Sooner or later, everyone visits Ottawa. Why, here at the end of November was Glen VanHerck, a Kentucky-born U.S. Air Force general, former pilot and instructor in F-15 fighters and B-2 bombers. Since the summer of 2020 he has been the commander of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

In Ottawa, VanHerck met Canada’s new defence minister, Anita Anand, and deputy minister Jody Thomas. He met Gen. Wayne Eyre, the chief of the defence staff. He also met some reporters. I’m writing what follows from a recording of that conversation.

VanHerck was in Ottawa partly because, as commander of NORAD, he reports directly to both the Canadian and U.S. governments. So in an operational sense, he was coming “home” for the first time since he got his job. But he also was bringing urgent news his Canadian hosts have plainly preferred not to hear: a dangerous world is becoming more dangerous, or dangerous in new ways. NORAD, which seeks to protect North America, is not ready for these new threats. Getting ready will cost money and force uncomfortable choices on a government that prefers not to think about military threats.

NORAD was founded in 1957, in the depths of the Cold War, to protect the U.S. against incoming bombers or missiles with nuclear payloads. As a bonus, it sought to protect the country those bombers or missiles would be likeliest to fly over: Canada. The main threat in those days was the Soviet Union and its vassal states. A range of technology would track potential launches from Soviet  territory. The main deterrent was the threat to launch a devastating counterstrike before an enemy strike could land. Everyone would die. Nobody liked this, but it worked for decades, in the sense that everyone did not die.

These were the “mutually assured destruction” years many of us grew up in. The climax of the 1983 movie War Games, with Matthew Broderick trying to keep a rogue computer from launching a global thermonuclear war, takes place in the NORAD command centre in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. These days NORAD no longer does its business out of a mountain bunker; it uses a building nearby. That’s not all that’s changed. “Our competitors have analyzed our ability to operate overseas,” a NORAD strategy document from last March says, “and have invested in capabilities such as ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, small unmanned aircraft systems, artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities, and delivery platforms to offset our strengths while exploiting our perceived weaknesses.” As a result, “the stakes are higher than they have been in decades.”

The document laid out who’s on the list of “competitors”: “China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, violent extremist organizations, or transnational criminal organizations.” VanHerck keeps a short version of that list. “You know, I’m on record,” he said. “Russia’s a primary military threat to North America. China’s about a decade behind.”

READ: Will Canada help save Ukraine?

Behind at what? China spent the summer testing hypersonic weapons that could be launched from a “fractional orbital bombardment system” travelling 150 km overhead. These are scary. You launch a weapon into space, where it circles the planet for a fundamentally unpredictable amount of time. NORAD has spent a lifetime guarding against an attack coming over the North Pole, but these new weapons could as easily come from the south.

The Russians have weapons that are simpler and ready to use. They can fire cruise missiles from Russian airspace that would fly in over the Arctic, the old-fashioned way, but lower than NORAD’s radar outposts are designed to track.

VanHerck’s goal wasn’t to counsel responses to these threats. That’s up to politicians, he said repeatedly. But at any rate, he doesn’t think ballistic-missile defence is the main rebuttal to these threats. “My homeland defence design does not count on us shooting cruise missiles down over Ottawa and Washington, D.C.,” he said. Instead, if NORAD can gather and process information fast enough, and predict action based on that, it might be possible to dissuade a foe before an attack is launched.

“Now, to be candid, we have a lot of work to do” before such things are possible, he said. “To say that we’re well down the path in discussions, that we’ve come to agreements on anything, would be false information,” he added. “We’re getting ready to crawl, if you will.” How long can the preparing-to-crawl phase last? “You know, North America is only going to become more vulnerable to future capabilities being developed by potential adversaries. And decisions need to be made in the not-too-distant future. So I’d love to see those happen sooner than later.”

Best of luck with that, general. February’s triumphant videoconference meeting between Justin Trudeau and a then-popular Joe Biden ended with a plan to convene a “2+2” meeting of the two countries’ defence and foreign ministers to discuss just this sort of thing. Ten months later, it still hadn’t happened.

The two countries did release a “joint statement” on NORAD modernization in the middle of August. Late on a Saturday night. Hours before Trudeau went to Rideau Hall to kick off an election campaign. At a time when such a document was guaranteed to get zero news coverage in Canada. When I asked the U.S. embassy for details on this agreement, I was told that, strictly speaking, it’s not an agreement. It’s a joint statement.

MORE: Did the Liberals just promise a better foreign policy?

Why so skittish? In March the CBC attributed the “golden silence” over NORAD modernization to the lingering hangover from Paul Martin’s refusal to participate in George W. Bush’s ballistic missile defence program. No Canadian government wants to touch BMD with a barge pole. Even the Conservatives, who reliably blame the Liberals for refusing to participate in missile defence, didn’t reverse that decision during the decade Stephen Harper was prime minister.

