Roundup: Duelling tax cut offers

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Day two of the campaign, and the first full day of campaigning. Mark Carney began in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, where he played up the Canadiana and the fact that Gander hosted passengers from aircraft stranded on 9/11 (which became the basis for the musical “Come from Away.” This was part of his appeal to Canadian values in the face of Trump and the trade war, before he jetted off to Halifax. (Day one recap here, and more about the fishers protesting his speech.). Carney also released a second, more earnest ad with Mike Myers, who officially endorsed him in it. Carney also added that he hasn’t spoken to Trump yet, but he suspects Trump is waiting until after the election to call.

Pierre Poilievre was still in the Greater Toronto Area, where he had pledged his own, larger income tax cut, and gave a faux assurance that it would be paid for with “cuts to bureaucracy, consultants, and foreign aid.” (Yeah, that’s not going to get you the money for this kind of a tax cut, it will absolutely disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and you can bet that social programmes will be on the chopping block). He also regaled the crowd with a stupid meme tale about telling a child that income tax is a “punishment for doing well,” rather than the entry fee for civilization. Because Poilievre is fundamentally an anti-government conservative (in spite of having spent his entire life in public office). (Day one recap here).

The NDP started off in Montreal, where he promised to set aside even more public land for rent-controlled homes, but didn’t exactly spell out how this would be different than what the federal government is already doing about leasing public lands (nor did he address the fact that a lot of that “government-owned land” are actually contaminated sites). He also took some jabs at a punching bag in an outdoor gym—because he’s spent the last few weeks trying to burnish a tough-guy image—before the bus went down the 401 to Toronto. (Day one recap here). He’ll spend much of the day there today, before heading to Hamilton later afternoon.

Given the two promises around tax cuts, here are some analyses of what it might mean, once we get more details. Economists, however, are pretty sceptical thus far that the maths are going to work out for these cuts.

The Leadership Debates Commission announced the dates for the two official “consortium” debates as April 16th and 17thin Montreal, French first, then English, each with a single moderator after the complete gong show of the previous two election cycles. There will not be a TVA “face-à-face” debate this time, as they planned to charge the leaders $75,000 each to “offset costs,” and the Liberals balked, so it won’t go ahead. The other campaigns are trying to say Carney was too afraid of a second French debate, but charging the parties to hold it was a very, very bad precedent, and it’s probably for the best that it wasn’t’ allowed to take hold.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles hit a densely-populated part of Sumy, wounding 88 people, while there were further air attacks on Kyiv, wounding one and damaging houses. A Russian cyberattack also hit Ukraine’s state railway service, adding to the chaos of the situation.

Good reads:

  • Mark Carney says that he has set up two ethics “screens” to avoid any conflicts of interest relating to his past corporate work.
  • The Chief Electoral Officer says he is in touch with social media platforms to help address mis/disinformation during the campaign. (Good luck with that!)
  • The Chief Electoral Officer doesn’t believe that Danielle Smith’s actions in trying to influence the election outcome violates any current election laws.
  • The CRTC is postponing three public hearings on reforming the definitions of CanCon, pending the election outcome.
  • Here is a look at how defence issues have become an election topic when they are usually an afterthought, or sometimes a political wedge.
  • Here is a look at the use of Starlink services by governments in Canada, and why it will be a process to disentangle them as the move to divest from Musk.
  • South of the border, the editor of The Atlantic got added to a Signal groupchat about an upcoming operation against the Houthis in Yemen, and it’s as dumb as it sounds.
  • Christy Clark says she won’t run for a seat with the Liberals after all.
  • The Bloc are proposing a “Buy Canadian” private members’ bill in the next Parliament (which isn’t going to help with our other trading relationships, guys!)
  • A Bloc incumbent says that he’s more afraid of the Liberals than of Trump, which got Steven Guilbeault outraged as a result.
  • PEI’s premier, Rob Lantz, has pointed out that both the Liberals and Conservatives have promised to remove the tolls on the Confederation Bridge.
  • Martin Patriquin contrasts Hydro-Quebec’s Michael Sabia’s approach to dealing with Americans to that of Doug Ford.
  • Bruce Arthur sees Danielle Smith’s actions as spelling out where she and Poilievre lie in the face of the greatest threat our country has ever faced.
  • Althia Raj worries about the precedent of TVA charging to host an election debate, and where that blurs the lines of ethics and advertising.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at where the leaders and the parties are positioned at the start of the campaign.

For National Magazine, I profiled new justice minister Gary Anandasangaree.

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One thought on “Roundup: Duelling tax cut offers”

  1. It is depressing to hear about tax cuts. When will there ever be a better time to rally around defense spending? I keep hearing ideas put forward like war bonds and they’re ignored. All the parties are absolutely blind to this right now.

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