‘Expectations remain high’: The biggest storylines facing Canada’s leaders as Parliament returns

Parliament is back for another session of debate, discord, and drama as Canada’s federal political parties convene to face off in the House of Commons. This session offers some particularly intriguing subplots, including, chiefly, Pierre Poilievre’s return—this time representing Battle River-Crowfoot instead of Carleton. To break it all down, The Hub has once again gathered a host of the most connected political insiders and experts to highlight what Canadians need to be watching for this fall.

Economic concerns loom large for Mark Carney

By David Coletto, founder, Chair, and CEO of Abacus Data

As Parliament returns, the public mood is unmistakably shaped by a sense of precarity. Canadians are less fixated on Donald Trump than they were earlier this year. Trump’s disruption is now familiar, becoming for many almost background noise. What weighs far more heavily is the macro economy’s impact on people’s microeconomies. People are anxious about what feels like weakening conditions and are looking to their leaders for reassurance and protection.

Our polling continues to show goodwill toward Prime Minister Carney. Many Canadians still believe he can meet the commitments that helped secure his mandate just a few months ago. But expectations remain high, and the window of opportunity to meet them won’t stay open forever.

The real question this fall is one of agenda-setting. Will the Carney government seize the initiative, define the tone, and frame the national conversation? Or will Pierre Poilievre repeat the playbook that worked so effectively during the final years of the Trudeau era: shifting attention to issues he wants to spotlight and putting the government on the defensive?

Execution is everything

By Amanda Galbraith, co-founder and partner at Oyster Group

As another session begins, I’ll be watching for the prime minister to do more than announce he intends to do something. It’s one thing to set up an office or lure private-sector stars into public-sector roles—it’s another to deliver results. At some point, announcements need to give way to execution, backed by an actual communications strategy that shows Canadians the government knows where it’s going.

I say this as someone who hosts a national radio show every Friday, typically known as “dump day.” I’m used to governments sliding out stories they’d prefer to bury. What I’m not used to is having to make sense of secret trade talks and major policy shifts (think Buy Canadian, the EV review, or the export diversification push) dropped late on a Friday with zero buildup. No advance briefing, no narrative, and seemingly no minister trusted to carry the message. The PrM can communicate effectively (if at length), but if he won’t empower his team, he’ll need to carry the ball or risk losing control of the story.

For the Conservatives, they’ve had smart hits on the flight attendant strike and temporary foreign workers. But, like the government, they need to flex their bench and prove it’s not just the Poilievre show.

Bring on debate—the rowdier the better

By Howard Anglin, previously deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and principal secretary to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney

In case anyone needed reminding, this week brutally illustrated the importance and fragility of civil discourse. As others have written, when tempers are high and talking ends, violence starts. “Jaw, jaw is better than war, war,” as Harold Macmillan admonished.^{1Badly wounded at the Somme and in pain the rest of his life as a result, Macmillan knew whereof he spoke.} The same is true of domestic politics.

With Parliament’s return this week, I expect we will hear calls from the usual media talking heads for all parties (by which they mean the Conservatives) to turn down the political heat by pulling their rhetorical punches.

There would be nothing new in this. It is common to decry the lack of decorum in the Canadian House of Commons, but even at its most raucous or puerile, it is infinitely preferable to the way disputes have been resolved through most of history, with lead and steel.

The “civil” in civil debate is contextual. Parliament is not a tea social; debate can and should be blunt, even rude. Now is one of those times. Canadians who benefited from the relative stability and prosperity of the last half century, presided over its undoing, and now shrink from a dramatic change of direction, need shaking up.

So, this is my hope for the return to Parliament and my request of our representatives: to meet the needs of the time with civil urgency and civil outrage. If the CBC’s At Issue panel is pulling pained faces and reaching for their smelling salts, then you’ll know you’re doing your job.

