Rick McGinnis:

Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements

Canada has just undergone an election – endured is a better word; suffered through even better – but before we collectively consign the experience to the memory dump (it’s unlikely we’d have another one if we remember what they’re like) I think we should make this what they call a “teachable moment” and try to examine what we’ve learned this time around.

What Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada have definitely learned is that December’s polls are not March’s ballot results. The Liberal Party of Canada learned in its turn that the boogeyman across the border during this election cycle, the enemy portrayed as more of a threat than the opposition party that looked like it would wipe them out before Parliament was prorogued, was actually their greatest friend. With that kind of luck, it’s no wonder the Liberal Party considers itself the ruler of this country by divine right.

These are obvious lessons, but I think we need to be more creative to discern what this election told us about this country, the people leading it, and the people who are led. The first and most striking thing I noticed was that, no sooner had Justin Trudeau finally ceded power to Mark Carney after what resembled a leadership convention in outward appearance, it was as if he had never existed.

Safe in the knowledge that their new leader did not travel with costumes and wouldn’t break into dance routines in front of the assembled press, the Liberals could campaign against policies they had championed for a decade, as if it was some other party and its nameless leader who had put them in place. Except for being spotted briefly campaigning for his successor in the Papineau riding, the man who seemed to gather life force as the public face of Canada had seemingly disappeared from both public life and history.

It was an altogether pleasant relief – the only endurable aspect of the whole election. Perhaps it’s worth trying with every Prime Minister once they step down, only instead of the notional internal exile into which Justin Trudeau disappeared, it should become a real banishment, exercised to allow the people fighting for power the chance to really take their place in the spotlight.

Canada has plenty of remote territories, varying in conditions from Elba to St. Helena to worse. But they’d remain on Canadian soil, likely to attract news cameras even in distant, barren Baffin Island. A better destination would be a contested territory like Hans Island, a treeless plug of rock less than a mile wide near Greenland.

They needn’t live out the rest of their lives there – just until the morning after polling stations close. After that I’m sure they can join other former prime ministers on a settlement on Baffin Island. If this seems harsh, perhaps they can keep company there with former party leaders and retired MPs who’ve served long enough to qualify for their parliamentary pension.

Then there’s the problem with party names, none of which conform to truth in advertising. The Conservative Party of Canada frequently chafes at upholding values cherished by its supporters, and party insiders frequently grumble that they hold them back from winning votes. The Liberal Party, by contrast, has no such commitment to any particular doctrine and is ready to cut and paste platforms from their opponents without hesitation.

The New Democratic Party is neither new – formed in 1961 they’re older than I (and I’m not particularly new) and there are much newer parties on nearly every ballot. The NDP claim to being particularly democratic seems a bit rich considering how the former leader put them at the service of a party their supporters didn’t vote for, with calamitous results in this election. The People’s Party of Canada doesn’t seem to represent very many people and the Green Party is ultimately just the Elizabeth May Party even when voter turnout is the highest in over thirty years.

I’d suggest that Election Canada assign parties’ names at the beginning of every election, picked by chance. For the next election (I’ve used the website randomwordgenerator.com here.) the Liberals could become the Sentiment Confidence Workshop, the Conservatives run as the Response Auditor Suffering, the NDP campaign as Count Ethnic Loot, and the Greens as Paint Cruelty Range. Candidates will have to be creative, voters informed when they cast their ballot, and the chance results will potentially be both serendipitous and poetically apt.

The Bloc Quebecois will be allowed to run under its existing name as a gesture to Quebec’s distinct culture. As a handicap, the People’s Party can choose any name it wants as long as it’s a palindrome.

As soon as it was obvious that this election wouldn’t be about housing or immigration or the cost of living as much as the “existential threat” of the United States, this only recently post-national state suddenly discovered it had a culture worth defending and that it was – at least according to the Liberal Party – embodied in hockey.

It wasn’t enough that Mark Carney had been in charge of two central banks; he had to post awkwardly in a goalie crease for real credibility. The iconic scene from his campaign put Carney in a contrived encounter in some rink with a celebrity who hadn’t lived in the country since the Blue Jays lost their first game at the Skydome.

Hockey jerseys became the preferred medium for our new nationalist slogans like “NEVER 51” and “NOT FOR SALE.” A French language leaders’ debate had to move two hours earlier because of a conflict with a Montreal Canadiens game. The whole country was implored to go “elbows up” as if we were trying to score against a team whose defensemen are goons.

(How long will it be before “Elbows Up” joins “Fuddle Duddle” as an answer in bar trivia games? And will it be part of a Trivial Pursuit 51st State edition?)

There’s a credible theory that Justin Trudeau’s road to three terms as Prime Minister began when he won a boxing match with Senator Patrick Brazeau. If that’s the country we aspire to be, perhaps a contest of strength should become part of every election cycle. Since no government has ever made good on their promises to replace first-past-the-post with proportional representation, I’d suggest that voting itself is the problem.

So, the country of hockey should replace two months of campaigning with two months of games, each party fielding a team picked from a roster of candidates who will be eliminated with each losing game: each victory fills seats until one party wins a majority. The upside is that our politics will be rid of party loyalists, activists, mercenary career politicians, second rate lawyers, and journalists.

The downside is that we will be ruled by the real-life cast of Letterkenny. As a graduate of a Catholic all-boys’ high school famous for its hockey teams, it’s not a prospect I relish, but if that’s the ideal of Canada that wins elections – as 2025 apparently proved – it’s probably the country we deserve.