What does the next decade hold for federal politics? Social scientists suggest it may not be kind to the Tories, as veteran political writer Gloria Galloway explains.
Justin Trudeau’s party may have a very good decade. But the parties of Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Sngh face deeper challenges. jpg
Conservatives, choose your next leader wisely. The person who will replace Andrew Scheer will write the story of Canada’s federal government – and your role within it – for the next 10 years.
As the calendar flips over to another decade, it is a good time to prognosticate about the potential political twists that lie between now and 2030 in a country that has recently elected MPs from five parties representing disparate geographical regions.
The Conservatives are, understandably, bitter about losing the 2019 race. It seemed an easy stroll to victory given the blackface incident and other foibles of the Liberals and leader Justin Trudeau. But though the Tories took the largest share of the popular vote, their path back to power over the next 10 years will not be easy.
They appeal to a narrower range of voters than do the Liberals who can shift left, right and sideways depending on political winds. Tories tend to fragment into pieces, with the far right forming splinter parties, when they move to the centre where the votes are more plentiful. And they skewered themselves by earlier eliminating the per-vote subsidy and financially hobbling the NDP. Only when the New Democrats are robust is Liberal power diminished.
A strong and charismatic leader who can capture the hearts of Quebeckers and win the suburbs of metropolitan Ontario could give the Conservatives a shot at a majority government.
But, at this point, it is much easier to predict that the 2020s will see a series of minorities, and most, if not all, will be Liberal.
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First, a brief look back. For 50 years, decades of federal politics have been dominated by one political leader or another.
In the ‘70s, it was Pierre Trudeau. In the ‘80s it was Brian Mulroney. The ‘90s were Jean Chrétien’s. The aughts went to Stephen Harper as he reunited the right and won successive governments. And the teens, or at least the back half of them, belonged to Justin Trudeau, who restored the Liberals from third place to majority government (though now a minority).
Former Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper brought Conservatives together in the 2000s. Not many could maintain that balancing act. Jose Luis Magana / The Associated Press
Much of the political longevity of each of those men can be attributed to the power of the party system. Whether Liberal or Conservative, they had large and devoted blocks of partisans standing behind them, championing their decisions and aiding their re-elections.
But pollster Nik Nanos of Nanos Research, who recently wrote a book called The Age of Voter Rage, says he sees party allegiances “hollowing out,” and predicts that the elections of the next decade will be driven more by issues than by voters’ historical leanings.
That shift could be seen during the Trudeau majority government, he says, when two cabinet ministers stood their ground on principle rather than bowing to the demands of the prime minister.
“There is not the same type of loyalty and the same type of discipline as there was in the past,” says Nanos. And “parties are now much more vulnerable to being taken over by interests.”
Many would say the reason the Tories lost the election was precisely because Scheer’s personality was not strong enough.
That will make politics much more volatile, says Nanos – not just the Liberals but the Conservatives, who could be consumed by hard-right social factions. It will take someone with an iron hand to keep those forces at bay.
In his resignation speech to Parliament, Scheer said the Conservative party is not a cult of personality and is not shaped by the name on the masthead.
But lots of people, including many Conservatives, would disagree. Many would say the reason the Tories lost the election was precisely because Scheer’s personality was not strong enough.
Henry Jacek, a professor emeritus of political science at McMaster University, says voters will accept many flaws but they will not forgive a leader who is boring. And Scheer, says Jacek, was boring.
More than that, it is impossible to see how he could have kept his party together in the new, less politically loyal universe described by Nanos.
Jacek says he envisions the 2020s being a rerun of the 1970s now that the Liberal majority has given way to a Liberal minority. The next election will result in another Liberal majority, he predicts, then a Conservative minority, then back to the Liberals.
All of which is just a guessing game. But it is backed by a bit of science.
In 2011, voters flocked to the NDP’s charismatic Jack Layton. Andre Forget / QMI
The Conservatives won their majority in 2011 under Stephen Harper when the New Democrats had a strong candidate in Jack Layton, a native son of Quebec who was able to appeal to the people of that province and draw votes away from the Liberals. But the New Democrats are now a shadow of their 2011 selves and their return to prominence in the near future is doubtful given their precarious financial situation.
Quebec has returned to the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals, which makes a Conservative win more difficult.
Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, says the Conservatives of the next 10 years will face the same problem that has dogged them through history. Their strength is in western Canada and rural Ontario. And when they try to appeal to Quebec and red Tories in Ontario, they risk losing their base.
Harper held the party together on the strength of his leadership, his track record in the Reform Party, and by periodically giving gifts to the hard right. But that is a skill most politicians don’t have, says Bratt.
Even if western separatism is not a serious movement, the West’s influence in the country will grow both because of population shifts and economic clout, he says. It is something that all future leaders of any political stripe will have to heed.
That does not mean the party leaders of the next decade must come from the West.
Indeed, Jacek says, the Conservatives will have more luck if they choose someone from Ontario – someone with the charisma of Brian Mulroney who can keep the party together even as it adopts a more centrist platform to broaden its appeal.
Or the Liberals will very much enjoy the third decade of this century.
Ottawa freelance journalist Gloria Galloway has covered federal politics for more than 20 years.
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