For anyone still wondering about “what it all means” when it comes to the election, it’s pretty straight forward: everyone lost.
The PPC failed to win a single seat. The Green surge once again didn’t happen. The NDP vote all but collapsed as a late Singh Surge, speculated by some, turned into more of a Singh Save. The Bloc Quebecois failed to win either the popular vote or the most seats in Quebec. The Liberals couldn’t get a majority while the left was splintered and the Conservatives couldn’t score a win against a Prime Minister who looked weaker than a cup of gas station coffee.
For those opposed to First-Past-The-Post, the election was another loss as the Liberals gained the most seats despite losing the popular vote, it most likely leaves two provinces without an MP in government entirely and the NDP received fewer seats than the Bloc despite getting twice the votes.
For those saying the country is governed entirely by the east it looks like another loss, even though that’s a misnomer. Had B.C. gone blue in its entirety, like Saskatchewan, it would be a Conservative plurality. Had B.C. gone red, similar to Newfoundland and Labrador, it would have been a Liberal majority. Had B.C. gone orange, the Bloc Quebecois would have been much less relevant. By voting the way B.C. voted, they determined it to be a Liberal minority.
Unlike the parties, the night was a win for pollsters who generally indicated a very tight election with a Liberal minority as the most likely outcome.
Perhaps there was one other winner last night: Jody Wilson-Raybould. It’s hard to say what specifically took the Liberals down a peg, whether it was SNC, blackface or just general governance but saying she had nothing to do with it is a tough sell. If nothing else, unlike Maxime Bernier, she managed to hold on to her seat and continues as a national political figure despite only representing one single riding.
However, there was a silver lining for most of the parties. The Conservatives won the popular vote. The Bloc got a decent boost by FPTP. The Liberals get another chance to form government. The Greens finally made it out of B.C. and the NDP seems like the most likely partner to form government.
Possibly the most interesting question is not how long the current composition of Parliament will last but rather whether the Conservative party will drift towards the centre or double down towards their base on Western alienation.
newsroom@100milefreepress.net
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