Erin O’Toole swept to victory in a leadership campaign that looked like no other in Canadian history. Despite the damper on traditional campaigning there was historic voter turnout with nearly 175,000 Canadians casting their ballot.
But now the real work beings; O’Toole must unite the party, introduce himself to Canadians, and be ready for a snap election that could come as early as this fall. Can he balance budgets, social conservative views in his caucus, appeal to urban voters, and lay out his vision for Canada?
Mercedes Stephenson asks him about all that and more on this week’s edition of The West Block.
Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. It extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world’s second-largest country by total area.
Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world’s longest bi-national land border. Canada’s capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Various Indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. The Canada Act 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British Parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government.
As a highly developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks.