The artistry of balancing federalism

Like a master juggler, a successful Canadian premier or prime minister needs to be able to balance half a dozen spinning plates on their head, hands and feet on the national stage. Have one knocked off its perch, or miscalculate and have two collide, and political costs can be high.

First, you must be able to juggle the needs and expectations of your supporters against the necessary compromises of federalism. Then, you need to ensure that your allies among the provinces or in Ottawa do not find it expedient to drop you on a major issue. Finally, you need to be able to adjust quickly when an ally falls and a new insurgent appears.

Justin Trudeau has had a relatively easy first 18 months as a federal juggler. The big four provinces have all been led by allies, three Liberal and Rachel Not- ley’s New Democrats. The year ahead raises a gloomier prospect as he heads into his own pre-election year.

If Christy Clark is replaced by John Horgan and the NDP in B.C. that would be a serious blow on several fronts, starting with their hard-won consensus on the Trans Mountain pipeline. If Kathleen Wynne is defeated the following June that would be even more serious. PC Patrick Brown would be no friend of Ottawa. An Andrea Horwath NDP government would be even more challenging.

Even if Clark and Wynne are merely badly wounded, a shaky minority government in Ontario and a likely Liberal leadership contest in B.C. would not be helpful. The Trudeau team could not have taken as many seats from the NDP and the Tories in their 2015 campaign without the 100-per-cent commitment of their provincial machines. Either in defeat or the gloom of a near-death campaign, neither is likely to make a similar commitment in 2019.

Although all sides have done a good job in keeping the tensions off the front page, the love triangle between Wynne, Clark and Trudeau has been under increasing strain in recent months. Wynne was furious at being sabotaged on larger health funding from Ottawa. Clark remains unhappy about Ottawa’s thin political support on a number of issues, despite the pipeline deal. Ottawa is grumpy at Ontario for its bait-andswitch on toll roads in Toronto, and its preening over new political fundraising limits, something the Trudeau team is determined to resist.

Canada’s complex federalism being what it is, neither tribal nor regional bonds are any guarantee of help in the perpetual juggling act of alliance building. The Rachel Notley NDP government, ironically, has probably done more to help Ottawa on pipelines than any other. Its support has been reciprocated on funding issues important to Alberta’s NDPs.

Further complicating federal Liberal pre-election planning is the imminent arrival of two new opposition leaders. Stephen Harper was clearly well past his sell-by date in 2015, and suffered the consequence of merely rerunning his previous campaign. Thomas Mulcair got successfully niqabbed and was otherwise disappointing to his own base, and more importantly, to those voters looking for a guaranteed Harper killer.

If each opposition party’s voters are wise enough to make good choices in leadership selection — a big if, admittedly — 2019 will be very different. Painfully for Trudeau, he has begun to demonstrate the truth of that old New Democrat axiom that “Liberals always break progressive hearts. . . .” Running away from electoral reform is only the most galling of a lengthening list of broken campaign promises.

Again, in the ironies of Canadian federalism, it will serve the Trudeau Liberals far better if Notley is re-elected in May 2019, only a few months before all Canadians return to the polls in October of that year. A strong new mandate for Jason Kenney, a ferociously partisan and effective campaigner, would have implications beyond Alberta.

Equally ironic, the federal Liberals would be better served by a weak Tory minority government in Ontario, than by a Wynne government surviving on fumes and detested by Ontario progressives, thus making them biddable for a return to the NDP.

But what makes national politics so much fun for junkies, in the world’s most successful, if always complex, federal state, is that only one thing is certain: some plates will collide, some will smash on the ground — which ones and when is completely unpredictable. Justin Trudeau may well be celebrating another Caribbean Christmas having just won a big second majority, only two and a bit years from now.

If B.C. Premier Christy Clark is defeated next month, looking ahead could be a gloomy prospect for Justin Trudeau

Robin V. Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a Broadbent Institute leadership fellow, was an NDP strategist for 20 years.