But not deciding is a decision: when the Americans make command decisions on missile defence, they do it without their Canadian counterparts present, and NORAD stops being NORAD for the duration of the conversation. To the extent that the Americans need to ensure their continental defence in the absence of our half of the continent, they’ll simply proceed without us. At some point that becomes embarrassing.

This is the kind of decision Justin Trudeau hates to make. He’d get no credit from his voter base for making North America more secure against threats many voters don’t believe exist, in concert with an ally many don’t think is worthy.

But neither is endless delay an option. It’s a bit like repairs on 24 Sussex Drive, which Trudeau has been punting forward for half a decade. Meanwhile, the place falls to scrap and some future prime minister will send us the bill. Except in this case it’s a house the size of a continent. It’s threatened by worse than rain and cold winds. The neighbours have noticed, and they’re banging on the ceiling with a broomstick.

This column appears in print in the February 2022 issue of Maclean’s magazine with the headline, “Ditherers in a dangerous time.” Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.

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Restrictions: With at least 3,700 new cases expected to be announced on Friday, the Quebec government announced Thursday a series of renewed restrictions including reduced capacity at businesses, bars and restaurants and a delayed return to classes for secondary and post-secondary students, CTV Montreal reports.

Because of the record-breaking numbers, “we must act,” Quebec Premier François Legault said Thursday, announcing a slew of public health rules the province is tightening as of Monday. Getting vaccinated is key, he said, but “the second weapon that we have is simple: we have… to be close to other people less often.” The province has a goal of reducing contacts by 50 per cent, he said. That means halving capacity wherever possible across the province.

Minister positive: Among those caught up in the scary surge of new cases in Quebec is the education minister, Le Journal de Montréal reports.

Circuit breaker: The Ontario COVID-19 Science Table warned Thursday the province could see 10,000 cases a day as Omicron takes over, and experts say a “circuit breaker” could help avoid the worst, the Globe reports.

These spiking new cases could overwhelm hospitals in January, the science table warns, without intervention now – even with uncertainty about the severity of the disease caused by the new variant. “Waiting to take action means waiting until it is too late to take action,” said Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, head of the science table and dean of the University of Toronto’s public health school. The numbers, released a day after the government of Premier Doug Ford announced accelerated booster shots and new capacity limits for large sports and theatre venues, say Omicron is spreading so quickly it will be Ontario’s dominant variant by the end of this week.

Common sense? CTV snowbird Don Martin, who returned to Canada from the United States last week, describes an unpleasant airport scene, but overall thinks that something like a common sense evolution is taking place.

We’re mercifully pivoting back to the initial goal when the rallying cry was to “flatten the curve” in order to keep empty beds in ICUs instead of chasing rainbow fantasies that this insidious virus can be exterminated by washing your vegetables. So here’s hoping the feds embrace realistic responsibilities in this fourth – or is it fifth? – COVID-19 wave: Secure the kid doses and adult boosters, get millions of rapid testing kits into provincial hands and keep the economy flowing through a border as immune as possible to variant invasions.

Just theatre? Behind the scenes in provincial capitals, though, some think new federal restrictions on travel amount to political theatre, Global’s David Akin reports.

Tackling protectionism: Justin Trudeau has finally sent his ministers new mandate letters, and they include direction to “address rising fears about President Joe Biden’s America-first policies,” Politico reports. Bloomberg takes a similar angle. Global notes that Trudeau has asked his “defence, foreign affairs, public safety and industry ministers to develop a new ‘National Cyber Security Strategy.’ ” The Post reports that the government plans to force online giants to compensate news publishers, and will rework its online harms legislation.

Regrets: Trudeau told Global in an end-of-year interview that the “top levels of the military” told his government there was “no problem” when it came to the misconduct scandal that has shaken the Canadian Armed Forces. Trudeau said he wishes “he could have done more.”

Child killed: Global has a tragic story about a 10-year-old girl who was shot dead in Afghanistan while her family was preparing to flee to Canada.

The girl, Nazifa, was killed when gunfire erupted near a Taliban checkpoint in Kandahar on the night of Dec. 10, her father and the Canadian veterans group Aman Lara told Global News in interviews. The father had worked for the Canadian military in Kandahar until 2011. The family was approved for resettlement by Canada, but was stuck in Afghanistan due to the lack of evacuation efforts.

Teneycke vs. McVety: Ontario PC Party campaign director Kory Teneycke has slapped Premier Doug Ford’s former ally Charles McVety with a lawsuit, Queens Park Today reports. Teneycke and his lobbying firm, Rubicon Strategy, are suing McVety for defamation, alleging the outspoken evangelist has tried to impugn his integrity. “Mr. McVety is about to learn that defamation can be very expensive,” Teneycke said in a text. McVety had no comment.

Ships costly: A report from parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux Thursday estimates Ottawa’s decision to build two new polar icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard will cost $7.25 billion, a dramatic increase over the government’s 2013 estimate that it would cost $1.3 billion to build one such vessel, CP reports.

Potato drama: P.E.I. Premier Dennis King says Ottawa should cut the “silly BS” and do more to end the ban on Island potato exports to the United States, CBC reports.

A million Bluenosers: Nova Scotia announced Thursday the province now has a million people, CTV Atlantic reports.

Publication note: MPs wrapped things up Thursday for a holiday break, and so, too, is your correspondent. The newsletter will be back in your inbox in two weeks. We wish you a joyful solstice season!

— Stephen Maher

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New COVID spending: Chrystia Freeland’s fall fiscal update sets aside almost $30-billion over six years for pandemic spending, including $4.5-billion specifically to respond to Omicron, the Globe reports. The update also includes $40-billion to compensate First Nations children and to reform Canada’s child-welfare  over seven years.

The update says it is a time of economic uncertainty because of the pandemic:  “The path forward will depend on a number of tailwinds and headwinds, which could either bolster the recovery or push it off course.”

The update is notable for what it does not include, the Globe writes.

It is primarily an update of federal spending and revenue projections and does not mention many of new spending promises made in this year’s Liberal Party election platform. Those promises added up to $78-billion over five years.  For instance, the update makes no mention of a platform pledge to impose a 3-per-cent surtax on bank and insurance companies with profits of more than $1-billion and to introduce a fee on financial services companies, which it called the “Canada Recovery Dividend.”

The update finds the books in somewhat better shape than expected. The budget had predicted “the debt-to-GDP ratio would peak at 51.2 per cent this fiscal year, up from pre-pandemic levels of about 31 per cent. Tuesday’s forecast says it will peak this year at 48 per cent, before declining gradually to 44 per cent by the 2026-27 fiscal year.”

Freeland isolated: It was telling, writes Heather Scoffield in the Star, that Freeland had to deliver her update from isolation.

Rapid testing had just indicated that two of her staff had tested positive for COVID-19, and suddenly the entire office, including the minister, had to take steps to isolate — but keep on doing their jobs by turning to all the workarounds we have developed over the past 21 months. Freeland’s first post-election fiscal reveal is all about enabling that pattern economy-wide — dedicating billions to keeping the trains running on time despite the lightning speed at which Omicron is disrupting our lives.

Too much: In the Post, John Ivison writes that it’s still too much spending, and wonders if the federal government should be spending so much on Indigenous child welfare.

First ministers talk: Justin Trudeau was to speak with the premiers last night to discuss the possibility of stricter public health measures in response to omicron, CBC reports.

CBC says officials are considering more travel restrictions. The Globe reports the feds want to revive its advisory against non-essential international travel. An announcement of new measures, including the possibility of a ban on entry by foreign nationals, is expected to be announced today.

Getting ready: In Maclean’s, Patricia Treble has some sobering news about omicron, which looks likely to cut a swatch through Canada as it has in Europe. Dr. Andrew Morris says Canada could have done more to get ready.

Morris cites two big mistakes by Canadian governments in the past two months: minimizing the benefits of third dose; and what he calls a “silly strategy” of delaying rollouts of third doses until they saw evidence in this country of waning immunity from two doses of vaccine, even though there was evidence from around the world that such waning would hit us.  “Those errors have led us to where we are today,” he says. “There was zero benefit to waiting; now they have zero capacity to roll out immunizations.”

Living with COVID: In Le Journal de Montréal, Emmanuelle Latraverse writes that (translation) we now have to live with COVID, because there is no appetite for more lockdowns.

This is living with COVID. Wear a mask in public, administer third doses at full speed. And accept the risk. The alternative is fear, isolation, withdrawal. And that is no longer possible, neither humanly nor economically.

Singh changes tune: Jagmeet Singh said Tuesday he would support federal intervention in a court challenge to Bill 21, which bans public-sector workers from wearing religious symbols on the job, CP reports. Singh said he changed his position after a teacher in Chelsea was reassigned from teaching because she wears a hijab.

Notwithstanding: In the Star, Althia Raj has an interesting column on the implications of the more frequent use of the notwithstanding clause, which allows provinces to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as Francois Legault has done with Bill 21.  Montreal Liberal MP Anthony Housefather thinks legal scholars and MPs should consider whether its use is appropriate.

Arctic changing: This year’s Arctic Report Card finds that the transformation of the Arctic is both “rapid and pronounced,” the Globe reports.

