Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: Back to pledges

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While both the Liberals and Conservatives used Saturday as their “down” day on the campaign, Jagmeet Singh held a discussion in Toronto about precarious work, which essentially was just a repetition of his pharmacare and dental care plans aimed at those who don’t have benefits.

On Sunday, Andrew Scheer was up first in PEI to pledge more support for veterans, aiming to eliminate the backlog of cases within two years and promising a legislated “covenant” between the government and the military. Mind you, the problem with the backlog has been a lack of bodies within the department, and the current government has been on a hiring spree that has only now reached a point where they are able to make a dent in the backlog (as the number of veterans has been on the rise), so anything Scheer is promising there is basically just piggybacking on the work the current government has been doing to undo the cuts of the Harper years. And then there’s the broken trust with the veterans’ community to consider.

Justin Trudeau was in Brampton where he announced two items – one was a proposed increase of the basic personal deduction, which promises to be more progressive than the Conservatives’ “Universal tax cut” (see this thread from economist Kevin Milligan); the other was a plan to reduce mobile phone bills over the next four years through a combination of working with the companies, opening up the market to new entrants (where have we heard that before?) and leveraging the sale of 5G spectrum. (The NDP are grousing that this will be all talk while they have a plan to cap bills, but haven’t spelled out exactly what mechanism they hope to use to do so).

Jagmeet Singh was in Gatineau to promise to double government funding to climate change mitigation efforts in the wake of floods and other climate-related natural disasters.

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Roundup: Gun control theatre

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While there was suspicion that the announcement was timed as a pivot from the past two days of bad press – Liberals insisting that his has been planned for days – Justin Trudeau was in Toronto yesterday for a morning of meeting people on the streets before he announced his long-awaited additional gun control measures which are guaranteed to please nobody – a total ban on semi-automatic assault rifles (never mind that there’s no actual definition of an “assault rifle”) with a buy-back programme, and the ability for cities to make additional regulations around handguns (as in, allowing them to attempt to ban them), plus some additional offers around licensing and the ability to forbid the purchase of new weapons after certain red-flags. The measures are not enough for those who want a national handgun ban, too far for certain gun enthusiasts, and almost certainly going to be useless because the problem of illegal guns is that the vast majority of them are smuggled from the US, which these measures largely won’t address (I didn’t see any promise for more resources for CBSA in the backgrounder). In other words, it’s a political play, trying to balance the need to be seen to be doing more about gun control for big cities where it’s a problem, while not alienating their rural voters (again), while also being hemmed in by jurisdictional considerations (Doug Ford, for example, has said he won’t go along with any kind of handgun ban that would fall under provincial jurisdiction). Nevertheless, the symbolism of banning AR-15s is something they hope to capitalise on, while they castigate Andrew Scheer for his promise to relax some gun control regulations, so that may be enough for them in the election in any case.

https://twitter.com/CochraneCBC/status/1175047467265642497

Speaking of, Andrew Scheer was in Saint John, New Brunswick, to promise that a Conservative government would spend $1.5 billion to get provinces new MRI and CT machines in an effort to reduce wait times (structural issues? What structural issues?) – never mind again that it’s provincial jurisdiction and he may have a hard time getting them to actually spend dollars that he’s earmarked for said purchases. Scheer also clarified that oil and gas subsidies would not be part of those he plans to eliminate – try to look surprised, everyone!

Jagmeet Singh was in Windsor to talk up the party’s pharmacare plan, and answer yet more questions on the Blackface issue, citing that he didn’t want to be complicit in Trudeau’s public exoneration. (And yet, the media is demanding this kabuki theatre to play out).

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Roundup: The damage control campaign

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The fallout from Wednesday’s Brownface/Blackface allegations were met with yet another instance, this time video that seems to be from the 1990s of a third incident, which Trudeau hadn’t mentioned (later saying that he hadn’t remembered it) – and, plot twist, Andrew Scheer a short while later admitted that the party had been sent the tape and they turned it over to Global News days ago, who set about trying to verify its authenticity. It wasn’t until mid-afternoon in a Winnipeg park that Trudeau held another media availability, looking extra contrite, and more forceful in his language in insisting that yes, it was actually racist, and he was owning up to it and didn’t want to be definitive as to how many times because there may be other incidents he couldn’t remember, and why he couldn’t remember them was likely because he grew up in a very privileged position and he has come to realise that it left him with an enormous blind spot when it comes to these kinds of things – something that I don’t think we’ve ever really a political leader admit to.

