Roundup: Security clearances back in the spotlight

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Day three of the campaign, and Mark Carney remained in Halifax, where he had an announcement at the Irving Shipyard about his plans to continue recapitalizing the Royal Canadian Navy, and pledged to fill all 14,500 vacancies in the Canadian Forces expeditiously (and good luck with that). He also promised to expand the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard, and that’s a lot of expensive promises for someone who wants to balance the “operating budget” and still give a tax cut. Over the course of the day, Carney also mispronounced the name of one of his “star” candidates in Montreal, and misidentified the École Polytechnique as Concordia (where another shooting did happen), which she forgave him for, but these are more rookie mistakes creeping in. Up next on the tour will be Windsor, Ontario, then London and Kitchener.

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Pierre Poilievre was in the GTA and promised to expand his proposed GST cut on new homes to now cover all new homes under $1.3 million—a pledge that has both upsides and downsides. There was also a bit of a gaffe with the sign on the lectern, where it looked like two separate verb-the-noun slogans of “Axe the Sales!” and “Tax on Homes.” That wasn’t the case, but someone should have caught that. He also insisted that people wouldn’t lose their federal dental or pharamacare coverage, but was unclear on just who would be covered under his government (and I have a hard time believing that given the scale of cuts that need to happen to fund his promises). He then headed to Hamilton in the evening for another rally.

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As for Jagmeet Singh, he was in Hamilton and mostly complained about Brookfield being capitalists as a way to talk down Mark Carney, and somehow that was supposed to tie into affordable housing, but I couldn’t see anything actually being announced. He did boast about union endorsements, but did admit that the party is facing challenges (as their poll numbers continue to plummet), but insist he’s still in the fight. Today he’s still in Hamilton for his announcement (trying to save the seats there, no doubt) before heading to London, Ontario.

The big story of the day, however, was the revelation in the Globe and Mail that CSIS did allege that India organised support for Poilievre’s leadership campaign (not that he really needed it), but also that they couldn’t brief him on this because he refuses to get his security clearance. Poilievre insisted this was a partisan smear, spun a conspiracy theory about a trip Carney took to Beijing after he was made the Liberal economic advisor, before returning to the falsehood that getting his clearance would be a “gag order,” and seemed wholly unaware that the bigger issue for him to be briefed on was who in his party may be compromised so that he, as party leader, can deal with the matters internally. This having been said, there are questions about the timing of this leak, but we can’t be sure that this was someone trying to put their thumb on the scales in the election when it’s very possible that the Globe sat on this for a while with the intention of dropping it during the campaign so that they can be seen to be setting the agenda, and not the parties. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a media outlet has done that.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 139 drones and missiles at Ukrainian targets overnight Monday, with damage and injuries in the Poltava region. A partial truce on energy and sea attacks was reached with American help, though the Americans are looking to ease sanctions on Russian fertilizer (which only helps their war effort, guys). President Zelenskyy warns, however, that Russia is already trying to manipulate and distort those accords, not that this should be a surprise.

Good reads:

  • As more American tariffs approach, it sounds like Trump may be contemplating escalating levels of tariffs, and that Canada could start on the lower end.
  • There is currently no timeline for the review of the F-35 procurement in light of the Trump threats.
  • Canada stopped sending Radarsat-2 images to Ukraine two years ago, and no one seems to want to say why.
  • China’s ambassador to Canada says he wants better trade ties, but Canada has to first recant allegations of foreign interference. (Yeah, good luck with that).
  • Former minister Sean Fraser has decided he’s going to run again after all, in spite of the fact that another candidate had already been nominated in the riding.
  • Liberal incumbent Sameer Zuberi says his campaign is being targeted with Islamophobic taunts and threats.
  • Pierre Poilievre says he’ll pay Carney’s entry fee for the TVA debate, and then taunted him claiming if he’s too weak to debate, he’s too weak to stand up to Trump.
  • In spite of everything, Danielle Smith is still heading to the “PragerU” fundraiser with far-right influencer Ben Shapiro.
  • BC is preparing legislation to end its carbon tax (because we’re back to being in a race to the bottom, apparently).
  • Althia Raj notes the whiff of opportunism around MPs (and ministers) who are suddenly running again after announcing their retirement when the polls sucked.
  • Andrew Phillips remarks that Poilievre is trying to smile more and be affable rather than an attack dog, given how much his poll numbers have dropped.
  • Justin Ling ponders the things we need to do as a country to decouple from the US.
  • My column looks at the Samara Centre report on the online abuses in the Alberta election in 2023, and how that could extrapolate to this federal election.

Odds and ends:

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