Trudeau makes last-minute appeal to progressive voters on final campaign day

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau kicked off the final day of the federal election campaign on Sunday by telling progressive voters that his party is the best option to stop Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives from forming government.

Trudeau told some 300 supporters at an outdoor rally in Montreal that progressive voters no longer have to choose between blocking the Conservatives and picking the party with the “best, most ambitious progressive plan” on climate change, child care and supporting families.

“Because the answer to both those questions is the Liberal Party of Canada,” Trudeau told the cheering crowd.

The Liberal leader’s whirlwind final day of active campaigning will take him from Montreal to Vancouver and will see him visit four provinces while also holding virtual events targeting many others he’s not visiting in-person.

As he has throughout the campaign, Trudeau on Sunday sought to portray O’Toole as a leader who will “take Canada backwards” by rolling back greenhouse gas reduction targets and canceling child care deals.

As he gestured on stage to a sea of cheering red-and-white clad Liberal supporters gathered on a brewery patio, he once again hammered the Conservative leader for refusing to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for his candidates, and accused him of protecting the anti-vaxxers in his party by advising even his vaccinated candidates not to disclose whether they’ve received the shots.

“Canada is at a crossroads,” Trudeau told the crowd in Montreal. “We now get to pick the right direction for our country to keep moving forward or to let Conservatives take us back.”

But with polls showing both parties in close to a dead heat, he’s also tried to draw Green and NDP voters in recent days, saying those parties’ environmental platforms are less ambitious and achievable than his own.

Trudeau has spent most of the last week of his campaign focusing on the key battlegrounds of Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec, where his party needs to hold or increase support.

But on Sunday morning he also turned his attention westward to Alberta, where the conservative government of Premier Jason Kenney has recently re-imposed public health restrictions. Trudeau told reporters following the rally that an O’Toole government would lead the country down a path similar to Alberta and Saskatchewan, which are grappling with rising COVID-19 cases.

“Folks in Alberta have a really important choice to make,” he said. “Whether they want Erin O’Toole to continue working with Jason Kenney on not ending this pandemic, or do they want a Liberal government that is going to stand up for the 75 or 80 per cent of Canadians, including the vast majority of Albertans, who have done the right thing and want this pandemic to be done for good.”

Over the course of the campaign, Trudeau has worked to draw a clear line between himself and O’Toole on wedge issues such as abortion and gun control. He has also sought to present his plans for tougher vaccination rules, nationwide affordable child care and the fight against climate change as key to the country’s economic recovery from the pandemic.

But Trudeau has also been dogged by criticism from his rivals and some members of the public for dissolving the minority parliament and calling an election during the fourth wave of the health crisis.

On Sunday, Trudeau once again refused to outright ask voters to give him a majority, telling reporters after the event that his goal is to send as many Liberal MPs to Ottawa as possible.