Canada federal election: PM Trudeau’s rumoured call for vote will spell victory, experts say

As Canadians anticipate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's reported plan to call for an election on Sept. 20, political experts identify that there is some benefit for the Liberals to call an election sooner than later.

"They are consistently leading in all of the polls – some even putting them in majority territory," Dr. Scott Pruysers, associate professor at Dalhousie University with the department of political science, said in a statement to Yahoo Canada.

Dr. Eric Merkley, assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto, also identified that the Liberals coming out of the election with a majority government is a possibility.

"They're on the precipice of a majority government," Merkley told Yahoo Canada. "At the moment, the Liberals are in pretty good position to get a majority government, though it is far from assured."

According to a survey from Abacus Data of 3,000 Canadian adults from Aug. 6 to Aug. 11, if an election were held now the Liberals would win 37 per cent of the vote, with the Conservatives at 28 per cent and the NDP at 20 per cent.

Another poll from the Angus Reid Institute, conducted from Aug. 7 to Aug. 10, of 1,615 Canadian adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum, identifies the Liberals as the preferred party with 36 per cent support, followed by the Conservatives at 31 per cent and NDP at 19 per cent.

COVID-19 impact on an election

While calling an election when Canada is in the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic may seem problematic for some, experts identify that it likely will not be particularly problematic for Trudeau.

"From what I’ve seen, the polls show that while Canadians aren’t clamouring for an election, most wouldn’t be angry enough to change their vote if one was called," Pruysers explained. "Evidence from the provincial level suggests that governments have not been penalized for having a pandemic election either."

"Whether the decision to call an election will backfire likely depends on the trajectory that the fourth wave takes over the next few weeks. A 36-day campaign is short, but a lot can happen in a month that could change how Canadians feel about going to the polls."

As NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole have both criticized the Liberals for possibly calling an election this summer, Merkley stressed that "it tends to be the case that nobody ever really wants an election."

"People will complain about here being an election, including opposition parties, but at the end of the day, people will move on. I don't expect it to have much of a staying power," he said.

Conservatives looking 'relatively weak'

Both political experts identified that the Liberal government's campaign is aided by the fact that the Conservatives are looking, "relatively weak," as Merkley described.

"The Conservatives usually have a hard floor at around 31 to 32 per cent, and they seem a little bit softer this campaign," he explained.

"Conservative party leader, Erin O’Toole, is not particularly well-liked among Canadians, and the pandemic hasn’t offered him much of an opportunity to get in front of voters," Pruysers identified.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole is also relatively unknown, or less known, to many Canadians, which will also impacts his campaign

"We tend to expect party leaders to have instant effects as soon as they're nominated, that suddenly things will change for the better for the party and our expectations are completely out of whack on these sorts of things. It took Jack Layton, for instance, several elections to get the traction that he had in the 2011 federal election... There is a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater way too quickly when it comes to party leaders, and O'Toole is looking similar in that front."

'A referendum on pandemic response'

In terms of what Trudeau's messaging will be throughout an election campaign, Merkley believes he's going to "take credit" for Canada COVID-19 response.

"His approval numbers are below his scores in terms of handling the pandemic, so he's less favourable personally but people think he's done a good job on COVID-19, so there's that gap there," he said. "There's a lot of benefit of tying himself to his pandemic responses, as much as possible, and this has been lifted, in particular, by the successful vaccination campaign."

"The Liberals really do want to make this sort of a referendum on pandemic response and it helps him a second way, not just not only is he doing very well on those metrics and public opinion, but there are Conservative premiers like Doug Ford and Jason Kenney, that are not doing so well and so they serve as a useful foil that Albertans and Ontarians are quite frustrated with the pandemic response in their provinces, have been for a while, and that's a useful counterpoint for him."

Merkley added that this will make it more difficult for the Conservatives to "break through" because they will not be able to significantly differentiate themselves from the Liberals, in terms of the pandemic specifically.

"They're not going to suddenly come out against vaccinations or COVID-19 or anything like that," Merkley explained. "So the Conservatives are going to have to counter with policy, and change the channel from the pandemic, so we'll see how that unfolds."

Pruysers also identified that the Conservatives will likely focus on "economic recovery and criticize the handling of the pandemic generally" during the election campaign.

How the NDP can differentiate themselves

For the NDP, Merkley believes their strategy will be to move the conversation away from this being "a referendum on Trudeau's pandemic performance," similar to the Conservatives in that respect.

"They're probably going to want to really focus on the serious inequities that have emerged as a result of the pandemic, how much this has hurt workers," he said. "There's a lot of opportunity there for more robust fiscal response to the economic effects of the pandemic and to deal with the inequality that's resulted from it."

From Pruysers' perspective, he believes the NDP will certainly argue that the Liberals "haven’t done enough to support Canadians during the pandemic."

"Here they will focus on their own policies like pharmacare, mental health, and a new wealth tax," he said.

"Expect both parties to put forward an argument that the election is about Trudeau’s ambitions and self-interest and not what is best for Canadians."