Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other political party leaders will be hitting the barbecue circuit across Canada, trying to keep their ground troops motivated with a federal election two years away.
Harper may come to this area again — he has often attended former senator Gerry St. Germain’s barbecue at his South Surrey ranch. The public likely won’t know if he does come, as members of the media are usually barred from attending. Interestingly, this is one reason why the barbecues are more important than ever for Harper this summer.
For the first time since he has become Conservative party leader, he has an opponent with a formidable brand name — Justin Trudeau of the federal Liberals. While Trudeau is very much an untested commodity, thus far attack ads mounted by the Conservatives have had almost no effect.
The Conservative brand itself has been badly tainted by the Senate expense scandal, and particularly by Senator Mike Duffy, a former member of the media who is facing numerous investigations. While he now sits as an independent, some of the investigations centre around his billing taxpayers while at the same time doing Conservative political work.
Because the prime minister has so little time for local media, most of whom have no interest in the battles between the Ottawa press gallery and the government, he foregoes the chance to get his message out via local television stations, community newspapers and radio stations. He has let himself become defined as an angry man, barricaded at 24 Sussex Drive, ranting at a long enemies list.
Only a few Conservative Party members get to see something different.
While his office avidly uses Twitter, even using it to announce changes to his cabinet last week, he isn’t reaching many potential Conservative voters that way. The biggest users of Twitter are from a generation which rarely votes.
While Trudeau is untested, and the Trudeau brand has glaring weaknesses in Western Canada, Harper may have finally met his match after demolishing three earlier Liberal leaders. He could have had trouble with the NDP under Jack Layton, but thus far Thomas Mulcair hasn’t done too much damage to him.
Harper needs to reach the public without the Ottawa filter — and the barbecue circuit is one of the few ways he does so.