OTTAWA—Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government faces a critical few weeks when major initiatives — free trade, the Trans Mountain pipeline and the legalization of marijuana — hang in the balance.

At the same time, key legislative initiatives including reforms to elections laws, government accountability reforms, and an overhaul of Canada’s national security apparatus remain stuck in Parliament.

MPs and senators return to Ottawa Tuesday after a week in their constituencies. It will be the start of a four- to six-week sprint towards Parliament’s summer break.

There’s a lot to get done, and not a lot of time to do it. And it comes at a time when the Liberals have seen their fortunes sag in the polls, said Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates.

Gone is the “commanding” lead of 18 months ago and the firm’s more recent polls have had the Conservatives ahead at times, he said in an interview.

“Something is not firing well. It could be the mid-term fatigue that comes to any government, especially one that was freighted with such enormously high expectations,” Graves said.

Feeding that drop might be a sense that major initiatives are delayed or not happening at all, he said. “Each of them individually probably doesn’t mean that much but collectively they might be producing a sense of disappointment,” Graves said.

External pressures have taken up much of the Liberal government’s attention of late, chief among them the renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The roller-coaster negotiations around NAFTA took another turn last week, with Trudeau optimistically declaring a deal was “very close” only to have the United States trade representative say they were “nowhere near close.”

Graves said that voters would likely be forgiving on this issue, given what Trudeau and his cabinet have been up against with the Trump administration. “they’ve been very diligent on this file. I’m not sure there was a better outcome available,” he said.

The fate of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion — which Trudeau has declared is in Canada’s “vital, strategic interest” — also faces a looming deadline set by its U.S.-based owner, Kinder Morgan.

Trudeau and his ministers have been emphatic that this project — to move Alberta bitumen to port near Vancouver — will get built, despite opposition from the NDP government in British Columbia and some First Nations. Kinder Morgan stopped work last month and is threatening to pull out of the project unless “clarity” around its future is secured.

Morneau announced last week that Ottawa is prepared to “indemnify” Kinder Morgan against “politically-motivated” delays to the pipeline project but the company reacted coolly to the proposal and said discussions were continuing.

“It’s a tough one. They seemed committed to doing it, which I think might help them in the sense that there’s been a lot of other commitments where they haven’t really delivered,” Graves said.

“It might help redress this sense that they can’t close the deal on some of the key promises,” he said.

In Parliament, the Liberals’ legislative agenda has been slow. Of the 81 government bills introduced since the Liberals formed government, only 42 have made their way through the House of Commons and Senate to receive Royal Assent, according to parliamentary records.

A further 27 bills are in various stages of study in the House of Commons, and 11 in the Senate. One bill — the Transportation Modernization Act, which includes an airline traveler “bill of rights” — is stuck in a tug-of-war between the House and Senate over changes to rail transport regulations.

More important than the raw numbers, however, is the content of the bills still on the docket.

The Liberals’ election vow to legalize cannabis hinges on legislation now being studied in the Senate, which has committed to a vote by June 7. A March Senate vote on Bill C-45 sparked some drama when it appeared the bill might be defeated. The legislation passed easily but it was a reminder that in a Senate now dominated by independents, no vote can be taken for granted.

Two other major Liberal election promises — an overhaul of Canada’s national security regime, as well as government transparency and accountability reforms — were introduced last June and have still yet to make it to a Senate study. And with the recent unpredictability of a more independent Red Chamber, it’s anyone’s guess how quickly those bills will proceed.

Another major Liberal commitment — reforming Canada’s elections laws and ensuring the integrity of the 2019 federal election — only just found its way into legislation last month.

With opposition parties digging in their heels, there is little chance Bill C-76 will clear the House of Commons by the end of June. That puts the whole reform package at risk, at least in terms of the 2019 election — Elections Canada has already warned they need more than a year to make significant changes to the system.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Cameron Ahmad, spokesperson for Trudeau, said the coming few weeks is an “opportunity to continue making progress on those legislative priorities.” That includes the budget implementation act to enact measures laid out in the Liberals’ February budget.

“We were elected with a mandate, an ambitious one and we are working hard to implement that mandate,” he said in an interview.

“I would see our entire mandate, all the time we spent in government, as time devoted to making progress on the promises we made to Canadians and achieving those outcomes,” Ahmad said.

Read more about: