Expect more scorched earth from Trudeau
The sign of a strong campaign is whether you end on the same note as you began. If you can frame your preferred ballot question at the start and still be speaking to it by the end of the knock-down, drag-out world of a six-week campaign, you're in with a shot at victory.
Based on this metric, and off the back of this week's sole English-language debate, Erin O'Toole and his Conservatives are in a better position going into the campaign's homestretch, despite the polls showing a deadlock. The rookie leader began by presenting Canadians with his plan to “secure the future” and goes into the last week having reinforced that message during the leaders' debates.
It doesn't mean O'Toole hasn't, at times, been pushed off his rhetorical mountain. The Liberals did well to make guns the focus of the pre-debate period. But when a sizable chunk of Canadians tuned in to watch the English debate, they saw the same sunny, positive O'Toole they glimpsed when this whole rodeo kicked off in August. O'Toole was calm, unflappable and kept returning to his plan. His tone was good. He didn't meet the “scary” description offered up by his adversaries.
The Liberals have also been stuck on a message since the campaign started. Unfortunately for them, that message is trying to justify having the election in the first place, what with the Delta wave and all. Trudeau failed to answer this question at Rideau Hall and he still can't answer it. People are noticing.
Canadians are also noticing a very different Trudeau; the politician who burst into office preaching “sunny ways” has pitched wedge issue after wedge issue and was agitated on the debate stage — as were his supporters, who berated the debate host and moderators for their candidate's failings. But as my golf coach once said: it's a poor man who blames his equipment. For whatever reason, Trudeau couldn't land a blow on O'Toole and even took some flak from the NDP's Jagmeet Singh and the Greens' Annamie Paul. It was a good night for everyone not named Trudeau.
Trudeau and his Liberals now face a choice: scorch the earth, or go back to “sunny ways”?
The trouble for Trudeau is the usual scare tactics — which have successfully kept progressives in line in the past — aren't working, or at least not well enough. And with each step down a negative road, Trudeau opens up more room for Singh to preach the positivity for which Trudeau was formerly known. The fact the NDP's vote seems to be holding indicates enough progressives have had it with Trudeau.
Trudeau also faces a reckoning with a ghost in the last week of the campaign, in the form of former cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and her memoir. Even if Wilson-Raybould's book doesn't contain any new information on the rift with Trudeau over the SNC-Lavalin issue that forced her eventual departure from cabinet (and that of former health minister Jane Philpott), just having the words “SNC-Lavalin” back in circulation will be damaging.
Another course for Trudeau would be to get back on issues he rules, like climate change and child care. Driving a positive contrast here would do more to inspire progressives than any dumping he can do on O'Toole. It would motivate his supporters to knock on doors and go out and vote.
Which way Trudeau chooses to go will depend on who he thinks he needs to reach. Typically, the last week of a campaign is about mobilizing already-identified support more than finding new converts. If Trudeau thinks a strong get-out-the-vote operation can return just enough votes to keep his minority he'll keep hammering O'Toole. If he thinks he needs more voters he'll point to what will be lost if he goes (i.e. climate and child care plans).
Given the Liberal vote is more efficient and would return the slimmest of minorities on current projections, we should expect more scorched earth. So long, sunny ways.