The folly around the confidence vote the Liberals survived in the House of Commons on Wednesday has never been more disconnected from the stress being endured by citizens, whose movement and ambitions have been constrained by the pandemic.
A candidate who proposed to bar from public office anyone who expressed a desire to be a politician would be elected in a landslide – at least until he or she was honest about their own ambitions. The political class has been dragged into disrepute by theatrics that put electoral ambition ahead of the health and well-being of Canadians.
The vote in the House to reject a Conservative motion to establish an anti-corruption committee has averted the prospect of snap fall election – for now. MPs voted 180 to 146 against the motion, with the government supported by the NDP, Greens and independent MPs.
But no-one emerged from this mess with much credit.
What did we learn?
1: The House of Commons remains divided against itself. It cannot stand for much longer. The prime minister is set on an election – that much is apparent from the admission by NDP leader Jagmeet Singh that the Liberals didn’t even try to negotiate a solution, as they did on the COVID-response act last month. The explanation is contained in the opinion polls – the latest Nanos Research survey had the Liberals at 39 per cent support, the Conservatives at 33 per cent and the NDP at just 13 per cent. The New Democrats are propping up a government that no longer wants to be propped up, and the party is in danger of losing its sense of self. The NDP MPs who voted with the government did so with mutinous looks on their faces. Singh would be advised to start planning to part ways with the Liberals over something substantive like the fiscal update expected late next month. If he did, he could portray the Liberal response as wanting and reclaim his party’s fading identity.
2: Erin O’Toole was nearly hoist with his own petard. Only Singh’s vacillation saved the Conservatives from an election they would almost certainly have lost. At least until he is better known by Canadians, the new leader has to harass, heckle and hound the prime minister without provoking him to visit the Governor General. The opinion polls suggest the Liberals will remain invulnerable during the pandemic. There will be no glory for O’Toole if he charges the guns in the valley of electoral death and becomes the shortest-lived leader in Conservative history.
3: Cracks emerged between the Prime Minister’s Office, staffed by people charged with getting Trudeau re-elected, and the Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, whose principal concern is keeping the economy afloat. She tweeted on Wednesday that legislation to implement the new wage subsidy, rent subsidy, and other business supports, would only be brought forward if the Conservative motion was defeated. “Businesses and workers are counting on this support but none of these programs can be delivered without legislation,” she wrote. That sounded more like an argument against making a vote on an opposition day motion a matter of confidence than one endorsing Trudeau’s line that the new committee would paralyze the government. Freeland is said to be using public concern about runaway spending as a means of dampening expectations within her own party, ahead of the fall fiscal update. She may be growing as exasperated with the prime minister and his unelected cabal as was her predecessor as finance minister.
4: Trudeau appears to have forgotten that a year ago to the day, voters told him they wanted things to be less about him and more about them. Yet, he nearly dragged the country into an unnecessary election, either because he wanted to avoid personal embarrassment in the WE affair, or because he saw the prospect for personal electoral gain. Neither explanation reflects well on a prime minister who is becoming ever more presidential in his disposition.
5: The premise for the election was always ridiculous. The Conservatives fashioned a motion to look into government “corruption” and the Liberals interpreted this as a loss of confidence in the government’s capacity to manage the nation’s business. But when has an opposition day motion not questioned a government’s competence and virtue? This close shave will at least have concentrated minds on an election that, like winter, is coming.
It would have been nice to receive assurances from the prime minister that he discussed the prospect of an election with the chief medical officer, Dr. Theresa Tam. Trudeau ignored the question when he was asked by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner.
At least some advanced planning has been undertaken.
Elections Canada wants polling to take place over a weekend, rather than a Monday, and is ordering single use pencils and pre-paid postage for more mail-in ballots.
Campaign teams will be fine-tuning leaders’ tours that under current restrictions can’t visit four provinces. Media, already under severe budget constraints and used to working remotely, may take a pass on tagging along. It promises to be a very different campaign than any we have seen before. Fortunately for all concerned, the 44th Canadian general election will have to wait a little longer.
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