Later in the day, Trudeau’s rally in Saskatoon was changed into a town hall – likely because it’s an environment that he seems to do better in, and because it would allow him to get some of the airing of the grievances right off the start – ripping off the Band-Aid, as it were. The issue was only raised a couple of times off the start – once by someone who wanted an estimate of how many times he’d done it, another who insisted that he shouldn’t dwell on the past, but much of the event was on Indigenous issues, and Trudeau seemed much more his usual self.

Singh, meanwhile, held a small event in Hamilton to highlight how his plans around things like dental and pharmacare will help small businesses, but mostly answered more questions about the Trudeau Blackface revelations and suggested that it’s a pattern of behaviour with Trudeau. (Singh also launched into a whole rant about how great protectionism was during the media availability, for the record).

Andrew Scheer was in Saint-Hyacinth, Quebec, to lay out a policy around increasing the age credit for seniors, before suggesting that he didn’t accept Trudeau’s apology because “he lied” during it (not recalling the third video), and suggested that Canadians heed Singh’s words (because remember, a stronger NDP is a boon to Conservative fortunes).

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1174722497687638016

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Roundup: Brownface bombshell

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What felt like a few days of the campaign starting to get into more substantive issues and promises got derailed last night when Time Magazine published a piece that contained a photo showing Justin Trudeau in Brownface from 2001, when he was a teacher at a private school in Vancouver, and he dressed as Aladdin for an “Arabian Nights” gala. The campaign confirmed it was him, and a short while later, Trudeau addressed the reporters on his plane, took responsibility, admitted that he didn’t think it was racist at the time but understands that it is now, and that he was disappointed in himself – as well as the fact that he would talk to his kids in the morning about taking responsibility for actions (while he had been in the midst of contacting his racialized Cabinet ministers and one presumes caucus colleagues).

For opposition reaction, Jagmeet Singh spoke about the hurt this causes to people of colour and questioned Trudeau’s authenticity, while Andrew Scheer stated that the action was as racist in 2001 as it is in 2019, and that Trudeau isn’t fit to govern the country. (Reminder: Scheer has not apologised for his deeply homophobic comments in 2005, and just last summer his party was giving succour to racists as an attempt to score points against Trudeau who called out said racism). So we’ll see how much this dominates the news cycle for the next few days, and whether it hobbles Trudeau in any significant way.

Earlier in the day, Trudeau announced measures that would enhance CPP and OAS payments for those over 75 and widows, because they are more financially vulnerable, but also came under fire for not providing PBO costing for those measures – despite the fact that he said that would be released with the full platform. (More irritating was the fact that members of the media railed that Trudeau said that “portions” and not the full platform would be costed when the PBO doesn’t do full platform costings. All parties are just getting portions costed).

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1174379188125437952

Jagmeet Singh promised free dental care for households that make under $70,000 per year, and insisted it would be a “Day one” promise – and while he had a costing document, he didn’t have a plan for how exactly he was going to sell this to the provinces, whose jurisdiction this is, and who are unlikely to want to set up a very expensive new programme on their turf. Implementation matters.

Andrew Scheer spent the morning touting that his government would eliminate $1.5 billion in “corporate subsidies” every year – but promised to keep and beef up regional development agencies and to ensure they have regional ministers in them – a hotbed of pork-barrelling if history is any guide. More problematically, he didn’t exactly name what kinds of subsidies he would actually cut beyond a theoretical, and then produced a PBO document that basically said “You say you’ll cut this much, I guess we’ll take your word for it,” because they didn’t have details to cost out just what he planned to cut. While it’s likely these dollars exist and could be cut, it becomes politically dicey to do so in many cases, which is why previous promises to get rid of said subsidies never really pan out – constituencies need to be tended to.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1174383093152485378

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Scheer also stated that he would “fast-track” any legal challenges to pipelines directly to the Supreme Court, which is a dumb idea and is only going to annoy the Court because if they’re the court of last resort, not a game of Mother, May I? Fobbing off tough political decisions to the court is not only cowardly, but it simply politicizes the courts and wastes their time when they have to tell politicians to sort it out themselves like grown-ups.

