Canada

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Trudeau Projected to Remain Prime Minister, but Falls Short of a Majority

      by

      OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political gamble failed to pay off Monday when Canadian voters returned him to office but denied him the expanded bloc of power he had been seeking in Parliament.Unofficial election results on Monday indicated that while he would remain as prime minister, it would again be as the head of a minority government.In August, with his approval ratings high, Mr. Trudeau called a “snap election,” summoning voters to the polls two years before he had to. The goal, he said, was to obtain a strong mandate for his Liberal Party to lead the nation out of the pandemic and into recovery.But many Canadians suspected that his true ambitions were mere political opportunism, and that he was trying to regain the parliamentary majority the Liberals had until they lost seats in the 2019 election.Whatever his motive, it did not work.With some votes still being cast or uncounted, the preliminary results were a near repeat of the previous vote. The Liberal Party won 156 seats on Monday — one fewer than it acquired in 2019 — while its main rival, the Conservative Party, won 121 seats, the same as before.“If you missed the 2019 election, don’t worry, we just did a rerun for you,” said Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.The outcome left Mr. Trudeau in a familiar situation. To pass any laws, he will once again have to win members of the opposition over to his side. And, at least in theory, his party’s shaky grip on power leaves his government vulnerable to being overturned by Parliament.In his victory speech early Tuesday, Mr. Trudeau acknowledged the unpopularity of his call for a snap election.“You don’t want us talking about politics or elections anymore; you want us to focus on the work that we have to do for you,” he told a partisan crowd in a hotel in downtown Montreal. “You just want to get back to the things you love, not worry about this pandemic, or about an election.”In calling for the early election, Mr. Trudeau had argued that, like his predecessors in the aftermath of World War II, he needed a strong mandate from voters to vanquish the coronavirus and rebuild the national economy, badly damaged by the pandemic.But the announcement was not well received by many Canadians.Alarm that the government was holding an election when it did not have to, even as the Delta variant was straining hospitals in some areas, never abated for many voters during the 36-day campaign. And Mr. Trudeau’s opponents were quick to characterize his move as a reckless power grab. Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader, went so far as to call it “un-Canadian.”In the end, Mr. Trudeau not only failed to secure a majority in Parliament, according to unofficial results, he may have also squandered the good will he had gained as he led his nation through the coronavirus crisis.“I’m wondering if the Liberals, in their minds, are saying: ‘Dang it, why did we — why did we call it?’” Kimberly Speers, a professor of political science at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said during the final week of campaigning.Now, she said, it is unclear how long any Liberal minority government will be able to hold together and what this will all mean for the party’s leader. “How long is Trudeau going to last?” Ms. Speers wondered.The Conservative Party leader, Erin O’Toole, at a campaign rally in Toronto this month.Blair Gable/ReutersWhen Mr. Trudeau first ran for office as leader of the Liberals in 2015, few political experts thought he could pull it off. He began that campaign in third place, behind the incumbent Conservatives and the left-of-center New Democratic Party.He won by presenting himself as a new voice in politics with a different approach and different ideas to go with itBut that fresh young politician was little to be seen this time around.Mr. Trudeau, 49, offered voters less a vision for the future than a warning, sometimes explicitly. A return to the Conservative government under Mr. O’Toole, he said, would wipe away his government’s achievements in a variety of areas, among them gun control, gender equity, climate change, child care, poverty reduction and, above all, fighting the pandemic and getting Canadians vaccinated.