‘Trump takes personal things personally:’ Liberal strategy to compare Poilievre with Trump 'desperate,' and a 'delicate dance' that could backfire, say political players

Slumping in public support and dealing with second guessing from the backbench in his own caucus, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's strategy to make unflattering comparisons between former U.S. president Donald Trump and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is “desperate,” and could backfire if Trumps returns to the White House, say political players. “You're dealing with a person on the other side of the border, who, first of all, doesn't have a good impression of the prime minister as has been reported widely in the media,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs. “And, secondly, it's not like you can put up a dome over the top of Canada and people in the United States aren't seeing what's going on. So it's a very delicate dance. This is a president who takes these kinds of personal things personally.” Both inside and outside of the House of Commons, Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) has called the Poilievre's (Carleton, Ont.) party “MAGA Conservatives,” referring to Trump slogan "Make America Great Again." The Liberals have published videos featuring images of Poilievre beside pictures of Trump, and comparing the rhetoric of the two. In year-end interviews, Trudeau also suggested indirectly that if Poilievre were to become prime minister, he could be a threat to the freedoms of women and to the LGBTQ+ community. The Pierre Poilievre Conservatives are leading the Liberals by a double digit margins. The Liberal attempts to portray Poilievre as Trump-esque is "desperate," and is unlikely to work, says pollster Nik Nanos. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade This November, Americans will go to the polls to elect their new president. Based on the current political primaries, it appears Trump will easily win the Republican nomination and will face off against incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden. Based on Trump’s first presidency, it’s also clear that Trump is not a big fan of Trudeau. Following the conclusion of the G7 meeting in Quebec in 2018, Trump called Trudeau “dishonest and weak” after the prime minister expressed his disappointment publicly on the U.S. decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from Canada, Mexico and the European Union. In a separate incident in 2019, the U.S. president at the time called the prime minister “two-faced” when Trudeau was caught on a live mic with other world leaders chatting about the NATO meeting in London taking a shot at Trump’s lengthy press conferences. Bricker said he thinks the Liberal strategy of comparing Trump with Poilievre is aimed to put out a narrative to convince left-of-centre voters that the Conservative leader is “scary,” and to rally them to Trudeau. Bricker noted that the Liberals have used this strategy several times in the past, with mixed results. “On paper, it seems like a good idea, but the problem that we've got is we've got a prime minister with an eight or nine-year record,” said Bricker. “He’s so personally closely identified with his party and with his government that if you're asking for a referendum on Donald Trump versus Justin Trudeau, one of them has a direct effect on Canadians and the other one doesn't. But I can see the wisdom of it in terms of strategy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.” Bricker and others interviewed for this article said that the reason why the Liberals are trying to link Poilievre with Trump is that they have been behind in the polls by double-digit margins for months, and the trendline is not changing. It appears the Liberals don’t have too much with which to go after Poilievre. Greg Lyle, president of Innovative Research, said the Liberals are down in public support, and they’re being “desperate” in painting Poilievre as Trump-esque. He said that this is a calculated risk that the Liberals should be very careful in taking. “They’re desperate,” said Lyle. “The bottom line is that their back is against the wall politically. Clearly, it's not a good thing in terms of Canada-U.S. relations. Trump may notice that Trudeau and his team are using his name in vain. And he may take offence, as you know he has in the past. So it's a calculated risk they're taking.” At last week’s three-day cabinet retreat in Montreal, Trudeau announced the creation of a "Team Canada" approach in coming up with a strategy to smoothly run Canada’s relations with its largest trading partner. Trudeau has assigned Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.); International Trade Minister Mary Ng (Markham-Thornhill, Ont.), and Canada’s Ambassador to the United States Kirsten Hillman to work with stakeholders in the public and private sector, and to come up with a strategy to deal with whomever Americans elect as their next president. After Trump was elected president in 2016, he renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada, and imposed tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel. His unpredictable personality and protectionist “America-First” approach put thousands of Canadian jobs and trade worth billions of dollars in jeopardy. Donald Trump is expected to win the Republican Party nomination handily. If that were to happen, he would face off against incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden. Photograph courtesy of Flickr In an interview with The Hill Times, Champagne said the Liberals handled the relationship