MNI INTERVIEW: Ex-House Leader Sees Stable Canada Minority Gov

--Conservative Van Loan Says Trudeau, NDP Have Incentives To Avoid Snap Election

By Greg Quinn

     OTTAWA (MNI) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a good chance of

staying in power for a while despite being reduced to a minority government

Monday if he can appeal to three opposition parties on major votes, former

Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan told MNI.

     Trudeau's Liberals will likely win early backing from the New Democratic

Party by offering programs such as an expanded public drug care plan, Van Loan

said. Later on, Trudeau can also turn to the Bloc Quebecois or even his main

rivals in the Conservatives led by Andrew Scheer on a case-by-case basis, he

said.

     "They have got a lot of room for maneuver there," Van Loan said of the

Liberals in a phone interview Tuesday. "It's a good position for them, I think,

strategically."

     Trudeau in the next few weeks must turn from losing his majority to

planning a Throne Speech laying out major priorities and crafting spending plans

that, if defeated, could trigger a snap election. The NDP don't have the money

to force another election anytime soon and the Liberals need to rebuild momentum

after losing seats and the popular vote to the Conservatives, Van Loan said.

     While minority governments rarely survive a regular four-year term, Trudeau

can probably win confidence votes if any of the main opposition parties support

him. The Liberals won 157 of 338 seats in the House of Commons, short of a

majority of 170. The NDP has 24 seats, the Bloc 32 and the Conservatives 121.

The Liberals took the most seats even with 33.1% of popular support lagging the

34.4% won by the Conservatives. 

     The Liberals in the Throne Speech want to "come out looking strong and

confident so that the public expectation is they are around for a long time,"

Van Loan said. That could touch pharmacare or another policy initiative "that

makes it look like they are a government of action."

     Pharmacare will pose a challenge for the Conservatives who shy away from

big government programs, said Van Loan, who helped schedule votes in a minority

government under Stephen Harper, because "it's a tough problem to stand

against."

     The Liberals "know that being that efficient with their vote the second

time around would require a good measure of luck, so they have a lot at risk,"

Van Loan said. For the NDP, "they have their own self-interested reasons to give

themselves time to raise money that make it a little bit difficult for them to

hang the threat of losing a vote and going back to the electorate over the

Liberals." 

     The Liberals and NDP could also cooperate on pledges to reduce consumer

phone and internet bills, Van Loan said. Opposition leaders have also signaled

they support a new tax on large foreign internet companies, and for household

tax cuts. No major party has called for eliminating budget deficits within the

next four years.

     Another catalyst for snap elections in the past, a change of opposition

leadership, doesn't appear likely either. The NDP's Jagmeet Singh held on to

more seats than expected and the Bloc's Yves-Francois Blanchet outperformed.

Scheer's Conservatives also picked up seats even as he failed to beat a weakened

Trudeau. 

     "He's got some things to point to as forward progress," said Van Loan.

"He's got to be able to carve that alternative of what a Conservative government

would be doing instead (of the Liberals) strongly in the next few months."

     "It has the potential to be a stable minority," he said.

--MNI Ottawa Bureau; +1 613-314-9647; email: greg.quinn@marketnews.com

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