With the fight over the economic planks of the campaign now well underway, we saw a weekend full of jousting over it. Up first was an op-ed in the Sun papers penned by Thomas Mulcair (possibly ghost-written by staffers, as these things go), where he gave a bunch of non sequiturs like provincial NDP records, and bizarre slogans like “politicians that give up on balancing the budget are giving up on Canadians.” Do you know what that means, because pretty much nobody else does? Later in the morning, Jason Kenney took to the National Press Theatre to hand out a 21-page booklet to prove that the NDP’s promises amount to an eight billion dollar hole in their budget, and a couple of hours later, John McCallum and a couple of other Liberals held their own press conference, where the number was $28 billion over four years. The NDP pointed out that a few of their promises didn’t have timelines attached, but I’m not sure how effective of a defence that is considering the magnitude of some of the promises. Meanwhile, economists like Nick Rowe are (quite rightly) complaining that partisan cheap shots about Harper being the “king of deficits” is distracting from the scope of the problems of the 2008 recession, and the actions Harper took during them. In other words, trying to balance the budget then would have been a terrible decision. (There are other criticisms one could make, like the fact that Harper created a structural deficit by cutting the GST by two points, but so far neither of the two opposition parties are making it, which renders it somewhat moot in this discussion). Rowe’s fear is that these cheap shots make fiscal policy more difficult going forward, and it’s a valid point that parties should be keeping in mind, but aren’t.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/638149264946827264

On the campaign:

• Stephen Harper pledged to renew a cancer funding partnership.
• Thomas Mulcair held a rally in Halifax.
• Justin Trudeau vowed to scrap the “two-tiered” citizenship law.

Good reads:

• That public servant who got suspended pending an investigation into his partisan folk song on YouTube is sparking a broader conversation.
• Here’s a look at the bigger role that Laureen Harper is playing in this election. (Also, stop using “First Lady,” as it’s not analogous in Canada since we have the Queen).
• Amal Clooney says the Canadian government has formally asked the Egyptian government for the pardon and deportation of Mohamed Fahmy.
• Mike Moffatt suspects that we won’t be officially in recession when the numbers come out tomorrow.

Odds and ends:

The mayor of Oakville wanted to start a conversation about private security on the campaign trail and wound up with an Astroturf campaign calling for his resignation.

There’s only one Conservative incumbent running again in Nova Scotia, making for a tough race in that province for the party.