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Predictions are often a fool's errand. Then again, they pay me to make them.

 

Looking back over last year's, I think I did pretty well for the first few months of the year in terms of the cut and thrust of Canadian politics — that is, until the pandemic hit and upended all possible predictability.

I did get one thing almost spot on last year.  I wrote, "Donald Trump, will be acquitted by the Senate in the impeachment trial, despite losing two Republican votes, and he and Mike Pence will face off against Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.  They will be trounced in terms of the popular vote by over 5 million, and Warren will eke out a narrower win in the Electoral College."

Other than the fact it was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket, that was nearly spot on.

So what on earth will happen in 2021?

Let me hazard a few guesses.

My gut tells me there will not be a federal election.  I'm going against the grain here, but I think at the end of the day, the Liberal caucus can handle a supplicant NDP propping up a de facto majority more than they could be led into rolling the dice to gamble on gaining a majority.  Call me a Boy Scout, but my sense is the chance to get some good things done is more tempting than risking one's seat chasing majority redemption for the PM's campaign brain trust.

It also seems clear that Ontario Premier Doug Ford is about to turn on the spending taps as the province struggles through the second wave this winter — starting with grants for small businesses and parents.  Ford's Tories have a unique problem: their increase in popularity has come by appealing to suburban women — traditionally a Liberal demographic — even as the Tories shed support amongst their rural, male base.  They need to find a way to solidify the new votes they've gained whilst rebuilding their connection to their diehards.

Beyond that, vaccines will roll out and there will be a cottage industry in catching elected officials tripping up or flaunting their own guidelines.

We are also staring down the barrel of looming crises that could trip up our recovery.

The first is the spectre haunting our transit systems: their business model is (regrettably) based on the fare box, and those revenues have dried up, and employees have been let go to compensate at record numbers.  As we eventually transition back to work, we will need the transport systems operational.

At the same time, we need to learn the lessons of past recessions and avoid double dips that could come if we ease up on stimulus too soon (see FDR, circa 1937).  This means the need for infrastructure spending and shovel ready projects — from transit to rural Main Street revitalization to greening public infrastructure — must be given priority.

Finally, and relatedly, since austerity is a siren song, we'll begin to see debates over how to pay for the massive spending required this year to stabilize the economy during lockdown and the stimulus required to juice the economy as we come out the other side of this crisis.

Look for a resurgent United States to begin to lead global macroeconomic discussions, and the left to clamour for increases taxes on the wealthy (in Canada, an inheritance tax might be considered) as a means to cover our costs.

Here's hoping, regardless of what 2021 holds precisely, it is better and brighter than 2020.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I think ending this horrible year calls for a stiff martini.

Photo Credit: CBC News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


There's should be a natural flow to a rookie government's first four year mandate.

The first two years involve setting the agenda, pushing through contentious aspects of the election platform and possibly reorganizing the apparatus of government.

The last two years are spent consolidating support, shoring up the base but also moderating the message to lull unbelievers.

Lucky governments get a nice economic curve to ease the way, perhaps a bit challenging at the beginning to justify change but settling into prosperity by the end to reassure the taxpayers.

In the real world, the Alberta United Conservative Party's first mandate has turned into an unprecedented hellscape of pestilence and economic collapse.  In spring 2021, Jason Kenney's party will hit the halfway point of its mandate.  Can the UCP salvage its plans or will it have to shift off script?

Kenney stuck rigidly to his activist agenda for most of 2020 despite the disasters around him.  He cut corporate taxes, began shifting government services to the private sector, rolled out a schedule for trimming the public payroll and tried to boost the waning fortunes of the declining oil patch.

At year's end some of those tactics are unravelling.  The government has had to step back from its aggressive efforts to wrestle the health care budget down.  Picking a fight with doctors over their fee schedule appeared misguided before Covid but looks like insanity now.

The health minister's cringeworthy praise and thanks for the great work of nurses and frontline workers during the pandemic sound particularly hypocritical given the early spring's determination to outsource hospital support staff and reduce the frontline workforce without doing any meaningful consultation.

A poll in the waning days of 2020 show Albertans are the least happy of any Canadians with their provincial government's handling of the pandemic, with only 30 per cent satisfied with Kenney's record on the most crucial crisis of his term.

It will be a spring of eating crow for the government on the healthcare front.  Further budget slashing and privatization that might have been planned for 2021 will likely be put on the back burner because further backlash from doctors and health care workers can only irreparably harm the UCP now.

On the economic front, oil prices are coming back as the globe looks forward to an end to the pandemic sometime in 2021.  That's a hopeful glimmer on the horizon for the government.  But any recovery is not going to take UCP's favourite industry back to robust health.  The big majors have shown what direction they are headed with consolidations, mergers, job reductions and asset write downs.

The UCP will have to start paying more than lip service to economic diversification.  And that will be incredibly difficult given the yawning hole in the province's finances.  Last year's cuts to post-secondary institutions, which are the driving engines in attracting tech sector players, now look short sighted.

If the UCP wants to target growth in tech and health tech, it may have to ante up some incentives and roll back those university and technical institute cuts.  Where, oh where will that money come from?

Will the UCP do the unthinkable and impose a provincial sales tax in 2021 to give itself the necessary flexibility to reset the economy?  The finance minister has said no but even conservative taxpayers must see some justification for taxes that other provinces use to survive and thrive.

Some parts of the UCP agenda will continue.  It apparently never hurts to pick a fight with Ottawa to distract the rabble, so trial balloons will continue to float on a provincial police force and an Alberta pension plan to replace CPP.  Both those initiatives were always a long shot and are now also fiscally out of reach, but the debate will still entertain the conservative base.

But those issues are sideshows compared to the fundamental course changes the government will have to make to keep its head above water for 2021.  This is the year the UCP will have to learn the art of compromise and building consensus.

Photo Credit: Calgary Herald

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.