William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industryWe are going into a critically important federal election. Mark Carney, successful yesterday to nobody's surprise in the Liberal leadership race, will likely go early because Canadians (86%) really want an election and his rosy honeymoon phase gets shorter and shorter the more we see of him.This election should be a clash between the Liberals and the Conservatives, a clash between Carney and Poilievre, a political judgement on the last ten years of Trudeau/Singh governance.But wait??? What??? How the hell did Donald Trump get on the ballot?Last November, at the end of an intensive six week of North American politics a summary of the emerging trends yielded seven very strong conclusions:the woke “progressive” agenda took a major hit,the influence of the legacy media is seriously diminished,the political class attempts to control (dis)information are failing,the mainline pollsters never got it right,the rural/urban voting divide can be bridged,you can’t really “buy” an election, andgood campaigning matters. The final overall conclusion: “When the federal election finally comes after a failed Liberal budget this spring, Elizabeth May and the Green Party will disappear and the NDP will be reduced to single digit status. Jagmeet Singh will likely lose his seat. Quebec will split the vote between Conservatives and the Bloc and the Liberals will face years if not decades in the political wilderness. Sunny days indeed.”“Not so fast” says Mr. Trump.Despite the US trying to reopen the CUSMA (USMCA) North American trade deal amongst other security and treaty agreements with both Canada and Mexico, any movement in this direction has stalled. The newly elected president of Mexico sees no current electoral advantage in cooperating with the US and the Canadian Liberals see an advantage in not cooperating with them. Donald Trump provides a handy bogey man to hang this on and Trump Derangement Syndrome can be recharged with a few key phrases like “Governor Trudeau” or “51st State”. Make no mistake, Americans in general and Trump in particular view Canada with contempt. Eh?However, most of the contempt is well earned and like any intervention target, not only do we not get it but we are infinitely resentful. The Canadian overreaction to US taunts and idle threats just makes us look foolish. Luckily we will arise from this wakeup call because there are still some adults in the room looking out for us.But until then and similar to our COVID blindness and subsequent amnesia, we proceed like the weak-minded storm troopers in Star Wars. The Canadian mainstream media and commentators are all singing out of the same song book. Don Braid seems to have completely lost his mind, thinking that the Marines are going to show up in tanks any minute. Is Doug Ford serious about turning off electricity to the US? Does Chrystia Freeland really want Canada to get some nukes to use on the Americans? Are we really going to put tariffs on imported oil from the US? This only hurts ON, QC and NB who account for 90% of US imports. Jagmeet Singh says we no longer need to bother with an election but instead we just need to move immediately to expand the social welfare state! This is our strategy to deal with the Divine Mr. T? You can’t make this stuff up.And everyday Canadians are falling in line with false patriotism and jingoistic sentiments usually reserved for hockey and maple syrup. Now booing the US national anthem is OK, as our national inferiority complex really begins to kick in. This isn’t Canada’s proudest moment.Of course, all of this irrationality is put to rights by the fact that any US ambitions to change the world economic order or strengthen North American trade or security depends on a strong Canada and a strong Mexico neither overly dominated by China. The evil orange man needs Canada’s resource industries to be better than they have been for the last ten years. He needs the “not MAGA guy” Poilievre to win the next election and enter into a new stronger relationship with the US. Energy security for the US depends on importing greater volumes of Canadian oil, liquids, gas and electricity, not less. Hence Trump’s call to build the Keystone pipeline. North American military security depends on a strong Canadian North and an ongoing military partnership to defend that North. Poilievre gets it and will finance it by getting rid of foreign aid, which is generally a scheme by which poor people in one country [Canada] help rich people in other countries.There seems to be two ways we can move forward with the US. Either cooperatively by taking the few carrots that the US is offering, or with a few welts on our backs by enduring the stick of tariffs. Zelenskyy chose to play the surly teenager after having previously agreed with the deal that Trump offered him. He thought Trump would back down in front of the cameras. Now he will have to hope the Europeans belly up to both defend the Ukraine and finance its reconstruction. Trump may come to the table again but the terms will be a lot worse for Zelenskyy. We should