Here’s what to look out for in federal politics in 2024

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OTTAWA – After a messy end to 2023, our federal politicians are bracing for another year that will likely be dominated by an array of domestic issues and international conflicts.

The National Post spoke to five political watchers to get their take on what to look out for in the first few months of 2024, and how they think issues might play out throughout the year.

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Expect more divisions on climate policies and the carbon tax

Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau admits it: Pierre Poilievre has successfully linked the current affordability crisis to the carbon tax. And the Liberals seemed to prove his point when they paused the carbon tax on home heating oil after much pressure from their Atlantic caucus, prompting politicians of all stripes to ask for more carve-outs.

“I think that climate is shaping up to be the narrative that captures a lot of other things,” said Lori Turnbull, professor of political science at Dalhousie University.

She noted that Liberals have been struggling to communicate their strategy on carbon pricing and other climate policies at a time when Canadians are worried about paying for basic necessities. Meanwhile, Poilievre has been getting a lot of traction with his “Axe the Tax” slogan and his insistence that government policies are to blame for the cost of everything going up.

“They’re thinking about whether they can pay their rent or their mortgage, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, OK, fine. We have to save the climate. But why do we have to do this tax now?’”

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Turnbull expects the Liberals to “double down” on their climate policies and to make the next election about climate in response to Poilievre promising a “carbon tax election.”

“I think that the Liberals are going to try to build a strategy around their approach to climate and make this an all-encompassing thing that will handle affordability, generate more supply chains, a greener economy, more jobs, more sustainable industries, healthier living,” she said.

Poilievre, on the other hand, will likely accuse the Liberals of being “out of touch” as they talk about how Canadians “have never had it so good.” Turnbull predicts the attacks will be “every bit as resonant” in 2024, even if economic indicators become more positive.

Interest rates might come down — but don’t rejoice too quickly

Liberals have been not-so-secretly hoping that interest rates will start to go down in 2024, but that could prove to be a “double-edged sword” for them on the housing file, said Mike Moffatt, founding director of the PLACE Centre at the Smart Prosperity Institute.

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“It is certainly going to make existing homeowners happier as they renew (their mortgages), but there’s been a lot of first-time homebuyers who have been on the sidelines for the last couple of years because of high interest rates,” said the housing expert in an interview.

While housing prices have been “relatively flat” for the past 18 months and sales “close to non-existent,” said Moffatt, “that could change if interest rates start to drop substantially because of all that sort of pent-up demand” and bidding wars might come back in force.

The federal government has been multiplying announcements to boost housing supply during the fall session, driven by a drop in the polls as interest rates rose to five per cent.

While some initiatives like regulatory violations around short-term rentals could have an immediate effect, other policies could take years to implement. Meanwhile, Canada’s population is growing substantially, said Moffatt, particularly among international students.

“So, I have some real fears that unless there are substantial changes to that program, next summer, we are going to see rents spike up in southern Ontario in particular, just because of that disconnect between a lack of rental housing and the number of students,” he said.

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University of Ottawa’s Genevieve Tellier noted that Canada’s economic situation has shown encouraging signs with the inflation rate at 3.1% this past November.

The public mood toward the federal government, said Tellier, is at the mercy of the economy. “And that’s the case for all governments. When the economy is not doing well, any government’s popularity will drop,” she said.

If the Bank of Canada decides to lower interest rates in 2024, Tellier believes it could send a signal that the economy is not doing so bad after all and reassure some Canadians. But it remains to be seen if that effect will trickle down to voter intentions on the federal scene.

Will Canada have a role — any role — in the Israel-Hamas war?

The federal government has taken a lot of heat for its vote at the United Nations for a ceasefire in Gaza, and even awkwardly had to respond to a “thank you” message from Hamas.

But international partners are starting to think more and more about “what the next day looks like after the war,” said Mira Sucharov, political science professor at Carleton University, who said that “there’s a lot of international will right now to see some sort of solution.

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“Oct. 7 really reminded the world that the status quo is simply not sustainable,” she said.

The war is still ongoing, with Israel determined to eliminate Hamas at all costs. Sucharov mentioned humanitarian assistance and free and fair elections on the Palestinian side as ways that Canada could become involved but only if there is a will from the interested parties.

“The reality is that we have a very limited — marginal, at best — role to play in an eventual political process that could lead either to a two-state solution or to something else,” said Thomas Juneau, associate professor of international affairs at the University of Ottawa.

“Nobody in the region is asking us to play a role. Europeans and Americans are not really asking us to play a role. And we don’t have the capabilities and the influence to play more than a very marginal role,” he added.

Instead, Canada has joined a new international mission, led by the United States, to protect ships in the Red Sea — considered to be one of the most crucial maritime chokepoints in the world, said Juneau — from an Iran-backed armed group in Yemen called the Houthis.

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The Houthis have been targeting Israel-linked ships, in a show of support for Palestinians, to the point where oil and gas giant BP and major shipping companies have had to suspend operations in the Red Sea and oil prices have risen slightly.

