Roundup: Contrasting convention speeches

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The Liberal and NDP conventions went ahead “virtually” over the weekend, and from the sounds of it, the Liberals’ went smoothly, while the NDP’s was derided as glitchy, and delegates complained there was little opportunity for actual debate. For his convention speech, Justin Trudeau went hard at Erin O’Toole – befitting the partisan nature of the event – calling the Conservatives “disconnected,” going after their use of disinformation to score points, and pointing out that they would not have been willing to use government resources to help people get through the pandemic through mechanisms like CERB. He also encouraged people to reach out to neighbours, and tell them the Good Word of their lord and saviour Justin Trudeau about the plan the Liberals are building. As for policy resolutions, the party voted for several propositions around Basic Income, but also rejected policy planks to raise certain taxes, so that says a lot about where the party is at in their thought process.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1380926399725371398

For the NDP, after their policy resolutions (including $20 federal minimum wage) were dealt with – with much grumbling from the membership – Jagmeet Singh gave his speech, wherein he claimed that the only reason that the Liberals helped people in the pandemic was because the NDP forced them to (which would only be believable if you paid no attention at all to the Liberals’ willingness to spend any amount of money), and then made a bunch of false claims about pharmacare, and imported some American Democrat talking points about the ultra-wealthy. So, pretty standard for Singh.

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert tries to tamp down some of the leadership speculation around Mark Carney by pointing out some realities of what that contest could look like. Susan Delacourt noticed that Justin Trudeau’s speech at their convention was much more embracing of Liberal history than he has been in the past. Delacourt also tried to divine what kinds of electoral priorities were to come out of the convention speeches by the two leaders. Paul Wells remarks on the lack of discussion about actual choices at the Liberal convention – which is a very important point, because parliamentary time is finite, as are money and resources, and if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority, and it seems to be the case that Liberals are not getting that message.

Good reads:

  • Dominic LeBlanc is signalling very loudly that the budget will be built around early learning and childcare (which should not be a surprise at this point).
  • There are accusations that the government threatened to pull funding from the Halifax Security Forum if they presented an award to the president of Taiwan.
  • Here is an interview with AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde about what he’s expecting to see in the upcoming budget.
  • Liberals on the Defence Committee are hoping to push to wrap up the report into the General Vance allegations, and this looks destined to blow up in their faces.
  • At the Formerly Known as Manning Centre conference, Erin O’Toole insisted he is authentically “true blue” but is trying to grow the party’s base.
  • Mike Moffatt explains the glaring flaws in the PBO’s most recent report on Basic Income, which MPs and senators have been completely glossing over.
  • Heather Scoffield offers an endorsement of the “aggressive incrementalism” approach to creating child care spaces.

Odds and ends:

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