Watch The Curse of Politics panel on the inevitability of a Pierre Poilievre government come 2025.
Canadians are 18½ months away from the next federal election, in October 2025.
If the polls are to be believed, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre — easily the most far-right leader everof Canada’s Conservative Party — will sweep to power, to dominate federal governance from November 2025 thru October 2029.
If the 338 projection above is to be believed, Pierre Poilievre will secure somewhere in the neighbourhood of 210 seats in Parliament — for a gain of 91 seats, and a massive majority — while Justin Trudeau’s Liberals will be reduced to a rump caucus of approximately 62 Members of Parliament, with 93 MPs losing their seats.
Although the Curse of Politics panel — consisting of 45-year federal and provincial Liberal political veteran, the always avuncular and engagingly profane, David Herle, with Kory Teneycke representing the forces of evil (oh, we mean, the federal Conservative Party, where he played a central role in the Conservative Party government of Stephen Harper), and longtime New Democratic Party stalwart, Jordan Leichnitz, who as you’ll see and hear when you take in this must-watch / listen to podcast — will leave you convinced Justin Trudeau’s Liberals don’t have a hope in hell of retaining government past 2025.
Frank Gravesis the founder of one of Canada’s most respected polling companies, EKOS Research, covering every federal campaign since 1980. When Mr. Graves suggests Pierre Poilievre doesn’t have a win in the bag, he’s a man to be listened to.
Of course, only Pierre Poilievre can fix a broken Canada. Or can he?
This is Pierre Poillievre's and @CPC_HQ election platform. It’s as simple as this.
1. Everything in the world is broken – Everyone is stupid. 2. I’m the smartest guy in the world. There will never be another! 3. Everything is the other guys fault. @JustinTrudeau 4. I have…
The most frequently asked question over the course, and throughout the duration, of the summer election called by the Prime Minister: why did Justin Trudeau call a needless summer election — particularly when, on Election Day, the final electoral result was a continuing minority Liberal government?
Internal Liberal Party polling conducted last spring, and throughout the summer, registered Justin Trudeau and the Liberals with a 45% approval rating, with Trudeau one of the most well-liked and respected Canadian Prime Ministers since Confederation. In the summer, within the Prime Minister’s office, the pressure on Trudeau to call a snap election was immense.
Prior to the 2021 federal election, the Liberal Party held 154 seats in a Parliament of 338 members. Pragmatically, what that meant for the Liberals was that all of the Committees of the House had majority Opposition party participation, and more importantly, decision-making power that could be — and more often than not was — wielded by the Opposition as a cudgel to serve their own partisan interests: the Conservatives, NDP, Bloc Québécois, and Greens, those parties less interested in the welfare of the Canadian people than scoring points against the government.
As they did during the election, in a display of rank partisanship and future, hoped-for increased electoral success, and possibly government, the elected members of Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party and Jagmeet Singh’s NDP colluded to make the life of the government as miserable as possible, using the committees not simply to hold the government to account, but to do all in their power to create an impression that Justin Trudeau’s government was both ‘do nothing’, and corrupt.
Little wonder Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wanted to call a summer election.
Why did Justin Trudeau call a summer election, then? To recap …
Throughout the first 8 months of the year, the Liberals had been riding high in the polls, Canadians grateful for the quick action by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to secure the economy, through the introduction of CERB for Canadians who found themselves out of work due to the pandemic; the introduction of both a seniors grant for the poorest seniors, and an ongoing monthly supplement to the Canada Child Benefit to help families weather the storm of the pandemic; and the introduction of any number of business support programmes to keep the Canadian economy afloat. And, of course, securing the tens of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses that would keep Canadians safe, and help over time to bring COVID-19 to an end. Thus far, more than 60 million doses of the mRNA Pfizer, Moderna, and the AstraZenica and Janssen vaccines have been administered to Canadians 12+, with millions more doses to be made available for children aged 5 to 12 years;
Focus on the economy and the health of Canadians rather than continue to allow the Conservatives and the NDP to play the sort of unproductive partisan politics that not only made the life of the government more difficult, but in having to respond to the partisanship of the Tories and the NDP on the Committees of the House, inhibited the Liberals from governing as effectively as the government deemed necessary, and to serve the best interests of all Canadians. A majority government, had that been the result of the September 20th election, would have made the life of the government easier, while still allowing the Opposition to hold the government to account.
In respect of the Trudeau government not being able to secure a majority, make no mistake: Shachi Kurl cost the Liberals a majority government.
Going into the English Leaders’ debate, the Bloc Québécois had lost their footing, with all polls showing them unable to retain more than 10 seats in Parliament, for a loss of 22 seats. The support of Québeckers had moved virtually wholesale to hometown boy Justin Trudeau and his Liberal party — which looked to pick up most of the lost Bloc seats, propelling them to a majority government. Then Ms. Kurl asked a damnedly poorly phrased question concerning Québec Bill 21 — banning Québec citizens from wearing religious symbols, and mandating that one’s face be uncovered to give or receive specific public services — the contentious nature of her question propelling the Bloc into a stratospherically high 32-riding seat count, costing the Liberals their much sought after majority.