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Roundup: Sweetening the newborn benefits

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It was another day of promises to families with young children, of course, and Justin Trudeau was out first this morning from St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, to promise a more comprehensive package of benefits for the families of newborns – additional Canada Child Benefit payments, making maternity benefits actually tax free by removing the taxation at source as opposed to a non-refundable tax credit, and additional weeks of parental leave for adoptive parents. While most of the media stories didn’t really touch on it, the enhanced CCB payouts in the first month of a child’s life is approaching a basic minimum income for parents, as it doesn’t rely on EI benefits (which don’t apply for those who are self-employed or who weren’t working). While there are still a few questions about implementation (explained in this thread by Lindsay Tedds), most seem to agree that the Liberal plan is far more useful to parents than the one the Conservatives announced earlier.

Andrew Scheer was in Winnipeg, where he announced a promise to enhance the Registered Education Savings Plan benefits for those in lower income brackets, but it remains a fact that this is another promise that disproportionately benefits wealthier households, and does nothing for those who can’t afford to contribute to these RESPs. (Here’s a thread from Jennifer Robson on the efficacy of RESPs for low-income Canadians). Scheer also accused Trudeau of stealing his parental benefits idea and that he voted against it before and announced it now – but the Liberal plan is very different from the one Scheer proposed. (Here’s another thread from Robson comparing the Conservative and Liberal promises). Scheer also accused the Liberals of not being transparent about the costs of their promises, but Trudeau had already stated that a PBO-costing of them would becoming out once the whole platform is announced (which may provide a more holistic picture of their promises rather than them coming out piecemeal like the Conservatives are doing).

For Jagmeet Singh, he was in Ottawa to re-announce his party’s promise to build half a million new affordable housing units – but wouldn’t say how they would do it, which is kind of a big deal because the places where affordable housing is most acute are areas with either full employment or labour shortages, which is kind of a big deal if they want to get it built affordably.

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Roundup: Childcare and competing mistruths

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It was a crazy-pants day on the campaign, so here we go. Justin Trudeau was out the door first today in Kitchener–Waterloo, with a pledge to create more before-and-after school care spaces for children, which will also involve the creation of a secretariat to do the negotiating with the provinces and lay the groundwork for a pan-Canadian childcare system (which won’t need to include Quebec, given that they already have their system). The pledge was also to reduce the fees parents are currently paying for before-and-after school care by ten percent, so we’ll see how that works out logistically and procedurally. There is an argument to be made here that ensuring this kind of care means more parents – and especially women (and Trudeau made this point in his announcement, showcasing that gender-based analysis was part of it) can re-enter and remain in the workforce. Given the state of our labour pool in this country – essentially at full employment – it is incumbent to ensure that we have the maximum rate of participation by women and minorities so that they can fill those labour shortages. (More thoughts on the announcement in this thread from Lindsay Tedds).

Jagmeet Singh’s big announcement in Longueuil, Quebec, was a “star candidate” – very loosely defined – who was a one-time provincial Green leader in Quebec who is now running for the NDP, against Pierre Nantel, the NDP MP who crossed to the Greens (and the riding is that the “star” very badly lost in many years ago). Apparently, there is now a tit-for-tat battle with the Greens as to who crossed the floor to whom, because that’s helpful.

Elizabeth May launched her party’s full platform, which they claim is “fully costed” – err, except that costing won’t be released for several days. Economists are already picking holes in the promises, particularly the promise for a guaranteed livable income (thread here).

