Federal party leaders stake out political turf ahead of Parliament’s return

Open this photo in gallery:

Justin Trudeau called on his MPs to rally together to confront the country’s economic and health care crises, as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the Prime Minister has already missed the mark and should get out of the way.

In competing speeches to their caucuses on Parliament Hill on Friday, the two leaders set the agendas for their parties heading into the winter sitting of Parliament and disparaged their opponents – a sign of the tone to come in the House of Commons.

According to Mr. Trudeau, the Conservative Leader exploits people’s anger and fears and twists facts for personal gain. Mr. Poilievre said the Prime Minister turns a blind eye to people’s suffering and dodges responsibility while leaving the country worse off.

Apart from the blistering attacks, both leaders focused much of their speeches on the same issue: the rising cost of living that is pushing households to the brink.

“These are difficult times,” Mr. Trudeau said at the outset of his speech, which struck a sombre tone. He rolled out a new slogan for the governing Liberals: “Meet the moment.” The Prime Minister repeated the phrase several times, urging his MPs to rise to the challenge of strained health care systems and pinched pocketbooks.

“These are difficult times, but that’s why our Liberal team has decided to work even harder,” Mr. Trudeau said, promising a future with secure jobs, “where everyone has a real and fair chance of success.”

John Ibbitson: Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre need to stop insulting each other

Mr. Poilievre made a similar pitch, speaking of a country where it doesn’t matter who you know, but rather what you can do. But the Conservative Leader struck a much more aggressive tone than Mr. Trudeau, launching into a scorching assessment of the Prime Minister’s tenure. He mentioned the country’s crime rates, its rising cost of living, its drug overdoses and its chaotic airports.

“Everything feels broken,” Mr. Poilievre said, adding the Prime Minister “gets very angry when I talk about these problems. He thinks that if we don’t speak about them out loud that Canadians will forget that they exist.”

While lobbyists and consultants have “never had it so good,” Mr. Poilievre said, other people are suffering. “There is pain in the faces you do not see,” he added, addressing Mr. Trudeau, who was not present.

Last year, The Globe and Mail reported that the total value of federal outsourcing contracts had climbed 74 per cent since Mr. Trudeau took office, from $8.1-billion in 2015 to $14.7-billion in 2022.

Turning one of Mr. Trudeau’s past slogans against him, Mr. Poilievre said: “You told us that ‘better was always possible.’ And yet everything is worse, and you blame everyone else.”

For his part, the Prime Minister lambasted Mr. Poilievre for pushing cryptocurrencies, which the Conservative Leader had championed as an investment that would help people “opt out of inflation,” just months before the crypto crash.

Mr. Trudeau also defended his government’s record, saying new child care spending means that higher mortgage payments are being offset by lower daycare costs, and that spending on the clean economy is creating new jobs.

Mr. Trudeau said the Liberal vision “could not be more different” from that of “politicians like Mr. Poilievre, who have no real solutions to offer, and who just try to exploit the anger and concerns that people do have.”

“It’s just plain wrong when you twist the facts, or make things up for political gain. That’s not responsible leadership,” he said of Mr. Poilievre.

Heading into the second year of his second minority government, Mr. Trudeau also floated the prospect of another election, telling his MPs to be “ready for anything.”

Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, said the Conservative Leader is already more polarizing than his predecessors were at the same times in their tenures. Mr. Poilievre has significant negatives among key voting demographics, including women and Quebeckers, she said.

Polling on the different leaders’ characteristics shows just how polarizing both Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Poilievre are, Ms. Kurl added. Liberal voters view the Conservative Leader the same way Conservative voters view the Liberal Leader. “It’s like they’re on different planets,” she said.

For example, polling released by her firm last year showed that Conservatives describe Mr. Trudeau as arrogant, dishonest and uncaring. Meanwhile, Liberals describe Mr. Poilievre as arrogant, bullying and dishonest.

Polling released Friday by Leger for the Canadian Press showed the Liberals and Conservatives tied at 34-per-cent vote intention, the NDP sitting in third at 19 per cent and the Bloc Québécois at 7 per cent.

Neither Mr. Trudeau nor Mr. Poilievre mentioned NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at all in their speeches. Mr. Singh ended the week in Victoria, where he told reporters he had heard from people feeling squeezed on housing costs and unable to access health care.

He said more health care workers need to be recruited, properly compensated and trained. And he said expanding for-profit health care services, as Ontario and Alberta have proposed doing, will only exacerbate staffing shortages.

“While the Prime Minister has been applauding private, for-profit delivery in Ontario, and not taking the crisis seriously, the Conservative Leader, Pierre Poilievre, has also been cheering on the privatization and for-profit clinics that make things worse,” Mr. Singh said.