Two very different Catholic political leaders faced off against each other in Canada’s recent elections, yet religion was barely mentioned during the campaign. As a Canadian writer and academic explains, they do things very differently in the United States’ northern neighbour

The Prime minister of Canada remains Justin Trudeau. The Canadian federal election last month resulted in a restored but chastened Liberal Party-led government, the number of seats held reduced from 184 at the time of dissolution – a clear majority – to 157. Trudeau has had his wings clipped.

Trudeau has not delivered on the electoral reform he pledged when elected in 2015. His support for Indigenous rights has been uneven, and his handling of the energy portfolio has been deeply compromised as he has sought to balance the economic priorities of the energy-abundant provinces with his progressive ecological sentiments. He has also had to deal with revelations that when he was a school teacher he wore blackface at some fundraising galas, an imprudence that has tarnished his reputation as a human rights activist and the social media-savvy “first prime minister of the Instagram age”.