Trudeau calls on voters to ‘stop Erin O’Toole’
Battered but unbowed, Liberal leader has faced unexpected challenges
ST. CATHARINES—Liberal leader Justin Trudeau boarded his campaign plane in Quebec City late Thursday night, put on noise-cancelling headphones, and shut out the world for a two-hour flight to Windsor.
It had been what felt to him and his team like the first “normal” day on a campaign trail in this pandemic election, where besides the usual hectic run of interviews, a news conference, an editorial board, recording ads and pumping up local candidates in a sprint up Quebec’s north shore, the Liberal leader twice waded into crowds of ordinary people to do the kind of “mainstreeting” that was a staple of past elections but has been rare during the fourth wave of COVID-19.
Trudeau, a consummate retail politician, drew energy from the crowds, mostly masked, in Trois-Rivières and Quebec City. He threw back a gulp of red wine offered by a group of diners, took selfies with anyone who asked, and had quick, at times intense chats.
Trudeau called a snap election nearly five short weeks ago, gambling Canadians would put aside the awkward timing to weigh in on what he calls the “big decisions” of this pandemic moment, and possibly return him with a majority to act on his “build back better” agenda.
He’s never once uttered the word majority.
And pretty soon it will all be out of his hands.
Though the Liberal campaign has largely followed its script, it struggled at the outset to drive Trudeau’s narrative and to define the ballot question.
Trudeau wanted this election to be a referendum on the future. “This is not about me,” he told the Toronto Star last week, but about Canadians’ futures.
But his opponents beg to differ and want it to be a referendum on Trudeau, the prime minister O’Toole says is “divisive,” a “liar,” and called an election as a “vanity project.”
Trudeau’s team says it always knew this campaign would be a tough slog after six years and two terms in power, the latter a tumultuous period as COVID-19 ravaged Canada’s health-care system and the economy. Some of his advisers wanted him to call it earlier, last spring or earlier this summer.
Senior strategists at party headquarters and on the plane who have spoken to the Star on background said Trudeau understood that the promising summer polls masked what would happen when the campaign began for real: Conservative voters who had been indifferent to O’Toole would come back to the fold, his numbers would rise, and the Conservative team would throw money and their recent leadership campaigning experience at his bid to unseat Trudeau.
“We knew Erin O’Toole would show up, ready to fight,” said one insider.
Here’s what the Liberal campaign didn’t expect: the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban on the first day of the campaign, stranding Afghan interpreters who had been allies in Canada’s war there. The Conservative campaign unveiling its platform on Day Two of the campaign (it took the Liberals weeks to catch up). The vitriol on display by anti-vax protesters, some of whom pelted Trudeau with gravel. The devastating rise in COVID-19 cases in Alberta. A critical book by Jody Wilson-Raybould. Quebec Premier François Legault’s declaration that Quebecers should defeat the Liberals for a Conservative minority. An English debate that drove francophone nationalist voters in Quebec back to the Bloc fold.
A strategist said the Liberals also did not expect several moves by O’Toole that the Liberals think have turned out to be gifts: that O’Toole would not enforce mandatory vaccination on his own candidates, that he admitted he would eliminate child-care deals with seven provinces and one territory, that he would reverse a promise to his base to repeal the Liberal ban on assault weapons, that he reversed a promise to social conservatives that no doctors or nurses would have to refer patients for abortion or medical assistance in dying.
And that he is now suggesting that provinces can opt for the Liberal carbon tax, instead of his own carbon levy-consumer reward program.
On the Liberal side, Trudeau has taken few risks, survived four debates, and gone on the offensive in Bloc- and Conservative-held ridings, but also showed up to motivate workers in Liberal-held seats where incumbents are in tight races.
He has largely stuck to his message from day one.
But Trudeau’s third bid for high office has veered away from the “sunny days” campaign of 2015, and had more echoes of 2019’s divisive campaign, with the Liberals reprising attacks on O’Toole as a fake progressive, someone who cannot be trusted, and whose party represents a “threat” to a woman’s right to choose, to effective action on gun control or global warming.
Trudeau claims he hasn’t attacked O’Toole personally, but he’s gone all out to undermine O’Toole’s credibility and claim to be a more progressive leader, saying that like Alberta’s Jason Kenney, O’Toole is letting antivaxxers and climate deniers “run the show.”
His argument now is that O’Toole must be stopped. After weeks of talking point answers about the “consequential” choice for voters, Trudeau appealed on Friday directly to progressive voters to forget about voting for the NDP or Greens, and to cast their votes strategically for the Liberals to block the Conservatives.
“The NDP, the Bloc (Quebecois), the Green party cannot stop Erin O’Toole from governing, and they cannot make sure that Canada does the big things we need to do.
“They weren’t able to do it under a Harper government. They wouldn’t be able to do it under an O’Toole government Right now, the only progressive choice to get the big things done in government is the Liberal Party of Canada.”
Trudeau refuses to speculate about possible seat counts although polls show a possible Liberal minority in the offing.
He refuses to say what message Canadian voters appear to be sending him, since he still appears in minority territory.
And he refuses to discuss what it will all mean for his own political future if on Tuesday morning, he wins another minority government, even possibly a reduced one; a result that won’t look that much different than the last election outcome.
Instead, Trudeau says he will continue to campaign hard for the next three days.