O’Toole And Trudeau Neck-And-Neck Rounding The Clubhouse Turn

His media honeymoon might be over

In an attempt to build a new wedge issue, Trudeau took a sternly divisive approach last weekend, claiming “we choose the rights of Canadians who got vaccinated, he chooses anti-vaxxers!” He also claimed to be against labeling people as it is an impediment to “moving forward”, while in the same breath lumping “anti-vaxxers” as people with “misogynistic beliefs”.

As for the CPC approach, O’Toole told Global News, “I think we haven’t been doing a good enough job telling people how they’re safe and effective for use… there are some Canadians that have questions, you have to build trust. You aren’t going to build that trust by pushing people away, by attacking.” By mid-week he had refined his message for an audience in Russell, Ontario, saying that a leader who calls a snap election during a health crisis “is not a person you can trust.”

Trudeau also harangued the Globe and Mail for publishing a scathing excerpt from a new book by former Attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould in which she alleged Trudeau tried to influence her to lie to avert a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavelin for bribery and corruption. Denying he had “told” her to lie (which is not what she alleges happened), Trudeau continued to refuse to allow RCMP investigators full access to related documents. (By the end of the week, Trudeau had to answer questions about his own book when it was learned it was republished by a China-controlled company after his election as PM in 2015. “Former foreign policy and security advisers to the PM say they were not consulted on the arrangement, and would have advised Trudeau to reject the deal,” said a Globe and Mail story.) 

An increasingly sceptical press corps has rattled Trudeau since the debate, with him stumbling badly on Saturday after a CTV reporter asked him to account for the rise in hate since he became Prime Minister. The next day he was on the wrong end of an exchange as a sit-down TV interview on Global BC with host Neetu Garcha in Vancouver didn’t go according to (his) script.

The 12 minute discussion touched on housing, reconciliation, Quebec’s Bill 21, feminism and Afghanistan and he was challenged on many of his previous commitments going unfulfilled. As Garcha wrapped up the session, Trudeau interjected, “Wait – this is an election on big things that we didn’t get to talk about, we didn’t talk about the pandemic, we didn’t talk about climate change… this is what people care about in BC!”

Garcha pointed out that Global reporters across the country had been refused interviews about “a range of topics and you have denied the request.”