11 May Liberal phone worker: “I’ve spoken to a lot of very upset people today”

Phone just rang. A 613 number. Man said he was calling from the Liberal Party of Canada.

“Good. I want to talk to you.”

For the next three minutes, I berated the poor chap, decrying Justin Trudeau’s craven support for Bill C-51; his betrayal of his father’s greatest political achievement, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; his pathetic excuse that if he didn’t support C-51, Harper would label him “soft on terrorism.”

“If Justin doesn’t have the leadership skills and communications chops to explain to Canadians why opposing a grossly unconstitutional intrusion on fundamental freedoms has nothing to do with being ‘soft on terrorists,’ then he’s unfit to be Prime Minister,” I said, before adding I would not be contributing, and without a speedy about-face, wouldn’t be voting Liberal either.

The fundraiser listened politely.

“I understand completely,” he said at last. “A lot of people I’ve spoken to have been very upset about this today.”

No surprise there. For the last four days, enraged Liberal supporters have been carpet bombing Trudeau’s Facebook page with angry denunciations of the party’s support for C-51. It will be interesting to see how this affects the Liberals’ second quarter fundraising totals.

When Trudeau welcomed calamity-prone Conservative Party MP Eve Adams to the Liberal caucus last February, the real prize was said to be Adams’s boyfriend, Dimitri Soudas, a former top-CPC strategist until Harper fired him for trying to influence a nomination battle in Adams’s favour. Soudas’s intimate knowledge of the CPC election playbook was said to be a major strategic coup for the Liberals.

Well, if cringing in anticipation of terrorist-baiting by the PM is the kind of strategic advice Soudas has given Trudeau, then the Adams floor-crossing had no upside whatsoever.