A petition to dump Erin O’Toole is already circulating and you don’t even have to be a party member to sign.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 27, 2021.

Politics is a vicious business.

A petition to dump Erin O’Toole is already circulating and you don’t even have to be a party member to sign.

Who can forget how ignominiously the New Democrats disposed of leader Thomas Mulcair after he took them so close to power that they could taste it?

Perhaps the Tories could learn something from the NDP’s misplaced haste.

Notwithstanding the personal popularity of Jagmeet Singh, the party sputtered to a near-draw in an election that saw their party pick up a single seat.

The same stall could be said of the Liberals, as the party in power only gained three seats and decreased in popular vote.

But the government in power has significant more leadership leverage than the opposition parties.

If you analyse on performance alone, the parties that should be looking for new leaders are actually the New Democrats and the Greens.

Singh focused much of his campaign strategy on building a reputation as a nice guy. But it is sometimes said that nice guys finish last. And you certainly cannot view the NDP result as a victory.

The Liberals ran first in British Columbia, lapping the NDP even though the provincial New Democrat government threw its weight behind Singh.

The Liberals’ top standing in British Columbia is partly due to Justin Trudeau’s personal and professional roots in the province. Being able to grow in successive elections may allow the Grits to plant deeper roots that outlive a single leader.

In O’Toole’s case, he did increase his popular vote and made some inroads into Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and Ontario.

But his party’s penchant to appeal to the extreme right, cost him seats in vote-rich suburban centres that blocked his path to power, including the GTA and Metro Vancouver.

It must be said that O’Toole’s campaign got surprise liftoff, and even had him in the running to become prime minister until the midway point.

O’Toole tried to move his party to the centre, but he will now be punished for that by the same people who trashed Peter MacKay for his caustic “stinking albatross” reference to social conservatives.

Social conservatives are now after O’Toole’s neck and will probably succeed in getting him dumped.

But in the end, they will not be any closer to victory by throwing their support behind another right-wing leader.

Leslynn Lewis must be chomping at the bit. She won a seat in Haldimand-Norfolk and as a racialized party star, has huge support from those in her party who support conversion therapy and oppose women’s right to reproductive choice.

So if the Tories are successful in ridding themselves of their leader, they may find themselves in the same rebuilding phase that has left the NDP struggling for two successive elections.

Meanwhile, a future Liberal leadership race will unfold more quietly.

Obviously, no one wants to be viewed as launching a campaign to dump the leader even if they already hope to replace him.

This ugly situation faced the Liberals when Paul Martin launched an internal effort to force prime minister Jean Chrétien out of office.

The caucus was badly split, and the internecine fight eventually cost the Liberals an election.

The front-runner in any future leadership certainly appears to be outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.

She was travelling extensively during the campaign and that work also grows the political Rolodex so crucial in a party leadership race.

François-Phillipe Champagne is one of the potential contenders as he is quietly going about his work.

With strong ministers like Anita Anand in the mix, Trudeau’s succession should be a very interesting race.

However, as a three-time election winner, Trudeau is joining an elite group of prime ministers.

He will be given the chance to chart his own course. With a progressive agenda of child care, housing and mandatory vaccinations, Trudeau already has the support of two parties to proceed with a groundbreaking agenda.

That work will give him a chance to solidify his own legacy, in which case he may choose to leave on a high.

On the other hand, he may follow in the footsteps of the former Ontario premier, the very popular Bill Davis.

Steve Paikin of TVO reminded us of all in a column this week that, like Trudeau, Davis started off as a young leader with a majority. But his popularity ebbed in two minority elections.

Davis worked on consensus-building and came roaring back to a majority.

The Trudeau team likely hopes that Davis magic can work for them.

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.

There are leading Liberals who can speak on issues like health, childcare, and the environment. Justin Trudeau’s personal unpopularity has become an anchor for the party.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 2, 2021.

If Justin Trudeau wants to get re-elected, he needs to get out of the way.

That may sound counterintuitive, but the Liberal leader is actually dragging his party down.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole needs to get as much airtime as he can muster, because people do not know him. The election period is a time to introduce him to the general public. Jagmeet Singh is already known to the public, but since no one expects him to form government, he is not a political target, so his smiling face keeps people relaxed and listening.

In Trudeau’s case, he is known, and that comes with its own challenges. Those who like him are going to cut him some slack, but that group is getting smaller.

Men have never really been the most avid supporters of the prime minister. His feminism and obvious support for women and minorities rubs some the wrong way.

Back in 2012, Trudeau was able to prove his pugilistic nature by taking on a senator in a boxing challenge, where he surprised everyone by delivering the knockout punch. The next year he won the race to lead the Liberal Party, and in 2015, the federal election.

