Snap election unlikely

COVID-19 pandemic will cause ripples in political landscape: experts

OTTAWA — As the federal government continues to engage in unprecedented levels of spending to deal with challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced questions this week about whether or not Canadians should be able to pick the government at the helm.

Speaking with reporters, Trudeau downplayed the possibility of a snap election, something a growing number of political commentators and pundits have been muttering about in recent weeks.

“I haven't heard a lot of Canadians demanding an election right now. Parliament gets to decide when it no longer has confidence in the government,” Trudeau said, adding the focus right now is on helping Canadians as quickly as possible.

“There will be many challenges that we will face over the coming years … and there will be many debates in Parliament and eventually in an election. But I'm not going to speculate on when that might be.”

Speaking with SaltWire Network, University of P.E.I. political science professor Don Desserud said he has no doubt that if an election were called now, the Liberals would win a majority.

“The opposition parties are in disarray,” Desserud said.

A snap election would mean the Conservatives would have to quickly pick a new leader or go to the polls with Andrew Scheer as leader, who proved in October he can't win an election.

Parties would have to figure out how to make their plea to Canadians and rally their base in the absence of normal outlets, and Elections Canada would be left scrambling to figure out how to run an election during a pandemic.

“It is a really, really strange situation and it's very difficult to know how people would behave because the territory is so unknown,” Desserud said.

While a majority would certainly make it easier for the Liberals to get things done, it's unlikely the Liberals will call a snap election, he said.

“If the Liberals pull the plug and ask for a dissolution to go for an election they'll be accused of taking advantage of a situation for purely political gain,” he said.

“I think the public would see it as a cynical move and there will be longterm damage for the party down the road.”

Desserud said in a crisis scenario people generally rally behind the governing party, so long as they are doing a good job, which he believes the Liberals are.

Voters in Atlantic Canada seem to agree. Polling released by Narrative Research this week, conducted in May, shows 71 per cent of Atlantic Canadians are satisfied with the performance of the federal government (up from 46 per cent in February), which is the highest level of satisfaction since just after the 2015 election.