Tag Archives: Syria

Roundup: Warnings, theatre, and lunacy

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Justin Trudeau began his day in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and after the usual warnings to those who are thinking of voting NDP and Green about a Conservative government, promised that if re-elected he would ensure that the province’s sole private abortion clinic would remain open by way of applying the Canada Health Act (though he didn’t specify how), before spending the day stopping in various communities on the way to Halifax, where he ended the day.

Andrew Scheer began his day in Quebec City where he promised to hold a first ministers’ meeting on January 6thwhere he would totally solve the intractable problem of interprovincial trade barriers…apparently through sheer force of his personality. (I previously wrote about this sort of cheap theatre here). He then toured a few other Quebec communities, finishing his day in La Prairie.

Jagmeet Singh began his day in Toronto, where he claimed that abolishing the Senate would somehow better represent Canadians, which is so much horseshit that I can barely breathe. Aside from the fact that it would require a constitutional amendment with the unanimous support of the provinces – something PEI and the rest of Atlantic Canada would not countenance as the Senate was one of the conditions by which they joined Confederation, but it would cut their representation in half, and the whole counter-balancing effect that the Senate’s structure has against the representation-by-population nature of the Commons would be out the window. It’s the most ignorant statement Singh could possibly make, but hey, applause lines.

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Roundup: Voting and dreaming big

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Despite it being the Thanksgiving weekend, most of the campaigns were in full swing. Andrew Scheer took the day off, but Justin Trudeau was undaunted by the security issue of the previous evening, and went to York to pack Thanksgiving hampers along with the coach of the Toronto Raptors and got his endorsement. During the media availability, Trudeau insisted that the security scare would not change the way he campaigns – even though the whole bulletproof vest was unprecedented in Canadian politics. Trudeau then went to Newmarket where the crowds were so thick they closed the streets, and ended the day in Richmond Hill.

Jagmeet Singh was in Surrey, BC, where he held a rally and told the crowd that strategic voting prevents people from dreaming big. (Counterpoint: Dreaming big is all well and good but implementation matters). Singh also said he’d be willing to enter into a coalition with the Liberals in order to stop the Conservatives, which seems premature at this point in the game.

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Roundup: Hand-waving through a plan doomed to fail

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It’s the final debate day of the election, so expect a couple of brief photo-ops, then a quiet day as the leaders do their final prep. Yesterday, Andrew Scheer went to the Roxham Road irregular border crossing in Quebec to pledge that he would end said border crossings – and then hand-waved through just how he planned to do so, given that the Safe Third Country Agreement is a treaty with the Americans and we can’t do anything without negotiating with them, and they are not exactly big on taking in asylum claimants right now and would be happy to see them wind up in Canada. And their “other options,” such as trying to declare the entire border an “official point of entry” for the purposes of the agreement won’t work, and will simply drive more asylum seekers to more remote crossing points where there are fewer controls, and more likelihood of death or injury. In other words, he was misleading about his plans to address the issue, and more than that, he invoked the spectre of MS-13 (which is an American border issue, not a Canadian one), gave the false notion that these crossings somehow let migrants “jump the queue” unfairly (there is no queue for refugees, and they don’t impact those we are bringing in from refugee camps), made the ludicrous promise to move more citizenship judges to the border to process claims faster (proximity has nothing to do with it, and trying to speed up claims has failed in the past because we still need to have procedural fairness and adherence to Charter rights). Immigration and refugee experts have thus proclaimed that Scheer’s pledge today is doomed to failure. On a related note, Scheer keeps saying his full platform will be out in “plenty of time” for people to make an informed decision, but advance polls have already opened on university campuses, and for everyone else tomorrow, so that’s not exactly time for people to start making informed decisions – and leaving Scheer open to the criticism that he plans to replicate the Doug Ford tactic of not releasing a platform and preferring to coast in on anger instead. And while we’re on the subject of Scheer’s dishonesty, he claimed that Elections Canada gave the okay for his campaign director, Hamish Marshall’s ad company to also be producing election ads for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers – but Elections Canada said that’s not true. So chalk that up to yet another lie on the tally.

