Politics This Morning: Election day 2021 arrives with the Liberals, Conservatives neck and neck

Happy Monday morning—and more importantly—happy election day. In a race that has tightened in the last couple of weeks, it's no surprise Sept. 20 has arrived with the Liberals and Conservatives in a statistical tie. As Abacus Data noted in its final poll taken on the eve of the e-day, impressions had turned more negative but, combining those who have voted and are likely to vote today, Parliament's two largest parties are too close to call, with the Conservatives at 32 per cent and the Liberals at 31 per cent. An Ipsos poll has those exact numbers for the popular vote that Prime Minister and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and first-time Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole are likely to secure, setting up a situation for a similar outcome to last election. “However, this time around, the Conservatives are winning by less in the prairies and are being helped by the NDP, who are pulling votes from the Liberals in Ontario,” Darrell Bricker, Ipsos Global Affairs CEO told Global News. “This, combined with a base that seems enthusiastic to vote for O’Toole and his party, could make for a very long night on Monday as the nation waits for results from close races in British Columbia.” CBC's Poll Tracker, meanwhile, shows Mr. Trudeau’s party slightly ahead at 31.3 per cent to the Tories at 30.9 per cent. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who’s is in his second campaign, but attempting to reverse the 2019 trend that saw the then third-place party lose a chunk of its seats, sits at 19.8 per cent support. Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet, who’s looking to hold onto and grow the 32 seats his party won in 2019, could continue to hold the balance in Parliament as projections suggest a minority Parliament is increasingly likely after the campaign started with the Liberals in a position to secure a majority government. The Bloc sits at 6.8 per cent support, followed by 6.5 for the People's Party, with the Greens only pulling 3.5 per cent support, per the CBC poll aggregator. Add to this, a Green Party in turmoil, with a leader transfixed on winning just one seat—Toronto Centre, which she already lost in a 2020 byelection to Liberal incumbent Marci Ien. And then there’s Mr. Trudeau, a prime minister who called an election in the midst of an unprecedented public health and economic crisis that has defined his second term in power and oversaw the largest outpouring of federal government spending since Second World War. Still, the Liberals, who started the campaign with a clear advantage in public opinion, remain the favourites to eke out a win today, notes Éric Grenier in The Writ. This election has been punctuated by angry protests disrupting the prime minister’s events, tightening polls, and an unclear ballot box question amid a COVID-19 fourth wave. Now, the debates are done, most leaders have crossed the country several times in key swing ridings and incumbent seats they need to keep, and the candidates susceptible to scandals have made the headlines and derailed leader pressers—and now it’s decision day 2021. In their last appeals to voters across Canada, party leaders took part in a flurry of events yesterday. Mr. Trudeau was busy online and in-person throughout the day, with events in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, and Atlantic Canada. Mr. O'Toole spent his time in the GTA, a region the Conservatives in 2019 failed to win over. He visited Markham and a brewery in Toronto. Mr. Singh bounced between Lower Mainland events in B.C., kicking off in Burnaby, where he holds a seat, before heading to Vancouver. He also had a couple of events in Surrey, and spent his evening in Maple Ridge, before closing his evening at 10 p.m. gathering with New Democrats in a park back in Burnaby. That's after a Saturday spent in Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton, and Cranbrook. In Quebec, Mr. Blanchet met with local candidates in Shawinigan, followed by a rally in Sherbrooke, attending a festival in Orford, and ending his day with a media avail in Cowansville. People's Party Leader Maxime Bernier was in Alberta, at a rally Westlock, about an hour north of Edmonton. Ms. Paul had a busy schedule in her riding of Toronto Centre yesterday, greeting supporters in the early afternoon before taking part in the annual AIDS walk. That's after she made her first trip of the campaign west on the weekend, visiting B.C.'s capital of Victoria, which is on Vancouver Island, where the party's two caucus members hold seats. Today, Mr. Trudeau is in his Montreal riding of Papineau, Que., where he'll vote at 11 a.m. The Team Trudeau election night event kicks off at 5 p.m. Mr. O'Toole is in the Durham region today, starting at the Garnet B. Rickard Recreation Complex in Bowmanville, Ont., before moving on to Oshawa, Ont., at the Tribute Communities Centre, where he'll make an address after the polls close. In today’s paper, looking back at the breakneck 36-day campaign as the last Canadians fill out their ballots, politicos tell The Hill Times that the 2021 federal election will be remembered as the “backlash” election. Throughout, the Liberals have been dogged by questions around Mr. Trudeau’s choice to take the country to the polls in the midst of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tone of #elxn44 was notable, too. Positive messaging was quickly abandoned by the Liberals and Conservatives as the campaign became one of the most negative in recent memory, some political and advertising strategists told The Hill Times. In other events, today is the start of the two-day International Political Science and Methodology Conference, which is pegged as the premier interdisciplinary forum for the presentation of new advances and research results in the fields of law and political sciences. Finally, if you haven’t had a chance already, please cast your ballot. The Hill Times

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Politics This Morning: Election day 2021 arrives with the Liberals, Conservatives neck and neck

This campaign has been punctuated by angry protests disrupting the prime minister’s events, the Liberals and Conservatives neck and neck in the polls, and an unclear ballot box amid a COVID-19 fourth wave.

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