Tag Archives: Yves-François Blanchet

Roundup: Numbers firming up post-election

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The numbers in the election have firmed up more, and the final count is that the Liberals managed 169 seats–just three shy of a majority. That does mean they can likely work with the NDP’s seven to maintain a functional majority in most things, but as I wrote in my column, some of this is going to depend on the mood of the Bloc, given that they will be the force to be reckoned with on the committees now that the NDP will no longer have any seats on them.

The King of Canada and his prime minister would have a lot to talk about on the day after a federal electionMaybe also about a regal Speech from the Throne to open the new Parliament?

— Patricia Treble (@patriciatreble.bsky.social) 2025-04-30T00:07:13.146Z

In election fallout stories:

  • Voter turnout was 68.6 percent, which is the highest in 31 years.
  • Here is a recounting of Bruce Fanjoy’s election night as his team learned in the wee hours that they had formally ousted Poilievre.
  • CBC has six takeaways from the election
  • Poilievre may have to vacate Stornoway if he doesn’t have a seat.
  • Yves-François Blanchet is in the mood to collaborate for the time being, saying that the country needs stability and not the threat of another election.
  • Much of the Conservatives’ “economic brain trust” (ahem, such as it was) lost their seats, including Poilievre.
  • The Star hears from Conservatives and NDPers about where their parties go next.
  • Here are the fiscal consequences of the NDP losing official party status (but doesn’t actually explain the point is they don’t have enough MPs to put on committees).
  • Both Danielle Smith and Scott Moe gave their “congratulations” on Carney’s victory, but really, they just made more demands.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917182119689793978

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones attacked Kharkiv and Dnipro overnight, killing at least one and injuring at least 46. Russian troops have also been trying to advance into the Sumy region.

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Roundup: Leaders on the final push

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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.

— Jared Wesley (@jaredwesley.ca) 2025-04-26T01:02:15.747Z

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

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Roundup: A disinformation fest in the English debate

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Day twenty-six, and the second day of debates. Both Mark Carney and Jagmeet Singh had photo ops in Montreal before the debate, while Pierre Poilievre stayed quiet. And it looks like no one is downing tools today, in spite of it being a statutory holiday—Carney will be in Niagara Falls, followed by Colborne and Brantford. I didn’t get Poilievre’s itinerary, while Singh starts the day in Yamachiche, Quebec, and then ends the day in Burnaby, BC.

In other campaign news, the Conservatives had other incumbents release the second part of their Arctic defence policy, and it appears that they didn’t consult with any Northerners or Inuit for this part either.

And then the English debate, or as it should more properly be called, a disinformation fest. The sheer volume of utter horseshit uttered was absolutely astonishing, and yet nobody was challenged or called out on hardly any of it. Steve Paikin as moderator had a fairly light tough for much of it, and allowed a lot of talking over one another, but did keep things moving at a fairly good clip in order to have a couple of rapid-fire rounds at the end, though near the end, there was a “Leader’s Choice” segment where each leader could ask a question of one another, and everyone chose Carney to attack (quelle surprise), while Carney picked Poilievre, and returned to the security clearance issue (which Poilievre yet again lied about). I also note that at the top of each thematic section, Paikin asked a different question of each of the leaders, so they weren’t answering the same and made it hard to compare them.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3ln2atae4lk2y

Poilievre is again lying about "printing money" and inflation. Carney: "I know you want to run against Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau is not here." #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:41:27.247Z

Poilievre lying about being "gagged" if he gets his security clearance. He would merely need to be responsible in his commentary, which he refuses to do. #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:46:11.096Z

As for the leaders themselves, Carney again kept his cool, even when constantly being talked over, and just kept trying to make his point with “If I may,” before they shut up. I also noted that he would keep saying how many points he had for responses before listing those points, but he also did have the occasional misspeak (for example referring to TMX as “Keystone.”) Poilievre pretty much spent the whole exercise lying about absolutely everything, shamelessly, and was not challenged on about 99 percent of it, which doesn’t help the average viewer. Singh was a little less hyper than last night, and we avoided any tantrums tonight, because the moderator did give him the chance to talk about healthcare, but also challenged him on it about the jurisdictional issue, which Singh, of course, talked around rather than answering. And as for Blanchet, he kept trying to make a pitch for a minority parliament where he can exert influence. He also demanded that whoever becomes prime minister call the other leaders to meet one week after the election in order to discuss the various crises we’re facing. (Here are the recaps from The Canadian Press, CBC, National Post, and the Star, and six takeaways from the debate).

