`IT WAS A LOST FIVE WEEKS'

We come out of the election with essentially the same government we already had

Was this election worth it?

Five weeks of campaigning, instead of governing, in the middle of a public health crisis. More than $600 million spent when billions are still needed to manage this pandemic.

And the House of Commons is pretty much the same.

The Liberals were leading or elected in 158 ridings Tuesday, three more than before the election. They'll form another minority government. The Conservatives have the same number of seats, 119. The NDP are leading or elected in 25 ridings, one more than before the election. They're still the fourth party, after the Bloc Quebecois, and they'll prop up the government, like they did before the election.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau called it a “clear mandate,” though he won only 32 per cent of the popular vote, less than one-third, less than in 2019, less than the Conservatives and 12 seats short of what was needed for a majority government. Trudeau called the election saying he couldn't govern with a minority, that it was causing difficulties and delays in passing legislation. Now, he says he can govern with a minority.

“Our government is ready,” he said late Monday. He has a “clear mandate,” he said.

What will he do with his “clear mandate?” He says he'll do what he promised during the campaign, which is what his party was already doing before the election. It had already signed agreements with seven provinces for $10-a-day childcare. It had already committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 and raising the price of carbon to $170 a tonne to reach the target. It had already invested in transitioning to a green economy, contributing $295 million to retool Ford's assembly plant in Oakville to produce electric vehicles.

Unfortunately, the only differences now seem to be the cynicism and division that the election caused.

The cynicism, more than the usual cynicism, that is, grew not surprisingly from calling an election more than two years early, when it wasn't needed, people didn't want it and Trudeau said he wouldn't during the pandemic. Yet, with the fourth wave of COVID-19 surging, he did. This was about what was best for the party, or at least what it thought would be best for it when it led the polls earlier and Conservative Leader Erin O'toole was struggling. It wasn't, obviously, what was best for Canada.

Trudeau said late Monday he doesn't see division.

“I see Canadians standing together,” he said.

He was literally hit by the division when a protester at one of the ugly profanity-laced protests that dogged him across the country, forcing him to cancel at least one campaign stop, threw gravel at him.

The Liberals, in particular, used COVID-19 vaccination for political gain, driving a wedge between themselves and their opponents and fuelling the rise of the far-right People's Party of Canada, which opposes mandatory vaccination. The PPC won 1.6 per cent of the vote in 2019. It won 10.5 per cent of the vote in Windsor-tecumseh on Monday, 10 per cent in Essex and 8.6 per cent in Windsor West. That's more than 16,500 votes.

All this followed a pandemic that showed us that the government's role is vital. It followed a pandemic that largely brought us together. The election undid both those lessons.

When U.S. President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that staff at all health-care organizations accepting Medicare or Medicaid payments must be fully vaccinated, a local health-care worker emailed me, “If we were NOT in a federal election, we could do the same .... UGH.”

Trudeau promised his party would mandate vaccination for all federal workers and domestic travellers on planes and trains, which are regulated by the government. He could have just done it, instead of promising it for five weeks. Every day matters when you're trying to control the spread of a highly transmissible and potentially lethal pathogen.

There were other losses, too, when Parliament was dissolved for the election. A bill to ban an ugly and hurtful quackery called conversion therapy, which attempts to convert a lesbian, gay or bisexual person to a heterosexual person or to change a person's gender identity to match the sex that the person was assigned at birth, died for the second time.

The only “clear mandate” in this election is that voters don't want another election. They want the government to do the job they elected them to do. Most minority governments last about two years.

But, said Windsor's Inside

The cynicism, more than the usual cynicism, that is, grew not surprisingly from calling an election more than two years early, when it wasn't needed.

Pulse co-host Daniel Ableser, “You have to imagine this government is probably going to go more than two years until an election is called.”

The Liberals got the message. It cost them a majority government. And if the Conservatives or NDP force an early election, they'll wear that.

“This has the potential to be a more stable government than the normal minority government,” said Ableser. “It gives this government a longer runway with which to implement its programs.”

But was it worth it?

“It was a lost five weeks,” said former Windsor MPP and senior Ontario cabinet minister Dave Cooke.