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StrategyCorp Insights An In-Depth Analysis of Party Priorities for the 43rd Parliament

November 2019

©STRATEGYCORP 2019 State of Play Overview

• The purpose of this document is to provide an in-depth analysis of the potential priorities, actions, and obstacles for each major federal party in ’s (43rd Parliament) • While the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) governed a minority government from 2006- 2011, the of Canada (LPC) has not operated under a minority government since the brief period from 2004-2006, under Prime Minister • In a minority parliaments, governments must rely on the support of other parties to stay in power and pass legislation, providing less stability than a • This complex balancing of interests merits closer investigation to assess what each party must do to achieve key priorities and actions • It also means that the day-to-day work of Parliament receives greater scrutiny than during a majority government, with Members of Parliament and Parliamentary Committees having more potential to impact the government's agenda

3 43rd Parliament Realities

As the parties contemplate next steps, there are two operating assumptions we expect to hold for the next few months: At 13 seats shy of a majority, the have a I. relatively stable, minority government

No major federal party is motivated to have another II. election in the immediate future

These constants will shape the political calculus of the parties as each pursues its own objectives within this Parliament 4 Navigating a Minority Parliament • In a minority Parliament, the positions of Government and Chief Government Whip become far more important in managing the government’s agenda Additional votes required for the Liberals to o The Government House Leader is responsible for managing 14 pass legislation in the House of Commons the day to day agenda and negotiating with the other parties to ensure continual support o The Chief Government Whip is responsible for ensuring the Pipelines, government has the votes it needs within the House of Tax Cuts Commons Social Justice, o For a Government which spent little time focused on Climate Action Parliament from 2015-2019, the Liberals will require more attention to the functioning of Parliament when the House resumes sitting on December 5 • The Liberals will likely rely on issue-by-issue partnerships with the three main opposition parties • Potential areas of cooperation include with the NDP or BQ on climate action; with the Bloc on matters relating to (or SNC Lavalin); and with the Conservatives on energy sector issues and SNC Lavalin, pipelines Climate Action • The continues to evolve as a less partisan Greens IND institution and could be unpredictable on contentious issues

5 Party Breakdown: Context and Priorities

6 Trudeau’s Four Forces – Influences Shaping Government Decision-making

Trudeau will be pulled in four directions – together, these forces represent opportunities and challenges for voices to be heard by decision- makers in a minority Parliament

Towards the progressive left to keep the NDP and BQ from rising

Towards the West to contain Towards Quebec and urban emerging challenges Canada for electoral growth

Towards a renewed focus on the economy amid an expected slowdown 7 The Way Forward for the Liberals

The Liberal Party will view all its decisions through the lens of its one objective: returning to a majority government next election. To get there, StrategyCorp has identified two paths to victory —increasing the share of suburban voters across Canada's regions, or increasing seats in Quebec. The party might employ one of two corresponding strategies.

The Horizontal Play I. Growing across all five regions of the country and bringing forward policies that reach suburban/exurban dwellers • The needs of this constituency are unique and are not dependent on language or ethnicity • Overarching themes like affordability will land most effectively – issues like childcare and public transit do not have a regional nuance, making them broadly appealing —OR— The Vertical Play II. Embracing bold and potentially polarizing policies in a bid to pick up more seats in Quebec. Expect the Liberals to target their existing Quebec pathway in addition to seats on the perimeter of urban centres • This might include directly challenging Quebec’s Bill 21 or pivoting sharply left to sway Bloc voters in exurban and where they finished a close second 8 Additional Considerations for the Liberals

The Liberals will need to think about trying to restore their appeal with millennials and , Metis, and Inuit voters • With the Greens taking about 400,000 votes and the NDP pulling some support away too, the Liberals will want to examine how they get these voters back inside the Party tent • Attempts at this were made in the Liberal election platform with a promised increase for Canada Student Grants and the introduction of a grace period to repay student loans • If the answer is to adopt Green policies, how does this reconcile with the interests of their other constituencies? What may be more likely is an attempt to repair relationships with other key voter groups who were “in” the tent in 2015, but “out” in 2019. • This might be accomplished through policy outreach. Minority parliaments are contentious places, so the key question will be how to maintain the Trudeau brand in this environment? • While appealing to progressives, there is a danger in failing to balance energy and the environment and further disillusioning western Canadians • Meanwhile, an additional risk presents itself in the party’s treatment of – given the number of seats the Liberals hold in Ontario (especially in the Greater Area and 905 area code), voters in Ontario must feel their issues are being addressed by the Liberals

