No letup for Trudeau as difficult 2018 gives way to wild election year
OTTAWA — Fasten your seatbelt, Canada. It’s going to be a bumpy ride to next fall’s national election.
The past year has been a turbulent one on the Canadian political scene and the coming year is bound to get that much more tumultuous as politicians prepare for what both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer have predicted will be a nasty campaign.
Think of the first six months of 2019 as the semi-finals, with party leaders jostling for position, test-driving their messages and refining their trash talk at opposing teams. The finals will begin when Parliament breaks at the end of June, even though the writ won’t officially drop until Sept. 1, at the earliest, for the vote scheduled on Oct. 21.
Trudeau’s Liberals and Scheer’s Conservatives are the main competitors as they head into playoff season; the NDP, Greens and Maxime Bernier’s breakaway People’s Party are bit players but potentially positioned as spoilers who will determine which of the two leading contenders walks off with the prize.