Canada’s 45th General Election is over and my reaction is mostly relief. A few short months ago, I was expecting our country would follow the trend we have seen all too much of lately: incumbent governments being tossed out to be replaced by right-wing populists. I could envision our next election delivering a Conservative majority led by the rather unpleasant Pierre Poilievre, but instead here we are with a Liberal minority. Maybe we’ll trigger a new, progressive trend.

When the Liberals won a minority government in 2021, I was pleased. They would have to involve the NDP in governing which meant some good social democratic ideas would be included in the policy-making of a government that represented most Canadians.

And it turned out well. Among other things, we got an excellent day care program, strengthened Medicare, and scab labour was banned in federally regulated industries. Furthermore, it turned out to be surprisingly stable, lasting 3½ years, almost a full term.

This time, given the very special circumstances, specifically an existential threat from our suddenly rogue neighbour, I was hoping for a Liberal majority. But, given my expectations earlier in the year, I’m not complaining. The NDP can still provide for a majority government and I very much hope they will do so willingly and for a full four years. It’s not as if they will want to drag the remains of their party through another election for a long time. They have a lot of rebuilding and rethinking to do (fodder for another post). I see no reason why this can’t be a productive, full-term government.

I was hoping for a couple of special treats and was actually rewarded with one. The first was that Poilievre would lose his seat, not that I like to wish people bad luck but this is one politician whose nastiness just does not add to the quality of Canadian politics.

And I’m not alone in that evaluation. Canadians have just not taken to him and he has even managed to get on the wrong side of two Conservative premiers, Doug Ford and Tim Houston, a quite remarkable achievement. This, plus the fact the Conservatives made considerable gains in popular vote and seats, yet he managed to lose his own riding should give the party pause about renewing his leadership.

The other treat on my short list was that the Liberals would win my riding of Calgary Centre. It’s happened before and they had a good candidate. The contest was a nail-biter but sad to say, she lost.

I was pleased to see that even without proportional representation, the seat count wasn’t wildly out of sync with the popular vote. The Liberals won 49 percent of the seats with 44 percent of the popular vote; the Conservatives 42 percent of the seats with 41 percent of the vote. The NDP was robbed with only two percent of the seats for six percent of the vote—just that kind of night for them. We continue to need PR to get it right, and get it right consistently.

The 45th has put us in good shape to deal with these strange times. We have a reasonably stable government with an exceptionally able leader. With Justin and Pierre I sometimes got the feeling we were being led by juveniles, now there’s an adult in the room. I am optimistic.