October 19, 2019
The outcome of Monday’s federal election remains uncertain, but recent polling suggests a virtual tie in both popular vote and seats between Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives, but with both parties landing well short of a majority. Much stronger than expected showings from both the NDP and Bloc Québécois also seem very likely. Elizabeth May’s Greens seem poised to do well in terms of the popular vote as well. While that may not translate into a lot of seats, what seats the Greens do win could prove to be crucial to determining who ends up (or stays) in the Prime Minister’s office. This would especially the case if neither the Bloc nor the NDP emerge with enough seats to provide a Liberal or Conservative Prime Minister with the confidence of a majority of the members of the House of Commons.
A range of potential scenarios have been suggested that would see either Mr.Trudeau or Mr. Scheer coming to an understanding with one or more of the NDP, Bloc and Greens to provide the votes necessary to establish the confidence of the House in a government that they would lead as Prime Minister. Any sort of formal coalition government is highly unlikely. However, a model based on the 1985 Liberal-NDP accord in Ontario, and the current arrangements between the Greens and NDP in BC and the Conservatives and Popular Alliance in New Brunswick, where one or more of the smaller parties agrees to support one of the two parties with the larger numbers of seats in order for them to be able to establish the confidence of the House of Commons in their government, in exchange for some agreed legislative agenda, seems very likely.
On Conservative side the only potential partner with potentially enough seats to give Mr.Scheer the ability to survive a confidence vote would be the Bloc Québécois. Although the Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet hinted at the possibility of such an arrangement during the English language debate, in practice it seems highly unlikely for three major reasons, all related to the environment and climate change.
First, Mr.Scheer has made it clear that his first priority would be to scrap the Liberal’s “job-killing” carbon tax. This alone is likely to be a show-stopper with the Bloc. Support for action on change has been consistently stronger in Québec than anywhere else in Canada for many years. An arrangement to end the federal carbon pricing scheme would play very poorly in Québec for that reason alone.
Secondly, M.Blanchet has a strong personal connection to taking strong action on climate change. As he noted during the English debate, it is his signature, in his former capacity as Minister of Sustainable Development, Environment, Wildlife and Parks in a Parti Québécois government, that lies on the agreement integrating Québec's cap and trade system for greenhouse gas emissions (effectively a carbon pricing mechanism) with California’s.
Thirdly, Québec decision to join with California not only reflected the depth of the province’s commitment to action on climate change, it also included a strong element of economic self-interest. Concerns over the possibility of “carbon leakage” of businesses and economic activities from Québec to other jurisdictions without carbon pricing systems have been a consistent theme in discussions of carbon pricing in Québec. The link to California provided what was hoped to be the beginning of a hedge against that risk. Mr.Trudeau’s national carbon price backstop, implemented in those provinces that don’t price carbon themselves, has the same effect within Canada. The government of Québec Premier Legault's somewhat odd decision to join Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan’s legal challenges against the federal carbon pricing scheme notwithstanding, the federal carbon pricing system that Mr. Scheer promises to scrap is strongly in Québec’s economic interest as long as it intends to continue to put a price on carbon. M.Legault has been consistent his government’s commitment to action on climate change and seems unlikely to dismantle is cap and trade system.
On the other side of the ledger, the Liberals, NDP, Greens and Bloc are all fundamentally in agreement on the question of carbon pricing, and more broadly the need to take significant action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet or exceed Canada’s commitments under the Paris agreement. There are differences in the details and levels of ambition of their plans, but there is no fundamental fracture on the need for a federal carbon price and for additional action on climate change.
Where there is a potentially significant division is on the question of pipelines and fossil fuel export infrastructure. If there is likely to be a show-stopper for some form of understanding between the Liberals and the NDP, Greens and/or Bloc, that is it. All three parties have expressed their strong opposition to pipeline expansions – specifically the Alberta to BC Trans Mountain project on the part of the NDP and Greens, and the Alberta to New Brunswick Energy East project on the part of the Bloc. Indeed the Greens have been categorical in their opposition to any pipeline expansions.
Mr.Trudeau’s government has, of course, approved, bought and re-approved the Trans Mountain project. These decisions have been politically costly for Mr. Trudeau among progressive voters. The if the emerge as a roadblock to an understanding with the NDP, Greens and/or Bloc, they could also prove fatal to his continued status as Prime Minister. That risk is somewhat mitigated by the consideration that an alliance between any of the NDP, Greens and Bloc and the Conservatives seems very unlikely, but given the orientation of their constituencies, Mr.Singh, Ms.May and/or M.Blanchet will almost certainly make movement of the pipeline issue a central element of the price of their parliamentary support.
For an election that has sometimes been described as being about “nothing,” its outcome will be determinative of Canada’s future path on the environment and climate change, and the party leaders’ stances climate change and the environment will likely be decisive in terms of who ultimately emerges as Canada’s Prime Minister .