It seems a little early for the kitchen sink.
But Justin Trudeau and his Liberals saw an opportunity, however slim, to attack Conservatives on abortion – and they grasped at it.
Abortion is one of the holy trinity of explosive issues that the Liberals lob at the Tories in every election campaign, along with guns and privatization of health care. But usually they wait until late in the writ period before they reach for those weapons.
Apparently, Canadian politics has jumped 17 months ahead of schedule.
Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals have already presented what looked like a pre-election budget and PR campaign. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is dodging questions like a front-runner on such simple topics as whether civil servants should go to the office three days a week. The NDP is testing new slogans attacking not the governing party but the leading Conservatives.
We‘ve skipped ahead to a low-energy version of the stupid stages of election campaigns. Hyperbolic abortion politicking is a telltale indicator.
Mr. Poilievre has worked to shield himself against that, declaring unequivocally that a government he leads would not legislate on abortion. Still, it’s no shock that the Liberals are trying to chip away at that. It’s just a surprise that they are doing it so soon.
Marci Ien, the Liberal government’s Minister for Women and Gender Equality, got the ball rolling a couple of weeks ago. She pointed to Mr. Poilievre’s assertion that he would use the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to deny parole to murderers and argued that the Conservative Leader might also use it to criminalize abortion.
That was a stretch. But at least a few days later, the Liberals could point to a pair of Conservative MPs who are against abortion, Arnold Viersen and Cathay Wagantall, who spoke about the cause to the annual March for Life on Parliament Hill.
But it was the closing of an abortion clinic in New Brunswick, where the Progressive Conservative provincial government of Premier Blaine Higgs only funds abortion services in hospitals, that had Mr. Trudeau warning of an across-the-board Conservative threat to abortion rights. He asserted that the erosion of abortion rights seen in the United States is likely to happen here in Canada because Conservatives won’t stand up for women.
This is hardly a debate based on pure facts, but it’s worth noting that there is no federal abortion law in Canada for a court to overturn, and Mr. Poilievre has said he won’t pass one. It’s still fair game to question whether he’d alter some policies to placate anti-abortion MPs – former prime minister Stephen Harper cut foreign aid to organizations that perform abortions – but he has ruled out legislation.
One reason why the Liberals usually wait till the writ period before campaigning on abortion is that it’s not so much about policy difference but about raising doubts over whether Conservatives share the mindset of most ordinary Canadians on issues they consider crucial, notably abortion, guns and public health care.
Mr. Trudeau’s party is now so far behind in polls – 20 percentage points behind the Conservatives, according to the latest Nanos Research survey – that they worry about being left for dead. They have to fear that even a weak NDP might trigger an election one day. They’ll take any short-term foothold they can find.
The centrepiece of their April budget – an increase in the inclusion rate for capital-gains taxes sold as a tax-the-rich “fairness” measure – is something Mr. Trudeau’s team would probably have turned down as too politically risky two years ago.
But now, instead of plotting strategy to win an election with 34 per cent of the vote in the fall of 2025, they are grasping for ways to climb to 28 per cent in the polls in a couple of months.
They’ve tried big spending announcements to boost homebuilding, promising to help younger Canadians financially, selling the tax changes as a matter of social justice – and watched and watched for the polls to move.
When they saw a chance to attack the Conservatives on abortion, they threw in the kitchen sink.