Canadian Politics in 2013

More headaches for Harper, Trudeaumania 2.0 on horizon for new year Derek Abma, Global News : Friday, December 28, 2012 4:18 PM


The stage is set for what should be an interesting year in Canadian politics. The federal Liberals are scheduled to choose a new leader in the spring, with most indications showing Justin Trudeau – son of the late iconic Liberal prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau – likely to get the gig. Surveys have also shown Trudeau’s leadership would put the Liberals back in contention for forming the next government in 2015 after years in the political wilderness.



It remains to be seen whether some of the big political stories to emerge in the latter part of 2012 will continue to have an impact in 2013. For example, as 2012 drew to a close, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper was defending its previous commitment to purchase a fleet of F-35 fighter jets while, at the same time, saying it was reassessing its options in the wake of a new report that showed the cost of such military equipment – at about $45 billion over 42 years – would go far beyond anything that was previously stated.



Liberals and Trudeau

Darrell Bricker, CEO of polling firm Ipsos’ public affairs division, highlights the Liberal leadership race as something to watch for in 2013. “Putting a new leader in place and giving the Grits an opportunity to get back in the game will be probably one of the biggest things that’s going to happen,” he said, “simply because of the person (Trudeau) who’s likely to win. And it will be all eyes on that probably for at least early in the new year through to the actual convention (in April).”



Native issues


Bricker also said there is potential for the Idle No More movement of First Nations protests to become a major political story in 2013 if it becomes confrontational as past native protests have in Oka, Que., and Caledonia, Ont. That, combined with other protest movements, the Liberal leadership decision or anything that’s generally about opposing the Harper government could set the political tone for 2013, Bricker said.
“If you ask me what the biggest story is going to be of the year it’s how the opposition to the Conservative government sorts itself out,” Bricker said, noting that further stinginess in next federal budget in an effort to eliminate the deficit is sure to raise the ire of some.



F-35s
Bricker downplayed the prominence the F-35 issue will have in 2013 because “nobody’s really that interested in it.” “Nobody really knows what the right answer is; different people agreeing and disagreeing with different parts of it, the military having one point of view,” he said. “It’s a complicated issue and, as a result, people just kind of tune out.”



He said the F-35 issue is certainly not for the Tories what the sponsorship scandal was for the Liberals, in which more than $100 million that was supposed to raise the federal government’s profile in Quebec was found to go to companies that did little work for it. “The sponsorship scandal was one that was pretty easy to understand. Guys getting wads of money in envelopes in Italian restaurants – I understand that,” Bricker said. Don Boudria, a former Liberal cabinet minister in Jean Chretien’s government who’s currently a lobbyist for Hill & Knowlton Strategies in Ottawa, also predicted native issues will emerge as a major issue in 2013 as more attention is garnered by the Idle No More protests and hunger strike by Theresa Spence, an Ontario First Nations chief who is demanding a meeting that involves Harper, other high-ranking officials and native leaders to discuss treaty rights. “(Harper is) going to start to the year with a black eye on aboriginal issues,” Boudria said.

Strengthening Tory brand

Bruce Hicks, a political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, said Canadians can expect the Harper government to continue looking for ways to sell its Conservative vision of the country to voters in order to strengthen its grip on power. Promotion of the monarchy and its unconditional support for Israel are some previous examples of this, he said.

“The Conservative party is really a marketing creation of taking what is the Conservative-Canadian Alliance-Reform agenda and making it more it more marketable to the average Canadian,” Hicks said. But he added that the longer any government stays in power – the current one is approaching seven years – the more likely it is to face a scandal from which it cannot recover. Such was seen with the previous Liberal dynasty under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin with the sponsorship scandal, and more recently with the Quebec Liberals under Jean Charest with his government’s perceived lack of diligence against corruption in public construction activity.



“The longer a government is in, there will be somebody that has been doing something wrong, and that’s going to come out,” Hicks said. “Some people misbehave. That’s just human nature.” Hicks said the F-35 scandal had the potential to become that big issue that sank the Tories, but he added they’ve already probably taken as much political damage as they’re going to on this file. “They are handling it now the way it should be handled, which is to say, ‘We’re not entirely committed to it, we’re rethinking it,’ and therefore planting the seeds of a policy shift.” Hicks agreed that the Liberals’ leadership convention in April is bound to be one of the major political events of 2013 because of its potential to decide the next prime minister.



“Could somebody emerge on the opposition that grabs people’s attention and catapults an opposition party into government?” he said. “I guess that’s what the Liberals are hoping will happen with someone like Justin Trudeau, or I guess a faction of them hope that will happen with Marc Garneau. And, of course, the NDP are hoping that’s going to happen with Thomas Mulcair.”

Harper's popularity at risk?

Boudria said 2013 could be the year in which Harper’s popularity takes a major hit.

“The NDP has a new leader. The Liberals will have a new leader,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Conservatives have a leader who’s been there for a decade, or close. At some point, the welcome mat, to the extent that it’s still there for the prime minister, is going to disappear very quickly. . . . He’s going to be the only political party leader with, shall I say, battle scars.” As someone who was part of a Liberal government that had divided loyalties between Chretien and Martin, Boudria said once there’s a sense of declining public approval for the leader, a party gets dissent among its MPs.


“There develops a kind of free thinking in the backbench. . . . There’s going to be a view that, ‘Well, you know if I could have my own independent opinion on such and such a topic, I would be more popular than my party, the prime minister or both.”