The election everyone lost

On election night, I started to get notifications about who various media outlets thought had won the election. I have to say, in my usual sour style, that I don’t think anyone did.

As if I were a politician myself, I instantly flip-flop and say that in one important sense we all won. After all, a fair election free from fear of violence, official or spontaneous, during or after, is something to celebrate. Hooray. Now back to putting cabbage juice in the lemonade.

The Liberals can’t be happy. They smelled a partisan opportunity to secure a majority, with which to do we know not what, and face-planted. In 2019, they won 157 seats and as of Tuesday morning appear to have 158, at least until some disgruntled feminist stomps out of caucus having seen the true blackface of the prime minister. Which many of us now have and it ain’t pretty.

As for the Tories, their cunning plan to be just like the Liberals except more so failed exactly as it has for a century. They won 121 seats in 2019 and perhaps 119 this time. If that’s victory, you can have mine.

The NDP rode a massive wave of public enthusiasm for loopy left-wing policies and the mythical charisma of its leader, Jagmeet Singh, to 25 seats, a gain of fully one. Again, if that’s victory …

The Bloc Québécois apparently gained two seats, proving that francophone Quebecers want to secede while remaining within Canada. Perhaps Bloquistes like that sort of thing. For the rest of us, just more irritation.

The Greens, the conscience of the nation, soared from three seats to two and got a walloping 2.3 per cent of the vote, less than half the tally of the People’s party, which got a dismal 5.1 per cent and no MPS. National unity has been damaged. And even the Governor General lost, by agreeing to call this improper election.

It gets worse, because the Liberals will now try to tackle the significant problems we face with everybody knowing they aren’t very popular, that their leader’s “sunny ways” have sown bitterness and division and that they have no real idea what to do about actual issues like inflation, as opposed to the mass slaughter in our streets by law-abiding Canadians with assault weapons.

The Tories are already claiming victory and preparing to do it again because

Trudeau is so awful. Which makes their face-plant this time worse, not better. As it makes worse the NDP, having called the Liberals unfit for office after propping them up for two years, and now propping them up again with no real idea what to do about actual issues like balancing the budget. The Greens will call Elizabeth May a prophet, the PPC will say “Aaaaargh!” and the Bloc will pout for money.

If anything is to be salvaged from this mess, it must start with the parties admitting they had a bad election and it was their fault. The Liberals should say “yes, our leader is a slick hypocrite and we’re clueless on policy.” The Conservatives should say “yes, our job is to prove we have hearts as well as heads, not instead of them.” The NDP should say “yes, we need to prove we have heads as well as hearts, and hearts not full of bile.”

The Bloc should admit independence can’t happen and fold. The Greens should adopt a truly organic approach to public policy, including the spontaneity of markets over mechanistic socialism and the natural wonder of childbirth. The People’s party should admit

ACTIVISTS SHOULD WHINE LESS AND THINK MORE.

that attracting angry flakes deepens already worrying tribalism and repels as many votes as it attracts.

While we’re waiting, activists should whine less and think more. Like PR zealots already complaining about more Liberal seats with fewer votes. Hey, you got the pizza Parliament you ordered. And crucially, a voting system favouring parties with broad appeal over ones with an intense base is a feature not a bug. At least let’s discuss that proposition, not stamp our feet.

Speaking of discussion, the press did not cover themselves in glory with their rush to declare that Trudeau won another term. Actually he won his seat. And his party did win a plurality. But the reason the likely result is a Liberal ministry is that the smaller parties have more sympathy for the Liberals’ governing philosophy than that of the Tories, or at least the cave-dwellers for whom they mistake the Tories.

In terms of actual policy, there’s no particular reason Jagmeet Singh could not back Erin O’toole. The math doesn’t look promising, and I’m not in favour. But would the Bloc, Liberals or anyone really rush to trigger another election with the same result?

If so we’d all lose. Q.E.D.