Day twenty-eight, and two of the parties had platform releases, while one of them played silly games with media (and I’ll let you guess which is which). We also heard from Elections Canada that a record two million people voted in the advance polls on Friday, (but nobody knows what it means). It also looks like nobody will be downing tools for the holiday today, so there’s that.

Mark Carney was in Whitby, Ontario, where he unveiled his “costed” platform, which did talk a lot about the scale of the challenge facing us with decoupling from the US, but remained vague on a lot of details. (Costing details here). One of my biggest issues, upon first reading, is the assumption made throughout that it’ll be easy to work with provinces on things like credentials recognition when we have been trying this for decades with little progress. Yes, the moment is different, but these things have been slow to change for a reason, so essentially promising to get this done in a few months is dubious at best. I am also incredibly dubious with the reliance on AI as the way to “increase efficiency” in the civil service, as though AI has ever shown itself to be reliable. (Write-ups from The Logic, the Star, CTV, CBC). There are also the start of some threads below that are worth clicking through. Afterward, Carney stopped in Newcastle and Peterborough. Carney will be in his home riding of Nepean today.

Here's the costing on the Liberal housing promises. Thoughts:1. Limiting the GST cut to first-time homebuyers really does render it near-useless. Very few $s.2. Reintroducing MURB really is a big deal.3. No way municipalities agree to halve DCs in exchange for 1.5B.

— Dr. Mike P. Moffatt (@mikepmoffatt.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T16:37:19.000Z

Finally got a chance to read the Liberal platform. On Defence, some of this stuff was already in process such as reforming recruitment, but more can be done. So, quickening clearances is a good thing. More pay, better housing/health care/childcare all easier ways to spend more 1/

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T20:30:14.086Z

A few comments on the @mark-carney.bsky.social platform released today. You can find it here: liberal.ca/cstrong/.I provided some 'sounding board' advice here and there to those working on the platform. As always: I disclose, but you can decide what weight to put on that.Thread below…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T18:04:43.522Z

tl;dr for this thread.1. The LPC platform would re-orient Canada in the face of epoch-defining US aggression. 2. Strength is focus on investment while aiming at fiscal sustainability.3. Weakest parts are i) reliance on spending restraint to make numbers work ii) blowing $22B on a PIT tax cut.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T19:32:20.492Z

$25 million won't do much if provinces continue to dismantle their universities.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-19T17:03:06.508Z

 

Pierre Poilievre was in Richmond, BC, where he promised mandatory drug treatment for people with addictions, which is both against the Charter, and is hard to square with a party who thought that vaccine mandates were too much of an imposition on their personal liberties. They also refused to take questions from national media and took questions from local media who looked to have had planted questions, because of course they did. Poilievre will be in Surrey, BC, today.

Jagmeet Singh was in Burnaby, BC, to release their, well, not platform but “commitments,” including their costing, since they’re not going to form government. But of course, so many of those commitments are also in provincial jurisdiction, so it’s not like they would be able to achieve any of them anyway, so this is mostly just fairytale maths. (Write-ups from the Star, CTV, CBC) Singh will be in Victoria and Nanaimo today.

Here's the NDP housing plan costing. 7B a year. Not much to say on this one. Unclear to me how the Homes Transfer and Community Fund are meaningfully different from the government's Housing Accelerator and Housing Infrastructure Fund.

— Dr. Mike P. Moffatt (@mikepmoffatt.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T00:40:37.000Z

In other campaign news, the Star has pre-election profiles of Carney, Poilievre, Singh, and the Elizabeth May-Jonathan Pedneault team-up. Here is a look into Poilievre’s promise to fight “wokeness” in universities (just like Trump).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claimed they would have an “Easter ceasefire,” but kept up their attacks, particularly on the front lines, because of course they did.

Good reads:

• The Media Ecosystem Observatory has tracked a sharp rise in fake political content over social media that is designed to be polarizing.
• It looks like the Great Vegemite Dispute in Canada has ended after some political intervention from Carney, getting the CFIA to back down.
• Quebec is taking no special measures to attract or recruit any doctors looking to flee the US, nor facilitate any credentials recognition, like pretty much every province is.
• Kevin Carmichael notes the Bank of Canada’s caution in their next moves, as they are not yet ready to declare the global financial system to be broken just yet.
• Dan Gardner details Trump’s war on history, which should be a cautionary tale because it could come here as Poilievre pledges to fight “radical wokeism.”
• Shannon Proudfoot paints a sketch of Carney’s campaign stop in Niagara Falls, and the image he portrayed at that time and place.
• Justin Ling cautions that the Liberals’ platform may be a little too protectionist and a little too reliant on a faux nostalgia around self-sufficiency to make it work out.

Odds and ends:

This week's video roundup is now posted for C$7+ subscribers—your curated selection of the only good #cdnpoli interviews of the week.I watched the politics shows so you don't have to.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-20T01:22:48.481Z

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