Roundup: Nail-biter by-elections

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The Liberals won the two Toronto-area by-elections last night, but with far less comfortable margins than before. While Marci Ien won Toronto Centre, Green Party leader Annamie Paul came in a not-too-distant second place, which was a surprise showing for her considering she was a far-distant fourth in the previous election. In York Centre, Liberal Ya’ara Saks pulled ahead at the very end, but it was a constant dance with the Conservatives most of the evening, and very close (and close enough there may yet be a recount). While it’s not good to read too much into by-elections, one supposes that this should be a bit of a warning to Justin Trudeau about going to a snap election, given how close it was. There should also be a warning for Trudeau in here about engaging his own party membership – one suspects that there are a lot of angry Liberals who are incredibly unhappy about the way that Trudeau short-circuited the nomination process and simply appointed candidates in both ridings, cutting out the grassroots membership to the detriment of democracy as a whole. Erin O’Toole will crow that he made progress in the GTA with nearly winning York Centre (though the Conservative candidate was almost a non-entity in Toronto Centre), though Maxime Bernier’s entry into the race in that riding ostensibly took enough votes away from O’Toole to lose the race. Hopefully O’Toole won’t take that as a cue to go even more extreme to try to attract those voters.

Fiscal anchor

At a talk for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, prime minister Justin Trudeau said that the government wouldn’t be setting a new fiscal anchor while the pandemic was still ongoing – but that there would soon be a “robust” fiscal update presented. This immediately gave the whole it’s-1995-and-will-always-be-1995 crowd the vapours, but there is credible economic thought that this isn’t the time for a fiscal anchor because it would simply be a signal to cut spending at a time when that spending is building resilience into the economy and is giving us a leg-up on recovery over other countries. Erin O’Toole followed up and handwaved that if his party was in charge, they would have done everything better, offering no evidence to that end.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1320794340747194369

Good reads:

  • The opposition parties banded together to pass Michelle Rempel Garner’s torqued health committee motion, which is going to lead to new battles around disclosure.
  • The government appears to be sticking by RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki in the face of calls for her resignation, but their messages seem to carry a warning tone.
  • Canada’s ambassador for women, peace and security says that progress for gender balance in peacekeeping is being lost because of the pandemic response.
  • The Canadian Transportation Agency (already subject to regulatory capture) hasn’t resolved a single one of the 10,000 complaints regarding COVID-related refunds.
  • The Commons ethics committee has ended the battle over getting documents on speaking fees from Trudeau’s family with the Bloc’s help.
  • Out gay Conservative MP Eric Duncan spoke out in favour of the bill to ban conversion therapy. I suspect he’ll be in the minority for his party.
  • Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party won a fourth majority last night, unsurprisingly.
  • Healthcare workers across Alberta staged a wildcat strike in opposition to plans to privatise some 11,000 positions across the province.
  • BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson stepped down after his party’s election loss.
  • Paul Wells takes all sides to task on the state of the current parliament, with a government with transparency issues and an opposition devoted to stupid games.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Nail-biter by-elections”

  1. I have yet to find an article or opinion piece that takes up the issue of what Canadians would do if in the interest of austerity the government canceled the assistances it has initiated for the welfare of our people. Can you just imagine the howling, mewling and gnashing of teeth as the cheques stopped?
    The sight of Rempel, Poilievre and O’Toole standing in the HOC saying exactly the opposite of their daily screeds would make a person spew especially after the HDP leader has finished. What a bunch of overpaid, entitled hypocrites we are forced to listen to everyday. But wait, watch and hear what the Cons would do if the money runs out.

  2. I wouldn’t necessarily read too much into whether or not these particular byelections are an omen for a general election or its timing. Turnout is usually very low in byelections anyway (they were also low for the other provincial elections), and these two didn’t have a whole lot of media attention even in spite of the relative high profiles surrounding them (TorCen in particular — Bill Morneau’s seat, where Annamie Paul got a leadership bump and Marci Ien is a recognizable name). The Liberals were close to their 2015 results in YorkCen, and O’Toole was actually down from Harper’s results. More competitive than they might have liked? Maybe, if only because it wasn’t a cakewalk (which YorkCen isn’t supposed to be anyway). Susan Delacourt has a good piece out today where she said that the CPC shouldn’t be gloating too much. A win is a win and pandemic elections thus far are nevertheless rewarding the incumbents. I still think Paul Wells and Chantal Hebert are onto something, and an election may come sooner rather than later with the opposition going out of their way to throw a spanner in the works just to “own the Libs.”

  3. Got to love the punditry where you always start off by telling us nobody should read too much in by-elections and then precede to read a lot into those by-elections.

    I am not going going to do what you did by overreading it, but I think you forgot it’s a pandemic election and the votes-by-mail all were counted and posted at the end. I get political junkies saw the ten minutes when the count was tight, but she won York Centre by 700 votes in a low turnout election so there isn’t going to be a recount.

    Fairly or not, you’re forever complaining about the lack of good communicators in the front or back benches of the government so the big thing to read about the night might be have a poised professional journalist like Marci Ien taking a seat soon.

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