8 / Canadian Government Executive // October/November 2022 CANADIAN POLITICS salvage a decent showing and start plotting their comeback or seriously consider a merger with the NDP. Don’t forget both the Conservatives and the Liberals outlived the obituaries written for them at the time of their defeats and eventually returned to power. Meanwhile, post 2025 the Conservatives press on with governing through four sessions of Parliament and four federal budgets. 4) PALE BLUE The wave of change doesn’t carry the Conservatives to a majority (Harper in 2006) and a new Conservative PM surveys a House of Commons where only the Bloc Quebecois may be amenable to deal-making. There may be a few Peoples Party MPs that can be induced to cross the floor or vote with the government or even a few Liberals (Google David Emerson January 2006) or perhaps a few dissident Conservatives who bolted after the leadership was decided back in 2022. Whether this provides a platform for stable government depends on the arithmetic in the House of Commons and the perceived strength of mandate and momentum. Like Harper in 2006, the new Conservative PM may be able to bluff his way through for about two years and try to engineer a victory in 2027. On the other hand, the new Conservative government may be as short lived as Joe Clark’s 1979 minority government and another election could follow in 2026. Any number of issues could bring the other parties together to defeat them. 5) DOUBLE BLUE The arithmetic of the post-2025 House of Commons leaves Conservative plus BQ as the only workable majority. They find common ground in rolling back the federal government. The new government focuses on federal spending programs and regulatory laws, reduces conditionality on federal transfers to the provinces and turns over much of environmental assessment to the provinces. For the Conservatives they achieve smaller government and the BQ achieves greater autonomy for Quebec. Premiers will line up on different sides on whether this is a good direction for the federation and the Senate becomes a key battleground. 6) ORANGE - BUT NOT CRUSH Somewhere in the course of the 2025 campaign many voters who had voted Liberal before conclude they want a change, but not the one the Conservatives are offering, and the tide carries the NDP to the most seats. A majority is possible, but a minority more likely. The new NDP PM surveys the arithmetic of the new House of Commons. His options are to form a real coalition with the battered Liberals, inviting some to join his Cabinet, or to flip over the confidence and supply agreement of 2022 into to a new one that secures a period for an NDP Cabinet to move ahead on incomplete initiatives like pharmacare. A key for the NDP would be whether to spend precious time and political capital on electoral reform, which could lead to a national referendum as soon as late 2026. (look up the BC referendum of 2018).
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