Buckle up! 2025’s political roller-coaster is about to start

If 2025 continues the way 2024 ended, we’re in for a lot of change this year.

In the dying days of 2024, Nunavut saw (at long last) its new senator appointed. Nancy Karetak-Lindell, who once represented the territory in the House of Commons, got the call to sit in Parliament’s upper house, filling the seat vacated nearly a year earlier when former senator Dennis Patterson reached the Red Chamber’s retirement age.

Earlier in December, Jeremy Tunraluk was elected the new president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., after former president Aluki Kotierk — who held that job for eight years — decided not to seek a third term as head of the organization that ensures obligations made to Inuit under the Nunavut Agreement are upheld.

And, in a Parliament Hill shakeup, the Liberal government did away with a minister of northern affairs, rolling that responsibility into those of Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree.

With all the turmoil surrounding the federal government, it’s hard to predict how long Anandasangaree will hold onto that cabinet portfolio. Heading into an election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might make one more cabinet shuffle to boost the fortunes of some Liberal MPs whose re-election bids might be helped by wearing the mantel of a cabinet minister, albeit very briefly.

Now that we’ve flipped the calendar to the new year, more change could be on the horizon.

Canadians are guaranteed to go to the polls in a federal election; it’s only a matter of timing. If Trudeau’s Liberals can survive another 10 months, the natural election cycle will kick in and an election will have to be held before late October.

However, it’s looking more and more likely — as MPs from Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia call for Trudeau to resign as Liberal leader — that there could be a leadership race in the spring, followed by an election.

The other prospect is that the NDP and Conservatives might finally team up together and pull the plug on the Liberal government.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his New Democrat counterpart Jagmeet Singh both ended 2024 saying the time has come for Trudeau to go. But then there were hints of a division in the NDP ranks, with high-profile Ontario MP Charlie Angus saying he didn’t think the time was right to turf Trudeau with so much uncertainty in the relationship between Canada and the U.S.

Could enough New Democrats break ranks with Singh and give Trudeau’s Liberals an extension of their Best Before date? MPs like Nunavut’s Lori Idlout might have a lot of clout and a lot of responsibility in determining who will be the next prime minister — and when.

Nunavummiut can look forward to a double dose of electioneering. The four-year term of the Nunavut legislative assembly is scheduled to come to an end in October. Nunavummiut will pick their MLAs, who will in turn pick the premier.

After surviving an attempt to oust him as premier in November, P.J. Akeeagok would have to win his own seat in Iqaluit again, then convince the other elected MLAs that he deserves a second term — assuming he wants it.

So, stay tuned for a political roller-coaster on both the territorial and federal political scene.

It promises to be a wild ride.

And that’s without even mentioning whatever impact Donald Trump’s return to the White House has in store for Canadians.