Canadians head to the polls today for the final day of voting in this 44th general election and surveys suggest the result is far from certain with as many as six parties in contention for seats in Parliament.
More than 5.8 million Canadians have already voted in the advance polls, and Elections Canada has received nearly one million special ballots — a record-setting early turnout that suggests there’s an energized electorate.
Poll workers will start the vote count tonight, but the outcome may not be known until tomorrow after the many mail-in ballots are verified at hundreds of returning offices nationwide.
This 36-day election featured policy talk on everything from housing and the COVID-19 response to Canada’s place in the world, but there were also heavy doses of partisan sniping as the leaders jockeyed for front-runner status in a very close race.
Here’s a look at the closing arguments from the main party leaders.
Trudeau says he’s best to lead Canada through COVID
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau called this election on Aug. 15 saying he wanted Canadians to weigh in on who should finish the fight against COVID-19 and lead the country into a post-pandemic recovery.
“Canada is today at a crossroads — a moment where we have to make a really important choice,” Trudeau said at a rally in Maple, Ont., on Sunday, the last day of campaigning. “It’s not just about what we’re going to do in the coming months to end this pandemic for good, but also how we’re going to meet the challenges of the future.”
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau leaves Montreal, on Sunday. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
Trudeau has asked Canadians to reward his party for steering the country through the darkest days of this health crisis. He has also presented himself as a vaccine champion, the man who secured enough doses to get everyone eligible for a shot fully vaccinated by July, and the leader who will keep people safe in the fourth wave of this pandemic by pushing mandatory vaccines for federal public servants and the travelling public.
As Alberta grapples with another public health emergency under the leadership of Premier Jason Kenney, Trudeau said Sunday that conservative leaders can’t be trusted to lead the country at this critical juncture.
In addition to hammering the opposition on pandemic management, Trudeau said his party has the best plan to fight climate change and get more Canadians into a home at a time when eye-popping real estate prices have kept so many out of the market. “Let’s keep Canada moving forward as a progressive country,” he said.
O’Toole asks voters to punish Trudeau for calling an election
The August election call came at a time when the Liberals were enjoying a sizable lead in opinion polls, but that support cratered as some voters recoiled at the thought of an election when COVID cases are on the rise.
Since day one, opposition leaders have focused their criticisms of Trudeau on the election call itself. Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, a relative unknown at the start of the race, sought to capitalize on the frustration, slamming Trudeau as “privileged,” “entitled,” divisive and untrustworthy.
To shake off lingering concerns about a “secret agenda” from a man who once branded himself a “true blue” Conservative, O’Toole released the party’s platform on the first full day of the campaign. Pitching a more moderate form of conservatism, O’Toole made a play for disaffected Liberal voters in central and eastern Canada.
The platform, with its slogan “secure the future,” lays out a plan for a post-pandemic Canada. He’s promising some $60 billion in new health-care funding over 10 years, a mental-health strategy to help the millions of Canadians battling mental anguish after lockdowns and one million new homes to help with a pandemic-fuelled housing supply crunch.
O’Toole has also promised to balance the budget in 10 years’ time, a commitment made to neutralize past Liberal criticism that a Conservative-led government would result in big cuts to public spending.
According to the CBC Poll Tracker, Conservative support surged five points in the two weeks after the platform release as some voters started buying what O’Toole was selling. But the campaign hit a snag when the Conservative leader was forced to defend his firearms policy.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole gives the thumbs up to supporters as he leaves a campaign stop in Brantford, Ont., on Sept. 17. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
The Tory platform initially promised to repeal a ban on assault-style weapons such as those used in mass shootings. The Liberals pounced on that pledge and on O’Toole’s past association with the gun lobby. With his support softening in Ontario, the Tory leader shifted his position, promising to maintain the Liberal ban until an independent review by firearms experts was completed.
O’Toole also faced questions about his support for vaccines at every one of his campaign press conferences.
While personally pro-vaccine, O’Toole has called a Liberal plan to implement a vaccine mandate for federal bureaucrats, transportation workers and most passengers travelling by air and rail a divisive program that will lead to the “politicization of the pandemic.”
O’Toole has also repeatedly dodged questions about just how many people carrying the Conservative banner in this race have had at least one shot. As a result, Trudeau has characterized O’Toole as a leader beholden to the “far-right, anti-vax” wing of the Conservative Party.
O’Toole hit back, saying Trudeau was trying to distract from his “scandal-shredded” reputation after six years in government.
“Justin Trudeau hasn’t talked about the future of our great country. He hasn’t provided a plan for Canada. Instead, he has veered into personal attacks, dividing Canadians and using American-style, misleading politics in an election that is only about himself,” O’Toole said Saturday at a rally in Kitchener, Ont., asking Canadians to punish Trudeau for triggering “an unnecessary $600 million pandemic election.”
People’s Party could complicate Conservative path to power
O’Toole’s path to power may also be complicated by another party leader. For the first time in nearly two decades, conservative-minded voters have two viable options to choose from in this election: the Conservatives and the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) led by former Tory MP Maxime Bernier.
Public health measures such as lockdowns slowed the spread of COVID-19 — and likely saved lives — but they also prompted anger and frustration among some Canadians who saw their livelihoods destroyed as economic and social life ground to a halt.
People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier attends a rally in Calgary on Sept. 18. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)
The PPC welcomed those voters with open arms. A party promising a radically smaller government with fewer regulations was suddenly embraced by people who saw government as an oppressive force.
Bernier, a libertarian who has long railed against government overreach, became a champion of the “no more lockdowns” crowd, routinely appearing at well-attended protests against these restrictions. He is also vehemently opposed to vaccine passports — a position that has given the PPC a boost in the polls. Thanks to new support from the unvaccinated, Bernier’s movement is expected to perform much better than the 1.6 per cent of the national vote it fetched in the 2019 election.
“O’Toole has flip-flopped and adopted the Liberal program on the few remaining issues where there were still differences between the two parties, such as the carbon tax, gun bans and COVID passports,” Bernier said in an emailed statement to CBC News. “Mr. O’Toole will have to live with the consequences of his failing strategy.”
It’s not just right-wing parties that will have to contend with vote splits. The CBC Poll Tracker suggests Liberal support is marginally lower than it was after the 2019 election, while NDP support is roughly three points higher than it was following that campaign. This NDP strength could result in Liberal losses, particularly in Ontario and the Lower Mainland of B.C.
In the past, groups looking to stop vote-splitting on the left have called on progressive voters to ignore their party preferences and rally behind the candidates with the best chance of defeating Conservatives.
It’s a message Trudeau reiterated in the last two days of this campaign as he told progressive voters that only Liberals can keep the Conservatives out of power.
“You can vote both with your desire to stop the Conservatives and your desire to bring forward the most progressive government in the history of the country if you vote Liberal,” Trudeau told a crowd of supporters in Markham, Ont., on Saturday.
Singh says Trudeau is ‘bad for Canada’
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh who, polls suggest, is personally popular with voters, has tried to improve his party’s fortunes after a disappointing 2019 campaign. He has urged voters to reject Liberal warnings about a fractured left-wing vote and instead pick the party they really want to govern.
From the opening bell, Singh has branded Trudeau as a failed leader who doesn’t deserve another term. Those attacks have only become more pointed in the dying days of this campaign as Singh looks to keep progressive voters in the NDP fold and pick off Liberals frustrated with Trudeau’s performance.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh reacts to finishing his final campaign media availability in Burnaby, B.C., on Sunday. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)
“We think Mr. Trudeau is bad for Canada, because he’s failed on the crises and made things worse, not better,” Singh said Friday, condemning Trudeau for voting against non-binding NDP motions on pharmacare and long-term care homes.
Singh has also pointed to higher greenhouse gas emissions and a tax system he said is skewed toward the “ultra-rich.”
“He is bad for Canada. He was an abject failure,” Singh said of Trudeau.
Singh’s campaign has been laser-focused on promoting a plan to make the wealthy pay much more in taxes to help cover the cost of new social programs. He has brandished his party’s record in the last Parliament — NDP MPs pushed for more generous pandemic-related welfare programs — as proof that only New Democrats “will fight for you, will lift you up.”
“You can vote for Mr. Trudeau, who is all for show, who supports the ultra-wealthy, supports the super-rich and lets you down. Or you can vote for New Democrats. We are fighters and we are here for you,” he said at a Saturday campaign stop in Saskatoon.
But Singh has faced criticism for putting out a platform that calls for $200 billion in new spending with few details on how any of this transformative change would actually be implemented.
