Today, after an eventful summer break featuring an NDP carbon tax climbdown, a torn up Supply and Confidence Agreement, a historic byelection Liberal loss, resignations, cross-country leadership tours, and early election whispers, Canada’s 338 MPs will be returning to their seats in the House of Commons.

The Hub has collected insights from a handful of wise political insiders from across the political spectrum to get their sense of the state of political play this parliamentary session.

Why are we wasting our time? Call an election already, Liberals

By Howard Anglin, former deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, now a doctoral student at Oxford University

My mother never graduated from high school. (I hope she won’t mind me revealing that). Until Grade 12, she travelled by train twice a year, five days each way, from Vancouver to attend school in Toronto. Back then, Ontario schools still went up to Grade 13, but because B.C. did not offer a 13th year, you could apply to The University of British Columbia straight after Grade 12. Which is what she did. It took Ontario another 30 years to realize the triskaidekan year was a waste of time and cancel it.

My point: the fourth year of a minority government is Grade 13. No one wants another year of this government and no one needs it. Everyone is ready to move on. It’s a superfluous temporal appendage, a political limbo in which Parliament will spin its wheels waiting for what everyone knows is coming sooner or later. I doubt a single one of the Liberal caucus members press-ganged to the Nanaimo caucus retreat to wave the red flag with the spontaneous enthusiasm of North Korean cheerleaders is looking forward to it. Canadians as a whole are dreading it. Trudeau needs to put us all out of our misery. Cancel the year and graduate straight to the election.

Betrayal, delusion, and disease

By Scott Reid, former communications director for Prime Minister Paul Martin, now a principal and co-founder of Feschuk.Reid

Minority Parliaments are a breeding ground for risk, betrayal, delusion, disease, ambition, and irrational decision-making. So, welcome back to all of that.

For the Liberals, the dissolution of their political pact with the NDP means the threat of an unintended election now lurks constantly. Every count must be perfect. Every vote must be calculated. Committees are grenades waiting to have their pins pulled. I’ll be watching carefully to see how the government navigates this newly treacherous terrain.

How does it manage its way forward even as low polling numbers weaken its leverage and undermine its ability to say “no” to opponents’ demands? But by far the most important question remains: “How does the prime minister return his party to a competitive electoral position?”

What change might he present to voters that could persuade them to reconsider their resistance to the Liberals? Since the loss of the Toronto-St. Paul’s by-election, this has been the great unaddressed question of Canadian politics. Now, the prime minister must somehow produce an answer in the loud swirl of a Parliament that has become far more hostile and much less stable. Failure to do so could mean this becomes the last session of Parliament over which Justin Trudeau presides.

Beware of procedural rapids

By Jordan Leichnitz, veteran NDP strategist and deputy chief of staff to the NDP leader, now running the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s Canadian program

Rough waters ahead.

After a sleepy summer, the sense of stagnation in the federal political scene is gone. The NDP’s surprise move to blow up the Supply and Confidence Agreement has kicked off a new dynamic in Parliament. The return to the daily slog of a traditional minority government will pull the Liberals deeper into procedural battles and vote calculations and further from the outward focus on connecting to Canadians that they need if they’re to have any hope of a reboot.

While Poilievre and the Conservatives are eager to set the table for a snap election, the NDP and Bloc will calculate their moves carefully. The NDP has no interest in handing the government to the Conservatives, so expect them to use the fall to further distance themselves from Prime Minister Trudeau in the public eye, while trying to eclipse the Liberals as the only viable alternative for voters opposed to the Conservatives.

While there’s not an election on the immediate horizon, the timeline has certainly moved up. This should put more pressure on the Liberals to re-evaluate all parts of their current strategy, but so far the message from the top is simply a doubling down on more of the same. The ball is in Prime Minister Trudeau’s court and everything argues for his exit.

A hot mess

By Andrew MacDougall, former director of communications for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, now director at Trafalgar Strategy

It’s Hurry Up and Wait time, where the word “election” will be on everybody’s lips but in nobody’s actions, bar one party: Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.

Poilievre is jonesing for an election. Motions of no confidence will be flying out of his caucus. But what if no one else wants to dance?

Justin Trudeau is in full “Baghdad Bob” mode, declaring himself and his caucus united and focused on their jobs, when anyone with eyes and ears knows that isn’t true.

