There is 22 days left in this National Federal Election and it has been a big bore. Prior to the Governor General accepting the request of the Prime Minister to dismiss Parliament, we had a minority in Government ruled by the Liberal party, meaning that it was a hung Parliament and that no party in the House of Commons had enough seats to command a majority. So in such cases the party in power must at all times keep the confidence of the House and rule by compromise in order to stay in Office. The last election was in 2019 and it has been about 2 years which for a minority government is a long time in Office.
The reason why the Prime Minister thought it was better to have an election now, was because the business of Parliament was becoming bogged down in horrible partisan fights and nothing was being achieved. Many bills were caught up in endless and fruitless debates in Committee, the Opposition would not allow them to get to a vote. Personal attacks on the Prime Minister and his family, including his mother and brother who are not public figures had become the norm. Both the Conservatives of Erin O’Toole and the NDP of Jagmeet Singh did all they could to block the business of government.
Unfortunately the call for this election came on the day Kabul fell to the Taliban and also when the 4th wave of COVID 19 started in earnest in Provinces like Ontario and Alberta where Trump like Conservative Premiers rule, refusing to work with the Federal Government.
As of tonight the Prime Minister despite his best effort to shelter Canadians from the worst economic impact of Covid and the lockdown, has been painted by the Conservatives and the right wing Press as the ennemy. The Conservatives including their Leader Erin O’Toole love to agitate with Q-Anon and other white supremacists against Trudeau. In the last few days Trudeau has received death threats and his campaign bus has been attacked by violent mobs, composed of anti-vaxxers, white supremacist, Q-Anon and neo-nazis. His security detail, members of which are persons of colour and women have also been attacked. It is a miracle that no one has been shot. However the blame for the violence rests entirely with Erin O’Toole and other members of his party who constantly speak of conspiracies. Yes there is some of Donald Trump in Erin O’Toole and he is hungry for power despite the fact that he has no plan or program, though he tells us that he has a plan, what is it? No one knows.
The trouble with Trudeau is his arrogance and his constant virtue signalling, his woke agenda, his so called Feminist views and his constant sympathies for every cause from BLM to Indigenous issues. He seems to forget that millions of Canadians do not necessarily share his views or even care for them. Though he has desperately tried to paint himself as the man for all, he fails at it. Feminists denounce him for not doing enough, same with the Natives who smell a day of reckoning and now want more, but in reality Trudeau or his government cannot deliver on the spot, especially when Premiers do not want to play ball with him.
This is the trouble with our Federation, jurisdictions are divided between the Federal Government and the Provinces and no one wants to give an inch.
The big issues for a lot of Canadians is the cost of housing which is now for a single house or condo in the $ 700,000 and up and often over $1 million dollars. The vast majority of Canadians cannot afford such prices and rents on average now are in the $2000 per month and up. Again this has become an impossible situation for far too many people. Canadians are heavily in debt, for the average person on every $1 earned they owe $1.64 in credit card debts. They are simply choking on debt, if you have no debts now you are amongst the privileged. Trudeau made the classic mistake of thinking that with generous programs to help out people during the pandemic, he would be rewarded with a majority government. But humanity is not necessarily grateful to those who help out. An example of Winston Churchill who in May 1945 as the war ended in Europe, thought that Britons would return him to power given his leadership. The Election of 1945 was a disaster for him and he was swept out of office, people wanted changed, despite it all, showing no gratitude.
Trudeau also forgot that if change is good in general, too much change all at once is not a good thing with a population pampered with social programs of all kinds. Life is and remains pretty easy in Canada, despite difficulties. The pandemic also exposed how whiners Canadians are in general, social responsibility is not a thing, the Me first attitude rules.
Trudeau also believed that the under 40 would support his change agenda, but that is not the case. Not everyone is on the Woke agenda, not everyone accepts feminists precepts, not everyone likes BLM or the more contentious Truth and Reconciliation agenda with the Natives. In fact with the Pandemic its the opposite people are often heard expressing how sick and tired they are to hear about those groups and their demands.
The Conservative love to present themselves as the voice of the little guy. Pandering to the lowest common denominator.
What is truly difficult to understand is the amount of hate against Trudeau. In some demonstrations its pathological and sickening. It could very well be that people simply do not connect with Trudeau and he is seen as someone belonging to the elite. But then people like O’Toole is also a member fo the elite and Jagmeet Singh with his 10K rolex and his big luxury BMW is far from the little guy, but hey, he plays the populist card, it seems to work for him despite the fact that his speeches are a jumble of nothing.
So who is going to win this election, I really do not know, however I am pretty sure that it will be another minority government simply because the country is so deeply divided. So far the Liberals hold on to the big provinces like Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic which can guarantee the most seats in Parliament. Because in Canada % of votes means nothing, our system is based on the number of seats you win to give you the prize. We also no not elect our Prime Minister, we elect only our Member of Parliament in the area where we live, so we are having 338 seat election and they all count on election night. Trudeau needs 170 seats to get the majority he wants.
The fear with a Conservative government is that history of the last 43 parliament going back to 1867 shows that when they are in power we go backwards on all levels.
