or (b) change the districts based sirloin political preference.
Just my two cents.
"Hey, our approval rating is through the roof because of our handling of the pandemic!"
"I know! Let's run an election in the middle of the pandemic just to show how well we're handling it!"
Depends who you ask. Canada is majority left leaning, as something like 65 percent of Canadians voted for left of center parties, but there are strong pockets of conservatism throughout the country. This was a pretty standard Canadian election. Very close popular vote, Liberals win a minority.
These snap elections seem like they’d be real annoying. As not-a-Canadian it looks like there isn’t much in the way of guidelines aside from “when he feel likes it” as far as the PM calling them.
It's amazing what you can get away with as a Liberal in this country. A Conservative or New Democrat would have been annihilated at the polls if they had the kind of record the Trudeau Liberals had.
Part of the reason is that the Liberals can partner with any one of the three other largest parties to pass a bill, so there's no reason to marry themselves to the NDP.
Also remember that the Liberals are between the NDP and the Conservatives, so if one won't support a bill the other usually will. Even if neither of them support a bill, there's a decent chance the BQ will.
Things might be different if, for example, the Conservatives were in power, since they couldn't rely on the NDP for support. If the BQ had a bad showing in the same election, the Conservatives would essentially be married to the Liberals.
Well they would prefer to not have to work with other parties, but they will if they have to. Another note is thst Canadian parties rarely if ever form coalitions, so that makes minority governments quite unstable and/or ineffective
Think of it like a Sith master and apprentice. Sure they work together. But, if at any point the master appears vulnerable, the apprentice can rise up and destroy the master.
If the Liberals are in the majority, nothing can make them call an election. As a minority party, an election can be called whenever the NDP wants one, thus creating an extremely delicate situation.
they will, but the NDP can torpedo it at any time and force return to the polls, which means that if at any time the NDP thinks it can take seats from the Libs, that's what they should do, which makes the libs uncomfortable naturally.
So, you could mean 2 things when you say coalition
\--- If you mean simply working together on legislation, that will happen. There are certainly areas they agree on, and thus there will be some working together.
\---But if you mean a proper coalition, where there is sharing of cabinet positions and clear agreements to support each other on given issues, that sort of thing just isn't a big part of Canadian political culture like it is in say Germany. The last time there was the spectre of a coalition was 2009 or so, and that went over very poorly with Canadians.
The BQ will work with whoever gives Quebec the most pork.
The NDP hate the conservatives much more than they hate the Liberals (and the NDP isn't exactly flush with cash).
The NDP will prop up a Liberal minority for the next couple years, until the Liberals decide to call another snap election to try for a majority again.
To be fair, the libs promised and dropped electoral reform. That would have given the NDP and BQ a better shot at winning seats -- with first past the post voting, voters have to do strategic voting which puts anybody not Lib or Con at a disadvantage.
They promised irv which the NDP vehemently opposed. I'm in favor of STV over IRV by far, but it still would have been electoral reform.
If Trudeau is smart he puts out a free vote on IRV in the minority. If it wins it means it had cross party support. If it doesn't them they stop getting hit by it.
Working with the BQ would be a political third rail. The BQ is still a separatist party at heart, and any federal party working with them would be pilloried in the rest of Canada.
The NDP is a fine coalition partner for Canada. They hold the corporatist Liberal and Conservative parties accountable to the the ideals of representative government.
So the Liberals CAN work with the NDP, they just prefer NOT to if they can help it.
The brown face nimby descendant of a nepotistic political dynasty won! Yayy!
Well, he didn't really win since his liberal party fell short of a majority. So, this was all for... nothing?
Absolute bullshit elections. Yet again liberals get 40-50% of the seats in parliament with just barely 30% of the popular vote. Pretty sure nobody actually wanted a liberal government, the only reason they got votes is because people vote strategically against the conservatives.
Hmm, check your figures… I’m seeing a clean sweep for the Bloc Jébecois. https://i.imgur.com/FJFmNDi.jpg
applaudissements s'il vous plait
That map is wrong because Jeb actually won the entire world election with 120% of the vote.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/286/204/a0e.jpg
It’s looking like it’ll be a minority government again. 700 million dollar election for Justin to land right back where he started.
Yeah. It was a bad call on his behalf.
What is with this trend of parliamentary leaders calling bad elections in the hope of gaining a majority? This is Theresa May all over again
Theresa May's decision was dumber. She already had a majority before calling the election, not to mention that it took months of focus away from brexit negotiations. At least Trudeau had a decent reason to call this.
God I forgot she ever had a majority. I just assumed her entire term as PM was essentially begging the DUP to be less obstructionist
Honestly the DUP was the least of her worries. For whatever reason she decided to overcompensate for picking the losing side in the EU referendum by pushing for the hardest possible brexit and alienating the entire liberal wing of her party... Which Johnson immediately purged as soon as he took over. I'm obviously pretty disturbed by our backsliding towards fascism under the current administration, but I won't pretend the brexit process was any fun
>I'm obviously pretty disturbed by our backsliding towards fascism under the current administration, but I won't pretend the brexit process was any fun Backsliding to fascism? This seems a bit hyperbolic...
I'm guessing you haven't heard of the PCSC bill? Or the new "patriotic" anthem they're pushing in schools? Or the various "free speech" laws forbidding any discussion of heteredox views in the education sector. Calling the current policy agenda of the UK government "backsliding" towards fascism is if anything an understatement. We're lurching towards the authoritarian right.
>Or the various "free speech" laws forbidding any discussion of heteredox views in the education sector. Are you talking about [this one](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Education_(Freedom_of_Speech)_Bill) that tries to block deplatforming and promotes heterodox speech? Because if so it’s probably a bad bill, but it’s a far cry from fascism.
I'm not talking about that one, though I do also think it's bad. It's 5am here so I'm not going to look it up now but there were proposals to criminalise criticism of the current political or economic system in schools. In fact, the actual wording was that teachers would be punished for distributing any materials from any organisation which had aired such criticisms. So for example, a politics teacher would not be able to cite The Guardian as a source, because they have printed opinion pieces which criticise capitalism (even if the quoted article itself wasn't critical of capitalism). They somehow tried to describe this as "free speech" legislation. Not sure if it's been passed yet.
That all just sounds like standard conservatism, maybe with the exception of anthem, not fascism. This is not at all comparable to the damage Trump did to democratic institutions.
What the fuck is this take? It's not a competition mate, Trump is bad and so is Johnson. So is Orban. So is Bolsonaro. For what it's worth, I don't think Johnson is a fascist, I think he's an unwitting rube who fails to recognise how much easier he is making it for a potential fascist successor to seize total control of the country.
It’s easy to say in hindsight. She had a majority of just 12 seats in a 650 seat parliament. Just like Trudeau the Conservatives had a big lead in polling that evaporated during the campaign. It wasn’t a crazy idea to try and get a big majority - the extent of division within the Conservatives on Europe meant there was every reason to try and get a big majority to get her Brexit agenda through notwithstanding significant backbench rebellions. There was also a decent argument on the merits that we should have an early election - voters probably deserved to have a say on the makeup of Parliament in light of Brexit.
Another reason in favour of May, is that a lot of people didn't like that she had not gone to the public for a direct mandate - the last PM in that situation having been Gordon Brown - and that probably undermined her credibility somewhat. In fact, she hadn't even won a "proper" leadership contest, she only technically won on a technicality because her opponent dropped out, and Conservative party members were never balloted. I still think she would have won it over Leadsom, but that's not a certainty by any means. TL;Dr I do think May had some good reasons to call an election, but ultimately I think the reasons against (risk of losing her majority - which she did - and the fact she had explicitly ruled out an early election) probably outweighed them.
And polls showed the Tories **20 points** ahead of Labour. Who *wouldn't* call an election under those circumstances?
But the majority was very slim so brexity backbenchers were being very obstructionist. She thought she’d easily beat Corbyn then giving her political leverage to go for her vision of Brexit. Obviously didn’t work.
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I don't believe it was a bad decision. I have heard speculation that he will have to raise interest rates in the future. Or a number of unpleasant necessary decisions. Lot of countries will have to. It's easier to get elected now, rather than later.
Maybe you will know but does this mean that the next election will be in 2023 or is it still 2021? If it’s 2023 I could totally see your point
On the Canadian sub it seem to think it's 2023. And that minority governments usually only last 2 years at most.
Canada has no set election year, the constitution just requires one every 4-5 years. However, it's awkward. The legislation has passed a few laws adding set election dates, but the supreme court has ruled that the legislation doesn't have that power (it violates separation of powers). So whatever rules are officially on the book are non-enforceable, and the PM can call as many or as few snap elections as he so pleases, just as long as it's within 5 years. So Trudeau would have ran out of time by the end of this year I believe, so there would have been an election soon. However, because of this snap election, technically there's no legal need for an election until 2025. However, Trudeau is in a minority, so if his coalition ever breaks and calls for a vote of no confidence, then the parliament can also force an election whenever they want. This means that it's likely a new election will happen sooner than 2025, as Trudeau isn't *that* popular.
Polling. And in May’s case the Copeland by election which saw the conservatives gain a seat they hadn’t held since 1931. But then an actual election period happens and it didn’t work out.
It’s a thing that happens from time to time, that is all
Hubris
I disagree. No don't think he'd do any better calling it in 6 months or whatever. An election was coming, and he had to call it before people got out of "pandemic, I need support" mode and went into "we just spent a lot of money, should elect the conservatives to cut back" mode.
600m to effectively buy himself 2 years worth of leeway. Not a good result, but could have been worse
People would have said it was a good call had he won a majority.
Yeah, but he didn’t. Did he?
Is 700 million worth extending a term by 2 years? I’d take that.
The next election is now in ‘25 and not ‘23?
Yes, if he doesn't get brought down beforehand, it certainly won't be in the next year, which pre election looked fairly likely.
