Canada’s elections show profound changes in the country’s political class are under way

Canada’s government may not look that different to what it did before the snap election but deep changes to the country’s political class have already begun, writes Justin Ling

Canada’s Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau, accompanied by his wife Sophie Gregoire and their children at an election night party in Montreal (Reuters)

In Canada, even the post-election suspense was boring. Last year, American voters watched with bated breath as mailed ballots left several states in play even days after the 3 November election, eventually leading to a failed insurrection on Capitol Hill and an enduring conspiracy theory that the vote was rigged.

This week, Canadians waited patiently while their elections body counted nearly 800,000 ballots sent by mail, delaying the final call for a handful of races well into Thursday.

That clutch of seats wasn’t set to change anything significant about the results from Monday’s national poll. The delayed count confirmed that, despite a bruising, albeit short, campaign, prime minister Justin Trudeau would pick up a single seat in Canada’s 338-seat House of Commons. He would go back to Ottawa with the same minority parliament he had before, forced to do something he doesn’t relish: cooperate with other party leaders to govern.