[The four parties that do offer climate action plans (of varying
seriousness) collected almost 65 percent of the vote.]
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CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS BECOME EXTINCT IN CANADIAN ELECTION  
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Gary Engler
October 22, 2019
Common Dreams
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_ The four parties that do offer climate action plans (of varying
seriousness) collected almost 65 percent of the vote. _

(FromL) Federal party leaders, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, Green Party
leader Elizabeth May, People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier,
host Patrice Roy from Radio, Canada's Prime Minister and Liberal
leader Justin Trudeau, Conservative leader Andrew S, SEAN
KILPATRICK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Canada’s centrist Liberal Party won re-election Monday, but as a
minority government, which means it will need the support of either
the more left New Democratic Party or the nationalist Bloc Quebecois
to survive.

But perhaps more interesting is that the only political party that
denies climate change is caused by humans won less than two percent of
the vote despite its high profile leader, former Conservative cabinet
minister Maxime Bernier. The anti-immigrant, right wing People’s
Party of Canada, formed by a self-described libertarian after he
narrowly lost the vote to become Conservative leader, failed to elect
even a single member of Parliament.

The four parties that do offer climate action plans (of varying
seriousness) collected almost 65 percent of the vote.

The Conservative Party, which acknowledges that climate change is
real, but offered only magical undefined “technological solutions”
as a solution, won 34 percent of the popular vote and 122 seats of the
338 total. The party’s vote is heavily concentrated in rural areas
plus Alberta and Saskatchewan, two provinces dependent on the oil and
gas industries.

New leader Jagmeet Singh impressed voters with a more left-wing
platform promising national pharmacare and daycare programs, as well
as a “new deal” for climate action, reconciliation in “true and
equal partnership” with Indigenous communities and tax hikes for
corporations and the wealthy.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which won a majority of seats in the
2015 election with almost 40 percent of the vote on a platform of
progressive promises, including reducing Canada’s carbon footprint
and reforming the country’s first-past-the-post electoral system,
but fulfilled neither, fell to 33 percent of the popular vote and won
155 seats, based on almost complete results. The drop in Liberal
support was generally attributed to the severely diminished popularity
of the prime minister (one “corruption” scandal and the bombshell
discovery of photos showing Trudeau in blackface) as well as buying a
pipeline due to be expanded from Alberta to the Pacific coast, which
undermined his credibility as an environmentalist.

Canada’s historically socialist New Democratic Party, which moved to
the right of the Liberals under former leader Tom Mulcair in an effort
to win the 2015 election but instead lost half its seats, began the
current campaign polling under 13 percent. New leader Jagmeet Singh
impressed voters with a more left-wing platform promising national
pharmacare and daycare programs, as well as a “new deal” for
climate action, reconciliation in “true and equal partnership”
with Indigenous communities and tax hikes for corporations and the
wealthy. The result was 16 percent of the national vote and 25 seats,
which is enough to keep a minority Liberal government in power.

The Green Party elected three MPs, up from one in 2015 and almost
doubled its popular vote to 6.3 percent. Their vote was highly
concentrated on Vancouver Island.

The Bloc Quebecois, which only runs candidates in Quebec, was the
wildcard of the election. They became the main beneficiaries of the
overwhelming support for climate action in the French-speaking
province (500,000 people marched four weeks ago in Montreal). Their
climate platform, which is similar to both the NDP and Greens, looks
to have caused a significant defection of Conservative, Liberal and
NDP voters to the often leftish, but somewhat xenophobic nationalist
BQ, which won almost a third of the popular vote in the province and
32 seats in Parliament. The BQ supported a recently enacted provincial
government law banning public officials from wearing visible religious
symbols, which mostly targets immigrants. Many pundits argued that the
NDP leader’s Sikh turban caused a backlash in Quebec where the law
is supported by most voters. The BQ tripled its number of seats since
2015.

A possible Liberal-NDP coalition government has caused panic and
various threats from oil and gas industry promoters, who see this
coalition as dangerous to their industry and especially to its
pipeline expansion plans. They worry that the NDP might insist on
cancelling the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver as
the price for backing the Liberals.

On the other hand, environmentalists who argue that oil and gas
production must be cut if we are to avoid cooking the planet are
elated at the prospect of such a scenario.

The next few weeks of political jockeying could go a long way in
determining Canada’s role in preventing a looming climate disaster.

Gary Engler is a former Canadian reporter, editor and union activist
who is author of American Spin
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first novel in the FAKE NEWS Mysteries
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propaganda, politics and murder in the Donald Trump era.

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