Justine Trudeau

In 2013, the political universe did not unfold as the savants and the players themselves thought it would. Far from it.

A year ago, who would have predicted that the biggest political stories of 2013 year would be a penny-ante Senate expense scandal (abetted by a clumsy cover-up by the Prime Minister’s Office) and an astonishing crack cocaine scandal starring the mayor of Toronto?

Who would have foreseen the second coming of the federal Liberal party under the untested Justin Trudeau, as the party rose in 2013 from third-party irrelevance to first place in the polls? Who would have thought the provincial Liberals would retain power in British Columbia? And who could have anticipated the southern Alberta floods last summer or the ice storm that gripped southern Ontario this month – too much water and too much ice each pushing political news out of public consciousness?

Only a foolhardy pundit would predict anything for 2014. That said, let us proceed with extreme caution, starting with what we know for sure. First, we know the Toronto Maple Leafs will not win the Stanley Cup. I have been making this same prediction for 40 years, and I haven’t been wrong yet. My unblemished record is the envy of pundits everywhere, and surely it will be recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records.  If the Leafs need to find a way to lose, they will find it, as they did in 2013.

Second, there will be no federal election in 2014. That’s because the next election is already scheduled for Oct. 19, 2015. Conceivably, Prime Minister Harper could find a pretext for going early (he’s done it before), but would he? Would you, if your party was running 10 points below its accustomed support in the polls and if pollsters were telling you Canadians now believe Justin Trudeau would make a better prime minister than you? Harper may be an odd duck, but he’s not crazy. So no federal election in 2014.

Let’s move from what we know to what we suspect. Rob Ford will probably not be mayor of Toronto after the municipal election in October. There will probably be a provincial election in Ontario, in the fall if not sooner, as Premier Kathleen Wynne finds minority government increasingly untenable. Someone will win that election. To predict who that someone might be is to venture too far into the unknown.

Although Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives lead in the polls, their support is piled too deeply in rural/small town Ontario where there are relatively few seats. Pollsters tell us the Liberals’ strength in urban areas is more “efficient” – that is, fewer votes will yield more seats. This is treacherous terrain and I’ll give it a pass. To repeat, someone will win.

The question on many voters’ lips is: Whither Harper? Will he still be Conservative leader by this time next year? Harper himself says he intends to lead his party into the election scheduled for October 2015. But he would say that, wouldn’t he, even if he had already booked a getaway to Tasmania?

I don’t know the answer and I don’t know anyone who does. It seems to me Harper faces two challenges. The first is to regain control of the public agenda – to stop people talking about the Senate scandal (which will be difficult with the auditor-general’s investigation and possible RCMP charges still to come) and other awkward issues – and to get them talking instead about the economy, where the Conservatives feel they have the high ground.

The second challenge is to find a way to stop Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. Attack ads may work with the Conservative base, but not so well with the 70 per cent of the electorate that is disinclined to support the Harper party.

My hunch is that if the present trend persists – if by late 2014 another Tory majority appears out of reach – Harper will call it quits. That’s a hunch, not a prediction.

Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. His column appears every Monday in the Kitchener Record and Guelph Mercury. He welcomes comments at [email protected]