Mulcair makes it easy for Liberals to fill the void
Of the main party leaders running for office this month, only Justin Trudeau is likely to be around for another federal election after this one.
Win or lose on Oct. 19, he has already exceeded the expectations of the Liberals who handed him a tarnished crown two-and-a-half years ago.
At the time the party was rattled by three successive defeats — each more crushing than the last. For the first time, the opposition Liberals did not see a government-in-waiting when they looked in the mirror or even a party still worthy of that title.
It came as a shock to its old guard that voters could conceive of a federal world that would not have the Liberal party anywhere near its centre.
The fact that, with a week to go, the possibility of the Liberals forming the next government is not just a figment of partisan imagination is more than most of them dared hope when they picked Trudeau.
Back then they gambled that he would mature on the job. It was not an obvious call but he has grown in his role, especially since the campaign started. It has been more than a decade since the Liberals have felt good about their campaign. For the first time since Jean Chrétien retired more than a decade ago, the party is poised to make gains on election day.
The reverse is true of Stephen Harper. He consistently expanded the Conservative tent over four elections, but this fifth campaign has mostly been about the party falling back on its core vote.
It is not yet clear how successful Harper has been at holding the line against his rivals. His electoral swan song could still end on the false note of a defeat.
For it is almost certainly his last campaign. Few expect the Conservative leader to come back to the House of Commons to lead his party in opposition (except if he lost by a seat or two and even that is a big if ). And if he wins, most Conservatives expect Harper to retire before the end of his fourth mandate.
Indeed, the leadership deathwatch is already on. Almost every private chat with a Conservative insider these days leads to speculation as to Harper’s succession, its timing and its possible outcomes. And yes, Jason Kenney’s name does come up in every one of those chats, albeit not always for nice reasons.
Few would say that Harper has outlasted his welcome but that does not mean they will be sorry to see him go.
Part of the reason is a style that is anything but collegial. The Conservative leader has always run his party and his governments as if they were one-man shows, but he has outdone himself since he called the election in August.
And what of Thomas Mulcair, the leader who spent the first half of the campaign on the cusp of a historic victory only to now be at risk of losing the official Opposition title he inherited from his late predecessor?
If — as the polls are suggesting — he leads the NDP back to third place, Mulcair is unlikely to get another kick at the election can.
The New Democrats have a long and unbroken record of federal defeats and almost as long a history of giving their leaders a second or even a third chance. But a defeat this time would feel different to many party loyalists; for they were asked to put quite a bit of water in their ideological wine on the way to their latest bid for government.
To make matters worse, if the NDP ends up back in third place, it will not be because it stood against the Conservative anti-terrorism act or opposed Canada’s military role in its mission against Islamic extremists in the Middle East, or even because it stood against a niqab ban.
From the New Democrat perspective, those would all be good hills to die on.
What has really ailed the Mulcair campaign has been an excess of prudence and a failure to cast the party as a compelling, convincing agent of change.
On that score, the Liberals did not steal the ground from under the feet of the New Democrats.
The latter left it vacant for Tru- deau to occupy.
Whether Mulcair himself would want to stay on for very long if he is defeated in the election is an open question.
Over the campaign, the NDP leader has sometimes been hardpressed to conceal his contempt for the skills of his Liberal rival. It is hardly a given that he would want to play second fiddle to Trudeau in opposition to another Conservative government or that he could be a happy camper propping up a minority Liberal government.
There will be plenty of soulsearching after Oct. 19 but, for once, the post-election knives will not be pointed at a Liberal leader’s back. Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.