The party’s climate policy has been panned by experts, who say it’s both vague and unrealistic. A wealth tax like the one the NDP is proposing has been tried in other countries only to be repealed because it fell well short of revenue projections.
Greens won’t be on the ballot in nearly a third of ridings
For months, the Green Party has been beset with internal squabbling that has hampered their electoral efforts.
The party’s leader, Annamie Paul, has spent nearly all of the campaign in the riding of Toronto Centre, where she is running for a third time.
Some Green candidates said they didn’t want Paul in their riding during this race. But the leader was out stumping for the two Green incumbents, Elizabeth May and Paul Manly, over the weekend as the party looks to maintain its parliamentary delegation.
“I am hoping again to see some of these candidates elected on Monday because their Green voices are needed in Ottawa to talk about the climate, to be champions for the climate and for their communities,” Paul said at a Sunday campaign stop in Toronto.
Unlike in 2019, when the party ran candidates in all 338 ridings, there won’t be a Green on the ballot in nearly a third of all local races — which could give some Liberal and NDP candidates a boost in this nail-biter election.
Federal Green Party Leader Annamie Paul at a campaign stop in Victoria, P.E.I. (Kirk Pennell/CBC)
GOP strategist reacts to Trump’s ‘unconventional’ request
Donald Trump’s campaign is asking Republican candidates and committees using the former president’s name and likeness to fundraise to give at least 5% of what they raise to the campaign, according to a letter obtained by CNN. CNN’s Steve Contorno and Republican strategist Rina Shah weigh in.
Most Canadians in March reported feeling angry or pessimistic towards the federal government than at any point in the last six years, according to a survey by Nanos Research.
Nanos has been measuring Canadians’ feelings of optimism, satisfaction, disinterest, anger, pessimism and uncertainty toward the federal government since November 2018.
The latest survey found that optimism had crept up slightly to 10 per cent since hitting an all-time low of eight per cent in September 2023.
However, 62 per cent of Canadians said they feel either pessimistic or angry, with respondents equally split between the two sentiments.
(Nanos Research)
“What we’ve seen is the anger quotient has hit a new record,” Nik Nanos, CTV’s official pollster and Nanos Research founder, said in an interview with CTV News’ Trend Line on Wednesday.
Only 11 per cent of Canadians felt satisfied, while another 11 per cent said they were disinterested.
Past survey results show anger toward the federal government has increased or held steady across the country since March 2023, while satisfaction has gradually declined.
Will the budget move the needle?
Since the survey was conducted before the federal government released its 2024 budget, there’s a chance the anger and pessimism of March could subside a little by the time Nanos takes the public’s temperature again. They could also stick.
The five most important issues to Canadians right now that would influence votes, according to another recent Nanos survey conducted for Bloomberg, include inflation and the cost of living, health care, climate change and the environment, housing affordability and taxes.
(Nanos Research)
With this year’s budget, the federal government pledged $52.9 billion in new spending while promising to maintain the 2023-24 federal deficit at $40.1 billion. The federal deficit is projected to be $39.8 billion in 2024-25.
The budget includes plans to boost new housing stock, roll out a national disability benefit, introduce carbon rebates for small businesses and increase taxes on Canada’s top-earners.
However, advocacy groups have complained it doesn’t do enough to address climate change, or support First Nations communities and Canadians with disabilities.
“Canada is poised for another disastrous wildfire season, but this budget fails to give the climate crisis the attention it urgently deserves,” Keith Brooks, program director for Environmental Defence, wrote in a statement on the organization’s website.
Meanwhile, when it comes to a promise to close what the Assembly of First Nations says is a sprawling Indigenous infrastructure gap, the budget falls short by more than $420 billion. And while advocacy groups have praised the impending roll-out of the Canada Disability Benefit, organizations like March of Dimes Canada and Daily Bread Food Bank say the estimated maximum benefit of $200 per month per recipient won’t be enough to lift Canadians with disabilities out of poverty.
According to Nanos, if Wednesday’s budget announcement isn’t enough to restore the federal government’s favour, no amount of spending will do the trick.
“If the Liberal numbers don’t move up after this, perhaps the listening lesson for the Liberals will be (that) spending is not the political solution for them to break this trend line,” Nanos said. “It’ll have to be something else.”
Conservatives in ‘majority territory’
While the Liberal party waits to see what kind of effect its budget will have on voters, the Conservatives are enjoying a clear lead when it comes to ballot tracking.
