As I have stated before the ballot question for the election is: is this election a change election?
I do not believe it is for all of the reasons I mention in that blog post.
However, if Canadians have decided that they want to change governments this time, and if that is the case the decision has already been made at the unconscious level, then there is nothing that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals will be able to do about it.
On the other hand if Canadians have decided that they do not want to change governments then it is Erin O'Toole who will be powerless to do anything about it.
2 comments:
I sadly fear Justin Trudeau is going to end up the federal level David Peterson.
It breaks my heart and I'm not sure I'll be able to live with that. And I think a lot of Canadians will regret their impulsive mistake.
That is certainly a possibility Jackie but not the only one.
Remember David Peterson called an election very soon after the third anniversary of winning a majority mandate. Everyone saw a recession coming and he wanted to get ahead of it. It did not work of course but the beneficiary of that was Bob Rae, who ran an amazing campaign and who was a very good partner to David Peterson when they formed an actual coalition government just five years earlier. (Therefore, Ontarians were not afraid of an NDP government)
On the other hand this election could be like the 2008 election. In that election everybody had written off Stephane Dion before the election and thought Stephen Harper would cruise to the win. At the beginning of the third week of the campaign the Dion Liberals were ahead in the polls and many were talking about a change in government. Of course, that is when the Conservatives focused their campaign and increased its urgency going on to win more that 20 above what they had at dissolution. If the Liberals do the same that would be a 177+ seat majority for them.
Then again, Erin O'Toole seems to be running Stephen Harper's 2006 election. He also came up with "five priorities", some of which are being reproduced for this election. Of course, Mr. Harper was facing an old Liberal government riven with scandal so it worked, after a fashion.
This election could wind up being like the 2019 election where the polls indicated no one had a clear advantage and Canadians really could not make up their minds. In the end the Liberals won a minority mandate because the only thing Canadians seemed sure about was not changing governments.
Finally, this election could be like 2015, when the polls indicated that the Liberals were tied with the other two parties until about 10 days before e-day only to see them scream into an 184 seat majority by the time the votes were counted.
If I were to guess which one of these examples that election would come closest to it would be 2008. The parallels are striking.
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