October 19, 2019

Thoughts on a Campaign That Failed to Inspire

By Ian Austen

Canada's size and its sparsely settled population make national political leaders' campaign sometimes an exercise in logistics as much as politics.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau at an Ottawa rally for Liberal party volunteers.Ian Austen/The New York Times

Along with my colleague Dan Bilefsky, I began traveling around to report on the vote long before the official campaign started, when summer was still in full force. Now with a wintry chill in the air in much of the country — and full-on winter having visited Manitoba — it's finally coming to a close.

The campaign has been exceptionally static. The Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Conservatives under the party leader Andrew Scheer are still deadlocked in a statistical tie going into the final hours of campaigning. The plausible outcomes on Monday include some in which it is unclear who will govern — something that promises to elevate the public profile of constitutional law scholars.

It's been an ugly sort of election. At a time when the environment and climate change have squeezed out traditional economic issues at the top of voters' concerns, there's been little substance offered about it by most campaigns, except that of the Green Party leader Elizabeth May. Instead, debates and campaign stops, particularly for the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal parties, have been marked by demonizing each other.

The Conservative leader Andrew Scheer campaigning in Nova ScotiaAdrian Wyld/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

Who knows, the deadlock may break this weekend. Although no analysts or political operatives I've spoken with this week believes that is likely.

But before the voters render their verdict, some observations about my experience of the last few weeks:

— While many people have told me about their disgruntlement with the campaign, Canadians are still eager to talk politics. An exceptional number of Canada Letter readers have weighed in with emails, some of which we summarized earlier this week.

[Read: 'We Will Be Stuck With One of Them': Canadians on Their Upcoming Election]

There were far more questions than the time when Dan and I held a call with Times subscribers earlier on Thursday.

And as I've wandered up to strangers at campaign events, street corners, commuter train stations, in cafes and at shopping areas, nearly everyone has been keen to share their views, perhaps more so than during other elections.

At political events it was reassuring to still see people of all ages and political stripes giving up their time to enthusiastically perform often mundane tasks for the parties they support.

Canadians may be fed up with the current election, but they're still clearly interested in politics.

Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the New Democrats, in Welland, OntarioNathan Denette/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

— Few people forecast the apparent comeback of Jagmeet Singh of the New Democrats and Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois. In interviews long before the campaign actually started, several political analysts and political organizers were already predicting that Mr. Singh was leading his party to disaster and that he'd soon be out of his job. The Bloc was such a mess that Mr. Blanchet was made its leader in January simply by being the only applicant for the job.

The reversal of their fortunes, like Mr. Trudeau's turnaround in 2015, is further evidence that campaigns do matter.

— The new commission in charge of official election debates scored one of the biggest misses of the election and then followed it up with a hit. With its five moderators and segments in which all six candidates attempt to debate at the same time, it's safe to say that the English language debate was a fiasco.

But then came the French language debate. Its single moderator, Radio-Canada's Patrice Roy, kept the leaders firmly in check but in a good natured way. Four journalists and members of the public asked pointed questions. And dividing the leaders into groups of three for the open debating ended the noisy squabbling.

Presumably we'll see the second model used for both debates during the next election. And perhaps Mr. Roy can serve as ringmaster for both of them.

— Despite the campaigning being leader focused there have been some exceptionally good independent evaluations of some campaign promises and boasts.

Notably the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa have has assessed the economic soundness of many of the candidates' promises. And Chatelaine magazine commissioned a leading climate scientist and an economist who specializes in environmental issues to grade the parties' climate platforms.

On those two issues at least, thanks to that work, no voter can say that they can't assess many of the parties' positions.

Finally, here's some of our election coverage since the last newsletter:

— Trudeau's Tough Fight Could Make Canada's Small Parties Kingmakers

— A 'Mad Max' Candidate Offers a Far-Right Jolt to the Canadian Election

We'll have several articles appearing between now and Election Day — and beyond. As always you can find them on our Canada page. And please don't stop sharing your thoughts on politics just because the campaign is closing: nytcanada@nytimes.com.

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A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.