Trudeau wins Canada vote, loses majority
MINORITY GOVT Incumbent Canadian PM survives controversies and criticism
TORONTO: Despite accusations of ethical lapses and controversies, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has retained power, but he will have to form a minority government.
After the narrow election victory, Trudeau appeared on stage in Montreal and exclaimed in French, “What an unbelievable night!”
“Tonight we chose to move Canada forward,” he said, riffing on his party's campaign theme, Choose Forward. Recognising that his party had been wiped out in most of western Canada, i ncluding t he province of Alberta, he was careful in delivering a unifying message, as his wife Sophie Gregoire looked on.
With results still trickling in on Tuesday, the Liberals had 157 seats - 13 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the 338-seat House of Commons - while the Conservatives had 121.
Just about four hours after counting began for the 43rd general elections in Canada, it became clear that the incumbent Liberals were going to emerge as the largest group in the House.
Some Canadian networks predicted a Trudeau-led minority government by 9.45 pm, about an hour before national broadcaster CBC put out the same forecast.
Liberal Party insiders were upbeat over returning to power in Ottawa with a strong minority government, offsetting the need for forming a coalition with other parties, like the Jagmeet Singhled New Democratic Party (NDP).
Trudeau himself was an early winner from the riding of Papineau in the city of Montreal in Quebec, despite his party facing several setbacks in the Francophone province, thanks to the sweeping wins of the separatist Bloc Quebecois.
It turned out that the Liberals will possibly have the lowest ever vote share for a party forming government in recent history.
Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer was an easy winner from his riding of Regina-qu'appelle. His party was unable to take advantage of the controversies dogging Trudeau of late and failed to become the largest party.
Political analysts don't expect Scheer to last long as the Conservative leader and some expect him to resign later this month.
It was election in which climate change emerged as a major issue in deciding how Canadians voted. Trudeau described the issue as the “biggest challenge of our age” in his speech. At the same time, it became evident that the third largest party in the House will be the Bloc Quebecois, for long a champion of a separate nation of Quebec carved out of Canada.
The Bloc looked set to gather a larger number of seats in the House as against the NDP, which has traditionally been in that position, thereby also raising questions about whether Singh will continue as the NDP leader.
The NDP also looked set to underperform with respect to its 2015 tally of 44 seats. However, party leader Singh seemed confident as he appeared on stage in Burnaby, British Columbia, along with his wife Gurkiran, and promised to play a “constructive and positive” role in the new House.
Trudeau will clearly need outside support for running the government, but finishing close to the magic 170 mark makes that not so difficult.