In the end, the only party that really ended up ahead at year’s end is the Bloc. But this party also has the benefit of never having to be held accountable for what it might do in government as it vows never to form government.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on December 20, 2021.

OTTAWA—As the year draws to a close, it is time to reflect on politics past and future.

In the past year, the governing Liberals limped out of an election, barely making any inroads into their dream of a governing majority.

In the past year, the newly-minted Conservative leader dreamed that this was his party’s time to form government. He opened with a slick campaign brochure that promised change, but everything cratered during the campaign.

In the past year, the New Democratic Party leader was crowned by young people as the king of TikTok. But in the end, his clock ran out as too many followers simply did not turn out to vote.

In the past year, the Green Party leader went from breaking through a glass ceiling only to be covered in shards as her party imploded in internal infighting.

In the past year, the Bloc leader went from being almost forgotten in the House of Commons to reinserting himself in the public domain with a strong election effort.

In the end, the only party that really ended up ahead at year’s end is the Bloc. But this party also has the benefit of never having to be held accountable for what it might do in government as it vows never to form government.

So the new year offers opportunity for all political parties. In the case of the government, being in command of a progressive agenda will heal a lot of the wounds caused by an aborted attempt at a majority.

The childcare agreements with almost every provincial and territorial government are a great place to start. In addition, the all-party decision to move ahead with a ban on conversion therapy, showed that parties can accomplish much when they work together.

Continued management of the COVID situation will dominate politics for everyone in the new year, but if the government manages the Omicron threat well, the Liberals will be the greatest beneficiary of public support.

As for the Conservatives, the first step in the right direction was the unanimous support for the anti- conversion bill. The new year will provide opportunities for Erin O’Toole to continue to make movement toward the moderate middle. The only thing holding him back is the right-wing pull in his own party. And with an 18-month review process roiling inside the party, his freedom as a leader is certainly curtailed.

His party also needs to moderate its image as a collection of angry, white men. The finance critic, Pierre Poilievre, while a wonderful wordsmith, simply creates the impression that his work is being done for Bay Street and not for Main Street. While Poilievre is anxious to tag Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland as the inflation minister, most Canadians still don’t think the moniker fits.

As there is inflationary pressure worldwide, it is pretty hard to hang that problem on a single minister in a single government. Poilievre is no doubt banking on the fact that growing inflationary pressures will become a potent political tool for the Tories. That remains to be seen, but in the meantime, his overheated rhetoric could not pass a reality test.

In the new year, the New Democrats need to flex their muscles in Parliament to ensure that any legislation gets their seal of approval. Otherwise they risk being eclipsed by the government in the field of progressive politics. They also need to start spreading the news about their team. The current messaging is so fixated on the leader that it is hard for anyone to recognize the bench strength in Jagmeet Singh’s party. He has some excellent performers who need to take centre stage in the battle for the hearts and minds of Canadians.

In the new year, the Green Party needs to go back to the future, with emphasis on its roots and why the party was created in the first place. Internecine warfare based on Middle East politics is not going to win the party any support. And with a swathe of doctorates around the political table, one has to wonder who is able to guide the party back to a winning path.

With an unexpected breakthrough in Ontario, when Kitchener Centre sent Mike Morrice to Parliament, there is an opportunity to rebuild the party from scratch. Their interim leader, nonbinary astrophysicist Amita Kuttner certainly has her work cut out for her.

As we sweep out the old to ring in the new, all parties have a chance to right their respective ships. Happy Holidays.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

All signs are pointing to a Liberal government, with the only question being whether it will be minority or majority.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 16, 2021.

OTTAWA—Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.

Political failure is even more solitary as Erin O’Toole will likely discover on Monday night.

Insiders will blame his loss on Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who allegedly broke a promise not to make any announcements for the duration of the campaign.

Others will finger the media for the defeat. That is quite bizarre, considering most major media outlets have shifted so far to the right that they make O’Toole look centrist.

A third group will blame the People’s Party of Canada, whose rise in popularity came from disaffected right-wing Tories who opposed O’Toole’s gamble to move to the centre.

But in the end, the best autopsy of a failed campaign is to look inward and figure out why a great start to a Conservative majority government sputtered at the mid-way point and limped across the finish line.

