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.

Instead of trying to go it alone, provinces are stronger when they work together.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 27, 2020.

OTTAWA—The death of separatism is an unintended outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the first time in my memory, provincial governments are looking to the federal government as more than just a cash machine.

They are actually working together, pooling resources and information in an effort to fight the spread of a pandemic that knows no borders.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has been positively glowing in his exhortations for partners across the country to work together.

While announcing the redistribution of excess Alberta personal protective equipment, the premier was effusively collegial.

It was a far cry from only a few short months ago, when Kenney was lauding the Wexit movement for shining a light on Alberta’s oil troubles.

Premiers across the country have been working together with the prime minister to solve the common problem of access to COVID-fighting information, protective equipment and health care human resource shortages.

Without a scintilla of criticism, the Quebec government called in the Canadian military to supplement the shortage of personnel in the province’s long-term care facilities.

Pre-pandemic, a similar move would have prompted a howl from those separatists who think Quebec’s strength lies in going it alone.

The pandemic also gives us a better picture of the shared benefits of acting as a strong team. Compare the infection and death rates in our country to those in the United States, and it is abundantly clear that a national, public health-care system is a better weapon against an anonymous virus than the hodgepodge of medical supports available south of the border.

At press time the American death rate was 40 times higher than Canada’s, with only ten times the population.

So, one lesson has been learned from our time together in collective self-isolation. Canada works better as a country when we all work together.

On the domestic level, we have an oversight of just what is working and what is not.

The death rate in Quebec is almost double that of Ontario and the gold standard bearer for COVID containment is the province of British Columbia.

With a population of more than five million people, the province has suffered fewer than 100 COVID-related deaths. Quebec’s population is almost 8.5 million, but their death rate is 11 times greater than that of B.C.

Pandemic post-mortems will undoubtedly delve deeply into the reasons for the mortality discrepancies among different provinces.

Some of the provincial differences are self-evident.

The first, and probably most significant, was the difference in the date of spring break between Quebec and British Columbia.

Quebec’s break was in early March, at a time when the ferocity of the virus was not yet fully understood by politicians.

Self-distancing had not yet started, and Quebecers brought the virus back home with a vengeance.

In the case of British Columbia, it was the latest school recess in the country, and by the time break-week arrived, the province had already clamped down on travel, effectively limiting the viral path.

Provinces also have different regimes managing their long-term care facilities.

British Columbia did not allow personal service workers to operate in more than one nursing home.

That regulation is cited as one of the reasons that the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Ontario and Quebec homes was not replicated in British Columbia.

During the pandemic, Ontario and Quebec have modified their regulations, but the issue of health workers’ pay has not been addressed in kind.

Most health care aides would love to work in one facility only. But the companies that manage many of these facilities for government focus on hiring part-time workers to keep their costs down.

Discussion is ensuing about topping up the pay in these low-wage high-risk health environments, but that is only part of the problem.

The other part is the lack of government oversight into what is actually happening in nursing homes.

Quebec Premier François Legault is promising a fulsome investigation into the deplorable situation in some of the homes in his province. His effective communication skills managed to build public confidence early in the crisis, but the widespread number of deaths in long-term care homes has been eroding his credibility.

Ontario cut the number of inspections in its homes to only nine of 626 homes last year, with the lack of oversight partly responsible for inspection spread. Three years ago, all facilities were inspected annually.

The post-mortem will spawn serious changes to disparate long-term care regimes.

Instead of trying to go it alone, provinces are stronger when they work together.

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

And her success or failure could determine the fate of this minority government.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on November 25, 2019.

OTTAWA—Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland may have just bitten off more than she can chew.

And her success or failure could determine the fate of this minority government.

The diminutive outgoing foreign minister has broad shoulders and proved that she could do the heavy lifting on tricky files like negotiating a free trade agreement with recalcitrant American President Donald Trump.

That foreign affairs success has paved the way for her accession to the role of federal fixer for interprovincial relationships. The theory is that if her persuasive skills were able to bring the Americans on board, the leap to interprovincial relations is not too great.

Kudos being sent Freeland’s way last week avoided the thorny question of Canada’s deteriorating relationship with China under her watch.

And the dynamics of managing foreign and domestic policy challenges are quite different. In Foreign Affairs, Freeland was supported by a cadre of trade experts, who paved the way to a successful agreement. And on the international stage, every provincial government joins the federal government in lobbying together for Canadian success.

On the provincial scene, that level of cooperation is non-existent. Regional and internecine warfare are brutal, and, unlike international negotiations, disagreements usually occur in public.

Disparate economic demands in varying parts of the country often set the stage for a win-lose outcome. When Canada signs an international trade agreement, everyone celebrates. But when the federal government invests in economic development in one part of our country, it is often perceived to be at the expense of another.

Likewise, the role of deputy prime minister can come with its own set of problems. When I was named Canada’s first female deputy prime minister back in 1993, I also chaired one of the two operational committees of cabinet and sat on the other one.

I had 31 hours of scheduled meetings in Ottawa every week before attending a single meeting with stakeholders in the environmental portfolio that I carried concurrently.

And working in the environment made me a target of oil patch abuse. Like Catherine McKenna, I was subject to threats and insults simply for doing my job. Thankfully, I did not have to face the cyber bullies who targeted McKenna.

Multiple media commentators claimed Prime Minister Trudeau had no choice but to remove McKenna, who had become a lightning rod for provincial premiers fighting climate change.

The bilateral cabinet move of McKenna, and the decision not to replace her with Quebec environmental superstar Steven Guilbeault are attempts to keep Alberta and Saskatchewan onside in an effort of national reconciliation.

But Alberta and Saskatchewan have made it clear that their political objective is to overturn Canada’s commitment to put a price on pollution. The possibility that Alberta and Saskatchewan will come on board with a national move to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions is slim to none. Meanwhile, Liberals run the risk of alienating other opposition parties and provincial governments by adhering to Prairie oil-producer demands. Meanwhile, Freeland is supposed to deliver this peace, in concert with colleague and Prairie interlocutor Jim Carr, and Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan. But the expectations facing Freeland and her available levers of pressures may not be as robust as those available in foreign negotiations.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who threatened the separation movement in his province would escalate if Trudeau was re-elected, is not about to exercise the same level of diplomacy as an American negotiator.

Kenney’s long-term goal will likely be to replace Andrew Scheer as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, so he has little reason to want to cooperate with the Liberals. His objective is to defeat them. He also has such deep and strong support in the province that bullying or decrying Ottawa will likely burnish his political reputation at home.

Just last week, he fired the agency investigating his own party for political malfeasance and yet most Albertans appear unmoved by opposition calls to reverse that decision. Former premier Rachel Notley has been kicked out of the legislature and won’t be let back in until she apologizes. Kenney thinks he can weather the political fallout, because of his personal popularity and the predominance of his party in the province. ­He will be playing hardball politics.

By making Freeland the new bogey-woman, Kenney would be helping to solidify his narrative of Alberta as victim.

The deputy prime minister faces a bigger challenge in this domestic assignment than anything Donald Trump could deliver. Mission accomplished on the foreign scene would be a lot simpler.

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