[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

News conference scheduled in about 45 minutes in which Trudeau is expected to step down but stay on as PM until new leader is selected.

[crazy canuck]

The Hill times is reporting Trudeau has requested the GG prorogue Parliament until March.

[Grey Fox]

So our election could be in mid-May.

Prorogue after opening parliement January 27 after a week or 2 of procedural delay. Wait 40 days and then elections in 55 to 60 days.

[Barrister]

[crazy canuck]

Prorogued until March 24. The NDP will not necessarily support a non confidence vote at that time.

[Barrister]

I was in a hurry, so that was my ultra-quick response to the news.

So first of all - good news, everyone!  Justin Trudeau is going (eventually)!  While I hope neither is elected, I would feel somewhat better having Canada in the hands of a Mark Carney or Chrystia Freeland.

Prorogation until March 24.  Worth noting that's even longer than Harper's prorogation (Dec 4 to Jan 26) - and that a chunk of Harper's period has the Christmas break anyways.  I'm not really complaining - but I am curious if any of the talking heads from 2008-2009 who declared Harper's actions to be anti-democratic will similarly decry Trudeau's actions.

Of course this then puts the entire mess back in feckless Jagmeet Singh's hands.  He cancels the NDP-Liberal agreement, but then votes with the Liberals anyways.  Then he finally says he has no confidence - but what will he say in March?

Finally - this brings us back to the issue of an incoming Trump administration.  I posted an article last week about Elizabeth May saying we shouldn't be going into an election campaign with the threat of Trump tariff's over Canada's head.

So on the one hand she has a point.  What would Canada do if Trump slaps us with 25% tariffs and we're in the midst of an election campaign?

But she ignores the other side.  If we don't have an election, that means Trump is negotiating with a lame-duck Trudeau government, seemingly with only months left to live.  Trump can read the polls as well as anybody else.  How does that put us in a better position?

I really never cease to be unimpressed by Elizabeth May's political acumen.

It seems to me though that now the situation is even worse.  Trudeau's government is even more lame-duck now, with both A: it being an open question whether the Liberals even have the confidence of the House and B: Trudeau being even more of a lame-duck now.

Of course there's no easy answer to that problem now.  It's Trudeau's fault for not resigning two months ago.


So I'm going to guess this is the sequence of events.  Liberal Party declares a full leadership contest (and not some quickie selection by caucus).  They'll expedite it somewhat, but probably won't have a leader until May or June.  They'll then put pressure on the NDP to support a spending bill in March by a combination of playing to the a "Prime Minister Poilievre" boogeyman, plus maybe some spending goodies.  House won't be prorogued again, but will hardly do any business.

New leader will then select a cabinet, present some kind of budget.  Either the new leader then declares an election, or the budget is defeated (it was never intended to be passed) leading to a late summer election.

[Neil]

Watched Polievre's response to the resignation, and I have to say that I don't especially like it (or him, to be honest).  By and large, it's a good response, but the communications strategy is skewed.  He's trying so hard to appear like a statesman with his measured tone and rate, but he just can't help throwing out 'Carbon Tax Carney', when an adult might have used 'Mr. Carney', 'Mark Carney' or even 'Carney'.  The alliteration in their formulas annoys me, and I also think that trying to frame the entire election as being about the carbon tax is a strange choice, when affordability is right there. 

[Barrister]

Watched Polievre's response to the resignation, and I have to say that I don't especially like it (or him, to be honest).  By and large, it's a good response, but the communications strategy is skewed.  He's trying so hard to appear like a statesman with his measured tone and rate, but he just can't help throwing out 'Carbon Tax Carney', when an adult might have used 'Mr. Carney', 'Mark Carney' or even 'Carney'.  The alliteration in their formulas annoys me, and I also think that trying to frame the entire election as being about the carbon tax is a strange choice, when affordability is right there. 

So I'm the lone voice in the wilderness as a Conservative partisan who thought a carbon tax was good public policy.   

"Axe the tax" is a winning issue for the Conservatives though.  I'm positive they've poll and focus-group tested it and it must score really well.

"Affordability" is 100% a valid issue - but it's hard to measure and much harder to fix.  A Prime Minister Poilievre can get rid of the carbon tax within weeks of coming to power.

[Zoupa]

Canadians will come to regret Trudeau, mainly because the alternatives will be terrible.

[Neil]

Watched Polievre's response to the resignation, and I have to say that I don't especially like it (or him, to be honest).  By and large, it's a good response, but the communications strategy is skewed.  He's trying so hard to appear like a statesman with his measured tone and rate, but he just can't help throwing out 'Carbon Tax Carney', when an adult might have used 'Mr. Carney', 'Mark Carney' or even 'Carney'.  The alliteration in their formulas annoys me, and I also think that trying to frame the entire election as being about the carbon tax is a strange choice, when affordability is right there. 

So I'm the lone voice in the wilderness as a Conservative partisan who thought a carbon tax was good public policy.   

"Axe the tax" is a winning issue for the Conservatives though.  I'm positive they've poll and focus-group tested it and it must score really well.

"Affordability" is 100% a valid issue - but it's hard to measure and much harder to fix.  A Prime Minister Poilievre can get rid of the carbon tax within weeks of coming to power.

I suppose they have indeed run it through as much polling and focus grouping as they can afford.  I just think it contributes to him sounding unprofessional.

[Barrister]

I suppose they have indeed run it through as much polling and focus grouping as they can afford.  I just think it contributes to him sounding unprofessional.

We're in the era of Trump (and Trudeau).

Voters aren't looking for "professional".

[crazy canuck]

Watched Polievre's response to the resignation, and I have to say that I don't especially like it (or him, to be honest).  By and large, it's a good response, but the communications strategy is skewed.  He's trying so hard to appear like a statesman with his measured tone and rate, but he just can't help throwing out 'Carbon Tax Carney', when an adult might have used 'Mr. Carney', 'Mark Carney' or even 'Carney'.  The alliteration in their formulas annoys me, and I also think that trying to frame the entire election as being about the carbon tax is a strange choice, when affordability is right there. 

The background music they choose was off putting.  I am used to PP using Trump's tactics of labelling his political opponents with nicknames. 

Now that Trudeau is gone or going, the conservatives have to desperately cling to the hope that they can tar any future leader as being the same as Trudeau. 

It will be interesting to see how the polls shift when the very unpopular Trudeau leaves.  PP is himself in negative approval territory.

[Barrister]

It's certainly not unheard of for a new leader to turn the fortunes of an unpopular leader around - it just isn't always the most likely.

I'm trying to think of examples:

Federally there's not much hope.  John Turner was slaughtered after replacing Pierre Trudeau.  In turn, Kim Campbell's PC Party was all-but wiped out after replacing Mulroney.  Jean Chretien was relatively popular when Paul Martin took over, so not at all analogous.  Harper ran and lost, rather than resign at the last minute.

There's more hope provincially though.  Christy Clark managed to save an unpopular Liberal government after taking over from Gordon Campbell, but in that same province Rita Johnston couldn't save the unpopular BC SoCred government.

In Alberta you can argue that Allison Redford saved the PC government after the unpopular Ed Stelmach, but it was unusual since the main opposition was also from the right.

No examples I can think of from Saskatchewan.

In Manitoba you had the recent example of Heather Stefanson, who succeeded Brian Pallister but went down to defeat.

In Ontario Kathleen Wynne succeeded an unpopular Dalton McGuinty and was able to win another election, but Ernie Eves couldn't do the same for Mike Harris.

In Quebec... I don't think Bouchard was that unpopular when he left, so that means Bernard Landry doesn't count.  Daniel Johnson was unable to save the provincial Liberals.


Are there lessons we can learn?  The new leaders that succeeded all had a fair bit of time to operate.  Clark and Wynne all had almost 2 years to work with (Redford had less).  It's also interesting how many are women.

But also interesting that even in the cases of Redford, Wynne and Clark - they may have won the next election, but their parties all went down to defeat in the next one.

[viper37]

List of bills tabled with prorogation of parliament.

In case of any interest.

[Sheilbh]

Prorogation until March 24.  Worth noting that's even longer than Harper's prorogation (Dec 4 to Jan 26) - and that a chunk of Harper's period has the Christmas break anyways.  I'm not really complaining - but I am curious if any of the talking heads from 2008-2009 who declared Harper's actions to be anti-democratic will similarly decry Trudeau's actions.

From outside I find it mad and anti-democratic. From here it looks like a party constitution taking priority over national parliamentary government. I don't quite get why Parliament needs to be suspended. Trudeau is remaining as PM until a new leader is elected, I don't see why Parliament needs to shut down for that.

Johnson's prorogation that caused a huge storm here and that the Supreme Court decided (unanimously) was unlawful was from mid-September to mid-October. FWIW I saw Lord Sumption (one of the Supreme Court judges on that case) talking about it and he did mention that Canada (and Western Australia) have traditions of "political prorogations" citing the Harper example but also said there'd been five "political prorogations" in Canada in the last century so I get that it is apparently normal in Canada - but I still think it's weird

Edit: Just looked up Australia and apparently it is specific to Western Australia - at a federal level Governor-Generals will normally reject these requests unless it's at the end of a parliament to dissolve it for an election. With that and the Gough Whitlam crisis in the 70s, it's really interesting how robust Govenor-Generals are in Australia in asserting their powers - feels quite distinctive - or am I wrong?

Voters aren't looking for "professional".

Yeah I think voters see "professionalism" in politics as a cover for hypocrisy, I think it's the appeal of the "authentic" politician - which is always just as much of a performance.

But I also think the performance of professionalism is an artifact of its times - in part I think the problem for the "professional" politicians is they're still in the long 1990s. So many of the mannerisms and gestures and way of doing communications is still basically the model from Clinton. It was in its own way a break from a previous idea of professionalism - ruthlessly repeated soundbites to get the message out on mass media, doing empathy, relatability of just being an ordinary guy playing sax on TV, the thumb pressed into the fist (because it's less aggressive than pointing).