Conservatives are finding their groove 

By Ben Woodfinden, the former director of communications for Pierre Poilievre and a policy consultant

Yes, it was a safe seat. But Pierre Poilievre won his by-election in Alberta decisively, and “he’s back,” so to speak.

Based on the pace and number of announcements the Conservatives have made in recent weeks, they are smartly trying to reestablish what worked very well for Poilievre for the last few years—namely, driving the narrative and news.

Polling has suggested that the emotional resonance of the Trump threat is fading, and domestic issues are returning to the forefront.

Poilievre dominated on these issues not just because he correctly identified them as the issues voters cared about, but because he was able to drive the news agenda by focusing on these issues.

He can do this again, but it will need to look slightly different this time to succeed.

Pierre drove through his relentlessness, but also because he offered consistent, thoughtful policy ideas in announcements to fix Canada’s problems. In my two-and-a-half years working for Pierre, I estimate we did close to 100 standalone policy announcements.

He is already doing this again—except this time, Pierre is encouraging Carney to steal his ideas.

This is smart because it helps him look like a PM in waiting and not just an Opposition leader. If Carney doesn’t take his good ideas, it creates a distinction between Poilievre and Carney; if Carney does adopt them, it makes Pierre look like a leader who is once again driving the agenda.

The message itself is evolving but not radically altered, and if there are three broad themes I think Poilievre should hammer, it’s cost of living (including housing costs), crime, and immigration. These are issues—if the Conservatives can stay disciplined and on message—that he can lead on and make Carney uncomfortable in his House of Commons chair.

Carney’s runway is short

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

This fall, the political rubber hits the road for the Carney government. The wave of patriotism and confidence that swept Carney into office as the anti-Trump this spring is leaking away, replaced with anxiety as Canadians stare down rising unemployment and a recession.

Prime Minister Carney’s fall “austerity and investment” budget—a gargantuan communications challenge if there ever was one—is going to reveal winners and losers, and give his opponents on the Left and the Right a plethora of new targets. His early commitments on tax cuts and higher defence spending sounded good to voters in isolation, but the whole picture is going to include painful trade-offs. Expect to see the first real outcry over looming cuts, as commitments like pharmacare fall by the wayside.

Refreshed from his extremely brief stint in the political wilderness, Poilievre will be an unrepentant provocateur, lobbing populist grenades at the government in the hopes of solidifying his role as the champion of working-class discontent. The NDP, despite its own woes, will look to scoop up progressive voters disenchanted with the government’s centre-right turn.

For Carney, the danger is clear: the goodwill that brought him to power has a short shelf life. If he can’t convince Canadians that he’s just as invested in making their lives better as he is in his vision of sacrifice for long-term gain, the political reckoning will be swift.

Don’t overlook how crucial committees will be

By Garry Keller, vice president at StrategyCorp and former chief of staff to Canada’s foreign minister from 2011-15

While many will be focused on the head-to-head battle in Question Period between Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre, I’m more interested in watching what goes on in House of Commons committees.

As many Parliamentary watchers know, standing committees are where the bulk of House work gets done. Yes, some of it is “busy work” focused on studies that will eventually end up collecting dust on the virtual shelf of the Library of Parliament, but the power dynamics in committees have radically changed since the last Parliament.

Given that the NDP no longer has official party status and has no votes in committees, they cannot run interference for the governing Liberals like they did for the last four years. Instead, Conservatives and Bloquistes together have a majority of votes on committees, and this means that if they can find common ground, they can amend Liberal legislation in committee.

This just adds more complication for the Liberals in navigating Parliament, one of their major weak spots over the last 10 years under Justin Trudeau.

My advice for both Liberals and Conservatives? Better grab a six-pack of La Fin du Monde or a good bottle of Bordeaux and get to know your friendly local Bloquiste on committee. Who knows what you might accomplish together!

