How Canada's Federal Election Somehow Managed to Disappoint Everyone
Following the snap election, Liberals are still short of a parliamentary majority. Yet, in its attempt to gain more appeal, the Conservative party has entirely left its voters behind.
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It's truly remarkable when an election manages to leave nobody happy, yet Canada's federal election somehow disappointed all parties involved. As many news outlets were quick to point out, it's results were a near repeat of the 2019 election just two year prior. Despite the numerically similar results, however, the election this time around was an affair that everybody lost.
For one, this federal election didn't even need to happen. It was originally scheduled for 2023, but sensing an opportunity to gain political leverage, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unexpectedly called a snap election, moving the date forward two years. Furthermore, he allowed all Canadian parties just 36 days to campaign (the shortest period allowed by Canadian law). Make no mistake, the Canadian Liberal Party desperately wanted a big win, and sought to give themselves every possible advantage heading into the election, including a head-start. Despite budget deficits not seen since World War Two, the 2021 election was also the most expensive in Canadian history, totaling $470 million USD. The unprecedented funding was used, in part, to introduce a wave of mail-in ballots expected to shift the election’s balance in the Liberal's favor. Despite these unscrupulous efforts to edge out the competition, however, the Liberals added a measly 3 seats to their previous sum of 155, 12 short of the coveted 170 seat majority.
Despite this seemingly optimistic statistic, however, the Canadian Conservatives failed to mount any meaningful resistance against Trudeau's Liberal party. While, on the surface, they may have performed better in the popular vote, winning 34.1% to the Liberal party's 31.8%, the Canadian election's ruleset saw the Conservatives lose 2 overall seats. Coming into this election with 121 seats, the Canadian Conservative Party left with 119. Worse yet, electoral footholds that have traditionally belonged to Canada's Tories are ceding ground to the Liberal party, possibly indicating an unfortunate trend. The Conservatives suffered big losses in British Columbia, most notably in metro-Vancouver and the Vancouver suburbs, decreasing their hold from 17 seats to 13. Furthermore, the Liberals managed to sneak back into Alberta, despite having been completely driven out just two years prior. In 2021 however, Liberals have reestablished their presence in the rural province, although they gained only one seat.
Also, although Conservatives still retain a considerable 119 seat presence in Canada's parliament and the Liberal party technically lacks a majority, Canada's left still has a majority in all but name. The New Democrats, or NDP, won 25 seats, more than enough to push the Liberals over the top. And, while the NDP has been critical of Trudeau's leadership on lockdowns and budgets, it's because the socialist party believes that the Canadian PM isn't enough of a leftist. The NDP represents the Canadian equivalent of the American far left, replacing the core value of equal opportunity with implicitly socialist calls for various forms of “equity”. They believe that in modern day Canada of all places, “indigenous and racialized people are facing a frightening evolution of hate”, and desire a “national action plan” that would mobilize the government against organizations they deem “far right”. The NDP website warns that we are in the midst of a “climate crisis” and the party prides itself on its puritan commitments to reduce carbon emissions at all costs, even if their attempt at a greener environment destroys the Canadian economy in the process. They vow to entirely ban single use plastics, reduce the nation's Carbon emissions to zero, and impose severe financial sanctions on the oil industry. In true Canadian fashion, the NDP even seek to enshrine “the right to a healthy environment” in a “Canadian Environmental Bill of Rights”, thus demonstrating their fundamental misunderstanding what rights even are. In short, the party that the Liberals need to appease to claim a 170 seat majority are even further left than they are, and if a future compromise between the Liberals and NDP happens to establish a majority, it will surely be one that is even farther left than if Trudeau had simply won outright.
If all that wasn't disappointing enough for conservatives to hear, there's one particularly unfortunate caveat that makes the whole affair even worse. The Canadian Conservative party wasn't even all that conservative to begin with. The Conservative candidate for PM, Erin O'Toole notably sold out on many key issues that were historically central to Canada's Tory party. Despite criticizing PM Trudeau for impeding the “regular and social life” of Canadian citizens, for example, O'Toole hypocritically pledged to institute a travel-based vaccine mandate and vowed to increase Canada's vaccination rate to 90%. In a separate instance of selling out the party's principles, O'Toole reversed course on his campaign promise to repeal Trudeau's legal anti-gun initiative, Canadian Bill C17. The legislation added 30 amendments to preexisting gun control legislation, instituting a centralized gun registration system and banning what the government deemed to be “assault-style weapons”. Yet, during a campaign speech, O'Toole verbally reversed course on his previous assurances, telling the audience that, “It's critically important for me to say to Canadians today that we are going to maintain the ban on assault weapons, we're going to maintain the restrictions that were put in place in 2020”. Furthermore, the Tory platform was edited to reflect that all 1,500 firearms banned by the Trudeau administration would remain banned if O'Toole was elected. In terms of rhetoric, O'Toole proudly proclaimed that Canada's Conservative party is “not your dad's conservative party anymore”, ushering in a sharp left turn. As a consequence, the party which seemingly acted as a check on the Liberal's unrestrained political will became a left wing party like any other. By the end of the campaign, O'Toole's Conservatives shamelessly championed increased immigration, pandered to the LGBT lobby, reversed course on budget cuts, and supported imposing carbon taxes. Even Trudeau, in a rare moment of accurate analysis, criticized O'Toole for his two-faced conduct throughout the election season, noting that he would say anything to get elected.
The only option in Canada that gives conservatives and classical liberals alike a voice is the People's Party of Canada. Their platform for the last election was unabashedly pro-gun, pledging to undo both C17 and Canada's Firearms Act, which transforms Canadian's natural right to bear arms into “a privilege that can be revoked or altered at any moment”. The PPC also wants to fundamentally restructure Canada's immigration system, halting the regime of mass migration currently in place, noting that, currently, “only 26% of all the immigrants and refugees who come to Canada every year are directly chosen because they have the right qualifications”. They further criticize Trudeau's Liberal administration for “deliberately attempting to erase our [Canadian] borders”, denouncing it for allowing the flow of tens of thousands of illegal “asylum seekers” into the country over the last three years. The PPC maintains that Canada has done its part in helping refugees across the world, notably resettling more refugees than any other country in 2018, which is an effort that is disproportionate to other developed nations. In a further departure from Canada's allegedly Conservative party, the PPC also decries the left's incessant “climate change alarmism”, which it insists, “is based on flawed models that have consistently failed at correctly predicting the future”. Also, unlike the Conservative party, the PPC rejects carbon taxes and other costly financial disincentives meant to overhaul the Canadian energy industry.
Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the Canadian election, however, is that this alternative party that sounded too good to be true turned out to be just that. Although the result wasn't entirely unexpected, the People's Party of Canada failed to win a single seat.
Thus, while it's still unclear if Canadians are deprived of genuine, institutionally-backed conservative options or have simply grown content with the repressive regime that rules their once-free nation, it is starting to seem that the latter answer is more likely. Either way, don't expect any changes, or conservative policy, out of Canada any time soon.