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Sometimes, to be sure, the whispers are right. For every Chretien or Harper who went on to lead his party to victory, there is a Stephane Dion or Stockwell Day, who should have been forced out long before they were. And, while it’s early days yet, the leadership of both Scheer and Singh is open to legitimate criticism. Scheer seems caught between a desire to expand Conservative support and an unwillingness to antagonize the base, as his mishandling of the Lynn Beyak situation suggests. Singh’s inexperience of federal politics has been glaringly apparent at times, and his refusal to answer a layup question on Sikh terrorism is bizarre and troubling.

But the mere fact that a leader has not yet overcome the advantages of incumbency, without even the whiff of an election to concentrate the electorate’s mind, is no proof of anything.

Rare is the opposition leader who looks a sure thing long before the event. Campbell led the polls at the start of the 1993 campaign. So did Paul Martin, in 2005. So, believe it or not, did John Turner, before the wipeout of 1984. Tom Mulcair was the exception in 2015, but we know what happened to him.

For every Chretien or Harper who went on to lead his party to victory, there is a Stephane Dion or Stockwell Day

Still, neither would one rate the opposition’s chances of toppling the Liberals as being terribly likely. Canadians do not tend, as a rule, to dismiss majority governments after one term. It has happened only four times in our history, by my count. Three of the four — Alexander Mackenzie’s Liberals in 1878, R. B. Bennett’s Conservatives in 1935, and John Turner’s Liberals in 1984 — had the misfortune to be governing during devastating economic contractions, whatever their contributions either to their amelioration or deterioration.