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NDP LEADER JAGMEET SINGH SAYS HIS PARTY WILL HAVE THE LEVERAGE TO PRESSURE THE LIBERALS ON PRIORITIES LIKE A

ELECTION IS OVER, AND LITTLE HAS CHANGED BUT FOR DEEPENED DIVISIONS

JOSEPH BREAN

This might have been the least consequential Canadian election ever. It resulted in almost exactly the same House of Commons. In terms of seat count compared to the 2019 election, it appeared Monday the Liberals were up one, the Conservatives down two, the NDP up one, and the Bloc Québécois up two.

Canada's political divisions remain in the same place, said pollster John Wright, executive vice president of Maru Public Opinion. They're just deeper now.

Turnout was low, on track to set a record low of 58.44 per cent, although with mail-in ballots and late registrants the tally is not final. Turnout for Canadian federal elections used to run at about three-quarters of eligible voters until the 1990s, when it started declining, reaching a low of 58.8 per cent in 2008, before starting to climb again to 68.3 in 2015 and 67 in 2019.

Justin Trudeau, who will continue as prime minister in a minority Parliament, referred in his victory speech to a “clear mandate to get Canada through this pandemic and to the brighter days ahead.” But this mandate is based on the lowest share of the popular vote for any victorious party ever.

“What we've seen tonight is that millions of Canadians voted for a progressive plan,” Trudeau also said. But so much of his party's campaign's energy went toward promoting a negative image of Erin O'Toole and the Conservatives. Seeing their political calculus failing right from the start, the Liberals “fashioned a ballot question based on negatives of the Conservative party, and it worked,” Wright said.

Trudeau called the election when his support was at 48 per cent “to get a majority, not to get a mandate,” Wright said. “By the time he stepped to the podium it was 40.” In the end, it settled into the very low 30s.

In their 2019 book Absent Mandate, political scientists Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc and Jon H. Pammett describe a lack of policy mandates as “an ongoing characteristic of the strategic configuration of Canadian democracy and its brokerage mould.”

The link between election campaigns and later policy choices has been severed. A “common pattern is that governing parties take policy actions that were not outlined in detail during the election campaign and then proceed without even seeking a retrospective mandate for such actions,” they write.

They describe how big issues played in election campaigns over the past two decades, from globalization to social supports to immigration and Indigenous reconciliation, and conclude that “all of these major matters for the future of the country usually were discussed in very general terms or even overlooked in favour of focusing on generalities or personalities. As a result, discussions of the specifics of policy direction are either ignored or, where they occur, voters' preferences are sidelined as the government makes other choices. In such situations we can conclude that mandates are absent, the public soon loses interest, and the electoral cycle begins again.”

That is where Canada is today. If the governing Liberals have any mandate, it is the same as it was in July.

The legislative agenda is likely to look the same, as will the strategic dynamics, with the NDP supporting the government on all those items it was already supporting it on before this election call.

If there are major consequences, they are internal party matters, one step removed from the everyday life of the average Canadian.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh retains his influence over the government's agenda. O'Toole, however, may be in for trouble, having failed to increase his seat count with an effort to pitch to a more moderate vote, thereby annoying his more determined base. Further to the right, the People's Party of Canada took one vote in 20, more than 800,000 votes in total, more than double the Green Party's tally.

Trudeau took his shot at a majority, missed, and nothing much changed. He likely would have governed another two years without this election, and given that this Parliament is no more stable than the last, it might still only last that long.

NP

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2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

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