MNI INTERVIEW: Liberals May Jolt Campaign With Health Platform

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may repeat his 2015 winning formula to break a stalemated election campaign, using a 'last mover' advantage to release his platform after most Canadians return from summer holidays with promises of major new healthcare benefits, a former top government adviser told MNI.

The Liberals in the next week or so could pledge something like publicly-funded dental or vision care according to Elliot Hughes, a top aide to former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau and now a Senior Advisor at Summa Strategies.

"Those are the policies that progressive voters are going to look towards that the Liberals will likely trumpet in order to try and differentiate themselves," he said.

The Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois and NDP have already published their major ideas ahead of the Sept. 20 vote. Putting out a platform in the next week or so has the further advantage of grabbing more attention as families settle into school and work after Labour Day, and would come just days before leadership debates on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9, Hughes said.

"It is a strategic advantage," Hughes said. "The advantage for the Liberals is that they have now been able to examine where the various parties have come out on the key issues, and can then build a platform around those, in some cases addressing some of the holes that the two other main parties have left open."

Trudeau in 2015 vaulted from third place to win a majority government thanks largely to a late-campaign platform announcement of continued economic stimulus that undercut rival pledges of austerity. In the 2019 campaign, the Liberals attacked Conservative social policies and were reduced to a minority of seats, and making those arguments may be harder this time because new leader Erin O'Toole is laying out more centrist policies.

CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL CEILINGS

The CBC poll tracker showed that as of Wednesday, the chances of the Liberals winning a majority government have faded to 28% from 45% when the campaign was launched, while Conservatives have a slimmer 18% chance of even winning the most seats.

"The challenge that Erin O'Toole has is that as progressive as some of his policies might seem through a Conservative lens, they aren't necessarily progressive enough" for people outside the party, Hughes said. "His ceiling is actually too low to have a serious chance of forming a majority government. Whether or not a minority is in play, anything is possible, we will still have to see about that."

Trudeau's most promising group of voters are those who swing between the Liberals and NDP, making promises of more government programs more likely, Hughes said. Campaigning on better healthcare also helped decide Nova Scotia's recent provincial election where Conservatives defeated a Liberal government that began with a huge lead in in the polls.

STILL UP FOR GRABS

The campaign so far hasn't established a clear winner on who has the best plan to lead the country out of the pandemic, he said. While the Liberals will likely seek to extend record deficit policies laid out in their budget earlier this year, they have already frustrated business leaders with greater focus on swing voters, Hughes said. Canada's dollar and bond markets have mostly shrugged off the election as turmoil in Afghanistan and the delta variant's risk to global growth drive trading.

Outside the economy, parties could also capitalize on questions about how exactly to limit climate change, reconciling with indigenous peoples and mandating Covid vaccinations, he said. Canadians show little appetite for radical shifts or opening up any deep divisions like those exposed in recent U.S. and U.K. elections, and there is broad agreement around record budget deficits until the pandemic is brought to heel, he said.

"There is a lot of wariness around what is going to come next," with the pandemic, Hughes said.

"Who's got the best plan for Canadians to deal with the tail end of Covid, post Covid life, and to be fair, I don't think any of the parties have done a very good job of clearly articulating their economic strategy," he said. "That's lacking in this election campaign."