REGINA - After all the recent speculation about an early election call, the rumours have come true.
Canada will go to the polls April 28, and we may finally get a government with a clear mandate to deal with all of the tariff problems we are facing.
Or we may not. We could potentially see another minority government, only this time with an even more muddled situation in the House of Commons with no one able to form a stable government. That is a real possibility if the Bloc Québécois holds the balance of power, which might happen if the recent polling collapse of the NDP holds up.
It is obvious that the new Prime Minister Mark Carney has been enjoying a honeymoon period with voters, based on the polling numbers. The recent polling has seen the Liberals catch up to the Conservatives, erasing their large lead.
It seems hard to believe after all the anger expressed by Canadians over the last couple of years over Liberal failures such as the carbon tax, runaway inflation, unaffordable home prices and a massive fentanyl crisis. Now the polls, if they are to be believed, point to large numbers of Canadians now looking past all of that and saying life is fine in Canada, and that the real issue of the election is how to stand up to Donald Trump.
I’m going to be very honest with you — I am not sure the polls are capturing the public mood. Heck, look at the rallies the parties held on the first day. Pierre Poilievre held his first rally of the campaign in York Mills, an area of Toronto surrounded by Liberals. A couple of thousand people showed up — and that didn’t count the other several hundred who were outside and couldn’t get in.
Meanwhile Mark Carney, campaigning in another fairly reliable Liberal area of St. John’s, Newfoundland, held a rally in front of 200 people.
A far cry from the Poilievre rally. As an aside, there were also people outside the convention hall in St. John's, but it was a bunch of angry fishermen. A fine start to a campaign.
For a party that is supposed to be winning, there seems to be a lot of people upset with the direction the country is going under the Liberals. You can feel a decided undercurrent out there — a lot of unease and anger.
Maybe my sense is skewed because I live in western Canada, where I am bombarded every day by the opinions of folks who can’t stand the Liberals. Cosmetic changes like swapping out Justin Trudeau for Mark Carney, and swapping out a consumer carbon tax for an industrial one, aren’t going to move the needle — it’s still the “same old Liberals” to folks out here.
The undercurrent I detect is twofold. The first is the concerns most deeply felt in western Canada: everyone involved in the resource sector is thoroughly at wits end with the net-zero policies of the Trudeau Liberals and are even more freaked out that we might get four more years of this under the Carney Liberals, Heck, it’s the same group of climate activists around him, what with Steven Guilbeault even given a promotion to be Quebec lieutenant. The blue-collar workers in the energy and also the steel sectors are clearly fed up; it’s their good jobs that are on the line when these sorts of policies are enacted.
But there is another undercurrent out there and it comes from young people. They are clearly, absolutely, and totally at the end of their rope.
They’re the ones who are having to put up with lower salaries and gig-economy contract employment in Liberal Canada; they’re the ones who can’t afford to buy a home because their rents are through the roof. And speaking of rental accomodations, young people are being pushed out of downtown Toronto and Vancouver by skyrocketing rents and have to live in far-flung places, just to keep a roof above their heads. That’s on top of all the runaway inflation impacting groceries and just about every item people need to buy on a daily basis.
There is also a very visible and very obvious fentanyl crisis going on in this country. And who is noticing this the most? The young people. They’re the ones who may know friends or relatives who’ve been impacted. They see the impact on their own communities. Needless to say, the status quo is not on for them.
I am seeing no shortage of anger and resentment expressed by these younger folks. They are the ones who are quick to point out the seeming large numbers of aging baby boomers and old people in the audiences at the Carney rallies. They see the boomers as being well off and beneficiaries of skyrocketing property values boosting the values of their own homes, while younger folks are barely scraping by. And these younger folks are afraid, deathly afraid, that these same boomers will screw them over by voting to keep the Liberals in.
So yeah, things are getting to a boiling point on a number of fronts and I see Pierre Poilievre being able to capitalize on a lot of that sentiment. They go into this election with a lot of advantages: they have more money in the bank, they have more candidates in place than the Liberals at the moment, and they are well organized. But you get this sense from a lot of people that eastern Canada might again save the day for the Liberals. Looking around social media you see a lot of worry from Conservative supporters in the West that eastern Canada is going to screw over western Canada again, and screw over the oil and gas and energy sector, and demonize the West for electoral gain.
If that does happen, and the Liberals do manage a majority thanks to Eastern Canada, I predict this is going to be the last straw for a lot of people. Young people — particularly the university educated ones — are going to be reassessing whether it is even worth it to stay in Canada. Heck, they see the salaries and opportunities in Asia, and the Middle East… and even down in the evil United States of America!
I know there are lots of people doing a lot of boycotting of America right now, but do you really think a desperate young Canadian is going to “boycott” a higher salaried job opportunity down there? Expect to see them packing their bags if no change is on the horizon north of the border.
It will also be the last straw for a lot of people in western Canada. Mark my words, a Mark Carney Liberal majority will be the best thing ever to happen to the western separatist movement.
Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith threw down the gauntlet following her meeting with Carney. On social media she posted a whole laundry list of demands to “avoid an unprecedented national unity crisis”: guaranteeing full access to oil and gas corridors, repealing the Bill C-69 “no new pipelines act”, lifting the tanker ban, eliminating the oil and gas emissions cap, scrapping the so-called Clean Electricity Regulations, abandoning the net-zero car mandate, and so on. So yeah, there is now talk there could be referendums happening in the future.
That is how mad they are in Alberta. And this could be yet another situation where people pack up and leave — only this time it will be oil and energy companies, packing their bags and moving to Texas.
And you thought the main issue of this election was going to be Trump tariffs?
Maybe it is, but it isn’t the only one. There is far more on the line on April 28 than just who can deal with Trump. Quite frankly a lot of personal futures are on the line and perhaps so is the future of Canada as a united country.
This will be no sleepy election, that’s for sure.