It includes long-observed effects such as reductions in sea ice and snow cover, retreating glaciers and thawing permafrost. Other, more recently observed phenomena range from a proliferation of woody shrubs and beaver dams across the tundra to a Bering Strait awash in marine garbage due to increased shipping traffic. “As the Arctic transforms, science in some cases is running to keep up,” the authors write.

Enough boosters: In an end-of-year interview with CTV’s Evan Solomon, Trudeau said that the government has acquired enough boosters for everyone.

— Stephen Maher

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The federal government revealed Monday that in today’s fall economic statement it will announce $40-billion for First Nations child welfare compensation and long-term reform, Kristy Kirkup reports in the Globe.

Since November, confidential talks have been taking place regarding First Nations children who were unnecessarily taken from their homes and placed in the child welfare system. The goal was to reach an out-of-court settlement before the end of the year. The discussions have been facilitated by Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, who left the Senate last January. Monday’s announcement from the federal government does not amount to a settlement with the parties involved.

New marching orders: Chrystia Freeland gave new inflation control instructions to the Bank of Canada on Monday, asking the central bank to also consider employment, which Heather Scoffield writes in the Star, might be a good idea.

Anand apologizes: Defence Minister Anita Anand said Monday that successive Canadian governments failed to stamp out the “scourge” of sexual misconduct in the Canadian military, Global reports.

“Countless lives have been harmed because of inaction and systemic failure. This is a failure that our Canadian Armed Forces, our department, and the Government of Canada will always carry with us,” she said. “These institutions failed you, and for that we are sorry. I am sorry.”

Survivors and victims of military sexual misconduct received a historic and long-awaited apology on Monday from Anand, as well as from Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre and Jody Thomas, deputy minister of the Department of National Defence. More than 7,600 people watched the apology livestream on Facebook, which comes after a year in which the Canadian military has been forced to confront what experts have called a “crisis” of sexual misconduct within its ranks, particularly senior leaders.

Omicron is moving: Dr. Theresa Tam said Monday that new COVID-19 cases are expected to “rapidly escalate” in the coming days as Omicron circulates, CBC reports.  Tam said there is “great spread potential” with omicron and the situation in Canada is a “few days or maybe a week” behind the U.K.—where Boris Johnson today said that the country is dealing with a “tidal wave” of new infections.

Bad news: In Maclean’s, Patricia Treble looks at the numbers Tam released and sees uncertainty and reason for concern as we enter the holidays.

The bad news keeps coming. On Friday, Dec. 10, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, released the latest federal modelling of the pandemic. It projects around 7,500 cases a day by January, assuming our transmission levels remain the same. However, if transmission increases by as little as 15 per cent, or if the new Omicron variant gets established, like Alpha and then Delta, then a towering wave unlike anything previously seen could arrive by the New Year.

The upshot: think long and hard about holiday gatherings, experts say.

Get the jab: In the Globe, Andre Picard reviews what we know, and don’t know about COVID-19 immunity and conclude with a simple message: get vaccinated.

That’s why there is a push for people to get third doses. The more shots you have, the better your immunity will be. It might also be longer lasting, but we don’t know. Will we require annual COVID-19 shots in the future? Perhaps. But that’s not the end of the world. We already have annual flu shots.

Manitoba needs nurses: The Manitoba government has asked the federal government to provide ICU nurses, CBC reports.

Jean wins: Brian Jean won a UCP nomination battle 529 votes to 250, Don Braid reports in the Calgary Herald, setting up a struggle with Jason Kenny.

If the former federal MP and Wildrose leader wins the seat, he will join the premier’s UCP caucus as a sworn political enemy just in time for the April 9 leadership review in Red Deer. “I will not be supporting him (Kenney) in the leadership review and will be asking for his resignation as soon as possible,” Jean said in an interview. Kenney could still stop him cold by refusing to sign his papers. But the premier has already said he would accept the man he defeated for the UCP leadership in 2017. He wouldn’t dare renege on that promise now.

Not fighting: Justin Trudeau says for now he is going to stay out of the fight over Bill 21, the Star reports, to avoid a dispute with Quebec.

Trudeau said as a court challenge now underway wends its way through the courts, it’s “important … to not give the excuse of a fight between Ottawa and Quebec … and to ensure that it is Quebecers themselves who deeply disagree with the fact that someone can lose their job because of their religion, and not to give the excuse to the Quebec government that this is federal interference but just to say no, Quebecers disagree with this principle, that a young woman should be able to lose her job, a teacher who was doing her job very well simply because of her religion.”

Extremists in uniform: White supremacists in Canada’s armed forces pose an “active counter-intelligence threat” and national defence officials are “limited” in their ability to root them out, Alex Boutilier reports for Global.

