There’s no question that last week was an objectively terrible one for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party that he continues to lead — for now.
Eight days ago, the Liberals suffered a humiliating defeat to the Conservatives in the riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s — a riding the Liberals held for more than 30 years and had won by margins of more than 20 percentage points (over 30 percentage points in 2019, in fact) in the previous three general elections.
So it’s easy enough to understand why Alberta’s UCP would want to tie a Trudeau anvil to the ankle of their new chief opponent. In doing so, though, they’re exposing a vulnerability of their own.
Trudeau’s unpopularity is a potent political weapon for the UCP, as the past two elections have demonstrated, and is arguably as potent as it’s ever been. The problem is that the same factors making it such a powerful political weapon are the same factors that are about to cause it to disintegrate.
It’s unclear whether Trudeau can even make it through the summer, let alone the next three years. It’s going to be a tough sell to Albertans in 2027 that they need to be protected from something (i.e., a government led by Trudeau) that no longer exists.
It’s certainly logical that, politically, the leader of the main federal progressive party would have more in common with Alberta’s main progressive party. But that would hold true regardless of who won the Alberta NDP leadership. It’s not a particularly original line of attack, and it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest Nenshi has any direct partisan ties to the Liberals.
Furthermore, it’s not as though the former Calgary mayor doesn’t bring enough of his own political baggage to his new job.
That the UCP chose once again to play the Trudeau card shows just how much this fixation is ingrained in the party’s politics and just how unprepared it is for a post-Trudeau political landscape. That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate concerns with Ottawa’s agenda or that Alberta doesn’t need to push back on various policies.
But the fight-back-against-Trudeau strategy has become so all-consuming for this UCP government that there’s not much else to sell to Albertans at the moment. It’s a political dependency.
If somehow Trudeau is still prime minister in 2027, then the UCP will be well-positioned to reap the political benefits. But who in their right mind thinks that will be the case?
Trudeau’s exit or defeat doesn’t automatically clear the way for an Alberta NDP victory in three years. There are still vulnerabilities for the NDP on issues such as taxation, as we saw in the last election, and Nenshi’s record could prove to be a problem (although if the UCP haven’t kept the tax cut promise and otherwise left personal income taxes as they inherited them from the NDP, it won’t have as much credibility as a conservative party should on this issue).
The NDP will also have to sort out its carbon tax policy — if the Liberals lose, the federal carbon tax is likely gone, too. How would Alberta’s NDP approach the issue?
It’s also clear, though, that the UCP isn’t quite ready to let him go.
“Afternoons with Rob Breakenridge” airs weekdays from 12:30 to 3 p.m. on QR Calgary Radio
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