The horses have rounded the final curve and it is a straight run to the finish line. It is a time when jockeys whisper, whip or whine to encourage their mount. It is when the handicappers close their eyes and shudder at the possible outcomes of their folly. That damn horse is running as hard as he or she can and cannot hear your prayers.
Nor can God. The late Senator Keith Davey used to tell us though that if your numbers are above 35 per cent and rising just before election day, you were heading for a majority win. And that is where Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is heading. He has the wind at his back and it might all come down to good weather on October 19. He has added hundreds of thousands of volunteers to the Liberal teams across Canada whose hard work is needed to get out the vote.
We have been kidding throughout this campaign that Justin is going to win this campaign all by himself—one selfie at a time. He has been indefatigable.
But a majority is only something of hopes. Justin is the campaigner that we all wanted his father to be. Pierre Trudeau was austere, intellectual and aloof when his son can simply turn on the charm and work a room like he loves and needs the support of every person there. He was the only leader in this election who could fill an arena with thousands of supporters and have them screaming for more. Pierre Trudeau should have seen how his three grandchildren calmly handled the hysteria when they were brought to the stage with their mother and father.
The ignorance and scurrilous lies of the Conservatives in this past week as they see their control falling to another party have not really been directed at Trudeau’s voters. The Conservatives are desperately trying to shore up their own vote to try to hold to at least a minority position. The niqab seems forgotten as the ludicrous proposal of a new government mandating whore houses is being threatened at the door step. There has been no discussion in this campaign of the Supreme Court’s demand for the government to take a clearer view of the rights of women in the sex trade. The solution is obviously being left to the new government but it will take a lot of good will and modern thinking to bring about an acceptable resolution.
Some pollsters are already making predictions of a Liberal majority on October 20. That would rate as one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history but it would hardly displease us.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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