Who Gains, Who Loses in 2026?

What will 2026 bring?

Only fools presume to answer that query, but hey, I’ve been called worse things. So get out a big bowl to hold all the crow I might have to eat, and let’s go.

Carney vs. Poilievre

Here in Canada, there will be two big political changes in the coming year. The Liberals will become a majority government after more disgruntled Conservative MPs inevitably defect to the government side.

Why inevitably?

As 2025 showed, Pierre Poilievre is terminally unpopular. Loss after loss. A lot of Conservative MPs have realized that dear leader simply doesn’t have the royal jelly to become prime minister. Why else would they have agreed to give him a $3-million makeover? Pretty clear proof that they knew that “as is,” Poilievre was lacking something needed to lead them to victory.

As 2026 unfolds, more members of the Conservative caucus will conclude they simply can’t win with Poilievre at the helm. And that’s when the grass will look greener on Mark Carney’s side of the fence.

Yet Poilievre will survive the party’s 2026 review of his leadership to be held late in January. The rank and file may not believe in him and they certainly don’t love him. But the Conservative Party of Canada has grown so lethargic, so moribund after more than a decade in the political wilderness, that no one else seems to want the job.

Later in 2026, Conservatives will begin to look for someone with the chops to give the Liberals a run for their money. As it stands, Poilievre versus Carney is a no-contest mismatch.

The PM will be the big winner in 2026. After the changelings come over, Liberals will get three years to implement their policies (including the ones they shamelessly nipped from the Conservatives), without having to worry about confidence votes.

There is one more huge benefit that a majority government confers. The Liberals also will get to name most of the committee chairs, which is crucial to moving their legislative agenda through Parliament. As things stood in 2025 with a minority government, a lot of Liberal legislation got jammed up in committee.

Carney will also have three years to further sell Canadians on his plan to dump the unreliable Trump, break down trade barriers within Canada, build like hell and forge new trade deals abroad.

Carney’s defiance and pragmatic strategy impressed Canadians. The country agreed that it was time to stand on our own two feet and stop relying on someone who is as trustworthy as a buck-98 umbrella.

With his substance, his intelligent nationalism, mature civility and a management style so careful that it yields very few unforced errors, Carney will flourish in 2026.

By comparison, 2026 will be another annus horribilis for the Conservative party, a trek through the political wilderness that began in 2015. Year 10 out of power, with the spectre of several more staring it in the face under the current leadership.

While the Liberals build a new Canadian economy to deal with the Tariff Toddler in the White House, Poilievre is left on the sidelines as a spectator to history. His response will be familiar — nasty and negative.

Since Canadians demand much more than that from their leaders, Poilievre is going nowhere in 2026. As top Tory dog, he will become an essentially irrelevant hanger-on, hoping that Carney will somehow blunder his way out of power.

The odds of that happening are slim to none, and Conservative members know it. With caucus defections and resignations, and uninspiring leadership, the Conservative party has utterly lost its buzz. One proof of that is that no one else really wants the top opposition job.

Before leaving thoughts on Canada, one more daring prediction: The Toronto Maple Leafs will not win the Stanley Cup. Who will hoist the trophy next spring? The Colorado Avalanche.

Trump and Putin

The biggest story in the world will be unfolding in the United States. How fast and how far will the Orange Octogenarian carry his unconstitutional agenda in what was once the world’s greatest democracy?

Belligerent fascism has already landed in America. So far, there have been bombs for Iran and Nigeria; missile strikes and summary execution for over 100 people denounced without proof by President Donald Trump as “narco-terrorists”; a quarter of the U.S. navy deployed off the coast of Venezuela; and Trump sending the National Guard into U.S. cities, even though that violates the country’s constitution.

With Trump’s poll numbers tanking and two-thirds of Americans disapproving of his handling of the economy, the Republican party is headed for the wood chipper in the 2026 midterm elections.

In the 2018 midterms, Trump lost 40 seats and the House of Representatives. Facing an even worse debacle this year, look for Trump to be even more extreme in his assault on U.S. democracy. He knows all too well that if he loses the House, he will be impeached for a third time.

