Canada's Trudeau vows cooperation with opponents after bid for majority
fails
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[September 21, 2021]
By Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren
MONTREAL (Reuters) - Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday acknowledged he will need to work
with other parties after he fell short of winning a majority in
parliamentary elections, leaving him once more dependent on opposition
legislators to govern.
Trudeau, 49, was re-elected to a third term on Monday after calling a
vote two years early, hoping for approval of his free-spending response
to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2019 he had been working with a
minority, forced to make deals with other parties to push through
legislation.
But provisional results showed virtually no change from the 2019
election, delivering up another minority and begging the question of why
Trudeau had called a vote that the official opposition Conservative
Party portrayed as a cynical power grab.
Trudeau, in power since 2015, said he had a clear mandate to continue
the path to recovery while conceding Canadians did not want to be
thinking about politics or elections.
"You just want to know that your members of parliament of all stripes
will have your back through this crisis and beyond," he told supporters
in Montreal. "You have given this Parliament and this government clear
directions."
The result suggests there will be little change in approach from the
Liberals, who racked up record levels of debt and massive budget
deficits fighting COVID-19.
Trudeau, who promised tens of billions of dollars in new investments
during the campaign, will once again rely on the support of the smaller
left-leaning New Democrats, who want even more social spending.
"We're getting more of the same as what we had before. I don't think
markets are going to react either way," said Martin Pelletier, senior
portfolio manager at Trivest Wealth Counsel.
The Canadian dollar [CAD=] was trading slightly higher at 1.2766 to the
greenback, or 78.33 U.S. cents, in Asian trading on Tuesday.
Provisional results showed the Liberals ahead in 155 constituencies,
short of the 170 Trudeau needed to control the 338-seat House of
Commons. The Conservatives were on 122 with the New Democrats on 26.
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Canada's Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets supporters
during the Liberal election night party in Montreal, Quebec, Canada,
September 21, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
"The message Canadians are sending loud and clear is
they like the direction the government is taking the country in but
they're not quite sure they want to give anybody carte blanche,"
former close Trudeau advisor Gerry Butts told the Canadian
Broadcasting Corp.
Around 800,000 mail-in ballots will be counted on Tuesday, which
could affect the final tally in some seats.
The result is a blow to the right-leaning Conservatives, whose
leader Erin O'Toole had tried to take a more centrist approach to
attract progressive voters.
For the second election in a row the party won a larger share of the
popular vote than the Liberals, who nevertheless triumphed with
their lock on major urban centers.
O'Toole, who said he was sure Trudeau plans to call another election
within two years, said he had called the Liberal leader and
challenged him to put the unity of Canada first.
"I told him if he thinks he can threaten Canadians with another
election in 18 months, the Conservative Party will be ready," he
told supporters in his home town of Oshawa, east of Toronto.
(Reporting by Steve Scherer and David Ljunggren; Additional
reporting by Moira Warburton in Vancouver and Fergal Smith in
Toronto; Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
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