In an election that ended up being too close to call, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals squeaked past the Conservatives to retain his position as head of government but lost the popular vote to his rival, Andrew Sheer.
As of early Tuesday morning, the Conservatives took 6,139,185 of Canada’s nearly 18 million ballots cast, claiming 34.4 percent of the popular vote compared to the Liberals’ 33.1 percent – a difference of more than 243,000 votes.
The Liberals were winners or leading in 156 of the nation’s 338 electoral districts, versus 122 for his main rival Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, after polling stations across six time zones closed. The Liberals are 13 seats short of a majority and this will make it difficult for Trudeau to get legislation passed.
“It’s not quite the same as in 2015. It’s not allowing to the leader,” said Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, according to the Associated Press.
“Trudeau is prime minister because the rest of the party was able to pull itself together and prevail. While Trudeau certainly deserves credit for what has happened he’s really going to have to demonstrate qualities that he hasn’t yet shown.”
The left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), led by Jagmeet Singh, is projected to take 25 seats in the 338-seat parliament. Quebec’s separatist party, the Bloc Québécois, which competes only in that province, fared much better. It is expected to take 32 seats, compared to the 10 it won in 2015, reports The BBC. The Green Party got three seats.
Interestingly, several news sites suggested that the election came down to a choice between the handsome and charismatic Trudeau or Sheer, with his bland minivan-driving dad persona. However, a jump in Conservative votes across western Canada suggests voters were thinking more in terms of what the Liberals haven’t done in the past four years.
Scheer took to the stage in his Saskatchewan home riding of Regina-Qu’Appelle early Tuesday morning to address a crowded room of supporters, reports CTV News Canada.
“More Canadians wanted us to win this election than any other party,” he said, suggesting that means the Conservatives are now the “government in waiting” and have “put Trudeau on notice.”