Roundup: The stakes on Monday may be bigger than we think

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There were a couple of columns on The Line yesterday that are food for thought as we head into the final days of the election. The first was from Matt Gurney, who states in no uncertain terms that if the Conservatives can’t pull out a strong enough showing, that they will start a death spiral as a party to the forces of right-wing populism that have consumed the Republican Party south of the border. Gurney’s thesis is essentially that if O’Toole can manage to get enough results to hold onto power, he might have enough time to get the party’s shit together to save it, but it’s going to mean hard choices and dumping the shitposters in his office and the loonies in his caucus like Cheryl Gallant, and have a firm enough hand to be the necessary bulwark. But I have my doubts that O’Toole is strong enough to do this – he’s spent his leadership winking and nodding to this crowd, given a free pass to Gallant and to Pierre Poilievre, and has basically lied his way through his entire leadership, while utterly debasing himself and his party in order to secure the favour of François Legault. I’m not confident that O’Toole is the person capable of doing the hard work of steering the ship away from Charybdis that lies ahead of it. I think Gurney is right that we need a coherent right-of-centre party for the sake of the country (and hell, we need a capable opposition party regardless of stripe to do the work of accountability), but I have less faith in O’Toole than Gurney does, and I think the party needs a complete generation change if it’s going to be truly successful in pushing back against the very populists that they’ve nurtured and coddled this whole time.

With all of this in mind, Jen Gerson lambastes the entire election as a collection of shiny talking points, with the Liberals basically a shell of a personality cult versus O’Toole amorphousness that is certainly not ready for power – and that there may be a problem with conservatism as an ideology when it comes to dealing with issues like a pandemic, as Alberta is demonstrating. Most of her points are legitimate, but I also think that if anyone thinks this election is about nothing then they’re not paying attention. I don’t disagree that the Liberals are largely a personality cult around Trudeau, but at the same time, they are the only party that has put in the homework, whether it’s on their plans for early learning and child care, inclusive growth, the environment, housing, LGBT issues – they have actual feasible plans behind them and aren’t just handwavey platitudes, or fig leaves that are designed to look like they have a plan but they really don’t. That counts for something, and Trudeau won’t be there for much longer. The cult of personality will reform as it always does, but there will be still be the actual work they’ve put in, and it has been a lot of work, even if it doesn’t look like it from the outside (and that’s partially the Liberals’ fault for not properly communicating their own successes).

And with that in mind, I am baffled by the fact that O’Toole is making his final pitch to voters that Trudeau called an “unnecessary” election – omitting the months of procedural warfare that O’Toole’s side was orchestrating, and that Trudeau needed to break that logjam one way or another. There is a lot at stake in this election, and it would be great if we could keep our eyes on some of what that actually is.

On the campaign trail:

  • Justin Trudeau was in Windsor, Ontario, to tout his plan for Ontario’s priorities.
  • Trudeau hasn’t said if he will drop candidate Kevin Vuong after the revelation of a dropped sexual assault charge.
  • Erin O’Toole was in London, Ontario, to grumble about Trudeau and warn that voting for the PPC is like voting for Trudeau.
  • Jagmeet Singh was in Sherbrooke, Quebec, to claim that his environment plan was best (in spite of all evidence to the contrary).
  • The Liberals’ essential capitulation on Quebec’s Bill 96 (language laws) is angering Anglophone voters in the province (but they may have no one else to vote for).
  • Some senior Conservatives around Toronto are warning of an “enthusiasm gap” as they have difficulty mobilising volunteers for get-out-the-vote efforts on Monday.
  • A Conservative candidate dropped for Islamphobic tweets (that she denies) claims that she is still the “confirmed” Conservative candidate in the riding.
  • Following Barack Obama’s endorsement, Hillary Clinton has endorsed Trudeau while Bernie Sanders weighed in for Singh (and it’s really pretty grubby).
  • By every metric, this has been one of the nastiest campaigns on record, especially with the uptick in vandalism and threats, as COVID triggered far-right actors.
  • Here is Generation Squeeze’s evaluation of housing policies, and, spoiler alert, the Liberals also came out on top on this one as well.
  • Justin Ling despairs at the state of feminism in this election.
  • Chantal Hébert deduces that whichever party leader doesn’t come out on top on Monday will likely soon be out of a job.
  • Susan Delacourt remarks on the reappearance of former prime ministers on a campaign that is supposed to be about determining the course of the future.
  • Robert Hiltz points out that O’Toole’s “moderate Conservative” mask has slipped as he starts reaching for familiar dog-whistles like Roxham Road in desperation.

Good reads:

  • While Justin Trudeau says that Canada’s exclusion from the Aukus pact is because it’s about nuclear submarines, others worry we’re not engaging our allies enough.
  • A famous Chinese sailor claims he was “illegally stopped” trying to enter the Northwest Passage, when he was diverted long before he made it that far.
  • Vaccinations have tripled in Alberta following the announcement of the vaccination certificate programme. Gosh, you think?
  • With all of the talk of this being an “important” election, Jason Markusoff tries to find the least important election in our lifetimes.

Odds and ends:

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: The stakes on Monday may be bigger than we think”

  1. I have another take on the reason for the election call. Admittedly the caucus knew that
    a call was likely and announced their continuing or retiring from their job as am MP.. So,
    they were likely anxious to get on to their next career, if retiring and probably prodded
    the PMO to do the call. This is something that will never be publicly announced but
    was a push from the anxious to get on with the part of their non MP lives.

  2. I don’t think you can have it both ways, that the Liberal Party is a cult of personality built around Trudeau, but it’s also a party that does its homework on policies. They owe Trudeau a lot, after those years of Harper, who wanted to annihilate them and thought he had. Trudeau got them out of the dumps. As someone who remembers well people like Andrew Coyne saying the Liberals were finished for at least a generation, I will always be grateful for that.

    But that doesn’t mean they don’t have substance. They have some very impressive MPs, and if they’re not as prominent as Trudeau, I also remember the painful spectacle of Paul Martin’s impatience, and a series of Liberal MPs getting interviewed about their grievances with Chretien and I don’t miss that. But even at their worst, they moved things forward.

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