By Bala Menon
The Canadian people did not win this election. Neither did democracy. Obscene partisan and vote bank politics won the 2019 election.
How else can one explain the skewed results and the fragmented polity today?
Some analysts say the Canadian people have made a wise decision – giving full power to no one – and forcing politicians to work together. But politics is not a happy childhood fairytale. Minority and coalition governments do not last – unless some of the components have a common ground on several issues. In Canada, the parties are far apart on most issues.
There was divisiveness promoted by both the major parties this year – there is now a cleave between East and West which will have to be healed quickly. It is good that Trudeau took a conciliatory tone soon after the election and promised ‘to work for all Canadians.’ Hope he does!
All 25 seats in the GTA and most of the 23 in the surrounding areas went to the Liberals – a party which many have accused of patronizing and compartmentalizing identifiable vote banks over the years to ensure block voting, irrespective of the calibre or community standing of the candidate.
The Conservatives did the same in the Western provinces – the visceral hatred being exhibited publicly against Justin Trudeau – for his climate change agenda and the unresolved issue of the bubbling oilsands cauldron meant that the Liberals were wiped out in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The NDP did not come out clean in this battle either. Its leader Jagmeet Singh declared he ‘had no respect for the Conservatives’ – effectively shutting out 34% of the population from his socialist vision of Canada where everything could be free and/or forever.
The Bloc Québécois leader said on Tuesday that it was not his job to get the Parliament working for the benefit of Canada. He made it clear that his only interest would be to promote the interests of Quebec and obviously advance his sovereignty agenda.
Already, rumblings have begun in Alberta with talk of separatism if their concerns are not dealt with by Ottawa. They will not have a seat in the cabinet and the question is who will set, deliberate and decide on issues specific to the Western provinces.
Trudeau will have to act fast – and tone down his rhetoric on the oilsands and climate change. He forgets that Canada holds the third-largest reserves of crude in the world; it is a resource that has to be exploited for the benefit of Canada; it is a resource that the world is hungry for. For this, the first step is to start building the TransMountain pipeline and get the economy of Alberta back on track.
Andrew Scheer did not prove a match for the theatrics of Trudeau, who did the right amount of fearmongering about ‘disastrous’ cuts that the Conservatives would bring down like thunderbolts on the Canadian people, about the evil designs of Conservative provincial governments to inflict harm on the people and constant refrain of what a terrible ogre that Doug Ford is in Ontario. Obviously, this is how Eastern Canada was won for the Liberals.
The smearing of Ford from every platform by the Liberals and aided by the NDP-led unions definitely had a rub-on effect on Scheer’s campaign in Ontario.
The next few days will see some frothing politics and posturings in Ottawa. Trudeau has said he does not want a coalition – this means that parties will have to collaborate with the government on an issue-by-issue basis or come to some other arrangement.
The NDP and the Bloc would like to play kingmakers – but then kingmakers seldom become kings – although the NDP might think otherwise. (Social media in India is already abuzz that Jagmeet Singh is getting ready to be the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada!)
We will wait and watch…We can only hope that most of the elected MPs will not remain as silent ‘noddy’ backbenchers who just nod and make up voting numbers – or go on to make inane statements about Kashmir, Catalonia or other distant lands or focus on their religion and coreligionists or talk about non-existent phobias raging in Canada.
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Fourteen Indo-Canadians (out of 18) have won on the Liberal ticket – signifying that the community is a well-pandered group, forming a solid support block for the party. The winners are: Harjit Sajjan (Vancouver South), Bardish Chagger (Waterloo) and Navdeep Bains (Mississauga Malton), Sukh Dhaliwal (Surrey Newton), Gagan Sikand (Mississauga Streetsville), Rameshwar Sangha (Brampton Centre), Randeep Sarai (Surrey Centre), Maninder Sidhu (Brampton East), Kamal Khera (Brampton East), Ruby Sahota (Brampton North), Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South), Anju Dhillon (Lachine Lassalle) Raj Saini (Kitchener Centre) and Anita Anand (Oakville).
Conservatives fielded 19 Indo-Canadian candidates, with four of them winning the election — former MP Tim Uppal (Edmonton Mill Woods), third-timer Bob Saroya (Markham Unionville), first-timer Jasraj Hallan (Calgary Forest Lawn) and Jagdeep Sahota (Calgary Skyview). Trudeau’s Minister of Natural Resources Amarjit Sohi, lost to Uppal.