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3ln2afzfgac22

Poilievre's dodge on Indigenous incarceration was astounding. Just absolutely amazing that he could get away with that. #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-17T23:42:39.614Z

Paikin actually corners Singh on how he would deal with provinces who don't want to spend his healthcare dollars the way he wants. Singh just talks around it, doesn't actually say how he would force the provinces. #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:19:58.773Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3ln2bndu4ds2h

The other notable part of the evening was that the post-debate scrums were cancelled, because of an ostensible safety issue after Rebel media started trying to accost other journalists, including trying to interrupt CBC’s broadcast before the debate. The fact that the Debate Commission’s chair didn’t even realise that Rebel and Ezra Levant had registered as third party advertisers with Elections Canada should have meant an automatic disqualification, but he said he was so afraid of losing another lawsuit meant he just caved to their demands, which is yet again another sign of democracy being under assault in this country.

Debates Commission has cancelled the post-debate scrums after this English leaders debate. This cancellation follows an altercation prior to the debate involving Rebel News and other journalists. #elxn45

— davidakin (@davidakin.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:23:05.379Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles struck Kharkiv, killing one and injuring at least 57, as president Zelenskyy notes that Russia has shifted from targeting energy facilities to civilian targets. Russians on the front lines appear to be shifting to using mass-assault tactics as they try to advance. Ukraine says they have signed a memorandum as a first step toward a mineral deal with the US, which would involve setting up an investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1913102312286900366

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Roundup: Putting a stake in pharmacare

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In the wake of his announced departure, it sounds like Justin Trudeau made calls to Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet to try and secure votes on the Supplementary Estimates in order to extend the life of this parliament a little further, and both of them told him no. What is particularly curious here however is that Trudeau pointed out to Singh that more time would give them time to extend the dental care programme beyond seniors and children, and give them time enough to get the nascent pharmacare up and running (as so far, there is only cooperation from one or two provinces). Per the CBC, “An NDP source with knowledge of the conversation said the government already has all the powers it needs.”

*sighs, pinches bridge of nose*

It’s not a question of not having power, it’s a question of time. Implementation takes time to do properly, and with dental care, they went slowly on the groups eligible to ensure that everything was going to work before they rolled it out to the majority of the population, and they haven’t felt that they worked out all of the kinks yet. They want time enough to so. And the nascent pharmacare plan needs cooperation with the provinces, which takes time to negotiate, but also requires some assurance for those provinces that if the government does fall, that they have some guarantees for funding for a set period of time so that they’re not left holding the bag. Singh and the NDP should know this, but, well, they don’t actually know how government works because they’ve never formed it. They have now guaranteed that the premiers won’t bother to sign a deal because Poilievre will just kill the programme as soon as he’s in power, so why set up expectations?

What is most ironic in this is that by refusing to give the government more time so that he can look tough, Singh has doomed the very programmes that he was so insistent that the government set up as part of their agreement with the Liberals (which I will remind you, the Liberals fulfilled in good faith only for Singh to tear up the agreement for the sake of optics). And because the NDP insisted that dental care be a fully federal insurance programme rather than a cost-shared programme with provinces, they have guaranteed that it will be an easy kill for Poilievre, because they’re actually incapable of long-term or strategic thinking. I am reminded of how Jack Layton extracted all kinds of concessions from Paul Martin’s budget, but then brought him down before the budget implementation bill could be passed, and they spent years patting themselves on the back for a hollow victory that didn’t achieve anything they said they did. It’s looking an awful lot like there’s going to be a repeat of that particular folly.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia attacked Ukraine with 72 drones overnight, and five struck buildings in Chernihiv in the north, another fell on a building in Kyiv.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1877669181153304715

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Roundup: May sees some, but not all, of the documents

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Green Party leader Elizabeth May held a press conference yesterday to talk about the unredacted documents she saw related to foreign interference, and in particular what David Johnston had written during his brief tenure as Special Rapporteur. It wasn’t, however, quite what she had hoped and stated that she was disappointed that she could only read David Johnston’s unredacted report, rather than the documents that supported his conclusions, which were all footnoted, but not actually there to read.

