A second kick at the can?
On Sunday, we entered the last 52 weeks before the next federal election. This brings up the penultimate question in any democratic country: can the current government stand by its record and earn another term in office from the electorate? That query will be answered by the voters next Oct. 21, after untold millions of dollars have been spent on ads, whistle stops and campaign office logistics by all the major parties between our three coasts.
Canadians have a proclivity for giving most governments two kicks at the can. And many would argue that for all his foibles, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau remains popular enough to get his party re-elected, albeit with a greatly reduced majority, in 12 months time. Yet I am growing hopeful that the Dauphin and his merry band of Cabineteers won’t get a second term. If they are to win again, the Grits will have to overcome the deep disappointment felt by many Canadians.
The policy failures of this government include: electoral reform, renovating the tax code, social license, infrastructure investment, a reset with First Nations, etc. The Liberals have been in office for 36 months – in that time only two policies are worthy of note: a renegotiated NAFTA, worsened by Trudeau’s personal insult of U.S. President Donald Trump, and legalized cannabis, which will never earn the revenue that just one out of the now three failed pipeline projects would have.
“Canada is back,” was a rallying cry in this government’s early days. They certainly have managed to turn back the clock – nearly all the way to a state of pre-Confederation chaos, with our provinces in fratricidal strife over trade barriers and the blocking of new infrastructure. The carbon tax constitutional challenge against Ottawa is the only thing provinces do agree on. And allies of Trudeau’s Sunny Ways agenda have either lost power or will soon face angry voters.
However, this is not the United States, and provincial elections do not necessarily spell out the same kind of judgments that midterms do down south. But I am also encouraged by the change in mood I am seeing on the ground from many key demographics of swing-voters.
Earlier this fall I tried to write an open letter to the “square glasses people” – a moniker I coined for the middle-class Canadians who make up the bourgeois swing voters that all parties court for power: their households have mortgages which they pay with public sector/contractor or medium-sized business salaries; they are suburban, fiscally conservative and socially liberal.
Furthermore, while their institutional job security has shielded them from the worst Grits blunders, their familial connections tell them another story: a cousin who used to make big cash in the oil field has been out of work for months; the distant aunt on assistance has expenses she can’t meet; the family tax rebalancing cost them money; and their children, young or full grown, are coming home with more social engineering than traditional homework in math and English.
Most reassuringly, when I meet the “square glasses people” of a particularly liberal bent or who are employed in environments that would likely push them into a sympathetic mindset regarding Trudeau’s politically correct ideals, I don’t have to say a word or pile on: their anger for this ineffectual government and a prime minister who is clearly arrogant – perhaps as much so as the other Mr. T – is palpable. As they carry on, I can barely contain my overwhelming glee.
To be clear, I’m well aware that this isn’t the stuff of hard punditry, with graphs and polls put in bright colours to tell the reader what he ought to believe. But Canadians aren’t fools and the lack of achievement and growth in this Dominion since the rise of Mr. Dithers doesn’t take a hardened cynic to suss out. In the end, it is likely that Election 2019 is Justin Trudeau’s to lose: but so it was with Brexit’s “remainers” and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Aren’t we due for an upset?
If they are to win again, the Grits will have to overcome the deep disappointment felt by many Canadians.