Justin Trudeau greets the Liberal supporters at an event where he joined Premier Kathleen Wynne for a by election rally to support provincial Liberal candidate Elizabeth Roy in Whitby-Oshawa's byelection campaign in 2016. Rene Johnston/Toronto Star

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stuck closely to the Liberals’ pre-writ script in an address to party candidates on Wednesday morning, suggesting that attacks on provincial conservative leaders and the former Harper government would feature prominently in the party’s fall campaign strategy.

In a speech to more than 200 candidates who travelled to Ottawa for the Liberal Party’s two-day election preparation summit, Trudeau framed Andrew Scheer’s federal Conservatives as the same party of Ontario Premier Doug Ford and former prime minister Stephen Harper.

“Conservative politicians love to say they are ‘for the people’ on the campaign trail, but we know all too well what happens once they’re in office,” Trudeau said in reference to the Ford campaign, before rattling off a best-of (or rather, worst-of) list of the Ontario Progressive Conservative government’s funding rollbacks, mentioning, in particular, healthcare, childcare and education cuts.

The Ford-led PCs rolled to a majority government last year, winning more than 40 per cent of the vote in the June 2018 election, ending a period of almost 15 years of Liberal governments in Ontario.

Recent public opinion surveys, though, suggest the pro-Ford crowd has dwindled, with a poll by Mainstreet Research in May showing the PCs were the third-most popular party in the province. Another by DART in June suggested that Ford only had a 29 per cent approval rating, while an Angus Reid poll in June suggests Ford had the lowest approval of any Tory premier.

“In October, Canadians will have a clear choice to make. Cuts and austerity, or investing in Canadians. Frankly, I don’t think the middle class can afford another Doug Ford,” Trudeau said.

The prime minister also spent part of his 15-minute speech tying the current Conservatives with Harper, who formally left the party almost three years ago, indicating the Liberals will attempt to replicate the anti-Harper lines they used to great success in 2015. He also vowed that the Liberals wouldn’t play dirty politics during the upcoming campaign, while criticizing the Conservatives for mounting fear and smear campaigns, and their use of personal attacks.

Trudeau described Scheer with the oft-repeated “Stephen Harper with a smile” label that Scheer himself embraced during his pursuit for the party’s leadership, while accusing the Conservatives of throwing “mud,” with the “hope (the Liberals) join them in the gutter.”

“Personal attack ads, the politics of fear and division, smear campaigns – you know exactly what the Harper playbook looks like,” Trudeau added.

Trudeau did not answer questions after his remarks, which was the only portion of the Liberals’ strategic gathering that reporters were allowed to attend.

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