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Trudeau's biggest assets are the other party leaders

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to take a drubbing over the whole Jody Wilson-Raybould/SNC-Lavalin affair, it is far from clear whether any fall in his popularity will extend to B.C.
trudeau
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to take a drubbing over the whole Jody Wilson-Raybould/SNC-Lavalin affair, it is far from clear whether any fall in his popularity will extend to B.C.

In fact, if there is a significant decline in Liberal Party of Canada fortunes nationally come the election this fall, this province may provide enough of a backstop to keep Trudeau in at least a minority government position and not create a Conservative majority.

B.C., in particular, unleashed a wave of Trudeaumania in the 2015 election and there is little evidence it has diminished to any significant degree. He is still accorded near-rock star status when he attends events in B.C., and the selfie requests do not seem to be decreasing.

Despite the loud and non-stop national news coverage of the perceived scandal, Trudeau has several aces up his sleeve - the other national political leaders of this country.

It is hard to envision many people jumping off the Trudeau wagon and onto those being driven by the Conservatives’ Andrew Scheer, the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh or the fledging People’s Party of Canada’s Maxime Bernier.

Singh, especially, appears to be stuck in neutral. His party has sunk almost out of sight in Quebec, he’s losing incumbent caucus members left and right, and he cannot seem to resonate with the voters. I assume he will win the crucial Burnaby South byelection on Feb. 25, but that victory may prove to be a pyrrhic one. 

Scheer seems to be picking up his game a bit, but still seems a long way from being prime ministerial material. And Bernier’s party remains a bit of an extremist one, with any support confined to pockets of Quebec (if anything, his party is a threat to the Conservatives in Quebec).

So with a fairly weak opposition presenting themselves as alternatives to his leadership, Trudeau has some room lose some popularity while not seeing that translate into any big boost for his rivals.

Are Liberals upset about the Wilson-Raybould situation really going to switch to the lackluster NDP in great numbers, or to the ideologically opposite Conservatives to any appreciable degree? I rather doubt either scenario will occur.

And when the B.C. results from the 2015 federal election are examined, it shows just how much breathing room Trudeau may have out here.

Of the 17 seats the Liberals won in B.C., 10 of them were secured by victory margins of more than 6,000 votes. For the party to lose any of those ridings would require defections on a massive scale to other parties or to the living room couch instead of the voting booth.

The worst-case scenario for Trudeau and the Liberals is likely the loss of just several seats in the outer Fraser Valley and the Tri-Cities. Everywhere else – with the possible exception of Burnaby North-Seymour, where the Trans Mountain pipeline may a vote determining issue – appears relatively safe.

And I’m not sure how much the SNC-Lavalin scandal affects B.C. voters anyways.

It certainly does not seem to bother the NDP government, which without fanfare recently announced the short-list of companies to bid on building components of the new Pattullo Bridge.

Front and center on that short-list?

None other than SNC-Lavalin.

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.