Byelections turn nasty, test Trudeau’s vow to stick to high road

OTTAWA – Justin Trudeau’s vow to take the high road, no matter how fiercely he’s attacked by his opponents, is being put to the test in three of four federal byelection campaigns.

The Conservatives have launched the latest assault, a mailout to voters in Manitoba’s Brandon Souris riding that baldly states the Liberal leader “does not have the judgment to be prime minister.”

It also paints the Liberal candidate in Brandon, Rolf Dinsdale, as a tourist who only moved back to the riding in the summer and once played in a crudely named punk band that performed songs with raunchy lyrics.

Polls have suggested Dinsdale, whose father was Brandon’s Progressive Conservative MP for more than 30 years, could snatch the riding away from the Conservatives.

Trudeau and his candidates have also come under fierce attack from the NDP in Toronto Centre and the Montreal riding of Bourassa, two Liberal strongholds the New Democrats would dearly love to steal.

Trudeau accuses the NDP of adopting the Conservatives’ “mean,” cynical approach to winning at all costs, a charge denied by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair.