Trudeau condemns ‘anti-vaxxer mobs’
Liberal leader singles out those who intimidate health-care workers
OTTAWA—Political leaders headed to the national capital region for the first of two nationally televised debates on Wednesday, where the stakes are as high as anti-vax protesters’ tempers in a bitterly fought campaign.
Pollster Greg Lyle, president of Innovative Research Group, said his company had tracked a growing desire “for change” from the weeks just before the election call right into the Labour Day weekend — a sentiment that was fuelled by the early election call and has not dissipated over time.
The challenge for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau now is to turn that around, while his main rivals will look to capitalize on it in the debates.
Star poll aggregator Vox Pop Labs suggests Trudeau may have arrested a slide in popularity since the start of the campaign, and may still eke out a plurality of seats — potentially enough to form another minority government — but the Conservatives remain in the lead for public support.
And so a combative Trudeau ditched his teleprompter Tuesday, the day after he was pelted with gravel in London, Ont., to condemn the actions of what he called “anti-vaxxer mobs,” and particularly those who threaten and intimidate health-care workers.
Trudeau said the protests underline the leadership questions at play in the Sept. 20 vote.
“For people who still wonder whether or not we really needed an election right now, just take a look at the issues and the intensity of debate over so many big issues that really matter to Canadians,” Trudeau said in Montreal, pointing to vaccinations, child care, health care, climate change and the Conservatives’ shifting positions on firearms.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole and New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh condemned the kinds of angry and profane protests that have dogged Trudeau, and continued to press the case that the election call was unnecessary.
“It’s completely unacceptable to see harassment of political figures, of media,” O’Toole said. “We live in a great democracy and let’s act like we do.”
“I disagree with Mr. Trudeau all the time,” Singh said. “But it is absolutely wrong to be throwing stones. I mean, I can’t imagine that I’m saying this in 2021.”
Trudeau acknowledged the Conservative party had condemned its supporters who participated in a separate protest last week, but Trudeau decried the “organized political opportunism” of the right-wing populist People’s Party of Canada, whose supporters and a candidate were among the unruly London crowd.
He said the Liberal campaign may need to make adjustments, but the “final say” in whether events are unsafe will remain up to the RCMP’s protective policing detail.
Trudeau added he would not be cowed by protesters’ aggression, saying, “We will not let them win.”
“I think Canadians are reassured and even proud of the fact that we’re not the United States, that a prime minister, a political candidate can still walk down the street, talk to people without fear of being attacked, without having to have a phalanx of security guards, and RCMP,” Trudeau said.
Still, the mood of the electorate is volatile, says Lyle, and the debates are a big stage for all leaders to hone in on their political rivals’ weaknesses.
Trudeau, O’Toole and Singh have been formally rehearsing for the debates, and many of the lines of attack are already clear.
Trudeau slammed O’Toole on Tuesday for failing to offer a costed platform, for failing to come clean with voters on whether he will definitively ban “assault-style” semi-automatic weapons that the Liberals reclassified as prohibited in May 2020, and for not requiring all his candidates to be vaccinated against COVID-19. “C’mon, that’s not leadership,” he said.
The Conservative campaign confirmed to the Star that the National Firearms Association “would not be part” of the review group O’Toole has promised a Conservative government would create to examine how to classify weapons, but he would not say who would be asked to participate. The campaign left several other questions outstanding, such as who will have final say on firearms classifications — the review group, the RCMP, cabinet or Parliament.
All O’Toole would say Tuesday is “We need a fact-driven and a science-driven independent process so that people aren’t divided over a subject of public safety and security,” before he accused Trudeau of being the agent of division in the country.
Lyle said O’Toole has so far benefited from the desire for change that voters expressed because the Conservative leader moved his platform towards the centre on a range of issues, and because of dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of Afghanistan.
But, Lyle continued, O’Toole’s ambivalent answers on firearms remain a potentially damaging issue for him, not just as a matter of policy, but as a bigger issue of political credibility.
Lyle said that Trudeau, however, will be under pressure to mount a political defence on three sides: on the right from the Conservatives, who are targeting those persuadable voters who desire change; on the left from those who feel the prime minister hasn’t delivered the progressive government he promised; and from the Bloc Québécois, which claims its leader, Yves-François Blanchet, is Quebec’s only champion.
While all leaders are targeting middle- and working-class Canadians, Lyle said he expects Singh to continue to be the only leader who targets “the economically alienated, the people that say ‘the system’s rigged against us, we can’t get ahead, not because of our anything we’re doing, but because the system is rigged against us.’ And that’s a group that the NDP had some initial success with in this campaign.”
Trudeau’s task is “to remind people what they liked about you,” Lyle said.
He expects Trudeau will keep trying to hammer the Tory leader as someone who represents the wrong kind of change, to draw back voters who may be thinking of casting a ballot for the Conservatives or the NDP.
“The way that you do that for both parties is you beat up on the Tories to make the Tories as ‘scary’ as possible,” he said.
The French language debate will be held Wednesday at 8 p.m., and will focus on climate change, the cost of living and public finances, Indigenous peoples, cultural industries and cultural identity, justice and foreign policy, and the pandemic and health care.
The English debate will be held Thursday at 9 p.m., and similarly will discuss affordability, climate change, COVID-19 recovery, leadership and accountability, and reconciliation.
“I think Canadians are reassured and even proud of the fact that … a political candidate can still walk down the street, talk to people without fear of being attacked, without having to have a phalanx of security guards and RCMP.” JUSTIN TRUDEAU