It is worth noting that May was quite generous and believes this to be something of a mistake on PCO’s part, and if not a mistake, it’s part of their usual pattern of being overly secretive and disclosing the bare minimum, even if May had been properly vetted and given clearance to read the documents. And she makes an extremely valid point that if the point is to be reassured in the quality of Johnston’s work, then you also need to see the documents that he was seeing in order to determine if he had arrived at the right conclusion or not. And I suspect that she will be able to see those documents before too long, because someone at PCO must know just how bad it will look if she can’t see the supporting evidence, and that it will look like they have something to hide, which is counter to the entire point of this whole exercise.

With this in mind, it bears mentioning that Jagmeet Singh is planning on seeing the documents as well as soon as he can schedule the time in Ottawa (as he’s busy on the summer barbecue circuit), while both Pierre Poilievre and Yves-François Blanchet have refused, insisting that this is some kind of “trap” where they wouldn’t be able to talk about what they’ve seen and be unable to criticise the government. That’s not true, and there is plenty they could say about the documents without revealing specifics, but they would rather play the game of insisting the government is hiding something nefarious when the truth is so much more mundane than that.

Ukraine Dispatch:

American sources are saying that the number of casualties in the war are reaching nearly 500,000, but that number needs to be taken with a shaker’s worth of salt because Russia routinely undercounts its killed and wounded, while Ukraine doesn’t publicly disclose their official casualty figures (though I do note that they do very much use tributes to dead soldiers for propagandistic purposes). Russians are claiming that a Ukrainian drone smashed into a downtown Moscow office building, while Ukraine denies it targeted a civilians or civilian infrastructure.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1692492507878224375

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Roundup: A hospitalized interpreter should be a wake-up call, but probably won’t be

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The inevitable has happened, and a parliamentary interpreter collapsed during a Senate committee meeting after an acoustic shock and was sent to hospital as a result, when the committee chair decided to go ahead with a meeting despite the fact that two witnesses appearing by video did not have appropriate headsets. And to add to matters, this interpreter was a freelancer and not in the union, so they won’t be getting sick pay for this injury either, given that they were filling in for the full-time, unionised interpreters who are on leave for the injuries they are all facing because of hybrid sessions and meetings, and the fact that the vast majority of MPs and senators simply do not care about their well-being, or the fact that these kinds of acoustic injuries can lead to permanent hearing loss. They don’t care because it would mean giving up the luxury of staying in their ridings rather than coming to Ottawa when they don’t want to, even if it means treating the interpretation staff like furniture. (And as we’ve established, they cannot simply hire more interpreters because there aren’t any more to hire—they’re not even graduating enough to meet the level of attrition from retirements and those quitting from injuries).

To add to this was Government House Leader Mark Holland appearing at the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, where they are debating extending hybrid sittings, possibly permanently, and he spoke about his suicide attempt after his 2011 election loss and used that tale as justification for extending hybrid. And as brave as Holland is to share that story, I find myself deeply disturbed by the fact that he is using it to push for a morally bankrupt proposition around making hybrid sittings permanent when he knows the human cost to them. I am also appalled that the lesson is trying to be “when an MP is struggling, let them work from home” rather than “when an MP is struggling, let them take the time they need to get better and not create an unrealistic and dangerous expectation of presenteeism.” MPs are allowed sick days and leaves of absence. They do not need to be on call 24/7, or to vote on every single issue. There were rules about pairing for absences for decades, and they worked just fine. It’s the same with the groups who keep appearing at PROC, such as Equal Voice, who insist that we need to make hybrid permanent to let more women with children participate in Parliament—it ignores the human toll on the interpreters (and when you raise it, they simply handwave it away with the magic words “we need to find a solution”), and frankly these MPs have the luxury of options when it comes to arrangements they can make. Hybrid or virtual sittings injures interpreters. If there is a technological solution, Parliament has been ignoring it. It is frankly morally reprehensible that they continue to have this debate at the expense of the health of these interpreters. It would be great if this publicised injury and hospitalisation were a wake-up call, but I am frankly too cynical at this point to believe that is going to happen.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 244:

Russia continues to claim that Ukraine is planning to use a “dirty bomb,” which sounds increasingly like pretext for Russia to detonate one, and that they have been using their occupation of the Zaphorizhzhia nuclear plant to build it.

