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

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    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

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      In Canada, Will Young Voters Turn Out for the NDP and Jagmeet Singh?

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      Ditching a collared dress shirt for a sleeveless hoodie, Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the left-leaning New Democratic Party, sways to the music in a recent TikTok video recreating a viral dance trend, with text overlaid about how youth voters are “going to make history” this election.But political analysts aren’t convinced TikToks and streams on Twitch — another social media platform he has appeared on — will translate into votes.Mr. Singh has continued to leverage social media as a campaign strategy as he did in the 2019 election. The party is also emphasizing issues like income distribution and taxing the ultra-wealthy, said Lars Osberg, an economics professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, a move reminiscent of Canada’s 1972 election. That is when David Lewis of the N.D.P. rose to prominence on the campaign slogan of getting rid of “corporate welfare bums.”But is all this enough to get young voters, one of the least dependable demographics, to the polls, and to get them to vote for the N.D.P.?“Young people did turn out back in 2015, because they really wanted to get rid of Stephen Harper,” said Professor Osberg, referring to the former Conservative Party leader. (The current one, Erin O’Toole, has made himself a less polarizing figure by reshaping his party to broaden its appeal.)But it was Justin Trudeau who captured the youth vote in 2015.The New Democrats may do well in some areas with large Indigenous populations, whose vote is generally split between that party and Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party.The Liberals have the greatest number of incumbent candidates who are Indigenous, but 28 of the total 50 Indigenous candidates are running with the New Democrats, according to a list compiled by the Assembly of First Nations.In a campaign where Indigenous issues have largely been sidelined, Mr. Singh has hit on Mr. Trudeau for falling short on his promise to bring clean drinking water to all Indigenous communities. And Indigenous voters may be losing confidence in the Liberals.“Right now, it’s looking like a lot of people in the community are saying, no, we’re not with you this time,” said Cameron Holmstrom, an Indigenous consultant who has worked with the New Democrats.Ian Austen contributed reporting. More

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      5 Takeaways From Canada’s Official Election Debates

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called the snap election two years ahead of schedule, was repeatedly attacked by the other four candidates.OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to call an election two years ahead of schedule has not worked out as planned.Polls have consistently tracked a decline in voter support for his Liberal Party and a rise in backing for its nearest rivals, the Conservatives, leaving the parties in a statistical tie.The bulk of the 36-day campaign, the shortest allowed by law, came during Canada’s all-too-brief summer, when many voters’ minds were far from politics. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, where the Canadian military fought, further distracted the public’s attention.So for Mr. Trudeau and his rivals, particularly Erin O’Toole of the Conservatives, the debates this week in each of Canada’s official languages were crucial opportunities to define the campaign before Election Day, Sept. 20.Mr. Trudeau faced off not only against Mr. O’Toole, who is leading his party in an election for the first time, but also against Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the left-of-center New Democratic Party; Annamie Paul, who heads the Green Party; and Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois, a regional party that endorses Quebec’s independence. With the five leaders receiving equal time, it was difficult for any to break through with a detailed message.The French-language debate on Wednesday often focused on issues of interest to Quebec. With English being the language of three-quarters of Canadians, the debate on Thursday in that language was considered the more important of the two.Trudeau struggled to justify his pandemic election.Mr. Trudeau said he called an election because he needed a new mandate to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly.Blair Gable/ReutersIn both debates, Mr. Trudeau’s rivals relentlessly challenged him for calling what they viewed as an unnecessary election in the middle of the pandemic. The subject came up 13 times during the French-language debate.In 2019, the Liberals under Mr. Trudeau failed to secure a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. That forced him to rely on votes from opposition parties, usually the New Democrats, to pass legislation and allowed the opposition parties to pool their votes in committees to tackle subjects embarrassing to the government.Mr. Trudeau said he needed a new mandate with a majority in order to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly. His opponents, however, repeatedly pointed out that none of Mr. Trudeau’s major objectives had been blocked during the past two years — although some important bills had been delayed and then died with the call for an election.In the Thursday debate, Mr. O’Toole challenged Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call for the election just as efforts to repatriate Canadians in Afghanistan and to aid Afghans who had worked for the Canadian military were in a critical phase.“You put your own political interests ahead of the well-being of thousands of people,” Mr. O’Toole said. “Mr. Trudeau, you should not have called this election; you should have gotten the job done in Afghanistan.”A complex format and a crowded stage limited debate.Mr. O’Toole, the Conservative leader, with Mr. Trudeau, who leads the Liberals. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe two-hour debate had a complex structure. The moderator, Shachi Kurl, the president of the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit polling organization, asked questions written by a committee, with questions also posed via video by members of the public and at the site by journalists.Ms. Kurl assiduously enforced rules that prevented the candidates onstage from speaking out of turn or responding to questions not addressed to them. There were no closing statements.Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, said that the formula worked against Mr. Trudeau, who was constantly targeted by the four other leaders, and that it aided Mr. O’Toole.“O’Toole could talk about his climate plan in 30 seconds and then just move on to another subject, which is, I think, what he wanted,” Professor Bratt said. “The formula didn’t allow Trudeau time to really dig into some of O’Toole’s weaknesses.”But voters, Professor Bratt added, were the debate’s clear losers.“If this was the first time that you’re paying attention to the election, you were not well served tonight,” he said.Climate change and Indigenous issues got their due.Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh, who leads the left-of-center New Democratic Party.Pool photo by Sean KilpatrickClimate change, in particular, stood out as an issue, although no leader made a compelling case that his or her party offered the best approach, said Cara Camcastle, who lectures on political science at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.“It’s good to see that all the leaders think it’s an important issue,” she said. “But none of them have the solutions of our own.”Mr. Trudeau was repeatedly attacked, particularly by Mr. Singh, for the rise in carbon emissions in Canada during each of the six years the prime minister has held office. Mr. Trudeau responded that his government’s climate measures, including the introduction of a national carbon price, had put Canada on a path to not just meeting but also exceeding its emissions commitment under the Paris Accord, which has a target date of 2030.Partly because of the organizer’s themed approach to the debate, reconciliation with Indigenous people received an unusual amount of attention.While all the other leaders picked apart Mr. Trudeau’s record — he has made Indigenous issues a top priority — they all agreed with his position that the process of replacing the 19th- century laws governing Indigenous people must be led by their communities rather than by the government.Guns and child care were largely absent in the English debate.Mr. O’Toole’s plan to scrap a Trudeau program under which several provinces provide child care for 10 Canadian dollars a day or less with a tax credit was prominent in the French debate but was largely bypassed on Thursday.Similarly, Mr. O’Toole’s backtracking on an earlier promise to eliminate Mr. Trudeau’s ban on 1,500 types of assault-style semiautomatic rifles received limited attention.The verdict: ‘A meaningless waste of time’?Professor Bratt and Dr. Camcastle said they believed that the two debates would not give form to what had been a largely shapeless campaign that lacked a clear issue — aside from Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call it.Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates, a polling firm in Ottawa, offered a blunt assessment on Twitter.“Let me spare you the speculation of who won, lost, what impact,” he wrote. “It was a meaningless waste of time. Possibly the most vacuous and tedious debate in Canadian political history.”Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, left, and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, taking part in the federal election English-language Leaders debate in Gatineau, Canada, on Thursday.Pool photo by Adrian WyldVjosa Isai More