Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Time to make your grown-up choice

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It’s election day, so make sure you go out and vote. Seriously. And if you think that parties will somehow get the message that you’re disgusted with them if you refuse to vote or you spoil your ballot, well, no, they won’t care. Being a grown-up means making unpalatable choices, and it’s your responsibility in a liberal democracy to make that choice, no matter how terrible it is.

Meanwhile, all of the party leaders were in BC for their final pitches to voters, Justin Trudeau in West Vancouver, Port Moody, Surrey, Vancouver, and Victoria, to give his final push about choosing a progressive government and not $53 billion in cuts.

Andrew Scheer was a number of Vancouver ridings to tell Quebeckers that voting for the Bloc meant another referendum (never mind that Jason Kenney is the only premier promising a referendum these days), while also repeating various lies including that he would get rid of the carbon tax in that province, which is false because it’s provincial and neither provincial party has any interest in getting rid of it. Honestly, this isn’t hard.

Jagmeet Singh was similarly in Vancouver and Surrey to tell young voters to vote with their hearts (and by extension ignoring the fact that his promises are largely in provincial jurisdiction or based on American realities and not Canadian ones).

This is what we’re dealing with. Make your choice.

Other election stories:

  • Today’s success for the parties will depend on their volunteers getting out the vote.
  • Here’s a look at the shift in the feeling on the Conservative campaign as they spent the last 48 hours making up new lies.
  • Here is yet another look at the resurgence of the Bloc, how it reinvented itself and why the attacks of the other leaders are now out of step.

Good reads:

  • Social policy groups think their messages got short shrift in the campaign (really?) and are gearing up for post-election advocacy efforts.
  • There has been a proliferation of far-right messaging in Chinese-language social media, but nobody seems to want to do anything about it.
  • Jason Markusoff says that Trudeau will need an “Alberta unity strategy” if he wins tonight, which will mean going ahead with Trans Mountain (which is a no brainer).
  • Susan Delacourt encourages us to stick it to those foreign disinformation services by going out and voting.
  • Chris Selley is baffled by Scheer’s refusal to answer on the Cult of the Insider story that dominated over the weekend.

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Roundup: Last minute obfuscation

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As this interminable, awful election draws to a close, leaders were busy making their final pitches to voters, starting with Justin Trudeau in Niagara, and then to Hamilton, where he had a media availability, and he mostly talked around questions being posed to him around things like that interview from Stephen Guilbeault where he said that more pipelines were unlikely to be built (I mean, has anyone actually looked at the economic data?), or what he might do in a minority situation (which really is the right thing to do, because all of this baseless speculation without seeing the seat math is pretty dumb). Trudeau then went to Brantford, Milton, Winnipeg, and ended off with a late-night rally in Calgary, so he can at least say he visited. There, he made a pitch for progressives to consolidate around him as an anti-Kenney vote.

Andrew Scheer held his media availability in North York, where he consistently refused to say whether the stories about his party hiring a certain Cult of the Insider figure to try and discredit the Maxime Bernier Fan Club, before he simply repeated misinformation. He then headed for Don Valley North, Brampton, Scarborough, and finished off with a rally in Richmond Hill where the crowd started chanting “lock him up” about Trudeau. Scheer tried to get them to say “Vote him out” instead, but honestly? This Dollarama-knockoff LARPing of American politics is so tiresome.

Jagmeet Singh largely stuck to the Vancouver area, and he too prevaricated on yet more questions about post-election situations including whether he’d trigger an early election rather than work with the Conservatives.

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Roundup: A fresh obvious lie

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As the messages start to sharpen as the election gets ever closer, boy howdy did Andrew Scheer decided to go all in on lying to Canadians. From a campaign stop in Fredericton, Scheer claimed that a Liberal-NDP coalition would hike the GST to seven percent, and then put out a press release claiming all kinds of other tax increases and cuts to social transfers to pay for their platform – a ridiculous figure he reached by adding the two total costs together, never mind that a) it doesn’t work like that, and b) IT WAS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL LIE. And sure, reporters called out that it was a lie, but Scheer shrugged and said it wasn’t misinformation because he didn’t trust Justin Trudeau. Erm, it doesn’t work like that. Meanwhile, the premier of New Brunswick was also at the rally, grousing that Quebec is the “favoured child” of Confederation because he wants an imaginary pipeline to flow to his province despite there being no actual economic case for it, and the inconvenient fact that his province gets far more equalization per capita than Quebec does. (Good luck with Scheer keeping most of his Quebec seats with rhetoric like this, by the way). Scheer’s tour later stopped in Beauce, where he chugged milk to troll Maxime Bernier, and Drummondville.

Justin Trudeau started his day in Whitby, where he had to refute Scheer’s latest lie, and then mumbled some stuff about maybe expanding abortion services in New Brunswick. He then made stops in Orillia, Barrie, and Vaughan. He’ll head to Calgary later tonight, so that could be interesting.

Jagmeet Singh held rallies on Vancouver Island – hoping to keep the Greens from gaining ground there – and started playing coy again about how he’d be in a hung parliament, and hand waved about the Trans Mountain Pipeline as a possible condition for support.

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Roundup: Sowing discord and mistrust

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Justin Trudeau began his second day in Quebec with a stop in Trois-Rivières, where the message remained one of electing a progressive government and not opposition, and avoiding speculation on any post-electoral government formations. After several more stops during the day, he finished the day in Montreal with a big rally.