not be following his unwarranted and infantile behaviours. Unless of course we believe the bunk our own Liberals are feeding us and other politicians have to parrot or they are called unpatriotic.But how will this affect the bold prediction on the imminent election? Do the main conclusions from last November still stand up or has the “Tariff/Orange-Man Bad Effect” blown them out of the water? I think they will hold. Let’s look at them one by one.1) The woke “progressive” agenda took a major hit. That is still true and voters are not going back. Trump’s recent speech to a joint session of Congress had a 76% approval rate among those who watched the speech. Even people in Canada have to admire the speed and efficacy of Trump’s actions in these early days. 2) The influence of the legacy media is seriously diminished. Instead, people are getting their news and commentary from alternative media in both short and long form and traditional written media is moving online and growing with new sites. Nonetheless, the legacy media still rules the low-information voter and has been quite successful in sowing largely irrational fears about tariffs. Remember Trump’s last use of tariffs? Me neither, but this time we are all going to die!!! Remember when China shut down canola imports from our western farmers to influence our legal system? Now this is something to be worried about.3) The political class attempts to control (dis)information are failing. ‘X’, TikTok, Insagram, Meta, (all platforms that I don’t personally use) are all alive and well and are not going to be censored. They are also the main ways that modern political parties, especially the CPC, effectively communicate with their supporters.4) The mainline pollsters never got it right. Is still true but perhaps even more so in the current hyper-charged faux tariff crisis. Said the pollster to the woman whose house is burning down while the flood waters rise around her, “If an election was held today ...”. Woman – “Are you out of your effing mind?”The most telling two of the recent polls are the ones from Ipsos and Abacus both on the 23rd of February. The difference between the spread between the Liberals and Conservatives is nearly 15% points. Clearly, the respondents are answering some different question than the one being asked. These numbers will settle out as the campaign unfolds and people put their attention the election at hand. The rule of thumb is to add at least 5% points to the Conservative spread to predict how the voting will actually shake out. The view that “Mr. Trump is a deranged megalomaniac dictator so I will vote Liberal” is a dog that just won’t hunt.5) The rural/urban voting divide can be bridged. One of the benefits of the current trade imbroglio is that Canadians are waking up to what we do and who we trade with. Even Albertans really don’t appreciate the magnitude of the oil that we produce and ship to the US. And Central Canadians are finally grasping the importance of this gift through their own consumption of it and the contributions that Alberta makes to federal taxes. This has a way of bridging gaps in ideology and political philosophy. Only in Canada can you have an active Saskatchewan grain farmer Quick Dick McDick with 140K+ subscribers and over 230 videos on Youtube.6) You can’t really “buy” an election. If you could then the Conservatives would win by a land slide having raised by far the most money. What is often overlooked is if you have lots of smaller financial contributors these folks are also highly motivated voters who tend to bring friends and family members to the polls.Finally, good campaigning matters. In this regard Poilievre is smarter, more determined and working way harder than the others. With Stephen Harper routinely entering the fray and advice from Danielle Smith and Scott Moe, we are already seeing a master class in modern political campaigning. This is where retail politics is taking place and it will pay dividends at the ballot booth.The recent election in Ontario also confirms the bold prediction of the extermination of fringe parties, and decimation of the NDP. What we saw was also a repeat of both the Alberta and BC elections. There has been a polarization with voters realizing that boutique parties are just a frivolous waste of votes. Participation was up showing that voters really believe that elections still count in these turbulent times. However, when participation drops it is usually because a traditional party just doesn’t field a candidate that traditional voters can support. No matter how much lipstick the Liberals put on their current pig many of their previous supporters will just stay home.Look for the PPC and the Greens to be completely wiped out. The NDP will drop to single digits. In QC the Bloc and the NDP will continue to implode while the Conservatives will recover as QC never likes to be left out of power. A strong majority endorsement for the Conservatives will set the stage for decades of good governance and a rebirth of all the incredible potential that is Canada.William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industryWe