Canadian election: What hath Trump wrought?!

Ed. here. Walt has been texting one- and two-liners by phone from the Great No-longer-white North. If I wait until I put them into a coherent narrative you won't see anything until Wednesday, so I'll just copy his notes voets stoets.

- TDS drives "progressive: voters from the fringes to the less-loony Liberals. 

- Pinko socialist vote collapses. NDP leader Jugmeat Singh loses  his seat, resigns as leader of the Few Democrats..

- Standings as of this writing (see timestamp): Liberals elected or leading in 168 ridings, Conservatives 144, Bloc Québécois 23, NDP 7, Greens 1 ("May? Party of one?")

- Counting of ballots halted in wee hours, just like Philadelphia. Will resume at 0930 EDT.

- Assuming no change, it's a Liberal minority government. Separatist Blocheads hold the balance of power.

- Widespread fraud alleged in Sikh majority ridings in Brampton ON and suburban Vancouver BC. 1000s of Sikhs allowed to vote; citizenship not questioned.

- "Indo-Canadians" win dozens of seats in BC, ON, and Alberta.

- Cuckservative leader Pierre Poilievre declared defeated in his own riding at 0443 EDT. 91 candidates on the ballot there in chaos orchestrated by advocates of proportional representation.

- Most incumbent cabinet ministers re-elected. Carnage cabinet will be same as Trudeau's, as they rearrange the deck chairs.

- Demented Joe Biden (or someone typing for him) goes on social media to congratulate Carnage on win for "liberal values".

- Southwestern Ontario, where they make all the cars Trump wants to tariffs, goes solidly Conservative in spite of union endorsements of NDP. Workers ignore union leadership.

- In victory speech, Carney sez, "Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never, that will never ever happen. But…we also must recognize the reality that our world has fundamentally changed." Well, duh!

That's all we have for you as dawn comes up like thunder over our cabin in the pines. Maybe there'll be more after Walt wakes up.

The pointless Canadian election - no clear winners, only one clear loser

Yesterday's Canadian federal election, which promised to be interesting, turned out to be a big fat nothing-burger. 36 days and $600,000,000 ($480 million in real money) later, Canuckistan will once again be governed by the Liberal Party of Canada and its super-woke leader, Blackie McBlackface, aka Justin Trudeau, pictured at right. [Should be on the left, shurely! Ed.]

The composition of the House of Commons (analogous to the US House of Representatives) remains virtually unchanged. When the last Parliament was dissolved, the Gliberals held 155 seats, the self-styled Conservatives (really the alt-Liberals) had 119, le Bloc Québécois 32, the New Democrats (celebrating their 60th anniversary) 24, and the Green Party 2. There were 5 independents and 1 seat was vacant.

When the sun rose over Parliament Hill this morning, the Liberals were elected or leading in 157 ridings (+2), the Red Tories 119 (unchanged), the BQ 34 (+2), NDP 25 (+1), and the Soylent Greens 2 (unchanged). One MP who was fired by the Liberals two days before the election under suspicion of sexual misconduct will have to sit as an independent.

The People's Party of Canada, led by Maxime Bernier and endorsed by YVT, had no seats in the last parliament and will have no seats in the new one, as "Mad Max" failed to win his home riding of Beauce.

Canadian Conservatives can make the same claim as they did in 2019 and the US Dumbocrats did in 2016, that they are the real winners because they won more of the popular vote -- 34% to the Liberals' 32.5% -- but too bad for them, the systems of both countries are similar in that you can win the popular vote and still lose the election. 

Now let's take a look at the party leaders, to see who were the winners and who the losers.

Justin Trudeau called the election, in the middle of the kung flu pandemic, for no reason other than his egomaniacal desire to win a third term with a majority. He didn't. So we can say he lost. But he's still Prime Minister of Canuckistan this morning, so he also won.

The leader of the alleged Conservatives, Erin O'Toole, lost an election that was his to win. Mr Socks is the most loathed prime minister in Canadian history -- and that's saying something! -- and could have been beaten, had the Cons offered a real alternative. That they didn't is on Mr O'Tool, who deliberately dragged his party from the centre to the left, in hopes of appealing to "progressive" voters. Mr O'Tool will likely face a fight to continue in his role as leader. Still, he can say that his party increased its share of the popular vote, so in that sense he's a "winner", just like Hellery Clinton.  

Yves-François Blanchet's Bloc Québécois gained two seats, which makes M Blanchet a winner, except that, in spite of finishing in third place, they don't hold the balance of power in the minority government, since Mr Socks can count on the support of the NDP to do whatever they like to Canada, including Québec, which is all M Blanchet cares about anyway. [Walt! What have I told you about run-on sentences?! Ed.]

The socialist NDP, led by Jagmeet Singh, is down one seat, which makes Mr Singh a loser, since they should have been able to do better with liberals fed up with M Trudeau. Still, they are the real holders of the balance of power and can bring down the Liberals if they choose. But that's Strike Two for Mr Singh and he won't be in any hurry to step up to the plate a third time.

Annamie Paul was the first black, Jewish woman to lead a "national Party", although to call the Green Party "national" is being charitable, since it ran candidates in only two-thirds of the ridings. She finished a distant fourth in her own riding of Toronto Centre, and her party was lucky to win two seats, the same total (but not the same seats) as last time. Even before the election, the Green Party brass was trying to oust her, and she will likely step down after a decent interval.

Finally, let us consider the fate of Maxime Bernier, erstwhile leader of the People's Party of Canada, which he founded just four years ago. He lost his own riding by a margin of more than 2 to 1. But under his leadership, and as a result of his tireless campaigning right across the huge empty country, the PPC's share of the vote increased from 1.6% in 2019 to nearly 6% at last count. 