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Justin Trudeau was in Markham, promising that the first thing he would do if re-elected would be to cut taxes for the middle class, which was essentially just a reannouncement of their basic personal amount cut. When answering questions, he offered some clarity to the situation around the spat between the Canadian Forces and provincial healthcare systems, which stems from the Canadian Forces being billed for higher rates than they would be normally for those services.

Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, was in Montreal to address CUPE convention, with promise to fight privatization, in the hopes of winning back the labour vote.

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Roundup: Hypothetical subways and more traffic

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It was a quieter day, post-debate, but the leaders were all back on the road, mindful that there is still another debate later in the week. Andrew Scheer in Markham to promise funds for two Toronto subway projects – while lying about the Liberal record on said funding (the funds haven’t been released because there isn’t an actual plan for those lines yet) – and to further promise that he would fund any infrastructure project designed to ease congestion. Erm, except that this is a promise to induce demand because all of the data show that if you build more traffic infrastructure, that traffic just grows to fill it. It doesn’t actually relieve congestion – it just contributes to making it worse.

Jagmeet Singh was in Toronto to talk student loans, and when pressed about Bill 21 by the media, he said that if it made it to the Supreme Court of Canada that the federal government would “have to” take a look at it then – which isn’t really true, and they could put arguments forward at any court case along the way. This makes Singh’s position to basically punt the problem down the road for a few years, for apparently little electoral gain.

Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, went to Iqaluit in Nunavut, where he spoke about the North being on the “front lines” of climate change, and to meet with elders in that community. It also lets Trudeau make the claim that he’s the only leader to have visited the North during the campaign, for a few hours in any case.

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Roundup: Confidence and throwing money at problems

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While Justin Trudeau took the day off of campaigning, Andrew Scheer attended the grand opening of a Buddhist temple in Bethany, Ontario, before doing meet-and-greets in Peterborough and Newcastle. There, Scheer said that he was confident in the party’s vetting process, despite having to dump a candidate earlier in the week (given that her homophobic posts go well before the election period).

Jagmeet Singh visited Grassy Narrows, where the local chief is running for the NDP, and pledged more money for drinking water in First Nations communities (although it’s rarely an issue of not enough money, but other capacity challenges, which the current government is addressing – partially why it is taking as long as it is to get movement on some of these challenges, on top of the fact that they took responsibility for a number of drinking water outlets that used to be private and are addressing them as well).

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Roundup: A corridor to nowhere

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While the Liberals took the day off of the campaign, Andrew Scheer headed to Edmonton to campaign alongside Jason Kenney in Amarjeet Sohi’s riding, where Scheer reiterated his previously announced vision for a “trans-national energy corridor” which he imagines would create a right-of-way for all manner of pipelines across the country and they wouldn’t need to do additional environmental assessments on those projects or have jurisdictional challenges, or anything of the sort. Erm, except it’s going to involve expropriating a lot of land from private landowners (which is expensive and contrary to what Conservatives claim to stand for), and it will be long, complex, and expensive negotiations with the various First Nations and Inuit along those lands, because you can be assured that they will be asserting rights title over that territory. (For more, I wrote a column on this when the subject was first broached in May). It’s nice in theory, but practically has little chance of getting anywhere off the ground.

On the topic of Scheer, the Globe and Mail found that while he says that he was an “insurance broker” for six months in Saskatchewan as his private sector experience, he was never licenced and didn’t actually work as a broker. So that’s something.

Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, was in Burnaby, BC, to promise $30 million in federal funds to reduce the cost of BC ferries. It’s worth noting that this was five days straight of campaigning in the vicinity of his riding, which could easily be interpreted as a sign that he’s worried about saving the seats he has in the area.

