The political silly season has arrived. The House of Commons is shut for the summer and the Senate will do the government bidding in spite of their phony declarations of independence.
With rumours of an election call, let’s take a quick look at the parties.
Liberals: Clearly in trouble on a host of issues from indigenous failures to a PM and his fake feminism to a DND that needs a huge clean up, to many ministers who need to be kicked out and basically all-round failures on so many fronts.
The sad thing is they and one of our worse PMs in history will get re-elected. Not because they are any good, but because there is no alternative.
Does anyone understand the present Conservative Party? I have been a Conservative for decades, worked at the highest levels of the party and I am still trying to figure out what they represent.
They have a reasonable, but dull and moderate leader who has no control over messaging. It looks like Poilievre is the true voice if the party, not O’Toole. Pierre is a nice guy, but it is time to shut up and let yourself fit into the global election strategy if there is one. He should save his leadership aspirations until after the next election. They still don’t get urban and millennial voters who are beginning to replace the baby boomers in influence.
Add into that the still many unanswered questions on the abortion issue and this dog don’t hunt.
O’Toole has to really take control of the party and so far he hasn’t. Too many middle of the road Canadians don’t fully trust the Conservatives no matter how nice a guy O’Toole might be. In the end that is a leadership issue- O’Toole has to step up and really take control of the party if he wants even a slight chance of winning.
The NDP have turned into the flavour of the day. Whatever today’s issue, they rush their leader out to get press coverage. There is not much coherence in what they do. Most Canadians don’t trust them to have a realistic economic platform and spend, spend, spend, our tax dollars has already been done by Trudeau.
The Bloc exist because of the failings of the central govt and a PM who will grovel for votes in Quebec ridings. They also exist because a CPC alternative is a pipe dream. It won’t happen until the CPC represents modern Canadian and Quebec values and beliefs. That doesn’t look like it will happen any day soon.
The Green Party is still a dream. In spite of what the Greens tell us, at the federal level they are a long way from becoming a winning political party. They are still more of a movement which is exciting for those involved, but that doesn’t get you elected. Unfortunately, being elected is what counts at this time. The problem with movements is that lots of different voices want to be heard which confuses the message. Under the previous leader climate issues so dominated their agenda that voters heard nothing about the rest of their platform which had a lot to offer to Canadians. They basically were a one trick pony.
In other words, they were so focused on a couple of issues that they never got the rest of their platform in front of voters- you don’t win elections that way and if you don’t win you remain a voice in the political wilderness, no matter how valid your platform.
The present internal difficulty with their leader reflects the lack of understanding of what it takes to win. The public is watching as they try to destroy their present leader- yet they still want you to vote for them- why? Their choice is to accept some message discipline or remain in the wilderness for many years to come. Their much referenced, European Green success stories didn’t happen overnight, and the European Greens didn’t become a political force with a complete lack of message discipline. Paul needs help, she is smart and articulate, if she can survive, there is great potential there.
End result, unless there is a major unforeseen political event, Trudeau will be elected again while the country staggers forward under his lack of true leadership. After this win he should probably bow out for string of cooperate board memberships and the speakers circuit- all I can say is good riddance, for the sake of this country it can’t happen soon enough.
Keith Beardsley is a former senior advisor to five federal political leaders and a former Deputy Chief of Staff for Issues Management to a Prime Minister. He has over 50 years of involvement in Canadian politics both in an Opposition role and in government.