Leaders face heckles and hate as polls tighten
Those positive pledges dominated the podium messages on the federal election campaign midway through its second week - a campaign that's been a tough slog for the Liberals, started strong for the rookie Conservative leader, and saw the New Democratic leader shrug off a racist insult hurled by a passerby.
But even as all party leaders delivered stump speeches about their policy-oriented messages, they also aimed attacks at their rivals, while hecklers and protestors dogged the incumbent Liberal prime minister as he slips back in a tight horse race.
Polls reported a four-day lead in popular approval for the Conservatives under Erin O'Toole, who just weeks ago faced doubters within his own party.
Seat projections by the Star's poll aggregator Vox Pop Labs still show Justin Trudeau's Liberals with a slight edge but remaining in minority government territory.
But suddenly Ontario is in play.
So is the ballot question."
Despite the Liberals' attempt to frame Canada's 44th election as the most important postwar vote, many political observers and strategists believe the public is still not really tuned into day-to-day election jousting, and haven't decided which issue will decide their vote.
So for a third day, Trudeau insisted Wednesday that an O'Toole government would weaken health care in Canada. The night before, the Liberal leader tweeted a video claiming O'Toole confirmed he wants to bring private for-profit health care to Canada."
As anti-vaxxer protestors yelled and interrupted him on Wednesday in Surrey, B.C. during a big housing announcement, Trudeau also painted O'Toole as weak on COVID-19 vaccinations.
It was also the second day Trudeau promised new measures directed at housing and affordability, to shore up his party's credentials as a defender of the middle class.
The Liberals say they will raise the corporate income tax rate paid by Canada's largest and most profitable banks and insurance companies by three percentage points, raising it from 15 to 18 per cent on all earnings over $1 billion, and enact a recovery dividend" to be paid by the same companies over the next four years. Details on how this would work were scarce in the party's background document but it claimed both measures would generate $2.5 billion per year over the next four years.
And, as every day on the campaign trail, Trudeau was peppered with questions about Afghanistan. The bottom line for Canadians is this: we are going to continue to do absolutely everything we can to get as many people out of Afghanistan in the coming days as we possibly can," Trudeau said. But once this evacuation phase is done, we're not stopping our work."
As he left the event, videos posted on social media showed a handful of unruly anti-vaxxer protesters among others yelling expletives at him. A Liberal campaign official told the Star at least one of those protestors had been seen the day before at Trudeau's appearance in Hamilton.
The Conservatives decried the Liberals' attempt to use health care as a wedge issue, with O'Toole calling Trudeau's statements misleading" and divisive."
O'Toole has pledged $60 billion over a decade in unconditional health care transfer payments to the provinces and territories that would rise at least" six per cent a year. On Wednesday, he highlighted a pledge to direct some of money to create 1,000 beds in addictions treatment and 50 community centres, and said he'd set aside $1 billion over five years for Indigenous mental health.
But O'Toole went on the attack too, slamming Trudeau as a weak leader on the world stage who is leaving millions" of Afghans who helped Canada stranded in Afghanistan.
Mr. Trudeau put his political interests ahead of a crisis there. I will never abandon people that stood with Canada," O'Toole told reporters in Brantford.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, campaigning in the Windsor area, said he'd impose a cap on big telecommunications companies' ability to charge for internet plans, using a global average among industrialized countries, and save families and average of $1,000 a year on cell and internet plans, and force big telecoms to share their towers and infrastructure with smaller competitors to drop prices.
The NDP campaign highlighted a media report that said despite Trudeau's claim he would curb predatory" practices in the housing market, one of his Liberal candidates, Taleeb Noormohamed, has made $600,000 flipping Vancouver condos since 2017."
Sing told reporters that Justin Trudeau and Erin O'Toole don't think that billionaires should pay their fair share."
Singh also faced some ugliness on the campaign trail. At his event at a Windsor park, a man shouted, Go back home" from a passing vehicle, while Singh, who was born in Scarborough and raised in Windsor, continued his speech undeterred.
Speaking to reporters later, Singh said he doesn't focus on himself when that kind of thing happens, but he is concerned about the rise of hate in Canada.
Green Leader Annamie Paul campaigned again in Toronto Centre, where she spoke about the need to better address the next pandemic.
In Quebec, where the Liberal tour is headed Thursday, the Bloc Quebecois has promised it would support unconditional health care transfer payments to the province, but of a greater magnitude than the Conservatives have promised. The BQ calls for an immediate infusion of $28 billion to the provinces, rising more than five per cent a year after that, so that the federal share of health spending in Canada would rise to 35 per cent from the current 22 per cent.
With files from The Canadian Press
Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc