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.

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.