LP_468x60
on-the-record-468x60-white

I do not personally believe that the NDP will be overtaken by the Green Party in the upcoming election, neither in terms of popular vote and even less in terms of the number of seats.  It is however not outside of the realm of possibility.  Which is a problem for Jagmeet Singh's NDP.

That plausibility is driven by many indicators.  New Democrats are struggling with fundraising while the Greens are racking in record amounts.  The Greens have more candidates in place than the orange team.  Green Leader Elizabeth May is better known and has better approval ratings than Jagmeet Singh.  And New Democrats are defecting to the Green Party starting with MP Pierre Nantel and a number of former New Brunswick provincial candidates though not as many as first boasted by the Greens.

And then there are the polls.  Pollsters disagree on the current so-called race for third place.  Some (Campaign Research, Ekos, Léger, Mainstream, and Forum) are putting the two parties neck and neck, or even have the Greens ahead.  Most others, however, are placing the NDP ahead of the Greens: Nanos, Abacus, Angus Reid, Ipsos, DART, Innovative Research, and Research co.

It is true that the Greens are on the rise in Canada, as proven by numerous provincial breakthroughs in recent years.  Moreover, given the growing volatility of the Canadian electorate, I believe that a federal green wave could even be possible.  However, I also believe that the Green Party is not yet a professional political machine.  In fact, they will argue, they do not want to be.

Alas, as we saw with Prince Edward Island, campaigns matter and campaigning matters.  While the Green surge in PEI led them to be ahead in the polls and on the verge of forming its first government in Canada, when voting day came around, Green voters didn't show up at the booth.  The pollsters were not wrong: the Green machine was simply not good enough on the ground.  The NDP's machine, however, has proven it can be quite efficient, targeting seats and tracking voters as well as the main parties.

In the end, however, New Democrats are stuck in a narrative: they are fighting with the Green Party for 3rd place.  Elizabeth May and the Greens, while not coming off particularly good out of the New Brunswick episode, succeeded in derailing the positive coverage following the release of the new NDP ad.  In the end, while New Democrats were right to be upset at the New Brunswick defections, while they were right to point out that many of these defectors were not, in fact, defecting, while they were right to be outraged at how the race card was being used as a motivation for the defections, all that people saw was New Democrats fighting with the Greens.  They need to get out of that cycle.

Until then, Jagmeet Singh will not be seen as a contender for Prime Minister unlike Jack Layton, Tom Mulcair and Ed Broadbent.   And the NDP will not be seen as a contender for power.

Photo Credit: Toronto Star

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


It would be foolish for anyone, politician or pundit alike, to underestimate the campaign skills of Justin Trudeau in the upcoming election.

He remains the country's most formidable political warrior on offer, even with the shackles of SNC firmly bound upon him now.  Though, with this current crop of prime ministerial contenders, perhaps the compliment isn't saying as much as it otherwise would have in previous eras of Canadian history.

Still, this accolade on Trudeau's behalf may seem a bit much for some observers. 

Especially as just four years ago, Justin Trudeau was the brash and untested leader of a third party caucus in the corner of the House of Commons.

But now though, Justin is the veteran of the party leaders (notwithstanding Elizabeth May and her caucus of two).  Of course, at the mere age of 47, Trudeau is still quite young by historical standards.  But against his two fresh-faced opponents, Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh, Trudeau is practically the wizened elder of Canadian politics.  After all, both Scheer and Singh are only just barely 40 years of age. 

It is not so much Justin Trudeau's age which is to his advantage over Scheer and Singh, but rather, his electoral experience over both federal party leaders. 

Take for instance the fact that neither Conservative nor NDP leader have ever managed a national cross-country election campaign something Trudeau did four years ago with great success. 

It's one of Trudeau's most important assets moving forward, which must not be forgotten by his political rivals if they are to hope to defeat him. 

And hope they must.

For what's often foolishly overlooked is that Justin Trudeau is an undefeated political champion.  And he has been ever since he began his political career.

In 2007, Trudeau sought the Liberal nomination in the Quebec riding of Papineau.  He faced competing bids from Mary Deros, a city councillor, and Basilio Giordano, a local newspaper publisher, but nonetheless secured the candidacy.

Then, in the 2008 election, he defeated incumbent Vivian Barbot in what was a Bloc Quebecois stronghold up until that point to become Member of Parliament for the first time. 

And in the 2011 election, Trudeau won his re-election, even as the Liberals were reduced to their worst showing in the party's history.

The following year, Justin Trudeau revitalized the demoralized spirit of his party by defeating Conservative senator Patrick Brazeau in a much publicized boxing match and fundraiser for cancer research.  The victory helped propel Trudeau to contest the leadership of the Liberal Party in 2013, again, something he won with great ease.