I realize that I am taking some risk in writing this autopsy four days before the vote. But all signs are pointing to a Liberal government, with the only question being whether it will be minority or majority.

And the slide in Conservative support proves that not only do campaigns matter but debates matter even more.

It has been a historical truism to say that debates only serve to solidify the pre-conceived positions of voters who have already chosen their preferred leader.

This election turned that truism on its head. The first French debate, on TVA, opened up the question of gun control, with Justin Trudeau pointedly asking O’Toole about his platform promise to end the ban on assault weapons.

Perhaps the biggest mistake of the campaign was the Conservative organizers’ decision to follow up the debate with a presser the following day in Quebec on the party’s strategy to fight crime.

His people should have realized that dumping an assault ban and then promoting crime issues in Quebec would not be a smart idea.

While the debate opened the wound, the press conference made the situation worse. O’Toole spent the following week backpedalling and prevaricating. The slide got so bad that he ended up saying that he would no longer respect the promise in his vaunted action plan.

That stopped the stall, but O’Toole never seemed to regain the momentum experienced by the Conservatives at the beginning of the campaign.

The O’Toole endorsement from Quebec Premier François Legault looked as though it might be able to move Tory numbers again, but another debate killed that momentum.

The questioning by moderator Shachi Kurl was indelicate to say the least. But she handed the separatists a gift when she tagged all Quebecers with the accusation of racism.

Kurl may have thought she was exposing a bad law, but she ended up giving a huge boost to the flagging campaign of Bloc Québécois leader François Blanchet.

And in so doing, delivered a death blow to O’Toole’s chances of forming government.

In sheer numbers alone, it is just about impossible to get to 24 Sussex, without passing through and securing support in Quebec.

O’Toole’s strategy was to focus on Quebec nationalists, who have historically voted blue, moving between the Conservatives, and the old Union Nationale, and the Bloc.

O’Toole’s promise of unconditional cash transfers for health was one of the reasons Quebec’s premier endorsed him.

But the uproar in the province after the English debate killed that endorsement and four days before the election, the Conservative Party is polling at 18 per cent. As Quebecers like winners, with the Liberals polling at 33 per cent in Quebec and the Bloc at 28, Tory chances in the province wane daily.

In the end, the O’Toole loss came because he was on the wrong side of most election issues.

On childcare, his promise to tear up provincial agreements to offer 10-dollar a day care in return for tax crediting individual families was complicated and unpopular.

The leader also was also on the wrong side of the climate change debate, promising to push Canadians back to the targets set by former prime minister Stephen Harper that are 15 per cent lower than Liberal targets.

His flip-flop on gun control and confusion around abortion and health care universality created further questions about the agenda of a Conservative majority government.

O’Toole’s ongoing pitch that the election should not have happened and his personal attacks on Trudeau did not help. When people got to the urns, they voted on issues.

In the end, Canadians decided O’Toole was simply not worth the risk.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

All budget positioning will be the precursor to a likely election and who blinks first may well end up the loser.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 29, 2021.

Budget preparation is not just about the spending priorities of the government.

It is also about crafting a plan that would be election-ready should the opposition parties decide to defeat the government.

In the upcoming budget, the government will be working to try and trap the opposition, while the other parties will be trying to highlight their priorities.

In particular, attention will be paid to the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois, because if they both vote with the government, there will be no election.

Obviously, with the current polling numbers in their favour, the Liberals would love to trigger a spring election. But they also do not want to appear as though they are forcing people to the polls in the middle of a pandemic.

By throwing a couple of items in the budget that cannot be supported by the NDP or the Bloc, the Liberals could manoeuvre both parties into a corner.

For example, the government would really like to strengthen national cooperation on long-term care facilities, when operations are provincial jurisdiction.

During the pandemic, the number of people who died in long-term care facilities varied widely from province to province, begging the question why?

And the only way to answer that question is to have some sort of national facilities oversight.

The Bloc could never support such a move and might be forced to vote against the budget in principle.

Conversely, the New Democrats support national intervention in the homecare system. Not only do they support national intervention, but they are also opposed to any private-sector participation in the long-term care facilities management systems.

By reinforcing national standards and at the same time, guaranteeing a private sector role in chronic care facilities management, the government could corner the New Democrats on the budget.

On the political side, every minister and every Member of Parliament is lining up to secure their regional and ministerial budget priorities.

