Justin Trudeau hangs on for another Liberal minority

Thestar.com
Sept. 21, 2021

Canadian voters handed Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau a third term in government in an outcome that nearly mirrored the electoral result in the 2019 election and reflected ambivalence if not anger toward the prime minister who triggered a snap election in a pandemic.

After an uninspired and uninspiring campaign that failed to catch voters’ imagination, preliminary results showed the Liberal party leading or elected in 158 seats. The Conservatives were leading in 121. The Bloc Québécois was at 31 seats and the NDP at 26.

When he emerged close to 1:30 in the morning, Trudeau rejected the notion the country is divided, saying the message he took was that Canadians want their MPs to deliver “real and important change” of the variety he had proposed, including ending the pandemic. “I’m ready to continue this fight.” He thanked other leaders for “being part of this important political moment.”

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole conceded defeat after midnight in a private call to Trudeau. But he was publicly defiant about the result and his own attempts to drag his party towards the political centre.

“Tonight Canadians did not give Mr. Trudeau the majority mandate he wanted,” O’Toole said in Oshawa. “Mr. Trudeau was hoping for a quick power grab,” and O’Toole said “we need to continue the fight,” warning that Trudeau could try again in 18 months to get the result he wants.

“And when that day comes I will be ready to lead Canada’s Conservatives to victory.”

The Greens had two MPs elected but saw their embattled Leader Annamie Paul defeated in Toronto-Centre where she placed a distant fourth. “Certainly, I am disappointed,” Paul told her supporters. “It’s hard to lose, nobody likes to lose.” She said voters sent back another minority government in the same numbers, “except we are returning more divided and more polarized than when this election was called.” She did not indicate whether she would step down.

Trudeau’s minority may turn out to be stronger than the 157 seats that he won in 2019 -- he needed 170 for a majority. And it is a far cry from that victory that pollsters had once suggested was within grasp earlier in the summer -- and that Trudeau and his strategists had dared to hope for. Trudeau never uttered the word majority from day one of the campaign.

The question now is how the Liberal leader, who remains prime minister until he resigns or loses a confidence vote, will secure allies among the other smaller but progressive parties -- the New Democrats, Bloc Québécois, and Greens -- to support his agenda, and at what cost to his own plans.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh congratulated Trudeau on his re-election as prime minister, and signalled he’d drive a hard bargain to achieve results with Trudeau.

“You can count on New Democrats to keep on fighting for you.”

Singh said on the weekend his priority in order to support another party is to ensure the wealthiest “ultra-rich” pay higher taxes, but late Monday, a top New Democrat strategist told the Star that is not a condition of support, and that those kinds of conversations and negotiations would likely only come closer to a throne speech once the dust on this divisive election settles.

No matter what the result, NDP campaign director Jennifer Howard said all parties’ MPs have spent the past five to six weeks “hearing from their constituents, hearing real stories about how people need their elected people” to go back to work. “There is a discipline that comes as a result of that … People go back and, you know, you can’t mess around. People are scared. They need to get through this pandemic, they need to get to the other side. That’s our job now.”

Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet said the results are all “about the same for pretty much everyone,” and said that it’s time for a more positive approach by all. “We have the duty to do more. We have the duty to do better.”

Trudeau lost two cabinet ministers, Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan and Gender Equality Minister Maryam Monsef.

There were long lineups at many voting stations due to pandemic precautions and a reduction of poll locations in many ridings. Isolated disruptions were reported across the country as well. As the evening wore on, Elections Canada officials said voters should stay in the lineups and they’d be permitted to vote, even as closing hours loomed. Nearly 1 million mail-in ballots must still be counted, starting Tuesday, and there may be recounts in many tight races.

The People’s Party of Canada, the conservative splinter party led by Bernier, was the disrupter in this election. He didn’t win his seat, but his libertarian populist appeal grew as a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic rolled over parts of Canada and premiers imposed vaccination passports, and Bernier ate into Conservative support. He told CBC News that “this party is there for the long term.” He said voters who are “real fiscal conservatives” were drawn to his pledge to balance the budget.

Nevertheless, on Monday, Trudeau’s supporters claimed a win was a win.

It is a narrow victory, and the second rebuke in a row by Canadian voters, who in 2019 knocked the Liberals’ majority government down to a minority.

The other big question is what the result means for Trudeau’s grip on his leadership and whether he will face internal criticism for having called an election, with little to show for it.

One of his close advisers, and an MP who won his seat Monday, said no chance. “This is still Justin Trudeau’s party,” said the source who spoke on condition he not be identified in order to discuss internal party affairs. Trudeau, he said, took the Liberals from third place in 2015 and while he may not have returned with a majority, “it’s still three victories.”

A second senior Liberal told the Star at some stage, the party will have to look “beyond” Trudeau, “but I would think he will leave on his own terms” and is unlikely to face immediate pressure from within.

Trudeau said it was time that Canadians weighed in on what he called “big consequential decisions” to be made in the coming months. The Liberals want to vaccinate Canada’s way out of the pandemic and to implement an economic recovery plan based on national child care, climate action, and housing affordability measures.

All are proposals the NDP had said they would have supported without an election.

Any majority hopes appeared to slip away in the first 10 days, after the fall of the Afghan government stranded thousands of interpreters and human rights activists who’d supported Canada’s wartime mission there, and Trudeau himself failed to offer a convincing argument for why he broke his promise not to hold an election before the end of the pandemic.

O’Toole ran a disciplined and strategic campaign that combined stinging attacks on Trudeau as “unethical,” a “phoney” and a “liar” with an appeal to Canadians’ desire for change and pocketbook concerns, and aggressively courted centrist voters.

However, to broaden his appeal O’Toole dropped pledges to eliminate Trudeau’s hated carbon pricing scheme, to relax gun control measures, and to protect “conscience rights” for pro-life medical professionals -- all core tenets for a conservative voting base.

O’Toole’s close advisers were already preparing to face down his internal critics.

Before polls closed, several senior Conservative sources told the Star’s Alex Boutilier that victory would be holding Trudeau to a minority.

“I think Erin O’Toole has already won. We have advanced the dialogue between the Conservative party and Canadians. And candidates and caucus members across the country are very pleased with the important advancement of that dialogue. And in that regard I think we’ve already succeeded in earning the respect of Canadians,” said Walied Soliman, chair of the Conservative party’s 2021 election campaign

Campaign 2021 was nasty, brutish and short. And before the final result, few political observers expected Canada’s 44th Parliament to be anything different.