Justin Trudeau had to put some effort into a new Liberal ad, which features him trying to walk up a down escalator.
"This is what's happening to millions of Canadians in 10 years under Stephen Harper," Trudeau says in the ad, titled "Escalator: Harder to get ahead." (Watch the clip above.)
"His ideas to give benefits to the wealthy but make cuts to everything else has made it harder for most people to get ahead," he adds, as the escalator comes to a stop to hammer home the message.
Trudeau then mentions Tom Mulcair, but devotes way less airtime to the NDP leader, simply saying that he "promises more cuts. Now is not the time for cuts."
The 29-second clip ends with Trudeau's words bringing the escalator back to life.
"In my plan, we'll kickstart the economy by investing in jobs and growth, and lowering taxes for our middle class," he says. "That's real change."
Trudeau, Mulcair and Harper's skirmishes on the economy only escalated — sorry — on Tuesday, after Statistics Canada released second-quarter data indicating the country had entered a recession in the first six months of 2015.
Mulcair said the new numbers were a clear indicator that the Conservative economic policies simply were not working. "Mr. Harper's plan has failed. That's an objective fact,'' Mulcair told supporters in Kelowna, B.C.
Harper instead saw a silver lining to Tuesday's numbers, pointing out that GDP actually rose 0.5 per cent in June — proof, he said, of the renewed growth upon which a Conservative government is basing most of its own economic projections.
"It is good news," Harper said, after a speech at a steel plant in Burlington, Ont.
"Thank God we didn't use a couple of months of weak data to go out and commit this country to three years of deficit spending and huge tax increases like the other guys did."
With files from The Canadian Press
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