Here in Canada, we are nearing the end of a federal election campaign. It has been a rather dispiriting affair for the most part. The incumbent, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, was elected largely on his image as a progressive reformer, but has often proven a disappointment in this regard. His re-election prospects were further hobbled by accusations from one of his own ministers of attempting to improperly influence a criminal prosecution, all this before embarrassing photos emerged from his past in which he wore brown face. His chief rival, Andrew Scheer of the Conservative party, has had to battle accusations that he has a secret social conservative agenda (which generally doesn’t fly very well with the average Canadian voter) and has not shown himself to possess sufficient charisma and vision to expand his support much beyond his party’s base. Then it was revealed that he is a closet American. The two left-of-centre leaders, Jagmeet Singh of the NDP and Elizabeth May of the Green Party have run strong campaigns, but have no realistic chance of forming a government. Possibly the strongest performance has come from Yves-François Blanchet of the sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois, which appeared moribund at the outset of the campaign but now seems poised to make considerable gains and, while confined to a single province, may end up playing spoiler to the two leading parties’ chances and holding the balance of power in the next Parliament. And, because it’s 2019, we have to deal with the existence of a far-right White Supremacist party.
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