John Ivison: Liberals ponder an early election as Poilievre confronts his Macbeth moment

There are few signs that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is making inroads with voters, John Ivison writes. Photo by Allison Young/The London Free Press/Postmedia

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The Conservative party is a “fractured mess,” according to one caucus member who volunteered the opinion to a CTV reporter Wednesday.

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Few people (with the possible exception of leader Pierre Poilievre) will have been more distressed by the sense of incipient rebellion than Mark Carney’s political advisers.

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I remain unconvinced that the prime minister plans to establish a political dynasty. He has repeatedly refused to confirm that he plans to lead the Liberal party into the next election. He is ambitious to get big things done. He knows he has to be in a position to enact his plans, which requires having a majority government. As I noted on Monday, the government is planning to introduce legislation to rein in labour disputes this fall. The consultative process began shortly after the Liberals acquired, by hook and by crook, their majority.

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But Carney seems supremely uninterested in Parliament and likely views an election campaign as a distraction.

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The same could not be said for the political people around him. They are the kind of folks whose idea of a good night in is a box of Timbits and a copy of Hansard, and they are apparently convinced that an election in the next six months would be a terrific idea.

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The most recent polling aggregated by 338 Canada estimates Liberal support at 46 per cent, compared to 33 per cent for the Conservatives. The seat projection on those numbers suggests the Liberals would have a 99 per cent chance at a majority and could win around 228 seats, compared to 78 for the Conservatives.

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That projection would see Poilievre’s party lose 60 MPs. For caucus members contemplating the thought of him leading them into another campaign, the chance of an MP surviving is around 56 per cent — similar to that of a frontline infantry soldier at the Battle of the Somme.

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On CTV, Regan Watts, a former adviser to Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty, said we are seeing the final scene in this Shakespearean tragedy. To extend that metaphor, defeat in the coming Brantford—Brant South—Six Nations byelection, as safe a Conservative seat as it gets in Ontario, would be like Birnam Wood arriving in Dunsinane — namely, the end of the play.

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Larry Brock, the sitting MP will step down this Friday, and the prime minister must call a byelection within the next six months.

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Poilievre has to turn things around by then.

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Yet there are few signs that the Conservative leader is making inroads with voters.
Poilievre is a politician so well versed in the art of denial he appears incapable of saying yes. His agenda is so inflexible, he is like a tombstone salesman trying to flog a memorial already engraved with the name McDonald.

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He came out against Carney’s investment event on Tuesday, saying that “the speeches, summits and symbolic signing ceremonies” would not pay the grocery bills of Canadians.

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He pointed to six quarters marked by a decline in business investment and said the world would like to invest in Canada’s resources were it not for high federal taxes and red tape.

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The social media post landed just hours before Carney unveiled nearly $500 billion in new investment commitments and a tax write-off that will cut the marginal effective tax rate on new business investment to the lowest level of any major economy in the world.