Nasty, bitter and ugly-those are just some of the words used to describe Canada’s 43rd election which ended Monday with the Liberals returning to power, though this time as a minority.
While it’s true all elections inevitably feature mud-slinging, name calling and over dramatic attempts to spread fear, 2019’s election will no doubt go down as one of the worst. Whether this year proves to be a deviation from Canada’s style or the signalling of a new trend towards a more ‘American’ style of campaigning remains to be seen. Hopefully for our sake, it’s a one-and-done.
No side can claim total innocence from ‘going low’, particularly the two main parties. However the final results may be a commentary on which team went lower-than-low, and it may have cost them an opportunity to form government.
Heading into the weekend, polls were projecting a close race with the Conservatives holding a slight edge to win a minority-at least a majority of the minority. So confident was Andrew Scheer that he began to lay the groundwork of discrediting a potential coalition between the Liberals and NDP, wrongfully claiming that the party that secures the most seats is owed the first opportunity to form government. With five years experience as Speaker of the House, it’s extremely unlikely he wasn’t aware of the fact that the incumbent government would have the option of exploring a coalition and holding a confidence vote among elected MPs.
That wasn’t the first time Scheer ignored fact in an effort to become prime minister. In the final days of the election it was revealed the Conservatives were running false ads in Chinese, warning that Justin Trudeau planned to legalize all hard drugs. They also attempted to convince Canadians the Liberals had proposed a GST increase of 2.5 per cent. No such claim was ever made by the Liberals.
But perhaps Scheer’s biggest ‘football fumble’ moment-in reference to the infamous photo of Robert Stanfield’s fumbling of a football in North Bay which many experts feel negatively shifted the public’s opinion of the politician-was his response to questions about Warren Kinsella. When asked point blank whether the Conservatives had hired the lawyer to run a smear campaign on People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier, all Scheer could offer was a glorified ‘no comment’. Not a denial. Not a justification. Simply a non-answer to a yes or no question. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for the dual-citizenship holding Scheer, who spent the last half of the election trying to dodge comparisons to Donald Trump. It just so happens the American president is facing his own issues surrounding whether or not he tried to work out a deal to get dirt on his opponents.
Votes cast in Bernier’s riding suggest Canadians didn’t agree with the rogue MP’s views. Votes cast across the country suggest Canadians didn’t agree with Scheer’s attempts to meddle with his opponent’s campaign, either.
-Adam Prudhomme