We live in interesting times Part One

The summer I had planned was for a European vacation in June, work through to September and then a short getaway in the fall to Calgary. It was to be a pretty quiet summer with lots of reading and discovering new music and writing for the blog. Suffice it to say that at the end of June, the Canadian by election in Toronto was the start of that idyllic summer slipping away. Throw in a snap election in the UK and another in France and you start to face reality the summer of 2024 will not be like recent summers. Let’s add the two-party conventions taking place as a lead up to the American election in November and we are now gripped with a non-stop political summer.

In fact, 2024 has seen elections take place around the globe with many election results making headlines. In Canada general elections will be held in BC, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan in October. Many think that they might be required to vote more often than they want. So, I asked myself, how many elections are taking place in Canada in 2024?

You will be surprised that between General elections, Provincial & Territorial elections, Municipal elections and by-elections at any level in Canada is going to have more than 200 elections! This does not account for future snap elections or by-elections because of resignations.

What is one, especially one who follows elections supposed to do with that kind of information? I know many who travel for elections, wherever they might be.  I imagine for anyone who has a keen interest in elections there is a way to merge travel and elections for the better good.  The Carter Centre is one example of this and yes Jimmy carter is still alive, he will turn 100 on October 1, 2024.  I’ve known a couple of people who have been fortunate to take part in this this democracy watch and it seems that I should aspire to be able to have at least one such electoral mission under my belt before I cast my final vote.

For 2024 though there is much to consider. Elections have not been good for incumbents and polls seem to echo that finding for the current Canadian and US governments. We won’t have to wait long to see if the Democrats retain the White House, but the wait is longer for Canadian voters – but is it?  

Elsewhere Modi’s government in India, suffered a defeat of sorts, he went into the election with an absolute majority of 303 seats won in 2019 to having to govern with a coalition majority of 293 after the ballots were counted in this year.  The Conservative Party in the UK went down to defeat as expected with new PM Keir Starmer leading the Labour Party to victory earlier this month.

Perhaps the most interesting election took place in France, President Emmanual Macron’s party lost a significant number of seats in the European Parliamentary election in June.  Macron called a snap election to campaign against the far right, an inevitability that polls suggested would happen. Following the first round of voting, Macron and the Centre Left were in trouble, the Front National, led by Marine Le Pen were threatening to win a majority and set to make Macron’s last 3 years as president horrible.  It was only through the second round of votes a coalition of the left held off the FN from a majority but left the National Assembly in the state of a hung parliament, no party had enough seats for a majority and leaving the country on very shaky ground until the 2027 Presidential election.

On our home turf, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau face another ballot box referendum, a by-election in the riding of Lasalle-Émard-Verdun, formerly held by fired Justice Minister David Lametti in Montreal.  Lametti resigned February 1st this year and a by election must be called before October 1st.  This will be a test again for Justin Trudeau and if results are not as good as they need to be, or if the Liberals lose this there will be extreme pressure to the Prime Minister to resign.  Canada 338 lists Lasalle-Émard-Verdun as leaning Liberal with the NDP and Bloc Quebecois tied for second.  I expect any margin of victory for the Liberals will be a large sigh of relief.  I’ll be watching to see how hard the NDP or Bloc campaign to take the seat away from the government.

As Englishman Frederick R. Coudert first quoted before the Second World War, “we live in interesting times” and the elections in 2024 are making this statement so true.