Trudeau's Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority
Toronto(AP): Canadians gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party a victory in Monday's parliamentary elections, but his gamble to win a majority of seats appeared to have failed.
The Liberals were on track to win the most seats of any party. The 49-year-old Trudeau channeled the star power of his father, the Liberal icon and late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, when he first won election in 2015 and now appeared to have led his party to the top finish in two elections since.
The Liberals were leading in 148 ridings, the Conservatives in 103, the Quebec-based Bloc Quebecois in 28 and the leftist New Democratic Party in 22.
It didn't appear Trudeau would win enough seats to avoid having to rely on help from other parties to pass legislation. Trudeau entered the election leading a stable minority government that wasn't under threat of being toppled.
The opposition was relentless in accusing Trudeau of calling an unnecessary early vote two years before the deadline for his own personal ambition.
Trudeau bet Canadians didn't want a Conservative government during a pandemic. Canada is now among the most fully vaccinated countries in the world and Trudeau's government spent hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up the economy amid lockdowns and he argued that the Conservatives' approach, which has been skeptical of lockdowns and vaccine mandates, would be dangerous and says Canadians need a government that follows science.
Conservative leader Erin O'Toole didn't require his party's candidates to be vaccinated and would not say how many were unvaccinated. O'Toole described vaccination as a personal health decision, but a growing number of vaccinated Canadians are increasingly upset with those who refuse to get vaccinated.
Trudeau supports making vaccines mandatory for Canadians to travel by air or rail, something the Conservatives oppose. And Trudeau has pointed out that Alberta, run by a Conservative provincial government, is in crisis.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, an ally of O'Toole, said the province might run out of beds and staff for intensive care units within days. Kenney apologised for the dire situation and is now reluctantly introducing a vaccine passport and imposing a mandatory work-from-home order two months after lifting nearly all restrictions.
A Conservative win would have represented a rebuke of Trudeau against a politician with a fraction of his name recognition. O'Toole, 47, is a military veteran, former lawyer and a member of Parliament for nine years.
O'Toole advertised himself a year ago as a true-blue Conservative. He became Conservative Party leader with a pledge to take back Canada, but immediately started working to push the party toward the political center.
O'Toole's strategy, which included disavowing positions held dear by his party's base on issues such as climate change, guns and balanced budgets, was designed to appeal to a broader cross section of voters in a country that tends to be far more liberal than its southern neighbour.
The son of a long-time politician has faced criticism he will say and do anything to get elected.
Whether moderate Canadians believed O'Toole is the progressive conservative he claims to be and whether he alienated traditional Conservatives became central questions of the campaign.
Adrian Archambault, a 53-year-old Vancouver resident, voted Liberal and said he didn't mind the election was held during a pandemic. He noted provincial elections have also happened during the pandemic.
Everybody has been so preoccupied with COVID the last few years it wasn't maybe a bad thing to sort of do a re-check, he said.
Trudeau's legacy includes embracing immigration at a time when the U.S. and other countries closed their doors. He also legalized cannabis nationwide and brought in a carbon tax to fight climate change. And he preserved free trade deal with the U.S. and Mexico amid threats by former U.S. President Donald Trump to scrap the agreement.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama and ex-Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton tweeted support for Trudeau. There wasn't a Trump endorsement of O'Toole. Conservative campaign co-chair Walied Soliman said there is no alignment whatsoever between O'Toole and Trumpism. Soliman said earlier in the day holding Trudeau to a minority government would be a win for O'Toole.
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Cong slams govt on rising pollution, demands review of National Ambient Air Quality Standards
New Delhi (PTI): Expressing concern over rising pollution levels, the Congress on Sunday demanded an urgent review and upgradation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, 2009, and asserted that they must be enforced as well as monitored more effectively everywhere.
Taking a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "PM 56-inch has been exposed, PM 2.5 is for real."
Ramesh also said the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) itself needs a laser-like focus on PM2.5.
"PM2.5 that is, particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers or lower measured in micrograms per cubic meter of air as emerged as the cause for a severe environment-public health crisis across the country," the former environment minister said on X.
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A study published in The Lancet Planetary Health in December 2024, based on data from 655 districts over 2009-2019, found that every 10 microgram per cubic metre increase in PM2.5 concentration leads to an 8.6% increase in mortality, Ramesh pointed out.
The 2025 Lancet Countdown estimates that about 17.2 lakh Indians die every year from exposure to PM2.5, a 38% increase since 2010, he said.
The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has repeatedly told Parliament in 2024, 2025 and again in 2026 that deaths on account of air pollution "cannot be conclusively established", he pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Health Ministry's own research body, has endorsed the Lancet findings, attributing 12.4 lakh deaths in 2017 to air pollution, that is 12.5% of all deaths that year, Ramesh said.
Now, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) has done a detailed analysis of the data generated by the continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations operated by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), he said, adding that the data covers the period October 1, 2025 to February 2026 for 238 cities.
The conclusions are very disturbing and should be yet another wake-up call to all those who are in denial mode, he said.
Citing the analysis, Ramesh said none of the 238 cities complied with the WHO safe guidelines for PM2.5.
"In 204 of the 238 cities PM2.5 concentrations were above the levels set by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) that were promulgated way back in November 2009. Subsequently, the WHO announced its updated safe guideline in September 2021," Ramesh said.
The Indian standard for the annual average concentration of PM2.5 is now 8 times weaker than the WHO guideline, he said.
The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) launched in 2019 has made very little impact on PM2.5 concentrations, he claimed.
PM2.5 concentrations complied with the NAAQS, 2009 safe level only in 12 of the 96 NCAP cities, Ramesh pointed out.
"Over Rs 13,400 crore has been released under NCAP and XV Finance Commission grants since inception, with 68% spent on road dust management.The NCAP benchmarks itself against PM10, the coarser and less lethal pollutant, not PM2.5," he said.
While the top polluted cities are in the National Capital Region covering Delhi and parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, other states like Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bihar, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh have a very high proportion of polluted cities that exceed the standards, Ramesh said.
There are 50 cities where continuous data availability is less than 80%, while there are some monitoring stations where no data was available for even a single day, Ramesh said.
"The National Ambient Air Quality Standards, 2009 need urgent review and upgradation. They also must be enforced and monitored more effectively everywhere. In addition, the NCAP itself needs a laser-like focus on PM2.5," the Congress leader asserted.
