When Justin Trudeau forced a federal election on Canadians last month in a self-centred effort to land a majority government, one of the recurring questions was “How much would things actually change?”
As it turned out, very little.
And for the status quo, we spent $610 million.
Thanks for nothing.
As of Tuesday morning, the Liberals won 158 seats in the federal election, which is one more than the 157 seats they won in 2019.
The Liberals had a strong minority before the election. They have a strong minority now. They won’t have to forge a formal coalition with the New Democratic Party (NDP) or the Bloc Quebecois, although they can offer certain concessions to those two parties to get their support on confidence motions.
The opposition Conservatives won 119 seats, the same number they had before the election. They won 121 in 2019.
The Bloc Quebecois won 34 seats on Monday night, up two from what they had two years ago.
The NDP crept up from 24 two years to 25 this year.
And the Green Party won two seats, the same number they had before the election, but down one from the 2019 election.
There might be some changes in the final numbers due to the impact of mail-in ballots, which weren’t tabulated on election night, but the shift won’t be much, not enough to justify the cost of the election to Canadians.
And all of this cost us $610 million. During a pandemic. After a summer in which our country has been battling extreme heat, forest fires and drought. At a time in which the government should have been focused on other pressing issues.
We get the feeling the Canadian Taxpayers Federation will have a field day with this one.
While we will always be champions of democracy, citizen engagement and getting out to vote, it’s elections like this that result in voter apathy. Taxpayers spent big money on an election that changed nothing, that really served no purpose and only further exposed the rifts currently existing in our country.
It means we’re going to get more of the same in Parliament. And since we have a Liberal minority, it means we’ll likely have another election in 18-24 months.
We’ve seen that Canadians opinions of Trudeau are about the same as where they were two years ago. He lost the popular vote once again. He failed to get a majority government once again.
Perhaps it’s time for the Liberals have to ask themselves whether this is as good as it will get for them with Trudeau as leader. And when they ask themselves that question, they need to remember the deputy prime minister, Crystia Freeland, is a stronger leader.
As for the Tories, they’re in the same place where they were two years ago. That’s not a good thing. Erin O’Toole might be a stronger leader than Andrew Scheer, but the results were virtually the same. Win the popular vote. Wind up in opposition. They lost some votes, no doubt to the People’s Party of Canada, and lost a couple of seats.
There is, of course, one difference. Scheer managed to snag electoral defeat from the jaws of victory in 2019. This time around, at the start of the campaign, most expected the Liberals to win a majority government.
His efforts to move the party closer to the centre in an effort to win votes in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver didn’t work.
He’s staying on as leader, but it’s not a guarantee he’ll still be the leader for the next election campaign, whenever that might be.
The Bloc, the NDP and the Greens received the support you would expect. It was interesting to see the impact the People’s Party had on this election, but it translated to them playing spoiler in some ridings. They’re still out of Parliament.
It was the election that nobody wanted, with the result nobody wanted. It’s frustrating that voters rewarded Trudeau for forcing this election on us, an election that brought no change. They sent a message by not giving him the majority he coveted, but a stronger message could have been sent.
Instead, Trudeau has cost us $610 million.
