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Ahead of a federal election tipped for the second half of 2021 Mr Kelly, first elected in 2010, could face another challenge from would-be Liberal candidate Kent Johns to retain pre-selection for the seat.

Mr Johns, a Liberal moderate, has previously planned to stand against Mr Kelly but interventions from three successive prime ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and then Scott Morrison have blocked him.

At the same time a ginger group of local activists, We Are Hughes, are also searching for a candidate to stand against Mr Kelly.

Former NSW Liberal Party vice-president Kent Johns.Credit:Chrisopher Lane

Local Liberals the Sun-Herald and Sunday Age spoke to expect Mr Johns to stand against Mr Kelly, barring an intervention from Liberal Party head office. Former Sutherland Shire mayor Carmelo Pesce, who has also been discussed as a potential candidate, is said to be unlikely to throw his hat in the ring.

A NSW Liberal MP, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity so they could discuss internal party deliberations, said it was unlikely the prime minister would again intervene to save Mr Kelly, who is said to lack the rank-and-file numbers to win preselection this time.

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It should be a normal preselection. Hes never had the numbers other than when he was first pre-selected, the MP said.

People have become immune to what he says on climate change, its just Craig being Craig, but his comments on the Capitol riots [in Washington DC] shocked people.

His comments on COVID-19 are really damaging, its like having Pete Evans in the party room.

Mr Evans is a celebrity chef who has questioned the efficacy of mask wearing and vaccines. His Facebook page was deactivated last year for sharing misinformation about COVID-19.

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Mr Kelly said that every MP had to re-apply for their job at every election. Since Ive been outspoken defending traditional Liberal party values there is no doubt that many from the green left will try and run a targeted campaign against me.

Another Liberal familiar with the partys internal discussions about Hughes said Mr Kellys outspoken ways and frequent posting of fringe medical theories - the MP often posts three or four times per day to his nearly 90,000 followers on the topic - had angered not just the moderate faction but also sections of the partys centre right and hard right factions.

No one knows why he is doing what he is doing.

Mr Kelly described the We Are Hughes group as fake independents - they are the remnants of the Greens that see their best chance as trying to trick the electorate by disguising themselves as independent.

But Linda Seymour, one of the organisers of the group, said it was a grassroots movement focused on on doing politics differently. They hope to find a strong candidate, similar to independent MP Zali Steggall who managed to unseat Mr Abbott in Warringah at the 2019 federal election.

In Hughes we have no representation, we have Craig Kelly off on his own crusade. Irrespective of whether youre Labor or Liberal you havent been represented in our seat, she said.

Pre-selection for NSW Liberal Party lower house seats has not yet begun.

Our Morning Edition newsletter is a curated guide to the most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Heralds newsletter here, The Ages here, Brisbane Times here, and WAtodays here.

James Massola is political correspondent for the Sun-Herald and TheSunday Age, based in Canberra. He was previously south-east Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, and chief political correspondent.

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Pete Evans in the party room: Liberals, independents line up to take on Craig Kelly - Sydney Morning Herald

PARIS He was the boy wonder of Western politics in 2017, soaring above outmoded cleavages between left and right. He was the whip-smart former banker who was going to turn a tradition-bound society into a start-up nation. He was the liberal bulwark against rising populism in Europe an anti-Trump.

But with an eye on his next election, President Emmanuel Macron has tacked to the right, alienating former supporters and current members of his own party.

An often incoherent handling of the coronavirus pandemic has dinted Mr. Macrons competent image. And after three recent Islamist terrorist attacks in France, Mr. Macron has pushed forward bills on security and Islamist extremism that have raised alarms among some French, the United Nations and international human rights groups.

A malleable politician who came out of the left, Mr. Macron has always been known as a shape-shifter. His slide to the right, underway for at least the past year, has picked up steam in recent months and is regarded by some as a clean break from the first three years of his presidency.

