StrategyCorp Insights - An In-Depth Analysis of Party Priorities for the 43rd Parliament
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StrategyCorp Insights
An In-Depth Analysis of Party Priorities for the 43rd Parliament
November 2019
©STRATEGYCORP 2019
State of Play
Overview
• The purpose of this document is to provide an in-depth analysis of the potential priorities,
actions, and obstacles for each major federal party in Canada’s minority government (43 rd
Parliament)
• While the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) governed a minority government from 2006-
2011, the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) has not operated under a minority government since
the brief period from 2004-2006, under Prime Minister Paul Martin
• In a minority parliaments, governments must rely on the support of other parties to stay in
power and pass legislation, providing less stability than a majority government
• This complex balancing of interests merits closer investigation to assess what each party
must do to achieve key priorities and actions
• It also means that the day-to-day work of Parliament receives greater scrutiny than during a
majority government, with Members of Parliament and Parliamentary Committees having
more potential to impact the government's agenda
3
43rd Parliament Realities
As the parties contemplate next steps, there are two operating assumptions we expect to hold
for the next few months:
At 13 seats shy of a majority, the Liberals have a
I. relatively stable, minority government
No major federal party is motivated to have another
II. election in the immediate future
These constants will shape the political calculus of the parties as each pursues its own
objectives within this Parliament
4
Navigating a Minority Parliament • In a minority Parliament, the positions of Government House
Leader and Chief Government Whip become far more important in
managing the government’s agenda
Additional votes required for the Liberals to o The Government House Leader is responsible for managing
14 pass legislation in the House of Commons the day to day agenda and negotiating with the other parties
to ensure continual support
o The Chief Government Whip is responsible for ensuring the
Pipelines, government has the votes it needs within the House of
Tax Cuts Commons
Social Justice, o For a Government which spent little time focused on
Climate Action Parliament from 2015-2019, the Liberals will require more
attention to the functioning of Parliament when the House
resumes sitting on December 5
• The Liberals will likely rely on issue-by-issue partnerships with the
three main opposition parties
• Potential areas of cooperation include with the NDP or BQ on
climate action; with the Bloc on matters relating to Quebec (or SNC
Lavalin); and with the Conservatives on energy sector issues and
SNC Lavalin, pipelines
Climate Action • The Senate of Canada continues to evolve as a less partisan
Greens IND
institution and could be unpredictable on contentious issues
5
Party Breakdown: Context and Priorities
6
Trudeau’s Four Forces – Influences Shaping Government Decision-making
Trudeau will be pulled in four directions – together, these forces represent opportunities and challenges for voices to be heard by decision-
makers in a minority Parliament
Towards the progressive left to keep
the NDP and BQ from rising
Towards the West to contain Towards Quebec and urban
emerging unity challenges Canada for electoral growth
Towards a renewed focus on the
economy amid an expected slowdown 7The Way Forward for the Liberals
The Liberal Party will view all its decisions through the lens of its one
objective: returning to a majority government next election. To get there,
StrategyCorp has identified two paths to victory —increasing the share of
suburban voters across Canada's regions, or increasing seats in Quebec.
The party might employ one of two corresponding strategies.
The Horizontal Play
I. Growing across all five regions of the country and bringing
forward policies that reach suburban/exurban dwellers
• The needs of this constituency are unique and are not dependent on
language or ethnicity
• Overarching themes like affordability will land most effectively – issues like
childcare and public transit do not have a regional nuance, making them
broadly appealing
—OR—
The Vertical Play
II. Embracing bold and potentially polarizing policies in a bid to
pick up more seats in Quebec. Expect the Liberals to target their existing Quebec pathway
in addition to seats on the perimeter of urban centres
• This might include directly challenging Quebec’s Bill 21 or pivoting sharply
left to sway Bloc voters in exurban Montreal and Quebec City where they finished a close second
8Additional Considerations for the Liberals
The Liberals will need to think about trying to restore their appeal with millennials and First Nations, Metis, and Inuit voters
• With the Greens taking about 400,000 votes and the NDP pulling some support away too, the Liberals will want to examine how they
get these voters back inside the Party tent
• Attempts at this were made in the Liberal election platform with a promised increase for Canada Student Grants and the introduction
of a grace period to repay student loans
• If the answer is to adopt Green policies, how does this reconcile with the interests of their other constituencies?
