On Monday, September 20, Canada went to the polls and decided the next federal government. And we essentially chose to keep everything the way we had it before. The Liberals were re-elected with a minority government and Conservatives were runner-up. The Conservatives lost two seats, the Liberals gained one, and the other parties had minor changes as well.
Clearly, Canadians haven’t changed their opinions much since 2019.
The big question is why—oh, why—did Justin Trudeau call an early snap federal election during a pandemic?
Well, Trudeau’s reason back in August was essentially that Canadians deserve to choose who should lead them through the rest of the pandemic. But most everyone knows that this was an attempt to grab more power. Trudeau wanted to upgrade to a majority government, and I guess whoever is sitting in the backroom making campaign decisions thought Canada would give it to him, which they didn’t.
It doesn’t feel like they tried very hard to hide this dirty little trick of democracy either. Maybe it’s because everyone in the game likes to have this card in their back pocket. It isn’t only Trudeau making this move. We saw John Horgan do essentially the same thing last year with a provincial election.
But should it be this way? Should governments in power be allowed to call elections at a whim whenever it best suits their re-election? Maybe we should require more than just a flimsy excuse to start the engine of democratic election. Not only did he call it years early based on shaky reasoning, but Trudeau also made the campaign the shortest allowed by law. This, in theory, should have given him an advantage over his opponents. But, based on the results, it looks like most Canadians had already decided who to vote for before campaigning even began.
What I had a really hard time understanding is why the Liberals thought they could steal enough seats to win a majority. Maybe they were counting on Canadians being too afraid to vote in a new government during the pandemic. Maybe they thought their pandemic response was strong enough to sway the tide of voters.
Whatever their reasoning, the decision was irresponsible and misguided. Canadians had the option to vote by mail, but most visited the polling station in person. And this is while the Delta variant is sweeping across Canada. The election itself cost approximately $612 million and what Canadians got in return for that cash was negligible change and potential COVID-19 infections.
The one thing the Liberals did accomplish was winning back the Granville-Vancouver seat previously held by Jody Wilson-Raybould, who did not run in this election. Wilson-Raybould helped to expose the SNC-Lavalin scandal in 2019 and was expelled from the Liberal caucus; she then sat as an independent. So, by taking her seat the Liberals removed a big thorn from Trudeau’s side. Big round of applause.
There should be more requirements, more hoops to jump through, more checks before a sitting government can call a snap election. Otherwise, as we have seen, it becomes a political tool used to game the system.
Maybe we should give that power to the people. This is a democracy, after all.
Right?