Even in the best of times, there’s always an element of political risk when a minority government calls a snap election. That risk is exponentially greater in the midst of a pandemic — and yet, some governments across the country may be tempted.
But not one of them has been bold enough to pull the plug yet.
The temptation is understandable. Across the country, parties in power are seeing a surge in support over their handling of the pandemic.
A bump in the polls is often the root cause of early elections. Minority governments tend to end for one of two reasons: a popular governing party believes it can turn a minority into a majority, or the opposition believes an unpopular governing party is ripe for replacement.
Fixed election date laws in most provinces prevent majority governments from cashing in on newfound support. While these laws can be bypassed easily, voter revulsion usually has kept majority governments from trying it.
But these polling surges could make some minority governments think about rolling the dice — unless COVID-19 makes them think twice.
Speculation about the possibility of a late summer election in New Brunswick was feverish just recently. Premier Blaine Higgs has presided over a fragile minority government since 2018. The most recent big survey, conducted by Narrative Research in May, put his Progressive Conservatives 18 percentage points ahead of the opposition Liberals. That’s quite a swing from his party’s six-point deficit in the popular vote in the last election.
But this week, Higgs voiced some doubts about holding an election in the short term. While he didn’t rule one out entirely, he said it wasn’t his preference and he acknowledged “there’s mixed feelings, because many people would say, ‘Is there a need? Is there a bigger concern around the health risks?'”
It’s the first inkling Horgan has given that an election is on his mind.
His statement was denounced by B.C. Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson. It also drew fire from B.C. Green Leader Adam Olsen, with whom Horgan’s New Democrats have an agreement to keep their government running.
With only a year left before the clock runs out, B.C.’s minority government has been remarkably stable. Most minority governments fall within two years. But Horgan’s poll numbers are up significantly. The most recent survey by EKOS Research puts the gap between the NDP and the Liberals at 17 points — enough to deliver the widest margin of victory of any B.C. election since 2001.
B.C. Premier John Horgan has presided over a minority government since 2017, but for the first time polls suggest he has a wide lead over his opposition rivals. (Chad Hipolito / Canadian Press)
In Newfoundland and Labrador, an election must be held within a year of a new premier being sworn in. The governing Liberals will name their new leader next month — at which point the clock starts ticking.
But not all minority governments are eyeing the exits. There has been little talk of an early election in Prince Edward Island, where one poll suggests Dennis King’s PC government enjoys a 32-point lead over the opposition Greens and Liberals.
In Ottawa, the federal Liberals are still leading in the polls by a significant margin. It is unclear what impact the WE contract controversy will have on Liberal support in the longer term; in the meantime, the opposition Conservatives appear content with extracting their pound of flesh from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
Despite the Liberals’ sudden vulnerability, the Conservatives have not threatened to bring down the government (though the Bloc Québécois said on Friday it would try to defeat the government in September if Trudeau and Morneau do not resign). But because of that vulnerability, it appears unlikely the Liberals will take the risk of calling an election on their own — something which seemed plausible (if risky) just a few weeks ago.
COVID-19 makes no exceptions for democracy
There’s one very good reason why minority governments — even popular ones — ought to think twice before kicking off an election campaign right now: the global pandemic that has killed over 600,000 people, including nearly 9,000 Canadians.
After dropping to an average of some 270 cases per day in early July from 1,800 or so at its peak in May, the country is now averaging about 500 new cases per day. There have been spikes in Alberta and Saskatchewan and rising trend lines in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.
Canadians are increasingly worried about pandemic. The weekly tracking survey from Léger shows the percentage of Canadians afraid of contracting the disease increased 10 points over the last few weeks to 61 per cent — the highest level since April. The same poll found that 82 per cent of respondents believe there will be a second wave of infections.
Polls suggest Canadians’ concerns over COVID-19 are rising again as the number of new cases increases. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)
That would make an early election call perilous. The rising caseload — along with the cautionary tale offered by the uncontrolled spread of the disease in the United States — means the political blowback against any party seen as responsible for forcing a dangerous early election could be ruinous.
Risking people’s lives for the sake of political gain is something most voters would find appalling. It also would make a four-week campaign unpredictable. The COVID-19 situation in Canada a month ago looked much different than it does now. How it will look in another four weeks is anybody’s guess.
That might be enough to hold governing parties back from the brink. Opposition parties also need to be careful not to engineer — or allow themselves to be blamed for — a government’s defeat.
That’s a particularly acute risk for parties without leaders. The federal Conservatives and Greens, as well as the P.E.I. Liberals and the B.C. Greens, are all in the midst of their own leadership campaigns.
Voting in the time of COVID
Elections officials still have to be prepared for an early election, even if it’s not likely to happen.
Canada will get its first taste of pandemic campaigning in Saskatchewan in just a few months. The province is scheduled to hold its fixed-date provincial election on Oct. 26. The province’s electoral authority is building up its stocks of masks and hand sanitizer and is planning to implement physical distancing measures in polling places and encourage voters to bring their own pens or pencils.
But it’s the situation south of the border which could shape many Canadians’ views of what an election looks like in a pandemic climate.
As the number of new cases and deaths continues to rise in the United States, the country is still going ahead with its constitutionally-required election on Nov. 3. It might not go well.
The number of new cases of COVID-19 and associated deaths has risen dramatically in the United States, where U.S. President Donald Trump faces re-election in November. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
Most states will allow Americans to vote by mail, but a few states might still require voters to state a reason for requesting a mail-in ballot. Fear of contracting a deadly disease in some of these states will not fit the bill.
Mail-in voting is also not without its issues. Not every voter has equal access to reliable postal service. Voter registration rules will differ from one state to another — unlike federal elections in Canada, U.S. federal elections are run at the state level — and the validation measures for every ballot will not be uniform.
For many Americans, in-person voting will be their best or only option and long lines at a reduced number of polling locations — such as the ones we saw in a few states during the presidential primaries — could discourage turnout.
In a country with a history of legislated attempts to disenfranchise Black and other minority voters, the potential for entire swathes of the electorate to struggle to have their ballots counted is huge.
It also doesn’t help that U.S. President Donald Trump has actively tried to undermine the legitimacy of the result in advance, making unfounded claims that mail-in voting will be rife with voter fraud. Complicating things further is the fact that, with so many mail-in ballots to count, the results could be unclear for a few days.
It all could be enough to put any Canadian voter off the idea of an election until the pandemic is well behind us. But the timing of that election could depend in part on whether Canadian politicians believe the rewards might be greater than the risks.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
