British Columbia had a minority government in 2017. New Brunswick jumped on the trend with a minority government in 2018. Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and the federal government joined in the trend in 2019.
While many have speculated on the length of the federal minority government, the provincial versions haven't shown any signs of folding.
The lone scheduled provincial election for 2020 is in Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan Party has been in charge since 2007.
Canadian politics in 2020 could be about leadership races. Elizabeth May left as Green Party federal leader after 13 years of leadership but stayed on as the party's parliamentary leader in the House. May had talked about stepping down even before the 2019 federal election. Former long-time CBC journalist Jo-Ann Roberts was named interim leader. The Green Party of Canada leadership election is scheduled for October 4.
Andrew Scheer likely wouldn't have survived past April. The accusations of spending party money on his children's private school tuition crossed the line. The duplicity about being an insurance broker and a dual citizen was fine. Scheer's tone didn't shift after the election. Firing his chief of staff and director of communications were bad signs. Jason Kenney and Doug Ford looking like adults by comparison when Justin Trudeau announced his cabinet.
The Conservative Party's national convention moved from Toronto in April to Quebec City in November to the new leader being picked on June 27 in Toronto.
Jagmeet Singh should be safe in his top spot. The New Democratic Party dropped a lot of seats in the 2019 election but has an elevated profile in the Justin Trudeau minority government. Singh has been in Parliament less than a year.
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Manitoba sneaked its provincial election a year earlier than scheduled. Newfoundland and Labrador as well as Prince Edward Island elected minority governments. Alberta did not.
British Columbia and New Brunswick also have minority governments among the provinces.
Scott Moe, who popped up out of hiding after the federal election, has been the Saskatchewan premier since February 2, 2018 but has not been elected. Most unelected premiers call for an election shortly after taking over but the Saskatchewan Party doesn't have a strong opposition.
Here are the tentative election dates for the provinces in 2020:
- Saskatchewan — October 26
Here is the list of the provinces and the year of their last provincial election.
Manitoba — 2019
Newfoundland and Labrador — 2019
Alberta — 2019
Prince Edward Island — 2019
Quebec — 2018
Ontario — 2018
New Brunswick — 2018
Nova Scotia — 2017
British Columbia — 2017
Saskatchewan — 2016
2019 Canadian politics preview
2018 Canadian politics preview
2017 Canadian politics preview
2016 Canadian politics preview
2015 Canadian politics preview
Canadian politics coverage on CanadianCrossing.com
The rhetoric of division in Canada reveals a lack of understanding
CBC shows, not necessarily the newscasts, have done backflips talking about Wexit (Western Canada Brexit) and the anger in Alberta and Saskatchewan. They bemoan loudly how Alberta and Saskatchewan doesn't have representation. None of those shows point out that the Liberals only had 4 Alberta MPs and a single Saskatchewan MP in the 2015 election.
The Liberals could have brought into cabinet the lone NDP MP from Alberta, newly elected Edmonton-Strathcona MP Heather McPherson. However, McPherson said she wouldn't sit in a Liberal cabinet. The talk in the election was for MPs to work together. Having a NDP MP in a sea of the Liberal cabinet might have been a cool symbolic move.
Trudeau named Winnipeg MP Jim Carr to be the federal government's special representative to the Prairies. Carr was in the cabinet as minister of international trade diversification and previously minister of natural resources.
Carr was diagnosed with the blood cancer multiple myeloma the day after the 2019 federal election. The diagnosis is likely why Carr is not technically in the cabinet.
And then there were none: the lack of female premiers in Canada
Canada has 0 female provincial premiers and 0 openly gay premiers.
Rachel Notley (Alberta) was the last female premier to fall. Wade MacLauchlan (Prince Edward Island) was the last openly gay premier to fall. The good news is neither of them lost their jobs because of being female or gay.
Caroline Cochrane was appointed premier of the Northwest Territories by her peers not the voters.
Notley and Andrea Horwath (Ontario) are the only female opposition leaders on the provincial level.
The Canadian Parliament has 98 women out of 338 MPs, 10 more than in the 2015 federal election. Women make up 29% of the electorate of MPs.
CBC had an extensive analysis on female federal candidates. 596 women ran for a major party and 97 of them were elected (BC MP Jody Wilson-Raybould won as an independent) in 2019.
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Mary Ng is the minister of small business, export promotion, and international trade in the latest Trudeau cabinet shuffle for the second term. Don't expect Ng to handle any of what has been NAFTA 2.0.
Both Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne served as minister of international trade before shifting to minister of foreign affairs. Freeland is now the deputy prime minister and minister of intergovernmental affairs.
Expect Freeland to handle anything NAFTA 2.0 related. There has been a rush behind the scenes to approve limited changes to the trade deal. Those changes aren't concerns that Canada should have about the USMCA | CUSMA legislation. The U.S. House approved the trade deal 385-41 last month. Impeachment and the 2020 presidential election will chew up a lot of time for Congress.
Freeland will likely help out of anything related to the Meng Wanzhou saga now in its third calendar year, stemming back to her arrest on December 1, 2018. Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig have been detained illegally by Chinese authorities for more than a year.
photo credit: CBC News Network
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