Window narrows for Canada’s Trudeau to win ‘smash and grab’ majority in snap vote
OTTAWA, ( Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a window for a snap election that could give him a majority government and free him of his dependence on opposition parties to govern - if only they would cooperate and withdraw their support.
On Wednesday Trudeau’s Liberals, doing well in polls due to their handling of the coronavirus pandemic, sought to capitalize on that boost before an emerging second wave worsens and expensive financial aid programs begin to wind down. The government called a surprise confidence vote which, if lost, would have triggered a snap election. But the left-leaning opposition New Democrats backed Trudeau, allowing the government to survive.
“I’m convinced that Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau was looking for a way to go to an election,” New Democrats leader Jagmeet Singh told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp after the tense vote on Wednesday.
“We’re not going to let them go to an election just because it suits them,” Singh said. Trudeau, who has been in power since 2015, lost the popular vote last year after struggling through an ethics scandal and the emergence of old pictures of him in blackface, leaving him with a minority government. That means Trudeau must negotiate all legislation to win opposition support. A majority government is independent.
But his handling of COVID-19 has put wind in the Liberals’ sails, and there is no way to predict how long it will last.
“If we look at the 6-, 12-, 18
month horizon, there are an increasing number of uncertainties related to the state of the economy and what happens with the pandemic,” said pollster Nik Nanos, founder of Nanos Research.