Now that the election is over, can we put the dirty politics behind us? Trudeau is still our prime minister, and the pipeline is still going through.
What’s different is that the Liberals now have a minority government, which could be a good thing—historically, however, the Canadian political parties don’t work together very well, so perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.
Unfortunately, the Liberals will likely not be able to stay in control for long, which means instability for Canadians.
History tells us that in Canada, a minority government often gets overthrown because of its inability to form an effective coalition. This is bad news because everyone in Parliament knows this and will be scrambling to get re-elected. Therefore, the party’s interests may become more important than the interests of the people.
However, the fact that the Liberals have a minority government means that in order to get bills passed, they have to collaborate (and, hopefully, compromise) with the other parties. This means that the representation will be fairer in the voting process and that the smaller parties will get a say.
What will most likely happen is the Liberals will work with the Green party, the Bloc Quebecois, and the NDP on a case-by-case basis. It remains to be seen whether the NDP and Greens will manage to get the Liberals to lean more left, or if the Liberals will get the other parties to lean right. Whatever the case, Trudeau has to make it work if he wants his government to survive.
As for what this means for students, if the parties do manage to work together and the NDP and Greens do manage to sway the Liberals to the left, it may mean some decreases in student-loan interest. However, those are a lot of ifs, and that most likely will not happen, as there are much more pressing issues for the parties.
This is partly because young people are still not being recognized as a big part of the votingpopulation; it’s also partly because parties often don’t stick to their original campaign promises.
It’ll be interesting to see how the next few weeks play out while the Liberals get settled into their new role.