By: Ananya Murthy
Earlier this week Canadian citizens elected a new Prime Minister, their first new leader in over a decade. Justin Trudeau won the election for the Liberal Party with 184 of 338 seats in the 42nd Canadian Parliament. His main competition for the position was former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who had held the office since 2006. Harper finished with 99 seats.
The campaign, which lasted for 78 days, was the longest and most expensive in over 140 years. The election also grabbed the public’s attention more than it has in the past. Trudeau promised to change many of Harper’s current policies. With this dramatic shift in the status quo, it is clear that Canadians are seeking a big change.
Trudeau believes the Liberals won because “we listened.” He states, “We beat fear with hope, we beat cynicism with hard work. We beat negative, divisive politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together.” Some of Trudeau’s main policy changes include making Canada’s government more accessible and transparent to the public, making “taxes more fair” with a middle-class tax cut by increasing taxes on the rich, and introducing a Canada Child Benefit aimed at helping single-parent and low-income families. He also plans on investing in public transit and “green infrastructure”, “reopening Canada’s doors” to immigrants, particularly those with family living in the country, maintaining military spending, cutting spending for an F-35 stealth bomber jet and ending the combat mission in Iraq while scaling up involvement in international peacekeeping, bolstering gun control measures, and legalizing, regulating and restricting access to marijuana.
Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada. He is considered a legendary Prime Minister who greatly contributed to Canada’s success today. Justin Trudeau was originally deemed too young and inexperienced to be Prime Minister, but the 43 year-old clearly caught the attention of the Canadian population with his liberal ideas. Rachel Florence of Toronto said, “Most people were sick of Harper because he’s been in office for 10 long years. People who weren’t necessarily liberal voted for [Trudeau] just to get Harper out.”
With the United States and Canada having the longest land border in the world, it is assumed that the relations with the two countries would be consistent and strong. The US and Canada are deeply entwined economically; each is the other’s largest trading partner. For people living in both countries, it may seem like not much has changed. However, the contrasting ideologies of Harper and Obama caused their relationship to suffer. One of the largest disagreements between the two focuses on the issues regarding climate change. Many US politicians, especially the liberals, see Harper’s administration as ‘having acted blindly in the face of environmental issues’. Trudeau accused the Conservatives of having “badly misread” the US-Canada relationship and said they had “missed important opportunities to cooperate with the US to find solutions to major issues like climate change”. With Trudeau in office now, the hope is that new ideas and relationships will form between the countries and their leaders.
Americans should be aware that despite the change of administration, Canada will not alter it’s approach on most major issues. The biggest transformation we will see is Justin Trudeau will be far less pugnacious than Harper. Canada is not going to be spending as much money on defense. The liberals have ruled out the F-35 program (a defense bomber purchase of 65 jets partnered with the US and other countries) which will save them millions.
While Canada will still fully support its allies, Trudeau claims that the F-35 program has become too costly. Also Trudeau has promised to pull out of the bombing missions in Iraq and Syria. While the Liberals will continue to participate in NATO and United Nation missions, there may be less of an incentive join in independent American-led efforts. In addition Canada will take more steps to deal with climate change. Climate policies were one of the main discrepancies between Harper and Obama. Overall we should see better relations between the United States and Canada. With Harper as the Prime Minister there were some impediments with policies and ideas, Trudeau is hoping to mend ties with America, and connections are expected to improve.
As anticipated, with the election of a new Prime Minister there is a lot of skepticism about how Trudeau will act in his role. Many Canadians are not easily convinced by Trudeau and his ideas. Nicole Orlan and Rachel Schwartz, both from Toronto, label Trudeau “As someone who is just riding the coat tails of his father. He doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing, or how to make anything happen, and by next term Canadians will be begging for a Conservative party again, but people also hated Harper and he was promoted poorly.
Trudeau had a good team to make him look good and hopefully his advisers will be just as successful [in making him look good].” Although it is made clear Canadians wanted Harper out, it is still unsure just how effective Trudeau will be as the new Prime Minister.
The future may be unclear for what to expect from Trudeau and his liberal party, but if one thing became apparent it’s that Canadians want change.
