Early election unlikely to generate excitement By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Aug. 16, 2021

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s early election call catches the opposition Conservative Party with its polls down. That is the most obvious reason why Canadians will elect a new Parliament Sept. 20.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/08/2021 (1131 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has had a year to unite his party around an appealing program. During the year since he took over from Andrew Scheer, Mr. O’Toole has watched his party’s voting intention rating in the opinion surveys slip gently to about 29 per cent now, from about 31 per cent when he took the reins.

His prospects for pulling the party together in the next five weeks are dim. The large and vociferous Alberta and Saskatchewan elements of the party want to keep building up the oil industry despite increasing evidence that the whole world must sharply curtail fossil fuel use to keep this planet habitable.

Mr. Trudeau’s questions about abortion and same-sex marriage made Andrew Scheer look foolish and evasive in the election campaign two years ago. Mr. O’Toole may be vulnerable on the same front this time around because the party is still divided on these questions.

The challenge of an election campaign can sometimes pull a party together and enforce discipline on a quarrelsome band. Mr. O’Toole’s chances of achieving in the next five weeks what he could not achieve in the last 52 weeks are nevertheless slender.

Mr. Trudeau’s chances of increasing his 155-member caucus to the 171 he needs for a majority of the House of Commons are also slim-to-dim. His party enjoys the voting intentions of about 36 per cent of the public, which is probably enough to keep him in office but not enough to ensure a majority.

In these conditions, the election may easily produce a Parliament much like the one Canadians elected two years ago, but with a weaker Conservative Party, a stronger New Democratic Party and a Liberal government still bargaining for support among the other parties.

Mr. Trudeau has been avoiding many hard decisions because of his minority position and the need to prepare for an early election and avoid disappointing the voters. Another minority government may mean another two years of heavy borrowing and spending, of kicking the tough choices down the road.

Hard decisions will be needed. Canadian industry will need forceful inducement, perhaps by way of a rapidly rising carbon tax, to quit pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Provincial governments will need rapid increases in federal support to improve health services that have showed widespread failure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lenders will not forever continue buying the bonds of a government that shows no sign of bringing its debts back within normal limits. But a minority government cannot easily break the news that the party’s over and the spending taps are being turned off.

The early election allows Mr. Trudeau to appeal to the people before those difficult decisions become unavoidable. The election could be an occasion for levelling with Canadians about the steep road ahead and warning of the blood, sweat and tears that must be shed.

At the moment, however, it is not shaping up as that kind of election. It seems more like a fresh opportunity for the Liberals to humiliate another Conservative leader and keep the conservative movement weak and divided. By any measure, that’s a small ambition, unlikely to thrill the nation or excite the voters.