The analysts, pundits, etc agree: The PPC is real, and here to stay! IMHO, that makes "Mad Max" a winner!

FOOTNOTE: Where the PPC did make a difference was in seven or eight ridings where the PPC drew just enough votes, mainly from the Conservatives, to let the Liberal candidate win. That should be a lesson for the Conservatives about the perils of alienating the real conservatives just to appease the "moderates".

ANOTHER FOOTNOTE: Early this morning, the Campaign Life Coalition issued a news release saying it was disappointed but not surprised by the election result. "The Conservatives would've done much better," they said, "if O'Toole had not alienated the party’s socially conservative base with his shameless support for abortion, LGBT ideology, oppressive lockdowns and liberty-destroying vaccine passports." [My emphasis. Walt]

Canadian election: Curses! Fooled again!

Ed. here. I'm stitching together a bunch of text messages and e-mails received from Walt at the Canadian Affairs Desk, somewhere north of the World's Longets Open Border. Interspersed with requests for cash and substances were notes on yesterday's federal election in Canuckistan. The messages stopped coming around 0300 EDT, by which time the issue seemed pretty much decided.

Let me set the table (a new buzz-phrase) for readers outside the Great No-longer-white North. Canadians from sea to sea to sea (Canuck politicians' buzz-phrase) today [Monday. Ed.] to elect a new House of Commons and federal government. 338 ridings [electoral districts. Ed.] were up for grabs. Five parties fielded candidates in most of them. Here are pix and profiles of the leaders.



From left to right (in the picture, not politically) you see: Andrew Scheer (Cuckservative), Maxime Bernier (People's Party of Canada, endorsed by yr obdt servant), Jagmeet Singh (NDP = scary socialist party), Just In Trudeau (Gliberal) and Elizabeth May (Green Loony). Not pictured is Yves-François Blanchet, whose Bloc Québécois ran candidates only in Québec (duh!) but wound up with the third-highest number of seats in the new House.

In "What if no-one wins the Canadian election?" (WWW 19/10/19), Walt predicted a close race between Mr Sheer's Tories and Mr Socks Liberals, ending with neither party obtaining a majority of the seats, and possibly leading to a constitutional crisis as to who would have the right to form the government. (For details of how that works... or not... read the post.)

For the record, my prediction, written down in the records of Tony the Barber and other turf accountants was: Liberals 142, Conservatives 132, Bloc Québécois 35, NDP 20, Greens 6, PPC 1 (Max Bernier's own seat in Québec) and 2 Independents. The final standings [as of 0630 today. Ed.] were... drum roll please.........
Liberals 157, Conservatives 121, Bloc 32, NDP 24, Greens 3, Independent 1 and (sadly) PPC 0.

Yes, that means "Mad Max" lost his own seat, and the People's Party will have no representation in the House of Commons. Agent 78 says that's what happens when you tell the truth about what you will do (or not do) if elected. In M Bernier's case, the deal-breaker, in his own riding and throughout la Belle Province, as his proposal to scrap the supply management system for dairy products -- an arcane point for most Canadians but a very sore point for 1000s of QC farmers. Might want to have another think about that one, Max!

The result are, or should be a great disappointment for the Cuckservatives. The anti-Trudeau sentiment was so strong, in most of Canada outside the Toronto and Montreal conurbations [How long have you been waiting to use that word? Ed.] that it took real creative genius not to win. That genius is the Tories' leader, Andrew Scheer, a one-time insurance salesman from Saskatchewan with all the charisma of a bed of kelp. Mr Scheer and his advisors tried to position themselves as centrists, not true conservatives, and wound up looking like "almost-Liberals" or "liberal Republicans" or "progressive Conservatives", an oxymoronical phrase which was actually the party's previous name. "Red Tories" -- who could believe that?

In fact the Conservatives won the popular vote, with 34.5% to the Liberals' 33%. But, as Hellery Clinton will remember, winning the popular vote is not the same as winning the election. [Didn't she say last week that she could "win again" in 2020? Ed.] Canuckistan doesn't have an electoral college, but what counts is not the percentage of the popular vote but how the votes are distributed. The winner is the party that gets the most seats, not the most votes.

After a tight campaign that saw the two leading parties struggle to break out of the pack, the Liberals held on to just enough seats in Atlantic Canada, Québec and Ontario to secure a minority government. Conservative turnout and support was very high across the prairie provinces. In Alberta, they won almost 70% of the popular vote to 14% for the Liberals. In Saskatchewan, the Tories took 65% of the vote to the Liberals' 10%. But alas, those provinces, being sparsely populated, account for only a fraction of the seats allotted to the Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver conurbations. [That's enough conurbations. Ed.]

So it's a minority government for the Liberals then, with Justin Trudeau, the "preening fraud" (as Andrew Coyne called him in the National Post) remaining Prime Minister of Canuckistan for as long as he can avoid pissing off the NDP and the Bloc. Mr Socks had some help, by the way, in the final week of the campaign, when none other than the Prez tweeted his support for M Trudeau. The bromance continues...

but I do wonder what would happen if M Trudeau should, in the interest of better Canada-US relations, declare  his support for Still-President Trump in about a year's time. Wouldn't that be, errr,foreign interference in the affairs of another country?

There's more, but I can't make sense of it... something about shorting the Canadian dollar. I thought beaverbucks were the same size as real money, only more colourful? Anyhoo, Walt will undoubtedly have more to say after he sleeps off his late night. Ed.

Further reading (added 23/10/19): "The preachy, gauzy, meaningless aphorisms don't suffice, Justin Trudeau", by Neil Macdonald, the CBC's token anti-Trudeau guy, 23/10/19.