Finally, in his first general election as party leader in 2015, Justin Trudeau made history by propelling his third-party Liberals into government with a majority mandate. 

It's certainly an impressive record once reviewed in its totality.

And while four years of governing has scraped off much of the "sunny" from his "sunny ways", Trudeau remains the man to beat.

Some critics will no doubt refute this assertion.

Many will cite Trudeau's proneness for foolish gaffe-making as completely undermining of his political effectiveness.

Yet Trudeau's penchant for verbal blunders is hardly the political kryptonite his opponents have made it out to be.

Gaffes hardly ever are.

One need only observe Joe Biden's success in the United States.  He remains ahead in all the polls and is the reigning front-runner for the Democratic nomination, even with his own countless gaffes. 

Furthermore, as much as Trudeau's gaffes have may have hindered him, his ability to speak off-script and with spontaneity has proven one of his greatest strengths.  It's for that very reason that Trudeau conducts his many town-hall speaking events every time his government needs a wave of positive press coverage.

Critics of Justin Trudeau should really get over their life long dismissal of the man.  He may be the privileged and handsome son of a former prime minister, but he is also more than the spoiled and pampered dauphin that they make him out to be.  Well, at least on his good days.  And judging by his long history of electoral triumphs, he's had quite a few good ones.

As the election campaign draws ever near, Scheer and Singh would do well to remember this.  Underestimating Trudeau is a luxury neither leader can afford.

Photo Credit: CBC News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Pundits, journalists and academics can sometimes overcomplicate the game of politics.

The fact is, it really isn't all that difficult; indeed in a lot of ways, political strategy is actually pretty basic.

For instance, the late Arthur Finkelstein, my personal mentor, who also happened to be a legendary American political consultant, used to say there are four and only four resources in politics.

Those resources, in no particular order, are: money, people, candidates and time.

That's it.

To be successful, all a political campaign needs to do is properly manage those four assets.

With that in mind, and with a federal election just days away, I thought it'd be fun to compare how the three major Canadian political parties are doing when it comes to these four essential resources, since maybe that will give us an idea as to who will come out on top once the electoral dust has settled.

So let's go through each resource one by one and assess how each party fares:

Money

Money is the lifeblood of politics. You need it to pay for all the stuff that goes into running a campaign: commissioning polls, renting office space, printing lawn signs, chartering buses, etc.  As someone once put it, "You can't change the world if you can't pay the rent."  But what money mainly does is allow a campaign to disseminate its message through paid advertising.  And yes, that's a key to winning.  Having the best message in the world won't matter a bit for a political party, if it can't put that message in front of voters.

And when it comes to this resource, the Conservative Party has the advantage.  As a matter fact, according to media reports the Conservatives enjoyed the best second quarter fundraising effort in their history, raking in $6,045,466.  Says the CBC:  "Never before has the party raised this much outside of an election year."  Meanwhile, during the same period the Liberals took in $3,099,218 and the NDP raised a paltry $872,401.

What this means is the Conservatives will have more financial flexibility when it comes to producing ad campaigns; they can experiment and fine tune their messaging because they can afford it.

People

When Finkelstein talked about people being a "resource", he meant organizations or ideological groupings or various other voter "tribes" that identify with a candidate or with a party and who can thus underpin that party or candidate's structural base.  For example, Pierre Trudeau did better among Quebeckers than he did among Albertans; Barack Obama did better among African-Americans than among non-African Americans, Green Parties do better among environmentalists than they do among non-environmentalists and so on.

At any rate, in my view the Liberals have the edge when it comes to this resource.  Simply put, there are more Liberal "people" than Conservative "people" in Canada's voting universe.  Hence Trudeau's path to victory will be secured if he can get his people out to vote, i.e. Quebecers, millennials, progressives.  If he can't do this, if his base fragments and wanders off to the NDP or to Greens or if they stay home, Trudeau is in trouble.

Candidate

It should go without saying, of course, that the candidate, the person holding the party's banner, is also an extremely important resource.  But what makes for a good candidate?  Well, lots of things.  What's the candidate's background?  Does he or she have name recognition?  What about looks? (And yes looks do matter.)  Is the candidate good looking or ugly, tall or short, young or old?

Again, in my opinion, the Liberals score better when it comes to this resource.  Yes, Trudeau's image and brand have taken a beating over the past year or so, but relatively speaking he's still more charismatic, more exciting and more well-known than his main challenger, Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer.

Time

Of the four resources in politics, Finkelstein believed time was the most important.  After all, time allows a campaign to build up all the other resources, to raise money, to create identification with voter groups and to craft a brand and image for the candidate.   And time is a finite resource.  When it's gone it's gone.

The way I see it, all the parties squandered this particular resource.  The Liberals spent a big chunk of the year making a mess out of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, the Conservatives failed to use their time to define their leader and the NDP wasted the past year wallowing in irrelevance.