(Nanos Research)
“Any way you cut it right now, the Conservatives are in the driver’s seat,” Nanos said. “They’re in majority territory.”
According to Nanos Research ballot tracking from the week ending April 12, the Conservatives are the top choice for 40 per cent of respondents, the Liberals for 23.7 per cent and the NDP for 20.6 per cent.
Whether the Liberals or the Conservatives form the next government will come down, partly, to whether voters believe more government spending is, or isn’t, the key to helping working Canadians, Nanos said.
“Both of the parties are fighting for working Canadians … and we have two competing visions for that. For the Liberals, it’s about putting government support into their hands and creating social programs to support Canadians,” he said.
“For the Conservatives, it’s very different. It’s about reducing the size of government (and) reducing taxes.”
Watch the full episode of Trend Line in our video player at the top of this article. You can also listen in our audio player below, or wherever you get your podcasts. The next episode comes out Wednesday, May 1.
Methodology
Nanos conducted an RDD dual frame (land- and cell-lines) hybrid telephone and online random survey of 1,069 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, between March 31 and April 1, 2024, as part of an omnibus survey. Participants were randomly recruited by telephone using live agents and administered a survey online. The sample included both land- and cell-lines across Canada. The results were statistically checked and weighted by age and gender using the latest census information and the sample is geographically stratified to be representative of Canada. The margin of error for this survey is ±3.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
With files from The Canadian Press, CTV News Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello and CTV News Parliamentary Bureau Writer, Producer Spencer Van Dyke
Tom Cotton speaks at a press conference in December 2023.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The MAGA right exists in a perpetual state of overheated grievance. But as the November election nears, the temperature seems to be rising, getting dangerously high.
This week, following Gaza war protests that disrupted travel in major American cities Monday, Senator Tom Cotton explicitly called on Americans to “take matters into [their] own hands” to get demonstrators out of the way. Asked to clarify those comments Tuesday, Cotton stood by them, telling reporters he would “do it myself” if he were blocked in traffic by demonstrators: “It calls for getting out of your car and forcibly removing” protestors,” he said.
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The right-wing senator’s comments came on the heels of Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for Senate in Arizona, suggesting supporters should arm themselves for the 2024 election season. “The next six months is going to be intense,” she said at a rally Sunday. “And we need to strap on our—let’s see, what do we want to strap on? We’re going to strap on our seat belt. We’re going to put on our helmet or your Kari Lake ballcap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us, just in case.”
And those comments came a couple weeks after Donald Trump, who regularly invokes apocalyptic and violent rhetoric, shared an image on social media depicting President Joe Biden—his political rival—hog-tied in the back of a pick-up truck. “This image from Donald Trump is the type of crap you post when you’re calling for a bloodbath or when you tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by,’” a Biden spokesperson told ABC News last month, referring to the former president’s dog-whistle to extremist groups during a 2020 debate and to cryptic remarks he’s made from rally stages this spring suggesting Biden’s reelection would mean a “bloodbath”—for the auto industry and for the border. This kind of thing is nothing new—not for Trump, not for his allies, and not in American history, which is what makes these flirtations with political violence all the more dangerous.
We’ve seen where this kind of reckless rhetoric can lead. Throughout Trump’s first campaign for president, it led to eruptions of violence at his rallies, which he openly encouraged: “Knock the crap out of ‘em, would you?” he told supporters of hecklers. It also inflamed tensions throughout his presidency, which culminated with his instigating a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol. According to a PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll this month, 20 percent of Americans believe violence may be necessary to get the country on track. A disturbing new study out of University of California-Davis found openness to political violence was even higher among gun owners, particularly those who own assault weapons, recently purchased their firearms, or carry them in public. And an October survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution suggested that support for political violence, while still limited, appears to be increasing, with nearly a quarter of respondents overall—and a third of Republicans—agreeing with the statement: “Patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
“It looks like the temperature has gone up across the board, but especially among Republicans,” Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI, told Axios of the survey last fall. That’s no accident. It’s the kind of political climate you get when a sitting senator promotes vigilantism, a Senate candidate calls on supporters to take up arms, and a major party embraces or enables a demagogue. “Political violence,” as Biden campaign communications director Michael Tylerput it a couple weeks ago, “has been and continues to be central to Donald Trump’s brand of politics.”
