The view from Pete

So there it is. Another federal election done and gone, a new government chosen by voters for up to 4 years, one that will hopefully outlast the insanity south of us.

But not all is great.

I will start that I am a country-first progressive voter. That is to say that I value my country’s survival and viability above partisanship. So, I am genuinely grateful that the Conservatives lost.

But I cannot help but feel a sense of despair and gloom that Canada has become the same two party duopoly that we pretend to be different from in the USA.

Its just not democratically healthy to have only two viable parties that vie for power. We put value on having alternatives to the red/blue, and many of them had meaningful influence in Parliament – even as partners to power in one form or another.

To be sure, the Conservatives had to lose, and they did. They lost the most winnable election in Canadian history – for several reasons.

The Conservatives bet the farm on anti-Trudeauism. That was their feature and selling point. Though not part of their official script or campaign literature, the “fuck Trudeau” flags and banners were interchangeable as ‘vote CPC’ signs. They staked their identity on this…and not a single party official, MP, candidate, or high ranking advisor lifted a finger to disavow this toxic trait. It became their brand…and the Liberals knew it.

I would guess that the decision for Justin Trudeau to retire from public office happened far longer into the past than what we saw publicly. For all the flaws of the Liberal party, they are really good at strategy. They hung on as long as possible, flipping the script with the late stage leadership contest.

The Liberals benefitted from circumstances too. The chaotic behaviour of President Donald Trump made the Liberals a relative antidote against the MAGA leaning CPC here in Canada. With Trudeau stepping down and a seemingly moderate face in Mark Carney ascending to the leadership post, it was the brilliant reset they needed.

But the Conservatives made a critical mistake too. When Donald Trump unleashed his barrage of tariffs against Canada, instead of acting like nationalists pledging an absolute united front while keeping partisan differences on the back burner; the CPC decided to leverage their anti-Liberal hostility to attack the government as if to partially blame our country for the irrational behaviour of Trump.

This was a huge mistake.

This was a critical moment where the CPC abandoned any claim to being Canada-First, politics second, because they were literally undermining the attempt of an team-Canada approach to this very real threat to our national sovereignty. They let the Liberals become the party of TEAM CANADA, and it was a choice they made. To be fair, there’s a not-insignificant chunk of the CPC base who agree with Trump.

Pierre Poilievre would have alienated that group (who he needed), and that was a bridge too far. The problem though for the CPC is that it closed off an even larger moderate, centre-right (coherent conservatives) voters who were considering his party – from support because of this decision.

Campaigns matter.

At the outset of the campaign, nothing was guaranteed. The Mark Carney Liberals started out with a lead (dramatic turnaround from the depths of the Trudeau slump) but momentum matters; campaigns matter.

The CPC did not deliver the goods. They could not sell to the public, a plausible alternative to the Liberals and voters opted for the devil they knew, largely out of fear. For all the warts and imperfections of the Liberal party, voters stayed the course.

Which is disappointing.

Because we haven’t learned a thing.

Neither party deserves a majority, certainly not the Conservatives with their extremists largely in control of the party and driving the agenda, but same for the Liberals – for failure to deliver on the changes we needed. It took two terms of minority government with the NDP holding their leash in a confidence and supply motion to extract concessions enough to establish basic national dental care, the basics of a pharmacare program and others. Programs that would have never seen the light of day had the Liberals governed all this time with a majority government.

But the one thing they never did? Electoral Reform. It was a massive promise made in 2015 and could have eliminated the so-called vote split garbage we’re faced with in every election.

No form of electoral reform took place. None. Not the Mixed-Member PR as advocated by the NDP, not instant run off by the Liberals. None. So we have the same old system that produces lopsided results and total power without the appropriate popular support.

As previous elections where the stakes are high have shown, folks will abandon 3rd and 4th parties when either really spooked or really angry. The NDP got pinched thanks to the anxieties of the potential of a CPC government and real threats to our national existence by the Trump administration.

I am not a Liberal supporter, but I’ll respect the outcome of an election whomever wins – because that’s what adults do. But I cannot help but feel utterly disappointed that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

My2bits