Andrew Scheer was in Kelowna, BC, framing the election as the life you want being in reach or getting further out of reach, and after his tirades about Justin Trudeau and his laundry list of mistruths about the state of the deficit and the carbon price and he announced his plan to restore yet more tax credits, this time for children’s sports and arts programmes, and unlike under Harper, these tax credits would be refundable, so that even low-income families who don’t pay taxes will be able to benefit. When asked about how he could afford these plans, he said that his path to balance was over a five-year time period, and then he proffered a fantasy version of Energy East (who cares about economics), and claimed his climate plan was the only “real” one (verifiably untrue). Most unbelievable was that, when pressed about false statements that he and his candidates were making about Liberal plans, he went on a tirade about how Justin Trudeau lied, so it was fair for him to keep promulgating these false statements.

And then, suddenly, Scheer drops an allegation that Justin Trudeau had drinks with Faith Goldy and he wanted answers on that. The Liberals responded shortly thereafter with a blanket denial, but if this election is going to be fought over who was in the same room as Faith Goldy, it’s going to be a long five weeks.

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Roundup: Promising a tax cut

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The day’s campaign began even before the day did, as Andrew Scheer assembled the reporters on his red-eye flight to Vancouver to tell them that he wasn’t going to re-vet candidates, and that he would accept their apologies for past statements (be they racists, misogynistic, homophobic, or what have you), with some wiggle-room for context. Essentially, his way of trying to head off the drip-drip-drip of future revelations that the Liberals will keep dragging out with every riding he visits. He also went on to slam the New NAFTA agreement and claimed he could have gotten a better deal (which presupposes that Donald Trump is a rational actor – when he’s not), but said he’d still ratify it anyway if he forms government.

In the morning, Scheer went to a suburban home in Surrey to stage an announcement about a promise to cut the lowest tax rate over the course of three years, which would have the effect of returning between $8 and $10 per week on most paycheques (a level probably too low for people to notice according to the research). Note that for a leader who is concerned about balancing the budget and who insists he won’t make massive cuts – and who says he can achieve balance by restricting new spending – he’s just announced a fairly large bite out of future revenues that would balance the budget. (For a good breakdown of the announcement, here’s a thread by Lindsay Tedds). In questions after the announcement, Scheer refused to address the apparent hypocrisy of demanding Trudeau dump candidates while he would accept an apology from his own, and he also refused to offer an apology for his 2005 statements on same-sex marriage.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1173305303317663745

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Jagmeet Singh launched his “vision for Quebec,” which promised a final say on projects like pipelines crossing the province, money for immigration integration services (remembering this time that the province is demanding fewer immigrants in spite of their labour shortage), additional influence over trade deals (a sop to the Supply Management sector). Singh also started going on about Quebec being “forced” into a marriage with Canada under the constitution and wanted Quebec to be able to sign onto the constitution “under acceptable terms” (which holy cow is a loaded statement and ignorant of history).

Trudeau spent the day largely on the road, with a whistle stop in Coburg, before attending the Bianca Andreescu “She The North” rally in Mississauga in his capacity as prime minister – where he praised Andreescu and her parents in a very non-partisan manner. He ended the day with a rally at the Mid-Autumn Festival in Markham, where his fairly short stump-speech (wherein he again repeated the somewhat misleading line that Conservatives cut taxes to the wealthy – they didn’t so much as offered tax credits that disproportionately benefitted the wealthy, but that’s not the same as a tax cut) was peppered with specific Festival references.

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Roundup: Another candidate distraction

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While Justin Trudeau was making campaign stops in Quebec, with no announcements or stump speeches, the Liberals did release a new campaign ad voiced by Chrystia Freeland to talk about how they fought “tooth and nail” for Canadian workers in New NAFTA talks and got a good deal from the Americans.

Andrew Scheer was treating yesterday as the campaign’s “down day” (which is normally Sunday), but he did stop at an Ottawa-area event by one of his local candidates, and was confronted with questions about her past comments about Francophones, and her friendship with noted white supremacist Faith Goldy. (Said candidate apologised for the comments but said nothing about Goldy). She fled from reporters, and Scheer said the Liberals were simply trying to distract from their record, and another Conservative claim of Liberal anti-Semitism was circulated (though apparently the courts have stated that it wasn’t anti-Semitism regarding that case). Nevertheless, that’s the fourth candidate that the Liberals have found damaging information on when Scheer has visited their ridings.

https://twitter.com/AndersonBooz/status/1173022235931447296

As for Jagmeet Singh, he went to Oshawa to accuse the Liberals of not standing up for auto workers, which is a curious charge given how much they’ve given to the industry to date, but there we are.

