Obama's adviser offers words of wisdom

Campaigns are less about issues than they are about narratives about the future, conference told

- TONDA MACCHARLES

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insists he is staying as Liberal leader in the next campaign as he battles a clear Conservative narrative that his time is up.

OTTAWA David Axelrod, a top American Democratic political strategist, wasn't talking about Canada or Justin Trudeau when he outlined a pessimistic view of U.S. President Joe Biden's chances at re-election.

Presidential campaigns are unlike other races, he said-quoting Bill Clinton, who remarked that winning campaigns are not about the past, they're about the future.

They're less about issues than they are about narratives - Axelrod, who directed Barack Obama's campaigns, said issues have to "animate the narrative."

That almost perfectly describes the challenge for Trudeau and the Liberals in the months leading up to the next Canadian election campaign.

As the House of Commons adjourned for a summer recess on Wednesday and MPs headed back to their ridings, there was a lot of valedictory-style talk about the past and what the minority Liberal government accomplished.

Cabinet ministers tallied the passage of 15 legislative bills in 14 legislative weeks, including a budget chockablock with billions of dollars for new housing, a national dental care program, and free diabetes medicine and prescription contraceptives.

What is less clear is what story the Liberal government has to tell Canadians about the future after nearly nine years in power, and how it will improve their lives in little more than a year before the next expected federal election.

Although Trudeau continues to insist he is staying as Liberal leader in the next campaign to "continue" that work, he is already battling a clear Conservative narrative that his time is up, and that Canadians want change.

It is a question that all of the opposition parties are hammering, and pollsters say is emerging as a decisive factor in the minds of voters.