Pandemic fades as key issue for Canadian voters

Back to the future! As the nation lurches ever closer to a widely expected election call, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be quickly receding in our collective rear-view mirror. Traffic clogs our highways like bad cholesterol. Dogs howl with anxiety as their owners mysteriously disappear. A million sourdough starters have been left to die. Pre-pandemic life is back, baby, and Canadians are hell-bent on living it.

What does this mean for our politicians?

With a clean shave and rolled-up shirt sleeves, Justin Trudeau might well be channelling a little old-school Michael J. Fox — and with reason. According to a new poll by Ipsos, Canadians' top concerns are health care, affordability and cost of living, climate change and the economy — the same issues they listed before COVID upended their lives in early 2020.

“I think a lot of strategists were thinking that the government's performance during COVID would be the big feature element of this campaign,” opined Ipsos President Darrell Bricker. Instead, “what was previously urgent is now being displaced by what was previously most important.”

For the Liberals, this is both good and bad news. Good, in the sense that it appears to take criticism of their pandemic response off the campaign table.

The Conservatives won't score points by carping about lack of border controls, quarantine-hotel fiascos, or vaccine delays — all weaknesses that they hammered on for the past 18 months. They will have to pivot to other issues, making any hours they spent crafting a “blame and shame” strategy a waste of precious prep time.

But a Covid-light campaign could also prove helpful to the Tories, because when it comes to managing the pandemic, Ipsos found that 40 per cent of voters perceive the Liberals to be the most competent, with all other parties trailing over 20 points behind. Were the opposition parties to base their campaign on COVID, they could actually be helping, not hurting, the government's chances of re-election.

So, what should Trudeau's rivals do?

For Conservatives, it's the economy, stupid. Thirty-five per cent of voters who flag economic concerns as their top issue prefer the Tories, a lead of eight points over the Liberals. With massive deficits, federal debt soaring past the trillion-dollar mark, a housing market refusing to cool, rapidly inflating consumer prices, and the “Great Resignation” threatening labour shortages, everyone from workers to bosses are prone to feeling financial anxiety.

If the Tories can focus the election on jobs and the economy, they could make gains, and deny the Liberals the majority they hope to secure.

As for the NDP, they should make every effort to capitalize on the dysfunction of the Green party and scoop up its voters. Support for the Greens has fallen by half, to three per cent, since the party imploded over opinions about Israel. Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is mining the Tiktok crowd, attracting younger voters disillusioned by Green antics or Liberal broken promises, particularly to Indigenous peoples. Together, millennials and Gen Z make up 40 per cent of the electorate.

If Singh can capitalize on their concerns — and get them to the polls — the Tories and the Liberals could be in for a surprise.

As for the Bloc Québécois, a Leger poll taken in early July has the party at 32 per cent of decided voters in Quebec — a statistical tie with the Liberals at 31 per cent. The Conservatives are the choice of only 17 per cent, and the NDP 13 per cent.

Bloc Leader Yves-françois Blanchet is banking on the party's default position as the defender of Quebec interests, such as its forestry industry, and capitalizing on the warm weather and lowered pandemic restrictions to hit the provincial barbecue circuit this summer.

So while the Liberals maintain an overall lead, the election may well be decided by what issue dominates the conversation. And it looks like it probably won't be COVID-19. Which raises the question, why are we having an election in the first place? Well, for the same reason minority governments always call them: because they think they can win a better hand. Back to the future, indeed.