There is an ancient Chinese expression, ‘May you live in interesting times.’ I must say, after careful examination, the most recent Canadian federal election was certainly an interesting affair.
To begin, the election that handed Prime Minister Mark Carney a minority Liberal government had one of the highest voter turnouts in Canadian history, with over 20 million people casting a ballot.
While the Liberals managed to hang onto power, an estimated 43 per cent of the vote went to the Conservative Party of Canada.
There were several major takeaways in this election, one of the most noticeable being the federal New Democrat Party getting reduced to seven seats in the House of Commons. What exactly happened here? Did traditional NDP supporters give their vote to the Liberals? Is the NDP experiment coming to an end or will the party regroup and make a major comeback in a future election?
Two federal political parties, the Greens and People’s Party of Canada, also saw a dramatic drop in support in this election. While Green Party leader Elizabeth May managed to hang onto her seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands for a fifth term, the party was unable to secure any more seats.
Meanwhile, the People’s Party of Canada, which won five per cent of the popular vote in the 2021 election, had relatively little support this time around.
Now that the election is over, the question on the minds of a lot of Canadians is: Where do we go from here?
Will this new Liberal minority government be able to address the major issues affecting the country, some of those being a nationwide housing crisis, mass immigration, defending Canada’s north, as well as dealing with the U.S. tariff situation?
Will Carney be willing to work with the Western Canadian oil and gas industry to ensure this economic driver continues to run and employ large numbers of people? Or will federal environmental policies interfere, causing more of a rift between Alberta and Ottawa, potentially sparking a new constitutional crisis and leading to increased Western alienation?
An even more pressing issue is whether Carney will continue to enforce policies implemented by the Trudeau Liberals over the past decade, many of which, in my opinion, are damaging and unnecessary.
One of the most ominous for me are further restrictions on law-abiding firearms owners. It’s a known fact that criminals don’t follow laws, and at a time when crime rates are getting worse in Canada, government policy should be on doubling down on violent and repeat offenders, not duck hunters and target shooters.
While climate change is a concern, attacking the country’s oil and gas industry while taxing people more in the name of saving the planet is not a good course of action to take.
Currently, many young Canadians are facing the prospect of never being able to own a home. What will be done to make home ownership more affordable for them, so that they can have families and in turn, perhaps reverse Canada’s declining birth rates?
With the threat of a global conflict with Russia, China, and other nations becoming more real, how will Canada respond and not only defend its territory, but also ensure that our NATO commitments are being fulfilled?
All any of us can do is take a wait-and-see approach right now. Sadly, if our current government cannot address these issues, Canada will only become more divided.
