“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

As I nervously try to write this column, I do it at a disadvantage you don’t share. You know who won the election. I don’t.

I don’t because – deadlines being what they are – I’m writing it two days before the election and unlike Cassandra I can’t see into the future. But that doesn’t stop me from making a prediction that I feel  more confident in making.

It’s going to be a Liberal landslide.

So, you can either commend me for being a political clairvoyant or dance on my foolish grave. I won’t mind either way. But why am I so confident about the Grits?

Simple. The day Justin Trudeau announced he wasn’t running again it was all over for Pierre Poilievre. I know it sounds cruel, but that’s the way it is in the perilous world of politics. Take no prisoners. Yesterday you were king. Today you’re not even an influencer.

Therefore, in politics, anyone with an IQ over 100, a willingness to work like a slave and roll with the punches has a shot at being elected to local government or even Prime Minister. And if they’re good at kissing babies and greasing palms they might even get a second shot. But it gets a lot more difficult at the Prime Ministerial level where winning a third term is about as rare as Toronto winning the Stanley Cup. It doesn’t happen often.

The only American to do it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt and then those damn Yankees passed a Constitutional Amendment against running three times (Sadly this may change with Trump.) Only five Canadian Prime Ministers have won three times:  Sir John A. Macdonald, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Jean Chretien and Justin Trudeau.

What it boils down to – and not just in Canada – is that if you can walk and chew gum at the same time you have a chance – distant though it may be – of becoming Prime Minister.

If the public still likes you after one term, you may get a second. But your chances of winning are rapidly diminishing. Winning a third term is practically impossible. Ask Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper, or for God’s sake, Sir Winston Churchill, who never won three in a row even though he did a lot to win the Second World War though he couldn’t have done it without lots of help from FDR and Stalin.

As already said, few politicians win three terms in a row. The public gets tired of you after two wins in a row. After three, the yuck factor sets in and there was Justin recklessly seeking four. It wasn’t going to happen and the Liberal backroom apparatchiks knew it and Justin was toast.

So where does this leave Prime Minister Mark Carney? The Garden of Eden or the road to Hell? At this point, of course, it’s all sweetness and light. Everyone loves a winner. But things can change in a flash in politics. One wrong word, a slip of the tongue, scandal – or in some cases – plain old bad luck. And it all happens at warp speed.

However, things do look good for Carney now. Unlike Poilievre, who stuck to his anti-Trudeau platform like glue despite Trudeau being gone, Carney took on what he regarded as the most critical issue in an election like none other in Canadian history. That being of course the Maga Man, Donald J. Trump, the only politician in history to threaten Canada’s status as a sovereign nation.

Poilievre, on the other hand, kept battering Trudeau and tried to pretend Carney was simply Trudeau two-point-one on steroids with Justin’s predilection for often advocating “woke” solutions for complex problems.

However, most Canadians think the sovereignty of our nation and the threat to turn our beloved country into the “51st state” towers far above such issues as inflation, housing, health care and other more normal issues serious though they are.

Even if Trump is just bluffing about taking over the “Great White North” and has another agenda in mind do you want to take the chance he’s serious?

I don’t and that’s why I think Canadians are going to give Trump a giant finger on election day.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who doesn’t believe in gambling on the future.

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