Justin Trudeau’s reversal will make British Conservatives wary of an early election
The Canadian prime minister’s failure to win a majority is a reminder of the risks of snap contests.
By Stephen Bush
21 September 2021
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pictured after his narrow election victory.
(Photo by ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have won re-election, but fallen short of a majority. They will remain in office but will be reliant on the support of other parties, chiefly the left-wing NDP (Megan Gibson profiled their leader, Jagmeet Singh, for the New Statesman here). They will finish comfortably ahead of the Conservatives in terms of seats in parliament, but are highly likely to finish behind them in terms of votes.
In other words, it’s exactly the same as the 2019 election result. Even the same familiar scandals reared their head, with Trudeau once again facing questions about what exactly his government promised engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, and a new picture of him blacking up in his late 20s surfacing. The only difference is that the Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole, had a better campaign than his predecessor Andrew Scheer, and might live to fight another day.
The same result, but an unpredictable ride to get there: at times it appeared Trudeau might lose an election that began with a comfortable Liberal lead. He never managed to convince voters that he had a compelling reason for calling the snap contest, other than his own political interests and his party’s opinion poll lead.
It means that Canada remains one of the few countries where the established centre-left party has remained in office in the post-2008 era. But here in the UK it’s more likely the centre-right that will look to this contest for lessons. In part that’s because of the greater and deeper social ties: it’s much more common to bump into a UK Conservative staffer who has spent time on election campaigns and parliamentary offices in Canada, Australia or New Zealand than it is a Labour, SNP or Liberal Democrat one who has done the same; and also more common to meet a Canadian, Australian or New Zealander currently working in Conservative politics than the other way round. (There are notable exceptions to that in all the progressive parties, they’re just less widespread.)
When you talk to Labour MPs, they are still, in large numbers, convinced that the next UK election will come, at the latest, in 2023 and perhaps even 2022. But talk to their Conservative counterparts, including ones with the ear of the Prime Minister, and they say: look at what’s happened in Canada. Look at how unpredictable elections are and how much voters dislike ones without a clear rationale. One way or another, Germany’s election is going to provide a further reminder that elections are volatile and risky for all the parties involved: and while that lesson hasn’t been internalised in the Labour Party, it looks, at the moment, to be pretty well established in Conservative circles.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have won re-election, but fallen short of a majority. They will remain in office but will be reliant on the support of other parties, chiefly the left-wing NDP (Megan Gibson profiled their leader, Jagmeet Singh, for the New Statesman here). They will finish comfortably ahead of the Conservatives in terms of seats in parliament, but are highly likely to finish behind them in terms of votes.
In other words, it’s exactly the same as the 2019 election result. Even the same familiar scandals reared their head, with Trudeau once again facing questions about what exactly his government promised engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, and a new picture of him blacking up in his late 20s surfacing. The only difference is that the Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole, had a better campaign than his predecessor Andrew Scheer, and might live to fight another day.
The same result, but an unpredictable ride to get there: at times it appeared Trudeau might lose an election that began with a comfortable Liberal lead. He never managed to convince voters that he had a compelling reason for calling the snap contest, other than his own political interests and his party’s opinion poll lead.
It means that Canada remains one of the few countries where the established centre-left party has remained in office in the post-2008 era. But here in the UK it’s more likely the centre-right that will look to this contest for lessons. In part that’s because of the greater and deeper social ties: it’s much more common to bump into a UK Conservative staffer who has spent time on election campaigns and parliamentary offices in Canada, Australia or New Zealand than it is a Labour, SNP or Liberal Democrat one who has done the same; and also more common to meet a Canadian, Australian or New Zealander currently working in Conservative politics than the other way round. (There are notable exceptions to that in all the progressive parties, they’re just less widespread.)