Today, we see clearly that its an altogether different Emmanuel Macron, said Pierre Rosanvallon, a professor at Collge de France who specializes in French democracy. How do we understand this change?

Saying that his policies have been misunderstood, Mr. Macron has lashed out at his critics. In a recent interview with Brut, a youth-oriented online news site, Mr. Macron was asked whether he was concerned that his international image had changed from that of a modern, liberal president to an authoritarian president.

When youve read all that Ive read about me, in France or abroad, you dont feel anything anymore, Mr. Macron answered. I dont care.

With Frances parties on the left in a shambles, Mr. Macrons main challenger in the 2022 presidential election is once again expected to be Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally. Mr. Macron is chasing an electorate that has been moving right: An analysis by a market research company, OpinionWay, showed that his party, La Rpublique en Marche, has lost substantial support among left-leaning voters, and gained on the right.

If recent polls show that the move right has helped him, his supporters argue that his new positions on sensitive issues like police violence, secularism or Islamism simply reflect growing threats. A spokeswoman for Mr. Macron did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Franois Patriat, a French senator and longtime supporter of Mr. Macron, said the president had evolved on a variety of doctrines including security and the defense of Frances model of secularism following confrontation with the reality on the ground.

Others, like Mr. Rosanvallon, say Mr. Macron who served as the economy minister under the previous president, Franois Hollande had a clear agenda on economic matters in 2017, but only partially formed stances on social issues.

Mr. Macron was elected president in 2017, at age 39, in unusual circumstances: Mr. Hollande chose not to run for a second term, and the campaign of the leading candidate, from the right, imploded over a financial scandal.

Three years into his presidency, Mr. Macron has hewed to pledges to make the economy more competitive by overhauling labor laws and reducing taxes, said Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economist and former close adviser to Mr. Macron.

The presidents fiscal policies have helped most economic groups, Mr. Pisani-Ferry said, though he acknowledged that the benefits were greater for the wealthy, who had been taxed heavily under Mr. Hollande. Though Mr. Macron has been criticized in France as the president of the rich, increased spending to defuse the Yellow Vest protests and to respond to the coronavirus pandemic has had the effect of helping lower- and middle-income French, he said.

Mr. Macron recently unveiled a 100 billion euro, or $122 billion, stimulus plan to save jobs and businesses at risk because of the pandemic.

An increasing number of early supporters say that a lack of real follow-up on Mr. Macrons initially progressive social vision reducing inequality, empowering Frances disadvantaged minorities, focusing on the social causes of crime or Islamist extremism have left them disillusioned.

The initial promise on the ability and willingness to transform society and to be progressive is betrayed, Guillaume Chiche, a lawmaker who left Mr. Macrons party last May, adding, Emmanuel Macron is a shooting star that is dying out.

Mr. Chiche is among 36 lawmakers who have left Mr. Macrons group in the lower house of Parliament for political reasons, depriving him of an outright majority last May. Most quit in protest against Mr. Macrons rightward tilt.

The break to the right became clearer in recent months as Mr. Macron and Frances other political leaders began staking out positions ahead of the next presidential election, in April 2022.

In a reshuffling of his cabinet, Mr. Macron replaced his left-leaning interior minister with a hard-liner, Grald Darmanin. Adopting the language of the far right, Mr. Darmanin pledged to bring order to the country even though the governments own statistics show that crime isnt going up.

Given free rein by the president, Mr. Darmanin has led efforts to push forward a security bill that has been widely condemned, and he has conflated Muslim practices with the governments crackdown on Islamism.

Pierre Person, a lawmaker who stepped down as deputy chief of Mr. Macrons party in September, said Mr. Darmanins high-profile push on security was a disavowal of Mr. Macrons socially liberal promise.

It is perhaps on one of Frances most politically charged issues the secularism separating state and religion, known as lacit that Mr. Macrons transformation has been most profound. In the past, he often expressed skepticism about a strict application of that secularism, which critics say is a way to restrict Muslim religious expression.