In a lengthy document like the budget, small items can be buried that mean a lot to a region.

I remember having a leadership discussion with a former Liberal MP, who told me that he had promised his support to Paul Martin if the finance minister delivered road infrastructure money to his riding. Those monies appeared in the next budget.

The finance minister has significant leeway to include line items that might not stir up a lot of attention but can yield political results.

In my time in cabinet, each minister would draw up a list of their priorities and that would be whittled down and submitted to a written vote in cabinet.

The votes were non-binding, but they did send a message to the minister and the prime minister about priorities around the table.

In one budget, my priority was funding for the Canadian War Museum, and I unleashed a team of popular veterans including former minister Barney Danson to lobby all my colleagues.

He was so effective, and so persistent, that the War Museum funding topped all other ministerial priorities in that budgetary process.

In the end, the official opposition Conservatives may have to swallow themselves whole and vote in favour of the budget, even if it reinforces the Supreme Court’s decision on March 25 affirming the odious carbon tax.

It wouldn’t be the first time a government falls over the question of taxation of gasoline.

Back in 1979, then finance minister John Crosbie introduced an 18-cent-a-gallon gas tax, figuring there was no way the Liberals would defeat him as they had just emerged form a huge election defeat.

Their leader Pierre Trudeau had already announced his plan to step down. However, when the budget was defeated and the Liberals were leaderless, Trudeau agreed to step back into the fray and ended up returning to majority government.

Crosbie’s budget gamble was based on the fact that the Liberals would not topple the government, and he wasn’t able to deliver the numbers for his government to survive. Instead, prime minister Joe Clark lost his job after only 10 months in office.

Budgets can make or break governments. And they can also do the same for all party leaders.

By supporting the budget, the NDP and the Bloc run the risk of throwing their lot in with the governing party.

That allows the Conservatives to position themselves as the only real opposition to the Liberals.

All budget positioning will be the precursor to a likely election.

Who blinks first may well end up the loser.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Quebecers will band together to promote French and governments need to have their back. But not at the expense of francophones in the rest of Canada.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on February 22, 2021.

Economic Development and Official Languages Minister Melanie Joly’s white paper on official languages has not even been released and already the opposition parties are lining up against it.

In a speech in November, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole accused the Liberals of refusing “to protect French in Quebec because they did not want to harm linguistic minorities in other parts of the country.”

O’Toole went on to claim media pundits were acting in bad faith by comparing the anglophone minority in Quebec to francophones outside Quebec. He claimed that was a “false equivalency.”

To that end, the Conservative party under his leadership is vowing to apply Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally regulated businesses in that province.

On the face of it, that does not seem like a big deal.

But by adopting a provincial language law, the federal government would be throwing millions of francophones outside Quebec under the bus.

If one province is successful in ensuring that its language laws can also override federal jurisdiction, it won’t be long before anti-French campaigns in other parts of the country close down schools and services that are currently funded, in part, by federal language policy and laws.

Joly is treading on very dangerous ground with this white paper, because all opposition parties are lining up to turn it into an anti-French attack by the Laurentian Liberals on la belle province.

The moribund Bloc is dying for an opportunity to drive a wedge into the relationship between francophones and anglophones in the country.

A language war is the only way to convince nationalist Quebecers that supporting the sovereigntists in an election is not a lost cause.

The Tories are trying to re-establish themselves as the party of the Union Nationale and the old Progressive Conservatives, when federal election victories were always dependent on support from Quebec nationalists.

As for the New Democratic Party, it has already thrown its lot in with the separatists. The Sherbrooke Declaration, which was a fairly calculated move by Tom Mulcair and Jack Layton to attract Quebecers, would basically give Canada away with a referendum vote of a simple majority.

Jagmeet Singh has already endorsed the declaration, and the last campaign solidified his attachment to separation, when his Quebec members moved away from their support for social democracy and focussed instead on sovereignty and the right to separate.

Even with that carrot, the party bled votes in Quebec, but when it comes to language laws, the Liberals will be alone in their support for a federal language policy that could apply across the country.

Already the Quebec National Assembly has moved unanimously to support the position of the government that all Quebecers and all services, should be governed by provincial language laws only.

The newly minted provincial Liberal leader followed in the footsteps of her predecessors by falling in line on Bill 101 without even bothering to suggest a single amendment.

