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Justin Trudeau’s pie-in-the-sky platform

 

Justin Trudeau’s pie-in-the-sky platform

By Murray Mandryk, The Starphoenix

 

Justin Trudeau’s pie-in-the-sky platform

As Liberal leader Justin Trudeau took a leisurely stroll down Regina’s Scarth Street Mall, you got the distinct impression he could be anywhere.

Alas, this may be the precise problem for Trudeau and his entire Liberal campaign. Canada is just not as generic as the Liberal leader would hope it to be.

This is not to suggest that Saskatchewan and Regina haven’t become as cosmopolitan as anywhere else in urban Canada, with farmers’ markets or virtually any other such amenities one would find anywhere.

But while this stroll Wednesday through an urban farmers’ market on a warm August morning might seem as Canadian as it gets, as a campaign strategy, it was sometimes bemusing and befuddling.

Trudeau is truly a politician blessed by his personal charisma, yet plagued by his own platitudes.

There is no denying the charisma of this handsome young man, who seemed rather comfortable in his own skin as he sashayed through the open market with Regina candidates Ralph Goodale and Louis Browne. There was a comforting casualness about him as he passed booths of pickled beets and organic veggies, stopping for selfies with young girls and old Liberals alike.

It was a chancy move by Liberal strategists, who ran the risk of some unfavourable encounter with an angry partisan from the other side. But, instead, it got Trudeau out in front of a large, young and ethnically diverse crowd. Moreover, it might have even won Trudeau some extra votes, as downtown workers and shoppers stopped to listen to both his short speech and the media questions he handled with relative ease. It was good, old fashioned political stumping we’ve seen from days gone by.

But while the scene may have seemed oh so Canadian – or at least, oh, so Liberal Party of Canada – it didn’t define Trudeau’s trip to this province.

As much on display as his political charm were his feel-good cliches – the most puzzling of which was his promise to “grow the economy from the heart.”

What the hell does that mean? Credit Trudeau for wading into public venues or holding real media interviews or town hall meetings, like he did in Saskatoon on Thursday.

It was an amazing contrast from Stephen Harper’s Saskatchewan campaign stop yesterday – the farm of Levi and Jim Woods. There, the prime minister restated his tax-free savings account plank and dodged his only Saskatchewanspecific question – Premier Brad Wall’s concern that the equalization formula is unfair.

Instead of answering, Harper chose to remind voters why they should be fearful of NDP candidate Linda McQuaig’s suggestion to keep resources in the ground. Of course, it received cheers from the partisans behind him.

(Interestingly, Harper also said he is one of the few Canadians who actually understands the equalization formula. Impressive. So why didn’t he understand Mike Duffy’s Senate expenses claims?) But, however infuriating Harper’s style is, it probably

was more effective than what we are seeing from Trudeau.

Whether one likes it or not, Harper’s campaign stop in Saskatchewan demonstrated clarity in who the Conservatives are targeting, and where. Besides the traditional Saskatchewan farm backdrop aimed at solidifying his rural vote, it was a message aimed at Canada’s broad middle class.

“A re-elected Conservative government, and only a re-elected Conservative government, is going to fight for your tax-free savings account,” Harper said at the Woods’ farm, adding that neither the Liberals nor the NDP support TFSAs and lifetime capital gains exemptions that help western farmers.

Harper argued that 80 per cent of TFSA holders make less than $80,000 a year – hardly the “rich” Canadians Trudeau describes.

Now, contrast Harper’s sniper-like accuracy with Trudeau’s shotgun approach of making every stop look like it could be anywhere.

Yes, he did make a $2.6-billion commitment to aboriginal education. But with costing of a Liberal government in play, the sad reality is such firm commitments may cost him as many votes as he gains.

Even Trudeau’s more solid pronouncements, like on Bill C-51 – the Liberal leader said he would neither engage in the fear of ISIS peddled by Harper or the fear of a loss of rights peddled by the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair – leaves the Liberals in the same old place.

It is a party caught between regions, class groups and ideologies.

Unlike the old days, politicians just can’t stroll through the market anywhere in Canada and get votes.
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