Toronto, October 21: Voting is underway for the high-stake federal elections in Canada, which could witness the country's populist Prime Minister - Justin Trudeau - losing the single-party majority status. An aggregate of all major pre-election surveys have shown Trudeau falling short of the majority mark. The Conservatives, his prime rival, are predicted to be inches behind. Canada Removes Mention of 'Khalistan', 'Sikh Extremism' in Annual Terrorism Threat Report as Trudeau Govt Bows to Domestic Pressure.
The CBC News' poll tracker, which maintains the aggregate of all surveys, had published a report on October 18 predicting a 48 percent chance of Trudeau winning the elections, followed by 40 per cent chance of the Andrew Scheer-led Conservatives.
Trudeau's Liberal Party was on October 15 projected to bag 30 percent of the vote share, according to an Ipsos opinion poll, followed by 32 percent for the Conservative Party. The New Democratic Party (NDP), headed by Indian-origin Jagmeet Singh Brar, was predicted to gain 20 percent of the voters' support. The Greens, whose agenda has been focused around environment and climate change, is expected to be voted by 8 percent of the electorate.
Notably, the voting is being held to elect new Member of Parliaments for the 338 seats in the House of Commons or the Lower House of the Parliament.
In the elections held in 2015, Trudeau's Liberal Party had won a clean majority, winning 180 seats -- 10 above the majority mark. Pollsters are, however, unsure whether he would be able to repeat the success as his personality has been recently hit by a spree of controversies. Political pundits have also alleged that the Trudeau government had not been able to live up to the expectations it had raised four years ago.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 21, 2019 10:18 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).