■ O’Toole worse than Trudeau, Singh says, but election call cynical.
Jagmeet Singh has spent the past few weeks laying down the case to progressive voters that Justin Trudeau can’t be trusted to deliver on the issues that matter most to them: on child care, housing affordability, action on climate change.
He’s lumped the Liberals and the Conservatives together, telling supporters they aren’t “stuck with red or blue options.”
He’s painted both leaders with the same brush, telling Canadians during the English debate, for example, that “Mr. (Erin) O’Toole and Mr. Trudeau are jumping over each other over who is going to cut help to people first.”
And that’s on the rare occasions where Singh isn’t taking direct aim at Trudeau — who’s borne the brunt of the NDP leader’s attacks over the past four weeks.
He’s blamed Trudeau for rising housing prices, for missing greenhouse gas emission targets, and questioned why after six years of inaction, he should be trusted with another four.
What is the difference, Singh questioned, between someone who acknowledges a problem, but “effectively” does nothing, and someone who denies the problem. “Effectively, the two will do nothing.”
But Saturday, Singh made two notable concessions. First, he conceded to me, at a Vancouver press conference, that yes, O’Toole is worse than Trudeau.
“Sure, Mr. O’Toole is worse. But Mr. Trudeau is pretty bad.” (The NDP leader previously told the Star he wouldn’t prop up a government led by O’Toole, but on the campaign trail refused to rule it out.)
Second, in releasing his costed platform (which outlines $214 billion in new spending and $166 billion in new revenues), Singh acknowledged that at least on one of the key issues up for debate during this campaign — child care — the NDP has adopted the Liberals’ plan — with the same money and the same timeline. They don’t plan to spend a dollar more on the program.
The difference here, Singh insists, is that the NDP will get the job done.
The problem for Singh is that few believe the NDP will have the chance to get it done. Public opinion polling suggests the NDP is a far cry from forming the government on Sept. 20.
The party is polling around the 19 per cent mark.
And just like in 2019, and every other campaign where the Liberals and a Conservative party seem to be running neck and neck, Singh is contending with the very possibility that his supporters will desert his party and vote Liberal to avoid O’Toole becoming prime minister.
In a virtual chat with supporters Friday evening, he addressed “the strategic argument stuff.”
“You can’t just vote for Trudeau and think there is no cost to it,” he told them. That cost, he said, is another four years of the climate crisis getting worse, the housing crisis getting worse, Indigenous kids not getting clean drinking water, Indigenous kids being fought in court. “We got to make sure people know.”
Some people know that back in 2005, the NDP sided with the Conservatives to defeat Liberal prime minister Paul Martin. The result was a decade of Stephen Harper policies and the end of the childcare agreements Martin and his social development minister Ken Dryden had signed with the provinces.
When asked about that, Singh said only one leader on the campaign trail had voted to support Harper — Trudeau back in 2009. (For the record, the NDP that year also supported Harper three times in confidence votes.)
Trudeau, for his part, accuses Singh of fostering cynicism in politics by suggesting his government has done “nothing” on climate change or reconciliation.
“I’m sorry. A price on pollution right across the country, over the objections of conservative premiers all the way to the Supreme Court, is not nothing. Banning single-use plastics across the country is not nothing. Protecting more of our land and oceans than ever before in the history of this country is not nothing.”
Progressives know there’s always more to do, Trudeau said. His opponents could always say he hadn’t done enough. “Fair enough, I agree with that.”
What’s cynical, countered Singh, is calling an election that jeopardizes moving forward on policies, such as child care.
“If they wanted this done, they had two more years on their mandate, they could have gotten it done.”
We’ll know in just over a week which argument won the day.