A wager made in early March reveals an explanation, I think, for my glass half-empty personality.
I wildly over-predicted the seat count the now Mark Carney-led Liberal party would amass in what would be the inevitable upcoming federal election, wildly over-estimating how much Canadians loathed the opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre. With Justin Trudeau in the rearview mirror, I figured, voters would turn their focus toward just how ill-prepared to be Prime Minister Poilievre actually was, utterly unfit to lead the country in the threatening face of what had become a dangerously unstable U.S. government. 
Ooops.
Set the bar of expectation unreasonably high, I know, I know, and invariably the results will disappoint. “… all things in excess bring trouble to men,” according to some old Roman. The glass half empty.
Still,
the half full part of the election results are not half bad.
A strong Liberal minority government with two of the opposition parties in varying degrees of disarray, a third licking its electoral wounds, makes for a certain degree of stability over the longish short term, I would think. Nobody’s going to want to pull the plug anytime soon. This will enable the now officially elected Prime Minister to get his feet wet in matters of parliamentary procedure and the running of the country.
Not a horrible outcome during these uncertain times.
That said, he says, stepping in from the sunshine and rainbows,
I totally misread the enduring strength and pathology of the Fuck Trudeau conservative moment, MAGA North. The CPC increased its seat numbers more than the Liberals did on Monday and its share of the popular vote shot up over 40%. The first time for any federal party since the 2000 election. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, but fortunately for Canada, Carney’s Liberals were the 2nd. Their share of the popular vote jumped 11% this time around.
In a further warping of conventional wisdom, while more than 2 out of 5 voters took to the Conservative message, they didn’t much care for its messenger. The party outperformed polling numbers in Ontario but its leader lost his own seat in the province. A slice of good news overshadowed by a major setback going forward.
Does that render the glass half empty or half full?
With a total collapse of even a nominal left-wing presence in Ottawa, the Prime Minister can turn his full attention to the concerns of the more moderate, centre-right segment of the electorate that still threw in its lot with Poilievre’s Conservatives and denied the Liberals a majority government on Monday. What will that look like, a madly centrist party that effortlessly vacuums up progressive support whenever the right wing bears its fangs? Or will the always teetering-on-the-verge-of-out-of-control global events egged on by a democratically backsliding superpower simply render any and all national politicking as usual insignificant? Just keep your head down, elbows up and effect, above all else, competence in governance.
A temperate ask in intemperate times, it seems to me.
The very definition of the glass being half empty.
Or maybe that’s half full.