Canadian Liberal Party wins tight election, falls short of majority as Conservatives surge

The Liberal Party eked out a victory against the Conservative Party in Monday’s Canadian elections but fell short of an outright majority.

The election marked a reversal of fortune for conservatives since January, when they appeared to have a commanding lead.

Still, the election contains warning signs for the winner as Conservatives tallied the highest percentage of votes in the party’s history.

Conservatives won 144 seats, an increase over the 119 seats they previously held, according to CTV News. The Liberal Party came into the election with 150 seats and secured 168. A total of 172 seats are needed for a majority.

The popular vote was tighter, with Liberals getting 43% and Conservatives 42%. 

The election was largely seen by the mainstream media as a referendum on Canada’s relationship with the U.S., and especially with President Donald Trump.  

“It was the ‘anybody-but-Conservative’ factor, it was the Trump tariff factor, and then it was the Trudeau departure … which enabled a lot of left-of-center voters and traditional Liberal voters to come back to the party,” Canadian pollster Shachi Kurl, referring to the resignation of unpopular former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the previous Liberal leader, told Reuters.   

The big losers were minor parties, such as the New Democratic Party (NDP) and Bloc Québécois. 

Previously, the Liberal Party had an agreement with NDP, which allowed the Liberals to form a government. With NDP seats expected to drop into the single digits, the Liberals will have to look to a coalition or an agreement with Bloc Québécois to form a government.   

The Bloc Québécois is a leftist party, seeking Quebec’s independence. 

Under the Canadian system, the prime minister is supported by members of Parliament who have a majority of the votes. The government can fall if members give a no-confidence vote to a majority.  

Minority governments in Canada rarely last longer than 2.5 years, reported Reuters.  

The results are a big letdown for the Conservative Party, which in January led by as much as 26% in polling.  

One strategist suggested that it wasn’t anti-Trump sentiment that drove the narrow Liberal victory, but a tactical mistake in driving Trudeau from office before the election. 

“If Pierre Poilievre was fighting against Justin Trudeau – you keep everything else the same – we’d be having a Conservative majority tonight,” conservative political strategist Kory Teneycke told CTV News. “We went too hard in the lead-up to the campaign and we got rid of the guy who was going to deliver a victory for us.” 

Instead, Conservatives faced a relatively unknown, soft-spoken central banker in Mark Carney, who rallied the Liberals against Trump, instead of having to defend the Liberal record of governing, as Trudeau would have been forced to do.  

But the narrowness of the popular vote totals, the uncomfortable alliance with Bloc Québécois and the continued responsibility for Liberals to govern a country largely shaped by their policies are problematic. 

The economy, social issues, higher costs of living, high unemployment, rising housing costs, a surge in homelessness and substance abuse are all weighing on Canadian voters, reports The New York Times. 

But nothing frames the Liberal Party’s governing dilemma better than the issue of energy production.  

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest producer of oil and the fifth-largest producer of natural gas, a key issue in the national campaign. 

Bloc Québécois is against oil and gas production, as was Trudeau, a position leading to calls for independence from some in the province of Alberta – which produces most of the oil and gas. 

“Now, Carney must work with the Bloc Québécois if the Libs are somehow going to build a pipeline across Canada. What will break first on this issue? The Bloc, who still declare the same old nonsense about all oil being dirty and unnecessary? Or Carney’s evidently weak resolve to build another major pipeline?” wrote David Staples, a columnist at Alberta’s Edmonton Journal. 

Staples noted that the economic policies touted by the Conservatives led the party to its highest vote total ever.  

“Canada will continue its race to the bottom economically [under Carney’s economic policies]. Investment, jobs and skilled workers will flee to the USA,” Staples continued. “The economy could get so bad that enough Canadians will embrace [the Conservatives].”  

That economic dynamic, combined with two wannabe-breakaway provinces, demonstrate why Trump continues to hammer on the theme that Canadians would be better off as the 51st U.S. state.  

“Good luck to the Great people of Canada,” said Trump as the Canadian polls opened. “Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America.”