“Tonight we’ll dispense with the formalities. I’d like to toast the future prime minister of Canada,” Richard Nixon had said in 1972, when Justin Trudeau was four months old. Forty three years later, Nixon’s prediction comes true as Trudeau, the son of former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, sets out to become the next prime minister of Canada. As victory became apparent Trudeau tweeted, “Ready.”
Fighting all odds, Trudeau defeated 9-year reign of Tories to bring Liberals to power. It won a stunning majority of 184 seats out of 338 seats in the House of Commons. Harper was restricted to modest 99 seats and once predicted favourite, Tom Mulcair, was sabotaged to 44. The separatist Bloc Quebecois won 10 and the Green Party one.
Canadians voted for Trudeau’s proposition of a series of deficit budgets over NDP’s and Conservative’s balanced budget theory. That, according to the Trudeau, would help boost the economy which was currently battling recession and low-quality job market.
The 78-day election campaigning brought out varying favourites in the pre-election polls. However, the latest Ipsos poll predicted Liberals victory. It was the longest and one of the most fascinating elections campaigning that Canada ever witnessed. What emerged triumphant was the Liberals’ brilliant social media campaigning to connect with voters.
Trudeau took to twitter and facebook to connect with his supporters along with rallying in cities missed by his rivals. A passionate and electric campaigning added to the nostalgic reign of Pierrie Trudeau worked steadily for the Liberals to incapacitate NDP and Tories who relyed on restricted media communication.
Where NDP, inspite of Tom Mulcair being predicted as a favourite in earlier polls, failed miserably to gain momentum with its poor social media marketing, the Conservatives, fighting nine-year incumbency lethargy and defending its mediocre performance, met disaster in selling its goal for a better Canada. A retired PR specialist, who earlier worked for the Tories commented,” It seems Harper himself does not want to win this election.”
Liberals winning will mean an additional taxation for wealthy one per Canadians who until now were protected under Harper’s regime. The Liberals have also promised to invest big time in job creation, infrastructure and public transport.
NDP’s $15 federal minimum wage programme and Harper’s refusal to invest further in the economy, in a bid to maintain a balanced budget, did not seem to go down well with Canadians who sought economy revival.
Harper’s tenure as a prime minister received sharp criticism after crash in global oil prices last year. Heavily relying on natural resources over creating alternate job opportunities was a criticism that Harper persistently faced during his 9-year ruling. The failure to build Keystone XL pipeline proved to be another liability for the Harper regime.
