Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes his way to his car during a recent trip to Auckland, N.Z. A bold prediction for 2015: But here goes: There will be no spring federal election. Harper will wait for the fixed date in October, as promised, despite his party’s recent uptick in the polls. Photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press What’s ahead for 2015 in politics? Before we get to that, let’s take a peek at last year’s crystal-ball column and see how I did. It is, to put it charitably, a mixed bag.
First prediction: On Dec. 29, 2013, I wrote that for the coming year, “(Prime Minister Stephen) Harper will continue to resist the siren song of personal re-invention. That ship has sailed. The hockey book is out, the musical performances have become routine, but the PM remains who he has always been. His aversion to the media is locked in.”
Result: Well then. An A-plus! Except that even in 2013, saying “Harper will not change” was tantamount to saying the sun would eventually follow the rain. This PM had had countless opportunities by then to undertake a “charm offensive,” and had ignored them all. A bold call, it was not.
But then, I dipped a toe in. “That said, Harper in 2014 will make a visible effort to re-engage — likely through more frequent speeches, perhaps even more frequent press conferences,” I wrote. “He will do so not by choice, but by necessity.”
Buzzer sounds and a big D-minus appears. My thinking then was that the Nigel Wright-Mike Duffy mess, which hit Harper personally and hard, would force him to extend himself in a bid to shore up his personal standing. But nothing of the kind happened. During his annual summer tour of the Arctic, the only time of year when Harper can be expected to be at all relaxed in the presence of the media, he simply … wasn’t. The PM’s personal interest in the search for the lost Franklin expedition was noteworthy. But his approach to communication was as hyper-controlled and severely limited as ever.
Second prediction: “The most interesting political fight in 2014, by far, will be between Liberals and New Democrats, with the focus narrowing ever more closely on Quebec,” I wrote.
Result: Again, wrong. C-minus. I was correct to suggest NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair would increasingly focus on shoring up his base in his home province. But rather than the Battle of Quebec, we saw that province’s internal debates effectively lopped out of the national political discussion by the provincial election in April.
With a federalist government holding a majority in Quebec City, a looming national unity crisis was averted — and so was the great tussle between federalist parties over which of their leaders could best represent Canada’s interests in a constitutional meltdown. The dominant political struggle of the year, meantime, was between Liberals and Conservatives, as the Tories continued to cast Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as “in over his head,” and Harper as a steady hand in “dark and dangerous” times.
Third prediction: My third call was international: “This will be the year that the focus of geopolitical concern moves to the Western Pacific, where China is engaged in an increasingly tense regional standoff with Japan, centred on ownership of the Senkaku Islands,” I predicted a year ago. “That dispute is still simmering: But the great reversal in geopolitics in 2014 was, of course, Russia’s invasion of Crimea and subsequent destabilization of Ukraine.
Result: Again, I got it mostly wrong. D-minus.
So, 2015? Given last year’s results, I hesitate to venture a guess.
But here goes: There will be no spring federal election. The PM will wait for the fixed date in October, as promised, despite his party’s recent uptick in the polls, and despite the apparent allure of getting the campaign out of the way ahead of the much-anticipated trial of suspended former Conservative senator Mike Duffy, set to begin in April.
My reasoning is simply this: Harper likes to govern, and prides himself on steadiness and predictability. Barring a major unforeseen event, which can always happen, he will be inclined to do what he has said he will do, and govern through the end of this term.
When the election does come, the Conservatives will win it, narrowly, with a minority. The Trudeau Liberals will more than double their seat count, from the current 35, and replace the New Democrats as the Official Opposition. But there will be no immediate unseating of the Harper government by a Liberal-NDP coalition, as some have speculated will happen.
The reason is simply that the current crop of New Democrats and Liberals viscerally dislike and mistrust each other, including at the leadership level, in a way the NDP and Tories do not. Given his druthers, Mulcair will be inclined to keep Harper in power, with concessions, rather than allow Trudeau to road-test himself as prime minister.
It will be a turbulent year in Ottawa, leading to further upheaval: The new Harper minority won’t hold for more than nine or 10 months. In the interim, leadership machinations will begin in earnest within the Conservative and New Democrat camps. There will be one or more resignations: None of them will be Trudeau’s. The young Liberal leader will continue to bide his time, as the other two major parties reconstitute.
We’ll check back in a year, and see how I did.
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