Roundup: Promising a tax cut

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The day’s campaign began even before the day did, as Andrew Scheer assembled the reporters on his red-eye flight to Vancouver to tell them that he wasn’t going to re-vet candidates, and that he would accept their apologies for past statements (be they racists, misogynistic, homophobic, or what have you), with some wiggle-room for context. Essentially, his way of trying to head off the drip-drip-drip of future revelations that the Liberals will keep dragging out with every riding he visits. He also went on to slam the New NAFTA agreement and claimed he could have gotten a better deal (which presupposes that Donald Trump is a rational actor – when he’s not), but said he’d still ratify it anyway if he forms government.

In the morning, Scheer went to a suburban home in Surrey to stage an announcement about a promise to cut the lowest tax rate over the course of three years, which would have the effect of returning between $8 and $10 per week on most paycheques (a level probably too low for people to notice according to the research). Note that for a leader who is concerned about balancing the budget and who insists he won’t make massive cuts – and who says he can achieve balance by restricting new spending – he’s just announced a fairly large bite out of future revenues that would balance the budget. (For a good breakdown of the announcement, here’s a thread by Lindsay Tedds). In questions after the announcement, Scheer refused to address the apparent hypocrisy of demanding Trudeau dump candidates while he would accept an apology from his own, and he also refused to offer an apology for his 2005 statements on same-sex marriage.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1173305303317663745

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1173317003890679808

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1173321696645767168

Jagmeet Singh launched his “vision for Quebec,” which promised a final say on projects like pipelines crossing the province, money for immigration integration services (remembering this time that the province is demanding fewer immigrants in spite of their labour shortage), additional influence over trade deals (a sop to the Supply Management sector). Singh also started going on about Quebec being “forced” into a marriage with Canada under the constitution and wanted Quebec to be able to sign onto the constitution “under acceptable terms” (which holy cow is a loaded statement and ignorant of history).

Trudeau spent the day largely on the road, with a whistle stop in Coburg, before attending the Bianca Andreescu “She The North” rally in Mississauga in his capacity as prime minister – where he praised Andreescu and her parents in a very non-partisan manner. He ended the day with a rally at the Mid-Autumn Festival in Markham, where his fairly short stump-speech (wherein he again repeated the somewhat misleading line that Conservatives cut taxes to the wealthy – they didn’t so much as offered tax credits that disproportionately benefitted the wealthy, but that’s not the same as a tax cut) was peppered with specific Festival references.

Other election stories:

  • A shooting in Mississauga over the weekend had all of the leaders addressing their concerns over gun violence.
  • A drone attack against Saudi oil infrastructure could raise prices in Canada, which had the Conservatives sending out a press release warning this was Trudeau’s plan.
  • Here’s a recap of Trudeau’s swing through Quebec and the talk of trade on the campaign trail.
  • Here’s a deeper look at how balanced budgets are less of an issue in this campaign than they have been in the past.
  • The CBC checks in with Jane Philpott’s run as an independent.

Good reads:

  • Martin Patriquin looks at how the SNC-Lavalin drama hasn’t affected the Liberals’ popularity in Quebec.
  • Christie Blatchford describes Trudeau’s ease with crowd as the thing that makes him the most dangerous to his opponents in this election.
  • James Bowden offers the deepest dive imaginable into the caretaker conventions in Canada, binding government business during the writ period.

Odds and ends:

In all of the writ drama earlier this week, I forgot to make my latest video to wide release. Here it is:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Promising a tax cut”

  1. SNC might not have affected their popularity in Quebec (versus the rest of Canada), but Bill 21 has. In fact new surveys are showing growing support for a similar policy in other provinces. Which says a lot about how far into the bigoted sewer Canada has gone in just four years that we’re having another election about niqab bans — and niqab bans are winning. Sad to say that the Liberals and Trudeau standing up for human rights against Scheer bigotry might not have the effect it otherwise would have in a pre-Trump universe. I hate this timeline. I’m at a point where I’m rooting for the climate crisis and a Saudi vs. Iran nuclear to just do us all a favor and get it over with already. This species has failed.

  2. Scheer announces tax breaks for the poor but says he wants to balance the budget. He castigates the Liberals for being spendthrift but it was his/Harper outfit that ran up 170 billion in deficits and while proposing a child care benefit, it was taxable. The same old tory bafflegab. Same every election different lips.

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