TORONTO, Canada – The Liberal Party of Canada won the general elections held this Monday according to projections by Canadian radio television, CBC, marking the third consecutive victory for its leader, Justin Trudeau.
In the absence of the recount of a large part of the votes in the center and west of the country, CBC pointed out that the Liberals have so far obtained 150 of the 338 deputies in the Lower House of Parliament, which would lead Trudeau to a new minority government.
At 10:45 pm on Monday, Ottawa time, the projections gave the Liberal Party 150 deputies compared to 117 from the PC, 28 from the sovereignist Bloque Quebequés (BQ), 27 for the social democratic New Democratic Party and 3 for the Green Party .
Around 30 million people were summoned to the polls this Monday to elect the 338 deputies of the Lower House of Parliament who will decide which party will form the next government of the country.
The latest poll results released before the opening of the polling stations placed Liberals and Conservatives in a technical tie in the level of intention to vote: the Liberal Party would have the support of 31.5% of the electorate while the Conservative Party would add up to 31%.
But the particularities of the Canadian electoral system, which is direct suffrage, so that in reality 338 elections were held in the country on Monday, one for each electoral district that sends a deputy to the Lower House of Parliament, will allow the Liberals to vote. Trudeau get more seats than the Conservatives.
The Canadian public radio, CBC, predicted that the Liberals would obtain 155 deputies on Monday, while the Conservatives would have to be content with 119. Behind would be the Social Democratic New Democratic Party (NPD), with 32 deputies; and the sovereign Bloque Quebequés (BQ), with 31 deputies. The Green Party would also win a seat.
If these figures are confirmed, Trudeau’s victory will be bittersweet since he would not achieve the desired absolute majority when he brought the elections forward and would add pressure to his future leadership in the Liberals.
In August, Trudeau decided to call snap elections just two years after the previous elections and when polls indicated that the Liberals were as much as 10 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives.
At that time, a majority of Canadians approved of the government’s handling of the pandemic and the economic crisis created by the disease. After the elections were called, many voters expressed their dissatisfaction with the elections and the Liberals began to lose support.
During the electoral campaign, Trudeau defended the need to call elections so that Canadians could decide the measures to adopt to get out of the COVID-19 crisis.
The opposition parties accused him, for their part, of calling elections in the midst of a health emergency to try to achieve an absolute majority in Parliament.
But Trudeau had trouble defending the decision and justifying the more than $ 468 million that the elections would cost, the highest bill in the country’s electoral history.
Trudeau voted on Monday morning accompanied by his three children and his wife, Sophie Grégoire, in his constituency in the city of Montreal. At about the same time, the conservative O’Toole did the same at a polling place in the town of Oshawa, about 37 miles east of Toronto.
After casting his vote, Trudeau posted a message on his Twitter account encouraging participation with a photograph in which he appears casting his ballot surrounded by his three children: “I just voted in the 44th election. You should too.”
O’Toole also took to Twitter to encourage Canadians to go to the polls. “Proud to cast our votes today. Make sure you do the same,” said the Conservative leader whose message was accompanied by a photo with his wife, Rebecca, at the foot of the ballot box.
The only incident of importance recorded in the early hours of the day was a confrontation in a polling station in the city of Edmonton, in the west of the country, when two people refused to cover their mouth and nose with masks, as is mandatory. .
According to witnesses to the incident, a man and a woman tried to cast their vote without wearing masks, which led to an altercation that forced the police to intervene. After the arrival of the agents, the two individuals left the center without voting.
Protective measures against COVID-19 caused the voting process to be slower this year than in the past. In cities like Toronto, long lines formed at some polling stations for measures restricting the number of people inside.
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