We did in fact have an election.
Compared to American elections, it’s very different. We don’t elect our Prime Minister Separately from the Members of Parliament, the Prime Minister is merely the leader of the party which forms government, which is usually the party with the most seats. That means that there isn’t a primary season. In fact, our elections are very quick; while announcements and veiled campaigning happen outside the prescribed window, generally our elections take 30-40 days. When we vote, we need to show ID, which is usually a Driver’s license. The vote is marked with a pencil on a piece of paper, which is counted and verified by a couple of humans, and manually entered into a the federal elections database and fed out from there. There aren’t any ballot measures, we don’t vote for our dogcatchers, it’s one piece of paper with one position that you mark once. I know who my Member of Parliament and Prime Minister are right now, less than 12 hours after polls closed. This election cost us 600 million dollars, Canada is smaller than America, so even if we scaled up a factor of ten to match the American per capita rate, that means an entire election cycle cost us 6 billion dollars, and for comparison Americans spent 14.4 billion in 2020.
But what happened?
Almost nothing. The Liberals had found working with the other parties tedious, and wanted a majority government so they could do away with the consensus seeking and bridge building. In order to do this, they needed to get 15 additional seats, out of the 338. They did not get this. Technically, they still won, they did manage to pick up 3 seats, and will form a minority government… But even among Liberal supporters, there is a dissatisfaction with being called to the polls during a pandemic so the seat counts could basically stay the same. This isn’t the disaster that it could have been had the Liberals lost seats or the Conservatives won, but it’s the next best thing.
The Conservatives needed to win or have the Liberals lose seats to the tune of 35 compared to the last election to form government. They did not get this. The conservatives have the same number of seats they had walking into this. This…. Also causes some dissatisfaction, and I’m not sure that Erin O’Toole is long for the party. He flip flopped a couple of times on issues that conservatives don’t appreciate their leaders flipping on, and that fed fuel to the PPC. Interestingly, he still won the popular vote, with 34% of the vote. They didn’t win the most seats, because that’s not how democracy works, but it’s neat trivia. I want to say, humbly, that I called the polls, but the difference just wasn’t enough: The Cons entered the night polling at 31% and they ended at 34%. I was wrong about where the difference would come from though, the Liberals actually picked up a little as well, the NDP however, was overcounted by 3%. Having not technically lost a seat, the conservatives could try to make a case that they didn’t lose, but really… If you don’t win, you lose.
The Bloc is back, the French nationalist party out of Quebec. The resurgence of the Bloc is a true failure for Trudeau. Under Harper, the Bloc had shrunk from 54 seats to 4, they’d been marginalized, and talks of separation were dead. Under Trudeau, they’ve gone from 4 to 10 to 32 to 34 in five years. At least this Bloc doesn’t seem to want separation so much as they’re asserting autonomy, a message I think I can get behind, to a point. But it really would have been nice to put that spectre to bed. Regardless, this was a good night for them, they’ve made inroads into Liberal territories and they couldn’t have hoped for much more.
The Bloc gets mentioned third because even with only 7% of the national vote, they concentrate their votes in Quebec and beat the NDP in seat count, despite the NDP having 17% of the vote. This, I think, is why O’Toole isn’t in government, the NDP didn’t properly split the vote. I have mixed feelings about this… The party elected Singh, he polls the most favorable out of all the national leaders, he ran a solid campaign, he deserved a win, but he didn’t get it. I don’t usually say this, but I think the unspoken truth here might be some racism… Singh can’t say: “I ran a great campaign, but those damn racists won’t vote for a guy wearing a turban” because that would just alienate his base further, but I’ll say it for him. I’m old enough to remember when the NDP was a labor party as opposed to an identity politics party, so you have a lot of working class, down to earth, uneducated white people in a far left of center party that focused around unions all of a sudden talking about reconciliation, racism, sexism and homophobia. I have no idea whether these people are actually racist, but the NDP no longer really speaks to their base, and it was only a matter of time before they sought a party more aligned to their needs.
Which brings me to the PPC. Sure, I should probably talk about the Greens here, because the Greens actually took seats… But… Greens. What is there to say? Their leader lost her seat, a couple of people picked up. The PPC is more interesting. All through the night, I was told: “The PPC is going to split the vote with the conservatives.” Heck, nevermind “I was told”, I believed that, and said as much, loudly, on Twitter. It might even have the benefit of being true, but the Cons basically have the same amount of support they did in 2019. So did 5% leave the party and we picked up a different 5%? I suppose it’s possible, but unlikely, because the Liberals also picked up a little support. That would mean NDP votes went Liberal, Liberal votes went conservative, and Conservative votes went PPC. That’s a heck of a conga line. No, I’ve rethought my position and think we should consider the possibility that there was a direct NDP to PPC connection around the working class voters who are very unhappy with vaccine passports, mask mandates and lockdowns. I’m annoyed by this for a couple of reasons, both practically and morally, but I can’t deny the possibility. Anecdotally, I called a couple family members that were staunch NDP supporters from the old days and straight up asked them if they voted purple. Both the people I asked said yes. And when I responded with “Going from the furthest left party to the furthest right in a single election is a heck of a swing” they said variations of the same thing: Basically, they were single issue voters on the pandemic treatments.
What Does That Mean?
We probably do this again in another two years. Springing this election hasn’t made Trudeau many friends, and he’s going to need them. Eventually he’ll do something stupid and the NDP won’t prop him up. Heck…. Some of the reason I think they didn’t do so well is because the NDP *DID* prop the Liberals up right until the end.
And to circle back to the PPC and one of my pet issues - This is the exact same problem that American progressives have: they take their base for granted. It’s a very privileged thing to worry about gender identity and the problems of other people, even if those people are less well off than you (perceived or actual), and most blue collar Canadians don’t have it in them to worry about the self actualization of progressive elites when they’re worried about the bottom couple of levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. The difference between a poor white person and a poor black person isn’t the amount of money they make, or the stress and insecurity they feel while pondering their next meal. Black people in America don’t care much about gay rights, climate change doesn’t break their top 20, the pandemic sure does, but only because they’re disproportionately unvaccinated and the mandates are deeply unpopular with them. In Canada, people like that exist… Their skin is just a different color, and the PPC is welcoming them with open arms.