That may be why he has already asked Republican governors to redraw their political maps to give the party more seats in 2026. He uses the word “redistrict.” He is really just asking those Republican governors to help him cheat. To their credit, not all of them have been as ready as Texas to comply.

But because Trump’s numbers are so bad, with an approval rating hovering in the 30s, the president will pull out all the stops in 2026. Facing enormous losses in the November midterms, Trump desperately needs to divert public attention from his tawdry list of deplorable decisions and policy face plants.

It is quite a list. His shameful suppression of the Epstein files to protect sex offenders at the expense of their female victims. His refusal to release the video showing U.S. forces murdering two survivors of a shipwreck. His tariffs that have damaged the U.S. economy. And his disgusting use of deportation brownshirts, empowering Immigration and Customs Enforcement to round up, rough up and give the heave-ho without due process to brown and Black undocumented migrants.

So here’s what will happen next. Trump will invade Venezuela in 2026.

But it won’t be to stop drug shipments from that country into the United States. If he really wanted to do that, he would have to make war on China and Mexico, sources of most of the drugs entering the States.

It will be about distracting Americans and regime change. But removing President Nicolás Maduro will not be to improve human rights in that sad country. It will be about seizing Venezuela’s vast oil assets.

President Trump has already unleashed one CIA drone attack on Venezuelan soil, to go along with an oil embargo and multiple attacks at sea by U.S. forces.

War won’t be the only distraction Trump offers Americans. After ordering his spineless attorney general, Pam Bondi, to go after his political enemies, Trump has faced loss after loss in court.

Despite several tries, his corrupt Department of Justice hasn’t even been able to get indictments against people like New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey, two of Trump’s perceived enemies that he’s said he wants locked up.

Indicting someone is usually an automatic step in the criminal process. The grand jury hears only from the prosecution, so as the saying goes, you can usually indict a ham sandwich.

Despite this monstrous abuse of the DOJ, Trump will keep trying to indict his enemies in 2026 until he succeeds. But even if he succeeds, no resulting prosecution would succeed in court.

Finally, if Trump can’t distract, bribe or bully Americans into coming his way in the midterms, look for even more egregious election interference from the president than he pulled in 2020.

If the Republican party looks like it’s going to be trounced, don’t be surprised if ICE starts showing up at polling stations, intimidating voters and perhaps even seizing election machines.

As for Trump himself, if the Republicans should be routed in the midterms, he will claim the election was rigged and stolen.

No one should be surprised when Trump asks state and local officials not to certify the results of elections won by the Democrats.

Some of those smaller players may not show the grit displayed by former vice-president Mike Pence when he was asked to help Trump steal an election and refused.

As for the president’s great buddy, Vladimir Putin, he will continue to play Trump like a fish. He will talk peace and flatter Trump while making war until he annexes as much of Ukraine as he can grab.

Trump’s delusions of winning a Nobel Peace Prize will founder in 2026 over Ukraine — a war he once boasted he could end in a single day. That was a year ago, and the war rages on.

The Russian position is simple. Either they get the Donbas in eastern Ukraine by negotiation, or they will take it by force.

Putin operates by a brutal logic befitting a former KGB officer. Why would you agree to pull back your forces, or declare a ceasefire to allow the Ukrainians to hold a referendum on potentially giving up territory, when you are taking more territory by force every day?

Trump’s ineptness as a peace broker will be further confirmed in the Middle East. The only way he could possibly end the war in Gaza is if he manages to get enough regional allies to impose unacceptable terms on the powerless Palestinians.

Trump’s peace plan is a joke. Hamas must lay down its arms and have no further role in governing Gaza. But Israel would not have to remove its troops from Gaza, or dismantle the new, illegal settlements it has built in the West Bank, which it aims to annex completely.

Since no Arab country would agree to such terms, the Gaza war will not end in 2026.

That just leaves one last thing to say. How much crow can one person eat? We’ll soon see.

Happy holidays, readers. Our comment threads will be closed until Jan. 5 to give our moderators a much-deserved break. See you in 2026!