Canadian Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau arrives to give a press conference in Ottawa on October 20, 2015 after winning the general elections.NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP / Getty Images
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POLITICS NOTEBOOK
By Chris Hannay (@channay)
According to David Zussman, the Liberals are currently in phase three: the post-election period.
Mr. Zussman is pretty much Ottawa's go-to expert on transitions of power in the federal government (an expertise most of us only think about briefly every few years), who was recently consulted by Tom Mulcair and the Liberals before the election.
Mr. Zussman is currently a professor at the University of Ottawa, after a long career in the public service and instrumental roles in Jean Chretien's transitions in the 1993 and 1997 elections.
In his book Off and Running, he says there are four phases to transitions: the planning phase (which can extend for months or years), the election phase, the post-election phase and the consolidation phase.
The post-election phase is, possibly, the most critical. On average, it lasts for only two weeks, but it's where the real work of governing begins. Senior members of the party and the public service will meet for the first time (including the first crucial meeting between the prime minister-designate and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Ottawa's most senior public servant); potential cabinet ministers will be interviewed; deliberations will be had and a cabinet will be selected; the public service begins figuring out how to implement a new governing party's agenda; and preparations are made for the swearing-in by the Governor-General.
Throughout all this, and the preceding phases, is the largely unseen but important work of the transition team. As reported by Daniel Leblanc, that team is made up of former deputy minister Peter Harder, Mr. Trudeau's chief of staff Cyrus Reporter, and his two most senior advisers, Gerald Butts and Katie Telford.
While most of the politicians and party members have been focused on winning the election, it's the transition team that has been toiling away for this moment, when the party finally assumes the reins of power.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS MORNING
> Justin Trudeau will face economic pressure on his new agenda.
> Canada's Kurdish allies in Iraq say the Liberal plan to pull out is "bad news."
> Two former chief statisticians say it is possible to restore the longform census in time for the 2016 survey.
> Three senior staffers from the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP explain the strategies behind each campaign.
> Military experts in Halifax say they are nervous about Liberal plans for the navy.
> Gilles Duceppe is set to step down as leader of the Bloc, again.
> Wilfrid Laurier University will reconsider plans to build statues of each prime minister, after concerns that they're all, well, just a bunch of white men (and one white woman).
ATLANTIC OPPORTUNITY
Every Atlantic MP is Liberal, and three of four premiers are Liberal (and the fourth might be soon, too). This is a unique moment, Jeffrey Simpson writes, for the region to tackle some big issues.
WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT
"Justin Trudeau is much less of a centralist and much more of a diplomat than his late father, who, among other things, greatly reduced health transfers to the provinces and introduced the Canada Health Act in 1984 to crack down on extra-billing by the provinces." – André Picard on the Liberal health plan.
Globe editorial board: "But it would be a good thing for the PM-designate, who has just made his first foreign policy move, to clearly explain his reasoning to Canadians: Why should we train but not fight?"
Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star): "If Trudeau is serious about dusting off the climate change file he will reappoint Stéphane Dion to his previous ministerial brief."
Andrew Coyne (Postmedia): "Unless the [Conservative party] culture changes, it should not count on being returned to power any time soon."
This newsletter is produced by Chris Hannay and Steve Proceviat.
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Chris Hannay