Five things NDP must do to sustain momentum all the way to Oct. 19

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This article was published 02/08/2015 (3747 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Tom Mulcair’s NDP is riding a wave of momentum into the election campaign. After trailing in third for most of the past two years, the federal party has surged into a slim lead in opinion polls, fuelled at least in part by the party’s stunning upset victory in Alberta in May.

Here are five things New Democrat strategists believe Mulcair and his party must do this time to keep the momentum going all the way to the Prime Minister’s Office.

1. Knock out the two pillars of Conservative support — Stephen Harper’s reputation for good economic stewardship and ethical governance. The Tory reputation on both fronts has taken a beating lately as the economy slipped into recession, the Senate expenses scandal continued to mushroom and Harper’s one-time point man on ethical issues, Dean Del Mastro, was photographed in handcuffs and leg irons after being convicted of cheating in the 2008 election.

The NDP has been siphoning off support from the Liberals, but strategists say they believe they need to shake loose “blue-orange switchers” from the Conservatives as well. That explains a recent NDP attack ad about Conservative ethical lapses, as well as Mulcair’s economy-focused tour of Conservative-held ridings in Ontario.

2. Make the case for change. Polls suggest roughly two-thirds of Canadians want a change in government. Mulcair has to consolidate and sustain the perception that the NDP is the only party that can deliver that change; forget about the Liberals.

And he has to persuade voters that the change he’s offering is not risky, as the Tories would have them believe, and is more appealing than four more years of Harper.

3. Completing the NDP plan. Mulcair has been unveiling chunks of his election platform for more than a year, promising to create a million $15-a-day child care spaces, cut the tax rate for small business and increase health transfers to the provinces by some $36 billion, among other things. Mulcair has promised that the platform will be fully costed, and to spell out precisely how he intends to find the money to pay for it all. That costing must be credible to dispel any qualms about the NDP’s credibility as fiscal managers.

4. Win over the Greater Toronto Area. The GTA remains, in the words of one strategist, “the last nut to crack.” The NDP is well-positioned to hang onto the majority of seats in Quebec and make gains in British Columbia, Regina and Edmonton. But it needs to see growth in the seat-rich GTA if Mulcair is going to win the election. And that means taking on the Tories.

In 2011, the Conservatives swept 32 of the 47 ridings in and around Toronto; the NDP took just eight, the Liberals seven. This time out, due to redistribution, there are 11 new ridings up for grabs, almost all in the suburbs where the Conservatives tend to do best.

5. Lower expectations about Mulcair’s performance in the leaders’ debates. Mulcair won the reputation of prosecutor-in-chief by relentlessly grilling Harper in the House of Commons over the Senate expenses scandal. His mastery of question period has raised expectations that he’ll wipe the floor with Harper and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau during the election debates.

But NDP strategists point out that leaders’ debates are different, and that Mulcair — like Trudeau — has never taken part in such debates before. Harper has lived through four previous sets of debates. Mulcair needs only to survive the debates in order to emerge a winner, strategists say.