Canada - Elections 2021
Trudeau called a snap election 15 August 2021 as opinion polls showed his Liberal Party had a large-enough lead to win a legislative majority. Canada’s next fixed election date was in October 2023 but, as prime minister, Trudeau had the power to call an election with formal approval from Governor General Mary Simon, the personal representative of Queen Elizabeth. Trudeau’s Liberal government was operating with a minority that has been relying largely on the support of the NDP. By mid-2021, that support was seemingly waning, making the Liberal government's agenda more of a challenge to enact.
The vote would be held on 20 September 2021. Trudeau sought to cash in on what most Canadians regarded as a successful pandemic response, including one of the world’s most generous fiscal packages and fastest vaccine campaigns. Conservatives would campaign based on several ideas, including the belief that economic stability should be a top priority. They also planned to campaign on boosting the energy sector and making sure it has export markets.
As gambling is to a casino, partisanship is to Parliament — it's the reason people are there. In October 2020 Leader of the Government in the House of Commons Pablo Rodriguez has accused opposition parties of engaging in "pure partisan politics" — as if there were any other kind in the House of Commons. In this case, the politics came with the tantalizing possibility of a snap election. But unless someone really wanted an election this fall, there probably won't be one, and there wasn't.
By February 2021 the Liberals were leading in the polls and heading up a minority government that was fast approaching the end of its normal lifespan. This fuelled speculation that they would try to cash-in on their strong poll numbers with a snap election. According to the Canada Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all publicly available polling data, the Liberals held a national lead of 5.5 percentage points over the Conservatives. That's a solid advantage any party would be happy to take into election day.
The Parliamentary Budget Office evaluated more than campaign 200 pledges during the 2019 election. The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer was created in 2006 under the Stephen Harper government. Its mandate is to provide independent, non-partisan financial analysis. Yves Giroux, Ottawa's parliamentary budget officer (PBO), said 02 august 2021 a snap election would leave his office with too little time to fully assess the cost of party platforms when they are announced.
All parties were gearing up for a campaign, even as chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam warned that Canada is on the verge of a fourth wave of COVID-19 driven by the more infectious delta variant. Elections Canada is ready for a potentially explosive increase in the number of Canadians who choose to vote by mail during the pandemic — as many as five million, compared to fewer than 50,000 in the 2019 election. Mail-in ballots would not be counted until the day after the election, in order to allow them to be received right up to the last minute before polls close and to give election officials time subsequently to carefully conduct checks to ensure no one who voted by mail also cast a ballot in person.
A recent Leger Marketing poll showed that Liberals would win 35% of the vote, compared with 30% for the Conservatives and 19% for the left-leaning New Democrats. The Liberals must win at least 170 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons to regain majority. They currently held 155 seats. Although Trudeau isn't as popular as he once was, he has been praised for his government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Over 71% of eligible Canadians are now fully vaccinated, and more than 82% have received at least one dose. The country had enough doses for every citizen.
The Liberal Party had priorities such as pumping an additional Can$100 billion ($80 billion) into Canada’s economy over the next three years to spur recovery from the pandemic but, as a minority government, it has to win support from opposition lawmakers to get legislation passed. Trudeau has accused opposition MPs of blocking crucial legislation for partisan purposes. “We have seen a level of obstructionism and toxicity in the house that is of real concern,” the prime minister said in June.
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