Justin Trudeau kicked off the fight of his political life Wednesday, under attack for an ethics lapse and other controversies as he opened a campaign for Canada’s October 21 general elections.
Polls showed Trudeau, once the youthful golden boy of Canadian politics, in a horse race with Conservative Andrew Scheer, who launched his bid for leadership by accusing the Liberal prime minister of lying “to cover up scandals.”
“He has lost the moral authority to govern,” Scheer declared before boarding his campaign jet.
Accusations of political meddling in the bribery case against engineering giant SNC-Lavalin plunged support for Trudeau at the beginning of the year.
After the prime minister met with Governor General Julie Payette to ask her to dissolve parliament and officially start the race, he sidestepped questions about SNC-Lavalin.
Sticking to slogans, Trudeau told reporters there was “a huge amount of work still do” and that it was “always possible to do better.”
This election, he said, was a choice between “the failed (austerity) policies” of his Tory predecessor or “continuing to move forward” with his team.
Elected by a landslide in 2015, Trudeau and his Liberal Party are now battling to hold onto a majority in parliament, with challenges rising up not just from the Conservatives but also on the left.
No Canadian prime minister with a majority has ever failed to win a second term.
New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh and Greens party leader Elizabeth May are positioning themselves as spoilers with the aim of denying Liberals or Conservatives a majority.
Voters will choose all 338 members of the House of Commons, with an average of polls showing the Liberals in a dead heat with the Tories.
Scheer was due to make whistle stops in vote-rich Quebec and Ontario, while Trudeau headed to British Columbia to shore up support hemorrhaging over his nationalizing of a pipeline.
