The best thing that can be said about the short first week of the federal election campaign is that it is behind us.
If the next five weeks resemble the last five days, dazed and dispirited voters will stagger to the polls on Oct. 21, across the barren landscape of our national political discourse, hoping for a box on the ballot that allows them to cast ‘a pox on all your houses.’
Thus far the campaign has been marked, or marred, by candidates exposed, often by old social media posts in which they espouse views their parties can’t abide, at least not while such views carry the risk of political embarrassment or worse.
The leaders, when not fending off questions about questionable candidates or firing them on the spot, were busy shining trinkets; little boutique promises undoubtedly designed to undergird their overall messages.
For example, the NDP are in it for you and for lower data charges, while the Conservatives will help you get ahead by reinstating the old Harper tax deduction for taking the bus.
The Liberals offered up a little help for first-time home buyers and small businesses, but their most significant contribution to the campaign came from behind the scenes, with well-timed nasty little nuggets about Conservative candidates. The intention was to throw Conservative leader Andrew Scheer off-message and force him to defend or distance himself from the candidate in question.
By week’s end, Scheer had had enough and, anticipating more of the same, said the old tweets and Facebook posts of his candidates are excusable provided the candidates see the error of their former ways.
Whether that blanket absolution will hold depends entirely on the viscosity of the muck yet to be raked.
One substantial issue – individual rights, and whether Canada is still a nation that cares about and protects them – did rise to the surface, only to be disappointingly side-stepped by most of the party leaders.
The issue, which tests political courage and found the leaders wanting, stems from Quebec’s infamous Bill 21. The so-called secular law prohibits public sector workers in positions of authority, which includes police officers and schoolteachers, from displaying religious “symbols” in the workplace.
The law effectively discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Muslim women, many of whom wear the hijab.
Because Bill 21 seems to enjoy the support of the French majority in Quebec and Quebec is a critical battleground in this election, the major party leaders are left to affirm their unwavering commitment to individual rights, except and until it might cost them votes in La belle province.
Prime Minister Trudeau has left the door ajar to a future federal challenge of the Quebec law. Scheer, Green Party leader Elizabeth May and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, whose Sikh turban would be unacceptable on a Quebec schoolteacher, claim that they find the law objectionable. Yet, they are disinclined to put the power of the federal government behind opposing it, or at least say so, while Quebecers are sizing them up.
The prime minister also separated himself from the pack — literally — this week, when he declined an invitation to participate in a leader’ debate sponsored by Maclean’s magazine and Toronto’s CityTV.
While the debate had a limited audience, it was the best chance to date to gauge the policy differences between those parties whose leaders did show up — Scheer, Singh and May.
May took the opportunity to reaffirm her party’s commitment to attack climate change as the threat to humanity it is; Singh proved he can hold his own among more seasoned political company; and Scheer displayed a remarkable ability to recite Conservative talking points about the guy who wasn’t there.
Trudeau will participate in the two debates sanctioned by former governor general David Johnston’s Leaders’ Debate Commission, on Oct. 7 in English and Oct. 10 in French. He’s also agreed to the francophone TVA debate on Oct. 2 but isn’t expected to show for the Munk debate on foreign policy.
The conventional wisdom is that Trudeau’s absence from the first debate hurt him not at all, nor will skipping the Oct. 1 Munk debate.
But given that the rest of the campaign consists almost entirely of stage-managed photo ops and carefully-scripted policy pronouncements, it is unfortunate that the Liberal strategy limits voters’ opportunities to compare Trudeau against the would-be prime ministers.