What may be more likely is an attempt to repair relationships with other key voter groups who were “in” the tent in 2015, but “out” in
2019.
• This might be accomplished through policy outreach. Minority parliaments are contentious places, so the key question will be how to
maintain the Trudeau brand in this environment?
• While appealing to progressives, there is a danger in failing to balance energy and the environment and further disillusioning western
Canadians
• Meanwhile, an additional risk presents itself in the party’s treatment of Ontario – given the number of seats the Liberals hold in
Ontario (especially in the Greater Toronto Area and 905 area code), voters in Ontario must feel their issues are being addressed by the
Liberals
9Climate Change – A Prevalent Ballot Box Issue
Liberals Conservatives
The overarching political landscape is being redefined
through a climate lens Climate politics are increasingly a focal point in
Canadian elections and voters now expect parties to
This has organized voters into voting blocs, including: present a robust plan to tackle the issue
Left Wingers (25% of voters*) While the environment has previously been a shield
Urgent climate action with no pipeline construction issue for the Conservatives, the reality is that voters
(especially suburban) are increasingly looking for
proposals on how parties will approach climate
Right Wingers (20% of voters*) policy
Urgent pipeline construction with limited climate action
While the Conservatives created a specific
environmental platform, they issued it early and
Centrists (46% of voters*) failed to promote it during the campaign. Given the
Climate action and pipeline construction importance of the issue to swing voters, a challenge
for the Conservatives to consider is how to address
climate politics with policies that can attract key
With these new political definitions solidifying, it appears the
voters.
Liberals will likely concurrently advance climate action
and energy development
10
*Source: Nanos Research. In the same poll, 3% said the government should cancel both the carbon tax and the Trans Mountain pipeline, while 7% were unsure.The Way Forward for the CPC
Conservatives across Canada are wrestling with
what went wrong in the 2019 election campaign and strategy
Former Conservative Minister and MP John Baird has been
tasked by Andrew Scheer to conduct a "post-mortem"
on all facets of the campaign
In addition to the results of the post-mortem, Conservatives will
be putting Scheer under increased scrutiny over the following:
• How does Scheer handle the early days of a minority
Parliament, including his response to the
Speech From the Throne and his performances
in media and in Question Period
• What changes does he make to his Shadow Cabinet,
his inner circle and his senior staff
• Can he keep the Caucus and other senior party leaders
behind him
The next six months will be a defining period for
Andrew Scheer's leadership in the run-up to the • Will he answer tough questions about his personal views
April 2020 CPC National Policy Conference in which arose consistently during the campaign?
Toronto. Delegates will have the ability to vote A strong performance between now and Christmas will help
"yea" or "nay" on a leadership review Scheer make the case that he should remain as Leader 11Additional Considerations for the Conservatives
• The Conservative Party is grappling with fundamental questions with two key camps emerging:
o The Tacticians: those who believe the Party only needs to tinker around the edges and while they may not be
satisfied with winning the popular vote and increasing the number of seats, they believe the Party is on the right
track for victory next time
o The Existentialists: those who are concerned with the party’s ability to keep pace with an increasingly progressive
electorate. They want more drastic and substantive changes (including for some, a change in leadership)
• Stephen Harper took time after the 2004 election to do a fundamental assessment on why the party lost, including deep
personal introspection for Harper on whether he should remain as Leader. The party also included a major shake-up of key
staff, and a re-focusing of the policies and platform. Like Harper, there are major questions that Scheer will have to
reconcile imminently should he wish to remain as leader
• Central to this self-reflection, the Conservatives know what they stand against, but they have not unified in what they stand
for. The Party will be examining how to broaden its "big tent" to appeal to the greatest number of voters
• Scheer will need to demonstrate that he can bring both the tacticians and the existentialists together under a "big-tent"
party in order to retain cohesion and unity
• The challenge for Conservatives is that all of these issues are internally rather than externally focused – it's difficult to
portray a party as a "government-in-waiting" when it is internally focused
• This gives Liberals more room in a minority situation, when Conservatives will likely not be seeking an election anytime
soon
12The NDP: Leader Strong, Party Weak
• While Jagmeet Singh now presides over a significantly
diminished NDP (with a 15-seat loss), Singh himself
was lauded for running a good campaign
• Singh experienced challenges at the beginning of his party
leadership: difficulty gaining traction without a seat in
Parliament, running for office outside his home province, and