When you talk to Labour MPs, they are still, in large numbers, convinced that the next UK election will come, at the latest, in 2023 and perhaps even 2022. But talk to their Conservative counterparts, including ones with the ear of the Prime Minister, and they say: look at what’s happened in Canada. Look at how unpredictable elections are and how much voters dislike ones without a clear rationale. One way or another, Germany’s election is going to provide a further reminder that elections are volatile and risky for all the parties involved: and while that lesson hasn’t been internalised in the Labour Party, it looks, at the moment, to be pretty well established in Conservative circles.
What Justin Trudeau’s narrow election victory means for Canada
A snap contest that few voters wanted has left the electorate even more disenchanted than before.
By Megan Gibson
A snap contest that few voters wanted has left the electorate even more disenchanted than before.
By Megan Gibson
21 September 2021
ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP via Getty Images
With the majority of the ballots in Canada’s snap election now counted, Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau will retain his position as prime minister. But this was a contest without any real winners. Though the Liberals managed to capture the most seats, they are once again far below the 170 needed to form a majority government. Their opponents, meanwhile, failed to translate a mid-campaign poll surge into power – leaving Canada arguably more divided than when the election was called.
Let’s start with Trudeau. The Liberal leader called the election five weeks ago – two years earlier than scheduled – when polls looked favourable, with the aim of transforming his minority government into a majority. It’s a strategy that had previously worked for Canadian prime ministers (including Justin’s father, Pierre Trudeau, in 1974). But almost immediately after the announcement was made, the Liberals saw their lead shrink as support for the opposition Conservative Party and the progressive New Democratic Party (NDP) surged.
Meanwhile, Trudeau struggled to gain traction with his message that the election was vital in order to push through a successful pandemic recovery strategy. Among voters, there was little appetite to head to the polls in the middle of a fourth wave of Covid-19 and Trudeau’s strategy was widely viewed as a cynical grab for power. At many points throughout the campaign, it looked as though the Liberals might lose to the Conservatives altogether.
In the wake of the election, Trudeau will still need support from another party in order to push policies through parliament, and his campaign saw him make significant policy pledges on issues from childcare to climate change. Meanwhile, two of his cabinet ministers – Bernadette Jordan, who was minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard in the last parliament, and Maryam Monsef, minister of rural economic development – lost their seats to Conservative candidates.
Internal Liberal conversation is soon likely to shift towards who will succeed Trudeau as party leader. Early whispers point to either the deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, or Mark Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, as potential successors.
The Conservatives under leader Erin O’Toole also failed to perform well. While polls indicated that voters approved of O’Toole, who ran a campaign that shifted his party towards the centre, this wasn’t enough. The Conservatives won the popular vote but they remain in opposition, not power. With the emergence of the right-wing People’s Party of Canada (PPC), which won 5 per cent of the vote, though not any seats, there is bound to be a push from the Conservative base to rethink O’Toole's strategy – and perhaps even O’Toole himself.
Even Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the progressive NDP party, wasn’t able to capitalise on the momentum that he built throughout the campaign. Though the party increased its seat total slightly, the election wasn’t the dramatic advance Singh hoped for. The NDP, long thought of as Canada’s third party, is once again in fourth place, behind the nationalist Bloc Québécois. Singh still has enough leverage to push the Liberals to the left on key issues, particularly those Trudeau noisily campaigned for, as the PM will require NDP support in parliament. But as I wrote last week in a profile of the charismatic Singh, merely influencing the agenda, rather than setting it, is an unsatisfactory position.
But perhaps the biggest losers of all, in an election that so few wanted, are the voters themselves. Although the result is apparently the status quo – the parliamentary arithmetic is remarkably similar to 2019 – this was an ugly campaign marked by violence at protests, the politicisation of vaccine mandates and palpable anger that the contest was taking place at all. Meanwhile, indigenous rights, a huge issue in the wake of the discovery of hundreds of bodies on former residential schools earlier this year, received little attention from the campaigns.
Few Canadians will feel this election has changed much for the better. They went into this election begrudgingly. Many will come out of it more alienated, more disenchanted and potentially more apathetic. It’s a result no one wanted to see.