That is not surprising as it is common knowledge in Quebec political circles that most provincial Liberals are actually federal Tories. That is why former Quebec premier Jean Charest moved with ease between the two parties at the federal and provincial level.

But if the white paper content and rollout is not properly managed, the Liberals could back themselves into a corner in strategically vote-rich Quebec.

If Quebecers feel attacked, they will immediately band together and vote en masse. And that capacity to vote collectively could change the outcome of the election.

That is why Quebec-born Erin O’Toole was out early on his party’s position on Bill 101. He knows this could play very well in certain parts of the province that he desperately needs to form government.

The white paper may succeed in lowering the temperature, which is what the Liberals need to kill a divisive language issue on the eve of an election.

Joly has excellent communication skills in both official languages, but as she discovered on the Netflix file, the devil is in the details.

You can rest assured the Prime Minister’s Office will be combing through details of the document, looking for potential pitfalls.

The Liberals have already taken a beating in Quebec on the decision to grandfather possession of military assault rifles and defer to municipalities on the decision to ban handguns.

That won’t be too damaging because the other parties do not want a legislative gun battle.

But language is a different story.

Quebecers will band together to promote French and governments need to have their back. But not at the expense of francophones in the rest of Canada.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

In a minority situation, an election can happen at any time if parties clash on spending priorities. But these are not ordinary times. In the middle of a pandemic, even getting to the polls is complicated.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 28, 2020.

OTTAWA—The election cat and mouse games begin.

In a minority situation, an election can happen at any time if parties clash on spending priorities.

But these are not ordinary times. In the middle of a pandemic, even getting to the polls is complicated.

The British Columbia government just called an Oct. 24 election. Hours after the call, it was revealed that voting results could take weeks to tabulate.

Because of the second wave of the pandemic, many people are limiting their movement amongst larger crowds.

Within hours of the election call, 20,000 requests for mail-in ballots had been sent to Elections BC.

According to officials, they expect a mail-in participation of up to 40 per cent, which means 800,000 ballots, compared to only 6,500 people in the 2017 campaign.

Election law says that absentee ballots cannot be tallied until the final results of the polls are counted, and that could be up to 13 days after the vote.

Given Canada Post’s COVID-based backlog as more people shop via the internet, the arrival of that many ballots could clog up the system for up to three weeks.

British Columbia Premier John Horgan called the snap election a year sooner than the end of his mandate, but his announcement came as no surprise. He and his team have been busy rolling out pre-election promises for weeks.

The early call is a gamble for Horgan, but he is also banking on the pandemic bounce that has been felt by leaders across the country.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs recently launched a similar quick COVID call two years into his minority mandate and was rewarded with a comfortable majority.

Popularity numbers for Ontario Premier Doug Ford and François Legault have also risen during the pandemic.

Even though both provinces are plagued by high levels of contagion and an increasing concern with the arrival of the second wave, the electorate has been happy with their work.

Voters are also witnessing unprecedented federal-provincial harmony which provides a peaceful backdrop in a world pandemic that could easily morph into panic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not oblivious to the crisis bump.

When the Corona virus impact appeared to be waning, the summer was replete with scandal stories like the one that caused WE Canada to shutter its operations.

But with the return of kids to classrooms, and more people back at the workplace and larger social gatherings, the predicted second wave is upon us.

The prime minister’s televised national address was designed to promote calm but also encourage Canadians to stay the course with limited social contacts and self-distancing.

He has also set out a plan designed to put the Liberals on a collision course with all opposition parties.

On the left, New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh is doing his best to put his party’s stamp on promised items like national pharmacare and childcare.

But the Liberals are crowding their space with the intention of securing support from voters who might swing between both parties.

On the right, Erin O’Toole is going to have to refrain from coming away from the Throne Speech as Mr. No. His focus on the deficit and spending may sit well on Bay Street but it does not comfort Main Street Canadians who are losing jobs, homes and life savings because of the financial havoc wreaked by the pandemic.

Then there is the Bloc Québécois. Trudeau’s promise to introduce national standards for long-term care facilities, a direct result of the deaths of thousands of innocent seniors, has raised the hackles of the premier and the nationalists in the province.

They claim that Ottawa should merely increase health budgets and that will solve all the problems.

