2016 Canadian Federal Election (TimTom)

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The 2016 Canadian Federal Election was held on June 15th, 2016, to elect members to the 43 Canadian Parliament.

Prime Minster Jason Kenney called the election for two primary reasons. First, his parliamentry minority made it difficult to govern, as he had learned when the previous budget almost failed. Second, he sensed a weakness in the opposition Liberal Party, who were at the time going through a leadership election.For those reasons, he asked Governor General Romeo Dallaire to dissolve parliament for the second time in as many years.

The election resulted in a Conservative majority government.

Results
The Conservatives won a majority government, taking seats from the Liberals and Bloc in Ontario and Quebec. With the majority, Kenney pushed through several major bills in the next parliament, including mass privitization, restrictions on abortion, and an elected senate.

The NDP, despite gaining seats and votes, still fell short of forming government. NDP leader Tom Mulcair resigned during the summer and was replaced by BC MP Nathan Cullen.

The Liberals were thrown into disarray during the campaign, as they lacked a permenant leader. Interim leader Marc Garneau did particpate in the debates, but most campaigning was done by various regional leaders (i.e Joyce Murray in BC, Ted Hsu in Ontario, Gerry Byrne in Atlantic Canada) which many viewed as a mistake. Opinion polls gave the Liberals low marks for leadership, mostly due to public confusion. After the election, the scheduled leadership election was held and Dominic LeBlanc was elected leader.

The Bloc lost all of their MPs, including their leader, Jean-Francois Fortin. They would never again sit in the House of Commons.

The Green Party once again failed to gain more seats. Andrew Weaver left the federal House in 2018 to run again for the BC provincial Green Party, and his seat was lost in a by-election to the NDP. Leader Elizabeth May chose not to run in the next election, and was replaced by Larry Ashmore of Alberta.

This election once again saw strong results for alternate parties and independents. The top 3 parties were the Christian Heritage Party (.9%), The Libertarian Party (.6%), and the Pirate Party (.6%).