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Leaders of the federal Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and New Democratic Party made clear that they want an election as soon as possible. Since Governor General Mary Simon agreed to Trudeau’s request Monday to suspend Parliament until March 24, the opposition parties will have their next chance to topple the Liberal government early this spring.Ìý

“What has really changed?” asked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, speaking in a video that was posted online Monday morning.Ìý

“Every Liberal MP in power today, and every potential Liberal leadership contender fighting for the top job, helped Justin Trudeau break the country over the last nine years,” he said.Ìý

“Their only objection is (Trudeau) is no longer popular enough to win an election and keep them in power,” Poilievre continued. “They want to protect their pensions and paycheque by sweeping their hated leader under the rug months before an election to trick you and then do it all over again.” 

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh similarly painted all Liberals with the Trudeau brush. At a virtual press conference, Singh repeatedly ruled out working with a new Liberal leader, as he did with Trudeau in a parliamentary alliance that made progress on left-wing priorities like public dental care and pharmacare coverage for diabetes medication and birth control.Ìý

Singh said his NDP will vote at the first chance to declare non-confidence in the Liberal government and try to trigger an election, which he framed as a contest between his New Democrats’ “movement of working-class people” and a Conservative party keen to cut government programs.Ìý

“It does not matter who is chosen as the next Liberal leader. They have let you down. They do not deserve another chance,” Singh said. “So as soon as there is a confidence vote, New Democrats will be voting against the government, and then we will have an election.”

Yves-François Blanchet, the Bloc leader, also dismissed the idea that his separatist Québec party would work with Trudeau’s successor. Calling the Liberal government’s policies “catastrophic,” Blanchet argued Trudeau’s administration has centralized power in Ottawa, opposed Quebec state secularism, failed to adequately support the French language and irresponsibly favoured multiculturalism in a way that has allowed hate speech, among other things.Ìý

Blanchet said anyone in the Liberal party is linked to this political program, and that the government can’t remake itself in a matter of weeks under a new leader ahead of an election he expects to start shortly after Parliament returns near the end of March.

“It’s the same organization, the same values, the same ideology,” Blanchet said of the Liberal party.Ìý

For more than a year, national opinion polls have shown Poilievre’s Conservatives hold a commanding lead in voting intentions, with the Liberals sliding down into numbers that would cause them to lose a huge number of seats. But even before Trudeau announced his intention to resign on Monday, the Conservatives have tried to tie possible successors to Trudeau’s policies. The Conservatives started calling Mark Carney — the former central banker in Canada and the United Kingdom whom a source told the Star is considering a leadership run — “Carbon Tax Carney.” 

That’s a reference to the current Liberal government’s carbon tax-and-rebate policy, which the Conservatives promise to scrap and attack as a wrong-headed climate policy that hikes costs without meaningfully cutting greenhouse gas emissions.Ìý

A recent study published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy found carbon pricing has had a “minimal” impact on inflation, while the Canadian Climate Institute has predicted consumer carbon pricing could account for between eight and 14 per cent of Canada’s projected emissions reductions by 2030.Ìý

Jason Lietaer, the president of the strategic communications firm Enterprise Canada who worked for former prime minister Stephen Harper, said most Conservatives would rather face Trudeau in the next election. But he predicted Poilievre’s party will be able to link any potential Liberal successor — including those who aren’t serving in his government, like Carney and former British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, who is also said to be mulling a run — to Trudeau’s legacy in a way that benefits the Conservatives’ chances in the next election.Ìý

“People aren’t just tired of Trudeau. They are tired of the state of Canada” under his government, Lietaer said.Ìý

Meanwhile, the NDP sees an opportunity in Trudeau’s departure — especially if he is replaced by a leader who tries to swing the Liberal party towards the right, said a senior New Democrat insider. Some Liberals have told the Star the party became damagingly associated with leftist politics under Trudeau. And the NDP believes leadership candidates might stress more fiscal conservatism, after Chrystia Freeland resigned as finance minister last month and suggested she was at odds with Trudeau over their government’s spending levels, which blew past their own targets to restrain last year’s budget deficit by more than $20 billion.Ìý

Freeland has also been calling MPs and is interested in a potential leadership run, sources told the Star last week.Ìý

Any rightward shift could open up progressive votes for the NDP, said the insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity.Ìý

Whatever the case, though, the source added that all parties are now acting like an election is in the offing, with a possible voting day in early or mid-May if the government falls when Parliament resumes.Ìý

“We’re in a campaign now,” they said.Ìý