It is election day in Canada, and polls point to the Liberal Party led by Justin Trudeau (son of the late prime minister) winning a minority mandate, and putting an end to what is increasing being called the Decade of Darkness. Which is not to say that the Conservative Party has not done its absolute worst in attempting to turn the tide, trying to eke out a win by appealing to the basest xenophobia, and to some extent succeeding, revealing a side of some of my fellow Canadians that was reminiscent of the past hostility towards certain groups of immigrants, and which most of us thought was a relic of an era long past.
Thankfully it doesn't appear to have been enough to staunch Liberal momentum, nor were the years of personal attacks against Trudeau any more successful. The Conservative strategy of trying to define Liberal leaders before they could define themselves had worked perfectly in the previous two elections. The Conservative miscalculation this time, I think, was that they were trying to define in their own terms a man whom the entire country had witnessed growing up into the man he eventually became.
Ironically, by attempting to set expectations so low, the Conservatives may have helped propel Trudeau from the third place standing he held at the beginning of the election. There was broad consensus that he put in an impressive performance during the five televised debates, and it was in that time that his poll numbers began to move upwards. The memes that Conservatives tried to generate about him (part-time drama teacher, just not ready, etc.) simply did not jive with what people saw during those debates.
Nor can the disastrous campaign performance of the New Democratic Party be discounted as a major factor in the Liberal rise. The NDP were strongly leading in the early phases of the writ period, but a series of miscalculations sent them on a downward spiral that will see them lucky to hold on to a majority of the seats in Quebec, their base in the last Parliament, and more than a smattering of seats elsewhere.
Latest seat projections:
Too Close to Call:
Election Prediction Project:
Code: Select all
Conservative Party
Parti Conservateur 120
N.D.P.
N.P.D. 83
Liberal Party
Parti Liberal 128
Bloc Quebecois 5
Green Party
Parti Vert 2
Total 338Code: Select all
CPC 118 (100-139)
NDP 66 ( 51- 90)
LIB 146 (124-161)
BQ 7 ( 1- 12)
GRN 1 ( 1- 1)
(brackets show 95% confidence interval)So it looks like a "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario for the Liberal Party come the close of voting tonight. Stay tuned for updates.