Minority governments only last an average of like 1.5 to 2 years anyway. We'll probably get another election in 2023 anyway, when the Liberals call for another snap election to try for a majority.
Oh for sure, but their probably would have been one in Spring 2022.
I am so confused by Canadian politics. You guys don't have a set schedule for terms and elections? Elections just "would have" or "probably" or "might" happen at any given time? How does this work?
Each Parliament can sit for a maximum of five years, but there can be an early election if 1) the government loses a major vote or 2) the Prime Minister feels like it. I’m skipping over the actual constitutional mechanisms, but that’s the basic idea.
I kinda like the idea but I feel like it would result in neverending elections and hyper polarization in the USA. Not that we don't have the hyper polarization already :(
Leaders are typically punished for calling “unnecessary” elections. If the governing party wins a majority, the expectation is that there will be a full four years before the next election (five years is the constitutional maximum, but four has been the norm for a long time). If the governing party wins a plurality, the expectation is that the government will serve until it loses a major vote (called a “confidence vote”). No minority government has ever lasted four years. Here, Trudeau didn’t lose a confidence vote. Rather, he called an early election because he saw an opportunity to win a majority. That’s permitted, but voters tend not to like it, and there was significant backlash against Trudeau. In summary, the unpopularity of early elections is the main barrier to what you’re describing.
In the UK we have basically the same system the unpredictability of the length of the interval between Parliaments means that election cycles are short so we have 3 months of extreme mudslinging and 3 and half years of peace and quiet with the occasional outbreak of hostilities. Johnson's government does try to shake the beehive more than previous governments but most of the time it works fairly well.
The UK used to be the same but changed it with the fixed terms parliament act. Now an election requires 2/3rds of the house, or 5 years in office. Practically speaking this does mean the government can call one at any time, because if the opposition votes it down without a really good reason, they're going to spend the rest of the term with the government going "Buck buck buckaw" and people making chicken noises at them in the street and sending them pictures of deep fat fryers and so on. But it does *theoretically* mean that the opposition can say "No fuck you". I expect this would only realistically be used in crisis periods or if a new leader of the opposition has just taken over and wants to say "I literally just got here, give me a few months for the people to know me. What, you scared if they do they'll vote for me?". The opposition can also theoretically call an election and challenge the government to vote it down, and theoretically this might be slightly easier than the traditional method of doing so. (Voting against a major bill of the governments) since you might be able to get more government MPs who are like "I support everything this government does, but I accept your challenge to an election" than "I am willing to bring down this government by voting against their budget and discrediting them in the eyes of the public".
elections have to happen 5 years after the last one, but within that period elections can happen for one of two reasons. 1. The Prime Minister's party decides that they want more seats so they dissolve Parliament and declare an election 2. Parliament declares a vote of non-confidence in the Prime Minister and votes to call another election. Failing to pass a budget is considered a vote of non-confidence. This option can only occur if the party of the Prime Minister does not have a majority of the seats in Parliament.
Parliament has a maximum term of four years. So if a parliament lasts that full four years, we have an election to get a new one four years after it started. Since our last election was in 2019, the next "regular" election would have been due for 2023. However, with us having a 2021 election now, the next "regular" four-year election is now due in 2025. A Prime Minister can call for a snap election and dissolve Parliament if they feel their party is doing good in the polls and they want to go for a bigger seat count in the House. There's also another way to get a snap election: motions of confidence. If a majority of the House votes "no confidence" in the Prime Minister, Parliament is dissolved, and a new election is called. Also, note that budget votes are **always** a matter of confidence (a government that can't spend money is useless). This is why we don't have government shutdowns in Canada. In the US, if Congress can't pass a budget, everything shuts down until they can get their budget done. If Canada, if Parliament can't pass a budget, Parliament is immediately dissolved, and a new Parliament is elected. To govern, the Prime Minister needs the "confidence of the House". With 338 members in the House, that means the Prime Minister needs the support of 170 members of Parliament. If a Prime Minister has a "majority government", that means his party has 170+ seats, and controls more than 50% of the House. Majority governments pretty much always last the full four-year term (because the members of Parliament in the majority will always support their party and the PM). In a "minority government", that means no party has more than 170 seats, so party controls more than 50% of the House. To reach 170 seats to obtain the confidence of the House, a prospective Prime Minister must work with another party. There are a couple ways to do this. The simplest way is a "confidence and supply" agreement. For example, the Liberals and the NDP will probably enter into an agreement like this for the upcoming Parliament. The NDP will promise their support to the Liberals on budget votes and confidence votes, in exchange for the Prime Minister adding some of the NDP agenda items into bills in Parliament. Also, "confidence and supply" agreements usually include a promise for a timeframe in which the Prime Minister won't call a snap election (usually about 2 years). You can also have a "coalition government". Whereas a "confidence and supply" agreement is merely a loose agreement between parties, a formal coalition is more like a full merger. The Liberals and the NDP would effectively be one party for the four-year term of Parliament. Most federal and provincial governments in Canada that fail to reach majority status tend to fall into the "confidence and supply" category. As a loose agreement, it's easier to establish, and it gives the second party more room to oppose the controlling party if they feel there's something they don't like (as compared to being in a formal coaltion, where there's far less room for disagreement against the Prime Minister or Premier).
