Is PM drifting from aspirational voters?

Scheer poised to pick up concerns of middle class

Justin Trudeau was elected on a “fairness” ticket — in his words, “putting more money in the pockets of those who need it, instead of giving advantages and benefits to the wealthy.”

But polls suggest Canadians are experiencing acute anxiety about their personal debt situations — and Wednesday’s interestrate rise is likely to worsen circumstances for nearly half of all Canadians who say they are hovering close to financial insolvency.

Has the government’s focus on inclusivity and diversity allowed it to drift onto a different wavelength than that of the people who elected it to office?

Recent political polls suggest the Liberals, and their talismanic prime minister, are well off their 12-month highs in terms of public support.

Some of that slippage is due to normal wear and tear — the longer any government is in power, the more mistakes it makes and the more reasons people have to become disaffected.

The small business tax debacle, the Aga Khan vacation misadventure and the Omar Khadr compensation package have obviously all played their part.

But most people aren’t paying attention to politics at the moment. In my experience, they tend to judge parties based on their own circumstance — they look at their situation and ask themselves: “How have I fared over the past few years?” If the answer is, “OK,” they vote the same way they did last time; if not, they switch.

When I interviewed Trudeau this week, I asked him whether there was a danger of the Liberals drifting away from the aspirational voters — the middle class and those looking to join it — who voted for him in such large numbers in 2015.

“If you remember, the biggest argument I had directly with Stephen Harper and his party on fairness, was over their version of child benefits,” the prime minister said. “They thought it was fair to send benefit cheques to millionaire families and then get everyone to pay taxes on those cheques. I didn’t think that was fair … I was very explicit about our focus not to do what Stephen Harper wanted — and what his party continues to want to do — which is give advantages and benefits to the wealthy.”

It was a strategy that worked: the Trudeau Liberals outbid the Harper Conservatives and the Canada Child Benefit proved a winner for most families. The government estimates that families saw an average child-benefit increase of $2,300 in 2016-17, although families earning more than $150,000 in net income started receiving less than they would have under the Conservatives.

The Liberals also cut the second-lowest personal income-tax rate, for those earning between $46,000 and $92,000, from 22 per cent to 20.5 per cent.

But politics operates on the principle of “What have you done for me lately?”

To help pay for the massive cost of the Canada Child Benefit, the Liberals clawed back money by raising other taxes, including cancelling Conservative tax credits and eliminating income splitting for families with young children.

The Fraser Institute estimated the vast majority of families were hit with a larger total tax bill as a result of those changes — although, their calculation does not take into account their gains from the child benefit.

To compound financial pressures, while the unemployment rate has fallen to a record low, wage growth has remained modest. Highpaying industries like the resource sector have seen declines in hours worked; lower-paying industries like accommodation and food services have seen hours worked increase. More Canadians are working multiple jobs; high-paying jobs remain hard to find.

Now, Wednesday’s interest-rate payment will add to the anxiety felt by families whose confidence in their ability to pay their bills has declined markedly in recent months.

An Ipsos poll for consulting firm MNP suggested 48 per cent are now within $200 of not being able to pay their monthly bills and debt obligations — up 6 points from September. One-third say they have no money at all left at the end of the month and are unable to cover their payments — an increase of 8 points.

In 2015, Justin Trudeau’s “fairness” argument was aimed squarely at helping those people who aspired to make their own way in life and keep more of their own money.

In 2018, Trudeau’s “valuesbased approach” seems to be more geared to benefiting those on the margins of Canadian society.

There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it means the party that can best calm the financial anxieties felt by the nearly 50 per cent of Canadians who are one whopping heating bill from being short in any given month is well placed to win their support.

As rates continue to rise, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s line that Trudeau’s policies are hurting the very people he claims to help is likely to gain more traction.