The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency reported concerns Monday that the Canadian Armed Forces’ counter-intelligence unit is “limited” in their ability to proactively identify white supremacists in the ranks. “The presence of white supremacy within the Canadian military has been well documented. White supremacist groups actively seek individuals with prior military training and experience, or conversely, encourage individuals to enlist in order to gain access to specialized training, tactics and equipment,” the report reads.

Not many trees yet: The federal government has planted less than half a per cent of the two billion trees it pledged to put in the ground across Canada by 2030, CP reports. So far, only 8.5 million trees have been planted.

Youth vote: NDP MP Taylor Bachrach has tabled a private member’s bill in the House of Commons that would extend the franchise to 16-year-olds, CBC reports.

— Stephen Maher

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The Canada Revenue Agency and the government of Quebec shut down websites as a preventative measure after receiving a cyberattack threat, the Globe reports.

The Canada Revenue Agency said Sunday that it became aware on Friday of a security vulnerability:  “As a precaution, we proactively decided to take our online services offline while we work to secure our systems against potential threats.”

Quebec shut down 4,000 sites.

At a news conference, Quebec’s minister of digital transformation said the province was made aware of the threat on Friday and has since been working to identify which websites are at risk, one by one, before putting them back online. “We’re kind of looking for a needle in a haystack,” Eric Caire said, in Quebec City, “Not knowing which websites use the [affected] software, we decided to shut them all.”

On Monday morning, the Canada Revenue Agency said on Twitter that “most of [its] digital services are now available.”

Ottawa undoes testing snub: Ottawa dropped a travel rule that had rejected COVID-19 tests from South Africa over the weekend, the Globe reports.

No reason was provided for the change of policy, which was communicated in e-mails to Canadian citizens in South Africa and in an amendment to the online version of the Canadian border rules. Canadians in the other nine African countries under the travel ban will still have to follow the third-country rule, although now they will have the option of getting the test in South Africa.

The rule had been denounced by the head of the World Health Organization and was widely seen as an unfair and irrational snub.

Pressure on Freeland: Opposition politicians are pressing the Liberals to address inflation and the cost of living ahead of tomorrow’s fiscal update, CBC reports.

The Conservatives are calling on the Liberals to freeze tax increases and introduce a plan to phase out deficit spending. “Our demands are very simple: less tax, less deficits, less inflation,” said Pierre Poilievre on Sunday. Earlier in the week, Jagmeet Singh said he wants to see the Liberals address inflation by targeting housing speculation and investing in affordable housing.

Don’t expect much: Economists are not expecting much new spending to be announced on Tuesday, they tell CP.

Not a budget: In the Star, Heather Scoffield writes that with a political fight looming with the Conservatives over economic policy, the Liberals are unlikely to want to spend freely.

All signs point to the extra cash being mostly spent on Omicron prevention, prudence measures, pandemic benefits and perhaps British Columbia.

Don’t blame politicians: the former Bank of Canada (BoC) governor told Global Sunday that politicians don’t deserve blame for inflation.  Stephen Poloz said that Canada’s pandemic spending was wise: “Aren’t we lucky that the policies worked well to prevent the second Great Depression, which is what many economists were worried about when we first encountered the COVID-19 shock.”

Rates going up: The CEO of the CD Howe Institute has an opinion piece in the Globe predicting that interest rates are going to go up.

Prepare for the worst: International Trade Minister Mary Ng told CTV Sunday Canadians should “prepare for the worst” if U.S. lawmakers pass President Joe Biden’s protectionist Build Back Better Act with an electric vehicle tax credit.

Ng discussed a letter she co-signed with Chrystia Freeland threatening retaliatory tariffs: “What my hope is, is that we are not going to have to do this at all but what is really important is that Canada prepare for the worst.”

Biden’s tax credit would give consumers up to $12,500 if they purchase a U.S. union-made electric vehicle. The letter was sent to U.S. senate leadership late Friday evening, as another means to change the position of the Biden administration in favour of Canada’s auto sector.

Avoiding a fight: In the Star, Chantal Hebert considers whether Justin Trudeau and Erin O’Toole will seek to defy Francois Legault by getting involved in the battle over Bill 21, which has been in the headlines since a hijab-wearing Chelsea teacher  was removed from the classroom. Hebert is not sure either of them will pick a fight with the premiers, but thinks Trudeau is more likely to get involved than O’Toole.

But in an election year, (Legault) would probably relish casting himself as a champion of Quebec’s securalism consensus against a meddling federal government. On balance, Trudeau’s Quebec caucus would be much more likely to follow his lead and take a more combative stance on Bill 21 than O’Toole’s.

