Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal party wins a surprise election in Canada. This election was called when he was less than two years into his term. He called it because he wanted a majority for his party in Parliament, but his party got 157 seats and fell just short of the 170 seats required for a majority. The Conservative party got the second most seats, with 122 seats. Every party’s share of power remained pretty much the same. Also, in this election, record low numbers of Canadians voted – only 58.44 percent, which is the lowest ever.
Now, some background. In Canada, and many other places in the world, like the UK, a Parliamentary system is used. The specific way the system works is different in every country, but the general idea is that people vote for representatives in Parliament. Each party has a leader, and that person becomes Prime Minister if their party wins. But even if a party gets the most number of seats out of any other party, they still have to have over 50% of the seats in Parliament. That’s why if a party wins usually, but they get under 50% of the seats, they usually make a coalition with other parties, which is an agreement in which the smaller party agrees to support the bigger one in exchange for the bigger one doing some of the things that smaller one wants.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/
