EDITORIAL: Trudeau's election call is backfiring
Article content
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ducked the first question he was asked in the French language leaders’ debate by the moderator. The question was: would he commit to a four-year term if he wins another minority government?
His word salad of a non-answer was vintage Trudeau, who ignores media questions he doesn’t want to answer by pretending they were never asked.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
EDITORIAL: Trudeau's election call is backfiring Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
That showed Trudeau hasn’t learned his lesson from calling this election in the middle of the fourth wave of the pandemic, on the same day Kabul fell to the Taliban, trapping Canadians and our Afghan allies inside Afghanistan
While any outcome is still possible on Sept. 20, this underscores the reason Trudeau isn’t cakewalking to the majority government that was widely predicted by pollsters and pundits in early summer.
With 10 days to go before the vote, Trudeau still hasn’t provided a convincing reason for calling the election on Aug. 15, other than the obvious one — he thought he would easily win back the majority government he won in 2015, which he lost in 2019.
Leading up to this election, almost two-thirds of voters told pollsters they didn’t want one. Ditto the major party leaders.
The only significant delays in passing legislation Trudeau faced in the minority Parliament he dissolved was the result of him proroguing last August to shut down committees investigating his WE charity fiasco.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Proroguing meant all legislation under consideration had to be restarted when Parliament resumed last September, whereupon Liberal MPs went into an organized campaign of filibustering the committees, causing more delays.
To be fair to Trudeau, if any party wins a minority government this time, its leader cannot commit to carrying out a four-year term because the opposition parties can trigger an election by combining forces to defeat the government.
But Trudeau could have said he would respect the will of voters no matter their decision.
He could have said he would strive to work with the other leaders for the good of Canada, regardless of the results on Sept. 20.
The fact he ignored the question suggests Trudeau is already planning his next move if he doesn’t win a majority government.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.