Jen Gerson: Whoo boy, she done
Play them off, Keyboard Cat.
The goose. She cooked.
The toast. It burnt.
The frog. It boiled.
Look, I'm going to confess that, unlike most Ottawa politics nerds, I did not spend much of last night frantically refreshing Elections Canada's count totals page as the ballot figures came rolling in for the St. Paul's by-election. Instead, I attended an Oilers watch party, and the sadness washing over the province was leavened only by a spectacular spread of BBQ chicken drumsticks, pulled pork, and a fabulous charcuterie board. So it wasn't all bad.
No, I awoke, refreshed, to the news from my early rising husband, who cock blocked the coffee pot and said: "Did you hear about the hilarity in St. Paul’s?"
To which I admitted I had not because I am useless before 10 a.m. MST, and this is a well known and well established weakness.
"The Conservatives won. By 500 votes. And it didn't come in until like 5 a.m."
At which point I laughed — not so much for the outcome, but rather for what I knew my day must now entail. And also for the chaos. Because I live for that drama.
Anyway, my lack of political dedication was well rewarded because I'm now refreshed and well positioned to opine on the great momentous meaning of Don Stewart's election to the House of Commons to represent the fine people of this section of midtown Toronto. Normally I wouldn't get too fussed over a by-election anywhere, but in this case a fuss is impossible to avoid.
Two reasons; the first is that I have — in my lovingly Albertan way — referred to this riding as the Dead Marshes. For those who are not Lord of The Rings fans, this section of land is technically considered a reeking wetland that stretches to the south-east of Emyn Muil; a terrible stretch of land that sits just outside Mordor, and final home to the preserved corpses of many Conservative candidates, staffers, volunteers, and hopes and dreams. Every once in a while, their enchanting methane soul lights flare forth, entrancing the unwary or the naïve into the swamp.
Which is a very nice way of saying that St. Paul's is a bastion of the ruling Laurentian Consensus, a Liberal fortress long held by Carolyn Bennett, and untainted by the stain of Conservative voting intentions since 1993. And yet, Mr. Stewart ventured forth undaunted, and found his path into Mordor (a metaphorical stand in for either Toronto, or Parliament. Interpret as you see fit).
The second reason that this election cannot be ignored is that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have invested it with so much symbolic weight, that the outcome will herald political changes of one kind or another. A 43 per cent turnout rate in a by-election is healthy — even high. Nobody can chalk that outcome up to numerical wonkery. Conservatives were motivated, and progressives were not. The signal is clear.
It is now impossible for an increasingly unglued Liberal caucus to overlook that they are losing. They are losing very badly. A sustained 20-point Conservative lead has been made manifest. If St. Paul’s can crash, they are all at risk. And they can no longer wave that fact away by sniping at pollsters, or blaming misinformation. A plurality of Canadians think they suck at governmenting. This must now be addressed.
Of course, many will see the St. Paul's election as an imminent sign of Justin Trudeau's departure as Prime Minister. I can't rule that out, but I'm not inside the Liberal partisan mindset well enough to rule it in, either.
If Trudeau is going to leave before the next election, he is rapidly eating up runway for his successor. As a sheer matter of practical logistics, he needs to leave this month — or early July at the latest — to allow the party enough time to both run a leadership race, and build enough profile and goodwill for his replacement. It's going to be a slog, and frankly, I can think of only a few individuals who possess the strong professional credentials and total lack of political savvy to volunteer to be as popular as Michael Ignatieff and as doomed as Kim Campbell.
It's Mark Carney.
That's it.
Meanwhile, there's still Trudeau the man to contend with. I stand by my previous assessments. I think Justin Trudeau is both too egotistical and too bunker-bound to cede a fight with a man he viscerally and obviously despises. I also think that, even now, he has a good instinct for political timing. The next election could be a year away. Any number of weird events — including the re-election of Donald Trump — could happen between now and then. Any one of them could tip the odds back in the Liberals' favour.
In short, I think Trudeau thinks he's playing rope-a-dope.
Personally, I think that assessment is wrong. It's over. The question, now, isn't whether or not the Liberals can win, but whether or not they can survive as a party after a catastrophe of Wynne-like proportions. But what Trudeau himself believes will affect his decisions, and I don't live in his head. I also can't know for certain that the world isn't going to go pear shaped, again, sometime in the next 12 months. I'm as traumatized as everybody else on this front.
The last consideration, then, is the state of the Liberal caucus.
I always felt that if Trudeau did leave office, it wouldn't be because he chose to gracefully resign for the good of the party in the face of certain defeat; rather, it would happen because his own party would play him off, Keyboard Cat.
I suspect a lot of his caucus would like to do this. I even suspect close friends and allies have advised Trudeau to leave. However, if the Liberal Party were internally healthy enough as an institution to function in its own best interests, it would have ejected Trudeau a year ago. I don't think there's enough there there anymore; either within the grassroots party apparatus, or in the will of its caucus.
St. Paul's isn't the beginning of the end for the Liberal government. We’re much further along than that. The Oilers are down half way through the third and they're ragging the puck. The team's exhausted and unhinged. They’re relying on muscle memory and drills, and nobody can actually take a shot. Eventually, the buzzer is going to sound.
Sorry, sorry; wrong Monday night national sporting event. But you get my drift.
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Now would be a good time to point out that the same group of advisors that destroyed the Ontario Liberal party have also destroyed the Federal Liberal party. They did not learn a single thing.
"....if the Liberal Party were internally healthy enough as an institution to function in its own best interests, it would have ejected Trudeau a year ago". The big red tent is gone, all is left is a charred rag. Shame on those centralist liberals who have not spoken up. This is a Chin-Telford-Butts government and it has brought this country to its knees. For the love of Canada, get rid of the Trudeau PMO.