In 2021, most people have an opinion about Trudeau, and some of it is not all that positive.

A friend of mine confessed recently that she was going to abandon the Liberals for the first time in her voting life. Her explanation? She has taken a visceral dislike to Trudeau, and is sick to death of hearing him apologize for things that happened in the past.

She likes the Liberal platform, but the person fronting it simply turns her off. She is an older woman, exactly the kind of voter that Trudeau needs to attract if he is going to swing support back to the Liberals in the home stretch of the campaign.

To turn those voters around, Trudeau needs to keep his face off the air, and focus on the team and the programs that Liberals are offering to Canadians.

Women tend to be more supportive of environmental and health investments than their male counterparts. So, the Liberal platform contrasts nicely with that of O’Toole, who strangely dropped the requirement for green investments in his infrastructure announcement last week.

O’Toole is backpedaling on carbon targets, aligning his commitment to the puny promises of Stephen Harper. He is also vowing to reverse court-ordered pipeline cancellations.

His position on universality of health access is also under fire because O’Toole continually says he also supports choice for Canadians. Choice is usually code for allowing wealthy Canadians to choose a shorter line by paying extra.

There is plenty of fodder for Liberals to counter Tory program plans, but the attack should not be carried out by the leader. There are respected spokespersons on multiple files.

The environment is a specialty of Quebecer Steven Guilbeault and current environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson. Child and health care issues could both be addressed by multiple women in the cabinet, including finance minister and deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland.

On childcare, the Liberals are also on the right side of the issue as far as most Canadian women are concerned. It has been widely reported that the brunt of the childcare burden created by home schooling during the pandemic has fallen on women. They are the ones who understand that a proper, licensed childcare system overseen by government is worth a lot more to them than the cash-in-hand contribution being promised by the Conservatives.

An extra cheque every month means little compared to the palpable relief of having your child in a well-managed care facility when you are not able to be with them. In childcare, health and the environment, the Liberals have a great story to tell.

By promoting the Liberal platform via the use of his team, Trudeau can remind Canadians that his party is best positioned to carry the country through these trying times. With the spotlight on himself, Trudeau runs the risk of reinforcing the negative views of people like my friend. His sunny personality handed the Liberals a majority in 2015, but two terms in government can take a toll on any leader.

Most people don’t reward parties for the good things they have done in the past. They vote for the party they want in the future. And the reality is that opposition parties do not defeat governments. Governments defeat themselves.

After six years, the number of enemies is on the rise. The leader becomes the lightning rod for that criticism. But Liberal ideas could carry the day.

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

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.

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 23, 2021.

Many punches were thrown in the first week of the campaign. Few landed.

From vaccines to abortions, the two main leaders sparred on the wedge issues that could shape the campaign. But the one issue that could be decisive got no attention whatsoever.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole unveiled his party’s slick promotional magazine touting various aspects of the platform. Most commentary focused on his buff body and how great he looked in a black t-shirt. The magazine was obviously intended to appeal to the millennial crowd, a voter cohort that has traditionally shied away from the Conservatives. But he will have a tough time beating the TikTok king Jagmeet Singh, who was recognized on the streets of Vancouver not as a political leader but as “that TikTok guy”. Liberals are perusing the Tory document for ammunition they might use to widen the wedge between themselves and their main opponent.

Outgoing Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef was quick to point out a line in the platform promising to enshrine “conscience rights” for medical professionals in legislation. In and of itself, this might not be problematic, but O’Toole stated in July that he would not intervene if provinces defunded abortions in their health care planning.

“How provinces run their health care system is not what the federal government should be interfering with,” he told reporters during a whistle-stop in Fredericton, where the provincial government refuses to fund abortions performed outside the hospital setting.

The controversy swirls around a clinic that offers reproductive and general services to the LGTBQ community called Clinic 554. The federal Liberals have been withholding health transfers to the province because of their refusal to fund it, and the fact that there are no hospitals providing abortions in Fredericton.

O’Toole went to great lengths last week to convince Quebecers that he was pro-choice. But the fact that the majority of his caucus voted in the last Parliament to limit abortions does cast doubt on his affirmations.

Voteprolife has shut down public access to its website, which tracks abortion views of all candidates in the upcoming election. However, there is no doubt that over the course of the campaign, the views of all candidates will become public, and O’Toole’s solemn personal views will likely clash with his caucus majority.

In the last election, abortion became enough of a wedge to move some doubtful women voters over to the Liberals. I don’t think that is the issue to do so this time. Instead, the positions of the two main parties on childcare will cost the Tories dearly in terms of their capacity to attract support from the swathe of Greater Toronto Area so-called soccer moms so crucial to victory.

The value proposition for parents is clear: do you want money, or do you want safe childcare?