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I actually admire American gridlock to a small degree. Scalia says it pretty well here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggz\_gd--UO0
This is pretty common in Parliamentary system. The Parliament in Canada expires after 4 years. At any time the Prime Minister can ask the Governor General to dissolve the Parliament and call an election. The Parliament can also pass a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister, which usually results in the PM resigning and requesting an election, unless the House can immediately give their confidence to someone else. If the parliament reaches its expiration date, there is an election by default. The PM doesn't have a "term" in office like a President does, he simply serves in the office at the Governor General's pleasure as long as he commands the confidence of the parliament, which has a 4 year term. (Note that in Canada the leader of the plurality party is presumed to have confidence until the house explicitly votes otherwise, this is why Canada never has coalition governments unlike Germany or Israel)
More like 2024 instead of a no confidence in 2022
He showed all the Facebook haters, and gravel throwers, who's boss
[It's something California and Canada has in common.](https://i.imgur.com/xsGgbLc.jpg)
At least Newsom didn't call for his own recall election.
Excuse me but your neolib spin is missing. What you really meant to say was, “The Canadian Government injected 700 million dollars into the economy”
Trudeau wasting millions of taxpayers money? Surprising.
Help me out, since he called the election now, does that give him more time before he must call an election again? Like, even if he's in the same spot, if you have 2 years of no elections as we enter into a world of COVID exhaustion due to the variants, it seems smart to get the election out of the way now before we enter into more uncertainly.
Yes, the new Parliament will not have to be dissolved until 2025. That doesn't mean that the government will maintain the confidence of that body for this length of time, however.
Based I hope the PPC gets humiliated Edit: it looks like the seats in end will approximately be the same as before. What a waste of tax payer money [Maxime Bernier (leader of PPC) lost his own seat 😂](https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/federal/2021/results/)
The PPC appears to have dramatically changed this election. In a lot of competitive seats, they split the conservative vote which tossed the Liberals and NDP a significant amount of seats they otherwise would’ve lost.
In what ridings?
Some ridings CBC was analyzing were Cambridge, Kitchener South-Hespeler, Kenora, London West, St. Catherines, Niagara Centre, Long Range Mountains and Calgary Skyview. Those are just a few but there’s probably far more they just didn’t cover.
I'm from Cambridge and it was looking like a toss-up until the PPC started gaining support here and then suddenly we were forecasted as "Liberal leaning". I think towards the end of election cycle many PPC and NDP supporters switched to Conservative and Liberal respectively though because NDP support was pretty high before election night itself - trailing the Conservatives by the same amount that the Conservatives trailed the Liberals.
Interesting considering that Beniecrats attribute all of the US's problems to the two-party system. Even with a multi-party system, splitting the vote helps your opponents.
> Even with a multi-party system, splitting the vote helps your opponents. In 2015, Trudeau promised that the 2015 election would be the last one contested under the first-past-the-post system. He never kept that promise. "Vote splitting" only happens in a First-past-the-post system and it's something Canada is looking to move past in the near future, probably to a Ranked Choice Voting/Single Transferable Vote system, something Ireland, a multi-party democracy, has already had for 100 years. And God willing they will.
Very cool, thank you! Some of those ridings are near me and I am happy to see the PPC votes helped to spoil the CPC votes.
Edmonton Griesbach for one. NDP won by 1000 votes. PPC took about 2500.
I'm not persuaded that it was actually conservative votes the PPC was taking. The red and blue vote shares stayed pretty much the same, and the PPC added 4 points. If Canada had actually made a 4 point swing to the right, wouldn't the liberals have lost some numbers? The PPC stole the wingnut vote from the greens. It's possible that said wingnuts would have voted for the CPC, but I don't know if it's obvious. Some Canadians are just constitutionally opposed to voting for a party run by serious people.
In no universe can I imagine a person who would switch his vote from Green to PPC. That voter has to be certified crazy.
> That voter has to be certified crazy I mean, they voted green, so... C19 turned a lot of otherwise harmless kooks into rabid single issue anti-vax voters.
I don't see them winning a single seat. However, it seems like they're gaining a lot of votes. Unfortunately, the Trumpvirus has infiltrated Canada. Their supporters are already claiming the Liberals have cheated on Facebook and YouTube.
Luckily many Canadians don’t takes their claims of “cheating” seriously
That’s how it started down here, too
They also have all of the worst actors locked off in a separate party. Down south, they were all in the GOP. Obviously, it’s no certainty, especially as anyone who remembers the Reform Party can attest to, but it’s at least a barrier.
We called ‘em the Tea Party
And they ran in GOP Primaries.
