It’s that time of year to bring back one of The Hub’s favourite traditions: giving our readers a head’s up on what they can expect in the year to come. As for how well our contributor’s crystal balls work, well, check out last year’s predictions and judge for yourself. Looking ahead, here are some can’t-miss predictions for 2025.
When it comes to governing, Poilievre will be more Mulroney than Ford
By Jack Mitchell, a poet and scholar based in Halifax, where he is an associate professor of Classics at Dalhousie
The key political question that awaits us in 2025 is whether Pierre Poilievre’s majority government is going to go the Doug Ford route or the Brian Mulroney route. The Ford route is retail politics, the boat unrocked, and many a can kicked yet further along down the road; the Mulroney route is bold and imaginative policy, some of which will succeed and some of which will fail, but which adds up to a new era.
Since it is highly unlikely that the Liberals will themselves adopt new and imaginative policies when they eventually return to power in the 2030s or 2040s, Poilievre’s choice is thus a historic choice that will determine the very character of the country: will we spend another generation helpless in the face of events, or will we act?
The choice will be his alone, and he will make it sometime between when the first returns from Atlantic Canada are announced and three days after the election. My best guess? He will govern more as Mulroney than Ford.
A person holds a sign during a protest outside the Indian Consulate, in Vancouver, on Monday, September 25, 2023. Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press.
Poilievre will stand up to Trump and Canada-India relations will get even worse
By Alisha Rao, The Hub’s content coordinator
The end of 2024 has seen a whirlwind of events in Ottawa, and I still only have a vague sense of what 2025 will look like. Nevertheless, here are my predictions.
1. As many are expecting to happen any day now, Trudeau’s time as PM and Liberal leader is coming to an end—sooner rather than later. Jagmeet Singh’s shelf life is not that much longer, with a disillusioned voter base unmotivated to prop him up much longer. (Even he, apparently, is tired of playing Kamala Harris to Trudeau’s Joe Biden). Barring some truly unbelievable turn of events, neither the Liberals nor NDP—or anyone else for that matter—have a chance of taking down Pierre Poilievre and his impending Conservative majority.
2. I was grossly inaccurate in my predictions on Biden and Trump last year. But the “aggressive economic nationalism” that Chrystia Freeland cites in her mic-drop resignation letter indicates a rapidly evolving relationship with our southern neighbour, and I expect more, not fewer, threats like the 25 percent tariffs to follow once Donald Trump enters office. Certainly, more trolling comments like Canada being the “51st state” of the U.S. as well. Things could change with a Poilievre government. I believe between Trudeau and Poilievre, Trump is more likely to take Poilievre seriously, and our next PM will manage our diplomatic relationship with the U.S. in such a way as to help us rebound from the current state of things.
3. Canada-India relations are at a low not seen in many years. I predict that this relationship will further deteriorate depending on what happens if Trudeau, while still in power, announces any more developments in the case of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Will we learn of more explicit evidence in 2025? If so, get ready for more tit-for-tat behaviours and talking past each other. And if Trudeau is still the prime minister by June 2025, do not expect any commemoration of the Air India bombing, which will mark 40 years since Canada’s worst terrorist attack. This will not help matters.
