One year to federal election
Trudeau Liberals gear up for tussles over carbon tax
OTTAWA — Twelve months from now, Canadians will pass judgment on the Trudeau government and decide whether its first mandate should be its last or if it deserves another four years.
As the one-year countdown to the next federal election on Oct. 21, 2019, starts ticking, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals appear reasonably well positioned to win a second term.
But a year is a lifetime in politics and the coming one promises to be particularly challenging for the Liberals, beset by a growing phalanx of hostile conservative premiers determined to put a spoke in Trudeau’s pre-election wheel.
Federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer marked the beginning of the countdown on Sunday by targeting the Liberals’ record on everything from carbon taxes, to ethics, to budgetary deficits.
Speaking to party supporters at a rally in Ottawa, Scheer predicted a nasty campaign and insisted Trudeau will be the first leader to make it personal.
Scheer told his supporters Trudeau will have, on his side, the news media, pundits and academics — everyone who wants to lecture Canadians on how to spend their money and live their life.
Like the conservative premiers, Scheer’s Tories are aiming to upend the introduction of a carbon tax — one of Trudeau’s signature policies, the central pillar of the Liberal plan for combating climate change.
It’s the next big thing on the government’s agenda and it’s the pivotal issue upon which Liberal strategists privately believe the next election will turn. It’s a fight they think they can win.
A recent Angus Reid Institute poll suggests they have reason for optimism.
It suggests half of what the pollster refers to as “maybe” Liberal voters — soft supporters of opposition parties who can be persuaded to back the governing party — agree with Trudeau on the need for a carbon tax. With his categorical opposition to carbon pricing, Scheer risks alienating soft Tory supporters.
At the same time, half of those maybe-Liberals also support Trudeau’s insistence on expanding the Trans Mountain Pipeline to carry Alberta’s oilsands bitumen to B.C.’s coast for shipment overseas — the flip side of the Liberal climate plan, aimed at demonstrating the prime minister’s contention that protecting the environment and growing the economy go hand in hand.
Hence, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s staunch opposition to the pipeline project “is a considerable liability” with soft New Democrat supporters, the polling firm concludes.
The online poll of 1,500 Canadians was conducted Oct. 3-8.
Overall, it suggests more Canadians are open to voting Conservative than any other party, but, at the same time, those open to voting Liberal are the most enthusiastic.
“I would say that for now, if managed carefully and properly, it does look as though, of the three leaders, Justin Trudeau does appear to be heading into the next election cycle from a place of more strength than either of his opposition counterparts,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute.
“Trudeau’s base is fired up, excited by and very much approving of his job and his performance as leader. “
By contrast, Scheer and particularly Singh remain largely unknown quantities to many voters, she added.
That said, the poll also suggests that the Liberals are vulnerable on two particular issues: their management of the influx of irregular border crossers and their failure to deliver on Trudeau’s promise to run modest deficits and return to balance by the end of the first mandate.
Kurl notes that the next campaign will get underway in earnest during the summer, just when another wave of asylum seekers could be pouring over the border from the U.S.
“Every time the Conservatives talk about this issue, it is one that resonates across the political spectrum,” she said.
But University of Waterloo political scientist Emmett Macfarlane notes that the summer could also see more forest fires, flooding and extreme weather, all symptoms of climate change. And that could tip that balance against the Tories and their strategy of allying themselves with anti-carbon tax premiers.
“It has as much potential to backfire as to succeed,” he said.