Drain Open

 

Jagmeet Singh just pulled the plug on the NDP-Liberal pseudo-coalition.

This is as I predicted: he had to cancel it a decent interval before the next scheduled election, in order to give voters any reason to vote NDP instead of Liberal. He will now, to prove his bona fides, need to vote against the Liberals now in any plausible no-confidence motions.

This need not bring down the Liberal government. They could be kept in power by the BQ without the NDP.

But given the current polling, it probably will. The latest seat projections show the BQ becoming the official opposition, and both they and the NDP picking up 16 seats. So everyone but the Liberals has an incentive to force an election now.

I predict an election before Christmas.

Downfall

 

The common wisdom is that Justin Trudeau’s poll numbers are collapsing now because people are tired of his government. There is a natural cycle, and nobody stays in for more than about ten years.

That’s what the established punditry wants you to believe. Because they like Trudeau’s policies, and hope they continue.

I think this is wrong. Canada is actually unusual among democracies for keeping governments and leaders they like in power for a long time: Mackenzie King, Ontario’s Big Blue Machine, Smallwood in Newfoundland, Hatfield in New Brunswick, the Tories in Alberta, Duplessis in Quebec, and so on.

Second, Trudeau was never popular. He squeaked in twice by merely coming second in a three-way race. 

Third, only being tired of him does not tally with such a dramatic poll collapse. It looks more like some pent-up anger is at last being allowed expression.

Until now, quite simply, nobody offered an alternative. Scheer and O’Toole promised to govern the same way he was. They effectively endorsed Trudeau. All you got was a new face. The NDP under Singh was also indistinguishable on ideology. Much as they may have hated Trudeau’s policies or approach, they despised Scheer or O’Toole or Singh as much as Trudeau, or more, for denying them that choice.

Poilievre is their first chance to vote against6 Trudeau. They are excited about it.

The View from India

 

Apparently, Indians are white supremacists...

Canadian Election This Fall

 

It seems clear from Justin Trudeau’s press conference today that the Liberal government is going to force or call an election for early this fall.

Everything is aligned perfectly for them. The vaccines are flooding in, and soon the pandemic should be over. People are likely to be feeling elated over that. A late summer-early fall election is generally considered favourable for the ruling party, as people feel happy at that time of year, after the summer. The Green Party is in disarray, and one of their members has defected to the Liberals. The latter may have realistic hopes of pulling in some votes from that quarter. The Conservatives under Erin O’Toole seem to be making no waves in the polls.

And, of course, as a minority government, the Liberals are bound to jump if they see a chance for a majority.

But I do see a chance for an upset.

To begin with, if the Conservatives start looking weak, there is less incentive on the left to rally around the Liberals to prevent a Tory win. The NDP might siphon off votes. Quebec is always volatile, and might swing Conservative during the campaign. The provincial government is small-c conservative, and this suggests the electorate is tired of decades of “progressive” government. Inflation could become an issue, thanks to government spending.

It could go either way.

Gunter: O'Toole Is a Dud

 

I'm getting the same feeling.

Did Bernier Just Make a Breakthrough in the West?

Preston Manning.

Preston Manning has an interesting op ed in the Globe and Mail on Maxime Bernier's proposed new party. Manning speaks as the reigning expert—he was the founder of the last big disruptive new party, Reform. 

Everyone is taking Reform as the model for what may happen with Bernier. Manning argues that the Reform Party was a very different beast from what Bernier is about. For one thing, it was a grassroots movement, not a split of an existing party. Manning suggests the better parallels are Real Caouette's Creditistes in the Sixties and Maxime Raymond's Bloc Populaire Canadien back in 1944.

And behind that is a more interesting point: that Bernier may, like them, take more votes away from the Liberals than the Conservatives.

The Conservatives tend to win more seats outside Quebec, Manning argues, and the Liberals win when they can get a strong Quebec caucus. If Bernier's support remains regional, he represents a more attractive local alternative for Quebecers than the national Conservatives to voting Liberal. And regional parties can survive and thrive in Quebec.

Manning does not say so, but he might then also be available to form a formal or informal coalition with the Conservatives, forcing his issues to the forefront. Well played, then.

The problem becomes greater for the Conservatives than the Liberals if and only if Bernier attracts significant support outside Quebec.

But now we come to the elephant in the smoke-filled room, to scramble our metaphors a bit. It is striking that Manning does not mention the most obvious and most recent parallel to Bernier: the Bloc Quebecois. Like Bernier, they were a split from the Conservatives, led by a cabinet minister. And they are a far more recent example than the Creditistes and the BPQ. Why does he not mention them?

Presumably because they hurt the Conservatives more than the Liberals.

In other words, the real message of Manning's column is this: Manning likes Bernier and his plan for a new party. He is trying to give reasons for people who are like-minded to support Bernier.

Bernier may have found just what he needed to really be disruptive: a prominent Western supporter.