Scheer shifts into election mode

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer marked the start of the one-year countdown to the 2019 election with a campaign-style speech that took direct aim at the Liberal government’s record — on everything from carbon taxes, to ethics, to budgetary deficits.

Scheer even did an impression of the man he succeeded as leader of the Tories — former prime minister Stephen Harper — as he criticized the Trudeau government’s handling of the federal finances. “Remember those? Remember those teeny, tiny temporary deficits?” a smiling Scheer said Sunday inside an Ottawa convention centre, as he held up his right thumb and index finger for the laughing crowd of party supporters. Scheer was referring to the Liberals’ 2015 pledge to run annual shortfalls of no more than $10 billion and to balance the books by 2019.

The deficits are expected to be central to the Tory attacks in the lead up to the next election on Oct. 21, 2019. Scheer ran through a list of areas he believes the Liberals have vulnerabilities.

In the “one-year sprint to the finish,” Scheer told his supporters the Liberals will throw everything they have at the Tories.

“It’s going (to) get worse, it’s going to get nasty,” said Scheer, who insisted Trudeau has the news media and pundits on his side.

Recent polls suggest the Liberals are in a relatively good position ahead of the Tories and the NDP — but a lot can change in12 months.