Dem
47
GOP
53
The dust has settled, and all the ridings have been called, so we thought we'd note the final results of this week's elections in Canada. PM Mark Carney, and his Liberal Party, will have 168 seats in the new Parliament, just four seats short of a majority. They will undoubtedly form a coalition government with the New Democratic Party, which lost 17 of its 24 seats, but still has enough seats to give a Liberal-NDP coalition a majority.
The other pending storyline on election night was whether or not Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, in addition to losing his shot at the prime ministership, would also lose his own seat. His position was very tenuous on election night, and now it is official: He lost, by a little less than 5,000 votes, taking 46% of the ballots in Carleton, as compared to 51% for Liberal challenger Bruce Fanjoy.
In January, Poilievre and the Conservatives still had a huge edge in polling, well more than 20 points. As recently as March 1, they were still in the lead. However, Poilievre failed to respond effectively to the resentment and anger that Canadians feel toward Donald Trump. The wannabe PM did not exactly hug Trump close, but he didn't lambaste him either, the way that Carney did. Also problematic was Poilievre's (Trumpy) support for the now-infamous anti-vaccine mandate convoy, as well as his (Trumpy) pledge to cut public services. Added to these missteps was a fair bit of hubris; Poilievre presumed that as a politician of national stature, he did not need to bother campaigning in his riding, so he didn't do it. Oops.
So, what comes next? For both Carney and Poilievre, the future is murky. Carney ran on a promise to rein in Trump, and also to fix Canada's economic woes. As Trump himself has shown, the latter promise is easy to make, but hard to deliver on. And Trump doesn't have to deal with a world leader who has an ill-founded, seemingly arbitrary tariff policy that changes on a daily basis. Carney does. So, the new PM's honeymoon could come to an end quickly, just like Trump's has.
As to Poilievre, he does not intend to resign as leader of the Conservative Party. However, he cannot lead the Party in Parliament if he is not actually a member of Parliament. The likely solution here is that some Conservative member will resign, opening up a seat for Poilievre to pursue in a special election. However, it's going to have to be a safe seat, and safe seats tend to be occupied by veteran members, who may not be keen to fall on their swords because Poilievre botched his own election. Assuming a sacrificial lamb is found, Governor General of Canada Mary Simon would have to call a special election to be held 11-180 days after the seat is formally vacated. The likelihood is that Poilievre would not be able to return to Parliament until the fall sitting, at the earliest.
Meanwhile, it's looking like the same basic story could play out in another former British colony. Tomorrow, Australians will head to the polls. Throughout 2024, and for the first several months of 2025, the Liberal Party (in Australia, that's the main right-wing party) had a comfortable lead in polling. But now, many Australians fear that Liberal leader Peter Dutton will not manage Donald Trump effectively. So, that's given new life to Anthony Albanese, the current PM, and leader of the Labor Party (that's the main left-wing party). Heading into Election Day, the polls now have it neck-and-neck. We'll keep an eye on it, and will likely have a brief update on Sunday. (Z)