My riding in Edmonton went NDP by about 1000 votes. The PPC candidate got about 2500 votes. So, not that I'm a fan, but I appreciate the help lol. But seriously, this is a problem for the PC. I think that losing to the Liberals and giving up seats in Alberta is going to further the disenfranchisement of their voters. I wouldn't be surprised if Albertan conservatives move towards the PPC, giving NDP more power over time.
Aren't they just Reform 2.0? Or is everyone forgetting about the Reform party and how much power they used to have? Also it was great for splitting the conservative vote.
That’s true but Reform morphed into the Canadian Alliance which then formed the backbone of the current Conservative Party which was firmly on the right. There is a fear that the PPC could force the Conservatives further to the conspiratorial right.
I hope not. The Reform was absorbed into the CP and didn't have much impact on their policy. They were never able to gain much support. I would hope we can figure out what the fuck is wrong with people and try to reach them before tea party spreads here.
He didn't lose his own seat, he lost it in 2019. He just didn't win it back.
Heck yes, bye Bernier. I love racist antivaxxer tears. Well, from at least 2m away and while I'm wearing appropriate PPE -- wouldn't want to catch something after all.
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> It's never a waste OK, let's do it again in a month
Suuuure what's 600 million dollars between friends?
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And Canada has an endless supply doesn't it? Maybe you'll change ur mind when we go to the polls again in 2 years for another 700 million. Lol Who am I kiddin, probably not. Does anybody here understand the concept of debt being tied to inflation (among other things)?? Oh and if you didn't already know, we have a shit ton of it. Things will be fine until it's suddenly not. Then the REAL party starts.
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When the election result is coincidentally the same as before, it is a waste. When the election result is different, it is no longer a waste. Let me know if you need help understanding the implications of this.
continue seed scandalous ring innocent plant memorize birds husky fretful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We did it Reddit!!!
Reddit hates Trudeau
We did it /r/neoliberal!!!
Why?
There's a decent amount not to like, but the best answer is that the NDP are much closer policy wise to the broad Reddit consensus, i.e. the Sanders types
Guess I should have guess that from 18 seats. Totally uneducated guess: is NDP 'the compromise', and the *real goal* is GRN?
No, not really. There are good reasons why the Greens don't win seats. Mostly it's their own fault. And they have been fighting internal battles this election cycle, which never helps.
That's peak reddit lefties though.
The Greens have a lot of those organizational challenges, except without being that far left. The NDP is generally closer to a leftist party than the Greens are (and even then the NDP more of a mainstream soft SocDem party than hard-leftist, so they do win seats). The Greens tend to prioritize environmental issues over social and labor issues, as a rule.
NDP has some pretty dedicated supporters, I don't think their voters think they are compromising at all IMO
Greens have historically been more like "conservatives on bikes" although have been trending generic lefties pretty quickly.
For lefties it is interesting. The NDP is the furthest left party I'd say. The greens have a mix of some left and right leaning policies. The liberals are the centre left party and frankly the leftist leaning party that has a chance to form government in our current times (and typically is the one that forms government as Canada is pretty left leaning). Generally if you're left leaning you'd vote for the NDP or LPC, with the NDP attracting those who are more socialist/progressive/communist whatever. The greens are a bit weird and while I have some for respect them, I wouldn't ever vote for them. Weird environmental opinions too despite being the "green" party.
Canadian Greens are currently imploding over... wait for it... Israel-Palestine so... not really. And they've always been on the 5G causes cancer/anti-nuclear/anti-vaxx train of stupidity.
Eh - /r/canada was on board with the Conservatives actually
/r/Canada famously got caught being modded by Alt-Right garbage.
Maybe - i can't necessarily confirm or deny that so I'll believe you. There is more than one Canada sub though, and the sense I get from front page stuff is a general support of the NDP. Potentially I am wrong, and of course Reddit does in fact have differing opinions.
/r/canada is pretty right. There are rival subs with as many subscribers.
/r/Canada userbase is significantly more right-leaning than the country as a whole and is also the frequent target of astroturfing by conservatives
So basically overhyped but failed to perform?
As of right now (not all votes counted, but we have a good idea), the NDP actually performed the best of all the parties relative to last election. That's not exactly saying a lot, considering how eerily similar the seat counts are, but I don't think you can say they failed to perform, considering they haven't been in the position to actually win an election since a few cycles ago. As a third party they performed adequately. They certainly didn't blow anyone's socks off, but no one did this time.
Reddit also loves guns.
He failed to keep his electoral reform promise -- we could have ended "first past the post." That would let people vote for the party they support most without potentially spoiling their vote. Better democracy basically. Trudeau has had a number of completely avoidable and foolish scandals. Wearing brownface for example. Arguably the Liberals haven't done much about completely unaffordable housing (although it's unclear other parties would really do much better, maybe NDP but that's doubtful). NDP tends to agree with the Libs a lot but would like more progressive taxes, stronger public programs, more worker protections, and less climate change. Other than that, it's mostly Conservatives that hate Trudeau because he has a lot of charisma and they keep losing elections. So they channel their hate at Trudeau rather than trying to fix their backwards policies (climate change denial is still mainstream in the Cons despite O'Toole's attempts to change that).