A few years ago, Mr. Macron denounced a radicalization of lacit and warned against a vengeful lacit used as a weapon against Islam. But he has made a full-throated defense of secularism since the recent attacks following the republication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

The shift has pleased people like Dominique Schnapper, a sociologist and president of the Council of the Wise, a group created by the education ministry in 2018 to reinforce the secular doctrine in public schools.

He understood a few months ago, Ms. Schnapper said of the presidents position on secularism. But for the first three years of his mandate, he didnt talk about it. He didnt want to listen.

Even as Mr. Macrons ideas continue to take shape during his presidency, his lack of political competence has undermined his ability to push forward his goals, said Mr. Rosanvallon, the historian, citing as an example the current security bill that has caused a crisis because of a provision restricting the filming of police officers.

At the same time, the inconsistency between his words and his actions has led to mistrust, Mr. Rosanvallon said.

You can make an assumption on someones future behavior if his past actions and behavior show consistencies in which you can place your trust, he said. But thats whats missing now.

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Macron, Once a Darling of Liberals, Shows a New Face as Elections Near - The New York Times

In the extraordinary aftermath of the American presidential election, as Donald Trump set about de-legitimising the countrys democratic process in order to stay in power, a timely investigation was published in a New York-based cultural magazine.

The piece examined the angry internal battles that broke out at the New York Times as the paper grappled with how to cover the upheaval that accompanied Trumps uniquely divisive presidency. Confronted with a leader who delights in flouting democratic norms and attacking minorities, was it the duty of this bastion of American liberalism to remain above the fray and give house-room to a wide range of views? Or should it play a partisan role in defence of the values under attack?

As journalists and staff argued online, a prominent columnist, the investigation reported uploaded a PDF of John Rawlss treatise on public reason, in an attempt to elevate the discussion. Rawls, who died in 2002, remains the most celebrated philosopher of the basic principles of Anglo-American liberalism. These were laid out in his seminal text, A Theory of Justice, published in 1971. The columnist, Elizabeth Bruenig, suggested to colleagues: What were having is really a philosophical conversation and it concerns the unfinished business of liberalism. I think all human beings are born philosophers, that is, that we all have an innate desire to understand what our world means and what we owe to one another and how to live good lives. One respondent wrote back witheringly: Philosophy schmosiphy. Were at a barricades moment in our history. You decide: which side are you on?

In an age of polarisation, the exchange encapsulated a central question for the liberal left in America and beyond. Jagged faultlines have disfigured the public square during a period in which issues of race, gender, class and nationhood have divided societies. So was Bruenig right? To rebuild trust and a sense of common purpose, can we learn something by revisiting the most influential postwar philosopher in the English-speaking world?

In a couple of weeks time, it will be 50 years since A Theory of Justice was published. Written during the Vietnam war, it became an unlikely success, selling more than 300,000 copies in the US alone. In the philosophical pantheon, it put Rawls up there with JS Mill and John Locke. In 1989, copies were waved by protesting Chinese students in Tiananamen Square. Passages have been cited in US supreme court judgments. Next year, eminent political philosophers from around the world will congregate in the United States to celebrate the golden anniversary of the books publication and discuss its enduring impact. Half a century on, it seems that Rawlss magnum opus is once again making the weather in discussions about the fair society.

Its central assertion was that freedom and equality can be reconciled in a consensual vision, to which all members of a society can sign up, whatever their station in life. This became and remains the aspiration for all liberal democracies. But did the Harvard philosopher get it right?

The vision of fairness in A Theory of Justice aspired to what Rawls called the perspective of eternity. But it was also a book of its time. Twenty years or so in the making, its preoccupations were formed first by the authors youthful encounter with the horrors of totalitarianism, world war, the Holocaust and Hiroshima.