“Mr. O’Toole won’t make sure the traveler sitting beside you and your kids on a train or a plane is vaccinated,” he said at a campaign rally in Surrey, British Columbia, last week. “This is the moment for real leadership. Mr. O’Toole doesn’t lead — he misleads.”Mr. Trudeau at a campaign stop on Sunday in Burnaby, British Columbia.Carlos Osorio/ReutersBut in Mr. O’Toole, the prime minister was running against a different opponent than the Conservative leaders he had encountered in the two previous campaigns.“I am a new leader with a new style,” Mr. O’Toole, who took over the party just over a year ago, said at the outset of the campaign. “There are five parties but two choices: Canada’s Conservatives or more of the same.”A former air force helicopter navigator and corporate lawyer from Ontario, Mr. O’Toole, seeking to broaden Conservatives’ appeal, produced a 160-page campaign platform that essentially turned the party’s back on many once-central positions, like opposition to carbon taxes.After condemning Mr. Trudeau for running up large deficits with pandemic spending, Mr. O’Toole issued a plan that forecast similar budget shortfalls.He even reversed a major campaign pledge — to repeal Mr. Trudeau’s ban on 1,500 models of assault-style rifles — when it became apparent that it alienated voters who were not core Conservative supporters.Mr. O’Toole did, however, maintain his opposition to mandatory vaccination and vaccine passports.Mr. O’Toole also repeatedly attacked Mr. Trudeau’s personal integrity. He cited, as the Conservatives have repeatedly in Parliament, several low points in the prime minister’s career.The federal ethics commissioner found that Mr. Trudeau broke ethics laws when he and his staff pressured his justice minister, an Indigenous woman, in 2018 to offer a large Canadian engineering firm a deal allowing it to avoid a criminal conviction on corruption charges. Last year a charity with close ties to the Trudeau family was awarded a no-bid contract to administer a Covid-19 financial assistance plan for students. The group withdrew, the program was canceled and Mr. Trudeau was cleared of conflict of interest allegations.And while Mr. Trudeau champions diversity and racial justice, it came out during the 2019 vote that he had worn blackface or brownface at least three times in the past.“Every Canadian has met a Justin Trudeau in their lives — privileged, entitled and always looking out for No. 1,” Mr. O’Toole said during the campaign. “He’ll say anything to get elected, regardless of the damage it does to our country.”During the campaign, Mr. O’Toole chipped away at Mr. Trudeau’s personal integrity, reminding voters of the prime minister’s missteps.Blair Gable/ReutersMr. Trudeau returned the criticism, saying Mr. O’Toole’s willingness to ditch Conservative policies and alter his platform mid-campaign showed it was he who would say or promise anything to voters.While many voters eagerly bumped elbows and posed for selfies with Mr. Trudeau at campaign stops, his campaign was often disturbed by unruly mobs protesting mandatory vaccines and vaccine passports. One event was canceled out of safety concerns, and Mr. Trudeau was pelted with gravel at another.Mr. Trudeau did have a strong political challenger on the left nationally with Jagmeet Singh of the New Democrats. Mr. Singh, a lawyer and former provincial lawmaker from Ontario, consistently had the highest approval ratings of all the leaders before and during the campaign.Mr. Trudeau will most likely rely on the New Democrats as his primary source of support in Parliament. But despite gaining three seats, the New Democrats’ total, 27, is a long way from holding power.In his victory speech, Mr. Trudeau evoked his “sunny ways” remarks of 2015, but in a very different context.“You are sending us back to work with a clear mandate to get Canada through this pandemic into the brighter days ahead,” he said to cheers. “My friends, that’s exactly what we are ready to do.” More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      The Canadian Election: What We Learned