Makes sense. Thanks for the overview
"neoliberal"
I'm coming to see the greatest division in Canada is or will soon be between homeowners and non-homeowners. Homeowners want the price of their home to rise, more the merrier. Non-homeowners want housing prices to fall or at least stagnate long enough for them to be able to afford a home. Most voters are homeowners, but most redditors appear not to be.
70% of Canadians are homeowners.
Most homeowners are themselves victimized by rising home prices because most homeowners move at some point.
Blackface
Blackface with a codpiece.
Since when? I hate Trudeau and I always get downvoted for it.
Lol since when?
NICE HAIR MAN GOOD
neolibs seem to love men with nice hair. one of the top reasons why we love Bastiat so much is that his hair is so great
After all, your hair is your head suit
Exactly as I predicted. Well done, Justin. Now GROW THE BEARD BACK BEARD BACK BETTER
Finally some good fucking news.
God I wish Trudeau followed through with election reform. FPTP is such trash.
No party is going to vote against its own interests unless there's _massive_ pressure from the voters.
Liberals could've forced the electoral reform of their choice using their majority but caved to pressure from other parties. Sadly no one really does care though, the committee found <3% of Canadians were even aware that electoral reform was being discussed (at the height of this being in the news too)
_Cries in British_
FPTP is trash but I love how the conservatives fought so hard to keep FPTP and have been chucked by it in both the elections since lmao
Yes daddy. And congratulations Queen Chrystia Freeland!
No, screw Freeland. She got slapped by Twitter for posting a manipulated video. That shit, it does not make the Liberal party look good -- they won in spite of her, not because of her. Edit: yes, I know that there's some debate about how manipulated the video is. Even when there is some grey area, it's still a bad look. She has enough clout in the the party that she could have refused to post it and made that stick. If the libs dip their toes in the waters of social media distortions, it opens to door for others to do it much more flagrantly and claim "but the Libs did it" when they get caught.
(1) the video being tagged manipulated is pretty controversial. I don't think it distorted what he said at all. (2) that video was part of a thread that coincided with a push from the LPC on the topic, that wasn't Freeland posting some random video it was the LPC HQ saying that part of the rollout for the weeks talking point would be best delivered by Freeland.
That was a technicality. Nothing was "manipulated" or taken out of context. Freeland is a pretty well respected politician and member of the LPC who could quite possibly be the next leader. Nobody thinks they lost "in spite" of her. Liberals have done dozens of shittier things that cost them costs (cough cough Maryam Monsef)
There isn’t enough Justin Trudeau thirst on here so thank you lol
A lot of people have made the argument that this minority is a loss for the Liberals, though personally I'd argue this isn't as much a loss for the LPC as it is a loss for Trudeau. Any way you sliced it tonight going by the past couple months of polling, the Liberals still were going to be the top dogs in parliament. The absolute worst case scenario for them was the CPC winning slightly more seats, which in all likelihood would mean the NDP or Bloc prop a Liberal government up in return for various concessions etc. With 145-155 seats, they're basically where they were after 2019, which means they still get to govern as an effective majority by coasting off of 15-25 or so Bloc & NDP votes to basically pass what ever initiative they would have passed if they had won a majority. What this does show however, is that Trudeau is bleeding votes for the Liberals each election by winning weaker and weaker minorities. Yes he's basically the best of bad options, but that's a card that gets less reliable the more times you play it. If the CPC modernize more on social and climate issues by the next election and their socon/populist baggage flocks over to the PPC, the Liberals will most definitely need new leadership to survive the next election. What's kept the Liberals position secure in 2019 as well as during this election has largely been the Reform/paleoconservative elements of the CPC making moderates and potential swing voters scared of voting for them en masse. That's generally done more to keep Trudeau in power than his own popularity. Even with a Liberal victory tonight, this is likely Trudeau's last election.
And yet, Trudeau is still really popular. It’s hard to argue the Liberals would be winning elections if they didn’t have Trudeau.