Rawls fought in the Pacific and lost his religious convictions as he lived through one of the darkest ages of human experience. By developing a comprehensive philosophy of a free, fair society, he hoped to promote a secular faith in human co-operation. As Catherine Audard, a biographer of Rawls and the chair of the Forum for European Philosophy, puts it: His ambition was to find a language or argument that would convey concern for minorities, after the way human beings had been treated in the war and of course the Holocaust.

The eruption of the civil rights movement, feminism and radical leftism in the 1960s lent this task even greater urgency. Much of mainstream Anglo-American philosophy of the time was abstruse and insular. But Rawls produced a book intended to lay out fair rules for a just society. It was breathtakingly ambitious, says Audard: He asked: what was a reasonable view of justice that a wide consensus could agree on. And he did something that was absolutely new. He linked the idea that you would fight for the rule of law for democratic institutions to a simultaneous battle against poverty and inequality.

So on the one hand you have political liberalism defence of the rule of law, formal rights and so on. And on the other hand you had social liberalism, which was concerned with questions of equality, inclusion and social justice. To unite the two in this way was revolutionary for liberals at the time.

The means by which Rawls pulled off his ingenious synthesis was a thought-experiment which he called the original position. Imagine, he suggested, if a society gathered to debate the principles of justice in a kind of town hall meeting, but no one knew anything about themselves. No one knows his place in society, wrote Rawls, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like.

Passing judgment from behind this veil of ignorance, he believed, people would adopt two main principles. First, there should be extensive and equal basic liberties. Second, resulting social and economic inequalities should be managed to the greatest benefit of the disadvantaged. Inequality could only be justified to the extent it provided material benefit to the least well-off. This template, hoped Rawls, would make intuitive sense to everyone who imagined themselves into the original position.

It was a vision that set the parameters of western liberalism in subsequent decades. The book stands out as one of the great achievements of 20th-century Anglo-American political philosophy, says Michael Sandel, arguably Rawlss successor as the worlds most famous public philosopher.

As a young professor, Sandel got to know Rawls at Harvard in the 1980s. He systematised and articulated a generous vision of a liberal welfare state, a vision that reflected the idealism of liberal and progressive politics as it emerged from the 1960s. The greatest philosophical works express the spirit of their age and this was true of A Theory of Justice.

Following its triumphant publication however, the times began to change at dizzying speed. De-industrialisation bestowed a bitter legacy of distrust, division and disillusionment in the west, symbolised in Britain by the scars left by miners strike of 1984. Marketisation and the rise of the new right inaugurated an era in which growing inequality was not only sanctioned but celebrated as Ronald Reagan championed trickle-down economics. The neo-liberal dismantling of the welfare state sidelined the ethos of Rawlsian egalitarianism. By the late 1990s, a senior Labour party politician, Peter Mandelson, felt able to declare himself intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, as long as they paid their taxes. Other threats emerged. During the 2000s, religious fundamentalism emerged as a sometimes violent rejection of the freedoms envisaged by political liberalism.

Following the financial crash, further culture wars ignited, dividing liberal cities from socially conservative hinterlands amid a resurgent nationalism. A new focus on systemic racism led to the formation of movements such as Black Lives Matter. There is now a palpable crisis of faith in the possibility of the kind of consensus that Rawls hoped to philosophically ground. What was it that A Theory of Justice didnt foresee, or value enough, or understand?

Rawlss philosophical aim was to offer a justification for a generous welfare state, says Sandel, who is a sympathetic critic of his former colleague. This was based not on invoking communal ties or allegiances, but on an individualistic thought-experiment involving rational choice. The starting point of the argument was individualism the idea that if you set aside for the moment all your particular aims and attachments, you would, on reflection, prudentially choose principles of justice that would care for the least well-off.