9 Climate Change – A Prevalent Ballot Box Issue

Liberals Conservatives The overarching political landscape is being redefined through a climate lens Climate politics are increasingly a focal point in Canadian elections and voters now expect parties to This has organized voters into voting blocs, including: present a robust plan to tackle the issue

Left Wingers (25% of voters*) While the environment has previously been a shield Urgent climate action with no pipeline construction issue for the Conservatives, the reality is that voters (especially suburban) are increasingly looking for proposals on how parties will approach climate Right Wingers (20% of voters*) policy Urgent pipeline construction with limited climate action While the Conservatives created a specific environmental platform, they issued it early and Centrists (46% of voters*) failed to promote it during the campaign. Given the Climate action and pipeline construction importance of the issue to swing voters, a challenge for the Conservatives to consider is how to address climate politics with policies that can attract key With these new political definitions solidifying, it appears the voters. Liberals will likely concurrently advance climate action and energy development

10 *Source: Nanos Research. In the same poll, 3% said the government should cancel both the and the Trans Mountain pipeline, while 7% were unsure. The Way Forward for the CPC

Conservatives across Canada are wrestling with what went wrong in the 2019 election campaign and strategy Former Conservative Minister and MP John Baird has been tasked by to conduct a "post-mortem" on all facets of the campaign In addition to the results of the post-mortem, Conservatives will be putting Scheer under increased scrutiny over the following: • How does Scheer handle the early days of a minority Parliament, including his response to the Speech From the Throne and his performances in media and in Question Period • What changes does he make to his Shadow , his inner circle and his senior staff • Can he keep the Caucus and other senior party leaders behind him The next six months will be a defining period for Andrew Scheer's leadership in the run-up to the • Will he answer tough questions about his personal views April 2020 CPC Conference in which arose consistently during the campaign? Toronto. Delegates will have the ability to vote A strong performance between now and Christmas will help "yea" or "nay" on a Scheer make the case that he should remain as Leader 11 Additional Considerations for the Conservatives

• The Conservative Party is grappling with fundamental questions with two key camps emerging: o The Tacticians: those who believe the Party only needs to tinker around the edges and while they may not be satisfied with winning the popular vote and increasing the number of seats, they believe the Party is on the right track for victory next time o The Existentialists: those who are concerned with the party’s ability to keep pace with an increasingly progressive electorate. They want more drastic and substantive changes (including for some, a change in leadership) • took time after the 2004 election to do a fundamental assessment on why the party lost, including deep personal introspection for Harper on whether he should remain as Leader. The party also included a major shake-up of key staff, and a re-focusing of the policies and platform. Like Harper, there are major questions that Scheer will have to reconcile imminently should he wish to remain as leader • Central to this self-reflection, the Conservatives know what they stand against, but they have not unified in what they stand for. The Party will be examining how to broaden its "" to appeal to the greatest number of voters • Scheer will need to demonstrate that he can bring both the tacticians and the existentialists together under a "big-tent" party in order to retain cohesion and unity • The challenge for Conservatives is that all of these issues are internally rather than externally focused – it's difficult to portray a party as a "government-in-waiting" when it is internally focused • This gives Liberals more room in a minority situation, when Conservatives will likely not be seeking an election anytime soon 12 The NDP: Leader Strong, Party Weak