An unwelcome debate: In Maclean’s Paul Wells notes that the debate over this law is not welcomed by party leadership, and points out that members of O’Toole’s caucus who have spoken may be doing so in part because of leadership dynamics.

When four Conservative MPs tweeted within minutes about their renewed love of freedom, it was hard to escape the suspicion that there’s something else going on. Perhaps this: those Conservatives are not, by and large, conspicuous Erin O’Toole fans, and many come from ridings where much of the Conservative voter base is spitting mad at O’Toole for perceived softness on vaccine mandates

Strong CAQ: In Maclean’s, Philippe J. Fournier writes about a recent Quebec poll that shows CAQ sitting pretty and the provincial Liberals in a “distant second place, far behind the CAQ, with just 20 per cent of voting intentions, five points below its historically disastrous 2018 result.”

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As we enter an election year in Quebec, not only does François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) lead in voting intentions, but its lead over each of his rivals has not faded one iota since the COVID-19 pandemic reached our shores back in March 2020.

The most recent Quebec poll, published last week by Le Journal de Montréal, shows that the government’s turbulent fall session at the National Assembly has had no apparent effect on the Quebec electorate. According to this Léger poll, the CAQ garners 46 per cent of voting intentions in the province (the party obtained 37 per cent of the vote in the 2018 general election). The Quebec Liberal Party (QLP) comes in a distant second place, far behind the CAQ, with just 20 per cent of voting intentions, five points below its historically disastrous 2018 result.

This CAQ dominance is all the more imposing given that it receives the support of 52 per cent of francophone voters, a monstrous 36-point lead over its closest rival (the Parti Québécois) in this dominant demographic. As for the Liberals, they are getting decimated in francophone Quebec: only 9 per cent of francophone respondents support Dominique Anglade’s QLP. While opinion polling in Quebec has shown the Liberals steadily but gradually losing support among francophones since the rise of the CAQ, the QLP polling in single digits remains a shocking sight.

The poll was conducted in late November as the Quebec Liberals were gathered in Quebec City for their annual convention. The event featured leader Dominique Anglade promoting a more centrist, progressive and green platform for the upcoming 2022 general election—a clear sign that the QLP wants to insert some daylight between itself and the CAQ policy-wise. Whether this strategy will work is still up in the air, but such a dramatic turn comes with substantial risks for a party that used to dominate among Baby Boomer voters in the province. According to this Léger poll, the QLP trails the CAQ by a crushing 33 points among voters aged 55 and over (54 per cent for the CAQ, 21 per cent for the QLP). Could a greener and more progressive platform really turn this tide around? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Both Québec solidaire (QS) and the Parti Québécois (PQ) polled at 13 per cent of voting intentions, according to Léger. Both parties currently stand below their 2018 election results (17 per cent for the PQ, 16 per cent for QS). For QS, neither Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois’ additional visibility in the National Assembly as parliamentary leader nor his party’s recent convention seem to have moved the needle in favour of the left-wing formation. As for the PQ, it stands in fourth place in the Montreal metropolitan region, and trails the CAQ by more than 35 points (!) in Quebec city and in the regions of Quebec. Without some concentration of its vote (as is the case for QS in the central areas of Montreal), the PQ could suffer significant seat losses next year if current numbers remain stable. It should be noted, however, that the Léger poll was fielded before the PQ convention last week, during which the party presented a new logo and the broad outlines of its platform for 2022.

As for Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party (CPQ), its few inroads in the Quebec City and Chaudière-Appalaches regions (15 per cent in the Quebec City metropolitan area, according to Léger) are suffering from the CAQ’s dominance in this part of the province. The latest Leger survey measures CPQ support at 5 per cent in the province, down three points since October.

We add this poll to the 338Canada Quebec projection. If an election had been held this week, the CAQ would have been favoured to win no fewer than 97 of the 125 seats in the National Assembly (on average), up 23 seats from its 2018 total.

Since the CAQ currently dominates francophone Quebec like we have not seen any party do in the past 40 years in the province, the CAQ vote is highly efficient. See the CAQ’s current seat projection on the graph below: François Legault enjoys a “floor” of safe seats higher than his party’s seat total from 2018, and the projection’s high-end tail stretches above 100 seats—a total no provincial party has achieved in Quebec since Robert Bourassa’s QLP in 1973.