This means every party will have to make the best use of the little time they have left.

So to sum up, the Liberals seem to have a better candidate and more people, the Conservatives have more money, and the NDP seems doomed.

What to make of all this?

Well, if the Conservatives are going to win, they'll need to use what time they have left to deploy their money in a way that degrades Trudeau's candidacy and turns his people away from him.

Like I said earlier, politics ain't that complicated.

Photo Credit: CBC News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


This past week, Green Party leader Elizabeth May sent an open letter to the other party leaders, proposing that post-election they form a "Climate Emergency Cabinet" to tackle climate change together, likening it to the kind of cross-party "war Cabinets" of the First and Second World Wars.  While the underlying logic may be that we need some kind of total rethink of our economy in order to rapidly decarbonize as a means of fighting climate change, May's proposal is not only divorced from the reality of the situation it's outright offensive to the very notion of parliamentary democracy.

In her letter, May calls on all of the parties to create the cross-party Cabinet, to include all parties represented in Parliament.  The notion would be that party leaders would form an "Inner Cabinet," with other party members represented in other portfolios, and the House of Commons asked to declare its confidence in said cross-party Cabinet.

"The Cabinet will commit to leading our country as it confronts the Climate Emergency," she says in the letter.  "The act of its creation will reassure the Canadian people that their leaders are united in a national call to arms, and they will rally behind us in this vital endeavour, contributing all their mighty talents to the cause."

The problem?  This is essentially asking for the suspension of democracy.

Democracy, and parliamentary democracy in particular, requires opposition if there is to be any accountability exercised.  When everyone is accountable, then nobody is accountable, and that's a very big deal when you're looking to essentially reorder the economy of the country in short order.  It leaves one to wonder if May proposes to leave it up to backbenchers from all parties to provide the challenge function to government difficult to do when you need some level of party cohesion and still expect there to be an ability to maintain confidence or does she simply propose to leave the oversight and accountability functions to Officers of Parliament and the media, thus making Parliament even more irrelevant and ineffectual as it already is threatening to become?

Nobody here is arguing that climate change isn't an existential threat because it is but the simple reality is that it manifests itself in a very different way than a total war effort.  Its effects are slower, meaning that the public doesn't have the same particular buy-in as when there is the imminent threat of invasion.  It's also something that requires longer-term solutions, and is not something that is of short duration like a total war where there is a total mobilization of society.  Yes, fighting climate change may require a total mobilization of society, but it's not going to happen simply because Parliament essentially suspends democracy for a few years.

And that's the other side to the idea of a "war cabinet" that May is ignoring here, which is that when faced with something as grim as imminent invasion, a war Cabinet essentially allows for draconian measures, which society will agree to.  If that is indeed what she believes needs to be authorized by virtue of suspending democracy in this way, then we should be alarmed by that kind of thinking.  It's not a short-term state of emergency it's a long-term problem with long-term solutions that merit debate on the kinds of trade-offs that need to be made, and priorities need to be established which is precisely why there needs to be oversight and accountability, and robust debate.  May's proposal would essentially eliminate that debate, at least in the public forum of the House of Commons (as opposed to behind the closed doors of her "Inner Cabinet").

If May's point is to get all parties onboard with a single climate policy and good luck with that, given the range of options being presented doing so with a "war Cabinet" isn't the way to go about it.  There are far better mechanisms to a societal-level problem than the suspension of democracy and the imposition of a policy dictatorship on the country.  To add to that, May has already declared that every other party's climate policies are inadequate, and thus has declared that she wouldn't support any of them to prop up their government in a hung parliament, and yet here she is essentially proposing to bypass that whole process regardless.

It should also bear reminding that the Green Party's own climate proposals are completely unrealistic (read energy economist Andrew Leach's evaluation here).  If it's May's intention to use this policy dictatorship to push her own party's climate agenda, under the rubric that it will get the country the closest to its emission reduction targets in the shortest amount of time, then perhaps she is hoping for the draconian nature of a war cabinet to forcibly close down entire sections of the economy, and use the coercive powers of the state to ensure that energy workers are dispersed to other industries doing exactly what the paranoiacs have been raving about in their opposition to doing anything about climate change.

Which brings us to the broader and more cynical point of this exercise, which is the fact that it's a proposal that essentially states that because she won't be able to win the election, she's going to try to seek outsized influence in other, less democratic means.  Much the same as the push for proportional representation is very much about smaller and marginal parties like May's trying to gain outsized influence in a coalition government because they can't gain power my other means and conjuring any number of cockamamie arguments to justify the desire this "war Cabinet" proposal seeks to do the very same thing.  The Greens are unlikely to win more than a handful of seats, but this way, she gets a seat in the "Inner Cabinet" and would have a direct hand in the policy dictatorship.  It's certainly an extreme example of trying to change the rules to suit yourself if you can't get power the old-fashioned way, but there we have it.

