Why Justin Trudeau and the Liberals seem to be doing so well might be less puzzling than one thinks.
The easy answer — or at least, the answer most often offered by political opponents — is that Canadians are uninformed and easily taken in by celebrity.
Certainly, Trudeau’s inconsistent and/or absent policy is more than a figment of the imagination of Conservatives and New Democrats.
Yet, much to their dismay, a surprising number of voters are ignoring this supposed lack of substance and have vaulted the Liberals past both the NDP and Conservatives to first place in the polls.
While it might be privately soothing for Conservative and NDP insiders to believe the numbers are all about the public ignoring Trudeau/Liberal shortcomings or the cult of personality, it might just be that voters are not as gullible, lazy, stupid or incapable of weighing wise choices as the politicians think.
If anything, the above description might be better applied to the federal politicians and their advisers than to voters, whose opinion polling numbers might be suggesting a surprising amount of political savvy.
Admittedly, there might also be some lazy hubris on the part of Liberals and their strategists to assume Canadians have no historical recollection or comprehension of substance and that voters only want a shiny new leader with style.
However, it would seem just as lazy for the NDP to think the public is easily taken in by a party catering to Quebec and the left, and offering little more than an aptitude for pointing out the less-than-factual utterances coming from Stephen Harper and the Prime Minister’s Office on the Mike Duffy scandal.
And it’s even more lazy and insulting for the Harper Conservatives to assume Canadians will simply forget about Duffy and the rest of the government record and buy into the rhetoric about balanced budgets (which they haven’t yet achieved), tax-cut goodies, tough talk on international terrorism or law and order back home.
At issue is Harper’s own pursuit of history. An election victory a year from now would extend his tenure as prime minister to 13 years — the equivalent of a three-term government that has eluded every other conservative prime minister in our history.
This makes for high political stakes during this fall’s sitting of the House of Commons, which started Monday. But that was obvious even before Monday’s first question period after the three-month summer recess.
Harper started the day by rallying his own caucus MPs in a campaign-style speech on protecting Canadian values around the world, cracking down on crime, promoting trade deals and, of course, creating jobs through things like last week’s cut in premiums that businesses pay.
He neglected to mention that there are now 13,600 fewer full-time jobs in Canada than there were in May 2013.
Harper also announced that future budget surpluses (again, assuming we have them) will be used to lower taxes rather than on giveaways to special-interest groups.
And so it begins — a year away from the campaign, the set election day already has the prime minister in campaign mode by attempting to buy Canadians’ votes with their own money.
If the easy explanation for Conservative politicos of the Trudeau/Liberal success is because Canadians aren’t paying enough attention, one assumes the Tories are in deep trouble, because it will take a lot to get the public to then buy into the Harper government record.
But maybe Canadians are paying more attention than the Conservatives and New Democrats think. Given the closeness of the opinion polls (a pox-on-all-houses statement, if there ever were one) maybe Canadians are wiser than politicians realize.
Maybe voters are saying they’re not yet ready to be bought by the thinly veiled political campaign of the Conservatives, the style-over-substance of the Liberal leader or the pandering to regions and interests groups of the NDP.
The problem for Conservatives is that voters might not be all that dumb after all.
