Welcome to the era of speed politics, where every event, from resignations to rebirths seems to happen in a flash.
If you’re coming into 2026 feeling that this past year was unusually frenzied, you’re not alone. Anyone involved in, or following, the political scene can’t help but to note the accelerated pace in 2025 at which scandals, like bubbles in New Year’s Eve champagne, formed and broke, and political careers took abrupt turns, ended, or were brought back from the brink.
Welcome to the era of speed politics, where every event, from resignations to rebirths seems to happen in a flash —perhaps best exemplified by Conservative MP Michael Ma suiting up for a photo op with Pierre Poilievre at the Conservative’s Christmas party one night to being the literal toast of the Liberal Christmas party the next. Our heads are spinning trying to keep up with the pace of it all.
Read more: Get ready for speed politicsAs we wind down 2025 and warily gear up for 2026, we pause briefly to catch our breath and ask: Why so fast? First, a look back over some recent key events.
Hero to Zero in 6 Months Flat
From the time Rodriguez was chosen June 14th to lead the PLQ to the first hint that something had gone wrong with the firing of chief of staff Genevieve Hinse November 17th, five months had elapsed. It was his first crisis as party leader.
As we followed the breadcrumb trail from mysterious (and, let it be said, atrociously ungrammatical) text messages referencing “brownies” in exchange for votes, to a garden party where envelopes were distributed to reimburse guests’ donations, an unrelenting cumulative body of fact and public speculation took hold. Like rubber-necking drivers stopping to gawk at a roadside pileup, we watched Rodriguez’ leadership unravel, waiting for the moment when, backed into a corner, he would shout “Enough!,” lay down his arms, and agree to deliver his resignation.
Although to some it seemed to drag on forever (especially for those within the PLQ) the entire unravelling took only four weeks. The politico-media system hasn’t the patience to wait for the results of an investigation — the mere whiff of one demands decisive action, at the risk of the party’s reputation.
Similar, But Not the Same
The Charbonneau commission was launched in October of 2011, and it was over a year later, on November 5th 2012 that Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay announced his resignation, while continuing to deny knowledge of the corruption schemes within his administration.
As he addressed Montrealers, Tremblay harkened back to a warning from his father: “When I was a young man, my father told me never to get into politics because it was dirty and would destroy me.”
Pablo Rodriguez had shared a similar early warning from his father in a video posted on his leadership campaign website. “My son, Canada is a land of opportunity, you can do whatever you want. But please – no politics.”
In both cases, each man’s love of country and zeal for public life drove them to ignore fatherly advice. At the time of their resignation, both recalled the fateful words of warning.
Did Pablo Rodriguez deserve to carry the blame for the financial misdemeanors and ethical wrong-doings of some of the people connected to his campaign? In politics, “deserving” and “undeserving” are irrelevant criteria by which to judge a politician; only public perception and party ambition matter. As party leader, Rodriguez was responsible to ensure that the former would not hinder the latter as Québec moves into an election year in 2026.
The difference is the lightning speed with which his leadership scandal breached, broke and concluded, carrying off in its wake the budding prospects of an otherwise talented politician.
Bye-Bye Steven, Bye-Bye Christian
Two other major pillars of Québec politics didn’t wait for the Christmas break to take a walk in the snow.
Federal minister Steven Guilbeault left cabinet (while still remaining a member of the Liberal caucus) in protest over the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which promises to increase production of Alberta oil and gas and build a new pipeline to the Pacific. Provincial minister Christian Dubé went one step further, walking away from his role as Health Minister while also leaving his party to sit as an independent over the CAQ’s inability to achieve the health system reforms laid out in Bill 2.
Both men were living under the strain of disappointment and the cognitive dissonance that comes with towing a party line that goes against one’s principles — and is in contradiction with the mission with which they had been charged in their respective ministerial roles.
But here’s the rub: both Dubé and Guilbeault are seasoned politicians who have weathered their fair share of political storms. As Environment Minister under Justin Trudeau, Steven Guilbeault bore the brunt of criticism for the Trans-Mountain expansion, a project in contradiction with Canada’s ambitious carbon-reduction targets. Christian Dubé struggled and survived the many hardships of a Health Minister during the pandemic period —the Heron hecatomb, vaccine supply chain hurdles and unpopular curfews.
Having made it this far, why throw in the towel now? Many will be tempted to point to the impetuous on-again off-again temperaments of our Southern neighbour, who seems to have single-handedly thrown global geopolitics into a panic. However, Trump’s Presidency is a consequence, not a cause, of the accelerating political climate.
It’s not the change, it’s the pace of change
Change is a constant in all aspects of life, not just politics. The second law of thermodynamics states that all systems are constantly changing (increasing in entropy) and that no system stays static. Governments rise and fall, as do countries and fortunes, and it is part of our collective curiosity to follow these adventures.
Sociologist Hartmut Rosa introduced the concept of “social acceleration,” to describe the phenomenon of the increasing pace of change that is both felt and observed in all spheres of modern life. Advances in technology and communications have made possible increases in productivity and information dissemination; this in turn has impacted our perception of time and space, making us simultaneously both more impatient and more haggard by all previous standards.
If we feel things are going too fast it’s because they are, Rosa postulates— at least in terms of what we as humans are wired to be able to adapt to. Rodriguez, Guilbeault and Dubé are on the leading edge of our amped-up era of political churn, one in which new narratives are pushed at the speed of 15 second reels on a teenager’s Instagram feed.
There is no time to wait out the results of an inquiry, nor to negotiate through long stretches of uncomfortable confrontation before reaching a hard-won but satisfying compromise. Inquiry and negotiation: these are the tools of another time and another pace. The politician of the future is learning, or perhaps she already knows, how to navigate at the fever-pace of polls, riding with the fickle hubris of algorithms.
Our democratic system, which relies on the plodding human pace of consultation, debate and voting, will undoubtedly suffer new pressures and strain as we enter the era of speed-politics where the pace is set not by what we can reasonably manage but by what our advancing technological capabilities will impose.