between the two countries skilfully in the first Trump presidency, and said if Trump is elected again, the government will be ready. Champagne said no matter who gets elected as the next American president, the Liberal government would work with them. “We've been there before. Canadians should take comfort that they have a team who’s done that before, we've been there. We have with the Trump administration,” Champagne told The Hill Times at the retreat in Montreal. “So whatever administration there might be in the United States, it is … in both nations' best interests to maintain these trade corridors because millions of jobs depend on our relationship.” Scott Reid, a former senior adviser to then-prime minister Paul Martin, told CTV News last week that Trudeau's description of Trump as "unpredictable" at the cabinet retreat last week was accurate. Reid said if Trump gets elected, it will affect relations with all western countries, and Canada has to be ready. Reid said the "Team Canada" approach outlined by Trudeau is a step in the right direction, and that Poilievre should be asked about his strategy to deal with Trump should the Conservative leader become prime minister. "Are we to believe that just because you're closer ideologically to Trump that means that you would sail through? I don't think so," said Reid. "I don't think Canadians will think so. So I think this is all smart and quite strategic, frankly, on the part of the Liberal government." Nik Nanos, president of Nanos Research, said that the Liberals have to tread a fine line as their current strategy of using Trump to go after their main opponent may not go over well with the American public who might take offence that a foreign country is criticizing one of their popular leaders. Second, he said, Trump was a “difficult” president to deal with the first time he got elected. Things could become worse if he is elected again, and could hold the Liberal attacks against the prime minister. Nanos said that the Liberals don’t need to engage in comparisons between Trump and Poilievre as the ongoing presidential campaign will most likely generate a lot of news about the expected Republican candidate, and people will learn about it regardless. “This basically shows how much the Liberals really don't like Pierre Poilievre, and that they are trying to do anything to try to unsettle or change the trendline that currently favours the Conservatives,” said Nanos. “He's defined himself as being more in line with the views of what he thinks are average Canadians. He's focused on the cost of living, he hasn't changed his opinions on the trucker's convoy, he hasn't changed his opinions on vaccinations. And these things are already baked into his numbers because there's no revelation.” In recent weeks, the Trudeau Liberals have dealt with one crisis after another that has constrained their ability to show Canadians what they’re doing to deal with issues like affordability and cost of living, among others, which are the real reasons why people have turned against Trudeau, Nanos said. On the last day of the cabinet retreat, the federal court issued a verdict that the Trudeau government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to handle the Freedom Convoy was not reasonable. This development overshadowed the government’s plans to share with Canadians what their plans are going forward to help Canadians in dealing with their daily struggles. A day before the start of the national caucus retreat in Ottawa last Wednesday, CBC reported that Liberal MP Ken McDonald (Avalon, N.L.) said that the Liberal Party should hold a leadership review of Trudeau. A day after the story came out, McDonald walked his comments, suggesting they were taken out of context. At least one other Liberal MP also expressed his willingness to be open to a discussion about a leadership review, and a second MP declined to comment about it. At the same time, a significant number of MPs said they wanted Trudeau to lead the party in the next election. Nanos said that after McDonald’s public statement, caucus management will be a challenge for Trudeau, and there might be more MPs who share the same views, but who have not spoken publicly. He added that the tanking polling numbers and some MPs calling for the leadership review could make other MPs nervous about losing their seats which is not a good sign for party unity. “If a party is not united behind its leader it doesn't usually win elections because people think if people within the Liberal Party are divided—or for that matter, people within the Conservative Party are divided—then why should they be given a mandate to run the country when people within their own party are not unified in terms of the leader?” said Nanos. “So Justin Trudeau has to to be very sensitive to this because if a narrative emerges that there's a noticeable number of members in the Liberal Members in the House of Commons that would like to see some type of leadership review, that just won't bode well, because why should Canadians have confidence if there are people in his own caucus that don't have confidence in his leadership?” arana@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

‘Trump takes personal things personally:’ Liberal strategy to compare Poilievre with Trump ‘desperate,’ and a ‘delicate dance’ that could backfire, say political players

Between now and November, Donald Trump is going to make a lot of news, so the Liberals don’t need to publicly link Pierre Poilievre with the former U.S. president, says pollster Nik Nanos.

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