Day thirty-four, and leaders are all in the final push, making last-minute stops in key ridings that they either hope to keep, or win outright. Mark Carney was in Sault Ste. Marie to visit Algoma Steel, where he gave the Ontario-centric and, more importantly, steel-focused, version of his pitch to voters. He did say, in response to a question, that he was open to electoral reform but didn’t think that a prime minister should champion it because it politicises it. (I swear to Zeus, if this turns into another round of “citizen assembly” nonsense, I will lose my mind). He also said he’s open to reviewing the Access to Information regime (which every leader says), and called on Israel to end the blockade on food aid to Gaza. The then made stops in Georgetown, Cambridge, and London, Ontario. He also made his appearance at the virtual AFN forum, where he committed to implementation of UNDRIP. Carney is sticking in Ontario today with events in King City, Newmarket, Aurora, Markham, Mississauga, and then Windsor.
Pierre Poilievre was in Saskatoon, where he laid out his plans for his first 100 days in office (which is another imported Americanism), and it involved promising to sit through the summer in order to pass three massive omnibus bills that dealt with large swaths of his agenda. Part of his hundred days, however, was a promise to get a deal with Trump, which is not only ridiculous because nobody is getting an actual deal with Trump, but he’s been saying that Carney thinks he can control Trump but nobody can, and yet he’s simultaneously insisting that only he can control Trump enough to get a deal. It’s laughable that he thinks this is at all serious. Poilievre then stopped in Calgary for a rally, where he called for bigger voter turnout, before heading to Nanoose Bay, BC. Poilievre will be in Delta, BC, today for one of his finally rallies.
Poilievre is still peddling the fantasy that *he* can make a deal with Trump that will stick, after he says Carney is delusional for thinking he can control Trump.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T15:44:59.656Z
Jagmeet Singh was in Toronto, where he just invented the threat that the Liberals will cut healthcare if there aren’t enough NDP MPs elected, which is outrageous bullshit. For one, the problem is with the provinces, and they have long-term funding agreements with the federal government, and two, the threats of cutting healthcare are at the provincial level. This is just outright mendacity from an increasingly desperate Singh. His campaign then stopped in Hamilton and London, Ontario. Singh starts the day in London, then heads to Windsor before flying to Vancouver and Burnaby.
Singh is just literally making shit up at this point.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T15:02:12.089Z
On a side note, Yves-François Blanchet made the statement today that Canada is an “artificial country with very little meaning,” in response to questions about previous remarks about sitting in a “foreign parliament.” While this is probably self-defeating at a time of heightened patriotism, what Blanchet is really trying to do is appeal to ethnic nationalism in Quebec. All countries are artificial, but a good many around the world are bound together by a common ethnicity and language, and Canada is not. Certain elements of Quebec would like to think that they have a common ethnicity and language, but this is the kind of ethnic nationalism that fuels racism and xenophobia. It’s what François Legault has been appealing to as he attacks the rights of religious minorities. And Blanchet is trying to appeal to it to say that Liberals can’t represent Quebec because only the Bloc can truly represent “ethnic” Quebeckers. But he’s also been hoping that he’ll get a bump in the polls like he did last time after Shachi Kurl raised (badly formed) questions about Law 21, which Blanchet was able to spin into “She’s calling us racists!” and that gave him the boost in the polls he needed. It looks like he won’t get that this time around.
https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1916013202388721995
In other campaign news, Equal Voice’s tally shows that the Liberals, Conservatives, and Bloc are all running fewer women as candidates in this election. Elections Canada says that Poilievre’s riding of Carleton had the highest advance turnout in the country. None of the parties have been clear about how they plan to meet existing climate commitments. Singh is trying to convince George Stroumboulopoulos that their poll numbers are rebounding (really!) so they’ll come out of the election with “lots” of re-elected MPs. (Aside from the quarter of his caucus that’s not running again?)
For Canadians being inundated by riding-level polls right now:The data is crap if it has no dates, small samples (<800), high margins of error.The people showing them to you are trying to persuade you to vote for their own preferred party. It's sales pitch, not an evidence-based argument.
https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lnnrnrygrs2r
Yes. Yes I do.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T13:35:18.917Z
Ukraine Dispatch
A drone attack on Pavlohrad killed five and injured at least eleven. A Russian general was killed by a car bomb, and Russia is blaming Ukraine (who have not yet claimed responsibility).
https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1915669752787149047
Good reads:
- The Fiscal Monitor shows a deficit of $19.3 billion from April to February, which is up only slightly from last year.
- In an interview with TIME, Trump said he’s serious about annexing Canada and that he’s not just trolling.
- The Logic looks into those fake ads and crypto scams posing as news articles on Facebook, many of them with a dark twist on Canadian political figures.
- The Star takes a deeper dive into housing affordability and how the party platforms are meeting the challenges (or not).
- Prior to the election, Conservative MPs were using Order Paper questions to get details on government contracts related to “DEI” (so they could lambaste them).
- Doug Saunders tracks how politicians globally trading in “anti-woke” promises are suddenly changing their tune as Trump has poisoned his own well.
- Mike Moffatt’s Missing Middle podcast takes on the various parties’ housing promises, and how none of them really add up (transcript).
- Susan Delacourt talks to Jagmeet Singh about the threats that prompted him to get RCMP protection last winter, before the threats from India became public.
- Delacourt also reflects on the election, and sees it as one that forced all parties more to the centre.
- Delacourt and Matt Gurney debate whether any party “earned” a majority parliament in this election.
Odds and ends:
For National Magazine, I look into the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision that says that “transmission lines” doesn’t include 5G antennas for access to public property.
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