It was a strategy based on achieving consensus through a kind of neutrality. Interests, along with particular values, perspectives and histories, were put to one side in the original position. Judges and politicians would act according to the principles established in that rarefied atmosphere. The problem raised by Rawlss critics is that, bluntly, in real life people dont act or think like that. From the right, opponents contested Rawlss prioritisation of the less well-off. Why should lifes strivers only gain the rewards they merited, if the least well-off benefited too? On the left, Rawls was accused of failing to recognise that vested interests and big finance use their power to bend modern democracies according to their will. In a major study of Rawls published last year, another Harvard academic, Katrina Forrester, writes that he assumed an incremental path toward a constitutionalist, consensual ideal. That vision didnt think hard enough, she suggests, about the basis and persistence of exclusions based on race, class or gender. In America, it treated, for example, the history of black chattel slavery as a unique original sin or a contingent aberration.

Audard agrees that the books abstract methodology was problematic. A philosopher colleague once said to me that A Theory of Justice looks at issues as if theyre being debated in a Harvard senior common room, she says. Its true that Rawls was too trusting in the US constitution and not aware enough of the dark side of politics and power. He did not take on board the depth of social passions, interests and conflicts.

Nevertheless, she points out, the insistence that inequality undermines democratic societies has been amply vindicated. As divergences in wealth and circumstance deepened, and the welfare state became a minimalist safety net, faith in the social contract eroded and identity politics boomed. Contemporary interest in a universal basic income, says Audard, is one example of how Rawlss liberal egalitarianism is still relevant to the fractured politics of 2020. There is a lot of interest at the moment in his critique of the capitalist welfare state and a lot of work going on in that area.

In divided times though, Sandel believes that liberal neutrality is not enough. The ideal of social solidarity and consensus, to which Rawls devoted his lifes work, can only be realised by a practical and plural politics which engages with real people, with all their varied histories and disagreements.

The liberalism of abstractions and neutrality fails to provide a compelling account of what holds societies together. The political arena is messier and less decorous than the court, which deals with abstract principles. But its ultimately a better way to genuine pluralism and mutual respect, Sandel says.

Fifty years is a long time to stay talked about and relevant. Although he became a critic of Rawls, Sandel remains most of all an admirer: He remains an inspiration to those of us who believe that it is possible to reason together about the meaning of justice and the common good, at a time when we seem to despair of the possibility of doing so. The spirit of his work is summed up in the injunction that we should agree to share one anothers fate. This, says Sandel, is an enduring moral argument against inequality. And a reminder that the world is not necessarily the way it has to be.

Going beyond Rawls, in an attempt to change the world, might just be the political and philosophical challenge of the age.

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John Rawls: can liberalism's great philosopher come to the west's rescue again? - The Guardian

If you were to make a list of all the people who stand between Justin Trudeau and the majority government he dreams of, youd have to put Xi Jinping, not Erin OToole at the top.

Trudeau looks like he is ready for a winning election campaign in the spring of 2021, but the president of China poses a real political threat.

Otherwise, things look pretty good for the Liberals. If the vaccine rollout continues to go well, Canadians are likely to be in a good mood this spring. The Liberals can likely keep borrowing, and many people have been hoarding cash, so with any luck at all, we will be optimistic, getting vaccinated, spending money and feeling cheerfulthe kind of mood incumbents like.

The inauguration of Joe Biden will make many things easier, in part because of a shift in the consensus about fossil fuels, which will decisively undermine business-as-usual arguments from the oil patch. This shift has already made it easier for Trudeau to put out a more ambitious climate plan, which suggests the Liberal middle path on the file is politically sustainable.

On Indigenous affairs, the Liberal record is weaker, but they have made real but slow progress on some practical files, like Indigenous policing and water, and can point to their commitment to pass the United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

None of the Prime Ministers opponents in Ottawa and the provincial capitals look especially dangerous at the moment, and the prospect of an election should keep his party in line. His most likely successor, Chrystia Freeland, is just getting her feet wet at Finance, so there is no longer reason to wonder, as there was during earlier scandals, that the party might want to knife him.

OToole is more competent than his predecessor, but his attacks on Trudeaus management of the pandemic have so far failed to connect.

But OToole has one winning message: Trudeau is soft on China.

