GUNTER: Why I’ll still be wishing for a 2024 federal election

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About two months ago, following the New Democrats’ national convention, I predicted a federal election was in the offing for 2024. While the NDP rank-and-file voted 81% confidence in their leader, Jagmeet Singh, they also showed impatience with their party’s submission to the Trudeau Liberals.

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Ninety days for national pharmacare or the Liberals were coming down, the NDP conventioneers said.

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Well, that deadline comes to pass on Sunday and there is no hope in Hades the Libs will deliver. There is also no hope the NDP will flex the backbone they showed at their convention in Hamilton and force an election.

The New Democrats threshold for political humiliation is much, much higher than even I had imagined.

Frankly, I’m happy pharmacare will not materialize. The cost forecasts are in the range of $11 billion to $15 billion a year, which is bad enough. What would be even worse, though, would be putting the federal government in charge of overseeing Canadians’ prescriptions.

Even if Ottawa is not directly in charge of dispensing our drugs, can you imagine the obstacles it would create that would delay treatments? If they are going to pay, even if they are going to pay through provincial drug plans, they will throw up rules about approving new drugs or preferring generics or mandating two- or three-generations-old variants.

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The federal government can’t deliver mail in a timely manner or produce a passport in under months. What about ArriveCAN? A $54-million app that should have been written for a few hundred thousand.

And it didn’t work, at least not initially.

Yet these are the people the New Dems want the Libs to put in charge of the live-saving drugs Canadians need.

So, thankfully, the pressure from the NDP – the threat to cut the legs out from under the Liberal government – has not moved the Trudeau government to implement a state drug plan.

It’s hard to believe the NDP membership will tolerate their leadership’s ability to absorb humiliation after humiliation from the Liberals. Still, it would appear there is nothing they can or will do.

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Maybe the NDP just so hate the idea of a Poilievre-led Conservative government that they will take whatever abuse the Liberals dump on them.

So am I as certain as I was that 2024 will be an election year? No. But, god, I hope it will be.

Canada desperately needs to get rid of the economically disastrous, environmentally cultish, unity destroying, smarmy Trudeau Liberals.

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We know our per capita GDP is declining because the Liberals are imposing anti-growth economic policies at the same time as they are pumping up our population at historic rates.

The Trudeau administration has also scared away so much investment – foreign and domestic – that the amount of capital per worker available for business has not been lower since the Depression. Capital investment was solid under the Harper Conservatives, but it has been declining since Trudeau took over in 2015 with his wokeism and eco-obsession.

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The decline (which has accelerated in the last two years under high inflation and high interest) has a profound impact on the economies capacity to create new jobs. Think about that: On the one hand, Trudeau is depressing job growth, while on the other hand he is doubling immigration.

The Liberals have a $100-million agenda to impose electric vehicles on Canadian consumers, at a time when they are slowing the economy (and the ability to generate government revenues to pay for its scheme).

And while it may not be obvious in central Canada, it is plain in the West that Trudeau not only doesn’t care about national unity, he is actively engaged in alienating the region with Canada’s fastest-growing economy.

I hope for an election because every day with a Trudeau government is bad for the country.

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