Faced with relentless attacks from his political enemies and declining support among voters, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has turned to a rather unusual narrative to snatch his political career out of the jaws of defeat.
The power of positive thought.
At a byelection campaign event Wednesday at Liberal byelection candidate Ian MacIntyre’s Elmwood-Transcona headquarters on Henderson Highway, an energetic Trudeau denounced Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as a misanthrope who does not “believe” in Canada.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods
At a byelection campaign event in Winnipeg on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounced Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as a misanthrope who does not “believe” in Canada.
Poilievre, Trudeau thundered, is so busy telling Canadians the country is “broken,” he cannot see all the positive things going on. In particular, Trudeau highlighted recent statistics from the International Monetary Fund, which showed Canada is forecast to have the second-highest economic growth of any G-7 country this year, and the highest in 2025.
“People around the world believe in Canada and believe in Canadians. This government believes in Canada and Canadians. Why doesn’t Pierre Poilievre believe in Canada and Canadians?”
Trudeau’s speech about the power of belief could have been a one-off, written for a Winnipeg audience of diehard Liberal supporters. Or, it could be a test balloon for talking points that may form the spine of a desperate re-election campaign sometime next year.
Either way, when your appeal to voters involves asking for a leap of faith — a key component of getting people to believe in you after almost a decade in government — you are really telling people just how desperate your political fortunes have become.
Following a reportedly prickly cabinet retreat in Halifax, a controversial decision to force railways and their workers to accept binding arbitration to end a national strike and two more byelection tests, Trudeau is clearly grasping for straws when it comes to political messaging.
It should be noted that he is not wrong to call Poilievre on his overall negativity.
Opposition leaders almost always focus solely on all that is wrong in a jurisdiction, deliberately ignoring anything that is going well to avoid any hint that the current government is worth voting for. Poilievre has taken that strategy to absurd new heights, concocting an image of Canada that is, in many respects, much worse off than the facts dictate.
But here’s the problem: despite being relentlessly negative about Canada’s current condition, and offering virtually no concrete solutions for the problems he has blamed on the Liberal government, Canadians are buying what Poilievre is selling. The Tories are still leading the governing Liberals by 20 points or more in most opinion polls, with mounting evidence that nothing Trudeau is throwing at the wall is sticking for voters.
It should also be said that Trudeau is not necessarily exaggerating when he tries to emphasize Canada’s positives.
Canada has among the lowest inflation in the G-7 and, thus, was the first country in the group to start lowering interest rates. Economic growth is still not as robust as it was before COVID-19, but the forecast from the IMF and many banks to have the strongest growth next year is worth noting.
As well, Trudeau is entitled to crow about some of the more successful policies his government has introduced, including the Canada Child Benefit which has profoundly improved the lives of many lower-income families, along with things such as $10-a-day child care and the more recent national dental care program for seniors.
These programs qualify as proud accomplishments for any government of any political stripe. However, the fact is the Liberals are no longer getting the credit for the good things they have done, or are doing, because Canadians have largely lost faith in Trudeau.
The most loyal Liberals continue to argue that Canadians will begin to acknowledge the best of what the government has done as soon as they realize that Poilievre’s vicious attacks are long on hyperbole and short on solutions. The theory behind that argument, however, is starting to run out of runway.
Which brings us to the backdrop for Trudeau’s appearance in Winnipeg, the Sept. 16 byelections in Elmwood-Transcona and LaSalle-Emard-Verdun in Montreal.
Elmwood-Transcona is not much of a test of the Liberal brand, given that it’s been years since the Grits have had any electoral success in the riding. This started out as a two-way race between the NDP and the Tories, and it looks like it’s going to end that way on election day.
LaSalle-Emard-Verdun — made vacant with the retirement of former justice minister David Lametti — is another story altogether.
Failure to win this key Montreal riding, combined with the Liberal loss in Toronto-St. Paul’s in June, would ratchet up the pressure on Trudeau to step down. To date, he has resisted suggestions he is not the right man for the job, largely on the aforementioned theory that there is time for people to realize how well he has governed, and how dangerous the Poilievre Tories would be in power.
Unfortunately, there is almost no evidence that is going to happen.
Trudeau can beg voters to believe in Canada and Canadians. But it won’t matter much if they don’t believe in Trudeau.
dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com
Dan Lett
Columnist
Dan Lett is a columnist for the Free Press, providing opinion and commentary on politics in Winnipeg and beyond. Born and raised in Toronto, Dan joined the Free Press in 1986. Read more about Dan.
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