But parents with young children know that money is only part of the problem. The other issue is access to excellent licensed childcare spots. And a $10 dollar a day government-approved childcare establishment gives parents a lot more reassurance than a year-end refundable tax credit.

O’Toole won’t be able to attack the Liberal plan as profligate, since his approach costs approximately the same amount of money. In addition, he will have to tear up agreements with multiple Conservative provinces that have already signed onto the plan. But the biggest blunder is what could happen to his electoral chances in Quebec. La belle province has been living with subsidized childcare since it was introduced for $5 dollars a day by the Parti Quebecois government in 1997. With almost a quarter-century of experience, Quebecers are not about to give up a social program that they believe contributes to positive family and community life. And the government of Quebec has already signed an agreement to top up provincial spending with a lucrative cash transfer from the federal government. The childcare program is supported by the Bloc Quebecois as well, and they will be pounding hard at the Tories on this issue.

With several provincial governments already lining up to introduce more licensed childcare spaces to complement the federal plan, O’Toole’s promise to tear up those deals is not going to win him any support.

Instead, it will turn women off, the very voters he needs if he is to form the government.

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

The election will likely be decided on the strength of who can best manage the post-pandemic economic and social recovery.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on August 9, 2021.

OTTAWA—Happy people vote governments back in.

It is not surprising that at the close of the Olympics, the Canadian government will soon pull the plug on the current minority government.

Some ministerial employees were issued layoff notices last week, standard operating procedure for governments just before an election.

On the Olympic scene, Canadians keep piling up good news stories.

From Andre De Grasse to Damian Warner, from the swimming pool to the soccer pitch, Canada could do no wrong.

And Canadians back home, from family members to Olympiophiles, were riveted to the two-week Olympic run coverage.

Retiring cabinet minister Catherine McKenna, a competitive swimmer herself, sent out a tweet at the beginning of the Games telling her followers that her feed would be sport-dominated for the Olympic period.

She also had something very special to say about the magic of sport, attributing her success in life to the lessons she learned on the water.

On the opening day of the Games, McKenna had a message about the linkage between sport and politics. “I never dreamed of being a politician when I was a kid. I dreamed of being an Olympian. But even though I didn’t make it, all the training paid off for politics.”

McKenna went on to tweet: “I learned more lessons for politics from my time in competitive swimming than anywhere else. Have a clear goal & work hard every day to achieve it, ignore the noise, get back up when you fall, it’s all about the team. And have fun!”

As Canada comes to the close of one of its best Olympics ever, even those who don’t watch the Games are beaming with pride because of the athletes’ performances.

That puts everyone in a good mood. With the country looking at the back end of the pandemic, the Liberals could choose no better moment to call an election.

Even though there were some bumps on the road to recovery, Canada’s current world standing in pandemic management is extremely high.

On the vaccination track Canada is leading the globe, and thus far, has managed to mitigate the spread of variant viruses.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who received plenty of criticism for the slow rollout of the vaccine, will definitely benefit from the high percentage of vaccinated Canadians.

We compare particularly well with the United States. The anti-vaxxers there seem to line up by political party, with the majority of vaccine opponents in the Republican Party. In Canada, even the most die-hard Conservatives understand the value of stopping the spread of COVID via vaccinations.

With the virus under control, and the Olympics winding to a close, the time is ripe for Canadians to go the polls.

Of course, the opposition parties are going to decry the decision, but once the election is called, no one will pay much attention to the whys and the wherefores.

Instead, the election will likely be decided on the strength of who can best manage the post-pandemic economic and social recovery.

With children finally back in the classrooms and university students back on campus, the general mood this autumn will be positive.

An almost giddy euphoria has already set in as Canadians are finally able to enjoy most aspects of life without fear of viral death.

Politics may not be top of mind for most of us, but the writ period of 37 days will be short and sweet.

That doesn’t mean the election will be a slam dunk for the Liberals. If the last election is a guide, anything can happen.

Who knows whether there is another “blackface scandal” lurking in the prime minister’s closet?

But the pre-election summer tour did not go great for the Conservatives. Erin O’Toole seemed to spend more time courting Calgarians than worrying about his status in the eastern parts of the country.

If he is working on solidifying existing support, that does not bode well for O’Toole’s capacity to beat the government. An election win depends on making inroads in Ontario and Quebec, not piling up huge majorities in the only province where the Tories are guaranteed a majority.

As for the New Democrats, they may well benefit from the implosion of the Green Party and with a targeted vote, they could increase their representation in the House of Commons.

But even though their leader has attracted his own TikTok following, Jagmeet Singh will likely not have the same newcomer appeal that he enjoyed in the last election.

A solid campaign could deliver a Liberal majority.

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