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Roundup: Admitting the need for negotiation

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With the policy-over-controversy reset now in full swing, Justin Trudeau was out first this morning in Hamilton to announce next steps in the government’s planned universal pharmacare programme, with a $6 billion “down payment” in the system, along with more funding for increased access to family doctors and mental health services. Unlike other campaigns – looking specifically at you, NDP – this one was honest in the fact that it would rely on negotiations with the provinces, and that it would be incremental (something the NPD promise handwaves over), though where Trudeau got into a talking point was where he kept bringing up Doug Ford in this, and asking who Canadians trusted to negotiate with Ford – Scheer, or him? And he repeated it over, and over, and over again, to the point of parody.

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Andrew Scheer was in Vaughan, Ontario, to announce a four-point plan to make housing more affordable, which included a plan to “fix” the mortgage stress test (erm, have you read anything the Bank of Canada has put out?), let first-time homebuyers take out thirty-year amortized mortgages (almost like the 2008 financial crisis didn’t happen!), launch a national enquiry into money laundering in real estate, and make surplus federal real estate available for developers. The first two seem to ignore the actual issues at play regarding bad debt and the past financial crisis, and has instead swallowed the arguments of real estate lobbyists wholesale – never mind that the housing market has come roaring back in recent months, showing that the stress test was not the issue, and it’s almost like these plans could have the effect of driving up housing prices again. Funny that. Like Trudeau invoking Ford, Scheer was also invoking Kathleen Wynne’s name as his own scare tactic, which seems like a poor choice considering that her government has already been defeated, and Ford was found to have mislead Ontarians on the size and scope of the deficit (while he spends more at the same time as cutting services).

Jagmeet Singh finally visited New Brunswick for the first time in the 23 months he’s been leader, where he announced a “star candidate” (very loose definition), apologised for not having visited sooner (offering no excuses), and repeating his plans for pharmacare – again, with no details about how exactly he’d get the provinces to sign onto a very expensive programme with disparate systems and formularies within a year.

In an interview broadcast yesterday, Singh also said that he would allow any province to have a veto over projects like pipelines, which is also ridiculous, goes against the whole notion of why we have a constitution, and also goes against his whole platform where he wants to impose federal programmes on areas of provincial jurisdiction (being pharmacare and dental care).

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Roundup: Exit Butts, leaving uncertainty in his wake

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So, mid-Family Day when most people in most provinces of this country were enjoying a day off (federal workers excluded), the latest bombshell in the SNC-Lavalin/Wilson-Raybould drama dropped – that the prime minister’s principal secretary, Gerald Butts, resigned his position. In his resignation letter, he vigorously denied any wrongdoing but was removing himself from the office to defend himself and to keep from being a distraction. Of course, the Conservatives cheered, but insisted that this was the sign of a PMO in crisis, and they would continue to get to the bottom of things at the Justice Committee (despite the fact that they’re limited in what they’re actually able to look into, and they are apparently going to go beyond the bounds of what procedure allows). The NDP, meanwhile, will be using their Supply Day to move a motion to demand an independent inquiry into the whole matter – because what government would welcome a Gomery-style inquiry that has the potential to spin out of control and blow up in their faces?

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It’s not hard to note that this leaves a gap in Trudeau’s office – Butts was his long-time friend and one of the architects of his success. But he was also seen by opponents as this puppet-master figure (RIP all of those “PM Butts” Twitter accounts), and among other observers of politics that he and Katie Telford may have also been a bit of a bottleneck for decisions. We’ll see who Trudeau replaces him with, and if the management style in the PMO changes as a result. We’ll also see if the mood in the caucus changes as well, and it’s been theorized that it’s another reason for the departure – that MPs have been getting restless with the amount of control that Butts has (cue the stories about MPs disgruntled about the way that caucus meetings are being handled, and that they’re afraid to air their views there for fear of being insulted). There are several months before the election, so perhaps this will give them time to right the ship in time. Maybe.

In terms of reaction columns, Susan Delacourt reflects on the Trudeau-Butts power dynamic within the party, and the uncertainty that is left in the wake of the departure. Chantal Hébert notes that Butts’ resignation may deflect the internal friendly-fire, but could leave Trudeau vulnerable on the eve of the election campaign (which is still eight months away!). Likewise, John Ivison hears that there may have been a “riot” at Liberal caucus on Wednesday had Butts not resigned, and this move makes him something of a scapegoat. Paul Wells regales us with the role Butts played as the “senior Liberal insider” in media stories, and how this central role in the PMO was probably not suited to federal politics, which will mean a way of reforming how Trudeau’s government operates.

