In this session of Parliament, the bedrock shifted, the battle lines changed

This was the session of Parliament in which nothing changed, and everything did.

From a policy standpoint, Canada in the summer of 2013 looks little different than it did a year ago. On any number of major files – from fighter procurement, to aboriginal affairs, to pipelines, to trade – there is stasis. But from a political standpoint, seismic changes have occurred, which have the potential to transform the country, mid-term. And the battle lines of the next election have been drawn.

To begin, the past months have seen the federal government’s “transformative” economic agenda – the linchpins being global free trade and pipelines – grind into neutral, or perhaps reverse. Last September, the Prime Minister’s Office was confidently anticipating trade deals with India and Europe by the end of 2012. A FIPA (foreign investment, promotion and protection agreement) was struck with China. The Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the coastal port of Kitimat, B.C., was still politically viable. And the Keystone XL pipeline to the Texas Gulf Coast was considered a slam-dunk.

There was talk, as Parliament got down to work last fall, of a new understanding between Ottawa and aboriginal Canadians, which would ease resource development and extraction, address the worsening skills shortage in the oil and gas and mining sectors, and boost aboriginal employment.

Nine months later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself is in Europe, but no trade-deal signing is imminent. India? Talks continue. The FIPA with China remains unimplemented, reportedly due to concern in Conservative ranks with some provisions (translation: its deep unpopularity). Northern Gateway has hit a populist wall in B.C. And Keystone remains bogged down in U.S. domestic politics.

The Idle No More movement, which erupted last December in tandem with a high-profile fast by Chief Theresa Spence, briefly brought aboriginal issues to the fore. It also narrowed the government’s options. It is unclear now to what extent any consensus can be reached with Canada’s aboriginal people, because the aboriginal “community” is not one but many. Even the Assembly of First Nations, it became clear last winter, cannot claim to speak for all aboriginal Canadians. So the government is reduced to implementing reforms piecemeal, in a process as time-consuming as it is fitful.

The second major shift in the 41^st Parliament, first session, has been the rise of accountability – more broadly, the democratic deficit – as a defining issue. This burst into full bloom in mid-May, with the Duffy-Wright Senate spending scandal. But in fact the table was laid a year ago, with the controversial forced passage of the first mammoth 2012 omnibus budget bill, C-38.  That was the moment when Conservative backbenchers began exerting pressure, mainly in private then, in reaction to the Harper PMO’s relentless consolidation of power in the Langevin Block.

The sense of a governing structure operating beyond rules deepened when the F-35 debacle hit the headlines before Christmas, with the government at last caving to criticism and “rebooting” procurement – without demoting the ministers who’d made the mess, Peter MacKay and Julian Fantino. In quick succession came the “backbench spring,” an open revolt by anti-abortion Conservative MPs, and an auditor general’s report revealing $3.1-billion in anti-terror spending was unaccounted for. In each case, the government’s standing took a beating.

The final straw was the revelation in May of former prime ministerial chief of staff Nigel Wright’s $90,172 cheque to former Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy. Even as a one-off, this would have caused a furor. In the context of what had gone before, it became more; a trigger for the release of resentment created by every previous misstep, from strong-arm budget tactics, to imbecilic talking points, to juvenile attack ads.

And that brings us to leadership – a third series of shifts, and perhaps the most important.

When Parliament resumed last September, Justin Trudeau was the favourite in a not-terribly-impressive field of Liberal leadership candidates. He was popular, but believed by many to be a “lightweight,” who would fold at the first real pressure. Tom Mulcair was struggling to connect beyond Quebec, weighed down by his anti-oilsands rhetoric.  Stephen Harper was the undisputed Alpha dog of Canadian politics. The dynamic between the three has now shifted.

For starters, Trudeau has stubbornly failed to implode. Rather, he sticks to his plan, which is a good one. He controversially used the word “we” in an interview in French, when discussing Quebecers and the Senate. But as momentum-destroying mistakes go, that was weak beer. His approaches to national unity and the Constitution (let sleeping dogs lie) are sensible. Likewise his proposed reforms of MP expense filings. Result: Trudeau remains Canada’s most popular politician. At this juncture, it begins to look like it may be more than a honeymoon.

Mulcair, for his part, has at last found something he can speak about with conviction, that has traction in English Canada. “Roll up the Red Carpet,” the NDP’s populist-themed campaign to unmake the red chamber, is pure theatre. Mulcair knows, of course, that the Senate is not up for abolition any time soon, because of the constitutional complexities. But as messaging, it works. Moreover, his performances in the House of Commons, since the Duffy scandal broke, have been nothing short of superb. As an opposition leader, he has made his bones.

The big loser, this time out, is of course the prime minister.

Nine months ago, not one in a 100 observers of national politics would have predicted Harper’s continuing leadership could be in serious question heading into the fall of 2013. But in the past six months, Harper and his party have been broadsided by one catastrophe after another – all self-inflicted, with Duffy the culmination. Harper personally is no longer broadly trusted, let alone liked, by a majority of Canadians. He may not yet be in Mulroney territory, circa 1992 – but we can see that crater from here.His summer cabinet shuffle must be comprehensive, his inner circle reorganized. Even at that, there will be no guarantees. In year nine, the tide runs against the incumbent.

Taken together, therefore, the session just ending amounts to this: There was one dominant Conservative party, one scrappy New Democratic party, and one bedraggled Liberal party. Among the three, there was one true contender. Now there are three. The stage is set for a dogfight. The outcome is unknown.

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