Liberals stay in power

The Liberals led by Justin Trudeau won the federal election, but won half for the outgoing prime minister who failed to regain a majority after a campaign in which he was mistreated.

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The Liberal Party will get 158 ​​seats, below the fateful limit of 170 seats to form a majority. So Justin Trudeau will have to form a minority government, as happened in 2019.

But it was precisely to get out of this situation called snap elections in mid-August.

“Canadians are returning us to power with a clear mandate to get out of this pandemic and move forward toward a better future,” he nonetheless welcomed Justin Trudeau, stressing he was “ready” for this new mandate and happy that Canadians chose a “progressive agenda.” . “

After a rather favorable start and encouraging polls, Justin Trudeau faced a particularly complex campaign, which almost turned into a personal disavowal. We felt the weariness of power and 2015’s “Trudeaumanie” seemed far away…

And on the ground, he had to contend with every trip into a throng of protesters angry at the health measures. Someone even threw pebbles at him.

To the end, the outcome of the ballot seemed uncertain: voting intentions still gave the two major parties close, about 31% of voting intentions, a few hours before polling.

During the final days of the campaign, Justin Trudeau called for a strategic vote, explaining that a Conservative victory would mean a step backwards, especially on the climate issue.

“Tonight, Canadians did not give Mr Trudeau the majority mandate he wanted,” Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole said Monday night, lamenting that the election had “aggravated divisions” in the country.

Mr O’Toole, whose party just won 122 seats – three more than it did before Parliament was dissolved, campaigned steadily in the center and promised Canadians to renew the seats.

The reorganization of polling stations linked to the pandemic has led to an exceptionally long wait at the end of the day for voters in major cities.

Lillian Laverder, 67, tried to vote four times and explained that she was surprised by the crowd. “In my opinion, people want change,” she said, adding, “I’ve never seen this” in ten years.

But other voters, on the contrary, said they had come to thank the prime minister for his handling of the health crisis – the country has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

“For me, managing the pandemic is the most important issue in this election. I think the prime minister has managed it well,” said Kay Anderson, 25, a voter in Ottawa, the federal capital.

The same sentiment is for Liz Meyer, 72, who lives on the other side of the country on the Pacific Coast in Vancouver and wants “consistency” in power, especially with the pandemic.

“In the end, we can really tell ourselves it’s a campaign for nothing,” confirms AFP Felix Mathieu of the University of Winnipeg, who notes that in many counties, “graduates have been systematically re-elected.”

Nearly 27 million Canadians were invited to elect 338 members of the House of Commons. When neither of the two major parties that have rotated in power since 1867 can obtain a majority of seats in Parliament, the winner must compose a minority government.

In order to do so, he needs to come to terms with smaller parties to govern Ottawa, such as the New Democratic Party (NDP, left, 26 seats) led by Jagmeet Singh or the Quebecwa Bloc, a separatist formation (31 seats).

Chef Yves-François Blanchett asked in the evening: “All this for that? Neither a winner nor a loser but surely a harsh judgment of people who will tell each other but what is this story?”.