It is said that a week is a lifetime in politics and \u2013 well, would you look at that? \u2013 it is almost exactly a week before the Liberal Party of Canada selects its new leader to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.<\/p>\n
Conventional wisdom says that leader will be Mark Carney. Of course, if conventional wisdom were dependable, prime ministers John Turner and Kim Campbell would have gone down in history as figures in the biggest landslides in electoral history. Of course, those \u201cfresh faces\u201d were indeed involved in two of Canada\u2019s most decisive electoral sweeps \u2013 just not in the ways they had hoped. Both had taken what appeared to be their respective parties\u2019 hopeless chances and revived their fortunes temporarily before being devastated in their parties\u2019 worst showings to date when the votes came in.<\/p>\n
Both Campbell and Turner were, to an extent, known quantities, though Turner had been out of the political scene for close to a decade and Campbell was a single-term cabinet minister without the deepest roots in federal politics when she became the country\u2019s first (and, to date, only) female prime minister.<\/p>\n
So, while conventional wisdom tells us that Carney will be the next Liberal leader \u2013 and, by convention, as leader of the governing party, prime minister \u2013 conventional wisdom can be bubkes, as Turner and Campbell learned.<\/p>\n
Carney, former head of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, has never held elective office. Many Canadians wouldn\u2019t recognize him in the lineup at Tim Horton\u2019s. In a time of economic anxiety, Carney\u2019s undeniable credibility on that topic is the selling point that has brought members of the Liberal caucus to his campaign by an almost four-to-one margin over presumed second-place candidate Chrystia Freeland, whose shock resignation led to Trudeau\u2019s retirement in the first place.<\/p>\n
In any event, surveys suggest that, under Carney, the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre would go from shoo-ins to a neck-and-neck race. One poll suggests that, given Anyone-But-Trudeau, centre-left voters would rally around Carney to keep the Conservatives out, with New Democratic Party support crashing to half of what it gained in the last election.<\/p>\n
Whoever wins the probably-almost-immediate general election after the leadership vote will inherit one of the most unenviable scenarios. With the once and once again US President Donald Trump reprising his role as global disruptor, threatening the Canadian (and global) economy with tariffs, aggression and assorted chaos, the new Canadian leader will walk a tightrope of defending Canadian interests while not unnecessarily rattling the cage of the Most Powerful Man in the World ™. Trump injects variables into politics that can never be accurately predicted \u2013 and Canadian leaders will be forced to react.<\/p>\n
It is almost inevitable that everything will be seen through a prism of Trumpism, including the flashpoint issue of the Middle East conflict. With the US president repeatedly promising variations on the theme of \u201call hell\u201d if developments do not go in Israel\u2019s favour, fragile diplomacy, such as it ever has been between Israel and its neighbours, seems to be a thing of the past \u2013 particularly with Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu largely echoing Trump\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>sociopathic scheme for some sort of Las Vegas in the Gaza Strip.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Canadian voters tend to make electoral decisions on domestic issues, not foreign policy. Nevertheless, there is another variable that could play a sleeper in the coming election. It\u2019s something few people seem to have on the radar but that may emerge as things unfold.<\/p>\n Anti-Israel activists (call them \u201cpro-Palestinian\u201d if you will, though it is hard to see how stopping traffic, chanting slogans, burning flags, etc., are aiding Palestinians) are no doubt planning to continue disrupting any public event where they can make their case against Israel. While justifying the atrocities of Oct. 7 as \u201cbrilliant\u201d and justifiable, for example, is probably a bridge too far even for those most sympathetic to the Palestinian people and those who desire peace, depend on these extremists to nonetheless disrupt political events across the country \u2013 and do not expect them to do so in stereotypically polite Canadian style.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are a lot of external variables facing Canadian politicians in the coming weeks. Responding to harangues from Washington by an unprecedented leader will force our own leaders to respond. Closer to home, expect disruptions and pandemonium from so-called \u201cpro-Palestinian\u201d activists. How politicians react to these unpredictable interventions could change the trajectory of the race. How Canadians, in turn, respond to the politicians\u2019 reactions could prove one of the most volatile variables in the unsettled political firmament.<\/p>\n A profoundly false (we think) assumption says that Canadian politics and history are boring. In this era, a more ancient dictum \u2013 the curse \u201cMay you live in interesting times\u201d \u2013 seems more apt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is said that a week is a lifetime in politics and \u2013 well, would you look at that? \u2013 it is almost exactly a week before the Liberal Party of Canada selects its new leader to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Conventional wisdom says that leader will be Mark Carney. Of course, if conventional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3157,3249,5563,23779,23840,3597,5080],"class_list":["post-45994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-ji","tag-canada","tag-elections","tag-leadership","tag-liberal-party","tag-mark-carney","tag-politics","tag-trump"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}