Andrew Scheer was in Brampton to pledge that his first piece of legislation would be to repeal the federal carbon price – never mind that it would simply take a Governor-in-Council order to remove the affected provinces from the law’s Schedule 1. Scheer also insisted that the “modern convention” in Canada is that the party that wins the most seats gets to form government – which is utter bunk, and someone who was Speaker of the House, and who claims great respect for Westminster parliamentary traditions should know. But this is about sowing doubt and poisoning the well so that he can claim that any other configuration is somehow illegitimate, which it’s not. But it’s not like truth is his big strong suit.

Jagmeet Singh started his day in Welland, Ontario, where he stated that “coalition isn’t a dirty word.” Perhaps he should ask Nick Clegg in the UK about how well that worked out for him. Singh also insisted that he could “encourage” provinces with his many healthcare promises (such as making specific hospital pledges), which is pretty much hand-waving.

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Roundup: The big endorsement

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All three leaders were in Quebec yesterday, being one of the most important battleground provinces when it comes to getting out the vote. Justin Trudeau started off his day in Montreal to again make the pitch that voters need a progressive government and not a progressive opposition, and saying that this was the “dirtiest” campaign ever because of things like disinformation. From there, he made several stops on the way to Sherbrooke. The big news in the afternoon, however, was a tweet from Barack Obama, giving an endorsement for Trudeau’s re-election, citing the need for a progressive voice on the world stage (and taking some of the wind out of the sails of the Conservative claim that Trudeau has been some kind of “embarrassment” on the world stage).

https://twitter.com/b_momani/status/1184550642225991685

Andrew Scheer started his day in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, then headed to Essex, where he promised higher penalties for ethics violations (possibly flirting with constitutional challenges of what constitutes an administrative monetary penalty versus a criminal sanction), and headed into Ontario, eventually making it to Hamilton, where he was in the riding of the Liberal incumbent who was at her mother’s funeral that day – to which Scheer insisted it was okay because he made a charitable donation. (We also found out that he switched the location he planned to make the stop, and the pub owner of the first location was brassed off because he spent $700 preparing food for the stop and putting more workers on staff).

As part of his Quebec tour, Jagmeet Singh was in Hudson, Quebec, the birthplace of Jack Layton, to make his pitch of trying to claim Layton’s legacy. Throughout the day, he started making more untenable promises, like reopening an emergency room in Winnipeg – something that is explicitly provincial jurisdiction, while hand-waving about “levers” he can use, which he actually has none – particularly not in the Canada Health Act. But hey, he wants people to “dream big,” and never mind the Constitution or the clear division of powers therein.

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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: Negotiation and bad timing

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On Thanksgiving Monday, Justin Trudeau headed to Windsor to boost the local candidates there (given it’s a seat they think they can take from the NDP), and he spoke about the New NAFTA and how the NDP wanted to re-open it and attempt to negotiate with Donald Trump, while also casting the Conservatives of being incapable of doing so either. Trudeau also refused to make any comments regarding a possible coalition, before he toured other smaller communities in the area and ended the day in Hamilton.

Andrew Scheer went to Winnipeg, which is currently under a state of emergency given the massive snowstorm that has downed power lines across the province. While Indigenous evacuees at the hotel where Scheer was making his announcement denounced his being there to campaign, Scheer went ahead nevertheless, made a confusing statement about making a personal donation to the Red Cross for those evacuees (which he then couldn’t give a straight answer about as to how much and when he donated), before he outlined a promise for a fiscal update within 45 days of the election, before raising the spectre of how terrible a Liberal-NDP-Green coalition would be.

Jagmeet Singh was on Granville Island in Vancouver to rally more supporters, where he started prevaricating about his coalition talk a day earlier, because maybe it was a bad idea to make such strong statements about it.

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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: A security incident?

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While Jagmeet Singh went to Toronto and Brampton to hold “get out the vote” parties with the advance polls open, and promising to find new jobs for oilsands workers, Andrew Scheer was similarly in Burnaby where he outlined his priorities for his first 100 days in office – should he win the election – and named the co-chairs of the committee he plans to use to cut corporate welfare (which seems a bit presumptuous).

Justin Trudeau held a rally in Mississauga, which wound up starting 90 minutes late and when it did happen, Trudeau was surrounded by visible security and was wearing a bulletproof vest – and his wife was not on stage with him as had been planned. The party later did say that there was a security issue, but everyone was fairly vague about the whole thing, which is not unsurprising, but still alarming, particularly given that we have yet to see clear denunciations of threats of violence against the prime minister from those federal and provincial leaders who have been stirring up a great deal of anger for political gain, and who have put forward this notion that Trudeau is deliberately destroying the country.

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Roundup: Costed platforms away

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As we head into the Thanksgiving long weekend, Justin Trudeau kicked off the day in Ottawa with a rally about International Day of the Girl, before heading to Surrey BC to savage the Conservative platform release (more on that in a moment).

Jagmeet Singh was in Ottawa to unveil his platform’s costing (finally), and it was tepidly received in terms of grades from Kevin Page’s Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy. Much of it relies on new revenues that are highly uncertain, and some of their assumptions don’t really test the effect they would have on the broader economy, which could be a problem.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1182644769731862528

Andrew Scheer headed out to Delta BC to release his party’s full platform and costing, and hoo boy is it chock full of cuts – though not the ones the Liberals are darkly warning about. That said, pushing back infrastructure spending loses momentum that was starting after funds allowed provinces and municipalities to do longer-term planning, and their talk of keeping the public service from growing and cutting via attrition while simultaneously pledging not to use outside contractors means that work clearly isn’t going to get done, and that will be a problem that they can’t just hand-wave away. Also, some of those cuts are basically a black box, and it would seem to play right into Trudeau’s hands when he can point to Doug Ford promising “efficiencies” in Ontario and promises not to fire anyone, and well, we’ve seen the opposite happen.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1182751336799952897

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1182763966948229120

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