It’s October 21st, 2019, which means Election Day is finally here. If you’re a Canadian citizen who is 18 or older, you get to go to the polls to vote for a Member of Parliament to represent your interests in the House of Commons. The Cabinet that can obtain the confidence of the House gets to govern. Typically, this means that the party that wins the most seats forms the government, but there have been many exceptions to this throughout Canadian history, especially when no party wins a majority of the seats. That’s the situation we seem to be headed for tonight, with the governing Liberals and the opposition Conservatives in a dead heat in popular vote intention. It’s going to be a long night, folks. Strap yourselves in.
If you don’t know where to vote, Elections Canada has you covered. Please remember to bring photo ID if you have it, or other acceptable documentation as per Elections Canada’s guidelines. Voting hours vary by time zone, so please plan your day accordingly.
Here are the six main parties vying for your support: (Sadly, the Rhinoceros Party isn’t one of them.)
Conservative Party of Canada
Leader: Andrew Scheer
Position: Centre-right to right
Notable policy proposal: Creating a “National Energy Corridor” to transport energy resources across the country. No plans for creating a country-wide building to house said corridor have been announced.
Leader’s most notable gaffe: He falsely claimed to have been an insurance broker, which is kind of like lying about which brand of toilet paper you use.
Liberal Party of Canada
Leader: Justin Trudeau
Position: Far left if you’re a Conservative, centre-left if you’re a Liberal, neoliberal if you’re a Dipper
Notable policy proposal: A ban on single-use plastics. A ban on multi-use plastics is not being proposed, because that would entail banning the party leader.
Leader’s most notable gaffe: Being a little too enthusiastic about makeup on enough separate occasions so as to be unable to remember how many times he was a little too enthusiastic about makeup.
New Democratic Party
Leader: Jagmeet Singh
Position: Centre-left to left
Notable policy proposal: A national pharmacare program to cover the cost of prescription medications. Even the cool drugs. Nay, especially the cool drugs. 😉
Leader’s most notable gaffe: Literally everything he said and did before the actual election campaign.
Green Party of Canada
Leader: Elizabeth May
Position: Left/libertarian/environmentalist… yeah, they’re still trying to figure it out too
Notable policy proposal: Free tuition at all public colleges and universities. Except Queen’s. (They know what they did.)
Leader’s most notable gaffe: Still being terrible at French, despite having been the leader of a national party for 13 years.
Bloc Québécois
Leader: Yves-François Blanchet
Position: Québec sovereignty/centre-leftism/contrarianism
Notable policy proposal: Surprisingly, not pushing for separatism this time around. But they do want Québec to have its own version of the CRTC, which is a bit like firing your accountant because you want to do your own taxes from now on.
Leader’s most notable gaffe: “Vous pouvez opter pour des femmes et des hommes qui vous ressemblent.” Wait, that only made him more popular? Good grief.
People’s Party of Canada
Leader: Maxime Bernier
Position: Libertarianism/nationalist populism/whatever Maxime Bernier says it is
Notable policy proposal: Repealing the Multiculturalism Act. Good luck getting that particular genie back in its bottle, I guess.
Leader’s most notable gaffe: Literally everything he said and did before and during the actual election campaign.
If you’ve already voted, feel free to use this thread to livechat about the results. Using this thread to cheer on your local Rhinoceros Party candidate is highly encouraged.
(Header image taken from The Post Millennial. Party logos taken from Wikipedia.)