Col. (retired) Michel Drapeau recently told the National Post that Canada’s “rather small contribution” to the U.S.-led mission is indicative of its limited defence capacities.

With the pharmacare deadline looming, all eyes are on the Liberal-NDP deal

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh came out of his party’s convention last fall with a promise to rip up the deal with the Liberals if they did not implement a national pharmacare program by the end of the year, but he ended up agreeing to punt the deadline by a few more months.

The Liberals and the NDP have agreed to introduce pharmacare legislation by March 1, 2024.

“We’ve really heard two different things from this party: the members versus its leaders,” said Tellier. “I think that Jagmeet Singh realized that it’s easy to threaten to rip up the agreement but looking at the polls, it’s not to his party’s advantage.”

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“(New Democrats) are better off staying with the Liberals with a deal where they can make progress, than to force an election and likely end up with a Conservative government that will not make nice with the NDP,” added the professor of political studies.

But Turnbull thinks there might be a break-up this year between the Liberals and the NDP, because the federal government has signalled that its cupboards are bare and may not be prepared to spend more billions on a recurring basis to implement yet another program.

In that case, the NDP might want to think about an exit strategy from its supply-and-confidence agreement with the minority Liberals to maintain a good relationship with its base of supporters.

“I don’t think that they can go back and tell the base that we just couldn’t get pharmacare this time around, but we’re going to keep supporting the Liberals. I just don’t think there’s going to be an appetite for that,” said Turnbull.

There might also be another path. Both parties could agree on a framework for pharmacare where the money would not roll until at least the next election, but it remains unclear if the NDP would settle for such a solution.

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After a few months’ pause, foreign interference is back on the radar

The long-awaited federal inquiry into foreign interference has slowly started to get in gear, but expect it to be front and centre in the news once public hearings start on Jan. 29.

Its first phase is meant to look at the extent of foreign interference from China, Russia and other foreign states, as well as non-state actors, in recent Canadian elections, and Juneau predicts that this will be the part that will likely be more of interest on the political level.

“That (phase of the inquiry), for the opposition, will be the hammer that they will be able to hit the government with and for the government, it will be a matter of trying to defend itself to show that it didn’t do anything wrong,” said the expert in intelligence analysis.

The preliminary hearings in the first phase will take place over five days, which Juneau says could be a “missed opportunity” to dig deeper into a complex issue.

The second phase of the inquiry, aimed at looking at how Canada can better deal with foreign interference, is for the second half of 2024. Juneau said that that phase might be “the more important one” — even though it will be less spectacular from a political viewpoint.

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“We do know that there’s a foreign interference problem and we do know that the government is not doing enough,” he said. “But what exactly needs to be done? What are the tools? What is the level of resources that we need to invest in this? How do we need to reform some of our security and law enforcement agencies?”

While the commission has tried to position itself as nonpartisan, it is already under fire for rejecting the Conservative party’s request for full standing, meaning that the Tories won’t be able to cross-examine witnesses or access all evidence submitted to the inquiry.

Juneau says the work of the commission will be extremely politicized. “Even if it does the best job possible of managing this process in a technical, nonpartisan way, both the government and the opposition will politicize this to the maximum extent that they can,” he said.

Will Pierre Poilievre continue to stay as high in the polls?

The Conservative leader has been seemingly unstoppable in 2023, with surging poll numbers nearly everywhere across the country and effective political ads on social media.

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But expect to see Trudeau’s Liberals ramp up their efforts to associate Poilievre with American Republicans as the United States election campaign gets underway in 2024, and to double down on their comparisons with Donald Trump if he returns to the Oval Office.

“There’s so many crazy things that can happen,” said Turnbull. “But I think that the campaign in the United States, regardless of the outcome, will have an impact on Canadian politics.”

The fact that the Conservatives have voted against the bill to implement a modernized Canada-Ukraine trade deal has fuelled the Liberals’ comparisons with MAGA-inspired politics, and served as material for political ads in ridings with a high Ukrainian population.

Poilievre’s party has claimed it voted against the legislation because it mentioned carbon pricing, which is essential for Ukraine to enter the European Union.

Turnbull said Poilievre has benefited from voter fatigue with Trudeau, but to maintain his advantage, he has to present himself and his party as a credible and reasonable alternative to the current government at a time when Canadians are looking for another option.

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“The question is, is he going to be that person? And his vulnerability is in the fact that he puts forward multiple versions of himself that are hard to reconcile,” she said.

The professor mentioned the political ads last summer in which Poilievre is presented as a family man by his wife Anaida. “But then he goes into the House of Commons, and he’s vitriolic and snarky and angry and petty. And that’s a hard thing to reconcile with that other person.”

Ultimately, said Turnbull, the question on the ballot at the next election will revolve around trust. “Do you trust Poilievre with your pension, with your health-care system? The world is a very uncertain place both in Canada and outside. Do you trust Poilievre with all that?”

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