Roundup: Admitting the need for negotiation

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With the policy-over-controversy reset now in full swing, Justin Trudeau was out first this morning in Hamilton to announce next steps in the government’s planned universal pharmacare programme, with a $6 billion “down payment” in the system, along with more funding for increased access to family doctors and mental health services. Unlike other campaigns – looking specifically at you, NDP – this one was honest in the fact that it would rely on negotiations with the provinces, and that it would be incremental (something the NPD promise handwaves over), though where Trudeau got into a talking point was where he kept bringing up Doug Ford in this, and asking who Canadians trusted to negotiate with Ford – Scheer, or him? And he repeated it over, and over, and over again, to the point of parody.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176186227818549249

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176188115616030720

Andrew Scheer was in Vaughan, Ontario, to announce a four-point plan to make housing more affordable, which included a plan to “fix” the mortgage stress test (erm, have you read anything the Bank of Canada has put out?), let first-time homebuyers take out thirty-year amortized mortgages (almost like the 2008 financial crisis didn’t happen!), launch a national enquiry into money laundering in real estate, and make surplus federal real estate available for developers. The first two seem to ignore the actual issues at play regarding bad debt and the past financial crisis, and has instead swallowed the arguments of real estate lobbyists wholesale – never mind that the housing market has come roaring back in recent months, showing that the stress test was not the issue, and it’s almost like these plans could have the effect of driving up housing prices again. Funny that. Like Trudeau invoking Ford, Scheer was also invoking Kathleen Wynne’s name as his own scare tactic, which seems like a poor choice considering that her government has already been defeated, and Ford was found to have mislead Ontarians on the size and scope of the deficit (while he spends more at the same time as cutting services).

Jagmeet Singh finally visited New Brunswick for the first time in the 23 months he’s been leader, where he announced a “star candidate” (very loose definition), apologised for not having visited sooner (offering no excuses), and repeating his plans for pharmacare – again, with no details about how exactly he’d get the provinces to sign onto a very expensive programme with disparate systems and formularies within a year.

In an interview broadcast yesterday, Singh also said that he would allow any province to have a veto over projects like pipelines, which is also ridiculous, goes against the whole notion of why we have a constitution, and also goes against his whole platform where he wants to impose federal programmes on areas of provincial jurisdiction (being pharmacare and dental care).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1176201384183685120

Other election stories:

  • The National Post checks in on the campaign in Etobicoke – Doug Ford territory – to see how provincial politics are impacting the federal campaign.
  • People online are trying to defend Trudeau’s use of Blackface by showing an image of Stephen Harper during an Indigenous ceremony – taking it out of context.
  • Over the weekend, the Conservatives took a 2006 sermon from Liberal incumbent Rob Oliphant out of context in an attempt at disinformation.
  • Here is a comparison between the Liberal and NDP cellphone plans, and which may be the more effective option.
  • Jagmeet Singh reaffirms that he won’t challenge Bill 21, but hopes he can be an example to Quebeckers of someone who wears religious symbols (and isn’t scary).
  • Candidates from all parties have condemned a lawn side threatening to shoot Liberal canvassers in a suburban Ottawa riding.
  • The Green Party has photoshopped an image of Elizabeth May so that it shows her holding a reusable cup and metal straw, raising the flags about fakery.
  • Maxime Bernier’s party documents show signatures by former Neo-Nazi group leaders, and other known far-right extremists.
  • Surprising no one, Jason Kenney is railing about Justin Trudeau in order to talk up Andrew Scheer.

Good reads:

  • The former military ombudsman says retired early after a disagreement with the minister froze him out, and he was subjected to a politically-motivated review.
  • News that Global Affairs okayed a Assad-supporting honorary consul for Syria in Montreal has Chrystia Freeland promising a review of the situation.
  • The CFIA has suspended the licence of a Toronto-area meat packing plant.
  • Senator Paula Simons is being sued for reposting one of her old columns regarding a case that was stayed in Alberta.
  • Heather Scoffield looks at the competing tax cut offers from the Liberals and Conservatives and wonders whether they’re really the tool for their complaints.
  • Similarly, Andrew Coyne wonders if the additional progressivity of the Liberals’ tax plans shouldn’t merit a conversation about a converse loss in output.
  • Chris Selley pans Trudeau’s attempt to fearmonger about Doug Ford over pharmacare negotiations, citing that they’ve done better work.
  • Jennifer Robson tries to dig into the rhetoric parties are using around “affordability” and finds the oft-cited statistic to be a deeply flawed one. (Thread)

Odds and ends:

Colby Cosh reflects on the decommissioning of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and what it says about the seriousness people are taking zero-emission electricity.

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