Campus reacts to Liberal Majority in Federal Election

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada was elected to form a majority government with 184 seats after gaining significant ground in Eastern Canada, the Territories and British Columbia, J. Trudeau and his Liberals ousted Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, who managed to win only 99 seats.

In an almost complete reversal of the 2011 election, Tom Mulcair’s New Democratic Party fell to 44 seats. This figure was less than half of their 103 seats won with the late Jack Layton as leader, which saw them form the Official Opposition party.

As Trudeau moves into the driver’s seat in Ottawa, the Conservative Party announced that Stephen Harper will resign his leadership.

Despite winning only 4 seats in the 2011 election, the Bloc Quebecois won 10 seats in their home province. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May retained her single seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

“I’m pretty shocked, I don’t think anyone expected such a big Liberal majority,” Students’ Union President Navneet Khinda said. “I think a lot of people expected the ‘Orange Wave’ in Alberta to be reflected in Canada, and we’re not seeing that.”

In an election that saw more than 68 per cent of eligible voters in the country cast a ballot, 73 per cent voted in the U of A’s Edmonton-Strathcona riding, electing the NDP’s Linda Duncan.

There were several races that came down to a small number of votes. Khinda pointed to her home constituency of Edmonton-Mill Woods, where Conservative incumbent Tim Uppal was ousted by Liberal Amarjeet Sohi by a mere 80 votes.

“Some of these ridings were super close,” Khinda said, “So I’m really glad students voted. I think having these close races and the want for change really got people excited about voting.”

Khinda said that though the three non-conservative wins in Edmonton will get some people excited, she said she wasn’t sure what to make of the rest of the province going mainly blue.

“I saw a quote about how none of us are living under a Conservative Government now, even though we have a lot of Conservative MPs in Alberta” Khinda said.

SU VP (External) Dylan Hanwell, who led the national Get out the Vote (GOTV) campaign said he’s waiting to see is the election demographics. Leading up to the elections, about 4,000 U of A students pledged to vote in the campaign. Along with the GOTV, Hanwell organized the advanced polling stations in SUB, where about 3,000 students cast their ballots last week.

“Hopefully (the federal government will) realise that students and youth across the country were people that voted for them, and they owe at least a portion of their success to the younger demographic,” Hanwell said.

Though the original goal for GOTV was 7,500 pledges, Hanwell said he’s “still happy” in reaching 4,000 students.

Students who pledged to vote were reached on Monday over email, phone, and text with reminders to vote. Making those phone calls was actually a really exciting part of the campaign, Hanwell said.

Election night, volunteers and democratic enthusiasts on campus, ended with viewing parties in Dewey’s and RATT.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), an organization designed to synchronize student organizations and advocate on their behalf to the federal government. As CASA’s Director-at-Large, Hanwell said he is looking forward to the Liberals putting tax credits into low-income and middle-income grants for students, which is something the CASA has been lobbying for.

“We hope that (the Liberals) put it in sooner rather than later,” Hanwell said.

Khinda added that she’s is looking forward to the reallocation of education and textbook tax credits to up-front grants, which she said the Liberals had as part of their platform.

Now that the election is over, Khinda and Hanwell pointed to the upcoming lobby week as the next major event to prepare for, both at the UASU and CASA levels.

“If students truly came out [to vote] in big numbers, and I think they did, there’s going to be some pressure on the new government to make those changes,” Khinda said.

Though she said the federal government is involved in university in a more hands-off way than the province, Khinda pointed to the federal level as key in attracting research dollars.

“The federal government is responsible for many loans and grants,” Khinda said, “as well as handling immigration and citizenship for international students. Since there is no post-secondary minister, there are many government ministries we have to work with.”

This year, U of A students have seen major turnover in leadership at three different levels: institutional, provincial, and federal. This amount of change is “incredible,” Hanwell said.

“This is a different party, it’s a new leader. We’ll probably have to change some of the ways that we approach government,” he said. “Different things will be possible.”

Political science prof reacts to ‘surprising’ results in federal election

Steve Patten is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science. A specialist in Canadian political parties, public policy and democracy, Patten spends his time both researching and teaching. Party system change — a recurrent theme in this year’s political land

What was your reaction when the results came in?

I was surprised, like most people … I didn’t expect (the Liberals) to do as well as getting 39-40 per cent of the vote, I expected it to be more like 35-36 per cent, and I expected it to be a minority.

Your thoughts on having a minority as opposed to a majority?

Well there’s two immediate thoughts. One is that this is a false majority. The Trudeau Liberals got around 40 per cent of the vote, but they got 50 more per cent of the seats. So the number of seats is actually not in line with the way Canadians voted. I was also hoping that if we had a minority, it might force Justin Trudeau to compromise to work towards cooperation. False majorities put so much power in the hands of the leader of the governing party, and I think we’re at risk of not seeing politics change as much as many of us would like to see it change.

What will a Liberal majority mean for life in Alberta?

For the people of Alberta, the relationships that the Trudeau government builds with the provinces and with our big cities (are) very important. His plans to spend more and invest more in infrastructure is an opportunity for our mayors to work with the Federal government to advance projects in transportation, social housing, and other things that are quite vital and quite important to them.

Do you foresee any challenges with legalizing marijuana?

I don’t expect it to happen very quickly. I think what we’ll see quickly is putting in place a clear, decriminalization of marijuana, which is just changing what happens to people who are arrested with marijuana. But legalization requires some real solid policy work on what approach to take on growing and selling. There’s an awful lot of detailed policy questions that need to be followed though. So I wouldn’t really expect that sort of thing to be happening quickly. I suspect there’s a good chance it won’t even happen while Justin Trudeau is Prime Minister, but we are moving in that direction.

What do you think Trudeau meant by “Sunny ways?”

I don’t remember exactly what he said, but the thing that really stood out in this is in his acceptance speech was when he talked about positive politics and diversity …  Let’s just hope this positive politics is really a new style that Liberals can be pleased with, but so could New Democrats and so could Conservatives even if they don’t agree with the policy direction.