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Watch out for political mud slinging

The federal election campaign has quickly become a quagmire where the politicians or at least their most ardent supporters are flinging mud about this candidate, or that candidate, often based on things that happened years ago.
Election

The federal election campaign has quickly become a quagmire where the politicians or at least their most ardent supporters are flinging mud about this candidate, or that candidate, often based on things that happened years ago.

The most recent situation began when photographs of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau surfaced of him in black face, which even at the timing of their occurrence were in bad taste, and frankly smacked of a level of racism.

Trudeau has apologized, which is in the end the best he could offer, since you can’t change what has been done.

The appearance of the photos sent social media into a tizzy, with those who already had no thought of voting for Trudeau and the Liberals pointed to the photographs as proof of why they would not support the current PM, adding the character flaw that led to wearing blackface to a long list of flaws they perceive.

Of course on the flipside we also have Conservative leader Andrew Scheer with a less than squeaky clean past. Scheer, during the debate on same-sex marriage in Parliament in 2005, compared the idea of two people of the same sex getting married to considering a dog’s tail to be one of its legs.

The difference is there really hasn’t been an apology to those the statement would have offended by Scheer.

The dual situations does illustrate that the past does have a tendency to pop into the present if you enter politics. In Saskatchewan we have Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan MP Tom Lukiwski and the future Saskatchewan Party premier Brad Wall find that out in spades when a 1991 video surfaced where the duo said things better left unsaid.

But, what does the political kerfuffle mean in terms of the current election?

For supporters of the two men, and their parties, little will be changed by the photos or statements. The faithful will accept the apologies, or not even see the reason for an apology being made. While the latter view is somewhat disturbing, in terms of votes the faithful will mark the ‘X’ on the party they follow, even if that effort is at times lemming-like.

Whether the undecided voter is swayed by these incidents is less clear.

Something has to push those who follow no specific party doctrine come the proverbial hell, or high water, to a decision where to cast their vote.

One hopes that decision is based on local candidate appeal, party policy, federal leadership, or more simply put a whole basket of things contributing to the decision of who to eventually vote for. That would mean old photos of one leader in blackface and questionable comments by another leader regarding gay people, would be part of the process.

We need to weigh such things against policy and visions of Canada in the future to make an informed decision election day. It just means the waters are getting muddier in terms of making that choice.