With the majority of the ballots in Canada’s snap election now counted, Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau will retain his position as prime minister. But this was a contest without any real winners. Though the Liberals managed to capture the most seats, they are once again far below the 170 needed to form a majority government. Their opponents, meanwhile, failed to translate a mid-campaign poll surge into power – leaving Canada arguably more divided than when the election was called.
Let’s start with Trudeau. The Liberal leader called the election five weeks ago – two years earlier than scheduled – when polls looked favourable, with the aim of transforming his minority government into a majority. It’s a strategy that had previously worked for Canadian prime ministers (including Justin’s father, Pierre Trudeau, in 1974). But almost immediately after the announcement was made, the Liberals saw their lead shrink as support for the opposition Conservative Party and the progressive New Democratic Party (NDP) surged.
Meanwhile, Trudeau struggled to gain traction with his message that the election was vital in order to push through a successful pandemic recovery strategy. Among voters, there was little appetite to head to the polls in the middle of a fourth wave of Covid-19 and Trudeau’s strategy was widely viewed as a cynical grab for power. At many points throughout the campaign, it looked as though the Liberals might lose to the Conservatives altogether.
In the wake of the election, Trudeau will still need support from another party in order to push policies through parliament, and his campaign saw him make significant policy pledges on issues from childcare to climate change. Meanwhile, two of his cabinet ministers – Bernadette Jordan, who was minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard in the last parliament, and Maryam Monsef, minister of rural economic development – lost their seats to Conservative candidates.
Internal Liberal conversation is soon likely to shift towards who will succeed Trudeau as party leader. Early whispers point to either the deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, or Mark Carney, the former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, as potential successors.
The Conservatives under leader Erin O’Toole also failed to perform well. While polls indicated that voters approved of O’Toole, who ran a campaign that shifted his party towards the centre, this wasn’t enough. The Conservatives won the popular vote but they remain in opposition, not power. With the emergence of the right-wing People’s Party of Canada (PPC), which won 5 per cent of the vote, though not any seats, there is bound to be a push from the Conservative base to rethink O’Toole's strategy – and perhaps even O’Toole himself.
Even Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the progressive NDP party, wasn’t able to capitalise on the momentum that he built throughout the campaign. Though the party increased its seat total slightly, the election wasn’t the dramatic advance Singh hoped for. The NDP, long thought of as Canada’s third party, is once again in fourth place, behind the nationalist Bloc Québécois. Singh still has enough leverage to push the Liberals to the left on key issues, particularly those Trudeau noisily campaigned for, as the PM will require NDP support in parliament. But as I wrote last week in a profile of the charismatic Singh, merely influencing the agenda, rather than setting it, is an unsatisfactory position.
But perhaps the biggest losers of all, in an election that so few wanted, are the voters themselves. Although the result is apparently the status quo – the parliamentary arithmetic is remarkably similar to 2019 – this was an ugly campaign marked by violence at protests, the politicisation of vaccine mandates and palpable anger that the contest was taking place at all. Meanwhile, indigenous rights, a huge issue in the wake of the discovery of hundreds of bodies on former residential schools earlier this year, received little attention from the campaigns.
Few Canadians will feel this election has changed much for the better. They went into this election begrudgingly. Many will come out of it more alienated, more disenchanted and potentially more apathetic. It’s a result no one wanted to see.
THIS IS EVEN MORE THE CASE AFTER THE ELECTION RESULTS, ONLY THE NDP GAINED SEATS INCLUDING ANOTHER ONE FOR TWO IN EDMONTON IN THE HEART OF TORY COUNTRY
Jagmeet Singh: the rise of Canada’s kingmaker
The New Democratic Party’s youthful leader is, once again, set to shape the agenda of the next Canadian government.
By Megan Gibson
17 September 2021
Jagmeet Singh: the rise of Canada’s kingmaker
The New Democratic Party’s youthful leader is, once again, set to shape the agenda of the next Canadian government.