are going into a critically important federal election. Mark Carney, successful yesterday to nobody's surprise in the Liberal leadership race, will likely go early because Canadians (86%) really want an election and his rosy honeymoon phase gets shorter and shorter the more we see of him.This election should be a clash between the Liberals and the Conservatives, a clash between Carney and Poilievre, a political judgement on the last ten years of Trudeau/Singh governance.But wait??? What??? How the hell did Donald Trump get on the ballot?Last November, at the end of an intensive six week of North American politics a summary of the emerging trends yielded seven very strong conclusions:the woke “progressive” agenda took a major hit,the influence of the legacy media is seriously diminished,the political class attempts to control (dis)information are failing,the mainline pollsters never got it right,the rural/urban voting divide can be bridged,you can’t really “buy” an election, andgood campaigning matters. The final overall conclusion: “When the federal election finally comes after a failed Liberal budget this spring, Elizabeth May and the Green Party will disappear and the NDP will be reduced to single digit status. Jagmeet Singh will likely lose his seat. Quebec will split the vote between Conservatives and the Bloc and the Liberals will face years if not decades in the political wilderness. Sunny days indeed.”“Not so fast” says Mr. Trump.Despite the US trying to reopen the CUSMA (USMCA) North American trade deal amongst other security and treaty agreements with both Canada and Mexico, any movement in this direction has stalled. The newly elected president of Mexico sees no current electoral advantage in cooperating with the US and the Canadian Liberals see an advantage in not cooperating with them. Donald Trump provides a handy bogey man to hang this on and Trump Derangement Syndrome can be recharged with a few key phrases like “Governor Trudeau” or “51st State”. Make no mistake, Americans in general and Trump in particular view Canada with contempt. Eh?However, most of the contempt is well earned and like any intervention target, not only do we not get it but we are infinitely resentful. The Canadian overreaction to US taunts and idle threats just makes us look foolish. Luckily we will arise from this wakeup call because there are still some adults in the room looking out for us.But until then and similar to our COVID blindness and subsequent amnesia, we proceed like the weak-minded storm troopers in Star Wars. The Canadian mainstream media and commentators are all singing out of the same song book. Don Braid seems to have completely lost his mind, thinking that the Marines are going to show up in tanks any minute. Is Doug Ford serious about turning off electricity to the US? Does Chrystia Freeland really want Canada to get some nukes to use on the Americans? Are we really going to put tariffs on imported oil from the US? This only hurts ON, QC and NB who account for 90% of US imports. Jagmeet Singh says we no longer need to bother with an election but instead we just need to move immediately to expand the social welfare state! This is our strategy to deal with the Divine Mr. T? You can’t make this stuff up.And everyday Canadians are falling in line with false patriotism and jingoistic sentiments usually reserved for hockey and maple syrup. Now booing the US national anthem is OK, as our national inferiority complex really begins to kick in. This isn’t Canada’s proudest moment.Of course, all of this irrationality is put to rights by the fact that any US ambitions to change the world economic order or strengthen North American trade or security depends on a strong Canada and a strong Mexico neither overly dominated by China. The evil orange man needs Canada’s resource industries to be better than they have been for the last ten years. He needs the “not MAGA guy” Poilievre to win the next election and enter into a new stronger relationship with the US. Energy security for the US depends on importing greater volumes of Canadian oil, liquids, gas and electricity, not less. Hence Trump’s call to build the Keystone pipeline. North American military security depends on a strong Canadian North and an ongoing military partnership to defend that North. Poilievre gets it and will finance it by getting rid of foreign aid, which is generally a scheme by which poor people in one country [Canada] help rich people in other countries.There seems to be two ways we can move forward with the US. Either cooperatively by taking the few carrots that the US is offering, or with a few welts on our backs by enduring the stick of tariffs. Zelenskyy chose to play the surly teenager after having previously agreed with the deal that Trump offered him. He thought Trump would back down in front of the cameras. Now he will have to hope the Europeans belly up to both defend the Ukraine and finance its reconstruction. Trump may come to the table again but the terms will be a lot worse for Zelenskyy. We should not be following his unwarranted and infantile behaviours. Unless