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Roundup: Reviving a failed tax credit

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Day three of the campaign, and in the post-debate glow, there was some damage control on a part of a couple of leaders. Justin Trudeau was in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, to promise new measures to help small business, including the “swipe fees” that those businesses are charged for transactions.

Andrew Scheer was in the GTA, and he announced his plan to revive the Harper-era transit tax credit, but to rebrand it as “Green.” The problem, of course, was that it’s a nigh useless measure that disproportionately benefits the wealthy. (Fact check here to show that Scheer’s rhetoric is misleading, plus a thread from economist Lindsay Tedds). He also had to defend himself and do damage control over his meltdown during the debate on Indigenous issues and his contention that they hold major projects “hostage,” but he nevertheless refused to back down from the basic contention even if he tried to say that he didn’t mean to use those exact words. So that’s something.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1172519241918099459

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Jagmeet Singh was in downtown Toronto to promise to cap cellphone bills – a policy that has no actual specifics as to how he would do it and what the impacts would be – before giving a speech to the Canadian Club to tell them that if he forms government, it won’t be “business as usual” in Ottawa.

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Roundup: Hostile territory and the first debate

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While it was a quieter day on the campaign because of the Maclean’s debate during the evening, there were still a few events to set the tone of the day. Jagmeet Singh was first up by staging a photo op in Brampton near the local hospital, where he had a bunch of candidates and supporters line up, and someone held up a sign that said “waiting for healthcare” before he talked about…building a new hospital in the city. Which is provincial jurisdiction. And then he claimed that it was about offering the provincial government money to build one, which again, isn’t how this works.

Andrew Scheer went to re-announce his policy on a tax credit for parental leave, falsely billing it as making those benefits “tax-free” (which it absolutely does not do, and here’s tax economist Lindsay Tedds to break it down), before he got sidelined because the candidate in the riding he was making the re-announcement was outed as being an anti-abortion activist who wants to build a “monument to the unborn,” and he had to again address the issue – and she talked about how great it was that Scheer would allow free votes on the subject.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1172224257142611968

As for Trudeau, things were already off to a bit of a rough start after the media bus managed to damage the wing of his campaign plane on Wednesday night after they landed in Victoria, forcing them to get a new, un-branded plane for their day’s travels to Victoria – where he announced tweaks to the first-time home-buyers plan that was announced in the budget, but with new measures to assist those in hot housing markets along with a national speculators tax. His campaign later went to Kamloops, and then to Edmonton for a rally. There, he framed everything around his team, and minimized the talk about himself, but he also acknowledged the economic anxiety in the province, saying that the rest of Canada would be there for them, saying that he was holding to his promise never to pit regions against each other. I’m sure that will be disputed by some, but it was interesting. Also interesting was the tactical choice for Trudeau to campaign in Edmonton – specifically the vacant riding of Edmonton Strathcona, which the NDP held – on day two of the campaign, in a province whose premier is working hard to try and topple the government. It does send a message that Trudeau chose to be there rather than the debate – but we’ll see if that message resonates.

And then the debate. It was…not all that illuminating. While Elizabeth May was Elizabeth May – speaking extemporaneously on all things, and some of those things made sense and other things were complete lunacy – it was the first test of Scheer and Singh in that kind of a format. Singh turned to the others to make his interventions, and kept bring up people that he met who expressed concerns about whatever the topic was, while Scheer kept looking straight at the camera, and trying to wedge in his memorized talking points about Trudeau at every opportunity, no matter how inopportune or inappropriate to the discussion. Both Singh and Scheer stuck to scripted points, but a couple of more robust discussion did break out, and Paul Wells managed to get each of the leaders to expound on their tepid responses to Bill 21 in Quebec. The biggest…surprise of the night was when Scheer had a complete meltdown on the subject of UNDRIP and Indigenous consultation with resource projects, which could very well work against him as those communities mobilize to vote.

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