Careful—Canadians are tuning back in

By Sabrina Maddeaux, director of communications at Global Public Affairs

Canadians elected Carney to snap the country out of 10 years’ worth of stagnation and decline. This fall will prove whether or not he can live up to expectations. Voters check out over the summer and can forgive some slowness, but with Parliament’s return, they will expect swift action on the fundamentals: the cost of living, housing, immigration, and getting major projects built.

Carney’s biggest challenge will be resisting the large contingent of Trudeau-era MPs and cabinet ministers still within Liberal ranks who would be perfectly happy to see more of the same failed approach to governing and policymaking. They will resist, and even vilify, change even when it’s obvious to just about everyone else, regardless of political affiliation, that the status quo can’t continue.

We’ve already seen this in response to calls to end or significantly reform the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, made by both Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and B.C. Premier David Eby. The Trudeauopian instinct to not just deny the problem, but call anyone who points it out and advocates for real change racist or xenophobic, lives on in caucus and Liberal media surrogates.

There will be similar challenges as Carney attempts to get major projects, in particular pipelines, built. The pressure to allow environmental groups and some First Nations to veto, or effectively veto by dragging out, projects the nation desperately needs to build will intensify. But these projects are a very clear indicator of success for the public to judge Carney on: they are either built or they’re not.

This fall, the post-election honeymoon will end. However, the biggest threat to Carney’s success won’t come from across the aisle, but those who sit alongside him.

Who has the most to lose in Parliament? 

By Scott Reid, a principal and co-founder of Feschuk.Reid

Parliament is back, and the pressure is on. But on whom, exactly?

One way of answering is to ask, “Who has the most to lose?” With the economy weakening and the honeymoon fading, the intuitive answer is Prime Minister Carney. But as long as the NDP and Bloc remain in disarray, how truly at risk is his government? Even if the session is a reeling mess, Carney’s minority will survive. And chances are that voters’ affections are not yet entirely exhausted.

Poilievre, on the other hand, could be facing his last chance to change people’s impressions for the better. Since losing the election, the Conservative chief has watched his leadership approval steadily decline. Leger recently found that 50 percent of Canadians rank Poilievre’s chances of winning the next election as “poor.” Nanos says he trails Carney by nearly two-to-one in personal approval. Beyond a rock-steady base, attitudes toward Poilievre are curing like concrete. Hard and heavy, to his disadvantage.

Poilievre’s instinct may be to double down and dig in, but once public opinion turns on a leader, it can be impossible to turn back. Just ask Stockwell Day or Michael Ignatieff. If Poilievre doesn’t use this session to broaden and boost public perceptions of his leadership, there might be no coming back. That’s a more implacable problem than anything faced by Carney.

Carney has earned lots of goodwill—how will he spend it? 

By Eric Lombardi, the founder and president of More Neighbours Toronto

Canadians are broadly pleased with Carney so far. The perception is of steadier hands, clearer communication, and more ambition. But perception without action will quickly frustrate. The biggest risk is that Carney will not spend enough political capital early enough on hard structural changes. Doing big things now means there is time for results to be visible by the next election.

The Major Projects Office is a case in point. The headline list of LNG, mines, nuclear, and port expansions were already well advanced before Ottawa’s announcement. It remains unclear what this new office will actually do to move them faster. If it simply adds another political filter on what qualifies as a “priority,” the danger is that it becomes more gatekeeping than problem-solving. For those paying close attention, little disappointments are already piling up.

Housing is an even sharper test. The rhetoric so far feels like a return to old instincts, with public housing once again presented as the main solution. That misses the frustration of a generation. Young Canadians do not want to wait a decade on a government list that deems them the right demographic to deserve decent housing. The priority must be unleashing more supply—both ownership and rental—by tackling taxes and local rules that make new homes too hard to build. Build Canada Homes will only succeed if it focuses on affordability; if it prioritizes tertiary objectives it will surely fail.

This fall is the chance for Carney to show he means business. He has earned goodwill, but if he does not spend political capital now, he will be remembered for talking big and achieving little.