By Megan Gibson
17 September 2021
Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star via Getty Images
Justin Trudeau’s self-described “sunny ways” have clouded over, and Jagmeet Singh hasn’t stopped talking about it. Over the course of Canada’s whirlwind election campaign this summer, the biggest thorn in the beleaguered prime minister’s side arguably hasn’t been the official opposition leader, the Conservative Party’s Erin O’Toole. Instead, it’s been Singh, the dapper, charismatic leader of the progressive New Democratic Party (NDP), who has doggedly — in campaign ads, in stump speeches, in leader debates — castigated Trudeau on his failures in office.
For Singh, drawing a firm distinction between himself and the Liberal Party leader makes sense. Both politicians appeared on the national stage as rising stars, brimming with optimism and progressive promise. Yet while Singh is still riding the crest of his popularity wave, Trudeau’s could be about to crash. Once Canadians cast their ballots on 20 September, there’s a not-so-small chance that Trudeau could be out of a job after calling a miscalculated snap election five weeks ago. Singh, meanwhile, is poised to become the next government’s kingmaker.
A former criminal defence lawyer, Singh moved into Ontario provincial politics in 2011, where he made a name for himself by pushing policies on increasing police accountability. Then, just six years later aged 38, he made the leap to the federal stage by decisively winning an NDP leadership race. He also became the first visible minority to head a major federal party in Canada (Singh is Indo-Canadian and a practicing Sikh).
That momentum, however, soon stalled. In the 2019 federal election, the NDP under Singh had its worst electoral performance in 15 years. Although voters think of it as Canada’s third party – rather than a possible contender for government – upsets aren’t inconceivable. In 2011’s election, under the leadership of the late Jack Layton, the NDP became the official opposition party. Singh’s first federal election, however, saw it downgraded from third-party status to fourth behind the nationalist Bloc Québécois.
Yet the political landscape in Canada is much different in 2021 – and so too is the NDP. Singh has a stronger team in place and the party is better funded. Meanwhile, he has capitalised on his relative youth, garnering a reputation for connecting with a younger demographic, comfortably embracing platforms such as TikTok and Twitch. His enthusiasm is contagious. A CBC poll ahead of the English-language debate on 9 September found that of all the party leaders, Singh was rated the most trustworthy and most competent.
In spite of this, Singh’s ability to translate personal popularity into votes for his party is unclear ahead of Monday’s 20 September vote. The NDP remains firmly in third place across polls. While Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system doesn’t do the NDP any favours, perhaps neither do the party’s biggest supporters. “Are young people going to break Jagmeet’s heart, is the question,” says David McGrane, a professor of politics at the University of Saskatchewan and the author of The New NDP: Moderation, Modernisation, and Political Marketing. “If you’re putting all your chips into young people voting, are you actually [in a] comfortable [spot]?”
That’s not to say that the NDP hasn’t been able to move the needle. Indeed, after two years of propping up Trudeau’s Liberal minority government, Singh can make legitimate claims about influencing policy. Many credit Trudeau’s most progressive campaign promises as stalwart NDP pledges. “If the country ends up with $10-a-day childcare or a $15 federal minimum wage, it was because the NDP pushed for it,” says David Moscrop, author of Too Dumb for Democracy? and political theorist. “That’s not nothing.”
While the race for prime minister remains too close to call for either Trudeau or O’Toole, it’s a relatively safe bet that the NDP will comfortably increase its seat count – and Singh will likely continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the policy of the next government. For political analysts and those within the party, that result will mark a victory.
Yet it also raises a deeper question: if electoral success in 2021 means that the NDP will essentially play the same role it did after taking a beating in 2019, what does that say about the party’s purpose? Is it enough for the NDP to continue to be a “policy farm for the Liberals”, as Moscrop puts it, influencing rather than setting the agenda? Or is it time to reassess the party’s ambitions? It’s a question that the NDP – and Singh – will have to grapple with at some point, no matter the outcome of this election.
