Since facts are not enough, party attacks got personal
This most unpleasant election campaign is finally coming to an end.
It began on a sour note five weeks ago when Gov. Gen. Mary May Simon, on the advice of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, dissolved Parliament.
It will finish on Monday when most Canadians cast their ballots. Throughout, it has been lacking. Trudeau could never satisfactorily explain why he called the election in the first place.
The opposition parties could never satisfactorily explain why the governing Liberals should be replaced.
While there are significant differences in the party platforms, there are also equally significant similarities.
Like the Liberals, Jagmeet Singh’s New Democrats are calling for national child care and pharmacare.
Like the Liberals, Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives are calling for billions of dollars in deficit spending to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the end, the choice has come down to the leaders themselves and what voters think of them.
The Conservatives portray Trudeau as a selfish jerk. The Liberals counter that O’Toole is a dangerous right-winger posing as a centrist.
It isn’t the first time that the two major parties have resorted to negative campaigning. What is unusual, however, is that by the end this was virtually all they had to say.
Trudeau and O’Toole barely bothered to compare their substantive policy differences — on issues like child care or climate change. Instead, they hammered home the simple message: don’t vote for the other guy; he can’t be trusted.
For Trudeau in particular, this is a long way from the “sunny ways” strategy he used so successfully in 2015.
In that contest, the Liberals made negative campaigning itself an issue when they took on the Conservatives for their unflattering portrayal of Muslims.
That was the year when Stephen Harper’s Conservative government passed into law the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, a thinly defined rant against Islam.
The aim was to create a wedge issue that would benefit the Conservatives. Instead, by allowing the Liberals to define Harper as a mean-spirited sourpuss, it put the Conservatives on the defensive.
In this year’s contest, it is harder for the Liberals to portray the convivial O’Toole as a meanie. So they have gone back to a more traditional line of attack, painting the Conservative leader as a sneaky right-winger with a hidden agenda.
To that end, the Liberals describe O’Toole as a pawn of the gun lobby who is preparing to gut medicare.
It not a subtle line of attack. Nor is it backed by much evidence. Indeed, it is shamelessly dishonest.
But it has worked for the Liberals before. They hope it will work again.
As for the Conservatives, they too are finding that facts are not enough. Drawing distinctions on the basis of policy disagreements does not guarantee them a winning hand. So they too have made the attack personal.
Every one knows someone like Justin Trudeau, the Conservatives sneer — a glib charmer who talks a good game but who at base is selfish, entitled and concerned only with his own interests.
Such frauds, the Conservatives say, ultimately get their comeuppance. It’s time for Trudeau to get his.
Polls suggest that this election is agonizingly close. Another minority government, led by either the Liberals or the Conservatives is a real possibility.
If that were to happen, the ironies would be rich. But at least this unhappy and largely pointless election campaign would be over.
Trudeau could never satisfactorily
explain why he called the election and opposition parties could never satisfactorily explain why the governing Liberals should be replaced