Trudeau takes a risk asking voters for a majority government
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Campbell Clark
The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Oct. 15, 2015
Majority? Did I say majority? What’s the big deal?
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who is pulling ahead in opinion polls, asked Canadians on Wednesday for a majority government. And, although his campaign then got busy telling folks there was nothing remarkable, it made headlines.
For Mr. Trudeau, there is a danger that it will sound like triumphalism, that he’s a leader who thinks victory is in the bag and is now asking for the whole thing, a majority government – and that those who were thinking about voting Liberal but aren’t totally convinced might pull back. Ask Conservative Leader Stephen Harper about that: Talking about a majority was a disaster for his 2004 campaign.
The Liberals have a long reputation for arrogance, so a rush of overconfidence, the minute they are ahead, could turn voters off. But maybe it wasn’t just hubris – perhaps they feel the potential gains, notably in Quebec, are worth the risk.
After the first stories on Mr. Trudeau’s call for a majority were filed on Wednesday, the Liberals started to scoff at the notion that Mr. Trudeau’s comment was anything special, and he was just doing what politicians do. Nothing to see here – move along. Gerry Butts, Mr. Trudeau’s principal secretary, started tweeting examples of NDP Leader Tom Mulcair and Mr. Harper saying they wanted a majority, and then that hockey players want to score goals, too.
But context matters in politics. It’s one thing for Mr. Mulcair to say he wants a majority to buck up the troops, hoping to make them feel like he still has a shot at winning. It would have been an anodyne way for Mr. Trudeau to rebut questions about coalitions when he was in third place back in August. But now that a shiny, grinning Mr. Trudeau is caravanning through opponents’ ridings, ahead in the polls, it’s very different. That makes asking for a majority look like you expect to win, and want to win big. It can seem like the Liberals are getting giddy, or arrogant. So why say it at all? It’s worth noting that Mr. Trudeau was campaigning in Hamilton and said it in French. It was in an answer to a reporter’s question, but Mr. Trudeau, who has turned cautious since he became the front-runner, has proved he’s capable of responding to a question without ever coming anywhere near answering it – as he did on Wednesday when asked about a possible coalition. He did answer about a majority: “Am I asking for a majority government? Yes.”
It seems likely Mr. Trudeau was targeting the point at Quebec, where the Liberals face a different political dynamic than they do in Ontario, where they are far ahead.
In Quebec, Mr. Trudeau is running slightly behind the NDP, according to most polls, but the party’s vote is traditionally concentrated among anglophones and ethnic communities in the Montreal area. A modest boost among francophone voters could see the Liberals suddenly pick up a lot more seats.
Asking for a majority is one way to tell Quebeckers he’s best placed to beat Mr. Harper and the Conservatives – and appeal to them to help him do it. Quebec is the province where Mr. Harper’s negative ratings are the highest, after all. And as it happens, Mr. Trudeau will be campaigning in Quebec ridings on Thursday.
But it is taking a chance with an appeal that’s gone wrong before. It did for Mr. Harper in 2004. Less than two weeks before the election, with polls showing him pulling ahead of Liberal PM Paul Martin, Mr. Harper’s talk of majority rekindled qualms that he harboured a social-conservative “hidden agenda” – also fuelled by comments made by Conservative backbenchers – and Mr. Martin won. After that, Mr. Harper usually tried to play down talk of majority until the 2011 election, when he argued a majority would stop the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois from forming a coalition.
Mr. Trudeau, of course, doesn’t have the hidden-agenda label. But it’s still a risk. There remain potential Liberal voters who aren’t convinced he’s a prime minister, who might pull back at the thought he’d have a four-year majority. Perhaps this time, Mr. Trudeau felt it was worth the risk.