A close race could help push left-leaning voters toward the favoured Liberals, especially if the NDP doesn’t get its act together.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 30, 2021.

The first weeks do not an election make. But they do get volunteers fired up or worried, depending upon the momentum of each political party.

Conservatives and New Democrats are buoyed by an uptick in their support, while Liberals are understandably concerned about an unexpectedly slow start.

Between Afghanistan and the surprise Tory win in Nova Scotia, there was no good news coming the Liberal way during a launch that should have been seamless. After all, the prime minister had control over the date and timing of the election.

No one could have predicted the speedy fall of Kabul to the Taliban, and with American President Joe Biden digging his heels in on a quick departure, the Afghanistan exodus is beyond Canada’s control. While fingers will be pointed at Justin Trudeau, the reality is that no other party can point to anything that they would have done differently.

Some commentators are comparing the Afghanistan situation to a turning point in the demise of the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. But this time around, no one is promising a snitch line to report on barbaric practices. In that election, foreign policy positions of the two main parties offered real choices. Tories said it would take years to bring Syrian refugees to Canada, reinforcing the impression that refugee resettlement was not a priority. Liberals offered, and acted upon, a speedy resettlement.

This time around, all parties are on the same page when it comes to Afghanistan. The election will not turn on that issue. Instead, Canadians will be voting on pocketbook priorities.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole crafted a platform document designed to move his party closer to the critical political centre. Some claims need to be challenged. His support for universal healthcare is questionable because he refuses to cut transfers to provinces that allow queue-jumping for people who can come up with cash payments. Saskatchewan currently allows preferential treatment for some patients requiring an MRI. If you pay up to $1,000, you can jump the line and get your diagnosis dealt with quicker than those who cannot afford personal payment.

His position on daycare is equally problematic because O’Toole plans to tear up the new provincial/territorial childcare agreements signed across the country.

O’Toole has come up with some high-profile promises to reach out beyond his usual right-wing support base. His plan to put a workers’ representative on the board of every major corporation was designed to let Canadians know that he is union-friendly, a far cry from his predecessors’ perspectives.

The tightening of the race so early in the campaign may actually play in the Liberals’ favour.

New Democratic leader Jagmeet Singh has made multiple billion dollar, uncosted promises, like his vow to nationalize private retirement homes and his proposal to build 500,000 affordable Canadian homes. In previous campaigns the NDP’s third-party status meant there were very few tough questions during most of the campaign. But this time, the big-ticket promises are being put under early scrutiny.

Singh needs to make a breakthrough in places like Hamilton, where his party has only one returning federal Member of Parliament but four provincial representatives. Singh’s pledge to cancel all pipelines directly hits the steel industry and hurts Hamilton. Perhaps that is why he has not been able to find a Hamiltonian to run in either of the two seats where the party has the best chance.

In Hamilton East-Stoney Creek, a riding held by the party provincially, their candidate lives and works in Ottawa. On Hamilton Mountain, where the outgoing Member of Parliament was a New Democrat, their candidate is a 67-year-old defeated Member of Parliament from Welland, approximately 75 kilometres away. He lost in that riding twice, beaten by Liberal Vance Badawey in 2015 and 2019.

Instead of trying to win in his own home, Malcolm Allen was parachuted into a Hamilton seat following the retirement of NDP MP Scott Duvall. Why would the party choose someone who cannot win in his own riding?

The quality of candidates will also be weighed by voters. If Hamilton is any indication, the New Democrats may have a lot more work than simply costing their promises.

The Liberals still have time to pivot. This tight race means the leaders’ debate will be even more crucial than previous elections, as voters square up behind the Conservatives or the Liberals. That may once again put the New Democrats in the unenviable position of trying to convince Canadians that a vote for them will not elect the Tories.

Campaigns matter.

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

Voters are always happier in the spring and the economic fallout won’t yet be felt.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on February 8, 2021.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has to keep saying that he does not want an election. Forcing the country into a vote in the middle of a pandemic may be seen as an impolitic move.

However, the three provinces that have gone to the polls during this pandemic have all been rewarded with majority governments.

So those who say the calling of a COVID election would cost votes are wrong. Sure, there would be a couple of days of grumbling at the beginning of the campaign. But very quickly, pundits and politicians would start debating the big issues facing Canadians at the moment.

Economic and health uncertainty are the obvious themes that need to be addressed.

Thus far, these are both issues where the opposition parties have not been able to secure much traction.

The Conservatives have been hitting hard at pandemic mismanagement. With Pfizer delaying their promised deliveries, and provinces adding their criticism to the rollout, the government has suffered some political damage. However, that will be forgotten as soon as the rollout returns at the end of February.

These hiccups are happening around the world, and Canadians are not alone in the challenge of securing and delivering vaccines to needy citizens.

But most Canadians will not hold that against the government once the election is called. Instead, they may attack the opposition for being offside in a world pandemic situation.

Last week Green Party Leader Annamie Paul tried to carve out her own COVID space, accusing the government of being a bad global citizen because it tapped into a previously contracted number of vaccines from Covax. Paul said the Canadian government should not have access to a vaccine that was developed primarily to assist poorer countries.

But the Green Party leader won’t get much support on that one. If she had read the fine print of the Canadian Covax funding announcement last fall, she would know that one-half of the $440-million invested in the Covax vaccine was intended for Canadian vaccine use.

And when Canadian lives are at risk, it seems strange for a Canadian politician to deny the vaccine to her own country.

Similar criticism was reflected in some international media reports, which accused Canada of being greedy as one of the few developed countries tapping into the Covax vaccine.

While the world needs a global strategy, all politics is still local. And Paul will not get a lot of support for attacking the Liberals’ desire to protect Canadians.

The government is also facing a long-term economic meltdown as province by province, businesses are forced to shutter, and citizens are required to stay home in lockdown.

Liberals delivered a death blow to the airline industry by asking them to shut down flights to the Caribbean and Mexico in a popular, but misguided effort to stop the spread of the virus.

By all accounts, air travel was responsible for little more than one per cent of the COVID transmission, but that did not stop the government from introducing a punitive hotel quarantine for any citizen returning from abroad after next week. This requirement has zero pandemic value, as it supplements a COVID PCR test before anyone gets on a plane and after they get off. It also requires those who have been vaccinated to quarantine.

And even though the viral mutations came from the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa, none of these destinations have been shut down.

The move was largely intended to keep people from travelling during spring break and it worked. But the airlines have also laid off thousands and Air Canada shut down Rouge last week. Professor Fred Lazar, of the Schulich School of Business at York University, said travel is being unfairly targeted in the pandemic fight. “They are doing it to cater to the vast majority of Canadians that have a holier than thou attitude toward travel.” Full disclosure, I am one of those shameful snowbirds who left Canada for southern climes, despite the best advice of my government.

But even if the move did not make health sense, it was very popular, and managed to distract attention from vaccine rollout problems.

Some Canadian routes, cancelled during COVID, will never return, exacerbating regional isolation.

Meanwhile, once the vaccine gets rolling, there will be a collective sigh of relief. That is the moment to trigger an election. Voters are always happier in the spring and the economic fallout won’t yet be felt.

Most Canadians will reward the Liberals for taming the COVID beast.

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

But by refusing to put a price on his plan, and by assuming that technology alone will bridge the carbon gap, Andrew Scheer’s plan runs counter to advice from environmentalists and economists.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 24, 2019.

OTTAWA—Global warming followers may be flummoxed by the differences in party positions on climate change action plans.

Andrew Scheer’s announcement last week was long on photos and short on specifics.

He characterized his plan as the most anticipated policy announcement of an opposition leader in the history of the country.

Scheer framed his work in the context of Conservative prime ministers who came before him, from Sir John A. Macdonald to Brian Mulroney.

Our first prime minister established Canada’s first national park back in 1885. Brian Mulroney was recognized as Canada’s greenest prime minister, launching the $3-billion Green Plan in 1990 in the lead-up to the Rio Earth Summit. This was the first-ever gathering of world leaders on environmental issues.

Since the 1992 United Nations summit, multiple international meetings have tackled climate questions.

Then environment minister Angela Merkel chaired the first United Nations Climate Conference in 1995. Berlin set the stage for the Kyoto Accord, which paved the way for the Paris targets.

Canadians can be forgiven for being confused. After almost 30 years, our carbon footprint is still growing.

Scheer says his plan will change that. He cited multiple Progressive Conservative leaders to buttress his claim that environmental protection was a core Conservative principle.

But one prime minister’s name was glaringly absent from the list, that of Stephen Harper.

Progressive Tory predecessors believed that governments could lead in climate solutions. But when Andrew Scheer and his boss split from progressives to create the Reform Party, environmental interests were also dismissed.

In his time Mulroney signed the Canada-United States Air Quality Agreement with his American counterpart, George W. Bush.

That treaty committed both governments to legislating solutions for the reduction of acid rain. The agreement also annexed a chapter on ozone depletion, pricing ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons that were used as cheap coolants for refrigeration.

Both governments committed to costing pollution, because that is the best way to get companies and citizens to tackle the current climate crisis.

Scheer’s predecessor was not mentioned because in the legacy of green Conservative prime ministers, he is not one of them.

One of Harper’s moves was to eliminate many environmental initiatives, including government funding for homeowners and businesses to retrofit for energy efficiencies.

