TORONTO – The House of Commons resumes its duties tomorrow, amid turmoil peripherally related to the Country’s interests and to those of its citizens. That is an exaggeration for purists and for those who equate national interests with the fortunes of singular political figures or of political parties that house them, however temporarily. 

Not to be trite, but there comes a time when the landlord says, “it is time to renegotiate the lease”. Come ‘hell or high water’, delay tactics aside, we are entering the absolutely last twelve months of that political lease. Those in government – the NDP and the Liberals – are reading signs that suggest they may no longer be acceptable tenants. The same goes for their ideologies.

The polls defy those who would be inclined positively for a renewal of the mandate – there are positives, even if their outcomes are contested. The NDP, for example, has unexpectedly and publicly shredded the Agreement which previously tied it to the Liberal fortunes and directions of government. Bluntly, their message is ‘we are not going down with this ship’. So much for loyalty.

It is the nature of the environment and the times. There have been suggestions that the entire system may be in need of an overhaul. The Liberals, for their part have temporized. Only last week they determined to appoint an Election Campaign Manager to replace the [now retired] incumbent (gone for the last three months).

His qualifications may be impeccable, yet the less enthusiastic have been citing these facts: 1. He is the chief of staff to the Minister of Finance, a potential leadership candidate; 2. He was chief of staff to Premier Kathleen Wynne, managing policy directions and the [disastrous] campaign that saw the near collapse of the Ontario Liberal Party, and 3. He is tied [professionally] to the current chief of staff in the Prime Minister’s Office.

In an uncoordinated event, four Cabinet Ministers decided to announce they would not seek re-election. One of them, Minister Qualtrough, gave an interview wherein she recounted adverse public views of the Prime Minister as a motivating factor.

At least she tried to be polite in an environment where political discourse has descended from “colourful” to downright offensive. A political columnist, Tasha Kherridin, referred to the PM as the “political equivalent of a cockroach” (https://nationalpost.com/opinion/tasha-kheiriddin-trudeaus-interference-allegations-a-dramatic-act-of-self-preservation).

Chris Selley, another columnist for the same paper, citing his credentials as one who works and lives in a constituency that is always Liberal, declared – I summarize – that Trudeau evokes antipathy among former supporters: in Italian… è antipatico.

And, perhaps trying to “make silk out of a sow’s ear”, a former Principal Secretary and factotum in Jean Chretien’s governments of twenty years ago, waded in with his contribution to the debate on whether “he should go or should he stay?”  He said, I summarize, Justin should leave now with his ‘winner’ reputation intact and ready to use in an [inevitable] referendum, given the resurgence of the sovereignty movement in Quebec (https://nationalpost.com/opinion/justin-trudeaus-dangerous-desperation).

With friends like these Justin Trudeau can expect a rough couple of months. It may be useful for him to consider that, now, he is also effectively without an Italian Canadian MP in Cabinet. Surely that is an easily fillable vacuum, over 1.4 million Canadians self-identified as ethnically Italian in Census 2021. Has anyone thought of this reservoir of votes?