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By-election Bombshell! Justin Trudeau’s Liberals lose safe Toronto riding

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8 minute read

JUN 25, 2024

Benefit of hindsight

Feel free to start coming back any time, big guy

Well, of course I saw it coming all along. What kind of fool could have imagined the Liberal in Toronto — St. Paul’s had any chance?

Hang on. I’m just getting word that I didn’t see it coming. In fact, as recently as Monday night I wrote a post I’ll be hearing about until the cows come home. Sorry about that!

Here are the actual final results, barring any recounts, which may not happen because Conservative Don Stewart’s margin of victory, while slim, is too large to trigger an automatic recount.

Congratulations, Don Stewart! I never doubted you’d win. Hang on. I’m just getting word that I doubted you’d win as recently as last night.

Things will now start to happen quickly. Expect Liberals to work their way through four of the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief before lunch. Denial will come easily, benefiting as it does from long practice. Acceptance may take longer.

The Paul Wells newsletter is fun reading even when I’m calling the results of a by-election wrong! Imagine how much you’ll enjoy it when I’m right about something!

In part this is because on paper there isn’t that much to accept. The day’s news is not earth-shaking and, in isolation, should not be taken as definitive. It’s true that by-elections are strange events, though if you add them together they do have some predictive power. It’s true that Leslie Church’s long service as Chrystia Freeland’s chief of staff turned out to be more of a hindrance than a help, a data point whose implications the Deputy Prime Minister won’t want to think much about today. It’s true the Liberals didn’t even try all that hard, if by “didn’t try all that hard” you mean “they tried as hard as they possibly could, my God they tried so hard, my God.”

But a single off-season defeat in a riding the Liberals have, in fact, previously lost during the Paleozoic era is not a larger thing to accept than, say, a punishing loss to Ireland and Norway in a Security Council vote at the UN. Or the loss of two senior cabinet ministers in a controversy in which the ministers who quit were radiantly, obviously in the right. Don’t take my word on that, incidentally: ask David Lametti, who agreed with Jody Wilson-Raybould but managed to keep his job anyway. For a while.

A single by-election defeat is not a larger thing to accept than the prime minister’s documented history of slapping on dark makeup for social occasions, a habit that stretched from junior college to young adulthood. It’s not a bigger deal than firing your finance minister during a global fiscal calamity so you can replace him with somebody who knows less about money. It’s not evidence of poorer strategic thinking than the choice of Parliament as the venue for dismantling a new Conservative leader, given that Parliament has long been where Justin Trudeau and most of his government perform worst.

It’s not a bigger deal than mocking monetary policy during an election campaign. It’s not a big new development, compared to the Prime Minister’s reluctance to meet his own cabinet ministers to discuss business, an oddity of his management style that’s been documented in a growing number of books (look out for Marc Garneau’s this fall!).

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The prime minister has been on the ropes before, so to speak, and all those trials have made him the man he is today. Or rather, I suppose, his response to them has. I have no particular advice for Justin Trudeau today, or to the party he leads with the unstinting consent of its members. I screwed up last night by sending a column before the facts were in, so I’m feeling a little sheepish this morning. I’ll let Liberals decide what to do next.

As recently as two summers ago, I used to give them advice. It amounted to this: Notice when something you’re doing isn’t working. Change it. Make sure people see you changing it, so you don’t look quite so full of yourself. Rinse and repeat.

That post from 2022 ends:

“Don’t worry. He won’t take this advice either. Whatever the Liberal leader does on his return from the sunless south, it probably won’t resemble anything we’ve mentioned today. He’ll probably keep doing what he’s been doing. With the same results.”


Let me read to you

My excellent short bestselling book, Justin Trudeau on the Ropes: Governing in Troubled Times, is now an audiobook, narrated by the author, who is me. Here it is on Audible. Other platforms soon.

Here’s the story of the book, if you’re just catching up. Here’s an episode of my podcast with guest host Vassy Kapelos interviewing me about the book. Paper and ebook editions remain easy to find and buy, for yourself or friends.

We decided to make the audiobook some time after we published the, uh, more booky formats. It’s a response to surprising and gratifying demand. It’s also a promissory note: If this belated audiobook edition finds an audience, it won’t be my last.