The cancelled retrofit program was recycled last week in Scheer’s announcement.

Scheer also promised to regulate heavy industrial polluters, forcing them to reinvest in environmental solutions when emissions exceed 40 kilotonnes per year, a threshold 10 kilotonnes lower than the Liberal plan.

But Scheer does not explain how his government would oversee reported company investments. What would stop a company from simply passing off normal capital acquisitions as new technology investments?

By refusing to price pollution, the Tory plan also ignores the origin of one-quarter of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Transportation accounts for one-quarter of our country’s total emissions.

But the Scheer plan does not include any strategy directed to reducing carbon use in planes, trains and automobiles.

Instead, the leader of the opposition plans to follow in the footsteps of his cousin at Queen’s Park. Doug Ford’s first act was to cancel the pricing framework put in place by the previous Liberal provincial government. He also cancelled the planting of one million trees, designed to absorb carbon emissions.

Scheer says his solution will be based on technology, not taxes.

But economists agree that the single most effective way to change consumer behaviour is to properly include the price of pollution in any consumer purchasing decision.

From gasoline to automobile trends to housing footprints, people generally use price as a major factor in their spending decisions.

By putting a price on pollution, the Liberal plan would drive innovation and also encourage Canadians to change their habits.

At the end of the day, Canadians and companies will be moved by the key argument of their wallets.

If it costs them more to pollute, they will find ways to cut down on pollution. That means buying an electric vehicle, or using alternative methods of transportation like bus, rail and bicycle and ride sharing.

LED lighting pays for itself in reduced hydro bills and reduces carbon footprint.

By refusing to put a price on his plan, and by assuming that technology alone will bridge the carbon gap, Scheer’s plan runs counter to advice from environmentalists and economists.

The Liberal plan, while not perfect, will reduce our collective carbon footprint faster and more effectively.

The electoral choice is clear. Those Canadians who consider climate change the key campaign issue cannot vote Conservative.

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

By SHEILA COPPS

First published in The Hill Times on June 25, 2018.

OTTAWA—Smart politicians make course corrections.

Byelections and provincial trends often provide the impetus for political redirection.

So what is the takeaway from last week’s Quebec byelection and the recent tectonic shift in Ontario politics?

In both instances, there was a shift away from Liberals and towards Conservatives.

But they may actually result in completely different impacts on federal politics.

The Quebec byelection in a bellwether riding that has voted for every party in the 93 years since it was created, should ring alarm bells for the federal Liberals.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently edged ahead of his Conservative opposition in public opinion polls, but the Quebec jury is still out.

The last time a Conservative was elected in the riding was in 1997, when André Harvey, who had served under prime minister Brian Mulroney, returned to politics.

Harvey subsequently left the Tories, sat as an Independent, and then joined the Liberals.

Since his time, the riding has actually mimicked the national wave, electing a representative from every single political party. The only Chicoutimi loyalty is to trends, the riding switched from the Bloc, to the New Democrats, to the Liberals in a single decade. The significance of its return to the Tory fold should not be underestimated.

Nor should it be overblown. The popularity of former hockey coach and political junkie Richard Martel is without challenge. When the sitting Liberal announced his resignation, it appeared as though the local Conservative organizers were quicker on the draw.

In a byelection, the stature of a local candidate is far greater important than in a general election. Just look at the number of popular Liberals dumped in the Ontario vote. Local candidates don’t count for many votes in a general election.

So the question mark about Conservative leader Andrew Scheer in Quebec has not yet been answered. But the strength of his party’s local organization has.

By normal standards, as the retiree was a Liberal, the governing party should have had the time and foresight to land a big fish as their candidate.

Instead, the official opposition won that battle.

This Liberal misstep could be a reflection of the lack of federal Liberal organizational depth in eastern Quebec.

If the Liberals are poorly organized, the fate of the New Democrats is even more troubling. Having carried the seat in the Jack Layton orange wave only two elections ago, this time the party did not even secure their deposit.

The NDP joined the Bloc Québécois, in the single digits, raising questions about the winnability factor.  That is deadly in Quebec.

Unlike other parts of the country, most Quebec voters have a tendency to vote with the trend. It is no mistake that Chicoutimi electors have copied the winning wave for the past two decades.

This is good news for the Conservatives, but not so much for anyone else.

However, the Conservative win in Ontario could have a perverse effect of helping the federal Liberals.

Ontarians are suspicious about investing too much power in one political ideology. So when they choose Tories in Toronto, they swing to Liberals in Ottawa.

The provincial New Democrats official opposition status will attract Ottawa back room talent, depleting human resources needed by the federal party to rebuild.

