The Insiders look ahead to 2018

What will the 2018 political year look like?

We asked Insiders David Herle, principal partner at the Gandalf Group, Kathleen Monk, principal at Earnscliffe, and Jaime Watt, executive chair of Navigator Ltd, to look into their crystal balls.

On Trump and trade:

Jaime Watt: "The government's challenge is to keep moving forward in other files, in other dossiers, while managing this very unpredictable negotiating partner."

David Herle: "The guy (Trump) is obviously, as we saw, not even dealing on a factual basis about what the trade relationship actually is, demonstrating that he thinks the United States has a trade deficit with Canada when it doesn't. So I don't know that's there's going to be any room to do anything with him. So therefore, we're going to see how successful the other efforts about working with governors and working with members of Congress, and building business alliances across the United States, something that the government of Canada has worked on assiduously... the question is  whether that coalition can encircle Trump, and prevent that trade relationship from falling apart."

Kathleen Monk: "The question is will we even get a deal? We all know that there's the Mexican election coming up and the midterms in the States. I think that Canada's done a good job at putting the 'Canada First' policy forward and introducing some of those elements of more progressive trade: environment, labour, gender... All of those things are really important, but whether we'll get a deal by spring is very unlikely."

Impact of provincial elections in 2018:

DH: "The Trudeau government, since coming into office, has had the most congenial possible federal-provincial arrangement, with even people of other stripes like Rachel Notley who are in office being essentially on the same page in terms of both values and ideas and policy direction. So if you start looking at changes in Ontario and in Quebec, and then a year later perhaps a change in Alberta, along with a tough Mr. Horgan in British Columbia and Pallister in Manitoba... All of a sudden you've got a very different configuration and a much more difficult and less harmonious federal-provincial environment."

KM: "I think the most interesting race to watch, not only because I live in Ontario, but just because of the dynamic. That government has been in power for close to fifteen years, and obviously change is in the air. We have in Andrea Horwath a leader who is very well-liked, but who has already run two elections and lost, and so... she's got to win this one. We have Patrick Brown, a new leader, not a lot of policy under his belt, unknown really to many Ontarians, but has sky-high numbers, so it'll be one to watch for sure."

JW: "The federal government really has been opposition-less on all fronts. The other two parties have taken a while to get their new leaders. And on the federal-provincial front, we've forgotten how acrimonious those relationships can be. We've forgotten what they've been like in previous years when the provinces and the feds were at each others' throats. One or two of those going another way, you could see a very different dynamic and a lot of indigestion for Mr. Trudeau and the federal Liberals."

What the federal parties need to do in 2018:

KM: "Jagmeet Singh needs to get out there and get known by Canadians. He needs to take up more oxygen in terms of the media. He needs to make more headlines. He needs to insert himself into political stories. New Democrats will have a convention in February, and that will be his real coming out where hopefully we'll see his election plan going forward. They need to figure out what their policy take is going to be going into 2018 and 2019."

JW: "Mr. Scheer is trying to be a more congenial, softer, more agreeable flavour of Conservatism. Well, how's he going to do that and remain distinctively different than what the Prime Minister has on offer right now. At the moment the Prime Minister is occupying a chunk of of that centre swath that transverses both sides of the left-right equation, and he hasn't left much, skillfully hasn't left much, for these new opposition leaders, so I think the best thing for both of them to do is to get out, get known, but forget about Ottawa because I can tell you - everyone will say the Liberals did not have a good fall in the House and look at the polls... It didn't matter a whit."

DH: "What the Liberals have to do in 2018, it's all going to be about the economy. It's all going to be about managing this NAFTA issue, managing the fallout from NAFTA, creating confidence. And one of the big things they're going to have to do to os weather that whole storm is rebuild the credibility of Finance Minister Bill Morneau so they look like they've got a strong hand at the economic till."