Canadian Political Party: The Federal Election In Canada

The 2015 Canadian Federal Election in many ways can be considered a re-defining election in Canadian history that ended a Conservative dynasty that lasted nearly a decade, by electing a Liberal majority government led by Justin Trudeau. The election of the Trudeau Liberals saw the single largest increase of seats by a political party in Canadian history, which just four years ago faced near political extinction, and began the campaign polling third at the start of the writ period. This election is also the first time in modern Canadian history that a Canadian federal election saw Canada’s three major parties statistically tied in pre-election polls during the campaign. If there is one major sentiment that can be drawn from the Canadian federal …show more content…
It is believed that citizens will vote for the party that will provide the highest utility, and will provide them the greatest benefit for the Canadian electorate. In theory according to Anthony Down’s, a rational voter will always choose the course of action that provides the maximum amount of benefit and will therefore base their electoral decisions based on that factor. Another theory by Down’s suggests that the average voter will vote strategically. If ones preferred political party has a relatively low perceived chance of winning, they will vote for the party that has the best chance of defeating the party that they least prefer. Down’s also theorizes that voters will vote for the party that aligns closest to them, on the right or left wing of the ideological scale. In theory a voter may vote for a party they may not particularly agree with but will vote for that party because they align close enough to their ideology, and have the best chance of defeating the party they dislike the …show more content…
The standings and attitudes of the major political parties can be an important factor to determining the results of an election. Political parties are often have distinct relationships on the federal and provincial level; therefore partisan attachments are often attached in a different way. It is well known that Canadian political parties have an inconsistent level of partisanship across the country and can strongly be influenced. Canadian voters that do not identify with a political party are more likely to change their votes. The way any given province votes can be an important indicator of the level of popularity of any given political party has in that province, and sometimes federal votes can be based off the unpopularity of provincial parties. Due to the fact that the Canadian parties are mostly brokerage, many voters do not feel any particular attachments to any of the main parties. Therefor, most of the time Canadians do not vote based on the attachment of their party, they however base their vote based on the current arena and state of affairs based the current attitudes federal and provincial