If nothing else, all this talk about a Canadian federal election possibly getting triggered at some point in the near future, gives us a good excuse to play a fun little game I like to call: "Armchair Political Strategist."

To play it, all you have to do is smugly lecture our political parties on what tactics you think they must employ if they want to beat the other guys.

Another name for this game is "Political Punditry."

Anyway, let's start playing; wanted or not, here's my free advice for each of Canada's main political parties should a federal election occur within the next four to six months:

The Liberals

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's path to victory seems pretty straightforward.

The way I see it, all he must do is basically keep saying over and over again something along the lines of "The economy is on the brink of collapse, we're in the midst of a pandemic that really sucks, the world is becoming increasingly unstable, so now is most definitely not the time to change horses midstream, nor should we waste any time worrying about petty, unimportant things such as Liberal scandals that may involve me and my family."

Ironically then, Trudeau — the hero of left-wing progressives — will essentially be pushing a "don't rock the boat", "keep the status quo", conservative message.

The Liberal slogan should be, "Change is bad".

Mind you, Trudeau will also face some challenges.

For instance, thanks to COVID, his adorably cherubic face will be covered by a mask during an election, thus obscuring one of his most important political assets.

Yet, overall, the Liberals seem to solidly hold the communications high ground.

The Conservatives

Even with new leader Erin O'Toole commanding the Tory legions, I expect the Conservative Party will do what it did in the last election, i.e.  hope Canadians are getting tired of Trudeau's antics and will want to try something different, but not too much different.

"Safe change is good", might as well be the Conservative electoral slogan.

It's a strategy of passivity.

What I'd like to see instead is the Conservatives get a lot more proactive and a lot more aggressive.

That's to say, once an election gets underway, they need to start a concise, easy-to-understand, communications campaign that gives voters reasons to reject the Liberal government.

Yes, I'm talking here about launching much dreaded "American-style attack ads."

Of course, the media would hate this, but so what?

Sooner or later, the Conservatives will have to learn that pandering to the media won't win them votes.

The NDP

Now we're at the hardest part of the game.

How in the world do you advise the NDP, a party, which let's face it, is currently to politics what the Hindenburg is to dirigibles?

Even in a game, it's hard to come up with a winning formula for Canada's New Democratic Party.

For one thing, the party is saddled with a leader Jagmeet Singh whose personality simply hasn't resonated with the Canadian voter.

Even dour and boring Thomas Mulcair seemed to have more appeal.

Mind you, that could change if, during the next election, the NDP does a better job of branding and marketing their leader, but so far, the party seems to lack the needed expertise to do that.

At any rate, leadership isn't the party's only problem.

With its soft socialist approach, the NDP doesn't seem to offer much of an ideological alternative to Trudeau's soft socialist approach.

Their slogan might as well be, "Change if necessary, but not necessarily change".

To improve their situation then, I'd say the New Democrats need to harden their socialist message and to do a better job of selling their leader.

Sorry NDP, that's the best I can do.

Anyhow, that's my turn at playing "Armchair Political Strategist."

But keep in my mind, all I've put forward here is based on the assumption that an election will be held a few months from now.

If an election is held a year or two in the future, all bets are off.

The world might be a much different place then, meaning it could be anyone's game.

Photo Credit: CBC News