Sunday, October 20, 2019
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
It was a bit of Trudeaumania for the party faithful this Sunday night in Victoria. Over 300 people mingled for a few hours awaiting Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to arrive at the Bard and Banker Pub downtown.
Trudeau’s intended arrival through the front entrance to make his way through the guests to the microphone was altered at the last minute due to protesters gathered outside on Government Street. But once he was inside it was a happy moment for everyone who had worked so hard on the campaigns of south Vancouver Island Liberal candidates.
On the stairs rising behind Trudeau were Victoria candidate Nikki MacDonald, Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke candidate Jamie Hammond, Cowichan-Malahat-Langford candidate Blair Herbert, Saanich and the Gulf Island candidate Ryan Windsor, and Nanaimo-Ladysmith candidate Michelle Corfield.
Amidst cheers and over and above the loud upbeat pop music, Trudeau appeared a bit tired but seemed to absorb energy as he reached for people in the crowd. The upbeat energy of his arrival and his 10-minute unscripted speech seemed a moment etched in time, this last night of an unusually fractured 40-day campaign that at times was lacklustre and at other times punctured by dramatic twists for the 47-year-old leader.
Only four years ago in the 2015 election campaign he seemed young and energetic. Now after four years as prime minister, travelling the world, and dealing with complex international relations, the journey has introduced more maturity to his presentation but his sense of a vision for people still stands out and inspires his team.
Tonight Trudeau thanked the candidates and volunteers. He said it was “especially poignant to end this extraordinary campaign” where it began, in Victoria, after “so many challenges and great moments right across the country having conversations with people about the kind of future we’re going to build.”
The island was an important part of his childhood and he brings his family back here every summer “because you have such an incredible corner of the country”, said Trudeau to the crowd. “I can’t imagine a better place to wrap up this campaign with all of you tonight as we ‘Choose Forward’.”
People held and waved signs with “Choose Forward” and the names of the various south island candidates. Supporters ranged widely in age, from young to old.
He continued: “It’s worth thinking about how we got here. In 2015 we made a choice as a country to pull together and pick a better government — to invest in people, invest in communities, invest in families and in the future and to fight climate change. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. Canadians came together and said enough to Stephen Harper’s cuts and to his approach that lacked ambition for the country and lacked vision for future generations,” said Trudeau.
“We pulled together and we made a very different choice and it’s worked out for Canadians over the past four years. We created more than a million new jobs — most of them full time — and the lowest unemployment in 40 years. The important part of that is that we lifted 900,000 people out of poverty.” On that last point there was huge applause and a spontaneous chant of “four more years”.
“You get it,” said Trudeau. “That we can’t just create economic growth through cutting. If you have economic growth without giving opportunities for everyone to succeed it doesn’t count for anything. We’re just getting started.”
Trudeau talked about stepping up the fight against climate change, saying the Liberals have put in place a “pan-Canadian framework” to fight climate change. “The entire country is following BC’s lead with a price on pollution, right across the country,” he said, adding it was done “over the objections of Conservative politicians who haven’t wanted to do anything in the fight against climate change.” And added: “But that is the issue of this campaign.”
Then as he told this next bit, the room fell completely silent: “It all came to a head for me yesterday in one of the ridings. One of our MPs passed along a story about a small business owner who had always voted Conservative, calling himself a fiscal conservative. But for this election the fellow “turned over his vote” to his 13-year-old daughter. “He reflected on what this election means for her future. This election isn’t about him, it’s about her and he’s voting Liberal for the first time in his life, ” said Trudeau.
“We need to do more, and we are going to do more in the fight against climate change.” He said a Liberal government will “keep stepping up, keep innovating, keep protecting our environment, fighting climate change and growing the economy… and creating good jobs for our kids and future.”
He talked about transforming our society to be net zero by 2050 and working through it by pulling together a “strong progressive government that will be able to push back effectively against Jason Kenney and Doug Ford and those provincial premiers who don’t want to do anything”.
With a sense of camaraderie to a like-minded audience, he tossed out that “it sort of boggles the mind” that the Conservative leader “decided to make doing nothing on climate change the core of his approach in this election”. Said Trudeau: “Canadians across the country say they want to do more. But the Conservatives are choosing to pull us backwards. That makes no sense.”
“We have demonstrated over the past four years that the way to create the kind of economic growth that Stephen Harper couldn’t see for 10 years — the way to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty — the way to create opportunities for small businesses, to engage successfully in the world — is to invest in people. And that’s exactly what we’ve done,” the Liberal leader said to the attentive crowd.
And with a nod to NDP and Greens in particular — with whom after the election he may have to collaborate in a minority government, but still claiming the top role: “There are a number of parties alongside us wanting to do more on climate change and investing in families, and that’s a good thing. But we don’t just need a progressive opposition, we need a strong progressive government.”
Trudeau wrapped up with a final pitch against the Conservatives. “Andrew Scheer seems to want to make you think this election is about me. This election isn’t about me, it’s about you, it’s about Canadians, and our future.”
Given the throng of media in the room, the details were light but the message clearly understood by the room full of people who know full well that October 21 will be a long hard day of ‘getting out the vote’: “Call your friends. Get out with any of these candidates. Mobilize the vote, make sure the Liberals and progressives get out to vote. Show we are a country that is ambitious and looking towards the future, and remember tomorrow night to ‘choose forward’. Merci tous le monde.
By the time supporters left the pub, most of the protesters had gone home.