Let’s avoid the election outcome finger-pointing this time

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The blame game began while the votes were still being counted on election night.

A newly re-elected Conservative MP, Jamil Jivani, said that Ontario Premier Doug Ford had undermined the federal Conservatives during the campaign. But he was only the most outspoken of those striving to find a scapegoat for the election results.

In some cases, it makes sense to apportion blame in this way. Elections are all about accountability, and leaders who have messed up deserve to be called out for it. This time was different.

Many Canadians made up their minds about who to support before the campaign even began. Justin Trudeau was out as Liberal Leader. Mark Carney was in. Canada was under attack from a rogue U.S. president. Mr. Carney, a respected former central banker with a strong international record, seemed to have the qualifications and the intelligence to deal with the threat.

Millions of voters decided, almost overnight: Here’s our man. NDP and swing voters, in particular, decided to vote Liberal this time. What had been an overwhelming Tory lead in the opinion polls simply vanished. NDP support cratered. The deal was done.

Nothing in the brief and rather uneventful campaign that followed changed much. The Tories gained some support in the final stages – enough, perhaps, to deny the Liberals a majority in Parliament – but still ended up in second place. Pierre Poilievre lost the Ottawa seat he has held since 2004, a shocking outcome for a man who just a few weeks ago was seen as Canada’s prime-minister-in-waiting.

Was it all his fault the Conservatives lost? Not really. He was overtaken by unforeseen events that turned the election upside down. Donald Trump in effect handed the lead to Mr. Carney, and there was little Mr. Poilievre could do to get it back.

Some of Mr. Poilievre’s critics say he should have awakened sooner to how the ballot question had changed, and refocused his attack on Mr. Trump instead of Mr. Trudeau. In fact, he was as vocal as Mr. Carney about the need to stand up to the U.S. threat. It was just that, when voters looked at the two leaders, they found Mr. Carney the more likely Captain Canada. To many, Mr. Poilievre seemed a little Trumpian himself, try as he might to strike a more moderate, more centrist pose as the campaign proceeded.

Was it Mr. Ford’s fault, then? No again. True, he was awfully chummy with Mr. Carney, but that was natural enough at a time when the Premier and the new Prime Minister were making common cause against the Trump White House. And, true, he was not exactly kind to Mr. Poilievre. After his campaign manager said the federal Conservatives had committed “campaign malpractice” by blowing a 25-point lead, Mr. Ford remarked that “sometimes the truth hurts.”

But it is unlikely that the tiff did much harm to the Tories, who actually picked up seats in Ontario. Mr. Jivani’s rant about Mr. Ford, whom he called an opportunist, came across as sour grapes.

How about Jagmeet Singh? He was possibly the most blameless of the bunch. His NDP was hit by an avalanche. Many Canadians decided that, with so much on the line, they could not afford to waste their vote on a party with no hope of taking office. Mr. Singh was right to step down after such a disastrous outcome. He has had three kicks at the can, after all. But it would be unfair to pin his party’s plunge entirely on him.

Finger-pointing seems especially futile after this election. Canada faces an unprecedented threat to its sovereignty and economic health. That is what its leaders should be talking about now, not who fumbled the campaign.