A hung parliament is not a big surprise, with the Liberals remaining in power, but the seat math is perhaps a bit closer than some had anticipated. The Conservatives only gained a handful of seats, and probably not enough for Andrew Scheer to quell any discontent that will start bubbling up in the ranks after such an uninspiring campaign. The NDP have lost almost half of their seats, meaning all the supposed “momentum” and the “upriSingh” that they kept touting didn’t translate into votes – but that’s what happens when you don’t have the organization capable of mobilizing your votes. The Greens only picked up an extra seat (at the time of this writing), one in Fredericton, where they had provincial strength, but it was certainly not the “Green wave” that they kept boasting about (not a surprise there either). The Bloc is now the third party in the Commons, meaning they’ll have a bigger role to play on committees – something they used to be very good at, once upon a time – but we’ll also see if any of the other parties will start to cope with the “new” block that is far more about Quebec nationalism than it is sovereignty, and that they are the federal voice of François Legault. And Maxime Bernier has lost his seat, so hopefully the fan club that he masqueraded as a party will dissolve entirely rather than solidify into a far-right movement.
To that end, Jack Harris won for the NDP in St. John’s, and he was a good MP in previous parliaments, so he’ll have to carry a lot of weight now that their ranks are diminished. Ralph Goodale was defeated in Saskatchewan, which is a huge loss of capacity for the Cabinet, because he did so much of the heavy lifting. The Liberals lost their Alberta seats, Amarjeet Sohi losing to Tim Uppal, who lives in Ottawa and has no plans to move back to the riding; Kent Hehr also losing the only Liberal seat in Calgary. Also, Lisa Raitt lost her seat to Adam van Koeverden, which will also hurt the Conservatives.
Trudeau’s loss of representation in the West is going to be a big problem for him, particularly because he ejected all of his senators from his caucus, and it was not unheard of for the Liberals to fill in the gaps in their representation with their Senators, and now they don’t have that. People have suggested that maybe Trudeau could appoint Goodale to the Senate in order to fill that gap (and there is a vacant Senate seat from Saskatchewan), but that will involve him eating a whole lot of crow, and possibly forcing him to rethink some of his ham-fisted moves around the Senate. It’s possible, but I’m not hopeful for that change of heart. But now we’re going to get a bunch of really bad hot takes about Alberta talking about separation or other such ridiculous nonsense, because Jason Kenney still has his punching bag and scapegoat.
https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1186353921800863744
And now we’re already getting a lot of really dumb hot takes on hung parliaments, with ridiculous statements like “Canadians voted for a minority,” which no, they did not do, and “Canadians are forcing cooperation because they couldn’t get proportional representation,” which again is not how this goes. As for the seat math, because the Liberals are so close to majority territory, it means that they are unlikely to have to form any kind of form agreement with any other party, but will be able to cobble together votes on an issue-by-issue basis, which makes all of the talk about red-lines and demands beforehand kind of dumb (as I pointed out in this column).
Good reads:
- There were new robocalls being reported telling people that the polls were a day later, along with other problems with power outages and staffing.
- Here’s a long-read that tried to trace how the election ended up being about “nothing” (assiduously avoiding the media’s culpability).
- Senator André Pratte has tendered his resignation from the Senate, but was a bit vague as to why.
- Dominic LeBlanc spent election night at a hospital in Montreal to get a bone marrow transplant as part of his cancer treatment.
- Susan Delacourt notes the tougher job that Trudeau has when it comes to his caucus now that he has no margins for safety or rebellion.
- Colby Cosh pens a thoughtful column about how so many mechanisms of our state have put us into a kind of autopilot, which has made our elections pathological.
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The danger for the liberals going forward is that machine politics which has effectively muzzled Trudeau will be more firmly entrenched giving Trudeau even less latitude in convincing his party and the NDP to really pull together on “reasonably priced programs which will be of most benefit to Canadians. The danger for the conservatives is the plain fact that they cannot or are unwilling to provide a positive platform on climate change, housing needs or a move to an economy that relies less on fossil fuels.
The Dippers are bankrupt, shrill, and beyond useless. I don’t even think they want to work *with* the Liberals on *anything* reasonable. Instead they want — no, *expect* — the Liberals to capitulate to their unrealistic ransom demands. Like they’re going to hold the government hostage with 24 seats and no cash. Irresponsible, spoiled children who’ve let unwarranted self-importance go to their heads.
I hope to see them shrink to irrelevance in 1974 (I mean 2022) when Pierre (I mean Justin) pulls the plug on his own government, wins a majority, and engineers *their* defeat along with the Progressive (I mean Regressive) Conservatives. Good riddance to a bunch of armchair hecklers and their plan to have no plan.
Is the dream of the 1990’s returning never going to die for Susan Delacourt? All she wants is the return of the Ye Olde Liberal Party fights between Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin where MPs were calling her during caucus meetings to grouse and betray secrets. She is forever hoping for some kind of backbencher revolt or whatever that never happens. Wish she’s stop just applying the 1990’s government lead by Jean Chrétien to today. Things change.
There are some interesting long-game possibilities for the smaller opposition parties. With control of the committees, they could reconstitute the one on electoral reform. Both the Conservatives and the NDP have previously voted for PR, and might be expected to do so again. The Bloc and the Greens would probably go for it. And that would have been the last election under first-past-the-post, to coin a phrase.
I guess you’re a fan of perpetual minority governments, multiple elections per year, and months, not weeks, hashing out government formation. Who doesn’t love a dog’s breakfast and an endless Jerry Springer show? But hey, as long as “every vote counts” and you can “vote with your heart” instead of your head. Love chaos? PropRep is the answer for you.
What are they going to do without Ralph Goodale?
Why are media types being so critical of Trudeau’s speech last night (apart from the timing kerfuffle)? I didn’t hear it, but I read the transcript, and it seemed a good speech to me, and didn’t resort to anything like the bitterness that lingered in Scheer’s speech. Maybe not everything in the past was great, but I’d sure like to see a return to dignity in these moments.
You follow QP pretty closely so is there a David Emerson in Alberta or Saskatchewan MPs? I mean one or more MPs who would cross the floor to join Cabinet? They can’t all be partisan ideologues like Ms. Rempel?
Unlikely, particularly given just how overwhelming most of their margins were.