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Canadian election: Could Trudeau lose?

He sure could, the polls suggest.

As of Saturday, the Conservatives led the Liberals, 35.5% to 33.4%, although by Sunday this had dropped to 34.9% to 33.0%, demonstrating the volatility of public opinion a little more than two weeks before the September 20 nationwide election for seats in Parliament.

But this is actually pretty close to the 2019 election results, when Trudeau’s left-leaning Liberal Party won 33.12% of the popular vote to the Conservatives’ 34.34%, but nevertheless won a parliamentary plurality (157 seats to the Conservatives’ 121, with 60 held by other parties).

The candidates, however, aren’t the same; the Conservatives have a new leader, Erin O’Toole, who replaces Andrew Scheer. Both are from Regina, Saskatchewan. Trudeau is from the Montreal area.

Canadians don’t directly elect the prime minister; he’s normally the leader of “the largest party or a coalition in the House of Commons” (details here). And a popular majority isn’t required in either Canada or the United States to become the nation’s chief execution; Trump lost the popular vote by large margins in both 2016 and 2020.

O’Toole isn’t a Donald Trump, but his policies bear some similarities to those of U.S. Republicans. He argues masks and vaccinations should be voluntary, and proposed repealing Canada’s assault weapon ban, but recently backed away from the latter position, prompting Trudeau to accuse him of flip-flopping. Gun control is more popular in Canada than in the United States. Trudeau also accused O’Toole of “pandering” and “taking cues” from anti-vaxxers.

Yes, Canada has them, too. “Anti-vax hecklers have shouted abuse and even death threats at Trudeau throughout his campaign,” Reuters says. Read the story here. For general information about the Covid-19 pandemic in Canada, and their government’s response and policies, see the Wikipedia article here.

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