Jinping has kept Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor as hostages for two years. His diplomats have repeatedly, arrogantly attacked Canada and used underhanded trade tactics to put pressure on Ottawa, all in a vain attempt to win the release of Meng Wanzhou, who is under house arrest thanks to an American extradition request that Canada was legally obliged to honour.

This pressure is in keeping with Chinas newly assertive foreign policy, which appears to mark a new phase for the traditionally inward-looking society.

For decades, as China became the industrial powerhouse of the world, Beijing played nice with its customers in the West and the West played nice with Beijing, as both sides enjoyed the music of the ringing cash registers.

No more. China has a new approach because it has convinced so many countries to join the Belt and Road Initiativea transportation infrastructure plan linking Chinese factories with materials and markets around the world.

The network of ports and roadsbuilt with Chinese capital and know-howwill connect about 60 countries, representing about two thirds of the worlds population, creating a sphere of influence that will make China a more potent threat to the Western dominance than the Soviets were.

The Chinese are using what they call wolf warrior diplomacy and economic muscle to project power outside that web of belts and roads. This explains the insulting tone repeatedly taken by Cong Peiwu, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, and it explains why Canadian canola, pork and lobster exporters keep running into problems.

It could be worse. We could be Australia. The Aussies are paying a heavy economic price for asserting their independence. There are ships off China right now carrying $500 million worth of Australian coal that the Chinese have decided they dont want.

Chinese-Australian relations soured in 2018, when Australia introduced the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Actaimed at revealing and stopping foreign attempts to meddle in Australian politics.

There is a pattern of Chinese influence operations around the world that we cant afford to ignore.

A disturbing recent book, Hidden Hand, lays out a picture of these operations, including the use of honey trapswhere young Chinese women get close to politicians. Consider California congressman Eric Swalwell, who is under pressure to resign after news broke about his relationship with a suspected Chinese spy who romanced middle-aged politicians across the Midwest. Canadians may recall that in 2011 a parliamentary secretary to then-foreign-affairs-minister John Baird had to apologize after a friendship with a young Chinese reporter was revealed.

Just as worrying, and far more common, is state-sanctioned industrial espionageremember when we used to have a company called Nortel?and secret commercial arrangements made with officials and politicians.

Recall that in 2010, Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Richard Fadden warned that some Canadian politicians were too close to certain unnamed foreigners.

Were in fact a bit worried in a couple of provinces that we have an indication that theres some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries, he said. The individual becomes in a position to make decisions that affect the country or the province or a municipality. All of a sudden, decisions arent taken on the basis of the public good but on the basis of another countrys preoccupations.

Although this worries Fadden, it doesnt seem to bother Trudeau.In 2013, he famously spoke of his admiration for China: Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.

In 2016, he attended a fundraiser with a Chinese billionaire who donated $1 million in Pierre Trudeaus name, including $50,000 for a statue.

Pierre had deep connections to China. He first travelled there in 1949, during the Communist revolution, and established diplomatic relations in 1970.

He was also close to Quebecs powerful Desmarais family, who have strong connections in both countries. They have close business and family ties to Trudeau senior, Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien. Michael Sabia, Trudeaus new finance deputy minister, is close to the family, as are many former Liberal politicians.

The Canadian foreign policy establishment has long sought to link our resources and Chinese factories to help reduce our dependence on American trade. It has worked, at least to some extent. Chinese markets and investment have helped Canadian farmers, loggers, miners and fishermen, and nobody who has recently been to Toronto or Vancouver can doubt that we have benefitted from Chinese money and vitality.

But as China becomes more assertive, even belligerent, Canada may need to take a new tone. Polls show that Canadians do not want their government to be passive in the face of Chinese hostage-taking.

Foreign issues rarely decide elections, but they can contribute to voters impression of a leader, which is what decides elections. If Trudeau seems to be putting the interests of his buddies in the Laurentian elite ahead of the interests of the two Michaels it could help portray Trudeau as his Conservative opponents want voters to see him: out of touch with regular Canadians and acting for his Montreal cronies.

