Roundup: A corridor to nowhere

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While the Liberals took the day off of the campaign, Andrew Scheer headed to Edmonton to campaign alongside Jason Kenney in Amarjeet Sohi’s riding, where Scheer reiterated his previously announced vision for a “trans-national energy corridor” which he imagines would create a right-of-way for all manner of pipelines across the country and they wouldn’t need to do additional environmental assessments on those projects or have jurisdictional challenges, or anything of the sort. Erm, except it’s going to involve expropriating a lot of land from private landowners (which is expensive and contrary to what Conservatives claim to stand for), and it will be long, complex, and expensive negotiations with the various First Nations and Inuit along those lands, because you can be assured that they will be asserting rights title over that territory. (For more, I wrote a column on this when the subject was first broached in May). It’s nice in theory, but practically has little chance of getting anywhere off the ground.

On the topic of Scheer, the Globe and Mail found that while he says that he was an “insurance broker” for six months in Saskatchewan as his private sector experience, he was never licenced and didn’t actually work as a broker. So that’s something.

Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, was in Burnaby, BC, to promise $30 million in federal funds to reduce the cost of BC ferries. It’s worth noting that this was five days straight of campaigning in the vicinity of his riding, which could easily be interpreted as a sign that he’s worried about saving the seats he has in the area.

Other election stories:

  • The Liberals are releasing their full platform today, and included is expected to be a promise for an interest-free break on student loans payments for new parents.
  • Some veterans report feeling frustrated with both Liberals and Conservatives over what they see as successive broken promises.
  • Here is a Quebec-centric view of what the parties are offering the province as it relates to environmental and climate change promises.
  • Here are more details about the Liberals’ promise to plant two billion new trees over the next decade (on top of existing planting programmes).
  • The Liberal riding association in the riding of Vimy is refusing to release funds to the new candidate the party imposed after they blocked incumbent Eva Nassif.
  • Elizabeth May’s use of VIA Rail and their stations to run a whistle-stop campaign is irking the Crown corporation as it violates Privy Council guidelines.

Good reads:

  • The Winnipeg Free Press has done a months-long investigation into the deteriorating morale at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg.
  • Statistics Canada hired a PR firm to help recover from the reputational damage suffered by their proposed banking data project (fuelled by Conservative lies).
  • Not surprisingly, former ISIS fighters captured in Syria don’t want to return to Canada if it means facing criminal prosecution here.
  • Aaron Wherry navigates the difficult choices that people need to make if they are concerned about climate change in the election – and why implementation matters.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: A corridor to nowhere”

  1. Veterans can simply go back to the Cons who had a record that they are more than familiar with. BC voters are niggardly when it comes to paying taxes so everytime Singh trots out another promise costing billions the people in BC have a seizure. As for Scheers unbelievable plan to link Canada west to east with a pipeline, please let’s hear how he is going to get through all the First Nations lands and in particular the province of Quebec.
    Another Tory promise bites the dust. As for spending Federal funds on BC ferries…Where did that one come from?

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