Parliament Hill is lit up with holiday lights on Dec. 21, 2011, in Ottawa.
Dave Chan For The Globe and Mail
POLITICS
Five political stories to watch in 2012
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published
Last updated
2011 was a banner year for Canadian politics, one that saw the Conservatives capture a majority government, the obliteration of the federal Liberals and the stunning loss of NDP Leader Jack Layton. So how will these issues play out in the new year? Here are five stories watch in 2012.
-
Nearly wiped out in the 2011 election campaign, the Liberals are looking to 2012 as their year of renewal.
It all begins in mid-January with their biennial convention. And there is nothing sexy about what they will have to do as they rebuild in an attempt to stay relevant for the 2015 general election.
For those three days in Ottawa, the party will take a hard look at the policies that clearly didn’t speak to Canadians in the May election. Also, there must be some serious thinking about how the party increases membership.
“At one level, every year is important,” Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae wrote in an e-mail to The Globe. “But this will be an important one for sure. We've been able to hold our heads up high despite the defeat, and many things are going better for us right now, but we need to continue to improve, and so this is an important year of transition.”
The Grits were reduced to an urban party in the May campaign, losing vast regions of the country, and ending up with a rump of 34 MPs.
In addition, the Liberals will have to figure out a way to raise money to survive as the third party in the Commons. This, as the Harper Tories choke off the per-vote taxpayer subsidy.
And then there’s the issue of leadership. The NDP will choose a new leader in March, but the Liberals are not electing a new leader until 2013.
Bob Rae – dubbed 'Bob the Rebuilder' – will continue as the interim leader. It is not clear if he will eventually emerge in 2013 as the permanent leader. But so far there has been no jockeying for position, which is unlike the Liberals who for so long put so much stock in finding a messiah.
– Jane Taber
-
The race to succeed Jack Layton, which began the day he died of cancer last August – and some might say even before that – is really just getting started.
The eight remaining candidates have less than three months to convince New Democrats that they are the person who will provide a worthy adversary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the House of Commons and who can defeat Conservatives in the next federal election.
There are five leadership debates scheduled in cities across the country before the vote on March 24. The first was a rather genial affair. Watch for future debates to grow more heated as the leaders begin to distinguish themselves and the other candidates try to close the gap.
– Gloria Galloway
-
Quebec politics are all about instability and opportunity these days. The “Orange Wave” has transformed the province’s political map, yet the NDP could already be receding, according to polls, unless the province is simply waiting on the party to select its new leader. What is clear is that whoever does end up inheriting Jack Layton’s mantle will have to convince Quebeckers that his or her left-wing federalist policies are in tune with their political aspirations.
The other certainty in Quebec is that the other major parties, which all lost ground to the NDP on May 2, are looking to reclaim their political territory. Their goal in 2012 will be to undermine the NDP at every opportunity, either as unfit to govern (the Conservatives), ineffective (the Liberals) or out to defend English-Canadian values and interests (the Bloc Québécois).
– Daniel Leblanc
-
After months of talk about restraint and fighting the deficit, 2012 will be the year that Canadians finally find out what the Conservatives will cut. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget – expected in February or March – is being billed as the grand unveiling of the spending cuts that every single government department has been working on over the past year.
When the Conservatives promised to balance the books by mid-decade, they were counting on forecasts predicting the global recession would be a distant memory by then. Economists have changed their numbers and Mr. Flaherty has already pushed back his target for erasing the deficit by a year. Canadian economic growth is expected to be anemic in 2012 – and much worse if Europe’s fragile financial plan collapses.
– Bill Curry
-
There is no certainty that MPs will cool down over the holidays and come back to Parliament with cheery dispositions on January 30. The fall session ended in chaos and swear words, and the opposition is calling on the Conservatives to change their ways.
So far, the government has shut down debates on a number of bills in order to speed up their passage, and used Question Period to attack its opponents at every opportunity. But the opposition is also struggling to find ways – in this new period of majority government – to have a meaningful impact. Will 2012 be different? One option for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, after seeing bills through their final stages, would be to prorogue Parliament and to launch a new legislative agenda – and a new tone to Parliament.
– Daniel Leblanc
