Spring election is more illusive than imminent

The odds went up this week that the scenario of a spring federal election will turn out to have been little more than the pipe dream of hawkish Liberal insiders.

Even before a resurgence of COVID-19 wreaked havoc on Newfoundland and Labrador’s best-laid election day plans, Justin Trudeau’s brain trust was of two minds about the timing of the next campaign.

If there is one thing an incumbent party does not want as it makes a bid for re-election, it is to be forced off script by events outside of its control.

Campaigns have been known to turn on a dime.

But the lessened probability of a spring campaign will do little to temper the election fever that is by now rampant on Parliament Hill.

If not in the spring, then all parties are gearing up for a fall vote, either because one presumes the Liberals will want to bank on the success of their vaccine deployment or, alternatively, because the opposition parties will want to take advantage of a government failure to deliver vaccines promised to all Canadians who want one by the end of September.

By then, Trudeau’s second term will be close to the halfway mark. On average, minority governments in this country have tended to last 18 to 24 months.

That relatively short shelf life is largely self-imposed. On the morning after the election of a minority government, the minds of the incumbents start turning to the shortest path to majority territory while the runner-up becomes fixated on the opportunity to make the small leap from opposition to power.

As understandable as the partisan perspective may be, it is not matched by a compelling governance rationale.

The pandemic is the second global crisis to take place on the watch of a minority Canadian government in a bit more than a decade.

There is no material proof that Canada would have navigated either the 2008 financial crisis or the pandemic better had Stephen Harper and/or Trudeau commanded majorities in Parliament.

The need to come to a bipartisan consensus on the way forward has not been an impediment to federal action; it has acted as a guardrail against some of the worse instincts of parties in power.

Erin O’Toole is right when he predicts the next campaign will not be fought with all eyes on the rearview mirror. The path to a successful economic recovery will take precedence on the road travelled during the pandemic. But the underlying ballot-box question will be that of the competence of the main contenders.

That’s why an efficient vaccine deployment is so central to Liberal fortunes. That’s also why O’Toole is scrambling to recast his party as a reassuring government in waiting.

But the Conservative leader’s biggest problem so far is neither his shadow cabinet nor his low profile, but the fact that he is failing to make a good first impression on a growing number of Canadians.

They are entitled to ask which is the real O’Toole: The leadership candidate who railed against his main rival’s centrist views on his way to victory, or the party leader who swears he would govern from the centre on the lead-up to a federal campaign.

The pandemic has complicated the life of all opposition parties, but it has also restored some of the NDP’s sense of purpose by allowing Jagmeet Singh and his team to focus on issues that play to the party’s strengths and history.

The NDP’s pitch to end forprofit long-term care and bring the system under the Canada Health Act will probably not get the party very far in Quebec, where the political culture is hostile to a larger federal role in social policy. But it could play well in places like Ontario and British Columbia, where the party has a real shot at improving its electoral lot. It is also an issue the New Democrats are comfortable fighting for. That makes Green party Leader Annamie Paul’s decision to run again in the Liberal stronghold of Toronto Centre a big gamble. The upside is that she already has boots on the ground, having run in the riding in a recent byelection. Another plus is Toronto Centre’s location at ground zero of the English-language national media.

But if her hope is to win the seat by wooing local NDP supporters and her larger plan to overtake and eventually replace the New Democrats on the federal scene, she may be a campaign too late. In the last election, the Greens boasted a sure-footed leader in Elizabeth May against a rookie New Democrat rival. This time the roles are reversed.

Finally, expect the Bloc Québécois to spend more time basking in the sunshine of François Legault’s government than sharing the stage with its sovereigntist brother-in-arms in the National Assembly. A Mainstreet poll published this week pegged the Coalition Avenir Québec at 48 per cent in provincial voting intentions, versus 11 per cent for the Parti Québécois.

The lessened probability of a spring campaign will do little to temper the election fever that is by now rampant on Parliament Hill