UPEI Political Science Professor Don Desserud. (submitted)
The Liberals were elected in 157 ridings across the country, for a minority government.
A UPEI Political Science Professor says that was much better than he expected.
Don Desserud believes the results were much higher than a lot of Canadians expected, “The Liberals should be very relieved this morning because I think they were afraid they would have fewer seats than the CPC and that would make things awkward. This is what we would call a healthy minority, so they should be pleased.”
Desserud didn’t expect the NDP to do overly well, “I thought people were overestimating their success, but this is lower than what I would have thought as well.”
The NDP were elected in 24 ridings.
As a political scientist, he tends to like a minority government because they are really interesting. He says it can work very well, but it can also be a double-edged sword.
“If the NDP leader tries to get the upper hand on Trudeau, Desserud expects Trudeau will quickly point out that the number of NDP seats has gone down from 2015, and if they consider forcing an election, it could be disastrous for them,” Dessurd says.
He adds, “Yes, the NDP will want to try to get something out of the Liberals in exchange of their support, but they aren’t going to be too anxious to try and defeat that government. The Liberals know that and since the Liberals know that, the weapon that the NDP has, which is either you do what we say or we pull our support, is something they won’t end up taking that seriously.”
He says just because the NDP hold the balance of power, does not mean they will be able to drive the agenda.
