The stench of desperation is seeping from the Trudeau Liberals as they flail wildly to regain ground against the surging Conservatives. 

With the Conservatives leading in both polls and fundraising, seemingly heading towards their best fundraising year ever, Justin Trudeau’s team is sweating panic. 

Their recent attacks on Pierre Poilievre reek of a prime minister who knows he’s lost control of the political narrative. While the Conservatives consolidate power, the Liberals are left spinning out of desperation into delusion. 

Trudeau can smear and accuse all he wants, but Canadians can smell the fear, and they are putting their money where it counts, with the conservative not only leading in fundraising but they actually have a shot at the all time record.

The question here is – what does this mean for the Liberals? Could it be that their time is finally up?

Trudeau has taken some panic swings at Pierre Poilievre lately, and it’s pretty obvious the Prime Minister knows he’s getting worked by the Conservatives in the polls.

The whole mess oozing out of Ottawa lately shows how scared the Trudeau crew is of losing power. 

In fact, Conservatives are not just beating Trudeau and the Liberals in the polls, but they’ve shown unprecedented success in fundraising as well.

Fueled by swelling momentum, the Conservatives have already raised $23.3 million in 2022, a staggering $13.5 million more than the Liberals’ haul. 

This enormous advantage will allow the Conservatives to massively outspend the Liberals in pushing their messaging over the critical periods ahead.

And ever since Pierre Poilievre became Conservative leader last year, the party has been massively outraising the Liberals by around $4.3 million per 3-month period on average.

And if the Conservatives keep hugely outraising the Liberals in the last few months of 2023 like they have been, it’ll be their biggest fundraising advantage over the Liberals in the past 20 years.

2022 has already seen the 2nd biggest Conservative fundraising advantage over the Liberals in 20 years. The record is 2008 when they raised $15 million more.

If Conservatives keep fundraising well in the last few months of 2023, they could break their all-time record of $30.9 million raised in 2019.

Conservatives often outraise Liberals, but the gap now is higher than ever.

Fred DeLorey, a veteran Conservative strategist, said “They’re firing on all cylinders,” and that this gives Conservatives “such a massive edge in their ability to communicate.” That’s why they could spend “well over $3 million running ads over the last number of months on Pierre” to greatly “impact the polls.”

The Conservatives launched multimillion dollar ads painting Poilievre as a patriotic  family man.

DeLorey said massive war chests give huge advantage between elections when spending limits don’t apply. 

He said: “[A campaign is] 36 days out of a generally four-year cycle, right? The rest of the time, though, the Conservatives are able to run laps around the other parties in terms of their advertising that they could do [and] the hiring of staff, ground organizers around the country.”

Meanwhile, the Liberals claimed they still have strong donor support and noted Conservatives spend more on fundraising. 

Liberal spokesperson Parker Lund said “In their communications, advertising and fundraising, Pierre Poilievre and his Conservative Party continue to sow fear and division by importing far-right American-style politics here to Canada and pushing for cuts to the services that Canadians rely on.” But financial reports show Liberals get less value per donation than Conservatives.

Conservatives do spend way more on fundraising, often double the Liberals. But even accounting for expenses, they retain a big net advantage. In 2022 for example, Conservatives raised $4 million more after expenses.

Professor Erin Crandall, an associate professor of political science at Acadia University, said more money doesn’t automatically mean more votes. But it’s crucial for effective campaigns and gauges enthusiasm of committed voters. She said it’s no surprise Conservatives outraise Liberals and NDP. 

Historical fundraising highs suggest Conservatives have momentum as an election nears.

And the numbers suggest that they will keep pushing against Trudeau.

“They absolutely have to keep spending. They have to keep running ads and they have to keep introducing Poilievre. They can’t allow the Liberals or the media to define him. They have to define him themselves and they have to remain very aggressive,” Delorey said.

As Poilievre’s Conservatives continue to dominate the polls, Trudeau’s attempts to undermine his opponent are increasingly transparent ploys to mitigate the damage.

Had Trudeau’s team moved swiftly to frame Poilievre early on, they may have blunted his momentum. Instead, they surrendered control of the narrative, allowing the Conservatives to consolidate a commanding position. But with the Liberals drowning in desperation, no smear campaign can mask the stench or stem the conservative tide.

