Acrimony between leaders on display

Days before Parliament resumes, campaign posturing highlights potential for a snap election

- TONDA MACCHARLES

OTTAWA It’s not like they were ever besties. Yet Wednesday’s campaign posturing and promises by Canada’s federal leaders showcased the tone and tenor of an ever more fractious Parliament that could tip into an election campaign any time.

Days before the House of Commons returns for the fall sitting, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh each went before cameras and claimed their main concern is bettering the lot of Canadians, as they traded accusations of pettiness, childishness and peddling in falsehoods.

First up, on Parliament Hill, was Poilievre, slightly hoarse due to “a strangely timed cold.” He taunted his rivals, saying he would bring down the Trudeau government “at the earliest possible opportunity” — a prospect more possible with the death of the NDP-Liberal cooperation deal that had propped up Trudeau’s minority government for more than two years.

In French, Poilievre demanded the Bloc Québécois get on board with his call for an immediate “carbon tax election” — which Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet had explicitly rejected a day earlier. The Bloc says it would play ball with any party that would give Quebec more powers, money and say over its own affairs.

Switching to English, Poilievre dropped all references to the Bloc and replaced them with Singh’s NDP, mispronouncing the New Democrat leader’s name nearly six years after Singh entered the Commons (it’s pronounced “Jug-meet,” not “Jag-meet”). Poilievre doubled down on calling him a “sellout” to the Liberals, and demanded Singh declare an intention to support Conservatives in voting non-confidence in the Liberals.