One final point: the opportunity to exercise our franchise, to go to the polls and cast our ballot in seclusion, to hold our government to account, is central to our nation’s democracy. No election held in Canada, or elsewhere, is ever unnecessary. The opportunity to go to vote in an election is both our democratic right, and at the core of our democracy. Following a 35-day election period, Canadians went to the polls, and collectively decided that a continuing minority government for the Liberals would be for all of us the best possible outcome, and voted accordingly.
The ‘new’ House of Commons is located in what used to be the outdoor courtyard of the West Block on Parliament Hill, while the decade-long renovation of the Centre Block Commons building takes place
The 44th session of Canada’s Parliament officially commences today, followed by a Speech from the Throne on Tuesday at 9 a.m. PST, to be read by Governor General Mary Simon, who will lay out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s key priorities for his minority Liberal government.
From the last, pre-election, Parliament to this, the Liberals gained 5 seats, the Conservatives lost 2 seats, the Greens lost 1 seat, there’s now one independent, and the Bloc Québécois stand pat at 32 seats
The clock is ticking on the Liberal promise to introduce a host of bills — including the introduction or reintroduction of at least eight bills — within the first 100 days of their new mandate, and the year-end session of Parliament.
The government will sit for only 24 days to get things done in the Commons before the clock runs out on Feb. 3 — with the first two days essentially lost since they’ll be devoted to electing a Speaker, and delivering a throne speech..
The Commons is scheduled to sit for four weeks before breaking for the holiday season on December 17th. MPs won’t return to Ottawa until January 31st.
If the Liberals intend to keep their promises for the first 100 days — and they insist they do — that spells a crammed legislative agenda for the few weeks the House of Commons will be sitting before the new year.
“We have a very aggressive agenda to get to in the coming weeks and that’s what we’re focused on,” government House leader Mark Holland said last week following the Liberals’ first post-election caucus meeting.
Here’s what’s on the government agenda in the next 24 sitting days …
Implement last month’s announcement on more targeted emergency aid benefits for individuals & sectors hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic;
Pass a bill to impose criminal sanctions on anyone who blocks access to vaccine clinics, hospitals, testing centres and abortion clinics, or anyone who seeks to intimidate or harass health care workers, keeping a promise made by Trudeau as anti-vaccination protests ramped up during the recent, late summer election campaign;
An important bill, with NDP support, would provide 10 days of paid sick leave for federally regulated workers, a measure triggered by the pandemic;
A bill will be re-introduced to ban the traumatizing practice of forcing a person to undergo “conversion therapy” aimed at altering their sexual orientation or gender identity. Although Conservatives spun out debate on the ban last time and more than half of the Tory caucus voting against the initiative, banning conversion therapy is strongly supported by all other parties;
Combat online hate, including hate speech, terrorist content, incitement to violence, child sexual abuse and non-consensual distribution of intimate images. New legislation will make social media platforms accountable for the content they host;
Reform the criminal justice system to address the disproportionate incarceration of Black and Indigenous people: the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences for less serious crimes and greater use of conditional sentences, such as house arrest, counselling or treatment, for people who do not pose a threat to public safety;
Safeguard Canada’s critical infrastructure, including 5G networks, to preserve the integrity and security of national telecommunications systems.
The platform also commits the government to a host of other non-legislative tasks within 100 days, including appointing a new federal housing advocate, holding a summit on restarting cultural industries, and working with provinces and territories to create a national paid sick leave plan.
And, of course, completing the task of bringing all provinces and territories on board for the government’s much needed, and long overdue economic, feminist and family equity issue — $10-a-day national child care.
More tomorrow on the 44th session of the Canadian Parliament.
At the end of Tuesday’s Curse of Politics podcast, politico Scott Reid intones …
“Anybody who thinks this is Justin Trudeau’s last term in office, and that sometime before 2024 he’s going to resign as Prime Minister is a fool. That sort of punditry is nothing but lazy ass journalism. There’s absolutely no evidence to support that thesis. Why would you want to resign from the most important elected office in Canada, where change for the better that can be wrought with you at the helm? Never mind all the perks of the office. Those folks just oughta get over themselves, and stop that shit. It serves nobody’s interests. Fuck those assholes.”
Welcome to VanRamblings’ political world — it ain’t an easy life, lemme tell ya.
The 2015 campaign for office, with future Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at English Bay
VanRamblings has long believed that Justin Trudeau is a reluctant Prime Minister, who would rather spend time with his family, enjoying a life out of the public eye. Even so, Mr. Trudeau believes that he is uniquely positioned to both make a difference, and to maintain his father’s legacy of a fairer and more just Canada. For now, and the foreseeable future, he will make the sacrifices necessary, in order to maintain his family’s progressive vision for our nation.