of course we believe the bunk our own Liberals are feeding us and other politicians have to parrot or they are called unpatriotic.But how will this affect the bold prediction on the imminent election? Do the main conclusions from last November still stand up or has the “Tariff/Orange-Man Bad Effect” blown them out of the water? I think they will hold. Let’s look at them one by one.1) The woke “progressive” agenda took a major hit. That is still true and voters are not going back. Trump’s recent speech to a joint session of Congress had a 76% approval rate among those who watched the speech. Even people in Canada have to admire the speed and efficacy of Trump’s actions in these early days. 2) The influence of the legacy media is seriously diminished. Instead, people are getting their news and commentary from alternative media in both short and long form and traditional written media is moving online and growing with new sites. Nonetheless, the legacy media still rules the low-information voter and has been quite successful in sowing largely irrational fears about tariffs. Remember Trump’s last use of tariffs? Me neither, but this time we are all going to die!!! Remember when China shut down canola imports from our western farmers to influence our legal system? Now this is something to be worried about.3) The political class attempts to control (dis)information are failing. ‘X’, TikTok, Insagram, Meta, (all platforms that I don’t personally use) are all alive and well and are not going to be censored. They are also the main ways that modern political parties, especially the CPC, effectively communicate with their supporters.4) The mainline pollsters never got it right. Is still true but perhaps even more so in the current hyper-charged faux tariff crisis. Said the pollster to the woman whose house is burning down while the flood waters rise around her, “If an election was held today ...”. Woman – “Are you out of your effing mind?”The most telling two of the recent polls are the ones from Ipsos and Abacus both on the 23rd of February. The difference between the spread between the Liberals and Conservatives is nearly 15% points. Clearly, the respondents are answering some different question than the one being asked. These numbers will settle out as the campaign unfolds and people put their attention the election at hand. The rule of thumb is to add at least 5% points to the Conservative spread to predict how the voting will actually shake out. The view that “Mr. Trump is a deranged megalomaniac dictator so I will vote Liberal” is a dog that just won’t hunt.5) The rural/urban voting divide can be bridged. One of the benefits of the current trade imbroglio is that Canadians are waking up to what we do and who we trade with. Even Albertans really don’t appreciate the magnitude of the oil that we produce and ship to the US. And Central Canadians are finally grasping the importance of this gift through their own consumption of it and the contributions that Alberta makes to federal taxes. This has a way of bridging gaps in ideology and political philosophy. Only in Canada can you have an active Saskatchewan grain farmer Quick Dick McDick with 140K+ subscribers and over 230 videos on Youtube.6) You can’t really “buy” an election. If you could then the Conservatives would win by a land slide having raised by far the most money. What is often overlooked is if you have lots of smaller financial contributors these folks are also highly motivated voters who tend to bring friends and family members to the polls.Finally, good campaigning matters. In this regard Poilievre is smarter, more determined and working way harder than the others. With Stephen Harper routinely entering the fray and advice from Danielle Smith and Scott Moe, we are already seeing a master class in modern political campaigning. This is where retail politics is taking place and it will pay dividends at the ballot booth.The recent election in Ontario also confirms the bold prediction of the extermination of fringe parties, and decimation of the NDP. What we saw was also a repeat of both the Alberta and BC elections. There has been a polarization with voters realizing that boutique parties are just a frivolous waste of votes. Participation was up showing that voters really believe that elections still count in these turbulent times. However, when participation drops it is usually because a traditional party just doesn’t field a candidate that traditional voters can support. No matter how much lipstick the Liberals put on their current pig many of their previous supporters will just stay home.Look for the PPC and the Greens to be completely wiped out. The NDP will drop to single digits. In QC the Bloc and the NDP will continue to implode while the Conservatives will recover as QC never likes to be left out of power. A strong majority endorsement for the Conservatives will set the stage for decades of good governance and a rebirth of all the incredible potential that is Canada.William D. Marriott is a retired economist who specialized in public policy analysis of the oil and gas industry.