Amidst this, there are two threads from Philippe Lagassé that you need to read – the first questions the critique that there are too many political staffers running things and that Parliament would work just great if they were gone. (I too find this a problematic assertion given that the bigger problem is the way in which our bastardized leadership contests have inflated the leader and his or her office in the first place). The second is a corrective to the specious lines about the “unelected” nature of the PMO and the power it wields, as people forget that we don’t elect prime ministers or Cabinet – they are appointed positions. Only the House of Commons is elected.

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Roundup: Not the right by-election

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Justin Trudeau called a by-election yesterday – but only in the riding of Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands, and not Burnaby South, where Jagmeet Singh has declared that he wants to run – and now the NDP are sniping about it, calling it “petty and manipulative,” and even more curiously, griping that Canadians from that riding are being deprived of representation.

A couple of things: First of all, Singh has had several opportunities to run for a seat before now, and has turned them all down. The fact that he has suddenly realised that his being “comfortable” with not having a seat until his poll numbers started plunging doesn’t mean that the Liberals have an obligation to get him in the House as soon as possible – he already made it clear it wasn’t a priority. As well, it they were so concerned about a lack of representation, they should have said something to their MP who vacated the seat in the first place – and not only that, who waited until the last minute to vacate it after spending the summer campaigning for another job. Likewise with Thomas Mulcair in Outremont and now Sheila Malcolmson in Nanaimo – they chose to leave before the current parliament expired.

Add to that, the time to call this particular by-election was running out, and with the other current openings, Trudeau may be waiting on Malcolmson to give a date as to when she officially plans to leave her seat, and for Liberal MP Nicola Di Iorio to officially vacate his own seat in Montreal (given that he suddenly started having second thoughts after declaring he was going to resign) before Trudeau calls the other by-elections, so that they can “cluster” the by-elections in those regions. I’m not convinced that there’s a crisis here. Singh made his bed, and now he gets to lay in it.

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Roundup: Hung legislatures vs basic civics

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New Brunswick had an election on Monday night, and it resulted in a 22-21-3-3 hung legislature, and wouldn’t you just know it, there’s been some really awful reporting about it, because apparently people who report on politics in this country can’t be arsed to learn the basics of how Responsible Government works. Hence, we got reporters saying that people “don’t know who the premier is” – which is wrong, because it remains Brian Gallant as he hasn’t resigned – or that he would “get first crack to try and form a government” – he already has a government, but rather he will try to test the confidence of the Chamber – or another heinous offender was framing his meeting with the lieutenant governor as getting “permission” to test confidence, which is again wrong because the LG doesn’t grant permission. I’m also not crazy about framing the election as “inefficient votes” for the provincial Liberals because that implies that the popular vote is a real thing, when it’s a logical fallacy – it was not one election, but rather 49 separate elections that happened at the same time. This is basic civics, and yet our media is failing Canadians, so well done everyone.

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What makes this particular election result interesting is the fact that there are two “third-parties,” each with three seats – the Green Party, and an anti-bilingualism populist party – that will have to prop up either the incumbent Liberals or the PCs, who won one more seat (so far as we know – there are several recounts now underway). That means that the election of a Speaker will be crucial, and word has it that the government is making offers to PC winners to try and get one of them to take up the post. Of course, one particular quirk of New Brunswick is that, well, their Speakers tend to be fairly partisan. So that could make things doubly interesting for the way things will play out in the weeks and months to come.

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Meanwhile, Paul Wells accurately describes the dynamics of the post-election period and how the LG will discharge her role, which is not to give permission. Susan Delacourt tries to tease out the effect of populism on this election, but along the way grossly mischaracterises the LG as having “waded into” the results and giving Gallant “the right” to stay on as premier, when that’s not how it works, and it’s disappointing that these myths keep getting traction.

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