The Liberal Party has won Canada's general election, soundly defeating the ruling Conservative Party. The election of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau as prime minister will have him dealing with some important issues for the Pacific Northwest.
Liberal leader and now Prime Minister-Elect Justin Trudeau came from third place at the beginning of the campaign to win a majority government.
The 43-year-old is the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Canada follows the British, or Westminster form of government, which means voters elect local members of parliament. The party with the most seats forms government. The former ruling Conservative Party of now outgoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper becomes the official opposition.
Prime Minister-Elect Trudeau worked as a math and drama teacher in Vancouver before heading to Quebec and entering politics.
Among the many items facing his new government will be two proposed oil pipelines to British Columbia. One of them is an expansion of a current line that runs through metropolitan Vancouver. If approved, it would see a dramatic increase of oil tankers through Puget Sound.
While campaigning, Trudeau said he would heavily modify the current Conservative review of the Vancouver area pipeline and scrap the proposed pipeline to Kitimat, near the Alaskan panhandle. Most of his local candidates, many of them now elected, vowed to stop both. Trudeau has said he is in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The new Liberal government will also soon have to renegotiate the expiring Pacific Salmon Treaty and the Softwood Lumber Agreement with the Obama administration.
