Matthew Lau: It was an election about Trudeau’s vanity and people in tinfoil hats

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Some people called it the Seinfeld election — all about nothing. What was the reason for the election? Nothing. What was the difference between the Conservative and Liberal platforms? Not all that much; the Conservatives were nearly as committed as the Liberals to increasing spending, running deficits, and imposing economically harmful climate policies. And finally, what changed in the Parliament? Very little, with the seat distribution nearly identical to what it was before, although some seats did flip — the biggest one in Peterborough-Kawartha, where the Conservative challenger defeated underperforming cabinet minister Maryam Monsef of “our brothers the Taliban” infamy.

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Like Seinfeld, however, the election was not quite about nothing. For one thing, the election was about vanity. Everybody is vain, of course, but the re-elected prime minister possesses vanity in an inordinate abundance. It is his defining characteristic. And while vanity is always unpleasant to encounter, it is doubly so in the case of politicians, because when politicians indulge their vanity they do so with other people’s money. Indeed, while historians and philosophers sometimes debate the causes of events, no one is debating the cause of the 2021 Canadian federal election. It was simply that the prime minister was vain and wanted more power, so he called an election, at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $610 million.

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In fact, the $610 million was a drop in the bucket compared to the total financial cost of the election. The main cost is the $78 billion in additional spending the Liberals promised over the next five years to stay in power, and when we look at what the billions are for, again the vanity of Liberals shines through. The spending will not improve economic growth or improve standards of living. The main purpose of the spending, in addition to buying votes, is to generate public acclaim for Liberals. This is done by spending on things that have nice-sounding intentions; the actual outcomes of the spending are irrelevant. The inclination of Liberals, as seen in their platform, is therefore to make attention-grabbing promises in support of fashionable causes — climate change, diversity, feminism, and so on — without regard as to whether the benefits of the spending will exceed the costs.

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Vanity was one theme of this election; another was the emergence of the people in the tinfoil hats. The Liberals saw their support sinking at the beginning of the campaign until unhinged mobs began protesting their events, allowing the Liberals to appear more reasonable in comparison. These mobs seemed to be motivated, not exclusively, but to some significant extent, by anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Yet the anti-vaxxers weren’t the only ones wearing tinfoil hats. The shiniest hat of all probably belonged to the prominent Toronto doctor, formerly of the Ontario coronavirus science table, who made headlines by musing that the Conservative election slogan was some sort of coded message to drum up support among Nazis.

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The same charge of tinfoil hat wearing does not stand against most Liberal supporters, or most supporters of any other major party; nevertheless, if Trudeau still has any true believers in his camp, their headgear, if not shiny, must at least be glimmering. It is evident that many Canadians still consider the Liberals the best option; however, that Trudeau is generally truthful, virtuous, and devoted to the public good is a preposterous proposition that no serious person can abide. For example, when it came to light that Liberal MP Raj Saini had been the subject of multiple credible sexual harassment allegations in recent years, Trudeau responded by defending the Liberals’ decision to let him run. The Liberals eventually dropped Saini as a candidate, but Trudeau’s main regret about the whole thing seemed to have more to do with giving up the riding than the actual allegations.

So the election, while it did not accomplish much, was not quite about nothing. It was about vanity, tinfoil hats, and another Liberal government. Between now and the next election, whenever that may be, Canadians would do well to bring into disrepute those politicians who act primarily out of vanity, and hope that the tin foil hat wearing goes out of style. If those two things happen, Trudeau and the Liberals will finally get the election drubbing that they so richly deserve but which they escaped on Monday.

Matthew Lau is a Toronto writer.