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As we plunge into the summer pre-election campaign, Justin Trudeau’s supporters should be feeling guardedly optimistic. Although much could happen between now and election day in October, the odds favour a second Liberal government.

A minority government, most likely, with the Prime Minister beholden to Jagmeet Singh’s NDP and/or Elizabeth May’s Greens and/or Yves-François Blanchet’s Bloc Québécois for his survival from vote to vote. But considering how bleak the prospects seemed for the Liberals in the midst of the SNC-Lavalin scandal a few months ago, any Liberal strategist would take a minority government and say thank you.

Pollster Nik Nanos’s Power Index, which combines ballot preference and leadership impressions, has Mr. Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer essentially tied. Other surveys are more negative. A new Dart/Maru poll shows only one Canadian in four believes the Liberals deserve re-election. Ipsos reports that seven voters in 10 think it’s time for a new government. The legacy of the SNC-Lavalin affair, the stayed charges against Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, the bungled trip to India and toxic relations with China have seriously dented Mr. Trudeau’s credibility.

So, why is he likely to get re-elected anyway? Here’s why.

Polls show that voters are chiefly concerned about three things: the state of health care, economic security and climate change.

In most elections, health care can be dismissed as an issue, because voters don’t think any party can improve on the mediocre status quo. But if the Liberals trot out a proposed national pharmacare program, that may get people’s attention.

Voters feel insecure about their jobs and incomes. But unemployment is low, growth is respectable and nothing Mr. Scheer has put forward would increase anyone’s economic security or disposable income (though the Conservative pledge to axe the carbon tax may give that impression to those who forget about the tax refund that comes with it).

On the vexed question of imposing a carbon tax on recalcitrant provinces while also building an oil pipeline, the Liberals may be on the brink of finessing the issue. An Indigenous consortium aims to purchase a majority share in the Trans Mountain pipeline, undermining opposition to the project, and the courts have repeatedly affirmed the federal government’s right to impose a carbon tax on provinces that refuse to impose their own.

What matters most, though, is that Premier Doug Ford, who was supposed to lead the opposition to the tax in Ontario, has become toxic, damaging both the provincial and federal conservative brands. Mr. Ford, in his own way, could be as valuable as former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne. A Liberal government at Queen’s Park helped Mr. Trudeau get elected in 2015. A Conservative government at Queen’s Park could help get him re-elected in 2019.

The climate-change file is crucial for the Liberals, not because the environment is the all-important question – for most voters, economic concerns matter more – but because the issue binds the NDP and the Greens to the Liberals, whether the two parties like it or not.

In the event of a hung Parliament, in which the Liberals and the Conservatives are close in the seat count, it won’t matter which party comes first or second. What will matter is that Mr. Scheer has vowed to scrap the carbon tax if he becomes prime minister, and Mr. Trudeau has vowed to uphold it, leaving the NDP and Greens no choice but to support the Liberals.

Mr. Scheer has laid out a series of intelligent proposals on the economy, the environment, immigration and foreign policy. But he isn’t very well known, and his party’s brand has been contaminated by populist conservative parties in the United States and Europe that are grossly incompetent and openly racist. The Conservative Party of Canada is neither of those things, but guilt by association is hard to overcome.

However, four years ago, around this time, I thought NDP leader Thomas Mulcair had the best shot at defeating Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. So what do I know?

But right now, at least, although the voting public has fallen out of love with Mr. Trudeau, enough people appear likely to vote for him, however grudgingly, to return a weak minority Liberal government.

Unless something happens between now and Thanksgiving. As it always does.

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