However, the image of the premier calling in Canadian soldiers to clean up the mess in multiple facilities was not lost on the ordinary Quebecer.

Long-term care is solely the provincial jurisdiction, but it is obvious that the basic rule of protecting the health of citizens and workers was sadly ignored in multiple institutions in more than one province.

Canadians are wise enough to know that it makes sense to work on a national plan in a pandemic that has already killed almost 10,000 people. There is a public interest argument that trumps federal-provincial fights.

Trudeau is itching to test his vision in a federal election, but he risks a backlash if the Liberals are seen to provoke it.

However, Liberals would be happy if an opposition party pulls the plug,

Meanwhile the political war games are on.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Maxime Bernier’s ideas should be defeated at the ballot box, not in the back rooms of the Leaders’ Debates Commission.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 26, 2019.

OTTAWA—The broadcast debate rule makers need to take another look at their election work. By the current rules established for party leader participation, floor-crosser Lucien Bouchard would have been silenced.

At the time of the 1993 election, Bouchard was the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, having been previously elected as a Progressive Conservative. His party did not field candidates across the country, the second of the three criteria established for entering October’s debates.

The rules currently bar the People’s Party of Canada from the debate because leader Max Bernier was elected as a Tory. Can you imaging the uproar if the founding leader of the Bloc had been denied a seat at the televised debating table?

Rules say a party must run candidates in 90 per cent of the ridings across the country, which again eliminates new regional parties like the Bloc. The threshold for support is either a reasonable chance to win a couple of seats, or support from approximately four per cent of the popular vote in a general election. Current polling numbers situate the PPC just under 3 per cent with a chance to win one seat. Those numbers will fluctuate once the campaign begins.

Not surprisingly, the decision to block Bernier has been met by other parties with muted acquiescence. Conservatives are breathing a sigh of relief because Bernier is trying to tap into the right wing of their base. New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh went so far as to claim the party should be blocked because its viewpoints are odious, and do not deserve a platform.

Many Canadians might have felt the same way about a separatist party, but it was never denied a voice at the table.

Politicians of any stripe should not welcome state-mandated censorship, even when they vehemently disagree with another party’s viewpoint. An organization headed by a sitting Member of Parliament, with candidate recruitment across the country, deserves a chance to be heard.

Last weekend, Bernier’s party held a countrywide candidates’ convention in the nation’s capital, attended by 500 people. The party has managed to nominate candidates from coast to coast and has even recruited some dubious stars, like the widow of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

Bernier, who came within two percentage points of leading the Conservative Party, is no political neophyte. His father sat as a Tory member before him, and with his deep roots in that party, Bernier also managed to recruit a number of former Conservative colleagues. Most of them claim to have left the Conservative party to pursue more freedom of speech. They believe the current crop of Tories are too mainstream, denying debate on race and immigration issues.

The PPC is officially advocating a reduction in annual immigration targets by two-thirds, and an end to multiculturalism in the country. Their leader also claims that climate change has not been caused by human activity, despite ample scientific evidence to the contrary.

I am not a fan of Bernier’s ideas. From his misrepresentation of global warming to his call to build a wall against Canadian immigration, he represents the antithesis of my political philosophy. But surely his viewpoint is relevant.

If politically-appointed committees are destined to decide which perspectives can be aired, how does that strengthen democracy?

Bernier’s ideas should be beaten at the ballot box, but he should not be outside the debates looking in. That only strengthens his party’s capacity to play the victim card. Marginalized supporters will claim that their voices are being ignored in favour of other politically correct perspectives.

Given the makeup of the moderators for the English language debate, you can hardly blame them. The debate airing on October 7 features five respected women journalists, including Lisa Laflamme of CTV, Rosemary Barton of CBC, Dawna Friesen of Global, Althia Raj of Huffpost and The Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt.

All of the aforementioned have the qualifications and the experience to be excellent moderators. But why should a panel on Canadian politics only include participants of one gender? I would be first to complain if the debate consortium had chosen only men. So why is it okay to repeat gender bias with a women-only line-up? Former governor-general David Johnston, the first-ever debates commissioner, is treading a fine line in decisions on the format and composition of the debates. In French, there will be a mix of genders, with three men and two women journalists.

By excluding Bernier from this politically correct table, Johnson is providing dangerous fodder to the populists.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.