Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau celebrates his narrow election victory as a success. Yet, in fact, he managed to stay in power largely thanks to the complicated Canadian electoral system … and a lack of competition.
“You have sent us back to Ottawa, you have given us a clear mandate,” Justin Trudeau told a crowd at his campaign headquarters in Montreal, Quebec.These aren’t the words of a man who recognizes that voters stripped him of a majority, including a net loss of 30 seats in his home province.
Judging from the mood and words at Trudeau’s ‘victory’ party, one could be forgiven for not knowing that his Liberals lost over 1 million votes compared to 2015, or that their share of the popular vote around the country plummeted by over 6 points.
It would be nearly impossible to know you were celebrating the win for the party that actually got the second largest number of votes!The numbers obviously tell a different story, in addition to numerous other indications from election night that show Canadians are not happy with JT.
So how is it that Canadians can be simultaneously pissed off at someone, and vote them back in? In short, the Liberals didn’t exactly get voted back in.
In Canada’s flawed electoral system, the Liberals won 33 percent of votes, but 46 percent of the seats. The Conservatives won 34.5 percent of the popular vote, but 37 percent of the seats and the center-left NDP, obtained just 7 percent of seats with 16 percent of votes.
Such figures, which might look confusing, are indeed a result of the Canadian electoral system dubbed ‘first past the post’. The country is divided into one-candidate constituencies known as ridings. A candidate with the highest number of votes in a riding gets a seat in parliament – and they do not even need to gain an absolute majority of votes (more than 50 percent).
Back in 2015 Trudeau said he would do away with the ‘first past the post’ system, but reneged on his pledge, precisely because it disportionately reinforces the Liberals position atop Canada’s political landscape.Beyond the limits this system already puts up for people seeking alternatives to the ruling party, the other options also failed to inspire.