      by

      A vote few Canadians wanted took the country back to 2019.Over the past few weeks, analysts and political advisers have repeatedly told me that Monday’s vote, which cost 600 million Canadian dollars to hold, would produce a Parliament that looked pretty much like the one Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dissolved in August.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, on Tuesday after his victory.Carlos Osorio/Reuters[Read: Trudeau Will Remain Prime Minister, but Falls Short of a Majority]It was an uncannily accurate forecast. As I write this, some votes were still being cast and many more were uncounted. But Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals stood at 156 seats on Monday — one fewer than it acquired in 2019 — while Conservative Party had 121 seats, the same as before.The standings may change slightly. But given that Mr. Trudeau had called the vote to regain the majority in the House of Commons he lost in 2019 — without ever explicitly putting it in those terms — it was a vote to nowhere.Here are some immediate takeaways from the result.What’s Erin O’Toole’s Political Future? Erin O’Toole, the Conservative Party leader, ran a better organized and more disciplined campaign than the one run by the party’s previous leader.Geoff Robins/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesErin O’Toole, who became the Conservative leader just over a year ago, took the party in a new, more moderate direction to broaden its appeal. He rejected a number of once-core Conservative positions, including opposing carbon taxes. And during the campaign, he reversed, with a condition, a much-publicized promise to repeal Mr. Trudeau’s ban on 1,500 models of military-style assault rifles.His campaign was noticeably better organized and more disciplined than the one run by Andrew Scheer, the party’s previous leader, in 2019. Yet it brought no gains.On Tuesday morning Mr. O’Toole devoted much of his concession speech to outlining how he’ll take on the Liberals in the next election. But Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, told me that before that happens, Mr. O’Toole will have to sell himself to his party.“He could not penetrate the 905 in Ontario,” Professor Bratt said, referring to the area code for suburban Toronto. “As someone from a riding in that area, he said that he could win there.”Mr. O’Toole, Professor Bratt said, will most likely argue that there’s a benefit to keeping him as leader for the next vote — something the history of successful Conservatives in the past has shown. But it may be a difficult sell.“Is there a benefit to giving him a second go run?” he said. “I think voters might like that. I just don’t know about the Conservative Party; they’re a tough party.”And Justin Trudeau’s?Mr. Trudeau during a campaign stop in Maple, Ontario, this month.Cole Burston/Getty ImagesAfter Mr. Trudeau steered his party to two consecutive minority governments, will the Liberals start doubting the worth of their leader, who unexpectedly swept them to power with a strong majority in 2015? Not likely, Lori Turnbull, a political scientist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, told me last night.“There is really something to the argument that Trudeau has made the Liberal Party his own,” she said. “And the loyalty to the party is really loyalty to him. When everybody’s loyalty is to the leader, then it’s almost like the leader can do no wrong and people kind of rally around him.”The Election BacklashVoters in Toronto lined up to cast their ballots in a snap election called by Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau. The government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and economic recovery have been top issues for many voters.Andrej Ivanov/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesProfessor Turnbull said that she was hard-pressed to recall another time when an early vote call by a government that sensed political game persisted throughout the campaign.It’s also difficult to recall any kind of an election that was met with general jubilation in Canada. But Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant, a professor of political science at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, said in an email that while Canada was not a land of election haters, there was definitely “push back” against early votes.“From a political science perspective, voters want accountability and ‘voice,’ so it seems a bit odd not to seize on those opportunities to exercise them,” she wrote. “Even if the outcome is relatively similar to the 2019 federal election, rather than ask ‘what was the election for?’ we could also choose to see it as an endorsement of the path we’re on.”Is This the Future of Canadian Votes?Supporters for Mr. O’Toole waiting for his concession speech on Monday. Future elections may see the major parties trade a small number of seats without substantially altering their positions.Ian Willms/Getty ImagesAllan Tupper of the political science department at the University of British Columbia told me this morning that’s there’s no obvious sign that broad regional voting patterns found in the past two elections will change.“The pattern of support is quite strong,” he said. “It will require a major set of changes in political problems, political issues, political values to shift Canadians out of those patterns.”Until that happens, Professor Tupper said, we’re likely to see more elections like this one, in which the major parties trade a small number of seats without substantially altering their positions relative to each other.“It just means the elections become a game of inches,” he said.A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.How are we doing?We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Justin Trudeau Projected to Remain Prime Minister of Canada

      by

      Justin Trudeau will remain Canada’s prime minister following the vote in an early election on Monday, Canadian broadcasters projected.Because many voters were still in line casting ballots, perhaps for several more hours, it is unclear whether Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party would regain a majority in Parliament — Mr. Trudeau’s objective. Preliminary results suggested that the Liberals would probably not achieve that.The prime minister called the election last month, two years ahead of schedule, expecting that the boost in his popularity provided by his handling of the pandemic would give him the majority he was denied in 2018. But those promising numbers immediately fell as Canadians expressed dismay about the election being held while the Delta variant of the coronavirus was straining hospitals and prompting the authorities to restore restrictions in some areas.While disgruntlement about the election call dominated the five-week campaign, the pandemic intensified as a campaign issue over the final days. Mr. Trudeau has proposed mandatory vaccination for some and championed vaccine passports. Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader, rejected both.Mr. Trudeau first came to power in 2015 by presenting himself as a new voice in politics with a fresh approach and policies.This time around, Mr. Trudeau is part of the political establishment. So he focused on telling voters, explicitly or otherwise, that a return to a Conservative government under Mr. O’Toole would wipe away his achievements in a variety of areas including gun control, gender equity, climate change, child care, poverty reduction and, above all, ending the pandemic and getting Canadians vaccinated. More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Canadians Head to Polls for Snap Election

      by

      Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Why Did Justin Trudeau Call for an Early Election in Canada?

