OTTAWA -- With the 2019 political year now in the rearview mirror, CTV’s Question Period convened a series of guests to dive into the year ahead and offer their political forecasts for 2020.
From high-profile partisans to former leaders and those with their finger on the pulse of Canadian public opinion, here’s CTV Question Period’s panelists’ predictions and advice to the parties and their leaders for the year ahead.
The Liberals
“Mr. Trudeau and the government need to stay focused on the agenda that they’ve laid out. Obviously it’s a minority government… So it’s going to require I think a lot of listening, a lot of collaboration, building strong relationships, or at least some relationships across the aisle,” said former Liberal deputy prime minister Anne McLellan.
The Conservatives
“Conservatives are going to come together, they’re going to have a robust leadership race, there’s going to be a great debate on ideas and then we’re all going to bind together to defeat the Liberal government,” said Jenni Byrne, former Conservative campaign manager and adviser to Stephen Harper.
The New Democrats
“I think that Mr. Singh’s biggest challenge is to make sure that Mr. Trudeau needs him because right now we have three strong opposition parties, any one of which can always give enough support to the government on any motion… So the NDP if it wants to be relevant on key issues like pharmacare, which Mr. Trudeau has said he is going to follow through on, well then the NDP has to get in lockstep with them and show that they can take some credit when that does come through,” said CTV political analyst and former NDP leader Tom Mulcair.
The Green Party
“Watch how powerful three MPs can be because I think the public is, and voters are saying ‘oh we should have more of that’ and we just have to keep reminding them that between elections that they want more of that. Elizabeth May, obviously when she was there alone punched way above her weight… The other parties know we’re growing and we’re taking a bigger attack,” said interim Green Party Leader Jo-Ann Roberts.
What do Canadians want to see?
“Four words: Don’t mess things up, especially when it comes to the federation. We've got Jason Kenney and alienation in the west, we have the separatists in Quebec, we have Ford in Ontario. Canadians are going to want to make sure that we don't do bickering and that we actually get things done… Canadians want to see action on the economy and jobs, want to make sure that we can kind of get through this next period. We don't know what's going to happen in terms of recession we need USMCA in the bag, and we need some certainty,” said pollster Nik Nanos.
