It was a fairly boggling day on the campaign trail, starting with Andrew Scheer in St. Catharines, Ontario, to push his small business promises. Scheer pledged to reduce “red tape” regulations by 25 percent – a completely meaningless figure which means nothing when it comes to the value of regulation, and then told a completely misleading anecdote about a girl with a lemonade stand who needed to fill out all kinds of forms because of “bureaucracy.” (The real story is that said girl opened up her lemonade stand on National Capital Commission land, which is why she needed a permit, and has absolutely zero to do with small business regulations). Pledges about two-for-one rules around red tape (getting rid of two old regulations for every new one) has been federal practice since the Harper years, and his notion of a Cabinet-level “red tape reduction minister” like Alberta has is basically promising a job to someone for uselessness as Alberta has proven. (Seriously – the current government has a division in Treasury Board not only having success in streamlining regulations, but they have been working with the provinces on harmonizing regulations so as to eliminate non-tariff barriers). Scheer also complained that the tax code was too complex for these small business owners – apparently lacking any self-awareness that he’s the one who keeps proposing ever more tax credits that further complicate the tax code, so well done there. Then, after repeating the lie that Trudeau called small business owners “tax cheats,” he promised to undo the Liberals’ small-business tax changes, which has absolutely nothing to do with actually helping small businesses and restores a loophole for the wealthiest who create personal corporations to avoid paying taxes. There was a verifiable problem that the Liberals worked to solve (somewhat ham-fistedly because Bill Morneau is incapable of communicating like a human being) and Scheer has pledged to undo it for no apparent reason – certainly not one that benefits the everyday people he claims to be helping trying to get ahead. (Read through this epic thread from Justin Ling).

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176532629039894528

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176533727775617025

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1176536740187664384

Scheer later skipped a planned campaign event in Cambridge as there were protesters at the site (while denying that the protesters were the reason).

Jagmeet Singh was in Winnipeg to reiterate elements of his party’s climate plan, promising an east-west energy corridor (never mind the prohibitive costs or the fact that line loss is a real thing and much of that “green energy” wouldn’t survive the vast distance between Manitoba and central Ontario), a $15 billion “climate bank” and electrifying public transit.

Singh's platform cites a report that highlights that a) 'subsidies' are way lower than they used to be and b) almost all of them are provincial policies. Singh's platform doesn't link any policy with an estimate of induced emissions reductions, in particular this one. https://t.co/uNYcD370Gi

— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) September 24, 2019

The Liberals had a two-part environmental rollout, starting with Catherine McKenna in Ottawa to promise that a Liberal government would get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and that there would be five-year legislated climate targets to get there (but wouldn’t give any details on how, or what the consequences for failing to meet said targets would be). Later in the day in Burnaby, BC, Justin Trudeau promised to half the corporate tax rate for companies that develop or produce zero-emission products as a way to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Because apparently there are no other mechanisms than to continue to dicker with the tax code.

Why climate policy is hard, in one tweet. To the right, it's nearly gospel that the Liberals have destroyed Canada with their climate policies. To the left, a pipeline allows buddy to confidently ignore all of the policy movement since 2015. https://t.co/vFaANU3xA3

— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) September 24, 2019

Other election stories:

• Justin Trudeau had his private call to Jagmeet Singh about the Blackface incident (and can we please end this sad bit of Kabuki theatre?)
• Trudeau also had a sit-down interview to talk about how he’s a different person than when he last did Blackface in 2001.
• After Trudeau opted not to show up, the Munk Debates cancelled their planned foreign policy-focused leaders’ debate.
• CBC’s fact-checker doesn’t take kindly to the Liberal health care pledges (while under-reading the point that it was a “down payment” subject to negotiations).
• Andrew Scheer is denouncing the proliferation of safe injection sites as “terrible,” but won’t say how he would tackle the opioid epidemic.
• Housing experts pan the Conservatives’ promises about the stress test and 30-year amortized mortgages as “dumb,” which will likely drive up housing prices.

Good reads:

• The Federal Court has granted an injunction against Alberta’s “turn off the taps” legislation.
• Chrystia Freeland vows “swift action” with regards to the appointment of a pro-Assad “honorary consul.”
• Here’s a bit of an introduction to the new federal pay equity commissioner.
• Professor Michael Geist compares the Liberal and NDP cellphone promises, and offers some suggestions of his own.
• Aaron Wherry remarks about how similar Scheer is building his campaign to previous ones of Stephen Harper – with a little more media access.
• Chris Selley points out that Trudeau’s contrition on the Blackface incidents is being undermined by his reliance on carefully scripted talking points about it.
• My column looks at how parties in Canada are essentially unable to change leaders mid-election, and why that means we are less resilient to political shocks.

Odds and ends:

For the CBA’s National Magazine, I wrote about Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on “umbrella damages” and who can sue after a price-fixing conspiracy.

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