Trudeau-Mulcair feud splits hairs and votes
In this election campaign, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair have nothing kind to say about each other.
New Democratic Party Leader Mulcair dismisses Trudeau as a callow youth. Echoing Conservative attack ads, his New Democrats say the 43-year-old Liberal leader just isn’t ready to become prime minister.
From time to time, and again echoing the Conservatives, Mulcair dismissively refers to his Liberal rival as “Justin.”
Trudeau is no less harsh. He accuses Mulcair of duplicity — of saying one thing in French and another in English. He says the NDP, by pandering to Quebec separatists, threatens national unity.
He dredges up old charges that Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister, once contemplated the idea of exporting fresh water in bulk.
All of this occurs at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are quietly edging up in the polls.
For the Liberals and New Demo- crats, the back and forth attacks make sense. Each hopes to present itself as the unique alternative to the governing Conservatives.
That in turn, they calculate, requires them to tear each other down.
But to a wide array of Liberal and NDP voters, the two opposition parties appear to be engaging in a game of mutually assured destruction.
These so-called progressive voters desperately want Harper gone. And they are horrified by the real possibility that this war to the death between Liberals and New Democrats will split the anti-Harper vote, thus allowing the Conservatives to win power again.
Recent polls have underscored those fears.
On Wednesday, Forum Research released a poll putting the Conservatives in first place among decided voters, with 34-per-cent support. The NDP and the Liberals were significantly behind at 28 and 27 per cent respectively.
That follows an earlier Ekos poll that shows the Conservatives leading with 35-per-cent support.
In fact, the possibility of a Conservative win has never been out of the question. Harper’s claim to be a good economic manager has always had resonance.
Wednesday’s announcement from Statistics Canada, which suggests that the brief recession suffered in mid-year is probably over, feeds into his claim.
On top of this, Harper has tapped adroitly into a subterranean antiMuslim mood that percolates throughout the country.
This fear of Islam expresses itself through support of the Conservative move to prevent Muslim women from wearing niqabs during citizenship ceremonies as well as the government’s decision to strip convicted terrorists of their Canadian citizenship.
Meanwhile, the Liberals and NDP continue to slag one another.
The anti-Harper vote is not monolithic. Some NDP supporters will never vote Liberal and vice versa.
But there are many in the middle who would be happy to see either opposition party topple the Conservatives.
To these voters, the differences between the NDP and Liberal platforms seem relatively insignificant.
The Liberals would raise taxes on rich individuals; the NDP would raise taxes on rich corporations. Both would spend more money on public transit and infrastructure.
Both would reduce the age for receiving old age security back down to 65. Both would negotiate with the provinces to increase Canada Pension Plan benefits.
The NDP would put in place a child-care plan with an eerie resemblance to one the Liberals introduced just before they were defeated (by, among others, the NDP) in 2005.
Trudeau’s decision to run shortterm deficits in order to boost the economy may not be in line with Mulcair’s views. But it is in line with the NDP’s official policy book.
Both leaders are in favour of free trade in the abstract if not always in practice. Both have taken cagey positions on the proposed east-west heavy oil pipeline.
The NDP would keep Harper’s baby-bonus scheme as is. The Liberals would skew it toward the poor.
To partisan stalwarts, the chasm between the two parties is vast. To the uninitiated, the Liberals and New Democrats appear to be suffering from what Freud called the narcissism of small differences.
If Trudeau and Mulcair end up splitting the vote in a way that allows Harper to win, the two opposition leaders will have much to answer for. Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.