Roundup: Totally not buying votes

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With those new child benefit cheques starting to flow, a couple of bits of analysis were done over the past few days. One was to use census data to look at the demographics of ridings where people stood to gain the most from the new cheques, and wouldn’t you know it, of the 338 ridings, most were either Conservative or had a good chance of leaning that way in the next election. The other piece did some detective work into Pierre Poilievre’s big hunt for families who had not signed up for the benefit, and how he was able to derive numbers of how many families in certain regions had not done so. Why target regions? Why, electioneering, of course. There were also some pretty artificial deadlines being floated for getting people to sign up to the programme, so that cheques would handily flow just as the election is kicking off. Because that’s not trying to buy votes with people’s own money either, apparently. Among the places Poilievre visited on his “ finding families” tour were, you guessed it, Conservative ridings, while First Nations communities, who were less likely to be signed up, didn’t merit visits at all as they were unlikely to vote Conservative. So in case you really did think that these child benefit cheques were really about helping families and not about trying to buy votes, well, the analysis doesn’t support that kind of altruistic viewpoint.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/622932565306003456

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/622933109340774400

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/622933409762045953

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/622933528775364608

Good reads:

  • Our sole remaining destroyer is being sidelined by engine problems, with concerns it may not make it to its planned 2017 retirement.
  • Harper’s own appointed Advisory Panel on Health Care Innovation wants him to pony up at least $1 billion more and to restructure health innovation agencies.
  • Here’s an interesting look at the ways in which Thomas Mulcair is playing down his past as an Anglo rights defender in Quebec.
  • New federal integrity rules for government suppliers are leaving out due process and starting from a presumption of guilt, leading to flawed investigations.
  • Jason Markusoff has more about the everything-and-nothing National Energy Strategy signed last week.

Odds and ends:

The government has begun a baffling social media rebrand, and is coming up with some ridiculous excuses for why, such as with their Environment Canada Facebook page.

Here’s a look at where donations to political parties get spent.

Memo to headline writers: I’m pretty sure you can drop the “campaign-style” and go right to plain old “campaigning” now.