Canadians head to the polls in pandemic federal election set for September

Canadians are headed to the polls after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a federal election for next month.

The Prime Minister arrived at Rideau Hall on Sunday morning to visit with Governor General Mary Simon, kickstarting a 36 day campaign that will culminate with a vote on September 20.

Trudeau is opting for one of the shortest election campaigns, less than two years since the Liberals were reduced to a minority government.

At the time of dissolution, the Liberals have 155 seats, the Conservatives 119, the Bloc Quebecois 32, the NDP 24 and the Greens two. There are also four Independents and one vacancy.

Last week, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said an early election call would be “selfish” and he called on the Prime Minister to recall the house and “get to work.”

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has been one of many questioning the timing of an election as Canada is facing a fourth wave of COVID-19 fuelled by the Delta variant.

The Liberals, however, argue Canadians deserve a chance to rate the government’s handling of the crisis and to decide whether they agree with its ambitious and costly plan to rebuild the economy once the pandemic recedes.

The Liberals have also maintained that a minority Parliament had become toxic and dysfunctional and that they need a strong majority mandate in order to implement the recovery plan.

O’Toole, for his part, will likely seek to seize on his party’s reputation for fiscal restraint as anxieties grow over inflation and rising debt levels following a massive $354-billion deficit for 2020-21, which pushed Canada’s net debt past $1 trillion for the first time ever.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, adopting a tax-the-rich populism and an upbeat tone, is set to argue he pried pandemic relief out of a reluctant minority government, including beefed-up wage subsidies, emergency benefits and sick-leave payments.

Meanwhile, the Bloc Quebecois’ Yves-Francois Blanchet is targeting Conservative seats in and around Quebec City where he hopes his message of nationalism – though not outright sovereignty – will resonate.

Elections Canada says it is prepared to conduct a safe election during the pandemic, with British Columbia, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador all having successfully held provincial votes in the past two years.

However, Canada’s chief electoral officer Stephane Perrault warns it may take two to five days after election day to determine winners in some tightly-contested ridings due to the sheer increase of mail-in ballots expected this time around. While the agency still expects the majority of Canadians will choose to vote in person, it anticipates upwards of five million Canadians to vote by mail, compared to fewer than 50,000 in the 2019 election.

The extra COVID protocols to safely conduct a campaign is also expected to add millions more to the election bill, which could top $610 million, or $110 million more than it cost to run the last two elections.