Here is a bit of free advice for Canada’s incoming Conservative leader, Erin O’Toole: Treat the abrupt prorogation of Parliament as a welcoming gift.
By putting Parliament on pause until Sept. 23 and the presentation of a new throne speech, the prime minister has effectively shut down the opposition-dominated committees that were looking into the WE Charity controversy.
How big a loss that really is to the opposition parties is debatable.
The latest batch of polls suggests the hit to government fortunes may have started to fade.
For better or for worse, the main players in this saga, from the prime minister on down, have all offered their versions of the events that led to the planned outsourcing of the Canada Student Service Grant to WE Charity.
The most tangible outcome of the controversy so far has been Bill Morneau’s departure from the government. It has undoubtedly accelerated his exit from politics. But in light of the positive reception afforded his successor, Chrystia Freeland, his resignation may turn out to be the opposition’s loss.
In any event, if the WE Charity issue has legs, a parliamentary hiatus will hardly put it to rest.
After Jean Chrétien short-circuited the presentation of the auditor general’s report on the sponsorship program by proroguing Parliament in 2003, the scandal came back months later with a vengeance, poisoning the tenure of his Liberal successor.
As in the case of the sponsorship affair, the Official Opposition can likely count on an officer of Parliament – in this instance, ethics commissioner Mario Dion – to breathe new life into the issue at some point down the line.
Meanwhile though, the momentary suspension of the hostilities on the WE Charity front offers the incoming Conservative leader a much-needed opportunity to start recasting his party. The Liberals are not the only ones who need to change the channel — so does the Official Opposition under its new management.
If the Conservatives are going to have a shot at returning to government, they will have to look and sound less like a pack of attack dogs and more like a government-in-waiting.
On that score, time is almost certainly of the essence. It is not necessary to expect an election this fall to believe that Canada could well go to the polls before the end of next year. If not next month’s throne speech, the presentation of a federal budget in the late fall could pave the way to a winter election.
Whenever the next election does take place, the ballot-box question will almost certainly revolve around who has the best plan to lead Canada through the post-pandemic period.
On that basis, expect the government to draft an agenda and chart a fiscal course that it would be happy to campaign on.
If prosecuting Justin Trudeau and the Liberals was a recipe for electoral success, Andrew Scheer would be about to celebrate his first year as Canada’s prime minister, rather than looking for new accommodations for his family in the nation’s capital.
The approach that did not pay off for the Conservatives in last year’s campaign is even less likely to succeed in the post-pandemic context. Outside the Prairie provinces, the notion that anyone would be a better prime minister than Trudeau has limited traction.
In Canada’s second-largest province, a resurgent Bloc Québécois currently has first call on the non-Liberal vote, with the Conservatives trailing far behind.
If the Conservative party is to improve its standing there, let alone hold on to its current seats, it will have to convince Quebecers that it would offer a better government than the Liberals, not a more strident opposition voice than the BQ.
There has also been a sea change in the Ontario dynamics.
At the time of the last federal campaign, Premier Doug Ford was one of Trudeau’s most vocal provincial critics. Since then, he has become one of Freeland’s biggest fans.
Like his Tory predecessors, Ford has found that having the federal Liberals in power on Parliament Hill is more a blessing than a curse for a provincial government’s political fortunes.
Among the men who led the Official Opposition in the House of Commons over the past 20 years, only Stephen Harper survived an election defeat to go on to lead his party in a second campaign.
As Stockwell Day, Stéphane Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Thomas Mulcair and Scheer can testify, the road from prime-minister-in-waiting to dumped party leader is a short and brutal one.
If the recent past is any indication, Erin O’Toole, chosen Sunday to take the Conservative Party of Canada’s helm, is only guaranteed one shot at unseating the ruling Liberals.
Chantal Hébert is a columnist for the Toronto Star