Former leader Tom Mulcair suggested in a media appearance last week that Jagmeet Singh’s popularity would grow once people get to know him. According to Mulcair, Singh’s rise in visibility would not happen without a seat in the House of Commons.

But the leader cannot afford to run and lose, so he will likely be sidelined until next year’s election, with potentially precipitous consequences.

Meanwhile, Trudeau has made some bold moves to woo the West, including the pipeline purchase and marijuana legislation.

Those successes will pay dividends in Alberta and British Columbia, but neither province is likely to carry the Grits back to power. Instead, the prime minister needs to pay attention to his home base and parts east.

Conventional wisdom says the native son always has an edge in Quebec, which should favour Trudeau.

But if modern day politics has taught us anything, the only certainty is uncertainty.

A clean sweep in Atlantic Canada is not likely to recur. Current Maritime polling favours the Tories.

With Quebec softening, and a rumble afoot in Ontario, Atlantic Canada could prove to be the Grit bastion that must not be breached.

Byelections can be the canary in the mine.

Trudeau and the Liberals need to heed the messages this canary is sending.

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

By SHEILA COPPS

First published in The Hill Times on Friday, December 18, 2015.

OTTAWA—What a difference a year makes. At the beginning of 2015, who would have predicted that the also-ran third party in Parliament would form a solid majority government with a leader who is making international waves?

Even the most diehard Liberals were entertaining a two-stage victory process. The first move was to return to official opposition status before winning government.

Common parlance said that prime minister Stephen Harper’s grip on power was so tight, that his organizational skills and communications discipline could secure his re-election.

That race was supposed to be against Thomas Mulcair, the New Democratic Party leader who had ably mastered the art of Question Period. His questions were so good; it was assumed that his answers would be better.

And then there was Justin. Indeed, friends and foes alike branded him on a first-name basis.

Savvy political advisers called him thus to differentiate him from his father. Justin Trudeau was friendly, approachable and a very different leader from his Cartesian parent.

His foes branded him the same way to promote the notion that this kid just wasn’t ready. His age, his hair, his unconventional career path (as a teacher, not a lawyer) managed to sow the seeds of doubt about his capabilities. That, and a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign designed to reinforce all perceived weaknesses, did the trick. When the never-ending campaign actually started, voters at the doorstep repeated verbatim the exact lines crafted for the Tory ad campaign, without even realizing it.

Voters were questioning his age, and even asking whether he had the intelligence to be prime minister.

Through it all, Trudeau continued to surprise. First it was a knockout punch in the boxing ring. That was a risky move for any politician because if he had lost, his Rocky story could have ended there.

There is nothing the public likes better than to watch a politician flub a sporting challenge, and it can have devastating electoral consequences. Robert Stanfield never did learn how to play football.

But Trudeau did his homework. He trained quietly and effectively, and when the moment came, his opponent didn’t even see it coming.

To his credit, Stephen Harper actually saw  Trudeau coming. Throughout the long months when the polls were tracking the ascendance of Thomas Mulcair, he was virtually ignored in the Conservative air wars.

Even though all indications pointed to a battle between the Conservatives and the New Democrats, Harper focused single-mindedly on the Liberal leader. Mulcair was barely mentioned, either in advertising or in parliamentary jibes. It was all about discrediting the real threat to the throne.

Harper understood, as few others did, that the very characteristics highlighted to define Trudeau so negatively could also prove to be his greatest strength.

His youthful looks and his new approach meant he could legitimately signal a generational change. Harper’s stolid image was no match for a guy who could box, canoe and tweet all in the same day.

Conversely, Mulcair and Harper physically appeared to be two peas in a pod. They could both pass the test of membership in the Old Boys’ Club. That would have been great if people were looking to elect old boys.

But this was an election about change. Poll after poll consistently predicted that the vast majority of Canadians were seeking it.

Physically, Trudeau was the candidate that best personified change. But what about cerebrally? Being good looking with a well-honed physique certainly does not hurt.

But people want to know what is behind the hair before they will give you the keys to the kingdom.

Harper’s organizational and fundraising skills were the reason he launched one of the longest campaigns in modern history. But that one decision ultimately determined his demise.

Time gave Trudeau a chance to get out across the country unfiltered by the lens of a television ad, and they obviously liked what they saw.

His mastery of subject matter and delivery, in all the debates, ran counter to the negative campaign that had so effectively defined him.

Thanks to the Conservatives, Trudeau actually started the election with such low expectations that he had nowhere to go but up.

So 2015 turned out to be the year that changed Canada.

But the same uncertainty that muddied the political landscape this year could easily reemerge.

Success for the new Liberal government lies in taking a lesson from their unexpected trajectory.  

In politics, what happened last year seldom matters.  You are only as good as your next year.

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