In 2003, when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien tendered his resignation as Prime Minister of Canada, the first murmurings of what became known as the “AdScam Scandal” — involving illicit activities established to a fight a Parti Québécois government’s dreams of Québec independence, with tens of millions of dollars awarded to Liberal Party-linked ad firms in return for little or no work, where these ad firms maintained Liberal organizers, while donating much of their awarded monies back to Liberal party coffers — when in late 2005 a …
“Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities, headed by Justice John Gomery — which came to be known as “the Gomery Commission” — reported out, the Commission found that millions had been awarded in contracts without a proper bidding system, that millions more had been awarded for work that was never done, and that the Financial Administration Act had repeatedly been breached by the Liberal party government of Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien.”
The death knell of federal Liberal governments for a generation was sounded.
Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin lost the election he called in late 2005. The next federal Liberal Party leader, Stéphane Dion, lost again in the 2008 Canadian federal election, and in 2011 Liberal leader Michael “he’s just visiting” Ignatieff’s campaign saw the Liberals reduced to 34 meagre, ignominious seats, and fourth party status.
In late 2012, at the behest of family and longtime friends, political strategists Gerald Butts and Katie Telford — both senior policy advisors to Ontario Liberal Party leader Dalton McGuinty, dating back to 1999 — approached their former schoolmate and friend of some two decades, Justin Trudeau, and asked him to consider a run for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party of Canada.
On Sunday, April 14th, 2013, the son of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, not only won his leadership bid, with 80.1% of the vote to 10.2% for British Columbia MP Joyce Murray, his victory more a coronation.
Two and one half years later, on October 15, 2015, 42-year-old Justin Pierre James Trudeau was elected the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, having mounted a stunning, come from behind victory that saw the Liberal Party form a strong majority government of 184 seats in the House of Commons in Ottawa.
And since that day, Prime Minister Trudeau has not known a moment’s peace.
The governments of Justin Trudeau have wrought change for the better.
The Canada Child Tax Benefit has provided thousands of dollars more to 9 out of 10 Canadians families, lifting more than 40% of Canadian families out of poverty;
Marijuana and its by-products have been legal in Canada since 2017;
Tax cuts for middle class families, not the wealthy, have benefited 9 million Canadian families each year for the past six years;
After 10 years of Prime Minister Stephen Harper muzzling scientists in the Environment and Fisheries and Oceans department, and across his government, federal scientists have, since 2015, been afforded the opportunity to speak openly on government policy;
The Trudeau government has quadrupled funding for women’s shelters;
$9 billion to train thousands of new, highly-paid personal support workers;
Mark Jaccard, a professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management has written that the federal Liberal Party climate action plan is a “world best,” with the government’s closure of coal plants, and a carbon tax that will see greenhouse gas emissions in Canada reduced by 40% by 2030, among myriad other world leading initiatives;
Through the introduction of Bill C-14, the federal government introduced legalized medical assistance in dying, offering Canadians the choice to die with dignity to patients who are suffering intolerably.
Re-opening the Kitsilano Coast Guard base; providing support to 450,000 students by increasing Canada Student Grants by 50%; reopening and staffing nine Veterans Affairs service offices across the country — these are just a few of the accomplishments of the governments of Justin Trudeau over the past six years in what has emerged as one of the most progressive governments anywhere across the planet.
And yet, you just can’t get away from feeling that Justin Trudeau’s continuing sacrifice of the joys of a private life, and time with his family and friends, weighs ever more heavily on him with each passing day, the relentless attacks by the opposition parties and right-wing media (“Hello, Brian Lilley“), with the support of only 33.12% of Canadians at the polls in this most recent election — despite his 159-seat minority government win — ever more unbearable.
For however long this Parliament lasts, in what may be Mr. Trudeau’s final term in office, the next years will be ‘legacy years’ for his government on the issue of the environment — which is why, on Tuesday, he appointed Greenpeace activist and respected Québec environmentalist Steven Guilbeault as his newly-minted Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and the former activist Minister who held the portfolio, Jonathan Wilkinson, as the new Minister of Natural Resources, both Ministers set to work in tandem to address the issue of oil and gas extraction, and dedicated to moving Canada away from the extraction of fossil fuels.
A pan-Canadian, legacy $10-a-day child care plan already signed onto by seven provinces and one territory, with the Ontario government just wrapping up negotiations with the federal government, and both Alberta and New Brunswick, and the two other territories not far behind; $2.7 billion in increased funding for the National Housing Co-investment fund; $3 billion over five years to support the application of higher standards for long-term care homes; unprecedented investment in public transporation, from buses, commuter rail, and a 21st-century high-speed system of regional train systems; $18 billion over 5 years to improve quality of life and create new opportunities for people in Indigenous communities, while completing the work on eliminating boiled water advisories on Indigenous lands; 10 days of paid sick leave for federal workers; funding for improved ventilation in schools and legal protection for businesses that decide to require vaccinations — represent just a few of the necessary initiatives of the Trudeau government.
Scott Reid, Jenni Byrne and David Herle present below the most cogent analysis of the “shuffle” of the Trudeau Cabinet yesterday morning, in this third — and maybe, final — term of the Justin Pierre James Trudeau-led Canadian federal government.
