Riding high on vaccines, Canada’s Trudeau aims to restore ruling majority
Early in the pandemic, Justin Trudeau looked like a man under siege. Atop a minority government, hiding behind a scruffy COVID-19 beard, Canada’s prime minister called the military into infected retirement homes as hospitals filled and drug producers threw up their hands over vaccines.
So it’s all the more remarkable these days to see the newly shaven, freshly coifed 49-year-old Mr. Trudeau crisscrossing his country with beaming aides, promoting child care and green energy, ending travel bans and basking in the unexpected fact that a bigger percentage of Canadians are vaccinated than Americans.
There is growing consensus on one thing: Mr. Trudeau will likely call a snap election for September — and win big. The pandemic has turned into an opportunity for him.
Canadian politics can seem like a tame sport, an arena for policy wonks in a nation that embraces common sense. In truth, there are sharp regional divisions all against the glaring backdrop of what’s happening in the U.S. Canada’s parliament is fragmented and Mr. Trudeau’s goal is to win back a solid majority.
A few months ago, as Americans started returning to life, renewed pandemic lockdowns loomed in Canada, the nascent economic recovery was grinding to a halt and only 3% of the population was fully vaccinated. Canada looked lame.
But then President Joe Biden put forward a massive spending plan. It divided Congress while fueling a surge in demand for goods made north of the border, jump-starting Canada’s recovery. Meanwhile, huge numbers of Americans rejected vaccines as government overreach.
When vaccines finally poured into Canada this summer, and citizens calmly and dutifully lined up, Mr. Trudeau seemed like a shepherd tending to his national flock by comparison to the madness south of the border.
All of which has led to what is seen as an open secret: Mr. Trudeau is preparing to trigger an election campaign.
Faced with an imminent catastrophe as the pandemic swept across the globe, Mr. Trudeau tossed out the prudent fiscal rule book that had governed Canada’s public finances since a 1990s debt crisis. His government wracked up hundreds of billions in debt to roll out some of the world’s most generous COVID-19 aid programs, with net federal debt expected to balloon to 51.2% of gross domestic product in 2022.
It was a gamble that paid off, causing a political resuscitation few could have predicted. His Liberal Party nearly lost power in the 2019 election after a series of scandals tarnished Mr. Trudeau’s carefully curated persona.
From an island getaway with the Aga Khan to a corporate bribery case that led him to fire his justice minister, an Indigenous woman, Mr. Trudeau’s first term led the parliamentary ethics commission to reprimand him multiple times. Photos of Mr. Trudeau as a young man dressed in brown- and blackface also emerged.
Then came the pandemic. Canada’s health care system was already strained as deaths mounted in the spring of 2020, elder-care homes were overwhelmed and it became clear there would be no domestic vaccine production.
The presence of Donald Trump in the White House made it easy for the prime minister to portray himself as the U.S. president’s moral superior.
But the arrival of Mr. Biden has created a more complex dynamic. On one hand, relations at the top are improved and, while Canadians like to look down a bit on the U.S., they rely on it. On the other, Mr. Biden has provided more of a contrast to Mr. Trudeau than expected — from both left and the right.
Under pressure from progressive Democrats, Mr. Biden has pursued social and environmental policies on Mr. Trudeau’s left, which made him look more like a centrist.
At the same time, Mr. Biden has made it clear that his goal is to advance U.S. priorities, even if they hurt the Canadian economy.
There are risks in seeking an early election. In a political campaign that lasts several weeks, there’s little time to recover from unexpected setbacks. Any surge by the left-leaning New Democratic Party could be a particular problem for the Liberals, peeling off younger, progressive voters.
Still, the housing market is buoyant, government spending has proven successful and those who might challenge the prime minister — especially conservatives — are having trouble connecting with voters.
It all adds up to an unexpectedly optimistic political moment for Mr. Trudeau.