Trudeau’s election bet fails, but his Tory rival could lose his job
TORONTO — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won his third straight election but failed to get the majority in Parliament he wanted, an outcome that threatened his Conservative rival with loss of his job after moving his party to the center and alienating its base.
Trudeau bet Canadians didn’t want a Conservative government during a pandemic and voiced the concerns of Canadians who are increasingly upset with those who refuse to get vaccinated.
That helped propel Trudeau, 49, to victory Monday, and while the gamble to win a majority of Parliament seats didn’t pay off, Trudeau now leads a strong minority government that won’t be toppled any time soon.
The results nearly mirrored those of two years ago. The Liberal Party secured or was leading in 158 seats — one more than it won in 2019, and 12 short of the 170 needed for a majority in the House of Commons.
The Conservatives were leading or elected in 119 seats, two less than in 2019. The leftist New Democrats were leading or elected in 25, while the Bloc Quebecois were poised to win 34 and the Greens were down to two.
Hours after the results came in, Trudeau greeted commuters and posed for photos Tuesday morning at a subway stop in his district in Montreal — a post-election tradition for the prime minister.
At a news conference Tuesday, Conservative leader Erin O’toole said he had initiated a post-election review to examine what went wrong for his party.
“We are building towards victory next time,” O’toole said, adding that an election could occur within 18 months.
Conservative campaign co-chair Walied Soliman said before the votes were counted Monday that holding Trudeau to a minority government would be a win. But Jenni Byrne, campaign manager and deputy chief of staff to former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told The Associated Press she was “stunned” by Soliman’s comments and later said O’toole, 47, gave a tone-deaf concession speech.
O’toole said he was more determined than ever to continue, but his party might dump him as it did his predecessor, who failed to beat Trudeau in 2019.
Presidential powers: House Democrats say they will vote on legislation this fall to curb the power of the president, an effort to rein in executive powers that they say President Donald Trump flagrantly abused.
The legislation would limit the president’s pardon power, strengthen laws to ban presidents from receiving gifts or payments from foreign governments, better protect independent agency watchdogs and whistleblowers from firing or retribution and give Congress better tools to enforce subpoenas. It was written with the input of President Joe Biden’s White House and incorporates a previous version Democrats introduced just before the November election.
The bill comes as Trump mulls another run for president and as Democrats defend a thin majority in the 2022 midterm elections.
Pope acknowledges critics:
Pope Francis has acknowledged his increasingly vocal
conservative critics, saying their “nasty comments” were the work of the devil and adding that “some wanted me dead” after his recent intestinal surgery.
Francis made the comments during a Sept. 12 private meeting with Slovakian Jesuits soon after he arrived in the Slovak capital of Bratislava during his just-finished visit. A transcript of the encounter was published Tuesday by the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, which often provides after-thefact accounts of Francis’ closed-door meetings with his fellow Jesuits when he’s on the road.
Francis was also asked about how he deals with divisions and with people who view him with suspicion. It was a reference to Catholic conservatives who have long criticized Francis’ critiques of capitalism and his focus on the environment and migrants.
Their criticism turned to outrage after Francis in
July cracked down on the celebration of the old Latin Mass. Francis reversed Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and reimposed restrictions on celebrating the rite.
Spy poisoning: British police said Tuesday they are charging a third Russian suspect, a member of the country’s military intelligence service, in the 2018 nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy in England.
Prosecutors believe there is sufficient evidence to charge Denis Sergeev, who went by the alias “Sergey Fedotov,” with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, possessing and using a chemical weapon, and causing grievous bodily harm, according to London’s Metropolitan Police force.
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were targeted in a nerve agent attack in March 2018 in the English city of Salisbury. British authorities say the poisoning had almost
certainly been approved “at a senior level of the Russian state.” Moscow has vehemently denied the allegations.
The Skripals survived.
‘Havana syndrome’: A U.S. intelligence officer suffered symptoms linked to a series of suspected directed-energy attacks known as “Havana syndrome” while traveling with CIA Director William Burns in India this month.
Experts are in the process of verifying the officer’s symptoms, which are consistent with the scores of other cases in recent years, according to James Giordano, a scientist briefed on the case and others.
Defense and intelligence agencies have ramped up investigations of what appears to be a rising number of incidents in which personnel have suffered symptoms consistent with being exposed to directed energy. The symptoms are often referred to as
Havana syndrome because of a well-known series of cases affecting personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba beginning in 2016.
The U.S. has not publicly linked the incidents to an adversary.
Boy Scouts bankruptcy: A Delaware judge on Tuesday refused to delay a key hearing that could determine whether the Boy Scouts of America can emerge from bankruptcy later this year with a reorganization plan that would compensate thousands of men who say they were sexually abused as children.
The Boy Scouts, based in Irving, Texas, sought bankruptcy protection in February 2020, seeking to halt hundreds of individual lawsuits and create a fund for men who say they were molested as children by scoutmasters and others.
The organization is facing some 82,500 sexual abuse claims in the bankruptcy case.