CBC projects Justin Trudeau’s Liberals will win a plurality, but not a majority

Justin Trudeau appears poised to remain Prime Min­is­ter of Cana­da for sev­er­al more years, accord­ing to a pro­jec­tion released this evening by the CBC, the Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion. The net­work has assessed, based on ear­ly elec­tion results, that Trudeau will be asked by the Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al of Cana­da to form the coun­try’s next gov­ern­ment based on ear­ly elec­tion results.

How­ev­er, Trudeau’s Lib­er­als will not be in a posi­tion to form a gov­ern­ment by them­selves, as the net­work is also pro­ject­ing that they will fail to win an out­right major­i­ty once all the bal­lots have been counted.

As of 7:25 PM Pacif­ic Time, the Lib­er­als were lead­ing in one hun­dred and forty-nine rid­ings (which is what Cana­di­ans call dis­tricts) and the Con­ser­v­a­tives, Her Majesty’s Loy­al Oppo­si­tion, were lead­ing in one hun­dred and one. The Bloc Que­be­cois, a region­al par­ty, led in thir­ty-two rid­ings, the NDP led in twen­ty, and the Green Par­ty has picked up a rid­ing in the mar­itime provinces.

Some back­ground from The Globe and Mail:

At dis­so­lu­tion, the Lib­er­als held one hun­dred and sev­en­ty-sev­en seats, the Con­ser­v­a­tives held nine­ty-five seats, the NDP held thir­ty-nine seats, the Bloc Québé­cois held ten seats, the Greens had two seats, the People’s Par­ty had one seat, the CCF had one seat, and there were eight inde­pen­dents. There were five more vacant seats in the 338-seat House of Commons.

A par­ty needs at least one hun­dred and sev­en­ty seats to form a major­i­ty gov­ern­ment. If no par­ty wins more than half the seats, then by par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion the incum­bent prime min­is­ter can ask the Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al for the first crack at gov­ern­ing, if they wish. A par­ty with less than half of the seats in the House would require co-oper­a­tion from oth­er par­ties in order to pass legislation.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives are Canada’s main right wing par­ty, while the NDP is Canada’s biggest true left wing par­ty. The Lib­er­als are a cen­ter (or cen­tre) left par­ty, occu­py­ing an ide­o­log­i­cal space in between the Con­ser­v­a­tives and the NDP.

The envi­ron­men­tal­ly-focused Greens are the most left wing par­ty that cur­rent­ly has rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the House of Com­mons in Ottawa. The Peo­ple’s Par­ty is a small right wing par­ty formed by an MP who broke away from the Conservatives.

If the CBC’s pro­jec­tions hold, Trudeau will not be able to form a gov­ern­ment with­out the assis­tance of anoth­er polit­i­cal par­ty. He could either go the coali­tion route, in which his Lib­er­als would share pow­er, or he could form a minor­i­ty gov­ern­ment sup­port­ed by a con­fi­dence and sup­ply agreement.

In either sce­nario, the NDP (the New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty) would seem to be Trudeau’s best poten­tial part­ner and his first port of call.

Cur­rent­ly led by Jag­meet Singh, the NDP is the par­ty that is arguably the most com­pat­i­ble with the Lib­er­als in an ide­o­log­i­cal sense. The Bloc is a Que­bec-only par­ty, the Greens will not end up with enough seats to play king­mak­er, and the Lib­er­als and the Con­ser­v­a­tives do not like each other.

It looks like the sto­ry of the night is that both major polit­i­cal par­ties are under­per­form­ing rel­a­tive to oth­er recent elec­tions. The Lib­er­als appear to have lost the major­i­ty they won four years ago, while the Con­ser­v­a­tives have lost their oppor­tu­ni­ty to form a gov­ern­ment. With Justin Trudeau in a weak­ened posi­tion, the Con­ser­v­a­tives, under Andrew Scheer, hoped to return to pow­er. Instead, they will like­ly remain Her Majesty’s Loy­al Oppo­si­tion for the next four years.

“Nev­er before have both major par­ties tak­en such a small share of the vote,” not­ed The Van­cou­ver Sun’s Andrew Coyne. “Nev­er before, in my mem­o­ry, have both declined steadi­ly and togeth­er through­out a cam­paign. Their plat­forms land­ed with the same dull thuds, their lead­ers failed to impress in rough­ly equal measure.”

The NDP’s sit­u­a­tion is more complicated.

While they may end up with few­er seats than they pre­vi­ous­ly had (with the Bloc pick­ing up a num­ber of seats in Que­bec at their expense), the Lib­er­als will prob­a­bly be turn­ing to them for sup­port, which will make the NDP’s fed­er­al del­e­ga­tion poten­tial­ly more rel­e­vant and influ­en­tial than it pre­vi­ous­ly was.