Jagmeet Singh has spent the days since tearing up his agreement with Trudeau looking weak over what he might actually do about the guy he says he thinks is “too weak” to run the country.

And the Bloc Quebecois? A weak prime minister who doesn’t want an election and is looking for friends? That’s the stuff of orgiastic dreams. They will want this parliament going for as long as possible.

And so, Baghdad Bob and his retreating Liberal army will cling to their palaces for as long as they can. Liberals saw what happened to former U.K. PM Rishi Sunak when he chose to face the electoral buzzsaw early, and it wasn’t pretty.

Result? We’re in for another year of this mess.

Keeping the power to speak freely

Peter Menzies, senior fellow at The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a former newspaper executive and vice chair of the CRTC

People who want the freedom to watch and listen to what they like without the interference of government and its appointees need to sharpen their pencils, look to the front of the class and pay attention when Parliament and its agencies get back to school this week.

Most likely to grab the attention will be the continued progress of the Online Harms Act, an authoritarian wolf hidden beneath the sheep’s clothing of the worthy goal of children’s online safety. As is, the act would create a new regulator to oversee social media’s ability to protect children and youth, empower the Human Rights Commission to impose fines for speech that offends, and amend the Criminal Code to make it possible to be sentenced to life in prison for hate speech.

The bill was constructed in a way that allows the government to accuse those who oppose it of being unwilling to crack down on child pornography and abuse. The Conservatives believe they have developed the framework for alternative legislation—the framework for which was released last week—that will protect children and freedom of expression.

Therein lies the fight, the fury and the battle for the future of a safe, yet free internet, and the tension between liberty and authoritarianism.

A political bloodbath

By Kathleen Monk, former director of communications for NDP leader Jack Layton, now a principal at Monk + Associates

Never before have our political leaders been so unpopular with so many voters. As they prepare to clash in the House of Commons this week, parliamentary watchers should brace for a fall session that promises more heat than light.

Add to that provincial elections in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick, and we can expect the political temperature to reach a fever pitch.

Jagmeet Singh and the New Democrats, newly liberated from their Liberal pact, are gambling big. They’re betting their freedom will translate into a surge of supporter enthusiasm and a flood of cash. But to capitalize, they must use the fall session to unmask Pierre Poilievre, painting the Conservatives as obstructionists hell-bent on slashing vital programs.

Poilievre, the Conservative ringmaster, will use Question Period as his personal colosseum. His strategy? A relentless barrage against Trudeau and other party leaders. Behind closed doors, it’s scorched earth tactics: block, stall, repeat.

Poilievre paints a picture of a “broken Canada” while his actions threaten to shatter what’s left. He’ll burn through Conservative coffers, casting himself as the people’s champion. Meanwhile, he’ll throw wrenches into the parliamentary gears, blocking any actual relief for those crushed by inflation.

The Liberals find themselves in a precarious juggling act. They’re desperately trying to cast Poilievre as the bogeyman. Trudeau is attempting a political Jedi mind trick: trying to convince people that Poilievre isn’t the change they’re looking for. But can the Liberals pull off this sleight of hand while simultaneously wrestling with the realities of governance?

So, what do I think we will see? New Democrats taking initiative, Conservatives on the offence, and Liberals responding to one bad news story after another. Last week it was another MP calling for Trudeau to step aside, the Liberal campaign director quitting in despair, polls underwater. What bad news will next week bring? This is the backdrop for what will almost certainly be a very ugly fall parliamentary session.

Brace yourselves. The stage is set for a political bloodbath this fall, and I fear there will be no winners.

Get serious

By Tyler Meredith, former lead economic advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Bill Morneau, and Chrystia Freeland, now founding partner of Meredith Boessenkool & Phillips Policy Advisors

Inflation is down and interest rates are dropping—albeit far too slowly. But Canadians remain anxious about the direction of the world. The same story is playing out almost everywhere for every incumbent government in the developed world. And yet our policy elites are focused on a productivity discussion we’ve been endlessly talking about for three decades, with ideas that haven’t changed in two decades. Canadians don’t care about that—they want real ideas to make housing less expensive, food more affordable, and immigration more stable. As we approach less than 12 months to the next election, I’m watching to see if our leaders get more serious than the slogans we’ve heard and if our thinkers actually rise to the occasion too.

