Paul's Internet Landfill/ 2025/ Federal Election Postblather

Federal Election Postblather

People are celebrating Mark Carney's victory. I ought to be happy, because I got most of what I wanted:

but a bunch of bad things happened too:

The big surprise was that Poilievre lost his own seat in Carleton.

The other big surprise was just how much support there was for Poilievre and the Conservatives in Ontario. I am sure the chattering classes will explain this away by talking about huge crowds at rallies, but those same chattering classes were claiming a Liberal Ontario sweep.

I don't feel that Carney won a strong mandate. The Conservatives almost won. Because this is a minority parliament, the government will fall again in two years, and then Poilievre (or his successor) will have a good chance of winning again. Canada probably gets a Conservative government next election, if the NDP is stronger and the electorate gets even more weary of Liberal governments.

Kitchener Centre

I am surprised at how angry I am at this result. I don't think I have been this upset since 2008, when Peter Braid won over Andrew Telegdi by 17 votes. In that election Cathy MacLellan of the Greens ran a strong campaign and won 17% of the vote, leading to a terrible outcome for progressives. I had voted for MacLellan (and continue to believe she would have been a great MP) but was furious that Telegdi lost.

This time I am furious at those Liberal and NDP voters who did not understand the assignment. I had my problems with Mike Morrice and had my problems with the Greens, but (a) Morrice was an outstanding MP, (b) he was the incumbent in the riding, (c) he ran a strong local campaign, (d) Aislinn Clancy won handily in the provincial election.

I sincerely hope that there are 400 Liberal and NDP voters who regret their decision today.

Instead of getting a Green or Liberal MP we get Kelly DeRidder, who has been so absent from the campaign that I did not even know whether she lived nearby. It turns out she lives in Cambridge and maybe works in the riding: I found one interview with her on Youtube. She seems like a decent person, but she got into politics because she is mad at drug users and effectively wants them jailed. I hope she is ready for what she got herself into, because she has some big shoes to fill.

I feel the big difference between this election and the previous one is that non-Conservative voters in the provincial election were looking for a way to vote against Doug Ford. In this election people were looking to avoid PP, but they had somebody to actively vote for. For a bunch of people that was Morrice; for others that was Mark Carney. (I feel very few people intentionally voted for Brian Adeba.)

I don't know whether Morrice will try to run again in two years, but it probably doesn't matter. The poison pill argument against Morrice was that he would split the vote and let the Conservative win. That accusation will forever be levelled against him now.

Conservatives

The Conservatives did really well this election. Getting 41.5% of the vote is usually plenty to propel a party into majority territory. Maybe Poilievre will lose party leadership over this, but if NDP support had not collapsed then people would be hailing PP as a political genius right now.

This is very disturbing to me. On the one hand I understand that many moderate voters were tired of the Liberals and that they wanted change. On the other hand I continue to feel that PP is really bad news. I remain convinced that PP has authoritarian leanings, and I do not expect them to stop the next time we have a federal election.

Poilievre lost his seat in Carleton, but I do not think this will be fatal for him. In a few months he will take a seat in some byelection someplace. If Poilievre knows what is good for him it will be in some deep blue riding of Alberta or Saskatchewan.

NDP

I am glad that Jagmeet Singh is out as leader. He is charismatic but managed to keep the NDP nearly invisible the entire time he was in government. I am quite upset that he cancelled the supply and confidence agreement he had with Trudeau on a whim.

From all accounts Singh is a genuine person who would be a great constituency politician. But he always radiated activist energy instead of leadership vibes; not once during his tenure did I see him as an actual leader who was anywhere near ready to lead a country. Maybe that is garden-variety racism on my part, but maybe there is something deeper. (In Singh's defense, I also thought Justin Trudeau was a bit of a goof, especially during that 2015 campaign.)

On the other hand, it is thanks to the NDP tanking that we have a Liberal government at all. In that sense Singh proved to be a tactical genius. If he had brought down the government while Trudeau was still insisting on running for a fourth term, I am absolutely convinced Poilievre would be Prime Minister now and we would be in deep deep trouble.

The weird thing about the NDP is that outgoing MP Charlie Angus (who competed with Singh for the leadership last time) proved himself to be a strong strong Canadian voice. Sure, Angus is just another white guy politician, but I can only wonder how the NDP might have fared under his leadership rather than Singh's.

Greens

I think the Greens might be finished. It is good that Elizabeth May won her seat. It is terrible that nobody else did. It is also terrible that Jonathan Pedneault resigned (a second time). He knew he was not going to win his riding; why didn't he stick to his guns and remain as co-leader after his loss?

I cannot believe the Greens were such goofs that they could not run a full slate of candidates.

If the Greens are to recover they have to overcome the self-inflicted damage from this election, and they have to find a leader who is not Elizabeth May and whom they will not stab in the back the way they did Annamie Paul. I don't think the Greens can do these things. Maybe they will continue to exist as a political party for a while, but I think they will become increasingly irrelevant.