Climate change will determine PM’s fate

Climate change is the biggest threat to Justin Trudeau’s minority government.

More than a decade has passed since the curtain last rose on a hung Canadian Parliament. And what a political drama the first weeks of Stephen Harper’s second term featured!

Within days of the return of the House of Commons, the minority Conservatives had set the stage — with an overreaching fiscal update — for a parliamentary crisis that came within an inch of seeing them lose power to an unprecedented coalition of the Liberals and the NDP.

Unless someone really drops the ball, no one should expect fireworks of that magnitude on Thursday when Parliament reconvenes for the first time since the election.

In theory, the throne speech will provide the first test of Trudeau’s minority status with the initial confidence vote in the government likely to take place on or around Dec. 10. But in practice, minority governments rarely lose the confidence of the House with their inaugural speeches — unless the opposition parties have come up with what they feel is a more workable governing arrangement.

In this case, none of the third parties is about to install Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer in Trudeau’s place.

Had the shoe been on the other foot on election night, and the Conservatives had won the plurality of seats in a hung Parliament, it is not even a given that Scheer could have led a viable minority government.

Getting the other parties to endorse a Conservative throne speech designed to turn back the clock on the fight against climate change would have been, to say the least, a challenge.

By comparison, the Liberals are in as better place to find common ground with one or more of the third parties than many of the minority governments of the recent past.

Neither the New Democrats nor the Bloc Québécois want to return to the polls soon. For the foreseeable future, the survival of Trudeau’s government is in their best interests.

But that does not make it in the best interest of the Liberals to force their opposition to swallow their pride by supporting the government’s throne speech.

Going forward, the ruling party will have to find an opposition dance partner to pass every single piece of its legislative agenda.

Thursday’s throne speech is already virtually guaranteed to include a bone that will stick in the craw of the third parties. If Trudeau is serious about rebuilding bridges with Alberta and Saskatchewan, his agenda-setting speech will not be silent on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Little could raise more hackles in the two Prairie provinces than a failure to formally restate a commitment to seeing the project through.

By the same token though, the two out of three Canadians who supported a party other than the Conservatives should rightly expect a bit more than bromides about climate change.

The makeup of this Parliament should translate into impetus for more decisive environmental action. But on that score, the message from the realignment of the cabinet was muddled — presumably as a result of Trudeau’s determination to not ruffle more feathers in the Prairies.

Thursday’s throne speech will provide more insights as to whether the Liberals will embrace the opportunity to raise their climate change game or resist it. It is a sign of the times that Trudeau’s minority government may be the first whose actions — or inaction — on climate change could determine its longevity.

The NDP will also be looking for specifics on the creation of a national pharmacare program. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been demanding a detailed road map to the implementation of universal prescription drug coverage from coast to coast to coast

Yet wisdom would probably dictate that Singh look for a half-full glass as he goes through the throne speech. The reality is that without some substantial provincial co-operation, no federal government can walk the talk of a national pharmacare initiative.

Ironically, one of the first orders of business of the new government is to rewrite the joint legislative legacy of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott. As was widely predicted, it did not take long for their medically assisted death law to fail the test of the courts.

Last fall, a Quebec judge gave the federal government six months to make the law less restrictive.

It will be interesting, when the time comes, to see how the now independent Wilson-Raybould votes on an updated version of her signature law.