BY JOCELYN ZHOU ’22
The 2019 Canadian federal election was held on Oct. 21 and Justin Trudeau was re-elected as prime minister. This election was to select members of the House of Commons to the 43rd Canadian Parliament.
No party won more than half of the seats, proving this to be a somewhat contentious election. Global News reports that none of the federal political parties hit the 170-seat threshold of a majority government, which the Liberal Party scored when it stormed to power in 2015.
Despite winning a plurality of the 338 seats in Parliament and securing minority status this time around, the Liberals lost the popular vote to the Conservatives. The Liberals won 157 seats, which is more than the Conservative Party, led by Andrew Scheer, which won 121 seats.
The New Democratic Party, led by Jagmeet Singh, won 24 seats, its worst result since 2004. The Green Party had its best result with three seats. The People’s Party of Canada lost its only seat.
Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould became the first independent to win a seat in over a decade. Every party leader except Maxime Bernier of the People’s Party was re-elected to their own seat.
“Justin Trudeau will be returning to the Prime Minister’s Office, but this time he will be leading a Liberal minority government. The Bloc Québécois will enter the 43rd Parliament with a far stronger presence. The NDP surge some pollsters anticipated did not materialize but the party does have enough seats to hold the balance of power in a Liberal minority government,” according to CBC.
The Conservatives increased their share of the popular vote and their seat count and remained the official opposition. “Even though the Conservatives won 36 fewer seats than the Liberals, the Conservative Party won the greatest share of ballots cast with 6,155,662 votes, or 34.4 percent of the popular vote,” Global News said.
“I wasn’t happy that the conservatives won the popular vote, but I wasn’t entirely surprised either,” Zara Malik ’21, a Canadian student, said. “This election was hectic. While I’m relieved that the Conservative leader Andrew Scheer didn’t become prime minister, I am not entirely happy with Trudeau’s re-election either. I hope that either the Liberal Party makes large reformations to its platform in the future or that the NDP can gain the momentum it needs to get in office.”
“While I wanted Jagmeet Singh to win, I knew Canadians weren’t ready for him,” Malik said. “A lot of liberal Canadians were unhappy with Trudeau and didn’t see the potential in Singh or the NDP’s platform, so they opted instead for Scheer.”
“This election echoed the American federal election of 2016 in that many people chose what they saw to be the lesser of two evils,” Malik said.
Additionally, Malik does not feel surprised that conservatism is on the rise in Canada.
“The rise in immigrants and refugees in Canada makes a lot of white Canadians feel like they don’t own Canada anymore, even though they never did, since Canada belongs to the indigenous peoples,” Malik said. “I know a lot of white Canadians in my own hometown who have opted to move further from Toronto because the Greater Toronto Area has become a ‘brown-town’ of immigrants, including my family.”
“On the other hand, people also might have just voted for Scheer because they didn’t like Trudeau’s mistakes and scandals and didn’t think the NDP could win,” Malik said. “Whatever it is, I hope that Canadians are able to come to an agreement of what this country needs to move forward.”