ONE YEAR LEFT — When Parliament revs back to life in six weeks, the Liberal government will have to contend with the limited time on the clock before the next election and get fussy about what it wants to accomplish before firing the starting pistol on the next federal race.
That leaves just over a year and two months left until Canadians vote for their next government (insert normal caveats about minority governments and fixed election dates here) — meaning it’s unlikely that everything it has in the hopper is going to get done. — Time to subtract: “The next year will be marked by a lot of narrowing of the field of priorities because it's going to be impossible to get everything done,” said TYLER MEREDITH, former top economic adviser in the Trudeau PMO, now at the public affairs firm Meredith Boessenkool. “If you're a minister or department that's beyond core to the economic/social policy agenda of the government, you're going to have to make a very strong case for why you want to take up time and attention and parliamentary time on the government's agenda.” The government has two big opportunities to drive the agenda through omnibus bills with the budget and Fall Economic Statement, but some of the legislation put forward during the past few months will likely fall to the wayside. — In for a penny: SAHIR KHAN, executive VP of uOttawa’s Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, notes there’s little room for surprises this far into a mandate. “A year is too short for any government to change course in a fundamental way, but it might be enough time to adjust the economic and fiscal trajectory,” he said. “For the fiscal update in the fall and the spring budget, the government should consider a focus on economic growth and fiscal prudence rather than redistributing wealth through social spending. — Throw the sink at it: SEAN SPEER, a former senior Harper PMO economic adviser and now editor-at-large at The Hub, said a late-stage government headed into election will set to sorting out what it wants to put forward as government policy, and which things it will want to hold back as an election commitment. “I suspect the Trudeau government, because of its relatively poor standing, probably wants to kind of throw everything and the kitchen sink to try to improve its standing before the election. It doesn't have the luxury of waiting.” — Box-checking exercises: Governments in their last year will try to finish up as many outstanding promises as they can, but switching from a governing mindset to preparing for a campaign can be harder than you’d think. “Governing is all-consuming. It's hyper-transactional. Most of the time you're not spending working on really fundamental political priorities,” Speer said, “Oftentimes, you're just moving paper.” — The big wildcard: All eyes on the main disruption to Canadian politics for the next year: the U.S. election. Canadian Liberals are already pilfering the KAMALA HARRIS comms campaign to label the right as a bunch of weirdos. — Agenda additions: Meredith says he’s watching closely for policy planks from Harris' team, since the Liberal government has a history of looking stateside for inspiration. “We saw that with share buybacks. We've seen that with some of the stuff on junk fees. We've seen that with even some of the changes in how the U.S. administration thinks about things like crypto and banking.” — Simultaneously in play: The Liberal government’s Bill C-65 would ban parties from accepting donations in the form of crypto assets — something that will play out before our eyes as the U.S. race progresses. But the parties have been at odds over the new proposed fixed election date that would affect MP pensions. “I think there might be an incentive there for part of that bill to get slimmed down and proceed on an expedited basis,” he said. — Running out of runway: Meredith has his eyes on what happens to the timetables for some of the environmental regulations still outstanding, such as the clean electricity proposals, the new oil and gas cap. “I don't think those are central to what the government needs to do to get reelected, or even frankly, what it wants to be talking about,” he said. There are also machinery of government changes in the works, such as the establishment of the Canada Water Agency and the creation of the Canada Financial Crimes Agency, where there doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency. “There's just a window of time that if we don't get some of the stuff done in terms of getting it up and running and start appointing people — that's going to potentially not be finished by the time we go to an election, and will those things survive if there were to be a change in government?”
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