(Pre-Writ) Summer Meditations

We've moved this Canada Day weekend into the lunar pull of the next federal election. My sister Jane, my close friend Grant (who both live on the Gulf Islands in British Columbia) and I exchanged our first round of predictions last week. A sure sign the political beast is stirring.

The official campaign period will begin with the “dropping of the writ” shortly after Labour Day in all likelihood. Theoretically, the government could kick off the official campaign before then. Election Day is October 21. It will deliver a new Parliament and maybe a new government.

Many progressive folks are approaching this election with a sense of dread. And not just political junkies. Everyone is feeling it. The dominance of Donald Trump on the political stage, the Ontario and Alberta election results, Andrew Scheer on our TV screens during the NBA finals leave us thinking that the Right is on the march. We're toying with fascism again. Boris Johnson? Prime Minister of Britain? We want to change the channel on this horror show but are not sure how.

We can start by not accepting the media meme that the world, including Canada, is experiencing a hard right, anti-democratic tide. Yes, the threat is real. The actual picture is, however, much more complex. I’ll say more in a subsequent post, but there is plenty of evidence that the democratic pushback from the centre and the left is having an impact. Diverse, younger voters are showing signs of considerable strength and are leading the way.

As the pre-writ campaign begins, the polls tell us that the election outcome is far from clear. Certain disaster does not necessarily await us. The odds are actually against it.

The recent polls show that the Liberals are down to where the Conservatives started in the last election and where they ended Election Day 2015. The Liberals would lose their majority. The Conservatives have edged up slightly but not enough to elect a majority government. Anything less than a majority would be a defeat for them. The NDP are down and would lose some seats though not third party status. The Greens are tantalizingly up though still at serious risk of being squeezed by strategic voting.

If things stay the way they are, we'll end up with a minority Parliament. That will almost certainly mean a minority Liberal government supported on terms and conditions by the NDP, Greens and Bloc or even a coalition government made up of a combination of these four parties. The non-Conservative parties will not support a Scheer government, even if the Conservatives win the most seats in a minority Parliament. The results of the B.C. election in 2017 showed that a party is not entitled to form a government if it wins the most seats but not a majority. The legislature decides in this end who will form a government.

In the last election, the Liberals got 39.5 per cent nationally, the Conservatives 31.9, the NDP 19.7, the Greens 3.4 and the Bloc 4.7, The average of the June2019 polls reported so far: Liberals 30% (-10%), CPC 35 (+3), NDP 15 (-5), Greens 12 (+9) and Bloc 5 (nc). To win a majority in our current system the breakthrough comes at around 40 per cent. In an electoral contest with four and half competitive parties the percentage needed to get a majority may be less but not by much.

At this early stage the situation is fluid for all parties. We’ve witnessed this same fluidity in elections in Canada and around the world recently. One party or another suddenly takes off much to its own surprise and to the horror of its opponents. Party loyalties don’t run as deep as they once did. We just don’t know how they will turn out.

The Liberals and Trudeau are struggling right now. As a “centre” party, the Liberals can and do swing right or left depending on their sense of how the wind is blowing. This position, however, may hurt them. As Tommy Douglas once famously said, “the trouble with being in the middle of the road is that you can get run over from either direction”. They don’t have much to squeeze out of the NDP or the CPCs. Voters who are currently leaning Green have a number of choices before going back to the Liberals, including staying Green, going with the NDP in their local constituency, or not voting at all.

At this point it is not easy to see where a diminished Liberal party under Justin Trudeau can get the votes and seats they need to form a majority government. For voters now leaning NDP or Green, the Liberals and Trudeau are as much part of the problem as the solution. The Liberals engineered a miracle last time. Can they do it again in markedly different circumstances? At this point it seems unlikely.

The NDP is already down to its probable core. Arguably, the federal NDP is in a rebuild phase, to use a sports analogy. It has been there before. Virtually every leader has struggled in their first election, including Jack Layton, Ed Broadbent and even Tommy Douglas -- and look what they went on to achieve. The press gallery has rendered its judgment on Jagmeet Singh. Now we will see if Singh can connect with the electorate when the full spotlight is on him. He and his team will have to be sharper than they have been so far, but they are a talented group. And they have the “advantage” of being under-estimated at this stage of the race.

The Conservatives don’t need much to win, as the Ontario election showed. They are, however, working stony ground especially now that Doug Ford and Jason Kenney are revealing their worst instincts, ideas and excesses. If Andrew Scheer runs a perfect campaign and Trudeau continues to falter, he might pull it off. If Scheer falls short of a majority, the others will almost certainly find a way to keep him out of office.

The Greens are entitled to their high hopes. And yet their support is not deep, their organization can’t match the others, and they need to get to 15 per cent nationally to start winning significant numbers of seats in first-past-the-post constituency system. Elections bring out the tribal memories that tend to pull voters back to their traditional political homes.

The Greens are currently benefiting from increasing awareness of the climate crisis, a seasoned and less complicated leader compared to the others, and a freshness in an age that is drawn to change no matter how it is dressed up. Liberals may find it a good place to go, and if Singh does not do well, the Greens will benefit. Even some Conservatives appear to be moving to the Greens in small but decisive numbers. More will follow if Scheer stumbles.

That said, I would advise Green supporters to prepare for disappointment not government. More than once I've seen my party levitate before an election then suffer deeply disappointing election results in our system.

My hope for this election is that it will be fought with intelligence, passion and civility -- in opposition to what's become the new normal. I can't remember who said, "When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there's always a chance that the dancing bear will win." Canada can't afford this outcome. It's time to step up, get involved in a local campaign, and do everything we can to prevent it.