Roundup: Costed platforms away

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As we head into the Thanksgiving long weekend, Justin Trudeau kicked off the day in Ottawa with a rally about International Day of the Girl, before heading to Surrey BC to savage the Conservative platform release (more on that in a moment).

Jagmeet Singh was in Ottawa to unveil his platform’s costing (finally), and it was tepidly received in terms of grades from Kevin Page’s Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy. Much of it relies on new revenues that are highly uncertain, and some of their assumptions don’t really test the effect they would have on the broader economy, which could be a problem.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1182644769731862528

Andrew Scheer headed out to Delta BC to release his party’s full platform and costing, and hoo boy is it chock full of cuts – though not the ones the Liberals are darkly warning about. That said, pushing back infrastructure spending loses momentum that was starting after funds allowed provinces and municipalities to do longer-term planning, and their talk of keeping the public service from growing and cutting via attrition while simultaneously pledging not to use outside contractors means that work clearly isn’t going to get done, and that will be a problem that they can’t just hand-wave away. Also, some of those cuts are basically a black box, and it would seem to play right into Trudeau’s hands when he can point to Doug Ford promising “efficiencies” in Ontario and promises not to fire anyone, and well, we’ve seen the opposite happen.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1182751336799952897

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1182763966948229120

Other election stories:

  • Advance polls are open for the election, and in turnout has been up for the special polls set up on university campuses.
  • Here are six more possible post-election governing configurations (most of them wildly implausible).
  • Here is another evaluation of the parties’ carbon reduction promises, and gives some more thought to the economic impact of those promises.
  • Justin Trudeau pointed out that Quebec can test immigrants based on their provincial powers, but this got conflated as a “values test,” which he didn’t say.
  • The CBC’s fact-checkers look into Trudeau’s claim the Conservatives are promising $50,000 tax breaks to millionaires (though the response is overly cautious).
  • Elizabeth May says the country needs to do a better job of tackling racism.
  • The Bloc have been sharpening their attacks on Alberta, likely as a result of the rhetoric being wielded against them by the likes of Jason Kenney.

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland says the country is ready for action if the Americans move to ratify the New NAFTA.
  • Two CBC reporters are suing the Conservatives for using clips of them in their election advertising.
  • The Ontario Divisional Court ruled that the Ford government broke the law by scrapping their cap-and-trade system without consultation (but won’t reinstate it).
  • Kevin Carmichael puts the recent good economic news into the broader perspective.
  • Heather Scoffield gives a once-over to the three parties’ costed platforms.
  • Andrew Coyne damns the Conservative platform with the faintest of praise in that it looks fiscally Conservative, but is nevertheless full of plain bad policy.
  • Chantal Hébert checks the electoral math and finds it looking more like a hung parliament.
  • Colby Cosh ponders the question of who should be considered a journalist after grifters got a court injunction to get accreditation for the commission debates.
  • My weekend column cautions parties from putting out their post-election cooperation redlines before they know the seat math.

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