There's been lots of speculation about a fall election. Susan Delacourt states definitely that there will be no election:
Trudeau surely hasn’t missed the fact that New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs turned his minority government into a majority in this week’s provincial election — something that Trudeau would certainly like to do, too.
But if “figuring it out” goes anything like the constantly evolving calculations on reopening Parliament next week, the process would be long, complicated and uncertain. Pandemics tend to take the snap out of a snap election, or even the much less complicated choreography of a throne speech.
And, recently, things have gotten even more complicated:
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet have each been hit in the past few days with positive COVID-19 tests in their immediate circles. Both are now forced to hunker down in isolation that guarantees Parliament won’t be resuming in any condition close to normal next week.
That makes the House of Commons a perfect mirror of what’s going on in the larger country this September — the strong desire for return to normalcy colliding with the harsh reality of a virus that seems to be on the upswing again.
Reasonably healthy opinion standings for the Trudeau Liberals fade sharply in comparison to the unhealthy COVID-19 numbers now coming in daily from across the country. Any Liberals dreaming of the magic 40 per cent needed to win a majority government need only glance at the increasing numbers of people lining up for COVID-19 tests in Ottawa and other hot spots this week.
It's become clear that, with this pandemic, there is no end in sight. Calling an election in these circumstances would be political malpractice.
Image: easycover.ca
8 comments:
Trudeau's unlikely to call an election given the situation Delacourt outlines. The more likely scenario is a throne speech that causes the opposition to bring down the government. Making the opponents call the election is a tried and true strategy for shifting blame.
Cap
That is, indeed, a possibility, Cap. I'm guessing that the majority of Canadians don't want to go to the polls wearing a mask -- and they'll punish whoever sends them there.
Perhaps the oppo's will do an Ignatieff and put Justin "on probation." Make up some bullshit conditions on which to prop up the government by looking tough while convincing no one.
We should be clear-eyed about all of this, Mound It's all about political leverage -- and who has whom over a barrel.
.. Surprising nobody.. O'Toole appear even less impressive than Scheer.. His all star cast of Candice Bergen, Ms Rempel Garner.. shrill on Facebook, Poilievre and hisendless whining.. and uh Andrew Scheer.. Who did I miss ?
If you were O'Toole would you want to inherit all the problems that now beset Canada without a clue of how to deal with them? Old conservative dogma is a bad bet. In the midst of a pandemic with wildfires sweeping the west, a basket of climate crisis impacts in just about every other part of the country, some type of global fiscal meltdown in the wings, and the spectre of instability or war in various regions of this planet, who would want to govern this country? Would O'Toole go on a full-bore austerity programme, "kick'em when they're down"?
Owen, I dread saying this but I think the worm has turned and we're now moving into a new and uncertain paradigm. We can't go back and pretend we're still calling the shots, masters of all we survey. The post I did on Tuesday is about how America is being overtaken by events it can no longer control.
The pandemic has revealed how little resilience remains in the neoliberal order. What happens if we get hit by another viral contagion, something more lethal and disruptive? Since 1970 human population has more than doubled. Since 1970 the population of all other animal life has plummeted by 68 per cent. And we're doing nothing about that. How do we imagine that plays out in five years, 10 or 20 years?
Look at all of these existential threats that we're not even talking about. We have a mentally ill president next door with a base of followers in some bizarre mass psychosis. Xenophobia and negative nationalism are spreading, ushering in the decline of liberal democracy and the ascent of authoritarianism, thug rule.
If, as that insightful essay from ProPublica suggests, America is on the verge of destabilizing climate breakdown, what does that portend for the rest of the world and especially Canada?
No I think we've opted for the 'first little piggy's' house of straw.
They're an underwhelming lot, sal. What unity they have is rooted in a sense of grievance.
All of our chickens are coming home to roost, Mound. And we are paralyzed by our own fear. as the darkness gathers around us.
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