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The big thing I've come to understand, from doing research on this thread and talking with Canadian friends, is that Trudeau is something of a professional weenie. But also I kind of don't know a lot about Mulcair, either, so I guess there is that.
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(I ddn't want to bring this up in the thread because then I'd be rambling)
It's not just Trudeau. Pretty much everyone the Liberal party chose to be their leader since 2006 has been disappointing. In 2008 they even chose someone who was living in the U.S for over 30 years prior. They just don't seem to know how to win anymore and it looks like they are just experimenting by electing different people to lead their party and hoping they get lucky.
Then the NDP came along with Jack Layton as leader and they came off as having a spine, so they gained loads of support in the 2011, while Michael Ignatieff, the American guy, lost in a landslide since he really had nothing to offer. Harper only barely won, but still got a majority government because of how the ridings are set up. It could be argued that Layton would have won if it wasn't for the Robocall scandal, where a Conservative politician Michael Sona sent automated calls to left leaning ridings, falsely telling citizens that their polling stations have changed. Then Layton died, Mulcair took over, and that spine seems to have slowly disappeared. Thus we have two left leaning parties that are really not so different from each other, dividing the progressive vote.