A lot of Canadians find Trudeau underwhelming; for the Tory leadership frontrunners, the current crisis is precisely the time to take advantage of that.

I’m not saying the Conservative leadership race is a snoozefest, but Thank God for coronavirus and the recent stock market plunge. Perhaps the prospect of twin calamities will snap the contenders out of their base-pleasing navel-gazing and beckon them to the mantle of leadership.

Not that you’d know either potential disaster is unspooling if your sources of information are the Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole Twitter feeds. Canada was a few days on from its first coronavirus death, with transmission increasing, and the two front-runners hadn’t so much as tweeted about how to wash your hands properly to combat infection. Public service, innit?

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Perhaps more pressing issues are afoot? A quick tour through O’Toole’s feed treats the scroller to multiple “true blue or Liberal lite” shots at MacKay (i.e. the ballot question for the minute percentage of Canadians who are party members), random plugs for Bubba’s Poutine and Alberta beef, a snipe at This Hour Has 22 Minutes for their serial unfunniness, and approximately 1,000 posts about blockades. The O’Toole stream of thoughts couldn’t be more up the Conservative membership’s collective arse if it tried, so job done, I suppose.

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Canada was a few days on from its first coronavirus death, with transmission increasing, and the two front-runners hadn’t so much as tweeted about how to wash your hands properly to combat infection.

MacKay’s feed is no better, and is indeed quite a bit more boring. The early wobbles and criticism over his early social content appear to have produced the classic over-correction, with current posts limiting themselves to the somnambulant “My name is Peter, and today I met with (INSERT PERSON/GROUP) in the great city of (INSERT CITY)” format. The only hint of spice is a call for an October election, which comes off as self-centred, not civic-minded.

To be fair, O’Toole’s Facebook page this week added some coronavirus posts, but 75 per cent of their content slates Justin Trudeau, with a few suggestions (some effective, others not) on how to do things better tacked on as a garnish. As if now is the time when Canadians who are concerned about the risk of infection want to hear – for the thousandth time – that Trudeau is a tool. Meanwhile, Trudeau is out announcing concrete measures to help fight the spread of coronavirus, with more to surely come in the budget.

Photo by Andrew Vaughan / THE CANADIAN PRESS

I get it. There’s a leadership race on, and the purpose of that race is to win enough support within the Conservative Party to become its leader. And that particular crowd is always up for a kick to Trudeau’s privates, even if they’re not always aware that others don’t hate the prime minister with the same vigour. But it’s also a safe bet that, out there, amongst the 99.3 per cent of Canadians who can’t vote in the leadership but might still be paying attention, there is a bigger appetite for leadership. A lot of Canadians find Trudeau underwhelming; a crisis is precisely the time to whelm them.

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If I were MacKay or O’Toole, I would be trying my level best right now to show Canadians what they’re missing in both Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer (and Jagmeet Singh, if you’re one of the select few who still care). With Bill Morneau set to stand up shortly and spray even more money all over Canada, now is the time to paint a different picture for Canadians, if there is one to be painted.

To his credit, MacKay has taken an early stab at policy, albeit into his own foot, promising to make it easier for Canadians to withdraw funds from their RRSPs to play the housing lotto in overpriced markets such as Toronto and Vancouver. Of course, the people most likely to do this are those who already have Tax-Free Savings Accounts, created when MacKay was a member of the Harper cabinet. Left-hand, right-hand, anyone?

Instead of fuelling a housing inferno, why not plunk down the precise tools Morneau should deploy for the many small businesses who are going to struggle should coronavirus take hold? Why not steal the march and propose a pause on payroll taxes, or new income supports for workers?

Or is it better to duck the conversation and bray about who’s “Liberal lite,” and let the actual Liberals get all of the credit?

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

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