Life, Writing, Weirdness

I went to bed last night late enough that we knew we’d have a Liberal government, but no one could say for sure whether it would be a minority or a majority government. It looked like it was trending minority, but there were still enough ridings with close races that no one was quite willing to commit to that prediction. This morning, it still looks like a minority but there’s still some counting that could push things over the edge on the remaining outstanding ridings, a couple of which might fall into the automatic recount range and a couple more that will probably get reasonably requested recounts. We may or may not know today.

Like I said a couple of days ago, the minority version (which I think is still the most likely outcome, but there are too many people, and too many factors involved for me to say that definitively) is the least interesting outcome, but it’s now that the interesting stuff starts. And some of that stuff is going to be a different sort of interesting than I was expecting.

Things we know as I’m writing this:

1. It’s a Liberal government. Mark Carney will continue to be Prime Minister, though now with a seat in parliament and a bit of grace period to establish how his Liberal government will actually be different than the last ten years of Liberal governance.
2. The Conservatives achieved a higher overall vote percentage than in any other election in almost 40 years, but Pierre Poilievre lost his seat. He’s still leader of the Opposition but will be in that capacity without being able to stand in parliament.
3. The NDP have been reduced to below official party status. Jagmeet Singh lost his seat and resigned as party leader during his concession speech.
4. The BQ didn’t collapse nearly as far as I expected, or I think as far as they expected, and are the third biggest party by seat count to go into the new parliament. Yves-François Blanchet may hang around for a while yet.

Okay, there’s a lot more to know than that, but those are the big key points, dismissing the Green Party from consideration, which makes me a bit wistful if not actually sad.

Taking those big points in my thoughts one at a time.

1. The Liberals don’t have a lot of time to differentiate themselves. If it does wind up being a minority government, I doubt they have much more than two years before a confidence vote lines up to send us back to the polls again.
2. Mr. Poilievre is perched on a knife edge. He needs to mend a lot of federal-provincial conservative fences fast, and by fast I mean a couple of weeks at best, in order to hang on as leader until a by-election lets him run. The leadership review is closer than it appears. Based on what I’ve observed of his personality and leadership style, I’d bet against it at this point.
3. The NDP party leadership needs to do some soul searching. Singh was the best, most genuine and thoughtful leader they’ve had since Layton (who had his issues but was a unifier). It’s time to be loud and bold again.
4. Blanchet is far more likely to keep his job than I thought 48 hours ago. As the third-place finisher, the BQ has some substantial power to wield in the right circumstances.

Let’s be clear, though. I’m happy that the Conservatives aren’t forming the next government, and I’m very entertained that the Pierre Poilievre lost his seat because I don’t like him. I think he was the worst possible choice for leader for a national party and he’s proven that time and again by cozying up to the far right, supporting conspiracy theories and fringe movements, and never actually presenting any ideas about how things could be done differently until the party released its platform a few days before the election.

But I don’t like Mark Carney, either. He presents as an old-style capitalist boss who runs a tight ship with no patience for any opinion but his own, the kind of boss who should be relegated to history rather than running the country. But echoing the, “at least we’re better than the Americans” refrain so many folks of used for so long, at least he’s better than Pierre Poilievre.

The thing is, I don’t put a lot of faith in Liberal ability to govern any better than the Conservatives would have, even considering the recent history of both parties. If you look at strictly policy and divide the social policies from everything else, there’s very little daylight between the two parties. I might suggest that there isn’t any, just a bit of lighter shadow.

So, it’s the social issues that are the deciding factor and there seems to be a lot of division in the country that may or may not fall along ideological lines. But as long as we work under a broken two-party system that artificially forces polarization, it’s not going to get better even when the third parties pull themselves together again. We need some serious electoral reform. More voices means the folks we elect will have to actually talk to each other and work together to get things done.

It seems pretty simple and the parties have figured that out in their internal electoral processes but somehow no one wants to take even the first step towards it for the rest of us.

There’s a lot more I could say about the system we’re working in and the people who are working it, but for now I think I’ll just leave things with the two points that we need change and we need to demand that our government actually governs.

Be well, everyone.

P.S. And really, should the leader who parroted the word “change” so many times in recent speeches and who clearly believed the country was ready for it be all that surprised that the folks in the riding he’s represented for 20 years wanted one?