The Liberals’ desperation has led them to launch a barrage of specious attacks on Poilievre in a frantic effort to reverse their sinking fortunes. 

First, they falsely blamed him for stoking terrorism fears after the bridge explosion despite no evidence. Then they claimed Poilievre doesn’t support Ukraine while insinuating Poilievre’s rhetoric echoes Trump or even supports Putin. They willfully ignored that Conservatives objected to non-germane amendments to the trade deal, not the deal itself. 

Most outlandishly, they attributed incoming South Korean workers to Harper’s government from over seven years ago, not their own current policy.

Trudeau literally accused the Poilievre Conservatives of adopting “a right-wing, American MAGA-influenced thinking” and turning their backs on Ukraine.

The Liberals’ accusation that Conservatives don’t support Ukraine rings hollow when the facts are examined. 

The Conservatives’ opposition stemmed from the Liberals’ eleventh-hour insertion of unrelated carbon tax provisions into the trade deal. These clauses enshrine Canada’s carbon tax into an international treaty, and include language around carbon pricing absent from our larger trade agreements with the U.S, Europe and Pacific nations.

The Conservatives rightly objected to this insertion of domestic carbon tax policy into a deal with a small trading partner like Ukraine. 

Their stance is not an abandonment of Ukraine, but resistance to the Liberals’ opportunistic abuse of trade deals to further their partisan climate agenda. The Conservatives’ vocal support for Ukraine remains unshakeable.

And no matter how often Trudeau misrepresents the facts, the truth remains.

It didn’t just stop there, however, but mere hours after the Rainbow Bridge incident, Trudeau fanned terrorism suspicions by citing briefings from intelligence advisors and national security agencies. This involvement would only occur with possible terrorism.

Yet the next day, Liberals slammed Poilievre for referencing media reports on terrorism. This flip-flop reveals rank hypocrisy. 

When politically convenient, Trudeau exploits terror fears by highlighting confidential briefings. But when Poilievre echoes these warranted concerns, Liberals shout foul.

Let us be clear – Ottawa and Washington clearly both suspected terrorism initially, as evidenced by Trudeau’s classified briefing. For the government not to have considered it as a possibility would have been negligent. Poilievre responsibly voiced these well-founded suspicions.

Yet desperate to malign Poilievre, Liberals dishonestly cast prudent skepticism as irresponsible fear-mongering. Their willful distortion of Poilievre’s reasonable statements exposes the depth of Liberal deceit. When the facts don’t help them, they twist the truth rather than adjust their bankrupt narrative. 

But Canadians see through such brazen politicization of national security. Once again, Liberal desperation has overridden integrity.

The Liberals’ misleading attacks over the South Korean workers further reveal their desperation. Initially, they allowed speculation about 1,600 workers replacing Canadians to fester. Only later did they clarify it as a short-term influx of 900 to set up the plant.

Rather than provide transparent explanations upfront, the Liberals permitted misconceptions to spread, then disingenuously blamed provisions in Harper’s trade deal. But Harper’s deal only enables such workers, it does not entitle them. The Liberals themselves issue the permits, yet deflected accountability.

Without concrete achievements to showcase, Liberals retreat to cynical politicking. But leadership requires substance. Until Liberals move beyond fear-mongering and engage in serious policy debates, they will remain mired in desperation.

These moves won’t bring voters back, or help them in the polls, it will just prove to them how desperate the Trudeau Liberals are.

As the Liberals’ flailing attacks make clear, a cornered Trudeau is a dangerous Trudeau. His increasing embrace of disinformation and partisan smears to claw back power set a troubling precedent.

Canada faces a stark choice; do we accept fear-mongering and deceit as valid political tools, or reject gutter politics in favor of substantive debate? The Liberals’ desperation reveals a moral bankruptcy at the heart of their project. Clinging to power has overridden principle.

Perhaps Trudeau’s scorched earth tactics will fail, and Canadians will opt for Poilievre’s vision over baseless insults. But the damage inflicted along the way will linger. Trust in government and faith in fellow citizens have been the true victims of Trudeau’s flailing.

Trudeau may be the desperado, but it falls to all of us to disarm his assault on decency.