Justin Trudeau
Let’s start with the fact that the election results were unprecedented. The Liberal Party of Canada won with a sweeping majority, securing 184 out of 338 seats in parliament, giving it an absolute majority and the ability to form a majority government. At the same time, the ruling Conservative Party, which also had a majority government before the election, suffered a crushing defeat. In this clear manner, the overwhelming majority of the country’s population expressed their attitude toward the results of Harper’s government.
It was precisely dissatisfaction with the Conservative government’s performance and the way the country was run by Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper, who had served as Prime Minister of Canada since 2006, that led to such a convincing Liberal victory in the election.
It should be noted that in the last decade, the Liberals had been far from their best times. Once a powerful party, after an internal crisis in the mid-2000s, it slipped to third place, and at the start of the election campaign, its chances of victory were quite slim. No one even dreamed that the Liberals could win an absolute majority of votes. Yet, it happened.
Much is now written about how their return to big politics, and with such triumph, has no parallel in Canadian history. The Liberals’ success is largely attributed to the fact that in 2013 the party was led by a young, charismatic politician, Justin Trudeau, son of legendary Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who is considered the architect of modern Canada.
That is partly true. However, to be fair, it should be noted that people were voting not so much for the Liberals as against Harper. The leitmotif “anyone but Harper” was the dominant sentiment of the past election campaign, so everyone interested in removing the Conservatives from power voted for the Liberals for strategic reasons. And not even so much against the Conservatives as against Harper personally and his inner circle.
So why did Stephen Harper fall out of favor with Canadians, and why did he provoke such a rejection reaction?
Let’s start with the fact that from the very beginning of his tenure in 2006, Harper announced ambitious plans to reshape Canada, to leave behind a different country. However, the Canada that Harper set out to build and the methods he used to achieve his goals turned out to be far from appealing. If we draw analogies, the vector of the decade of the “Harper era” was in the same direction as the changes in America under George Bush and in Russia under Putin.
In effect, under Harper there was a usurpation of power by the government, a tightening of the legal sphere, and an increase in the level of economic regulation. The press accused Harper and his circle of building a police state, lack of transparency in decision-making, damaging Canada’s international image, and low business ethics. This also includes serious economic miscalculations, where the focus was on turning Canada into an energy superpower at the expense of developing the manufacturing sector.
As a result, throughout Harper’s tenure, there was high unemployment, industry moved out of Canada abroad, and the middle class was eroded. When energy prices began to fall, which was generally predictable, the Canadian dollar quickly lost its value, leading to a decline in Canadians’ living standards.
Immigration, a sector so important for Canada, also found itself in a deep crisis due to the Conservatives' utterly unwise policies. The government’s actions in this area regularly caused scandals and discontent. The culmination of their activities in this field was the passage of Bill C-24, which effectively divided Canadian citizens into first and second class.
In foreign policy, Harper chose the role of a hawk, with the right to act as a mentor teaching other countries how to live. As a result, Canada’s image as a peacekeeping nation, serving as an impartial arbiter and mediator in resolving complex world situations, was completely devalued.
Therefore, if we talk about Harper’s ambition to leave behind a different country, he succeeded to some extent. The other thing is that the majority of the country’s citizens do not want to live in such a Canada, as they made abundantly clear to Harper and his circle in the recent election. So the main outcome of the Liberal victory is precisely that the “Harper era” has ended.
The main question now is: what to expect from the new government?
Without delving into the nuances of the Liberals’ campaign promises (we remember that the biggest lies come after hunting, after fishing, and during elections), we can at least confidently say that Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will begin to uproot the legacy of Harper and his team.
First, because it is expected of him. As a smart and seasoned politician, Justin Trudeau understands perfectly that if he does not do this, the next election will be won by another party. The same Conservatives, for example. He received the current victory on credit, which he still has to earn.
Second, Trudeau is Harper’s antagonist on many issues. Moreover, there is a strong sense that the animosity between Trudeau and Harper is personal, making the destruction of Harper’s constructs a personal vendetta for Trudeau.
The fact is that Harper and his team were justifiably accused of unethical business practices. The election campaign was no exception. The Conservatives based their campaigning largely on smearing Trudeau personally, crossing a certain line. This did not help them at all; rather, it backfired, and at the same time gave Trudeau the moral right not to stand on ceremony with the legacy he inherited.
Finally, Justin Trudeau is the continuer of the affairs and traditions of his father Pierre Trudeau, who did more than anyone else to liberalize Puritan Canadian society. By the way, it was he who authored the famous phrase 'the state has no business in the bedrooms of its citizens.'
So it can be at least assumed that Justin Trudeau will strengthen democratic institutions and reject the policy of building a police state. At the very least, we can forget Harper's rhetoric of 'tough on crime,' 'tough on fraud,' and so on, which in reality brought nothing but additional problems and costs to the country.
This should also affect immigration issues – the tightened restrictions under Harper will clearly be loosened urgently.
In the economy, we should expect a shift of attention from energy and resource sectors to the manufacturing sector, since for liberals it has always been a priority. This is determined both by the party's program and by which large businesses support which party.
Conservatives are mainly popular in resource provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as among residents of the agricultural hinterland. In particular, the key functionaries of the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney, come from Alberta, having close ties with oil, gas, and resource companies. Largely for this reason, Harper wanted to turn Canada into an energy superpower, no matter how utopian these plans were.
At the same time, liberals have their main support in Canada's two main industrial centers – Ontario and Quebec, which are also the most populous provinces of the country. All this suggests that the manufacturing sector will receive priority attention.
That is, first of all, the winners from the liberals' victory will be those who voted for them – the Atlantic provinces, as well as the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The western provinces, primarily Alberta and Saskatchewan, can expect not the best times.
With a high degree of confidence, we can say that in the area of foreign policy, Canada will return to the role of peacemaker, distancing itself from open unconditional support of any one country at the expense of its position as an arbiter in disputes. Here, after Harper's démarches, there is certainly a lot of work to be done. But in any case, restoring the position that Canada had 'before Harper' is necessary – there is no other way.
Finally, regarding Toronto – what does the liberal party's victory give us? At the very least, the confrontation between Harper's federal government and the liberal government of Ontario, which lasted the past decade, is ending. The local press openly wrote that Harper was waging a war with our province.
Now this has come to an end. In many ways, the liberals' victory happened thanks to the province of Ontario, and Trudeau speaks openly about it. So now we can expect fruitful cooperation between the provincial and federal governments.
So in Canada, a time of big changes is coming, and changes for the better. The 'Harper era' is over.