Think Erin O’Toole can’t win the next election? That’s what they said about Justin Trudeau, too

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This article was published 18/03/2021 (1996 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At some point in this weekend’s big, virtual convention, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole may dream aloud about winning a majority in the next election.

Many will laugh — especially Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, who have been enjoying all the recent reports of unrest and low spirits in the Conservative party.

While it is true that events don’t seem to be conspiring in favour of a Conservative majority anytime soon, more reflective Liberals may remember when their high hopes were the subject of political hilarity too.

It was at a summer caucus retreat in Edmonton in 2014 — Trudeau’s first since winning the leadership of a party that then sat dismally in third place in the House of Commons, with just 37 seats.

Trudeau’s advisers were circulating a strategy they called “the path to 170.” It sketched out a way in which Trudeau could vault the party into power with just one election: a far more ambitious plan than the two-election strategy favoured by most seasoned Liberals in 2014.

Reports of the “path to 170” drew widespread mockery, from Conservatives in power and from New Democrats too, who had their own aspirations to trade official opposition status for government when the next election rolled around.

No political party in Canada had ever climbed from third to first place in one election, the skeptical observers scoffed.

Yet a little more than a year later, Trudeau won 184 seats.

Overconfidence can be a fatal flaw in politics, but usually when it’s being exhibited by front-runners. No one would describe O’Toole’s Conservatives in those terms these days.

For weeks now, notably in articles from the Star’s Alex Boutilier, Conservatives themselves have been telegraphing frustration, even despair, at the state of the party under O’Toole’s leadership. In his public persona, the Conservative leader often resembles that lonely guy at a party, who keeps having to introduce himself to people who should know him by now.

There are a lot of conspicuous absences at this weekend’s convention too. Peter MacKay, who lost to O’Toole in the leadership, is reportedly too busy with his family and job to make an appearance. No Conservative premiers can be found in the lineup of speakers — no Jason Kenney, no Doug Ford.

This seems odd too. Kenney may be having his own problems in the polls right now too, but he’s still held in high regard by many federal Conservatives, who credit him with expanding the party’s support beyond the traditional base.

Ford, meanwhile, seems to be on friendlier terms with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland than he is with O’Toole.

In the latest poll-tracking update from the CBC’s Eric Grenier, posted on Thursday, Liberals stood 5.5 points ahead of the Conservatives, within reach of turning their current minority into a majority.

Numbers like this make Conservatives suspect that Trudeau will be looking for a chance to provoke an election before the summer. O’Toole will probably raise that spectre this weekend too — just like Trudeau did back in Edmonton seven years ago, telling his troops that Stephen Harper may send the country to the polls sooner rather than later.

Like many things that year, that prediction was wrong.

Liberals on Twitter seem almost giddy these days about Conservative travails. They were gleeful when a hapless staffer posted a tweet this week that said Trudeau cared more about Canadian jobs than his own. “This is accurate,” one of Trudeau’s staffers tweeted in response.

But overconfidence is a luxury that only underdogs can afford.

Yes, Liberals do enjoy a lead in the polls, but it’s not a comfortable lead. It doesn’t take much to shake loose Trudeau’s support — as the WE Charity debacle last year demonstrated, or this winter’s lag in delivery of vaccines.

Smart Liberals know that most political defeats are self-inflicted — that their biggest worry at the moment isn’t O’Toole and the Conservatives, but some future misstep of their own creation. The last Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, didn’t knock Trudeau from majority to a minority in 2019 — Trudeau and his team got there by themselves, mainly through an accumulation of own goals, such as the SNC-Lavalin saga.

Conservatives will be talking a lot publicly at their virtual convention this weekend about all the things that Trudeau has done wrong. Much laughter will ensue. But the smarter Conservatives will be looking at all the ways they could defeat themselves too.

It’s said that when people are laughing at you in politics, you’re losing. That hasn’t necessarily been true in recent political history, as Trudeau proved in 2015. It’s all about who laughs last.

Find the Star’s federal election coverage here

Susan Delacourt is an Ottawa-based columnist covering national politics for the Star. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt