What if it was Ambrose vs. Freeland?
Lack of excitement for current leaders makes this a dispiriting campaign
An election is no time for buyer’s remorse, but it says something about the state of Canadian politics that all parties have reason to rue their current choice for leader.
The Liberals could obviously do without the blackface habits of one Justin Trudeau, or his inability to be straight about what he was thinking and doing by donning the polish. For their part, Conservatives would probably prefer not to have to answer questions about Andrew Scheer’s social conservatism. The NDP, meanwhile, has spent Jagmeet Singh’s reign watching him trip over his tongue, including this week when he sprained his brain explaining when a veto isn’t a veto with respect to resource projects. And the Greens? Well, Elizabeth May can’t even get her Photoshop story straight.
Imagining a different present isn’t something a campaign gets to do but it’s something most partisans think about, even if it’s only for an instant after a rough news cycle. What would this election look like with different figureheads?
The entire Liberal attack on Scheer is that he’s Harper (or Ford) 2.0. Think the same attack could and would have been made against Rona Ambrose, or Lisa Raitt for that matter? How would a sharp attack by a feminist man against a female leader have been perceived? Not well, surely. And while Ambrose and Raitt were there for the Harper years, the mere fact that they’re not another white middle-aged man who people believe is a social conservative would have blunted the attack.
Meanwhile, the Conservative line against Trudeau — that’s he “not as advertised” — fits like a glove in the wake of blackface. But would it have stuck against a Chrystia Freeland, someone with a record of accomplishment both in government and before her time in politics? Probably not.
Of course, having a different leader would have meant lining up different attacks. If the Liberal Party had divorced itself from Trudeau — be it after the SNC-Lavalin scandal or blackface — another line of attack would have been drawn up against whoever succeeded him. But it’s not hard to imagine that attack being focused more on policy than personality, to the benefit of the electorate. Having two successful women at the top would have opened up a conversation that badly needs having.
Lest we forget, the reason the Conservatives are so focused on Trudeau the man is that
“le parti, c’est Trudeau.” The Liberal leader took the party from a distant third-place husk to darlings of the international order. That’s not something you chuck away after a few blackface headlines. Most of the Liberal MPs owe their ticket to public life to Trudeau; hence the mass issuance of tweeted indulgences following Trudeau’s minstrel habit coming to light. Trudeau is safer from his party than he is from the general public, and certainly from the swing voters who backed him in 2015 but are having second thoughts now.
Scheer, by contrast, owes his position to fatigue more than anything. Or, to put a positive spin on things, perseverance, having seen off Maxime Bernier after 13 rounds of voting in the last Conservative leadership election. Scheer won fair and square but a stumble of even half the magnitude of SNC-Lavalin would likely put him in a tricky place with his people. His social conservatism, however? Not so much. The Conservative vote is therefore much more likely to hold firm through the campaign.
We’re now in a place where the scandal-damaged version of Trudeau is the best option for keeping Scheer in the prime ministerial picture and Scheer is the one Conservative who best keeps the Trudeau Liberals competitive (abortion!). No wonder we’re witnessing such a dispiriting campaign, particularly from the incumbents. It’s all they have.
New leaders usually breathe fresh life into politics, but there will be none of that magic this time. Trudeau did the trick in 2015 but is now bogged down in a dirty dogfight to keep his place. And by picking up many of the Harper planks discarded by Trudeau in office — transit, sport and arts tax credits, small business tax changes — Scheer is literally promising to be Harper 2.0.
To be fair, both sides are also pumping out new tax policy, particularly for those on lower incomes, but those promises have yet to be costed (in the Liberal case), and yet to be added up into a bigger picture (by both sides). But the new stuff can’t compete with old conflicts.
Other leaders could have given these new ideas fresh life. But it’s too late now; the parties will have to dance with the ones that brung them.
Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.
How would a sharp attack by a feminist man against a female leader have been perceived?