Sleeper issues

By Karen Restoule, vice president at Crestview Strategy and co-founder of BOLD Realities

While seemingly obvious issues like cost of living, housing affordability, and public transit are likely to continue to dominate the political discourse this fall, there are a few (wild) sleeper moves that could emerge when Parliament returns today—assuming that it holds up:

One. With the efforts to align Canada with the global energy transition and the noted importance of resource-abundant regions, there’s potential for the Trudeau government to make unexpected moves to support Canada’s energy sector, including oil and gas. And while, yes, Trudeau has focused exclusively on green energy in his nine years at the helm, a shift to supporting energy infrastructure—especially in oil-producing provinces—could be a surprising way to court voters impacted by inflation and high energy prices. (Unlikely to actually happen, but a girl can dream!)

Two. With discussions on private health-care solutions heating up in legislatures in Alberta and Ontario, Trudeau could ride (on a well-groomed horse, of course) into the debate with either a strong endorsement or strong opposition towards privatization. A clear and firm position on this issue could raise attention on long-standing access to health-care concerns that have dominated provincial debate and provoke debate on cost and quality of Canadian life, particularly in suburban areas. (Sure, health care falls within the province’s sandbox, but jurisdiction has never really held Trudeau back on this front.)

Three. Trudeau could resurrect promises on electoral reform in a (weak) attempt to appeal to younger and progressive voters. Sure, the NDP-Liberal marriage has lost its sizzle but it doesn’t mean that Trudeau can’t continue to fan his woke feathers to the NDP base. And sure, it’s a long shot, but if the Liberals are interested in appealing to young, disaffected voters, they might make a renewed commitment to proportional representation or other voting mechanisms as a way to regain favour with urban and suburban progressives.

These sleeper moves—whether there’s a non-confidence motion or not—could help the Liberals to shift voter dynamics, mitigate opposition gains, and/or surprise critics, allies, and Canadians by offering unexpected solutions to ongoing challenges.

Whether or not these three wild predictions happen or not, nobody should be surprised by sudden (and unique) policy pivots that appear designed to attract swing voters or address emerging issues that they may have overlooked to this point.

Canada has a major economic opportunity in the global low-carbon economy, if it gets its climate and energy policies right. Those policies should be informed by principles like leveraging the ingenuity of markets and free enterprise, limited government, and respect for provincial jurisdiction. Kicking off with The Hub’s own Sean Speer we are pleased to launch in partnership with Clean Prosperity a new sponsored series exploring the why, what, and how of conservative climate policy. Enjoy!

As I’ve written before, there’s something paradoxical at the heart of Canadian conservatism. It shares old-world conservatism’s instinct for habit and tradition. But it’s also marked by the new world’s preference for dynamism and progress.

These two parts of Canada’s conservative tradition sit in a state of unresolved tension. Prudence is required to judge when to elevate one over the other.

They don’t represent different coalitional factions per se. They’re ideas and impulses that run through individual conservatives themselves. Sir John A. Macdonald was both a traditionalist and a dynamist. He had certain Tory sensibilities but he was also a nation builder.

A non-conservative reader might at this stage point out the ostensible contradictions between a Burkean impulse for guardianship, prudence, and epistemological modesty on one hand and the Hamiltonian preference for dynamism, energy, and transformational change on the other.

There isn’t a simple rebuttal. Conservatism’s mix of induction and particularism means it’s more concerned with explaining its surrounding circumstances than constructing a neat and tidy worldview. American conservative writer Jonah Goldberg often distills conservatism as “comfort with contradiction.”

Yet if Canadian conservatives are susceptible to the criticism that their ideology can be at odds with itself, the two sides of their tradition can also be complementary. Climate change is one such an example.

This may surprise some readers. There’s a sense that conservatives are ambivalent and even averse to climate policy. But there’s a strong case that Canadian conservatism’s amalgam of ideas and impulses are actually perfect for formulating a response to climate change.

Think about it. Climate policy is by definition motivated by the goal of conserving the natural world. But it won’t happen by going backwards. We cannot return the natural environment to its pre-human state. Adam and Eve have already taken a bite out of the forbidden fruit.

