O’Toole might be the pandemic’s biggest political loser

It was not so long ago — a bit less than a decade — that Canada was the scene of a heated debate as to whether the NDP and the Liberals needed to come together under a single roof or form a coalition of some kind.

Back then, the thinking was that the division of the country’s progressive forces between the federal parties could only lead to the dominance in government of the Conservatives.

And while Justin Trudeau’s 2015 majority victory combined with the second-best New Democrat score in that party’s history seemed to put the issue to rest, doubts lingered as to whether that result was mostly the product of circumstances.

Voter fatigue with the Conservatives after a decade of Stephen Harper’s rule combined with the eclipse of the Bloc Québécois certainly played a part in the election of Canada’s first majority Liberal government in 15 years.

From that angle, the 2019 election could have been construed as a correction of sorts. The Conservatives won the popular vote, the Bloc made a comeback, and had the NDP not underperformed to the degree it did, Trudeau could be in political retirement today.

Then came the pandemic, an event of such profound consequences that it has the potential of altering — at least for a time — the political calculus.

Never have so many Canadians had to rely on governments for so much and for so long as they have over the past 12 months.

Given that, it should come as little surprise that the pool of progressive voters and the ranks of those who support government activism seems to have expanded over the course of the COVID-19 episode. Consider the following:

A year into the pandemic, the Conservatives are the only federal party consistently falling below its last election score in voting intentions.

Even as a debate has raged over the federal delivery of vaccines, the Conservatives, who — based on their seat count — are best positioned to replace the Liberals in government, have failed to hang on to their 2019 audience, let alone add to it.

Every national poll published since Feb.1 has Conservative support hovering around the 30 per cent mark. That’s down four points from the party’s election finish.

It would be tempting to put the decrease mostly down to a failure to launch on the part of Erin O’Toole. Admittedly, it is a challenge for an incoming opposition leader to make an impression in the midst of a pandemic.

Still, the notion that the shoes Andrew Scheer left behind were so big that his successor is at a loss to fill them borders on mind-boggling.

The Green party has also changed leaders over the course of the pandemic and, in the process, it has traded down on the profile front. Over the years, Elizabeth May had become a national fixture. Her successor, Annamie Paul, is still relatively unknown. Yet, the Greens sit at or around their 2019 score in the polls.

As support for the Conservatives has shrunk, that for the NDP has expanded. In all but one of the last six national polls, the New Democrats have scored better than in the last election.

That is not to say Jagmeet Singh is necessarily on a roll. Historically some of the NDP’s best polling results have been achieved between elections.

In the summer before the 1988 campaign, Ed Broadbent seemed to be on the way to becoming prime minister.

At the start of the 2015 campaign, the polls gave Thomas Mulcair the inside track to beat Harper.

In each of those cases, the NDP’s polling gains were essentially achieved at the Liberals’ expense. But so far this year, Trudeau’s party is either holding its own or improving on its last election score.

The two — at least at this juncture — are not communicating vessels.

At the same time, a trend favourable to activist governments is emerging at the provincial level.

Among the premiers of the larger provinces, François Legault and John Horgan stand out for the high marks their management of the pandemic is earning them.

In last week’s Léger poll, satisfaction with Quebec’s Legault ran at 73 per cent, while 65 per cent of British Columbians approved of Horgan’s performance.

Despite political labels that could lead one to conclude the two premiers hail from opposite sides of the left/right divide, the fact is that Legault is every bit as much of a believer in government interventionism as his NDP counterpart.

Meanwhile, over on the Conservative side, the reviews range from decisively mixed in the case of Ontario’s Doug Ford and Manitoba’s Brian Pallister to outright negative in the case of Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe and Alberta’s Jason Kenney.

Even in the Conservatives’ heartland, the pandemic is doing the Canadian right no favours.