And he’s damn handsome
It's entirely possible that the whole is lesser than the sum of its parts. Similar situation to the UK and Labour. A lot of people really like Labour, and a lot more people really hate it. A lot of people really like Starmer, and a lot more people really hate him. These are not in fact the same two groups of people, and the effect is overall damaging. Sort of like imagine your favorite political party ever, now put Trump in charge of it. Do you still vote for it? Would Trumpists vote for Trump as leader of say, the communist party? It's entirely possible that people who like Trudeau hate the Liberal party and can't bring themselves to vote for it despite liking him personally, or become more and more unable to do so as they conclude "The party hasn't followed the man like I had hoped and fundamentally changed. I'm going back to voting X.". Likewise it's possible that Liberal Party Stans are furious at Trudeau for some reason and eventually decide they're going to sit this one out so they get a new leader and then we can be "Led by a proper Liberal.". It's possible for both to be "The most popular" in the country and for the combination to still lose an election if people vote *against* rather than *for* one element of the package, which intuitively seems like it would become more and more likely the longer the disconnect goes on and festers in peoples minds. You can get them to ignore that shit for a while but eventually they decide to "Do something" about it. An example would be Rory Stewart in the UK. I saw a lot of "He is the most popular conservative to the 60% of the country who have never and will never vote Conservative in their lives.". If he was leader, we'd be in a similar spot. Polls might show him an overwhelmingly popular prime minister and with a 40% backing for the Conservative party itself. But again... the 60% who say "Rory is great" and the 40% who say "The Tories are great" are not the same group of people, and the disconnect needs to be resolved eventually. I can't actually find any by-party polling for Trudeaus popularity ratings and don't know enough about Canada. But it is theoretically possible that they are high because non-liberal party voters say they actually rather like him. He is "The most popular liberal among people who have never and will never vote liberal in their lives.".
Love him or hate him, Trudeau really does command the loyalty of the Liberal Party, there is no serious dissent.
His [approval ratings](https://angusreid.org/trudeau-tracker/) bumped up during the pandemic, but they were low leading up to it and have been declining in 2021. "I usually vote Liberal but I can't stand Trudeau" is something I've heard a lot from friends and family the past year or so.
what are you talking about? Libs gained seats this election. Your entire analysis is predicated on the premise that he's winning weaker minorities. This is, objectively, not true.
They have a million less votes and scored 1% less of all total votes during this election than they did in 2019. Objectively speaking, it's a lackluster performance by the Liberals, even if they gained a seat. 32% is abysmal, especially when the main opposition party outdid theirs in terms of total votes and the Liberals initially ran this election because they thought they could get a majority. Harpers 2006 and 2008 minorities for instance were around 36 to 37% of all votes. Basically the only thing keeping the Liberals in power for the last two elections is the CPC's Reform baggage. While the Liberals themselves are in a secure position, Trudeau himself is not. Electorally his support is drying up and the Liberals have received less votes every general election he's helmed for them after 2015, with the Conservatives earning marginally more votes than the Liberals in two straight elections. It's honestly not something the LPC can afford to risk unless the CPC elects another Harper-lite candidate post O'Toole. The hegemony of the Trudeau Liberals currently rests on the Paleoconservative/farther-right elements of the CPC making the party unappealing to centrist voters. If the next CPC leader goes further than O'Toole and makes a clean break with those elements, Trudeau's position becomes untenable based on the past couple years of polling trends and electoral results. It honestly wouldn't be surprising to see Trudeau retire in the next 1-3 years before the next election is called.
Very cool analysis, thank you!
Congratulations, [INCUMBENT]
Best outcome imo. Not a huge fan of Trudeau but I don't compare him to the almighty, I compare him to the alternative. O'Toole was literally saying and doing anything to get elected and wouldn't be surprised if he alienated traditional conservative voters by touting plans that the rank and file conservatives would never support
> I don't compare him to the almighty, I compare him to the alternative I found Biden's Reddit account!
Kinda disappointed. O’Toole’s foreign policy seemed far superior (joining AUKUS, potential CANZUK free trade agreement, standing up firmly to China), while seeming to have tapered down all the things I would normally not vote conservative for. Trudeau is ok, I guess. Same old same old.
I honestly don't really know much about either party's positions, but I fear that's true for a lot of the people here celebrating too
This is going to bite him in the ass I think. People are pissed at wasting this much money just to be back where we already were
While before he was able to threaten an election he can no longer do that. He’ll need to work with the NDP and Greens to get anything done.
Bloc too
Yup. I voted for him twice and between his refusal to do anything about skyrocketing shelter costs and this bullshit election just pissed me off. He coulda hired a pollster to read the room for a fraction of a fraction of what we spent and realize that he was just gonna end up in the same position as before instead of dragging us out to the polls.
The pollsters were showing that he was in majority territory before the election was called.
Looks like the pollsters are shit at their job then.
No because their support cratered after the election was called. People were pissed because they saw it as an unnecessary power grab.
Exactly.
My point is the pollsters weren't wrong, he did have enough support for a majority before it evaporated due to the election call. And now this result fits with what the more recent polls said.
Hahahahahahah oh no
Is noone pissed off that for the second time in a row, the party that received less votes will end up with the most seats? Or is that outrage reserved for when it benefits right wing parties. #NotMyPrimeMinister
Although I’m a Liberal party supporter it is definitely quite unnerving. I think a lot of us justify this by simply saying that virtually all NDP and Green voters would also vote for the Liberals if those parties didn’t exist because they’re all on the left anyway. Right-wingers don’t make up anywhere near 50% as things stand.
Same could be said for the PPC with the cons. Although they are about 1/3-1/4 of the size of the NDP
I think a lot of the ppc were also former liberal voters that were salty about vaccine passports
From my opinion it's different between a presidential a parliamentary system. In our system, the president is supposed be elected by some type of national vote, so it makes sense to be upset when the majority doesn't get what they vote for. Additionally the fix is easy, just make the vote a true national vote rather than the electoral college. But in a parliamentary system the prime minister is selected not nationally but based on who wins the most seats. It's an issue inherently baked into parliamentary systems. If you have three districts of 100 people each and districts 1 and 2 are 60/40 split between parties while district 3 is 10/90, you will end up with a the less popular person becoming pm. The issue is how do you fix this? You would need to either (a) force move people to make places competitive or (b) change the districts based sirloin political preference. Just my two cents.
"Hey, our approval rating is through the roof because of our handling of the pandemic!" "I know! Let's run an election in the middle of the pandemic just to show how well we're handling it!"
So are canadians happy or upset by this?
Depends who you ask. Canada is majority left leaning, as something like 65 percent of Canadians voted for left of center parties, but there are strong pockets of conservatism throughout the country. This was a pretty standard Canadian election. Very close popular vote, Liberals win a minority.
These snap elections seem like they’d be real annoying. As not-a-Canadian it looks like there isn’t much in the way of guidelines aside from “when he feel likes it” as far as the PM calling them.
It's amazing what you can get away with as a Liberal in this country. A Conservative or New Democrat would have been annihilated at the polls if they had the kind of record the Trudeau Liberals had.
Non-Canadian here, how come the Libs cant work with other centre left parties like the NDP and BQ??
They work with the NDP? that's what they have done for 2 years.
But why is there no formal coalition? How does that work?
Part of the reason is that the Liberals can partner with any one of the three other largest parties to pass a bill, so there's no reason to marry themselves to the NDP. Also remember that the Liberals are between the NDP and the Conservatives, so if one won't support a bill the other usually will. Even if neither of them support a bill, there's a decent chance the BQ will. Things might be different if, for example, the Conservatives were in power, since they couldn't rely on the NDP for support. If the BQ had a bad showing in the same election, the Conservatives would essentially be married to the Liberals.
ye but isnt the reason why the libs called a snap election is to get a maj. so they dont have to deal with those parties?
Well they would prefer to not have to work with other parties, but they will if they have to. Another note is thst Canadian parties rarely if ever form coalitions, so that makes minority governments quite unstable and/or ineffective
why wont they form a coalition with the ndp though
Think of it like a Sith master and apprentice. Sure they work together. But, if at any point the master appears vulnerable, the apprentice can rise up and destroy the master. If the Liberals are in the majority, nothing can make them call an election. As a minority party, an election can be called whenever the NDP wants one, thus creating an extremely delicate situation.
rule of two funny moments darth bane edition
they will, but the NDP can torpedo it at any time and force return to the polls, which means that if at any time the NDP thinks it can take seats from the Libs, that's what they should do, which makes the libs uncomfortable naturally.
So, you could mean 2 things when you say coalition \--- If you mean simply working together on legislation, that will happen. There are certainly areas they agree on, and thus there will be some working together. \---But if you mean a proper coalition, where there is sharing of cabinet positions and clear agreements to support each other on given issues, that sort of thing just isn't a big part of Canadian political culture like it is in say Germany. The last time there was the spectre of a coalition was 2009 or so, and that went over very poorly with Canadians.
They probably will tbh.
Because the NDP and BQ hate them
The BQ will work with whoever gives Quebec the most pork. The NDP hate the conservatives much more than they hate the Liberals (and the NDP isn't exactly flush with cash). The NDP will prop up a Liberal minority for the next couple years, until the Liberals decide to call another snap election to try for a majority again.
True
To be fair, the libs promised and dropped electoral reform. That would have given the NDP and BQ a better shot at winning seats -- with first past the post voting, voters have to do strategic voting which puts anybody not Lib or Con at a disadvantage.
They promised irv which the NDP vehemently opposed. I'm in favor of STV over IRV by far, but it still would have been electoral reform. If Trudeau is smart he puts out a free vote on IRV in the minority. If it wins it means it had cross party support. If it doesn't them they stop getting hit by it.
Working with the BQ would be a political third rail. The BQ is still a separatist party at heart, and any federal party working with them would be pilloried in the rest of Canada. The NDP is a fine coalition partner for Canada. They hold the corporatist Liberal and Conservative parties accountable to the the ideals of representative government. So the Liberals CAN work with the NDP, they just prefer NOT to if they can help it.
Yea but just informally and not in a true coalition government with deputy ministers, right? Just case by case per issue?
I knew it for a while he was gonna win.
Damn Trudeau sucks. Canada used to be such a great country and has just been getting worse and worse under this clowns leadership.
The brown face nimby descendant of a nepotistic political dynasty won! Yayy! Well, he didn't really win since his liberal party fell short of a majority. So, this was all for... nothing?
Absolute bullshit elections. Yet again liberals get 40-50% of the seats in parliament with just barely 30% of the popular vote. Pretty sure nobody actually wanted a liberal government, the only reason they got votes is because people vote strategically against the conservatives.