A Canadian prime minister who has outstayed his welcome, persistent inflation, a government bumped and bruised by scandal and a fired-up opposition leader itching for a public showdown.
It was against this backdrop, four decades ago, that Pierre Trudeau took his apocryphal “walk in the snow” and decided not to contest the next federal election.
After a shocking upset in a “safe” electoral district and with a looming possibility of a blowout in the next federal election, Justin Trudeau’s predicament closely mirrors that of his father.
But the incumbent prime minister says he has no intention of stepping down, despite mounting evidence the public is growing increasingly weary of both his tenure – and of his Liberal party.
In late June, Trudeau’s party lost a by-election for a seat the party had held for nearly three decades, foreshadowing what pundits say could portend the collapse of the party’s stronghold in Canada’s most populous city.
Canada always goes through cycles like this. Imo the bigger issue is we act like we only have two parties to choose from in federal elections. At no time in our history have the NDP ever been considered a viable alternative federally … and that drives me bonkers.
You can thank first-past-the-post for screwing over smaller parties and independents.
I can also thank the Cons for screaming bloody murder every time the NDP comes up, ie: “You can’t elect the NDP! Remember Bob Rae!!!”
Always love that argument …
Bit of a rant because it’s been on my mind.
Also thank them for killing the per vote subsidy, proroguing parliament to effectively kill a coalition gov, trying to convince Canadians that coalitions are somehow antidemocratic and a seizure of power, muzzling of scientists, barbaric cultural practices hotline, robocall scandal, mandatory minimums, missing more but there was a lot to cover in those years.
I don’t know how anyone looks back at the harper years and thinks oh it wasn’t that bad, we should totally elect one of his cabinet ministers, no it totally was a taste of things to come, dude’s the chair of the idu which totally pushes this shit on a global scale.
Harper SHOULD be the Tories’ Bob Rae in terms of making them toxic to the general population, literally the reason so many people voted strategically. Maybe it’s a bunch of us not remembering, a lot of what I mentioned was some time ago, maybe it’s that a lot of Canadians anecdotally seem more interested in what’s happening stateside than their own backyard and are generally don’t pay attention to politics but it seriously concerns me.
One honestly wonders what percentage of voters do, in fact, remember what Bob Rae was like in office. I don’t think most people are all that politically aware before somewhere in their mid-teens, which means that probably almost no one born after 1980 remembers politics during the Rae years. The number’s just going to drop from here on, so I don’t think “Remember Bob Rae!” is going to remain a useful rallying cry for the Conservatives for much longer, if it is even now.
Of course, they’ll just come up with a new one.