There’s a school of thought that says there’s not much demand for nonfiction Canadian audiobooks. Here’s your chance to confound the skeptics. Thanks as always for your support.

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2025 Federal Election

Will Four More Years Of Liberals Prove The West’s Tipping Point?

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The 1997 political comedy Wag The Dog featured a ruling president far behind in the polls engaging Hollywood to rescue his failing ratings. By inventing a fake war against Albania and a left-behind “hero”— nicknamed Shoe— the Hollywood producer creates a narrative that sweeps the nation.

The meme of hanging old shoes from the branches of trees and power lines catches on and re-elects the president. In a plot kicker, the vain producer is killed by the president’s handlers when he refuses to stay quiet about his handiwork. The movie’s cynicism over political spin made it a big hit in the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky days.

In the recent 2024 election the Democrats thought they’d resurrect the WTD formula to spin off senile Joe Biden at the last minute in favour of Kamala Harris. Americans saw through the obvious charade and installed Donald Trump instead.

You’d think that would be enough to dissuade Canadians who pride themselves on their hip, postmodern humour. But you’d be wrong, they don’t get the joke. Wag The Carney is the current political theatre as Liberals bury the reviled Justin Trudeau and pivot to Mark Carney. If you believe the polling it might just be working on a public besotted by ex-pat Mike Myers and “Canada’s Not For Sale”.

As opposed to Wag The Dog, few are laughing about this performative theatre, however. There are still two debates (English/ French)  and over three more weeks of campaign where anything— hello Paul Chiang—can happen. But with Laurentian media bribed by the Libs— Carney is threatening those who stray— people are already projecting what another four years of Liberals in office will mean.

As the most prominent outlier to Team Canada’s “we will fight them on the beaches…” Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith is already steering a course for her province that doesn’t include going to war with America on energy. She asked Trump to delay his tariffs until Canadians had a chance to speak on the subject in an election April 28. Naturally the howler monkeys of the Left accused her of treason. She got her wish Wednesday when Canada was spared any new tariffs for the time being.

Clearly, she (and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe) have no illusions about Carney not using their energy industry as a whipping post for his EU climate schemes. They’ve seen the cynical flip in polls as former Trudeau loyalists hurry back to the same Liberal party they abandoned in 2024. They know Carney can manipulate the Boomer demographic just as he did when he called for draconian financial methods against the peaceful Truckers Convoy in 2022.

Former Reform leader Preston Manning is unequivocal: “’Large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it.’“ So how does the West respond within Confederation to protect itself from a predatory Ottawa elite?

Clearly, the emissions cap— part of Carney’s radical environmental plans— will keep Alberta’s treasure in the ground. With Carney repeating no cancellation of Bill C-69 that precludes building pipelines in the future, the momentum for a referendum in Alberta will only grow. The NDP will howl, but there will be enough push among from the rest of Albertans for a new approach within Canada.

In this vein Smith even wants to approach Quebec. While it seems like odd bedfellows the two provinces most at odds with the status quo have much in common .  “This is an area where our two provinces may be able to coordinate an approach,” Smith wrote this week. That could include referendums by the middle of 2026.

Perhaps the best recipe for keeping the increasingly fractious union together is a devolution of power, not unlike that governing the United Kingdom. While Westminster remains the central power since 1997, there are now separate parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that put power closer to the citizen, so that local factors are better recognized in decision making.

With so little uniting the regions of the country any longer, devolution might provide a solution. What form could decentralization take within Canada? A Western Canada Parliament could blunt predatory federal energy policies while countering the imbalances of Canada’s equalization process. Similar parliaments representing Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and B.C. would protect their own special interests within Canada. Ottawa could handle Canada’s international obligations to defence, trade and international cooperation.

While the idea is fraught with pitfalls it nonetheless remains preferable to a breakup of the nation, which four more years of Liberals rule under Mark Carney and the same Trudeau characters will likely precipitate. Smith’s outreach case would be the beginning of such a process.

None of this would be necessary were the populations of Eastern Canada and B.C.’s lower mainland remotely serious after snoozing through the Trudeau decade. The OECD shows Canada’s 1.4% GDP barely ahead of Luxembourg and behind the rest of the industrialized world from 2015-2025. As we’ve said before the Boomers sitting on their $1 million-plus homes are re-staging Woodstock on the Canada Pension and OAS. As with Wag The Dog, they’re not getting the joke.