• While now presides over a significantly diminished NDP (with a 15-seat loss), Singh himself was lauded for running a good campaign • Singh experienced challenges at the beginning of his party leadership: difficulty gaining traction without a seat in Parliament, running for office outside his home province, and raising funds for a party with many incumbent MPs retiring • During the campaign, Singh resonated well with young, left- leaning voters. Strategic voting in the days leading up to the election may have impacted his momentum with this cohort, with voters fearing a Conservative minority government • Singh’s NDP captured a notable portion of the popular vote as compared to his seat count – this could be a potential area of focus for the NDP in the next election: aggregating regional support rather than broad favour across the country • As the new face on the Hill, the NDP has an opportunity to capitalize on fundraising and membership

13 Portion of Popular Vote NDP Challenge: Transitioning Momentum into Results 15.9% captured by the NDP Looking Forward • The NDP needs time to regroup as an organization and could benefit from a full four-year term for the Liberals: 1. Recruit more competitive players in key ridings; 2. Ride the high approval ratings of Singh and capitalize on this momentum in the House; 3. Establish Singh as a progressive alternative through an increased presence across the country and substantially increase its bottom line through aggressive fundraising; and 4. Allow Canadians time to grow completely weary of Trudeau before attempting to overtake the Liberals as the de facto “left” party of choice in the next federal election • However, minority Parliament may also work against Major Question: How can the NDP transition Singh. In 1974, then-NDP Leader David Lewis actually Canadians that were attracted to Singh, and make triggered an earlier election that he knew would result in them voters, donors, and activists? seat losses because the longer the NDP waited, the worse they would have done • With this in mind, the LPC may be inclined to call an election sooner to avoid facing an NDP that is organized and ready to challenge on the left 14 Bloc Québécois: Sovereignty Silence is Golden

• Under Yves-Francois Blanchet’s leadership, the BQ increased its number of seats from 10 in 2015 to 32 seats in 2019, becoming the 3rd largest party in Canada and regaining official party status • Having run a campaign that barely mentioned the word "sovereignty," the Bloc is aware that it ran a campaign that provided very few details to voters on what its intentions in government would be. They will not be able to get away with it in another election • The Bloc appear to have captured the attention of voters increasingly focused on – it was the only federal party in favour of the contentious Bill C-21 in Quebec • It has also played off the popularity of CAQ Francois Legault, by mimicking his approach to federalism: more control for Quebec in social and financial spheres Major Internal Question: Will an election soon • In the next electoral cycle, it will be forced to provide more serve to capitalize on current momentum and allow explicit policy intentions and budget priorities, but for now the BQ to pick up even more seats in Quebec? Or will they perceive current representation as a win Blanchet and the Bloc are in a solid position and try to preserve their current status for as long as possible? 15 : In a League of Her Own?

The Green Party continues to be mired in a cult of personality around Elizabeth May. May’s personal popularity has never translated into seats during election time: she has only been able to grow the party to 3 members in 5 successive elections since becoming party leader in 2006. May signaled that she will not be the leader for the next election.

The key question for the Greens is: Can they find a successor that can build them into a competitive federal party, both organizationally and financially?

The million-plus Canadian citizens who voted Green, most notably the millennial vote, did not vote Green as a protest – they hoped to The Green Party will be forced to complete an turn protest into power, and demonstrate the commitment of introspective exploratory leadership process, asking young people to radical solutions to the climate crisis. themselves what kind of person, and what type of tactics, will be necessary to transition themselves from a single- issue party focused on protest, to a formidable threat16 to Liberal/NDP power. Beyond the Election

17 On the Horizon: Things to Come

Speech From the Throne and Return of Parliament – The House of Commons resumes for a short session on December 5 and will adjourn by December 13. The Liberals' priorities will become clear through this and other items, such as mandate letters to new Ministers.

Weakened Mandate – Without a majority government, the Prime Minister and his team will have to work across party lines to move their agenda forward.

Conservative Policy Convention – The April 2020 Conservative Policy Convention (and the period preceding it) will increasingly become focused on Andrew Scheer's leadership, and, ultimately a vote either for or against his leadership.

Elizabeth May’s Departure – The future of the Green Party is uncertain: it could either recede from the public’s consciousness without May’s high profile, or a new leader could evolve the Green Party into a major player in the climate crisis era.

Potential Recession – This government and Parliament will have to contend with the spectre of a possible economic downtown, and the uncertain impact it might have on both of their operations.

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