Faux Ford fight falls apart

Ethics report shifts focus to PM’s lapses

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s strategy of trying to win a federal election by running against Ontario Premier Doug Ford suddenly seems so yesterday.

Attempting to focus Ontario voters’ attention on Ford’s failings rather than Trudeau’s own was a desperate move.

Thanks to the explosive new report from Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion, Trudeau’s Ontario strategy is dead.

Anyone still think voters care about the details of Ford’s legal aid policy when they’ve got a prime minister who is in legal trouble?

Give Trudeau credit for optimism.

Even when the country was buzzing about the damning details of his own conduct, the prime minister still thought Wednesday was a good day to talk about what he thinks is wrong with Ford.

That kind of thinking was always the problem with Trudeau’s faux Ford fight. It relied on getting media and the voters to focus on Ford, not Trudeau.

That’s tough to do when Trudeau’s brand might be best summarized as “hey, look at me.”

Trudeau’s goal was to make Ford look bad, so that people might think federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer would be just the same. One might have assumed that it would be easy to get the often-volatile premier to respond to jabs from Trudeau. Instead, Ford has pretty much stuck by his promise to keep his head down and stay out of the federal election.

Ford and his ministers have been engaging in a summer of love. They are scurrying about the province dispensing health care dollars and talking about vital issues like moose management, cultural tourism and honey bee health.

Trudeau’s strategy of attacking Ford might have been more credible if the Liberal leader had been better at it. Trudeau was in Toronto this week, trying to goad Ford over cuts in the legal aid services available to refugee claimants. It shows that Conservatives like Ford cut services to the most vulnerable, Trudeau asserted. He, a champion of the vulnerable, was there to cover those legal aid costs, for one year.

The point quickly bounced back on Trudeau when it was pointed out that the legal aid demand was created by the burgeoning refugee backlog that Trudeau has not been able to fix. Plus, Ford had asked the federal government to supply the extra money, since refugees are primarily a federal challenge.

That said, there is a Ford factor in this federal election in Ontario. The PC premier isn’t terrifically popular and those who dislike him dislike him a lot. No doubt Ford is one of the reasons why most polls show the Liberals are modestly ahead in the province.

In trying to amplify that dislike for Ford, Trudeau was taking a page from the old Dalton McGuinty playbook. The former premier was the master of campaigns that made the point that, despite certain blemishes on his own record, the other guy was far, far worse.

Who can forget the 2007 Ontario election, when McGuinty managed to persuade voters that innocuous PC leader John Tory was intent on destroying public education, all over some modest support for parents who put their children in private schools.

An old leadership campaign video of Scheer promising a tax credit for private school parents resurfaced on social media recently.

The Liberals must have been praying that Scheer would follow through on the promise, because they know how to win that election. Unfortunately for the Liberals, Scheer said the promise would not be part of his election plan.

There’s the problem with Scheer, if you happen to be Trudeau. Scheer has made himself a frustratingly elusive target.

The Conservative chief has taken few policy positions and the ones he has espoused are moderate.

As a person, Scheer embodies caution and circumspection. He’s not the kind of guy who is given to wild, off the cuff statements, like Ford.

Recent criticisms of Scheer have included his overabundance of folksiness and reaching too far to shake someone’s hand.

That’s why it was so much more attractive to run against Ford, although that was always a time-limited strategy. That attack-Ford window was due to close after Labour Day, when the federal campaign will begin in earnest, drawing away media and public attention.

Instead, Trudeau has slammed that window shut, right on his own fingers. The ethics commissioner’s report portrays Trudeau as a dishonest person with a disregard for the law. That will be the issue in October’s election, not Ford’s deficiencies.