After a month-
long election campaign that’s estimated to have cost Canadian taxpayers $600 million, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is right back where he started with a minority government.
Trudeau’s Liberal Party has won a third term following a snap election but has fallen short of the goal of regaining a majority of seats in Parliament.
Trudeau’s Liberal Party was elected or leading in 156 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons, compared with 122 seats for the Conservatives under Erin O’Toole, according to results from Elections Canada.
A political party needs 170 seats to form a majority in the House of Commons.
The Bloc Quebecois, a party that runs candidates only in the French-speaking province of Quebec, was elected or leading in 29 ridings, and the NDP was also ahead in 29. The Green Party was leading in two constituencies.
The projected results would leave Trudeau in power to pursue the most left-leaning agenda the country has seen in a generation. Even with a minority, the early results suggest the Liberals will have a stable government, which will allow Trudeau to continue with a big-spending agenda that’s largely backed by his government’s most likely partner, the socialist New Democratic Party.
The Liberal victory is a comeback of sorts for Trudeau, whose party was trailing in the polls midway through the five-week election campaign. Still, failure to secure a majority is a disappointing result for the Liberals. It’s the second time voters have denied this prime minister full control of Parliament, limiting his freedom to take big risks or govern unilaterally.
As a share of the vote, polls show the Liberals at 32.3% support and the Conservatives at 34.1% with 53% of the polls having reported.
Minority governments have become familiar to Canadians. The past seven elections have now produced five minority governments, lasting on average about two years.
In the two years since Trudeau first lost his majority in 2019, the Canadian currency has been the second worst performer among G10 currencies against the U.S. dollar. The benchmark Toronto Stock Exchange is up 25%, barely half the gain of the S&P 500 index in the U.S.