raising funds for a party with many incumbent MPs retiring
• During the campaign, Singh resonated well with young, left-
leaning voters. Strategic voting in the days leading up to the
election may have impacted his momentum with this cohort,
with voters fearing a Conservative minority government
• Singh’s NDP captured a notable portion of the popular vote as
compared to his seat count – this could be a potential area of
focus for the NDP in the next election: aggregating regional
support rather than broad favour across the country
• As the new face on the Hill, the NDP has an opportunity to
capitalize on fundraising and membership
13Portion of Popular Vote
NDP Challenge: Transitioning Momentum into Results
15.9% captured by the NDP
Looking Forward
• The NDP needs time to regroup as an organization and
could benefit from a full four-year term for the Liberals:
1. Recruit more competitive players in key ridings;
2. Ride the high approval ratings of Singh and capitalize on
this momentum in the House;
3. Establish Singh as a progressive alternative through an
increased presence across the country and substantially
increase its bottom line through aggressive fundraising;
and
4. Allow Canadians time to grow completely weary of
Trudeau before attempting to overtake the Liberals as the
de facto “left” party of choice in the next federal election
• However, minority Parliament may also work against
Major Question: How can the NDP transition Singh. In 1974, then-NDP Leader David Lewis actually
Canadians that were attracted to Singh, and make triggered an earlier election that he knew would result in
them voters, donors, and activists? seat losses because the longer the NDP waited, the
worse they would have done
• With this in mind, the LPC may be inclined to call an
election sooner to avoid facing an NDP that is organized
and ready to challenge on the left 14Bloc Québécois: Sovereignty Silence is Golden
• Under Yves-Francois Blanchet’s leadership, the BQ increased its
number of seats from 10 in 2015 to 32 seats in 2019, becoming
the 3rd largest party in Canada and regaining official party status
• Having run a campaign that barely mentioned the word
"sovereignty," the Bloc is aware that it ran a campaign that
provided very few details to voters on what its intentions in
government would be. They will not be able to get away with it in
another election
• The Bloc appear to have captured the attention of voters
increasingly focused on secularism – it was the only federal party
in favour of the contentious Bill C-21 in Quebec
• It has also played off the popularity of CAQ Premier Francois
Legault, by mimicking his approach to federalism: more control
for Quebec in social and financial spheres Major Internal Question: Will an election soon
• In the next electoral cycle, it will be forced to provide more serve to capitalize on current momentum and allow
the BQ to pick up even more seats in Quebec? Or
explicit policy intentions and budget priorities, but for now
will they perceive current representation as a win
Blanchet and the Bloc are in a solid position
and try to preserve their current status for as long
as possible?
15Elizabeth May: In a League of Her Own?
The Green Party continues to be mired in a cult of personality
around Elizabeth May. May’s personal popularity has never
translated into seats during election time: she has only been
able to grow the party to 3 members in 5 successive elections
since becoming party leader in 2006. May signaled that she will
not be the leader for the next election.
The key question for the Greens is:
Can they find a successor that can build them into a competitive
federal party, both organizationally and financially?
The million-plus Canadian citizens who voted Green, most notably
the millennial vote, did not vote Green as a protest – they hoped to The Green Party will be forced to complete an
turn protest into power, and demonstrate the commitment of introspective exploratory leadership process, asking
young people to radical solutions to the climate crisis. themselves what kind of person, and what type of tactics,
will be necessary to transition themselves from a single-
issue party focused on protest, to a formidable threat
16 to
Liberal/NDP power.Beyond the Election
17On the Horizon: Things to Come
Speech From the Throne and Return of Parliament – The House of Commons resumes for a short session on December
5 and will adjourn by December 13. The Liberals' priorities will become clear through this and other items, such as
mandate letters to new Ministers.
Weakened Mandate – Without a majority government, the Prime Minister and his team will have to work across party
lines to move their agenda forward.
Conservative Policy Convention – The April 2020 Conservative Policy Convention (and the period preceding it) will
increasingly become focused on Andrew Scheer's leadership, and, ultimately a vote either for or against his leadership.
Elizabeth May’s Departure – The future of the Green Party is uncertain: it could either recede from the public’s
consciousness without May’s high profile, or a new leader could evolve the Green Party into a major player in the
climate crisis era.
Potential Recession – This government and Parliament will have to contend with the spectre of a possible economic
downtown, and the uncertain impact it might have on both of their operations.
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