Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has triggered a snap election, scheduling the vote two years earlier than planned.
Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa that Canadians will be heading to the polls on 20th September.
“In this pivotal, consequential moment, who wouldn’t want a say? Who wouldn’t want a chance to help decide where our country goes from here? Canadians need to choose how we finish the fight against COVID-19 and build back better,” Trudeau said, tackling criticism for calling an election mid-pandemic.
“Make your voice heard, have your say, and together let’s move forward for everyone,” he said.
The Prime Minister said this after he met with Governor-General Mary Simon to request she dissolve parliament. This was approved, and the 36-day election campaign began.
Under Canada’s parliamentary system, an election is formally called by the governor-general, who in the case of a snap vote will dissolve Parliament on the advice of the prime minister. Candidates who win seats in a snap election serve full, five-year terms – unless another snap election is called.
Trudeau is hoping to capitalize on the success of provincial leaders in recent elections, as voters have rewarded incumbent provincial governments with legislative majorities.
Recent polling shows Trudeau capturing the 170 seats needed for a majority government. Data from the Angus Reid Institute found the Liberals have a five-point advantage over the opposition Conservatives, with the pandemic being the main concern for voters.
The prime minister’s rivals have also shown little interest in heading to the polls.
In late July, the New Democratic leader, Jagmeet Singh, sent a letter to the governor-general calling on her to reject Trudeau’s request to dissolve parliament.
He pointed out that the country’s fixed-election law states that every general election must be held on the third Monday of October four calendar years after the last one.
He noted that the law allows for an early election if the government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons, but Trudeau’s Liberals have won every confidence vote they faced.
“It’s not the right time to have an election,” he said earlier this week. “People might say ‘that that’s what governments do’ … I don’t think that’s what governments do when you’re in the middle of a pandemic,” he said.
Singh called this a “selfish summer election” and pointed to the climate crisis, a lack of clean water in several Indigenous communities, and income inequality as issues Trudeau should be focusing on instead of calling an election.
Conservative opposition leader Erin O’Toole said in a video released on social media this week, “Canadians are worried about the fourth wave of Covid-19 … Now is not the time for an election. We can all wait and go to the polls when it’s safe.”
Canada’s chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, has warned that the country may be at on the verge of a fourth wave of the coronavirus, driven largely by the quickly spreading Delta variant. She said the scope of infection would likely be determined by vaccination rates.
Many Canadian voters are expected to be able to send mail-in ballots due to COVID-19, but the national body that oversees elections, Elections Canada, warned that this might delay the count.
The country has reported more than 1.45 million cases and more than 26,600 deaths since 2020.
But over the past months, Canada has largely been able to get the situation under control, mainly due to the stockpiling and effective rollout of vaccines, which allowed the government to lift some coronavirus-related restrictions.
Justin Trudeau is seeking to capitalize on this momentum and regain the voters he lost when his party was relegated to a 157-seat minority government in 2019.
