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Trudeau faces a tough election to remain in power

The otherwise dull political landscape of Canada lights up every four years when the country comes together to elect its Lower House of Parliament.

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Iqbal Singh Sidhu

The otherwise dull political landscape of Canada lights up every four years when the country comes together to elect its Lower House of Parliament. Canada votes on October 21, two days later than it did in 2015. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are heading into the contest virtually tied with Andrew Scheer’s Progressive Conservatives, while Jagmeet Singh’s NDP, Elizabeth May’s Green Party and Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada will fight to stay relevant.

Trudeau ran a once-in-a-lifetime campaign in 2015, seeing his party win an unprecedented mandate — moving from 36 seats to 184. It also propelled into political stardom new faces and among them were four MPs of Punjabi descent, who went on to become members of his Cabinet. All of them young and promising. But there is one major problem with such campaigns: they happen literally just once. There is also a problem with young faces — they grow old.

Trudeau mania on the wane

‘Trudeau mania’ has been replaced by jokes, jeers, snipes and taunts of varying kinds and degrees aimed at the once ‘darling young boy’. And just when the Liberal political machine was starting to gather steam by resurrecting the ghosts of past Conservative governments and reciting its most dependable mantra of ‘if not Trudeau, who?’, Trudeau torpedoed his own campaign through his past actions. Initially, a picture was released by Time magazine of Trudeau with his face blackened and wearing a Disney costume at a party in 2001. Then came the video, and then came another picture with him donning similar makeup at a different event.

All in all, Trudeau’s image of a sensitive celebrant of diversity, who weeps and apologises for the racist policies of 100 years ago, was tarnished. Jagmeet Singh did not take long to call out the Prime Minister for his ‘disturbing behaviour pattern’, alleging that he is a totally different person once the cameras are off. Andrew Scheer was ‘disappointed’ at the Prime Minister’s actions and said he was ‘not fit to govern’.

Scheer, however, conveniently forgot this moral code when overtly racist and xenophobic social media posts by a candidate of his party emerged — he basically said that the past is past, and people can change.

Most political observers believe the ‘blackface’ incident’s impact on the Sikh and other non-white voters is not going to be very much. Alongside Trudeau’s personal brand of incompetence and hypocrisy, the Liberal Party faces a long list of broken promises, gaffes, controversies, mismanagement and political blunders.

Opposition’s problems

Things are far from hunky-dory for the Opposition as well. The Progressive Conservatives under Andrew Scheer haven’t done a good job of making people forget that they are the party of Stephen Harper — an unusually infamous Prime Minister whom Trudeau defeated; or at making a feasible sales pitch that people will believe. Still, they are virtually tied with the Liberals in vote percentage but lose out on seats. And to say that Scheer lacks charisma would be dishonestly understating it. Also, the more radically charged base of the Conservative Party (the ‘go back to where you came from’ type) has already gravitated towards Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada, whose brand of politics seems to be thoroughly inspired from Donald Trump.

Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats are currently the third largest party, and based on the latest numbers it seems this will stay the same after the election. Whether the numbers are good enough for Singh to keep his post remains to be seen; chances are they just might not be. Elizabeth May’s Green Party of Canada had one seat in Parliament — namely its leader’s, and that too is expected to stay this way.

Diaspora’s choice

“I am going to vote Liberal as I like my local MP. I have known him for 20 years; he’s a great guy,” says Harmail Hayer from Winnipeg. The diaspora has traditionally sided with the winning side; there are no fixed party loyalties for a majority of the Punjabi community but the overarching propensity has been towards the Left-leaning parties, more specifically towards the Liberals.

Twenty Liberals of South Asian origin were elected during the last cycle. How many end up at The Hill this time is anybody’s guess. How much impact Jagmeet has on the ridings in Greater Toronto Area with a considerable Sikh vote remains to be seen. These ridings are traditionally Liberal strongholds, but the NDP and the PCs have made inroads over the past few years. “I am still undecided on who to vote for. Earlier it used to be the Liberals, but now with Jagmeet, it has become confusing,” Jaswinder Singh from Brampton confesses.

With the elections still over a month away, the scenario can shift. As of now, newspaper subscribers and TV news audiences are definitely getting the bang for their buck.

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