When the Boomers award themselves another four years of taxapalooza and Mike Myers and the other “Canada Not For For Sale” celebs head south to their tax-avoidance schemes how will the Boomers say they’ve left Canada  better off for anyone under 60? We’ll hang up and listen to your answer on the TV.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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2025 Federal Election

Highly touted policies the Liberal government didn’t actually implement

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From The Audit

State capacity is the measure of a government’s ability to get stuff done that benefits its population. There are many ways to quantify state capacity, including GDP per capita spent on health, education, and infrastructure versus outcomes; the tax-to-GDP ratio; judicial independence; enforcement of contracts; and crime rates.

But a government’s ability to actually implement its own policies has got to rank pretty high here, too. All the best intentions are worthless if, as I wrote in the context of the Liberal’s 2023 national action plan to end gender-based violence, your legislation just won’t work in the real world.

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So I thought I’d take a look at some examples of federal legislation from the past ten years that passed through Parliament but, for one reason or another, failed to do its job. We may agree or disagree with goals driving the various initiatives, but government’s failure to get the work done over and over again speaks to a striking lack of state capacity.


The 2018 Cannabis Act (Bill C-45). C-45 legalized recreational cannabis in Canada, with a larger goal of regulating production, distribution, and consumption while reducing illegal markets and protecting public health. However, research has shown that illegal sales persisted post-legalization due to high legal prices and taxation. Studies have also shown continued use among children despite regulations. And there are troubling indicators about the overall impact on public health.

The 2021 Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (Bill C-12). The legislation aimed to ensure Canada achieves net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 by setting five-year targets and requiring emissions reduction plans. However, critics argue it lacks enforceable mechanisms to guarantee results. A much-delayed progress report highlighted a lack of action and actual emissions reductions lagging far behind projections.

The First Nations Clean Water Act (Bill C-61) was introduced in late 2024 but, as of the recent dissolution of Parliament, not yet passed. This should be seen in the context of the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act (2013), which was repealed in 2021 after failing to deliver promised improvements in water quality due to inadequate funding and enforcement. The new bill aimed to address these shortcomings, but a decade and a half of inaction speaks to a special level of public impotence.

The 2019 Impact Assessment Act (Bill C-69). Passed in 2019, this legislation reformed environmental assessment processes for major projects. Many argue it failed to achieve its dual goals of streamlining approvals while enhancing environmental protection. Industry groups claim it created regulatory uncertainty (to put it mildly), while environmental groups argue it hasn’t adequately protected ecosystems. No one seems happy with this one.

The 2019 Firearms Act (Bill C-71). Parts of this firearms legislation were delayed in implementation, particularly the point-of-sale record keeping requirements for non-restricted firearms. Some provisions weren’t fully implemented until years after passage.

The 2013 First Nations Financial Transparency Act. – This legislation, while technically implemented, was not fully enforced after 2015 when the Liberal government stopped penalizing First Nations that didn’t comply with its financial disclosure requirements.

The 2019 National Housing Strategy Act. From the historical perspective of six years of hindsight, the law has manifestly failed to meaningfully address Canada’s housing affordability crisis. Housing prices and homelessness have continued their rise in major urban centers.

The 2019 Indigenous Languages Act (Bill C-91). Many Indigenous advocates have argued the funding and mechanisms have been insufficient to achieve its goal of revitalizing endangered Indigenous languages.

The 2007 Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA). Designed to protect whistleblowers within the federal public service, the PSDPA has been criticized for its ineffectiveness. During its first three years, the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (OPSIC) astonishingly reported no findings of wrongdoing or reprisal, despite numerous submissions. A 2017 review by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates recommended significant reforms, but there’s been no visible progress.


There were, of course, many bills from the past ten years that were fully implemented.¹ But the failure rate is high enough that I’d argue it should be taken into account when measuring our state capacity.

Still, as a friend once noted, there’s a silver lining to all this: the one thing more frightening than an inefficient and ineffective government is an efficient and effective government. So there’s that.

1

The fact that we’re still living through the tail end of a massive bout of inflation provides clear testimony that Bill C-13 (COVID-19 Emergency Response Act) had an impact.

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