Well, frig, maybe we should just have another election already
Whatever happens tonight, it’s hard to imagine anyone actually governing tomorrow
As I write this, droves of folks are trudging to their local school gymnasium to cast their ballot.
The top two contenders are not just disliked, but desperately so.
Both Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer have slapped each other around to the point that they’re both pretty bruised. Trudeau has warned Scheer would roll the clock back on the good times, Scheer has warned Trudeau would spell disaster for your pocketbook. Neither warning feels particularly honest.
Maybe that’s why, throughout the campaign, no matter how much voters saw of the two front runners, their impressions seemed to only worsen.
The other three, for all their charms, are going to be lucky to garner 75 seats.
Yves-François Blanchet, in Quebec, has done well on a very traditional Bloc pitch — you might not care about federal politics, but let me go get you funding for a new metro line and more say over regional development.
May has tried to activate disenchanted, young, and non-voters with an urgent call to action on the climate that never seemed to quite convince the public that it is feasible.
And Jagmeet Singh, buoyed by a late-campaign bounce, has won over a bunch of skeptical voters with a neatly-packaged plan to build a bunch of stuff with rich people’s money.
So we wake up tomorrow, hung over, and find ourselves with a minority Parliament of two parties led by men the public seems to deeply dislike, tasked with cobbling support from parties who did well in spite of them.
A Liberal-NDP partnership makes most logical sense, but it’s shaky as all hell. If the CBC poll tracker has it right, it would give the party a 2-seat majority (1, if the speaker is elected from either of the two parties.) That leaves the government on perpetually shaky feet. A formal coalition would be a bit safer, but not by much.
A Liberal-NDP-Green deal gives a bit more wiggle room, though May’s conditions for supporting a government appear wide and changing. In either of these scenarios, May has ruled out a coalition — but Singh and Trudeau haven’t. Bringing the NDP inside the tent is sure to keep the party incentivized to keep voting for Liberal bills.
A Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition of chaos is obviously a much more stable alternative to some other dance cards. But how, exactly that is supposed to work is unclear. Blanchet has ruled out a coalition, but said he would support a government which kicks in money for Quebec’s effort to bring high-speed internet through the province — and, beyond that, who knows what else. In this scenario, the Conservatives begin firing from all cannons on Trudeau’s contribution to reviving sovereignty.
A Conservative-Bloc deal would, notwithstanding Scheer’s current histrionics over the idea of a deal with the Liberals, make some sense. There’s a reason why Stephen Harper entertained working with the Bloc in the past. And the Tories’ and Bloc’s brands of Quebec nationalism are, generally, pretty compatible. But the Conservatives may have already backed themselves into a corner on this — and there’s no telling that they would even have enough seats, combined, to govern at all.
A Conservative deal with anyone else feels unlikely. A Conservative-Liberal unity government? No chance. The Greens will work with anyone, but won’t have enough seats to be king-or-queen-maker alone. A Scheer-Singh partnership would be a real odd couple scenario.
So who forms government? Maybe a party just wins enough seats to govern alone. Maybe the NDP-Liberal deal works effortlessly.
But I have a hard time seeing it. The Liberals ran an arrogant campaign and seem allergic to the idea that they could be reduced to relying on others to govern. That attitude will probably carry into those negotiations. The NDP, meanwhile, have always been friendly to the idea of a coalition but never seem to know what to do with themselves when they get close.
The Tories and the various third-party advertisers, meanwhile, have been gearing up for coalition talks. Ontario Proud is already set to try and torpedo public support for any coalition talks. If you thought the election was angry, just wait til’ that comes around.
It frankly feels like the most likely scenario is the one we’ve seen a few times in the past 20 years — the largest party will be forced to marshal support from the other parties on a vote-by-vote basis. That is absolutely not the most effective way to govern.
So maybe we should just have another one of these. Not right away — the government will need to be funded, for a start. But another vote doesn’t feel like a particularly bad thing. Israel just had an electoral re-do. Spain is heading back to the polls shortly.
Maybe a mulligan makes sense — especially if the NDP and Greens can finally convince trepidatious Trudeau that 2019 should be the last election held under first-past-the-post.
