Kelly McParland: When did our elections turn into contests for who is least worst?

The party leaders who competed in Canada's federal election on Oct. 21, 2019: Clockwise, top left: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, Green Leader Elizabeth May, People's Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet.News services

Before the recent elections, there are many comments that have arisen and among them questions as well as, when did our elections become contests for who is the worst?

And it is that during the campaign, the hopes of the party leaders depended more on avoiding the crime than on presenting their case to the Canadians.

It has been said that Canadians have reluctantly voted for someone who did not especially care, but who do you think is the best way to block the candidate or party that you desperately do not want to win?

Yes, it is an attractive image: an election that presents attractive candidates, who represent popular parties that represent reasonable policies. And is that each new election brings a renewed momentum for strategic voting.

Strategic voting

There is no doubt that unfortunately for millions of voters, the possibility of voting for, rather than against, a candidate seems increasingly unlikely. And it is that each new election brings a renewed impulse for the strategic voting of the parties that clearly lack sufficient confidence in themselves to hope that they can win with their own attributes.

A survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute found that only one-third of the liberal voters made their choice based on the actual policies of the party. Instead, 45 percent were motivated primarily by who they wanted to defeat. Even so, Justin Trudeau remains prime minister not because he continues to excite voters with his personal magnetism, attractive vision or superior leadership skills, but because many people really didn’t want Andrew Scheer or Jagmeet Singh instead.

Canadian politics has become a contest to convince voters that the other stinks more than ours. The recent federal career followed in the footsteps of the people of Ontario that made Doug Ford overwhelmingly debut because it was not Kathleen Wynne or any other liberal. A tree stump could have served as a conservative leader and defeated the liberals of Ontario a year ago, so the party was vilified. And although Jason Kenney has skills that Ford could only dream of, he is now Alberta’s prime minister, largely because the people of Alberta fiercely wanted to avoid another four years of rule by the New Democratic Party.

Source: Kelly McParland | National Post