Federal politics has entered a ‘none-of-the-above’ phase

HALIFAX—Federal politics has entered a “none-of-the-above” phase. And that means that predicting how people will vote a year from now is not as simple as voting intention polls suggest. The same polls that show Justin Trudeau taking his party over the electoral cliff if he remains leader also show something else of importance. Canadians are deeply unimpressed with the current crop of federal leaders. It is not quite the “felon or fuddy-duddy” presidential dilemma facing unhappy American voters this November. But there are similarities. There is anger and aggrievement out there in Canadian voter land. And not much love. The latest Angus Reid poll nicely captures Trudeau’s emphatic unpopularity, but also the striking unpopularity of his rivals. The prime minister is viewed favourably by just 28 per cent of respondents in the Angus Reid poll, and unfavourably by a whopping 67 per cent. The Conservative Party has a commanding 20-point lead over the Liberals amongst decided voters, a staggering, double-digit lead they have had for months. But according to other key findings in the poll, 50 per cent of respondents had an unfavourable view of Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh. Just 40 per cent viewed the Conservative and NDP leaders favourably. Better than Trudeau’s numbers to be sure, but not that much better. Nik Nanos, the Vince Lombardi of pollsters, made a related finding in a recent survey conducted for The Globe and Mail. Despite Poilievre’s massive lead in the polls, Canadians gave the Conservative leader virtually the same failing grade on credibility as they assigned to Trudeau—3.7 out of 10 for the prime minister, and just 3.9 for the opposition leader. “You would think that with a double-digit lead in the ballot and preferred prime minister tracking, Mr. Poilievre would tower over Mr. Trudeau on credibility … Not so much,” Nanos wrote. The numbers were also strange when Nanos asked his weekly question about which candidate has the right stuff to be prime minister. A surprising 43 per cent said Trudeau, compared to 42 per cent for Poilievre. The Nanos survey also confirmed “no love” for any Canadian federal leader. Forty-six per cent believed that Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet had the qualities of a good political leader; 44 per cent for NDP Leader Singh; 33 per cent for Green Party Leader Elizabeth May; and 13 per cent for People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxine Bernier. Bottom line? No federal leader is the bee’s knees, and that makes things more volatile than they look. While most observers have counted Trudeau out, based on persistent documentary evidence, Nanos came up with another number that puts the Conservative “juggernaut” factor in an intriguing context. “Although the Conservatives enjoy a comfortable advantage in vote intentions, their pool of accessible voters—that is, the proportion of Canadians who are open to voting Conservative—is not much larger (45 per cent) than the group of voters accessible to the Liberals (43 per cent).” In other words, the next election will not necessarily be decided by today’s polls, but by tomorrow’s, next week’s, next month’s, and next year’s political gamesmanship. And happenstance. Can the Conservatives win power on the one-cylinder tactic of demonizing everything the PM has done? Can Poilievre win the government simply by not being Trudeau? Will Poilievre ever start talking policy instead of personality, or will he continue to follow the advice of his mentor Stephen Harper: Not to put too much in the window before an election? Will voters accept Poilievre’s vague promises of tax reform, or see his opposition to changes in the capital gains tax as proof the Conservatives don’t care about the little guy? As Nanos observes, in a field where no leader has the warm and unequivocal embrace of voters, mistakes by either of the major parties could play a major role in who wins power. Perhaps that’s why the Conservatives are playing cautiously, choosing one-way videos over press conferences to avoid inconvenient questions. For now, they are like a hockey team protecting a lead in an apparently one-sided contest. Playing to protect a lead is as dubious in politics as it is on the ice. The puck has a way of ending up in your net. And then there is the unpredictable scandal factor. The Liberals have had more than their share—including most recently the ArriveCan debacle. A disgrace. But who knows what will happen to the Conservatives over the assertion in a recent intelligence report that the government of India interfered in CPC leadership races? Could that be why India was inexplicably dropped from Harper’s International Democracy Union, despite his close relationship with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi? And were Conservative MPs included in what Singh called a group of “traitors” in Parliament who advanced the interests of foreign actors in a violation of their oaths of office? It would appear that the prime minister has read the political tea leaves, and thinks—despite the dismal poll numbers—that there is still a path to victory for the Liberals. In recent interviews, the PM has stated that he doesn’t think that Canadians have made up their minds about who they want running the country. And although Trudeau admitted that he thought about resigning during his marital problems that ended in separation last summer, he said that these days he doesn’t think about leaving politics at all. “I just realized, that’s not me. There is still so much to do still.” As for his plummeting personal popularity, Trudeau had this to say on a recent CBC podcast: “No matter how much they dislike me, I still have to try and think about what I can do to make sure that or their kids or their community is doing better.” Whether that is hubris that ends in nemesis, or the defence of the values he believes in no matter what happens, Justin Trudeau is still in the game. Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hill Times