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Nevertheless, the election bears close inspection, as it reflects a microcosm of anxieties playing out not only in Canada, but across much of the Western world and beyond. Perhaps most of all, the parties, their leaders and their candidates appeared to agree that voters are fed up with the same-old same-old of professional politicians denouncing one another as the spawn of Satan while offering up platforms filled with fairy dust and golden horizons they can’t possibly deliver.

While admitting he was disappointed at placing second, Bevan-Baker proclaimed his eagerness to make the minority situation work

Bevan-Baker and King both campaigned on the need to rid government of the ugly, divisive, unproductive approach that has bedevilled electoral politics for far too long, and appeared to mean it. While admitting he was disappointed at placing second, Bevan-Baker proclaimed his eagerness to make the minority situation work. In his victory address, King said the result “shows that Prince Edward Island wants the parties … to put partisan nature behind them, to work together to do what’s best for P.E.I.” In a sign of agreement on that front, all three rival parties ceased campaigning in the final days after the accidental death of a Green candidate and his son in a canoe accident.

While it’s unlikely that good fellowship and bipartisan fervour is about to sweep the country, the yearning for a retreat from self-serving nastiness is hardly limited to parts of the Atlantic provinces. People have been flailing about for alternatives for some time now. When Rob Ford campaigned for his ill-fated Toronto mayoralty almost a decade ago, it was on the slogan “Stop the gravy train.” Donald Trump became president as a show of utter disgust at the partisan swamp Washington had become. The Brexit vote was a revolt against pampered bigwigs in political sinecures handing down fanciful dictates from far-off towers. Most recently, Ukraine ousted its billionaire oligarch president in favour of a political neophyte whose main credential was having played a president on TV.