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Roundup: The House of Commons’ vaccine mandate

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The expected happened in a way that was a little unexpected – and perhaps a bit improper. The Board of Internal Economy apparently met (possibly virtually), and decided that as of November 22nd, there is a vaccine mandate for the parliamentary precinct, and that includes MPs, staffers, and contractors. It’s a bit of a cute way of imposing a vaccine mandate on MPs themselves, but it may not fly regarding the Chamber itself because of parliamentary privilege.

Mind you, a privilege argument won’t last long. While the decision to go the route of BoIE seems to be a bit of a dare – and Yves-François Blanchet seems to indicate that he’s of the opinion that this is a legitimate use of its powers (I wouldn’t be so sure), this could easily be challenged in the Chamber, but even if the Speaker determines that there is a prima facie case of privileges being infringed, the rest of the House can vote instead to dismiss it rather than send it to committee, or even if they do send it to committee, vote it down afterward. And they likely will, because all of the parties except for the Conservatives are in favour of the vaccine mandate, so it’ll pass one way or the other. Now the government can head off any challenge by introducing a motion in the Chamber on the first or second day to declare that MPs need to be fully vaccinated in order to be in the Chamber, and they can then vote it through and it’ll be fully legit, so if they’re smart, they’ll ensure that happens once there is a Speaker in place. (This will also likely happen in the Senate, but they are still in discussion in that Chamber, but one can likely assume a similar vaccine mandate will be in place with their own precinct areas and Chamber in a similar manner).

This leaves the question of hybrid sittings. The Conservatives and Bloc have been in favour of ending them, while the NDP have supported keeping it going. The Liberals haven’t officially said, but they have been pushing for this since before the pandemic, so you can bet that they’ll be fine with some form of hybrid ability going forward, which shouldn’t be allowed – the human cost of hybrid sittings when it comes to the toll it takes on the interpreters is frankly immoral to continue with. That will nevertheless by an ongoing conversation between the parties before any order to resume said sittings goes ahead in the first few days of the new parliament – but a rule should also be made that unvaccinated MPs shouldn’t be allowed to simply join by hybrid sitting instead. Parliament, whether in the Commons or the Senate, is an in-person job, and it’s an essential function of this country. The hybrid measures should only ever have been temporary and for the duration of that pandemic emergency, and now that we have vaccines, there is no longer a need for them.

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Roundup: Calling for a return to in-person sittings

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Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet held a press conference yesterday, where he called for Parliament to be recalled as quickly as possible, and for it to resume in-person with vaccinated MPs, ending the “hybrid” sittings that we were saddled with in the previous session. For once, I actually agree with Blanchet – we are at the point with vaccinations and public health measures that there really is not any excuse for MPs not to be attending in person (wearing masks indoors as often as possible), because we cannot continue as we were before dissolution.

For those of you who weren’t following along, the hybrid sittings were direct contributors to the toxicity of the previous session, as MPs didn’t have to look one another in the eye while they behaved in the ways that they did or levelled the accusations at one another that they did, and the limitations of those sittings, particularly at committee, exacerbated the procedural warfare and filibusters that parties engaged in. Additionally, there can be no moral justification for continuing the hybrid sittings given the human toll it takes on the interpreters, who were suffering acoustic injuries at an increased rate because MPs refused to use their equipment properly, or behave reasonably online in ways that wouldn’t disrupt or injure those interpreters. Some parties – particularly the NDP, but you can bet that the Liberals will chine in as well – will want to keep some aspects of hybrid sittings around, but I want to caution that this should be resisted as much as possible – we don’t want to incentivise these to continue, because it will erode parliament the longer it carries on.

Meanwhile, I do fear that there will be Conservative MPs who continue to refuse either vaccination or to disclose their vaccination status (as a craven way of keeping their own anti-vaxx voters on-side) who will complain that they should be allowed to either attend the House of Commons without proof of vaccination, or to be allowed to carry on in a hybrid means without it. Even more to the point, I fear that at least one of them will turn this into a point of personal privilege, that their rights to speak in the Chamber are being infringed upon, and this will become a privilege fight (which would be doomed as the vaccinated majority eventually votes them down). Nevertheless, a return to in-person sittings needs to happen as soon as possible, and if some MPs refuse then so be it – and they can lose their salaries for absenteeism while they’re at it.

