Canada vote too close to call as Trudeau hopes to cling on

Canadians vote in a general election
Monday with polling predicting a minority government as Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau’s Liberal Party risks losing its majority or even being kicked out of
office.

The Liberals and the Conservatives, led by Andrew Scheer, could be set for
a near dead heat with pundits calling it one of the nation’s closest
elections ever.

But neither of the two parties that have led Canada since Confederation in
1867 is forecast to win enough support to secure an absolute majority of
seats in parliament.

At final campaign stops in westernmost British Columbia on Sunday, former
golden boy Trudeau made an emotional appeal to voters to enable him to build
on the achievements of his first term.

He warned against Scheer’s pledged roll-back of environmental protections
including a federal carbon tax that discourages the use of large amounts of
fossil fuels.

“We need a strong, progressive government that will unite Canadians and
fight climate change — not a progressive opposition,” Trudeau told a rally
in a suburb of Vancouver after whistle-stops in Ontario, Manitoba and
Alberta.

“We need to unite as citizens. We need to unite as a planet.”

After winning in a 2015 landslide — in a repeat of the wave of support
that in 1968 carried his late father Pierre to power — Trudeau’s star has
dimmed while in office.

His image has been tainted by ethics lapses in the handling of the bribery
prosecution of an engineering giant, while his campaign was rocked by the
emergence of old photographs of him in blackface make-up.

Surging social democrats and resuscitated Quebec separatists have also
chipped away at Liberal support.

– Main parties both struggle –

If Trudeau hangs on, it will be because Scheer has struggled to win over
Canadians with his bland minivan-driving dad persona and a throwback to the
thrifty policies of past Tory administrations.

Canadians “cannot afford” a Liberal government propped up by the third-
place New Democratic Party (NDP), Scheer said at the end of a marathon last
push from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans.

“We can only imagine what the NDP’s price would be to keep Justin Trudeau
in power,” he said.

“Whatever it is, we know Trudeau would pay any price to stay in power and
he’d use your money to do it.”

The first polling stations open at 0830 am (1100 GMT) in Newfoundland,
Canada’s most easterly province.

The 40-day campaign, described by Trudeau as “one of the dirtiest,
nastiest” in Canadian history, has been “a desert from a public-policy point
of view,” according to pollster Nik Nanos of Nanos Research.

Attack ads sometimes skirted the truth with accusations that Liberals would
legalize hard drugs and the Tories would allow the proliferation of assault
weapons.

At one rally, Trudeau was forced to wear a bulletproof vest.

The nation’s top bureaucrat earlier this year warned that public discourse
had fallen to such a low level that he “worried that somebody is going to be
shot… during the political campaign.”

Along the bruising way, Trudeau and Scheer traded barbs.

Trudeau evoked the boogeymen of past and current Tory parties fostering
“politics of fear and division” and Scheer called the prime minister a
“compulsive liar,” “a phoney and a fraud.”

– Trudeau defends record –

Trudeau defended his record: a strong economy and low unemployment, legal
cannabis, the resettlement of 60,000 Syrian refugees, doctor-assisted deaths,
a public inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, and free trade
deals with Europe, Pacific nations and North American neighbors.

Former US president Barack Obama chimed in with an endorsement, calling
Trudeau an “effective leader who takes on big issues like climate change.”

“The world needs his progressive leadership now,” Obama said in a tweet.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, have stood alone among all of the parties in
pledging austerity measures to return to a balanced budget within five years.

Scheer found himself on the back foot late in the campaign over revelations
of his American dual citizenship and allegations that his party hired a
communications firm to “destroy” the upstart People’s Party, led by former
Conservative foreign minister Maxime Bernier.

The party has situated itself to the right of the Conservatives and could
draw votes away.

On the left, the Bloc has come back from a ruinous 2015 election result,
tapping into lingering Quebec nationalism to challenge the Liberals’
dominance in the province.

The Bloc and NDP have said they would not prop up the Tories if they secure
a minority.

Preliminary results across six time zones are expected shortly after 7:00
pm Ottawa time (2300 GMT).

But with many moving parts in play, who will govern may still be up in the
air for several weeks during tricky alliance negotiations that could keep
Trudeau in office even if his party loses.