Predicting the future is always a dangerous business.
Just about anything can happen, and perhaps in no sphere is that more true than in politics.
So it was with big “maybes” that the The West Block’s panel of political experts weighed in on what the first few months of 2016 might bring on Parliament Hill. When asked by Tom Clark to sum up the year to come in a Twitter hashtag, The Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt picked #LongHoneymoon. The new Liberal government and its leader are still riding high, she said, and that should continue for a while yet.
“I actually think of this period as — I like GQ Magazine’s ‘Sparkle Pile of Sunshine’— a Sparkle Pile of Progressive Sunshine,” Delacourt said, laughing. “I actually think that’s going to last a bit through this winter.”
Mark Kennedy of the Ottawa Citizen picked a hashtag even more specific to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: #Justinland.
“You’ll recall that when Stephen Harper came to power, not long after he was in office, one of our colleagues wrote a book, a bestseller: Harperland, and it talked about all the control that Stephen Harper and his minions brought to this town and it gave us an image of a place ruled by a dictator,” Kennedy said.
Trudeau is shaping up to be a different beast altogether, the veteran political reporter predicted.
“We’re going to see a guy that is everywhere. We’ve seen him in scrums. We’ve seen him in news conferences. We’ve seen him in town halls. He is it. He is everything. He will define this government. He is going to change the nature of the country, watch for it.”
Evan Solomon of Sirius XM Radio and Maclean’s Magazine gazed into his crystal ball and predicted a more sobering turnaround in 2016, with taxpayers beginning to question how the Liberal government will pay for the reforms, tax cuts and other promises it has put forward or already started implementing. His hashtag? #ShowMeTheMoney.
NDP soul searching
The panel also tackled the possible future of Canada’s now-third party, the NDP. The party’s current leader, Tom Mulcair, is unlikely to stay on to fight the next election, predicted the panelists.
“You know, 2019 is a long time from now. He will be older. He will be in his mid-60’s. He will have been seen as a loser in the previous campaign and people are going to be at his throat,” predicted Kennedy.
Solomon agreed, saying the party’s leadership review this spring could spell the end for Mulcair if delegates decide it’s time to oust him.
“He’s got to get at least over 75 per cent (support) or he’s toast, and he didn’t get it when he was elected. It wasn’t a landslide, right? He barely won. He wants to win. I think he’s going to have real trouble.”
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