he title of the budget tabled this month by federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland leaves no room for ambiguity. Unlike the 2023 budget, flatly titled “A Canadian Plan”, this year’s document bears a title that is intended to be catchy among younger voters, on whom Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are counting to get them out of trouble before the next election . “A fair chance for every generation,” reads the cover, which provides a taste of the billions the Trudeau government is promising to invest in the name of intergenerational fairness.
While the word “millennials” does not appear once in the 2023 budget, this year’s budget contains no less than 17 references to the generation of Canadians born between 1981 and 1996. Ditto for “generation Z”. No mention in 2023 compared to 21 this year. “Having a fair chance to build a good life in the middle class – to succeed as well as your parents, or better – that is the promise of Canada,” it says. For too many people, especially young Canadians, this promise is at risk. We have a plan to rectify the situation. »
The merciless verdict of the voters
However, M’s sauceme Freeland doesn’t take it. All the polls published this week in the wake of the budget came to the same conclusion. Liberal efforts to win back the hearts of millennials are falling flat. And members of Gen Z of voting age are even less inclined to support the party of
Mr. Trudeau than their elders. According to an Angus Reid poll released Thursday, barely 12% of voters aged 18 to 24 and only 13% of those aged 25 to 34 support the Liberals. It is now among the oldest Canadians, aged 65 and over, that the Liberals obtain their best score (32%).
What’s more, the voters’ verdict on the budget is unforgiving. Despite the billions promised for the construction of housing and to help tenants, only 10% of respondents to an Ipsos survey said they expected to benefit “personally” from the budget, while 37% said it would harm them.
If the Liberals were counting on the increase in taxes on capital gains to rally left-wing voters, they are losing the media battle, with critics of this flagship budget measure coming out in droves to denounce its negative effects on private investment and productivity. It is unlikely that the announcement this week of a 15 billion investment by Honda and its partners for the construction of four factories intended for the production of electric vehicles and their components will change the situation. Despite announcements of new Volkswagen and Stellantis factories in St. Thomas and Windsor respectively, the Conservatives dominate in voting intentions in the ridings of southwestern Ontario.
A blatant lack of judgment
For Justin Trudeau, nothing works. This perhaps explains why the Prime Minister changed tactics this week by directly attacking Mr. Poilievre, who himself returned to his less good old habit of courting right-wing extremists by stopping to greet opponents of the federal carbon tax who camped on the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In a video of the meeting, we see Mr. Poilievre declaring about Mr. Trudeau: “All he says is rubbish bullshit from beginning to end. » He also encouraged the demonstrators, some of whom had participated in the Freedom Convoy against health measures at the start of 2023, to “hold on”.
Mr. Trudeau could hardly ignore this blatant lack of judgment on the part of the leader of the official opponent. But the insistence with which he spoke of Mr. Poilievre’s bad company suggested a premeditated decision to go for the jugular. “Mr. Poilievre has chosen to be a politician who seeks division, fear, and to encourage right-wing extremists,” he insisted during a press briefing in the suburbs of Toronto. Mr. Poilievre chose to be negative, divisive
and toxic. »
The Conservatives’ lead in the polls stems mainly from Canadians’ weariness with Mr. Trudeau. After almost nine years, they want a change of government. But would they be ready to entrust the reins of power to a conservative leader who courts extremists and uses the same vulgar and angry language as a certain Donald Trump? For the moment, it seems so. But Mr. Trudeau can still hope that ordinary Canadians will eventually find Mr. Poilievre’s behavior excessive and unbecoming of an aspiring prime minister.
Visiting last month Everybody talks about it, the former mayor of Quebec Régis Labeaume put forward this argument. “I think Mr. Poilievre can help Justin because he has a big lead in the polls and he continues to be an idiot, saying a lot of stupid things, when he should be careful,” he said under the look of Mr. Trudeau himself.
Indeed, the Liberal leader must hope that Mr. Poilievre will continue to be faithful… to himself. It could even become his secret weapon. And perhaps, at this point, his only weapon.