The two big losers in this projection are the political formations that have governed Quebec for half a century between 1970 to 2018. For the Liberals, they could lose as many as 14 seats compared to their 2018 results. With the exception of Pontiac in the Outaouais, all the ridings projected to be favourable to the QLP are located in Montreal and Laval. In other words, the QLP could be driven out of French-speaking Quebec. Even the best-case scenarios of this projection have the Liberals losing seats to the CAQ, even a handful on the Island of Montreal, see graph below:

Unless there is a major shift in the vote in Montreal over the next year, Québec solidaire’s Montreal ridings are not expected to change color. However, the rise of the CAQ on the Island since 2018 (particularly at the expense of the PQ) could dampen QS’s hopes of making gains in Montreal. As for the Parti Québécois, it is currently projected to lose 7 of the 10 seats it won in 2018. The three ridings most likely to remain in the PQ fold are Matane-Matapédia, Joliette and Gaspé.

Nevertheless, neither the PQ nor QS should be expected to grow beyond their natural base of voters in the near future. Unless there is a new wave of separatist sentiment growing in the province, the PQ’s ceiling will remain in the high 10s ad low 20s in popular support. As for QS, I recently spoke with activist students who were challenging my projections. They claimed QS would become the official opposition with 20-to-25 seats in 2022. Keeping an open mind to their suggestion, I asked how QS would reach that total. “Take this list of ridings and tell me how they get to 20.” They drew blanks.

Which leads us back to the Liberals. Numbers show the party is in free-fall and about to be wiped out of francophone Quebec. Having its right-of-centre and business-savvy flank eroded by the CAQ, and without the threat of separation on the near horizon, the QLP’s very raison-d’être has become a blur and has driven the party into an existential crisis. A greener and more progressive platform for the QLP may be an attempt to attract soft federalist voters currently leaning towards QS (polls have measured close to half of QS voters are not in favour of Quebec sovereignty, even though QS is officially pro-separation), but again, those potential voters would mostly be urban voters. Seat-wise, this would not help the QLP grow beyond its loyal Montreal base. Without stronger numbers in rural Quebec, the QLP could soon suffer its worst electoral defeat since confederation.

* * *

Details of this Quebec projection are available on the 338Canada Quebec page. You will find all 125 electoral district projections here, or use the regional links below:

• Island of Montreal
• Montreal Suburbs (450)
• Quebec City region
• Regions of Quebec
• Complete map

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Here’s one measure of how little Building Back Better we’re getting done here in the nation’s capital: MPs from different parties and perspectives are having an interesting conversation about important matters. But it’s entirely off-book. It’s spontaneous, the leaders of the various parties didn’t ask for it, and it’s pretty clear they desperately wish it weren’t happening. In Ottawa, saying what you think is an act of rebellion.

The week’s topic is, of course, Quebec’s Bill 21, which forbids hiring public servants, including teachers, who dress incorrectly (“The persons listed in Schedule II are prohibited from wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their functions.”) The bill was introduced in March of 2019 and passed into law soon after. Federal party leaders fielded questions about it in debates during the 2019 and 2021 elections. Each time, Quebec’s premier François Legault got angry at the people who asked the questions. So did federal party leaders, who pay ever-growing hordes of witless staffers to tell them how to move and talk and who cannot for the life of them understand that the rest of us aren’t also conscripts in that effort.

READ: The battle against Quebec’s Bill 21

Anyway the inevitable happened. This week news broke that a Grade 3 teacher in the bucolic Quebec town of Chelsea, a stone’s throw from Ottawa, was pulled from class for wearing a hijab. Here’s how it played in one early story: nameless teacher reassigned to “another function” outside the class, school officials shtum on details, shocked community hanging green ribbons.

A chain reaction ensued. Kyle Seeback, a Brampton Conservative MP, kicked it off by tweeting, “I cannot in good conscience keep silent on this anymore… Bill 21 has to be opposed. In court, in the house of commons and in the streets.” Jamie Schmale, Chris Warkentin and Mark Strahl tweeted their agreement.

Seeback’s conscience seems to have gnawed at him after he retweeted a Thursday-night tweet from the Globe’s Robyn Urback wondering why Catherine McKenna, the former Liberal environment minister, now calls Law 21’s application “appalling” but didn’t, at the time, contradict Justin Trudeau’s milder language in the 2019 and ’21 campaigns. Good for Seeback, actually, for amplifying some snark aimed at a Liberal and then realizing it applied to him too. Soon McKenna and the Conservative MPs had company among Liberals still in caucus: Alexandra Mendes, Salma Zahid, Iqra Khalid, Marc Garneau. Finally a sitting cabinet minister, Marc Miller, called the law’s application “cowardly.” There is also a clip of Chrystia Freeland, the federal Minister of Careful What You Wish For, saying as close to nothing as she can possibly say, a recurring highlight of many recent debates.