The only solution to climate change is the application of dynamism and progress towards the goal of renewing the natural order. The alternative—what’s sometimes called “degrowth”—would have us reject dynamism and progress and instead seek to achieve our climate goals by accepting less economic activity, lower living standards, and even fewer humans. Greta Thunberg’s vision is bankrupt as a matter of moral philosophy and public policy.

Conservatives, by contrast, have a better appreciation of the interrelationship between humans and nature, preservation and progress, the present and the future. They understand how technological progress can support the natural order on behalf of future generations. They recognize in short that climate progress will be achieved through abundance, not scarcity.

Free-market economist James Pethokoukis has put it this way: “the answer [to climate change] is Schumpeter, not Malthus or Ludd.” He’s right of course. Schumpeterian creative destruction is the only means to reduce our burden on the planet without trading off human well-being.

Consider for instance the advent of carbon removal technology. This is a promising expression of capitalism, entrepreneurship, and innovation to address the industrial economy’s centuries-long production of carbon emissions. Today we could be on track to removing seven to nine billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year by 2050.

This singular example demonstrates both the extent to which businesses are working as fast as possible to produce climate solutions and that we still have a long way to go. There’s a key role for public policy to help boost these efforts. Canadian conservatives should be prepared to broadly support it.

Reaching the goal of net-zero emissions by the middle of the century or so will require that governments and markets play their respective roles to lower emissions as much as possible and then rely on emerging technologies to get us across the finish line. It must be emphasized that this is no socialist scheme. Market forces are now driving emissions reductions faster than top-down technocrats could ever aspire.

It must also be said that this doesn’t require a consumer carbon tax. The Canadian Climate Institute has estimated that the consumer carbon tax will be responsible for just eight to nine percent of emissions reductions between now and 2030. There’s a wide range of public policies that can offset and replace the carbon tax and still support promising technologies like carbon removal.

Technology is indeed key. Pro-growth economist Eli Dourado has even gone as far as to describe climate change as “fundamentally a technology problem.” The Canadian Climate Institute frames the challenge as one of “safe bets” and “wild cards.” The role of public policy will necessarily differ between them.

For safe bets such as electric vehicles or electric heat pumps, public policy can help on the margins with the adoption and scale of increasingly proven technologies. For wild cards such as direct air capture or hydrogen, the role for government policy will be greater, including public investment in research and development, de-risking private investment, and even acting as an early customer.

As important, however, is that conservatism contributes to an alternative narrative to the Thunbergian notion of a zero-sum relationship between humans and nature. The overarching message cannot be to rid the natural world of its human imprint. We have to instead put human ingenuity at the centre of a conservative climate agenda.

If one thinks about it, what we’re implicitly proposing over the coming decades is to carry out a modern industrial revolution. We don’t tend to talk about it in those terms. But how else does one describe going from just over 700 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 to net-zero emissions by 2050?

The net-zero vision involves reimagining the industrial economy, including energy systems, such that we can preserve and continue the historic gains that we’ve made in global living standards over the past several decades while minimizing the harm to the planet. It must be understood as audacious and exciting. It reflects a positive-sum vision. It’s an abundance agenda.

If this vision ultimately materializes, if we’re able to restructure the economy along more sustainable lines, the accomplishment cannot be overstated. Reconciling economic progress and environmental stewardship will be what the 21st-century is fundamentally about. This is the story that future historians will teach about our era.

For conservatives who see themselves in a Burkean partnership across generations, that’s a compelling vision. It draws on both their instinct for posterity and their preference for progress. It’s a reminder that intergenerational guardianship must account for our natural endowments.

This isn’t the only advantage that conservatives have when it comes to climate policy either. There’s also our attentiveness to rural and peripheral sensibilities, preference for market solutions and skepticism of government overreach, credibility with the country’s energy sector, and support for cutting red tape and “getting big things done.”

The key point here is that Canadian conservatives shouldn’t shy away from climate policy. Our philosophical tradition actually gives us a valuable perspective to contribute. We’re not going to meet our climate targets by stagnating our way to them. That’s a recipe for economic decline and social strife.

An abundance agenda rooted in technological progress is the right path out of the climate crisis for Canada. Conservatives can lead the way.

This article is part of an ongoing series on conservative climate policy sponsored by Clean Prosperity. Click here to learn more.