What felt like a few days of the campaign starting to get into more substantive issues and promises got derailed last night when Time Magazine published a piece that contained a photo showing Justin Trudeau in Brownface from 2001, when he was a teacher at a private school in Vancouver, and he dressed as Aladdin for an “Arabian Nights” gala. The campaign confirmed it was him, and a short while later, Trudeau addressed the reporters on his plane, took responsibility, admitted that he didn’t think it was racist at the time but understands that it is now, and that he was disappointed in himself – as well as the fact that he would talk to his kids in the morning about taking responsibility for actions (while he had been in the midst of contacting his racialized Cabinet ministers and one presumes caucus colleagues).

For opposition reaction, Jagmeet Singh spoke about the hurt this causes to people of colour and questioned Trudeau’s authenticity, while Andrew Scheer stated that the action was as racist in 2001 as it is in 2019, and that Trudeau isn’t fit to govern the country. (Reminder: Scheer has not apologised for his deeply homophobic comments in 2005, and just last summer his party was giving succour to racists as an attempt to score points against Trudeau who called out said racism). So we’ll see how much this dominates the news cycle for the next few days, and whether it hobbles Trudeau in any significant way.

My point is, every time a blackface controversy pops up in Quebec, the French commentariat widely (NOT unanimously) treats it as a strange obsession of Anglos who are in the thrall of foreign, American cultural influences.

So, expect a different reaction. https://t.co/wj0k2bDU07

— Les Perreaux (@perreaux) September 19, 2019

Earlier in the day, Trudeau announced measures that would enhance CPP and OAS payments for those over 75 and widows, because they are more financially vulnerable, but also came under fire for not providing PBO costing for those measures – despite the fact that he said that would be released with the full platform. (More irritating was the fact that members of the media railed that Trudeau said that “portions” and not the full platform would be costed when the PBO doesn’t do full platform costings. All parties are just getting portions costed).

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1174379188125437952

Jagmeet Singh promised free dental care for households that make under $70,000 per year, and insisted it would be a “Day one” promise – and while he had a costing document, he didn’t have a plan for how exactly he was going to sell this to the provinces, whose jurisdiction this is, and who are unlikely to want to set up a very expensive new programme on their turf. Implementation matters.

Andrew Scheer spent the morning touting that his government would eliminate $1.5 billion in “corporate subsidies” every year – but promised to keep and beef up regional development agencies and to ensure they have regional ministers in them – a hotbed of pork-barrelling if history is any guide. More problematically, he didn’t exactly name what kinds of subsidies he would actually cut beyond a theoretical, and then produced a PBO document that basically said “You say you’ll cut this much, I guess we’ll take your word for it,” because they didn’t have details to cost out just what he planned to cut. While it’s likely these dollars exist and could be cut, it becomes politically dicey to do so in many cases, which is why previous promises to get rid of said subsidies never really pan out – constituencies need to be tended to.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1174383093152485378

https://twitter.com/twitscotty/status/1174319862803419136

Scheer also stated that he would “fast-track” any legal challenges to pipelines directly to the Supreme Court, which is a dumb idea and is only going to annoy the Court because if they’re the court of last resort, not a game of Mother, May I? Fobbing off tough political decisions to the court is not only cowardly, but it simply politicizes the courts and wastes their time when they have to tell politicians to sort it out themselves like grown-ups.

Add to that, the #SCC doesn’t appreciate references where governments are trying to pass the ball so they don’t have to make a decision, and they are just as likely to remind the referring government that it’s a political problem for them to solve. 2/2 #Elxn43

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) September 18, 2019

Other election stories:

• A vaping-related hospitalization meant all parties were addressing the issue on the campaign trail yesterday afternoon.
• Here’s a look at the battleground shaping up in Nova Scotia, where the Liberals hold all the seats, but several retirements could open some of them up.
• Andrew Scheer insists that the tepid turnout to his campaign rallies is because he’s focused on having people door-knocking.
• Here’s a look at the conspicuous absence of Doug Ford on the campaign trail.
• Former Conservative MP Steven Woodworth, defeated in 2015, is using signs that say “re-elect” even though he’s not the incumbent, and it’s not against the rules.
• Green Party training videos inadvertently exposed voters’ private information, which the party says they have now corrected and that it was no big deal.
• Liberal-turned-Independent MP Raj Grewal is officially not running again.

Good reads:

• We hear a lot about foreign interference in elections, but it’s something that will be difficult for the Commissioner of Elections to investigate and prosecute.
• The Canadian Constitutional Foundation is planning a court challenge of the laws that make false statements during a campaign illegal.
• Another bit of junk news floating around social media claims that the RCMP Commissioner, Brenda Lucki, is married to Bill Morneau’s cousin, which is false.
• Here’s an interview with economist Kevin Milligan, whose work helped with the creation of the Canada Child Benefit, which had a measurable impact on poverty.
• Aaron Wherry explores why comparing the fight against climate change to WWII is not really an appropriate comparison.
• Supriya Dwivedi lambastes the federal leaders for their refusal to wade into the Bill 21 court challenge in Quebec.
• Susan Delacourt points out that while we have laws on the books about lying on the campaign trail, it doesn’t seem to have deterred anyone as it’s getting worse.
• Chantal Hébert gives her assessment of the first week of the campaign.
• Kevin Carmichael annotates Andrew Scheer’s fiscal policy sound bites with additional facts, statistics, and context.
• Paul Wells offers some sarcastic but uncomfortably truthful commentary about the brownface incident and what it says about the state of our politics.

Odds and ends:

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