READ: ‘A sadness you can’t describe’: The high price of Quebec’s Bill 21

I don’t like Bill 21 either. It’s based on silly reasoning—”the state” must have no religion, so nobody who works for the state may be seen to have any religion. This is like saying the state has no particular height, so public servants must be required to hover above the ground. Somewhere around here there’s an old column I wrote patiently explaining this logic and its heritage in the receding role of the Catholic church in Quebec society, a column some of my Toronto colleagues still enjoy mocking, but there’s a difference between understanding the argument and buying it. On a list of the top, say, thousand problems facing modern Quebec, “teachers in head scarves” would not appear. And one of the most obvious things we can say about this law is that the costs it imposes—in personal freedom, economic opportunity, social ostracism—is essentially never borne by people named Tremblay or Côté or Wells. Somehow the burden seems to land reliably on people named—well, in the current instance, on Fatemeh Anvari. About whom more in a moment.

I have also never felt that Bill 21 reveals some universal moral failing of “Quebec.” Every criticism I can level against this law has been levelled, many times, by Quebecers, including several of the Liberal MPs who ran out of patience yesterday; the Quebec Liberal and Québec Solidaire parties, which between them won more votes than Legault’s party did in 2018; an impressive selection of municipal politicians and commentators in, mostly, Montreal; and Judge Marc-André Blanchard of Quebec Superior Court, whose ruling struck down parts of Bill 21 and exclaimed his helplessness with regard to the rest: he plainly doesn’t like the thing, but Legault’s use of the constitution’s “notwithstanding” clause protects most of the law from legal challenge or judicial invalidation. Solid majorities in Quebec have supported the law in polls, but I’m not sure how long that will last, and since the law’s Charter-proofing provisions must be renewed every five years in the National Assembly, I’m not sure the law itself will last long either. I reject the notion that only Quebecers may have an opinion on the thing, because of course everyone can have an opinion on anything. But the conversation among Quebecers is plenty multifaceted already.

A few points of context. First, the provisions of the law, as they apply to the Western Quebec School Board which employs Fatemeh Anvari, have already been struck down. Minority-language education rights are notwithstanding-proof, and Judge Blanchard did to the provisions regarding English school boards what he plainly wished he could do to the whole law. Legault’s government appealed the ruling, and under Quebec law the provisions remain in place pending appeal, but Legault will lose the appeal and by next year, there may be no remaining barrier to teachers in hijabs teaching in Quebec’s English-language schools. This doesn’t help the rest of the province, at least not immediately, but it sets up two cases that parents will be able to observe and compare. Which is a ball that can bounce in many different ways over time.

Second, in interviews Anvari is plainly rattled by a situation she should not be in. But neither is she fired nor banished to the furthest reaches of her school’s steam-pipe trunk distribution venue. As the Lowdown’s excellent story notes, she’s been assigned “a literacy project for all students [that] will target inclusion and awareness of diversity.” This is not as good as simply letting her teach the curriculum would have been, but it shows some wit. Again, in a complex society, citizens respond in ways governments often don’t intend and wouldn’t prefer. Governments often don’t take that news well.

Third: those calling on governments to do something, now including members of the federal governing caucus, are sometimes short of ideas about what, precisely, to do. Federal lawyers in a court challenge could make no argument that hasn’t already been made—and, largely, rejected by the frustrated Judge Blanchard. Short of reviving the obsolete powers of reservation and disallowance, a step even Pierre Trudeau declined to take against even Bill 101, there’s not much a federal intervention could add.

Is there therefore no point in simply talking, or simply sending federal lawyers to say what lawyers for civil-society groups have already said? No, I think there’s a point, in that it brings government’s actions more closely in line with what are obviously the opinions of the people who compose the government. (Note that there isn’t a single Liberal MP tweeting, “Guys, Bill 21 is great!”) A reduction in the amount of hypocrisy in a system is always welcome and lately well overdue. But as a practical matter, the feds can’t do much to change the situation.

Finally, less important but still worth mentioning: When four Conservative MPs tweeted within minutes about their renewed love of freedom, it was hard to escape the suspicion that there’s something else going on. Perhaps this: those Conservatives are not, by and large, conspicuous Erin O’Toole fans, and many come from ridings where much of the Conservative voter base is spitting mad at O’Toole for perceived softness on vaccine mandates. When Seeback talks about opposing Bill 21 “in the street,” that sure sounds like an echo of the way a lot of people opposed vaccine mandates. MPs who can’t give their voters much satisfaction on the latter are probably grateful for a chance to blow off some steam on the former. That’s not to dismiss or rebut the Bill 21 Freedom Four; it’s just to note that motives are often mixed or additive.

Here’s the thing: in a liberal democracy you can’t keep a cork in everyone’s mouth forever. You shouldn’t try. It’s been fun watching the leaderships of three federal political parties try to deny simple human feelings over an inherently emotional issue. But the fun’s over. Now citizens are going to act like citizens. Always a scary moment for communications professionals.

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