On Monday, October 21, 2019, Canadian went to the polls for the 43rd time since Confederation and elected Justin Trudeau’s Liberals to the 15th minority government. Despite narrowly winning the popular vote, the Conservatives fell short of a minority government and remain the official opposition.
Out of the 338 seats up for election, the Liberals won the plurality of 157, though losing 27 and a million votes compared to the 2015 election. The Conservatives increased their seat count by 22 to 121, gaining half a million votes and putting them just barely ahead of the Liberals in percentage of the vote. The NDP suffered a loss of half a million votes and 20 seats while the Bloc Québécois picked up 22 seats and half a million votes. Finally the Green party broke through, tripling their seat count to 3 and garnering another half million votes.
So how did the Liberals lose the popular vote but end up with 36 more seats than the Conservatives? In comparison to the 2015 election the Conservatives increased their number of votes, but most of these gains were in western Canada, where they already had most of the seats. Thus most of the new votes were wasted in contests they would have already won anyway. It also creates a fractured electoral map, only one seat between Saskatchewan and Alberta did not go Conservative
In Ontario, with the lion’s share of 121 seats, the electoral map was virtually unchanged. Only 6 ridings switched hands, allowing the Liberals to keep the bulk of their seats and shutting the Conservatives out of a majority. The major shakeup was in Québec.
After a year where the existence of the party was looking uncertain, the Bloc Québécois was arguably the largest winner of the election. In fact, they increased their number of votes by a larger amount than the Conservatives, despite only running candidates in Québec. This performance was in no small part due to their new leader Yves-François Blanchet, whose charismatic performance stirred the patriotism of Québec’s nationalists. They effectively stole this swing demographic from the NDP, who lost all but one of their seats in the province, a low point from their 59 in 2011.
As a whole, the campaign seemed rather dull and disengaging for many voters. Voter turnout shrunk to 66% (passing, but could be better). Party leaders expounded the negative qualities of each other while spending comparatively little time convincing voters why they should vote for them. Therefore, voters shouldn’t expect many major new policies like they received in 2015.
However, due to the nature of minority parliaments, smaller parties’ policies may see the light of day. In order to pass bills, the Liberals will need the support of other parties, most likely the left-leaning NDP, Bloc or Greens. Their support may come at the price of policies like pharmacare and increased environmental protection, or more autonomy for Québec in the case of the Bloc. If the Liberals lose any confidence vote, like the budget, an election will happen and the 44th election will be triggered.
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