Before we start the election preview in Canada it will be worth noting we are not going to have the complete picture of Canada's vote on election night Monday. Elections Canada estimating more than one million mail-in ballots that will be added to the totals beginning Tuesday.
Massive COVID spending by Canada's federal government has driven its national debt over the one trillion dollar mark the inflation monster looming in the shadows already being felt in vastly higher housing prices.
Foreign investment being blamed for the housing cost "bubble" with politicians pledging to do something about it in this year's campaign.
But the notion that incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on the side of the "little people" struggling to make their ends meet is a harder sell nowadays.
Trudeau actually campaigned this time on the notion that he would modify Canada's notoriously low corporate taxes from 15 to 18 percent for profits over one million dollars in the banking industry.
But the lustre of the "Second Coming" of "Trudeaumania" seen in the Liberal Party's 2015 landslide victory wore off in the 2019 SNC Lavalin Affair where it was revealed that Trudeau was pressuring the Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to abstain from prosecuting a large Quebec construction firm over bribery allegations.
Trudeau had to settle for a minority government after the October 2019 federal election. He needed smaller parties like the New Democrats or the Bloc Quebecois to enable him to move legislation.
Then came COVID and the suspension of Parliament and a more direct rule with COVID being a situation that entailed massive government spending and the risk of inflation eventually breaking out.
After his two years as a minority government Prime Minister Trudeau appears to have gambled that a population subsidized by the massive outlay of spending might just give him another majority government.
Much of the dirty work of COVID lockdowns and vaccine passports etc. etc. was left to the provincial Premiers, many of them Conservatives.
But if the polling is to be believed Trudeau is about to be disappointed. The "Left" voters appear to be sensing the winds of how Canada really works the government protects the interests of business with its policies including much of the COVID spending helping them and not the little people in their view.
The social democratic New Democratic Party finished with some 16 percent of the popular vote in 2019 and 24 seats. The polling now shows the NDP on average at 20 percent and this should translate to 30 or more of the 338 seats in the House of Commons.
The other party to the left of the Liberals is the Green Party. It reached 6.55 percent of the popular vote in 2019 and won three seats. A row over anti-Israel views in the party caused a major controversy earlier this year. The Greens now showing less popularity in the polls they are likely to get three to four percent of the popular vote finding it hard to retain their existing seats.
In Quebec the Bloc Quebecois holding the standard of Quebec pride, tradition and sovereignty in the face of a rapidly changing population demographic fueled by immigration finished relatively well in 2019 with 7.63 percent of the popular vote and 32 seats. The polling now does not show them at that high a level of support. The votes in Quebec's seats ("ridings" as they are called in Canada) will be split multiple ways with the BQ adding to the split with the other political parties on the ballot.
What about Canada's Conservatives? The Conservatives have had a rough go of it in the post-Depression era of Canadian politics occasionally the John Diefenbaker or Brian Mulroney eras came up more recently Stephen Harper to provide some balance for longtime Liberal PM's Mackenzie King, Louis St. Laurent and the Liberal stalwarts that followed them as Liberal PM's like Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien.
The 1990's split with the Reform Party patched up and Harper from Alberta trying to offer up a conservative image that was eventually diminished by the new image of Justin Trudeau.
In Canada the colors of politics do not resemble the color scheme in the USA the Liberals are Red and the Conservatives Blue.
What helped to drive the Conservative Party into its near extinction in the mid-1990's was the perception that the Conservatives ("Tories") were "Red Tories" exemplified by the Conservative Party leader briefly Prime Minister in 1979 Joe Clark. In other words Conservatives who leaned too far to the Left.
After Stephen Harper's conservative image faded into the sunset the new leaders Andrew Scheer and now Erin O'Toole battling with those clinging doubts about how Blue they are. One aspect of internal Conservative Party operations is how they always seem to echo the leftward drift of politics and silence their own Conservative Party candidates in election campaigns who offer up conservative positions particularly on social issues.
In the current election campaign O'Toole came off "Red" during one of the debates saying he would support gun regulations on some of the same types of firearms Trudeau wanted to regulate.
Back in the 2019 election a new political force emerged in Canadian politics the Peoples Party of Canada led by Maxime Bernier. Bernier, a former Foreign Minister in Stephen Harper's Conservative government, narrowly lost the Tory leadership race to Andrew Scheer.
It was a rough go for the PPC and Bernier 1.62 percent of the popular vote and Bernier losing his seat in the riding of Beauce in southeastern Quebec getting 28 percent of the vote.
But then came COVID and the libertarian economically conservative Maxime Bernier found himself an advocate against the lockdowns and restrictions that swept across Canada.
At one point Bernier found himself under arrest in Manitoba for holding a political rally in violation of the COVID lockdown of Conservative Premier Brian Pallister.
And then came the vaccine and vaccine passports. Another liberty issue that Bernier seized on. He himself has chosen to not be vaccinated and moved across provincial borders in violation of rules that say the unvaccinated need to self-isolate.
"Mad Max" staking out his position as huge crowds of Canadians particularly in the West and many of them Left-leaning people concerned about corruption in the Big Business of Pharma took to the streets causing fear and condemnation from the politicians, "experts" and the media.
Vaxx opponents labeled "nuts", "crazy", "idiots", "covidiots" and the list goes on.
What factor will the PPC play in this election?
Right now the Conservatives and Liberals battle it out in popular votes somewhere in the low 30's percentage wise. The Conservatives slightly edged the Liberals in 2019 getting more popular votes and fewer seats.
The polling regarding the PPC showing a steady increase in support with fluctuations but the EKOS poll dated yesterday (Saturday) placed the PPC at 10 percent of the popular vote.
In a podcast with Dr. Jordan Peterson Bernier expressed the belief that the PPC would win seats including his own in Beauce and help change the debate in Canada's Parliament....
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