Trudeau’s star undimmed despite attacks
It’s strange, isn’t it, that Justin Trudeau’s star has not budged? The gaffes, the attack ads, the near-constant mockery in the Commons, still no policy book to be seen, then the dust-up over abortion, with the Liberal caucus in some disarray, it would be fair to say. Ouch! That was going to deep-six the Dauphin for sure. The media furor alone should have been enough to sink him.
Yet that hasn’t happened. Indeed the latest poll by Forum Research shows that, if anything, Trudeau’s lead is hardening. Forum’s survey, taken June 16th and 17th, has the Grits at 39 per cent support, in strong minority territory, compared with 31 per cent for the Tories and a surprisingly limp 19 per cent for Tom Mulcair’s New Democrats.
How can this be? Recent provincial elections, including this month’s in Ontario, suggest an answer. What’s astonishing is that the federal Conservatives, supposed masters of the dark political arts, still fail to see it.
Consider that, where just leadership is concerned, the numbers are even more unsettling than the top-line data, if you’re a Tory or a Dipper. Just 34 per cent of respondents to Forum said they “approve” of the job Stephen Harper is doing as PM. Nearly twice that number, 58 per cent, disapprove, and eight per cent were non-committal. For Mulcair there’s a more even split; 38 per cent like how he does his job and 33 per cent dis- like, with 29 per cent unsure. Trudeau tops the approval rankings, at 43 per cent pro, versus 38 per cent con, and 18 per cent in limbo.
Sure, it’s just one poll. But it’s not far off the median. Poll aggregator ThreeHundredEight.com’s numbers have the Liberals at 37, Conservatives at 31, and New Democrats at 21. That hasn’t budged much for a year. So, this much seems clear: Canadians are not keen on Stephen Harper, relatively speaking. They’re a bit fonder of Mulcair, but still don’t really feel they know him. And they continue to like Trudeau best, rather stubbornly, since this flies in the face of much of what they’ve been told about him for more than a year. If Trudeau once received overwhelmingly positive media coverage — which is debatable — that ended some time ago. In the fracas over his making abortion rights a sine qua non for the Liberal party, he has been loudly called a hypocrite, a dictator and inept caucus manager. Yet here we are. Why?
Let’s overlook the obvious, which is that clarifying the Liberal party’s position in favour of abortion access and choice has actually helped the party, because half the population is female and millions of Canadian men and women are socially progressive. That’s true, I think. But there’s more here than that.
Canadians in at least six major recent provincial elections or shifts — Alberta in 2012 and 2014, B.C. in 2013, Ontario in 2011 and 2014, Quebec in 2014 — have shown themselves to be changeaverse, conflict-averse and, for lack of a better term, sentimental. Alberta chose the entrenched Progressive Conservatives over Reformminded Wildrose because of anti-gay bozo eruptions during the 2012 campaign. Ontario passed on Tory Tim Hudak first because of an anti-immigrant theme in his 2011 campaign, and again this year because he vowed to get medieval on the public service. British Columbians kept Christy Clark in place because she was deemed the steadiest hand on the tiller. Quebecers overwhelmingly rejected separatist Pauline Marois because of Pierre Karl Peladeau’s upraised fist, and the prospect of another wrenching referendum on sovereignty.
The pattern throughout is progressive, but also conservative, in the classic sense of the word, meaning conservative of tradition and the status quo. The overarching value is a desire to avoid upheaval or, put another way, peace, order and the best government we can get, under the circumstances.
The other recurring takeaway from recent history is that a leader’s likability matters. In the most recent campaign Hudak bet that although Ontarians might not like him, they’d agree with him — and thus vote for him. Oops. In Alberta Alison Redford’s likability plummeted with revelations of her excessive spending, and that did her in. Likability, as Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard showed in his winning campaign in March, does not require that a leader turn backflips or wear his heart on his sleeve. It does require that ordinary people believe he or she means well. A leader who has that quality gets the benefit of the doubt. A leader who doesn’t, doesn’t.
Justin Trudeau, for all that he’s made mistakes, has somehow persuaded a majority of Canadians that he means well. A year from gotime, this should be setting off the air-raid klaxon at Castle Langevin. It merits, at the very least, a rebranding of the Conservative party that stresses the positive, and not these stupid attack ads. Why there is no change in strategy, is anybody’s guess. Perhaps they’re just not up to it.