what do i think about the results of the election, as a canadian rather than a mathematician?

this isn't the worst case scenario - but it's close to it, and more or less exactly what i was trying to avoid. the ndp lost 2 of it's three seats here (which wasn't projected by anybody), but kept the one i'm in. the liberals won the seat next to me, and the conservatives won the seat below me. i was hoping the liberals could take this seat, but they lost to an ndp candidate that is now more useless than he ever was.

walking around the riding yesterday, it was clear enough where the class divisions exist. i didn't see any signs on my street, or even really in my little area. but, the liberal signs were lined up and down the single homes, while the ndp signs were lined up on the row houses. in this particular race, this is actually backwards - brian masse was the more bourgeois candidate, with more conservative values and with less of a history of doing real activism, on top of less of a history of actually governing. unlike her, he's really demonstrated little interest in the actual well-being of the actual people that live in this riding, which is one of the least wealthy in the country. as mentioned: sandra pupatello was clearly the better candidate, on any potential meaningful metric. but, those party affiliations can sometimes die hard, i guess, leading people to make decisions that are simply not supported by the evidence. in an election where the area rejected the ndp, this riding bucked the trend, held to friendship over logic and made the wrong choice. *shrug*.

but, i got out and voted because i was hoping to prevent a minority with this specific configuration of power and i got more or less what i was trying to stop.

it's not as bad as it could be because the ndp don't really have any meaningful leverage. and, let us all dispel with the ridiculous notion that the ndp - who just lost half their caucus, and are led by a thirty-something year old with no executive experience at all - are going to actually play any role in governing over the next four years. they're not. if you thought that electing the ndp would hold the liberals accountable, that they'd threaten the liberals with an early election if they didn't stop the pipeline, then you've got this backwards - the liberals will be ordering the ndp to vote for the budget, or else. the ndp will not want an election; next time could be even worse.

but, that doesn't change the fact that we now have a dangerous religious extremist holding the balance of power, a man who has no meaningful life experiences to draw upon, and who interprets the world through a filter of faith and belief rather than through evidence or logic. that puts the country on a dangerous path towards backwardsness and ignorance. the liberals may find him easy to manipulate, but manipulating him means playing into his perceptions, which is going to bring out the worst elements and instincts in the liberal party. if my intent was to vote for the secular left as best as i possibly could, to try and block the increasing influence of religion in government in the most effective way available to me, the existing configuration of power is just about as bad as i could imagine it. singh & trudeau aren't going to see eye-to-eye on much of anything else - this is going to be a government that is oriented towards faith as a governing principle, due to the fact that it's what's on the actual table.

i would plead with the liberals to resist this, to put reason over passion in their deliberations with the government, and to not be afraid to go back to the polls.

the liberals are at a crossroads here. they are the country's (indeed, western culture's) historical secular political movement, but they've been toying with moving away from that for quite a long time, now. unfortunately, i'm not sure that they realize the importance of their secular history in terms of their actual existence, or in defining the separation of the new democrat and liberal political traditions, anymore. and, powerful people in the liberal party even seem keen to jettison liberalism in favour of "progressivism" - an error that would decimate the party forever.

but, here we have it in front of us, in the starkest terms possible: it is going to be the task of the liberal party over the course of this minority parliament to resolve it's identity crisis. will it re-embrace it's history as a secular party, or will it align with the religious left in an attempt to redefine itself as an extension of the "progressive" movement?

my vote next time around may very well depend on the answer to this.

but, let's understand what happened.

in the east, the liberals were only down by amounts proportional to turnout, and it didn't hurt them because their opponents were down, too. but, the ndp were nearly obliterated as a consequence of their rejection of secularism - even losing parts of their base to the conservatives. what is the obvious lesson for the liberals, here? is the religious left a path to victory in canada?

in the west, they lost large amounts of support as the price of not being the conservative party. if the answer to holding support in the west is being the conservative party, how sustainable is it for the liberals to use that as a path to hold power?

if turnout had not decreased, they would have probably won seats in ontario and not lost as many in quebec. and, how do you maintain turnout in canada? the answer is by appealing to the secular left, and getting serious about policies that get us out to vote - the policies that were abandoned in 2015.

if the liberals interpret this as a need to move right, that's a shot in the foot. and, if they get lost in a faith-based coalition with the christian left, they'll end up destroying their own brand.

i would have had - excuse the language - faith in the old liberal party to figure this out right.

but, i half expect the younger trudeau to choose passion over reason.

we know he's his mother's, at least.