Justin Trudeau’s self-described “sunny ways” have clouded over, and Jagmeet Singh hasn’t stopped talking about it. Over the course of Canada’s whirlwind election campaign this summer, the biggest thorn in the beleaguered prime minister’s side arguably hasn’t been the official opposition leader, the Conservative Party’s Erin O’Toole. Instead, it’s been Singh, the dapper, charismatic leader of the progressive New Democratic Party (NDP), who has doggedly — in campaign ads, in stump speeches, in leader debates — castigated Trudeau on his failures in office.
For Singh, drawing a firm distinction between himself and the Liberal Party leader makes sense. Both politicians appeared on the national stage as rising stars, brimming with optimism and progressive promise. Yet while Singh is still riding the crest of his popularity wave, Trudeau’s could be about to crash. Once Canadians cast their ballots on 20 September, there’s a not-so-small chance that Trudeau could be out of a job after calling a miscalculated snap election five weeks ago. Singh, meanwhile, is poised to become the next government’s kingmaker.
A former criminal defence lawyer, Singh moved into Ontario provincial politics in 2011, where he made a name for himself by pushing policies on increasing police accountability. Then, just six years later aged 38, he made the leap to the federal stage by decisively winning an NDP leadership race. He also became the first visible minority to head a major federal party in Canada (Singh is Indo-Canadian and a practicing Sikh).
That momentum, however, soon stalled. In the 2019 federal election, the NDP under Singh had its worst electoral performance in 15 years. Although voters think of it as Canada’s third party – rather than a possible contender for government – upsets aren’t inconceivable. In 2011’s election, under the leadership of the late Jack Layton, the NDP became the official opposition party. Singh’s first federal election, however, saw it downgraded from third-party status to fourth behind the nationalist Bloc Québécois.
Yet the political landscape in Canada is much different in 2021 – and so too is the NDP. Singh has a stronger team in place and the party is better funded. Meanwhile, he has capitalised on his relative youth, garnering a reputation for connecting with a younger demographic, comfortably embracing platforms such as TikTok and Twitch. His enthusiasm is contagious. A CBC poll ahead of the English-language debate on 9 September found that of all the party leaders, Singh was rated the most trustworthy and most competent.
In spite of this, Singh’s ability to translate personal popularity into votes for his party is unclear ahead of Monday’s 20 September vote. The NDP remains firmly in third place across polls. While Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system doesn’t do the NDP any favours, perhaps neither do the party’s biggest supporters. “Are young people going to break Jagmeet’s heart, is the question,” says David McGrane, a professor of politics at the University of Saskatchewan and the author of The New NDP: Moderation, Modernisation, and Political Marketing. “If you’re putting all your chips into young people voting, are you actually [in a] comfortable [spot]?”
That’s not to say that the NDP hasn’t been able to move the needle. Indeed, after two years of propping up Trudeau’s Liberal minority government, Singh can make legitimate claims about influencing policy. Many credit Trudeau’s most progressive campaign promises as stalwart NDP pledges. “If the country ends up with $10-a-day childcare or a $15 federal minimum wage, it was because the NDP pushed for it,” says David Moscrop, author of Too Dumb for Democracy? and political theorist. “That’s not nothing.”
While the race for prime minister remains too close to call for either Trudeau or O’Toole, it’s a relatively safe bet that the NDP will comfortably increase its seat count – and Singh will likely continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the policy of the next government. For political analysts and those within the party, that result will mark a victory.
Yet it also raises a deeper question: if electoral success in 2021 means that the NDP will essentially play the same role it did after taking a beating in 2019, what does that say about the party’s purpose? Is it enough for the NDP to continue to be a “policy farm for the Liberals”, as Moscrop puts it, influencing rather than setting the agenda? Or is it time to reassess the party’s ambitions? It’s a question that the NDP – and Singh – will have to grapple with at some point, no matter the outcome of this election.
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