      by

      His opponents have denounced the move as unnecessary and potentially dangerous amid a continuing pandemic.Canadians often grumble about federal elections called before schedule, as is the case with Monday’s vote. But usually the complaints die out after the first week of campaigning.Not this time. With the Delta variant of the coronavirus sweeping many provinces, and their governments restoring restrictions or pausing plans to lift them, questions about the wisdom of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election call are still dominating the race.“They’ve been struggling with answering that question the whole campaign,” said Gerald Butts, a longtime friend of Mr. Trudeau’s and his former top political adviser. “And that’s part of why they’re having trouble getting the message across.”While Mr. Trudeau carefully avoids using the word “majority,” there is no doubt that he’s seeking to take back control of the House of Commons, which was denied him in the 2019 vote, when his Liberal Party won only a minority. Since then, he has relied on the ad hoc support of opposition parties to push legislation through, something Mr. Trudeau said led to delays in pandemic measures.Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, said that this spring the “Covid consensus” among all of the parties in Parliament unraveled.“We really saw that it was becoming increasingly just not possible to get the business of the country done,” she said last week during a break in her one-person campaign trek around the country. “It was clear to us that it was going to become truly impossible to keep moving in the fall.”Mr. Trudeau’s opponents don’t buy that, noting that all the major pieces of Mr. Trudeau’s pandemic legislation have passed, though several bills died when Mr. Trudeau adjourned Parliament for the vote. They have relentlessly denounced his decision to call the snap election as unnecessary and potentially dangerous for people heading to the polls.The disgruntled include Liberals, leading to the possibility that many of them may simply not vote. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Why Climate Change Barely Registered in the Canadian Election

      by

      Canada may be known for its cold weather, but this summer, parts of the country were an inferno.The Western provinces suffered record-setting heat waves, which were a confirmed cause of death for 569 people in British Columbia. Wildfires burned more than two million forest acres in that province and razed a small town, while droughts devastated cattle ranchers in Manitoba.The extreme weather intensified Canadians’ already high level of interest and concern about climate change. But during the campaign, climate barely registered.Analysts say that was because of deft maneuvering by the Conservative Party.Erin O’Toole, the party’s leader, turned his back on a promise to never impose carbon taxes in a plan he unveiled this spring. While the Conservative version prices carbon lower than Mr. Trudeau’s plan does, and has a very different system for rebating the tax to individuals, the prime minister can no longer say that the Conservatives will not tax carbon and lack a climate plan.“I think the Conservative Party has put forward a more ambitious platform than in 2019, in part to take that off the agenda,” said Kathryn Harrison, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia.The Conservative plan, introduced well before the election, proposes to cut emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels within nine years, Canada’s original Paris Agreement target.But Mr. Trudeau has since increased the nation’s target for the same time frame to between 40 and 45 percent. Saying that the Conservatives’ plan would set the country back on its progress to fight climate change, he invoked the unpopular policies of his predecessor, Stephen Harper, whose administration muzzled environmental scientists.The Green Party, which has made climate change its top issue, called for a 60 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030.It’s an ambitious target, but lacking detail, said Nicholas Rivers, a Canada Research Chair in Climate and Energy Policy and an associate professor at the University of Ottawa.The Green Party has been distracted by infighting that has prompted its leader, Annamie Paul, to consider quitting. The party released its platform on Sept. 7, late in the brief campaign.“It makes it difficult to believe they have a credible plan to get there,” Professor Rivers said. “I feel the Greens have partly ceded their leadership on the climate issue.” More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Justin Trudeau Casts Ballot in Canadian Election

      by

      Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More