Who thought this election was a good idea?
Canadians, including the Liberal base, are punishing Trudeau.
As Canadians wind up their summers and turn their attention towards a federal election, one thing is becoming clear: the Trudeau brand no longer carries the same weight.
Today, less than fifteen days after going to the polls on the back of high vaccination rates, and despite rising delta cases, the Trudeau Liberals have seen their 5 to 14 point advantage evaporate while Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives have taken a 1 to 9 point lead.
While certainly a surprise, the reasons for the Liberals’ slide is clear. A recent poll by Ipsos shows that 58% “agree the country should not be holding an election right now.”
That number is up 2 points from the previous week, and Ipsos is not alone. Poll after poll has shown that a majority of Canadians do not view this as a good time for an election. And they are right.
Canada has been fortunate with its high vaccination rates, but the COVID variant threatens to undo the gains we’ve made. An unnecessary election distracts the country from the job of recovery and puts more people at risk through rallies and door-knocking. After so much economic, physical, and mental loss, Canadians naturally resent that Trudeau is jeopardizing their return to normal.
It was also clear well before the election was called that Canada would have a big task ahead of it in Afghanistan with the US pledged to pull out. Trudeau forged ahead regardless and has spent the last two weeks on the campaign trail rather than concentrating on protecting Canadian nationals and Afghani women from the resurgent Taliban.
There is no benefit to the nation in voting now, and there was no higher motive behind the election call than Trudeau’s desire to earn a majority government before the consequences of his mismanagement come to the fore.
It’s not difficult to see how the Liberals convinced themselves that it was the right time to go to the polls. Almost all elections held during COVID have been to the benefit of the governing party, and most have been carried out in far more restrictive times.
With things beginning to open again and vaccine rates high, the Liberals expected to have an easy time of it. Never mind the scandal of Trudeau’s vacationing on the Aga Khan’s private island, the SNC Lavalin corruption trial, his blackface fiasco, and most recently, the WE charity disaster -- never mind the endless news stories of policy failures, conflicts of interest, blatant hypocrisy, and self-induced catastrophe, the party believed it could make the public forget its record by taking credit for Canada surviving the pandemic.
But it hasn’t worked out that way. Many voters see the election call as selfish, cynical, and poorly timed, including voters the Liberals have come to rely upon.
In today’s hyper-divided world, you don’t lose or get canceled because the other side rallies harder. You lose when your base abandons you. The Liberal base is centre-left and left-wing voters. When it comes to COVID, those are precisely the voters most fearful of the virus and inclined to view an ill-timed COVID election negatively.
Those same centre-left and left-wing voters were most susceptible to Trudeau’s feminist messages from election’s past. They are now most likely to be disturbed by the government abandoning Afghani women to the Taliban. Nothing could so starkly and painfully reveal the hollowness of Trudeau’s concern for women than Canada’s failure in Afghanistan. Our nation started bringing refugees out of the country too late, and then left the scene too early, leaving many women and children, including 1250 Canadian citizens and their family members, to suffer.
Of course, it wasn’t just the party’s actions that failed. Its rhetoric did, too, with one Liberal MP referring to the Taliban as “our brothers.”
If the culmination of a feminist foreign policy is the abandonment of the vulnerable and the humanization of abusers, it becomes quite clear why members of the Liberal base are considering other options.
While all the above factors matter, it’s important to note that all this has happened before. In 2015, the Conservatives managed to go so far as winning the popular vote, as the Prime Minister dealt with blackface among a laundry list of political problems. Yet this election feels exceptional when it comes to the level of anti-Trudeau sentiment.
According to a recent article published by The Hill Times, one Liberal MP said, “it’s a lot worse than it was in 2019… [Canadians] just say ‘we’re sick and tired of [Prime Minister Justin Trudeau],’ and I really, truly feel bad for the leader. What’s really shocking to me is how much the leader has lost popularity in the last few years.”
Worryingly for Team Trudeau, the bleak view from the campaign floor is not anecdotal, as recent polling, has shown Trudeau to be the most unfavorably viewed among major party leaders. Worst yet, the trajectory shows their competitor’s rapidly gaining ground, with O’Toole being the largest benefactor, as the Liberal leader continues to lose ground with almost every demographic.
While the data today shows a clear mountain to climb, in politics, it’s early.
Even after all the scandals and a poor start to this campaign, it’s possible the Liberals will still win. It’s not impossible that they take a majority, given that they benefit from better voter distribution than the Conservatives and a piggy bank of potential party jumpers in the NDP.
That path exists. But for the time being, the Liberals are in freefall, and Trudeau is to blame.
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