Liberals take stock as they get ready for 2019 election
Party ponders what voters won’t punish them for at the polls
Welcome to the next phase of next year’s federal election.
Having shuffled the ministerial deck, Justin Trudeau and his revamped cabinet are undoubtedly turning their attention toward deciding which cards to play in the run-up to the October 2019 vote.
The deliberations will be 100 per cent political, namely: What do the Liberals feel they have to nail down to ensure the best possible shot at re-election? Put differently: Are there enough ticks next to their 2015 promise boxes to see off the competition?
A quick peek at the government’s mandate tracker suggests the cabinet is in store for a lively discussion. The Liberals promised big and haven’t always delivered, as evidenced by the tracker’s “not being pursued” and “ongoing commitment” sections.
But with many of these files dead and buried (i.e., electoral reform), or in the hands of Donald Trump, which might be the same thing (i.e., deepen trade and commerce with the United States), the Liberals are likely to instead focus their efforts on the items in the tracker’s meaty “underway with challenges” section, where it can still make a difference.
Even here, many of the “challenges” aren’t solvable, at least not by October 2019. The budget isn’t on track to be balanced by 2039-40, let alone 2019-20, as promised. Nor will the response to the opioid crisis be sorted, or a trade deal with India concluded. And let’s not talk about the Phoenix fiasco.
Moreover, given that each of these complex files represents an opportunity cost, with effort expended not available for other, potentially more important wins, the Liberals must choose wisely. A prioritization is in order; the Grits will have to sort the good and good enough from the ugly and then set to work rectifying the truly ugly.
But scoring the “good”, “good enough” and “ugly” isn’t necessarily tied to achievement. Part of the exercise for Liberals will also be figuring out what voters won’t punish them for getting wrong.
Think of the Liberals’ (many) busted pledges to Canada’s Indigenous Peoples. Despite the absolute crap delivery, effort on these promises will be slotted in under “good enough.” There’s just no pressure coming the other way; Idle No More-style advocacy died with Stephen Harper, and the Indigenous leadership remain besties with Trudeau.
Other candidates for the “good enough” pile are jargon files like access to information, innovation and procurement, where things haven’t quite come off as the Liberals promised but no average voter will be arsed enough to care.
Nor are voters likely to punish Trudeau for breaking his promises on tone. “Positive politics means you fight for your ideas, you don’t demonize your opponents,” Trudeau told the Liberal faithful in April before spending much of April through July demonizing the Conservatives. Like it or not, Trudeau is Teflon on tone.
That said, there’s enough “good” on hand for Trudeau and the Liberals to make the positive case for re-election.
The government will certainly portray the new Canada Child Benefit, Canada Workers Benefit, pension changes, and their personal income tax cut as delivery for the middle class (and those working hard to join them!). And if you want to kill yourself, or just want to kill yourself with pot, well, the government has got you covered there, too.
Which leaves the truly ugly — i.e., the ugliness that voters will look to punish Trudeau for should he not be able to turn things around. Here, Trudeau and the Liberals will also run into issues that weren’t even a twinkling in their 2015 eye, like the squabble over illegal border crossings. Canada has broad cross-party support for legal immigration (as evidenced by its support of Trudeau’s promise to bring in more Syrians), but the same doesn’t hold true for illegal migration. Trudeau needs to either sort it, or do a better job of explaining why it can’t be sorted under current circumstances.
The same goes for the environment, where Liberals ordinarily get away with “good enough.”
Trudeau was blowing smoke when he promised action on both the environment and getting natural resources to market, and now, with the acquisition of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline, he’s succeeded only in making everyone angry. Voters won’t punish Trudeau for missing emissions targets with Stephen Harper’s Paris Accord plan, but they will resent having a carbon tax shoved down their throats when resources aren’t getting to market, the economic future is cloudy, and the nation’s finances are in a parlous state (thanks solely to Trudeau).
Seen from this angle, a clearing of the decks makes sense.
A good way to present a decluttered and reprioritized agenda to Canadians would be a throne speech, which is why we should expect a prorogation of the House the second after cabinet finishes its deliberations.