We’re not even in the writ period, and the imported culture war bullshit is already at a fever pitch. In order to capitalize on it being Ottawa Pride this weekend, the Liberals started passing around a video of Andrew Scheer’s 2005 speech denouncing same-sex marriage, under the rubric of Ralph Goodale calling on Scheer to attend his hometown Pride in Ottawa this weekend. (Note: We’ll see if Trudeau makes it to Ottawa Pride this year, as he may not be back from the G7 meeting in France. Trudeau has only ever appeared at Ottawa’s Pride parade once). And off they were to the races. Scheer’s director of communications said that Scheer “supports same-sex marriage as defined in law,” and would uphold it as prime minister – and then proceeded to name Liberals who previously voted against it.

Goodale voted in favour of equal marriage every time it came up since 2003. All the others you cite became defenders of LGBT rights and equal marriage, while Scheer refuses to associate with LGBT people and voted against trans people's rights as recent as 2016. https://t.co/I3BkhnCIRX

— Rob Salerno (@robsalerno) August 22, 2019

What’s particularly cute about this defence of Scheer is that it does not say that Scheer’s views have evolved, and the use of “as defined in law” is that the law was a result of a Supreme Court of Canada reference, so there is no way that any government could try to repeal it without invoking the Notwithstanding Clause to escape a Charter challenge. But beyond that, Scheer’s people have not offered any kind of defence that he voted against the trans rights bill in 2016, which is more current and pressing of a rights issue than where we are with same-sex marriage. But it’s not really about same-sex marriage at all – it’s all about our political class being high on the fumes of the American culture war that they’ve been inhaling, and are trying desperately to recreate here because they all think it’ll be a political winner for them, rather than the fact that it will simply burn the house down around them.

In amidst this, Jagmeet Singh decided that he wanted to get in on the culture war action and declared that he wouldn’t prop up a Conservative government in a hung parliament based on this (fourteen-year-old) homophobia – which essentially means that he’s conceded that he’s not running to be the prime minister in the election, but is content to stay as the third party. There’s realism, and then there’s bad strategy. Singh then went on to list all of the Liberal failures on the LGBT file – except most of the ones he listed are in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Oops. This election is already so, so very stupid.

Good reads:

• US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, and offered support for the Canadians detained in China.
• Pompeo also demanded that Canada repatriate its ISIS fighters detained in Syria.
• Justin Trudeau heads off to the G7 meeting in France today, where it’s expected that UK prime minister Boris Johnson will press him about a trade deal.
• Freeland is headed to Cuba next week to conduct talks about Venezuela.
• The government has suspended travel to mainland China by consular staff in Hong Kong, amid news of another foreign detention, this time of a UK staffer.
• Maryam Monsef announced the government is boosting its contributions the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
• The Chief of Defence Staff says that the military was already investigating the suspected Neo-Nazi reservist in the spring, before it came to media attention.
• The military has now (mostly) lifted its partial ban on parachuting after the training death of one soldier a few weeks ago.
• The EU is going to stop importing cherries and other fresh fruit from Canada as it implements a new pest management regime.
• Sixty days out from the election, lawn signs are now being put out. *sigh* The writs haven’t even been drawn up yet. Fixed election dates are garbage.
• Here’s an interview with Jerry Dias about Unifor’s plans for the federal election.
• The father of Jack Letts wants a debate with Andrew Scheer over the fate of his son.
• Apparently someone was handing out (outdated) Liberal membership forms at a pro-Beijing rally in Toronto a few days ago.
• Here’s a look at how very political Quebec history textbooks are.
• Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk’s daughter lost her bid to run provincially because she’s been studying in Ottawa and didn’t meet the six-month residency requirement.
• The RCMP investigation into the UCP leadership in Alberta is at the cash-stuffed envelopes phase of things.
• Susan Delacourt takes note of the passage in Aaron Wherry’s book about talks of a truce between Trudeau and Jody Wilson-Raybould breaking down.

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