OToole keeps hitting Trudeau on China, likely because it is one issue where majority opinion is closer to the Conservatives than the Liberals.

So if the Liberals are smart, which they are, we can expect a reset in the new year, a tougher tone, if only to blunt OTooles attacks ahead of an election.

It would be comfort if we can see a vital national interestsovereigntyat the heart of a new policy.With any luck, a Biden presidency will clear the air and bring the temperature down. But if it doesnt, Canadians had better be prepared to take steps to protect our independence from foreigners intent on bullying us.

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The next big threat facing the Trudeau Liberals: China - Maclean's

If an election were held today, the Liberals almost certainly wouldwin it and perhaps capture a majority of the seats up for grabs, too.

What a difference a year makes.

With 2020 coming to a close, the Liberal Party is the only federal party in a much better position than it was 12 months ago. According to the CBC's Canada Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all publicly available polling data, the Liberals are up 4.2 percentage points since December 2019. The Conservatives, New Democrats and Bloc Qubcois have hardly budged, while the Greens are down nearly three points.

Nationwide, Justin Trudeau's Liberals lead with 35.7 per cent support, compared to 31 per cent for Erin O'Toole's Conservatives. The NDP under Jagmeet Singh trails at 18.3 per cent, followed by the Bloc at 6.7 per cent and the Greens at 5.4 per cent.

A year ago, the Liberals held only a narrow 0.5-point lead over the Conservatives and were solidly in minority territory.

But today's numbers would deliver around 167 seats to the Liberals, with about 111 seats going tothe Conservatives, 32 to the Bloc, 27 to the NDP and one to the Greens.

That doesn't differ much from the current standings in the House of Commons but itdoes put the Liberals tantalizingly close to the 170-seat mark needed for a majority government.

The trend line for the Liberals has been very steady over the last few months, but it was a roller-coaster year for the party before that. The Liberals were neck-and-neck with the Conservatives for the first several months of 2020 before their support soared in the early days of the pandemic.

At its peak in early June, the party reached nearly 41 per cent support in the Poll Tracker. The WE Charity controversy, however, sapped Liberal strength. The Liberals dropped to around 35 to 36 per cent support through to September. They have been there ever since.

But the Liberals are stillbetter offthan they were 12 months ago. Now, by comparison, they have more support in every part of the country. They have seen modest increases of three points in Ontario and the Prairies (Manitoba and Saskatchewan) and four points in Atlantic Canada. They are also up about five points in Quebec.

The biggest shifts, however, have been in Western Canada. The Liberals now have 33 per cent support in British Columbia, a gain of seven points over December 2019. The Liberals are also up nine points in Alberta, but that still puts them 30 points behind the Conservatives.

The bump in B.C. is the most consequential in terms of seats. The Poll Tracker estimates the Liberals could win 12 more seats nationwide than they were projected to win in December 2019, and that half of those gains would come fromB.C.

But when it comes to winning a federal election, Ontario makes the difference. The Liberals haven't given up their lead in the province since the last election and are still nearly 10 points ahead of the Conservatives. Along with Quebec and Atlantic Canada, that puts about 140 seats in the Liberal column before they even get to Manitoba more than enough to secure a re-elected minority government.

The Liberals have benefited from Trudeau's improved personal ratings. The latest poll by Research Co. givesTrudeau a net +15 approval rating. In the polling firm's final survey before the 2019 federal election, Trudeau was -13.

With the exception of Alberta, the polls do not suggest that Liberal gains have come at the expense of the Conservatives. Overall, the Conservative Party of Canadais exactly where it was 12 months ago.

But that's not a good thing for O'Toole, since the Conservatives would probably have lost an election held 12 months ago.

Since December 2019, the party's support has shifted by two points or less everywhere but Alberta and Atlantic Canada. The Conservatives have gained four points in Atlantic Canada but still trail the Liberals there by about 19 points. In Alberta, the Conservativeshave lost eight points.

Support for the Conservatives is still largely concentrated in Western Canada. The party has 53 per cent support in Alberta and 46 per cent supportin the Prairies, with significantly more support in Saskatchewan than in Manitoba. Some polls even suggest that Saskatchewan has supplanted Alberta as the Conservatives' best provincial stronghold.

But a recent Probe Research poll suggests the Conservatives are sliding in Manitoba. The poll put the Conservatives down eight points in the province compared to the last election, awarding the Liberals a 12-point lead in Winnipeg a city the Liberals carried by only two points in 2019.

O'Toole still has a lot of work to do to get the Conservatives competitive with the Liberals in key battlegrounds. The party is now in third place in British Columbia.One recent poll suggests the Conservatives still trail the Liberals by a significant margin in the Greater Toronto Area, where O'Toole has his seat.

In Quebec, the Conservative party has only 17 per cent support virtually unchanged from their performance in 2019. While Lger finds the Conservatives have an eight-point lead in and around Quebec City, they are still well behind in third place among francophones across the province.

Though the polls suggest Singh's NDP hasn't made a big move over the last 12 months, the party is in a marginally better position in some parts of the country. The New Democrats are up two points in B.C. and Alberta and three points in the Prairies, though they are a bit further back in Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

A number of recent surveys have been more promising for the NDP, however. The party has scored between 19 and 23 per cent in five of the last six national surveys, and has been first or second in 13 of 17 polls conducted in B.C. since the end of October.

This bump coincides with the B.C. NDP's provincial election victory on Oct. 24 whichmight be no accident. It's difficult to know for certain whether poll respondents in British Columbia are separating the provincial and federal parties in their minds, which puts into question the apparent gains for the federal NDP.

But there is some indication the federal NDP might be getting a real boost. According to Research Co., Singh's personal approval ratings are significantly higher in B.C. than in any other part of the country, and better than they were in September.

Yves-Franois Blanchet has successfully made the Bloc Qubcois a factor in federal politics again, but he has not made more progress since the last election.

In Quebec, the party has just under 30 per cent support in the Poll Tracker. That's hardly changed since 2019, when the Bloc captured 32.5 per cent of the vote and 32 seats. Holding those 32 seats is still the most likely outcome of another election.

According to Lger, the Bloc is the first choice of francophone Quebecers, with 38 per cent support. But they only hold a five-point lead over the Liberals outside of Greater Montreal (where they trailed the Liberals by 11 points) and the Quebec City region (where they trail the Conservatives).

Keeping their seats away from the other parties does increase the odds of a minority government, which gives the Bloc influence in the House of Commons. But to keep that influence in Ottawa, the Bloc might need to win more seats away from the Liberals to compensate for gains Trudeau's party could make in the rest of the country.

The Greens seem to be the party hurt most by the political upheaval of the pandemic. Down 2.6 points nationwide since December 2019, the Greens' slide has been even steeper in the two areas of the country where they have seats: B.C. and Atlantic Canada.

The Greens have lost five points in both regions,dropping them to about eight per cent. That could putsome of their seats in danger and with just three seats, they can't afford to lose one.

In the job since the beginning of October, Paul is the newest leader on the block. Without a seat or recognized party status in the House of Commons, it will not be easy for Paul to increase her profile.

So it could be hard going for the Greens in the polls in 2021. The party needs to hope that the brighter spotlight of an election campaign will give it a boost. One problem for the Greens, however, is that the party has tended to poll best between election campaigns, not during them.

How long that period between votes will last is anyone's guess. In 2021, very few Canadians might want to dive into an election campaign while they remain focused on COVID-19 and vaccinations. Considering where the polls stand as 2020 comes to a merciful close, the Liberals appear to be the only people with an incentive to take that plunge.

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Liberals end year with national polling lead as opposition parties struggle to gain ground - CBC.ca