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Roundup: Shifts on the ground

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So, that was the election – the overall seat count doesn’t look like it’s change much, but on the ground it shifted quite a lot in plenty of places, with Conservatives making more breakthroughs in Atlantic Canada, and the Liberals making a comeback in Alberta. Two sitting ministers lost their seats – Bernadette Jordan and Maryam Monsef, and Deb Schulte was trailing around the time I posted this and went to bed. Those shifts to count for something, and they will mean a different make-up in the House once it returns, probably in late October.

While you’ll hear a lot of talk about how this election was “useless” given the result, I’ve got a column coming out later today that addresses those concerns, but I also wanted to make note about the question of timing – Trudeau pretty much had to go when he did because any later would have run into the municipal elections in Quebec and Alberta, which would spread their volunteer pool too thin, and going after that would mean an election close to Christmas, which everyone would bitch about (and Trudeau would want to avoid something like what happened in 2006). Meanwhile, going later would have meant more weeks of deadlocked bills in the Commons, for little added benefit.

As for the speeches:

  • Annamie Paul was up first, after placing a distant fourth in her riding (which was in no way a surprise). She gave some thanks to her volunteers, staff and family, but gave no indication of what her future plans are as leader, given the fact that the loss of another Green seat (while gaining one new one) won’t help her case as staying on as leader.
  • Erin O’Toole did not really give a concession speech, did not congratulate Trudeau on his win, but essentially made a promise to keep campaigning while falsely claiming that Trudeau had previously threatened another election in the next 18 months (whereas Trudeau simply warned that another hung parliament would likely wind up with another election in that time). O’Toole also made a few more false statements before calling it a night, essentially daring his party to keep him on as leader.
  • Yves-François Blanchet was also fairly bullish, but did concede that they needed to be more cooperative and said that the Bloc would participate in said cooperation, because they are still in a pandemic. That could mean Blanchet is the willing partner for the first few months of Trudeau’s agenda.
  • Jagmeet Singh was more gracious than the others in congratulating the PM on his victory, but then proceeded to take credit for the pandemic supports, and insisting that he will continue to push for things like dental care and his wealth tax which will be extraordinarily difficult to implement.
  • Trudeau was last, declaring that Canadians were sending his party back to work with a “clear mandate” – and *sigh* no, we don’t have mandates in our system of government. He also noted that voters have “Given this parliament and this government a clear direction.” Trudeau was the most gracious of all of the leaders in his victory, thanking the other leaders and their families, the Elections Canada staff and volunteers, and started quoting Laurier in talking about looking to the future that they hope to build together.

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Roundup: Substance-free gong show, English debate edition

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The English debate, with its much higher stakes, was no better than the French. It too lacked substance or any meaningful exchanges because they had a schedule of topics to get through, and wouldn’t you know it, they weren’t going to let exchanges get interesting or involved – they just wanted to move on. Justin Trudeau tried to paint Erin O’Toole as weak, Singh tried to paint Trudeau as unable to fulfil promises. Trudeau warned that Singh was trying to instil cynicism among progressives because he refused to acknowledge any work done. Annamie Paul kept insisting that the key to everything was to work together. And Yves-François Blanchet and moderator Shachi Kurl started getting into it, and that gave Blanchet the victim card he was looking for in the Quebec media, particularly around Bill 21.

https://twitter.com/ChrisGNardi/status/1436172199430328323

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1436142521118334983

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1436154327169581083

The fact that they are still moaning the fact that we’re in an election is getting really tiresome – but not quite as tiresome as the fact that Trudeau still can’t make a convincing case for it. He keeps trying to go hard on insisting there are huge and sharp divisions between the different parties, which is why he needs the electoral support to carry on making tough choices about the pandemic. What he won’t spell out is that he needs that support because the spring session was a toxic swamp that stalled virtually all bills for months, including the budget implementation bill for the fall economic update and all of the pandemic supports therein. The fact that he refuses to say that, for whatever “happy warrior” shtick he thinks is going to win him points, just gives the other parties a pass for their petty bullshit in the spring, and the campaign of dishonesty that accompanied it, and it just keeps him from making an actual case. I don’t get it, but clearly this hasn’t blown over.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1436137253504536581

If you need lists of takeaways, you have plenty to choose from – CTV, Maclean’s, the Star, and CBC. The CBC also has a half-assed fact-check of things mentioned during the debate.

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