Canada

In business — as in life — warnings don’t usually come attached with loud blaring sirens.

They often first appear as weak signals, one after the other, and as they become more frequent, they also get a little louder.

A number of news stories over the past few weeks have been exactly those kinds of signals — under-the-radar warnings about the state of our economy and our society.

If the Conservatives maintain a double-digit margin lead until the next election, they will target safe Liberal and NDP seats instead of just marginal ridings, say senior political strategists.

“It’s going to be a bloodbath. It’d be worse than 2011 [that year’s federal election] for the Liberals,” said Dan Robertson, a former senior Conservative strategist in the 2021 and 2011 election campaigns who now works as a senior adviser of Focaldata. “We’re looking at 1984 seat counts, not 2011.”

It’s been a slow burn, simmering out of the spotlight, but the Liberal Party’s campaign against Pierre Poilievre is beginning to crystallize.

The bite-sized videos disseminated via their official channels wield Poilievre’s own words like a double-edged sword. One called “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” revisits his infamous apple orchard interview, juxtaposing his commentary with accusations of disseminating fake news, endorsing woke ideologies, and fighting a so-called radical left authoritarian agenda.

The Liberal record of unethical governance and punitive policy decisions that have deeply harmed Canadians cannot be overcome by a few lame videos screaming “Trump.”