The Canadian Election 2025: Sound Economics Versus the Sound of Words

By The Ewedrooper Staff ▶

The Canadian Federal election takes place tomorrow, and it's a neck-and-neck dogfight between Liberal Mark Carney, an Oxford-educated economist, and Conservative Pierre Poilievre, a career politician and skilled alliterator.

Poilievre has ably demonstrated his alliteration skills since becoming leader of the Conservatives. Like a sweet-talking Southern preacher-man, he has larded his lingo with consecutive consonants, talking about "technology, not taxes" and "Common Sense Conservatives." Alliteration serves as a superb way to speed up a speech and get people stirred up at the same time. Even Poilievre's name itself is alliterative, with its PP combo. Poilievre has also expanded his use of literary devices into the realm of rhyme, saying Conservatives will "Axe the Tax," referring to either Justin Trudeau's carbon tax or any given tax a potential conservative voter dislikes. When Mark Carney replaced Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader just over a month ago, Poilievre threw more alliterative shade leftward, dubbing the new Prime Minister "Carbon Tax Carney" (despite the fact that Carney wants to move past a carbon tax) and declaring he was "Just Like Justin." 

Mark Carney, by contrast, embodies assonance. Assonance involves repeating vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of consecutive words. The name "Mark Carney" itself exemplifies this literary device in the doubled ar sections of the first and last names. Assonance serves to slow down speech or writing, creating a more deliberate rhythm. This resonates with Carney's approach of applying measured deliberation and thought to issues and policies, using evidence and reason to arrive at sound conclusions.

Thus, on account of literary devices alone, we the Ewedrooper staff must lend our endorsement to Mark Carney in the Canadian federal election. Sound economic reasoning should prevail over sloganeering word games. Apparently, the Canadian populace agrees, as Carney currently holds a narrow lead in the polls. Accordingly, CBC's statisticians have given Carney a 69% probability of winning a majority. Poilievre, meanwhile, has a 10% chance of winning a minority and just a 1% chance of winning a majority—though polls have been known to be wildly incorrect of late (possibly due to right-wing types taking sadistic pleasure in lying to pollsters). (For up-to-date polling and probabilities, click here)

Will Poilievre snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and keep up the carnival barker routine? If he can, Poilievre will ensure that the true carny becomes Prime Minister of Canada.

Albertans Sad to See Trudeau Go

By Frisk Nightingale▸ 

In mere hours, the Liberal Party of Canada will select its new leader and, with that, the new Prime Minister of Canada. This means that current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who announced his resignation back in January, will be leaving the role of leader for good.

Alberta voters almost unanimously spewed vitriol at Trudeau throughout the majority of his time as Prime Minister. Surprisingly, though, as the end nears, many Albertans—Conservatives included—are sad to see him go.

"If I'm being honest," said Randy Scruggs, a rig-worker from Fort McMurray, "I don't exactly like my life. That was true during Trudeau's reign, but also before. It was kind of cathartic to kick Justin around on Facebook, but now I won't have that."

"Quite frankly," said Cammy Carlyle, a homemaker from Chestermere, "I feel stifled in my trad-wife role for my overbearing husband. Making fun of Justin Trudeau's masculinity was always a means of coping. It was the one thing that brought my husband and me together."

"Look," said Leonard Starkey, a pressurized safety valve repairman from Grande Prairie. "I've made some terrible decisions in my life, from intoxicant abuse to gambling debts to credit card over-usage. But Justin Trudeau always gave me a target towards which I could redirect my rage away from myself."

With Trudeau gone, the presumptive Liberal-leadership winner Mark Carney will take the reins as Prime Minister. Carney will likely call a spring election, in which Albertan-born Conservative candidate Pierre Poilievre would be a favorite to win, given his strong polling numbers.

 

So how do these Albertans feel about the possibility of not just one but two new Prime Ministers in 2025?

"I kind of envy Justin," Ms. Carlyle mused. "He gets to move on, but I'm going to stay right where I am and my life's going to be just as unfulfilling, whether it's Carney or Poilievre in power."

"Sure," Mr. Starkey added, "in a year I'll be blaming Poilievre for everything that's wrong with my life. But with Trudeau, it was just nice to be able to blame someone from Quebec."

"And since we're being honest," Mr. Scruggs finished, "I must confess that if I was allowed to make love to a man, it would be Justin Trudeau."

Image credit: Frank Schwichtenberg, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons