Our PM would have been wise to follow the lead of his Irish counterpart, whose resignation seems to have buoyed his party’s prospects.
It seems absurdly clear to all but Justin Trudeau and his inner sanctum of advisers and strategists in the Prime Minister’s Office that the Liberal government is deep into borrowed time. Any extension of this government can be expected to come at loan-shark-level interest rates as a vibrant Bloc Québécois — buoyed by an unlikely byelection triumph on the island of Montreal — ekes out maximum concessions from a deeply unpopular and weak government in the coming weeks and months.
By all indications the Liberal goose is unquestionably cooked to an internal temperature of 165F as we approach Thanksgiving. The prospect of Trudeau continuing to reside over a miserably fractious and toxic parliament inspires little beyond fatigue in a Canada primed for a wave election.
The widespread assumption in Irish political circles is now that Harris will call an early election, likely in November, to capitalize on the dramatic shift in momentum that his energetic leadership has initiated. Thus, unlike Canada’s Liberals desperately clinging to power in the hope that underlying economic indicators improve, grinning painfully as they dutifully repeat the PMO’s line that all they need to do is “continue to deliver for Canadians,” Fine Gael is riding on politics’ greatest natural resource — momentum.
The PM’s few remaining admirers are running out of road in making the case that he is anything but the chief anchor dragging Canada’s erstwhile natural governing party to the bottom of the ocean. The slow and steady rollout of budget measures targeting key areas such as housing and affordability ahead of the formal tabling of finance legislation in mid-April formed the backbone of the PMO’s strategy to start clawing back support in increments of five per cent every six months. The policies themselves drew strong support in polling but it has become hard to deny that so long as the prime minister is the one communicating the message, otherwise popular policies continue to fall on deaf ears.
The Liberals have clawed themselves out of shallow electoral graves in the past, but the apparent acme of delusion on show from Trudeau amid a country poised to commit a political exorcism suggests that every additional day where he stays on will make the already gargantuan task of rebuilding the party following a Conservative landslide even harder.
Dónal Gill is assistant professor of Canadian politics at Concordia University.