The Liberal national campaign director is commending the Conservatives for employing what he characterizes as the right strategy during last month’s election.
“I think that their strategy is right to concentrate on change, cost of living,” Andrew Bevan said in an interview on CTV Power Play with Vassy Kapelos on Wednesday. “I don’t think they had a strategy problem.
“I do think they had a leader problem,” Bevan added, saying he doesn’t think the Conservatives needed to pivot their overall strategy, but rather work on making leader Pierre Poilievre sound less like U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Liberals spent most of last year lagging significantly in the polls, including several months spent trailing the Conservatives by more than 20 points.
Bevan was appointed by former prime minister and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau last October, just weeks before Trump was re-elected.
Then, amid a simmering caucus revolt and the resignation of his top deputy Chrystia Freeland — along with the looming threat of a now-ongoing trade war with the U.S. — Trudeau stepped down, kicking off the race to replace him.
Now-Prime Minister Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership in mid-March, and called an election shortly after, running on the promise of being the best person to deal with Trump, his global trade war and his threats to Canadian sovereignty.
“I don’t think that Mr. Poilievre ever had a chance at winning a ballot question on Trump and on the threat from the U.S.,” Bevan said. “I mean, Mr. Carney so outperformed him on that issue.”
“I don’t know why they would have moved into our issue space and try and somehow beat us on that,” he added. “I think that would have been impossible.
Bevan also pointed to the narrow margin of victory between the two leading parties as an indicator the Conservatives were on the right track by sticking to affordability issues. The Liberals won 169 seats on April 28 — just three short of a majority — while the Conservatives won 144 seats.
“We got 43 per cent, they got 41 per cent,” Bevan said. “That’s a pretty successful losing campaign.”
Since the Conservatives’ election loss, there has been speculation that some within the party are putting pressure on Poilievre to fire his national campaign manager, Jenni Byrne.
Bevan: Trudeau resignation contributed to win
Bevan said the “wildcard” of the campaign was Trump moving back into the White House, something that changed the “political reality” of the election before the writ even dropped, and that shifted the central issues important to Canadians.
Asked by Kapelos whether he would concede that Trudeau’s resignation was also a “big part” of the Liberal win, Bevan said: “Yes.”
“It became very clear, I think, quite early on in the leadership race, that Mr. Carney was the right person for the moment,” Bevan said, adding polling showed Canadians responded well to Trudeau’s handling of Trump in the months between his resignation and Carney being elected his successor.
“And so, who knows? I mean, politics is a funny game,” Bevan also said. “Things happen that no one expects. Certainly, I never expected the last six months to happen the way they did.”
You can watch Bevan’s full interview on CTV Power Play with Vassy Kapelos in the video player at the top of this article
