Minority governments are the new norm in Canadian politics and it’s time the two major political parties in Canada started acting like it.

In the past 25 years, since the last of three consecutive Jean Chretien majority Liberal governments was elected in 2000 – at a time when the federal conservative movement was divided – eight federal elections have produced six minority governments.

That includes the last three elections in 2019, 2021 and 2025.

As one of many examples of the political class in Canada failing to understand this new reality, while Canada’s major pollsters have been congratulating themselves on their polling this year falling within their margins of error on the popular vote, most who predicted seat counts wrongly predicted a strong Liberal majority government.

What this election in fact produced was a strong Liberal minority government – the latest number pending recounts being 169 seats, three short of a 172-seat majority – which means Prime Minister Mark Carney doesn’t have to kow-tow to either the Bloc Quebecois or the NDP, which both suffered significant losses in this election.

Neither of these parties – the NDP isn’t even an official party any more, having won seven seats, five short of the 12........

© Edmonton Sun