It may be the fuel for the campaign machine that Justin Trudeau's Liberals have spent the past several years constructing. Or it may be the dynamite that blows it up.
When Mr. Trudeau set himself apart from other federal leaders by announcing on Thursday that he would run deficits for the next four years to fund a massive infrastructure program, he for better or worse addressed the big criticism of his election effort even members of his own party have raised: that despite an improved ability to make their case to Canadians, it hasn't been easy to explain exactly what that case is.
To talk to Liberals working on the ground recently has been to hear virtually unanimous praise for the way Mr. Trudeau and his team have rebuilt the organization of their party. The biggest volunteer base in the Liberals' modern history has been recruited and trained. Fundraising operations have finally been modernized. Candidate recruitment, notwithstanding the odd controversy, has been strong. The collection and analysis of voter data may now surpass what the pioneering Conservatives have. Communication between party headquarters and local campaigns is better than most Liberals can remember it.
The performance of Mr. Trudeau himself, about which there were enormous questions coming into this campaign, has also generally received good reviews of late. By performing competently in the first leaders' debate and generating nice-looking television clips at high-energy tour events, he has quieted internal dissent that was brewing as recently as July.
None of that much matters, though, if there isn't a coherent message the leader and his party are selling. And it took Mr. Trudeau a long time to land on one.
The lead that the Liberals enjoyed in the polls until early this year helped with organization-building, especially attracting candidates. But it also contributed to stasis, as they tried to play it safe during a period they could have used to better define their leader and his agenda.
Risk aversion led to positions, most notably quasi-support for the Conservatives' anti-terror legislation, the Liberals would come to regret. And as they held off on fleshing out their own policies, it meant their pitch was about the possibility of change more than what that change would entail.
When they were the only party that seemed to have a realistic chance of replacing a Conservative government unpopular with about two-thirds of voters, and the leader's youthful charm was working in their favour, that made some sense. When Thomas Mulcair's New Democrats suddenly surged ahead of them in the polls, as Mr. Trudeau's image as a fresh face was battered by Conservative attack ads, it became less clear what the Liberals were offering.
The unveiling in May of their plan to increase taxes on the rich to fund middle-class tax cuts and benefits began to address that, but it was muddled. The Liberals inexplicably announced that pledge on the day before Alberta's election, which overshadowed it. They wrongly guessed the Conservatives would take the bait by staunchly defending high-income earners. The television ad with which they initially touted their proposal was too soft-focus. As some of their candidates privately concede, the various proposed changes to tax and benefit programs – unlike, say, the NDP's $15-per-day child-care promise – proved challenging to concisely explain to voters.
Coming out of this week, though, it would be difficult to accuse the Liberals of not offering an alternative governing vision. Paired with their proposed tax shift (which they have begun to explain more digestibly), their embrace of running deficits to fund transit and housing and "green" infrastructure projects offers a sharp contrast – not just to the Conservatives, but also to an NDP promising consistently balanced budgets.
Mr. Trudeau's top officials insist the infrastructure commitment was crafted many months ago. But they say the way the NDP is trying to reassure voters, now that it's the party trying to protect a lead, has led them to "sharpen" their message by contrasting their willingness to run deficits with the NDP's alleged austerity.
The obvious reference point for what the Liberals are doing is last year's Ontario election, when Kathleen Wynne's winning campaign involved expressing more ambition for the role of government than did the NDP. But whereas that Ontario campaign saw the Liberals rallying left-of-centre voters behind them to stop the Progressive Conservatives, Mr. Trudeau's team sees this contest differently.
They argue that with the Conservatives having had a rough first few weeks of this campaign, their vote is on the verge of collapsing to the extent there is an NDP-Liberal fight for power. Or, if not quite that, a murky three-way race in which voter allegiances to any of the three parties are soft, and Mr. Trudeau is able to emerge as the only leader seen to be levelling with voters about what he believes needs to be done.
Clearly, what they are pitching still involves targeting Liberal-NDP swing voters above others. Mr. Trudeau's advisers acknowledge that as long as Mr. Mulcair's party has a significant lead in the polls, its supporters will overlook its alleged shift from its traditional values. The Liberals hope is that if that lead starts to erode, more and more change-seekers will be put off by the NDP's caution – a strange sort of reverse of what happened earlier this year.
There is a decent chance the Liberals' strategy will backfire on them. Their seemingly out-of-the-blue embrace of deficits and claims of NDP austerity could make them look desperate. Existing concerns about Mr. Trudeau being the riskiest of the major-party leaders could be reinforced. Suddenly veering to the left on economic issues, after appearing more centrist previously and alienating some left-leaning voters on C-51, may only add to confusion about what sort of prime minister he would be.
But at least the Liberals now have a discernible strategy. All their work on a ground game will serve them well if they're on the verge of winning a lot of seats on Oct. 19. We're about to find out if their new message gets them closer to making good use of that machine, or makes it a moot point.
Adam Radwanski