The old English proverb says: “Honesty is the best policy.”
By Scott Munnoch, Temple Scott Associates
In the political arena, where public scrutiny has always been in the forefront and where modern-day communication tools make accessibility an open book, that old proverb has never been more important to follow than today.
Last week’s blackface revelations – which played internationally – were an embarrassment for the Prime Minister that caused an immediate drop in Liberal polling numbers. While the PM may have hoped these pictures would never see the light of day, their surprise publication caused his party’s entire campaign to grind to a halt, literally. It was a gotcha moment – which could have been eliminated by some prior difficult but more strategic honesty.
Last Wednesday came the first “blackface” photo, from 2001. Then there was an admission of a second. And within hours, Global TV News produced a third piece with a similar costume but at yet another event. In subsequent scrums with the media, Trudeau left open the question of whether or not there are more damaging photos by refusing to directly answer reporter’s questions on the subject.
Some media used the word “racist” while others offered kinder and more plausible explanations. Regardless of any label, the Liberal tour cancelled events, sat on the ground in Winnipeg and only managed a single media scrum to try and ice the rapidly rising temperature.
Opposition leaders were quick to condemn as could be expected. It was NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh who spoke most effectively, however, describing growing up as a member of a visible minority, wearing a turban, and being harassed in school and on the streets. He nicely put it in personal perspective that voters could understand and yet was not political at all. And he left voters wondering if the Liberal Leader is who he really said he was – a damaging position for the Prime Minister.
The Liberal party tried to change the channel on the news story with announcements on the banning of assault rifles and a proposal for expanded pharmacare. We expect that Liberal party strategists know that if any further photo or video appears, it could be disastrous for the campaign.
The all-candidate debates coming up in October will now be crucial and will give the Opposition leaders a national platform to target the Liberal Leader on his integrity – an issue no politician wants in question.
The campaigns are likely to get nastier in the days ahead. The Conservatives and the NDP will continue to attack the Liberal leader’s character - not as a racist, but as a Leader who can’t be trusted. The Liberals will fight back and we should all look for stronger attacks against Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer as a “Harper clone” and expanded efforts to link Scheer and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose leadership numbers are low. In fact, yesterday in a speech in the Niagara region of Ontario, Trudeau mentioned Ford’s name more than a dozen times.
Interestingly, the polls are offering little in the way of clarity. Following a couple of days of single digit drop for the Liberals, this morning the overnight tracking polls have returned to roughly where they were a week ago, before the blackface photographs appeared. Have voters dismissed this? We will see in the days to come, but it seems that at the very least, the election has been shaken up. It’s tough now to say that people aren’t paying attention – they are. The challenge for all parties must now be to move on, either by defending yourself or challenging the frontrunner.
And so, with 27 days to go, this campaign is very different than the campaign of a week ago. Tactics have had to change and strategies have been massaged following the revelation that the Liberal leader wore a costume in poor taste 18 years ago.
Politics is a blood sport at times – and it’s worse when you’re trying to hide from moments in your past!