Photo Credit: CBC News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


No matter how angry Alberta and Rachel Notley get, it looks like Justin Trudeau is not going to pull a rabbit out of his hat to solve the Trans Mountain Pipeline political crisis.

The prime minister visited Edmonton this week with a pretty clear message the government will bow to the Federal Court decision and do the due diligence on marine environmental concerns and First Nations consultation that somehow got missed on the first pass through the regulatory process.

"The Conservatives' approach of 'We're just going to wave a magic wand' is not going to work…," said Trudeau on an open line radio show.

"Using a legislative trick might be satisfying in the short term but it would set up fights and uncertainty for investors over the coming years over any other project because you can't have the government invoking those sorts of things.…"

Doing things "the right way", as Trudeau endlessly repeats, is going to take time and the prime minister is willing to take it.  When asked about the possibility of the delay only being four or five months, he begins running in verbal circles that ultimately spell out 'not likely'.

But he hasn't got nearly as much to lose politically from that delay as does Premier Notley.  Her frustration was palpable on the day Trudeau visited.

"We absolutely cannot be held hostage to a regulatory merry-go-round that never ends," she told reporters.

Both Notley and Trudeau believe the pipeline will be built.  Unlike the dead-in-the-water Gateway and Energy East pipelines, Trans Mountain is still with the realm of possibility.  And the timing of a pipeline aimed at reducing Canada's dependence on the capricious U.S. market is politically opportune.

For Notley, the magic wand approach to shortening the current process would have been just fine.

She is now counting down the months until the Alberta election.  Her support hinges on one big accomplishment: Can she get shovels in the ground for the Trans Mountain?

So much of Alberta's economy rests on confidence in the oil and gas industry that the ripples of the Federal Court decisions are cracking the windows of Calgary's already half empty petro-towers.  Energy sector stocks are in decline, with big players in the oil sands leading the way.

The day of the Federal Court quashing of the pipeline approval, Notley delivered a list of demands to Ottawa, who she was quick to vigorously blame for screwing up the process in the first place.

She wants the federal government to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.  She wants parliament to hold an emergency session and for the Liberals to come with a legislative fix.

And, just to be sure, Notley wants the federal government to redo the First Nations consultation as suggested by the federal court and do the necessary work on the marine environment piece.

Alberta Senator Doug Black has been shopping around similar suggestions, including legislation and appeal.  And Black also suggests redoing the deficient parts of the process but with a strict time limit.

And a time limit is surely the crucial issue.  Big infrastructure projects take plenty of time and the Trans Mountain seems to have taken quite a while already, partly because in the public mind it is just another part of a process which began with Gateway and Energy East.

Some cynics suggest that for Trudeau, the stretching of this particular process past the next federal election may actually work to the Liberals' advantage.  While it might damage the chances of being re-elected in the four seats achieved in Alberta in the last election, the delay could help in the 17 seats won in British Columbia.

But Trudeau does seem sincere in his stand that the pipeline is in the national interest and Canada only loses more and more money from the forced one-market discount of our oil export price with each month of delay.  He assured Albertans during his Wednesday's visit that he gets their frustration.

The pipeline also represents a sticking point in terms of national unity.

Until the Federal Court decision Ottawa and Edmonton had been experiencing a rare period of harmony, with Notley and Trudeau sharing the stage and posing for the cameras together.

Now Notley is booing from the sidelines, expecting Trudeau to pull off a spectacular magic act.

If the Trans Mountain process drags past the Alberta election in May and the new government is a UCP one, Trudeau can expect premier Jason Kenney to be throwing tomatoes from the audience.

Photo Credit: Calgary Herald

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


 

Dear Mr. Trudeau:

You are the reason we can't have nice things. You and all the others.  But, for the past four years, mostly you.

Last week, a reporter asked you about a poll of British Columbia voters that singled deep distrust of federal politicians.  Less than half of the respondent pool believes there is a federal party that speaks for them.  Less than half believes your kind is "trying to do the right thing."  Less than a quarter believes you "actually care about what happens to people like [them]."

You can't have been happy to read that.  After all, you have always believed in the federal government as a force for positive change, yours in particular.  Yet even in B.C., perhaps the most hospitable province in the Confederation for an activist-minded government, your sunny ways to the extent they actually have been sunny haven't brightened many spirits heading into Election 2019.  What gives?

Well, I certainly wasn't happy to read the answer you gave that reporter:

I think we're seeing a rise in cynicism all around the world right now, with excessive populism and exaggerated nationalism.  The politics of attack and division, the politics of vote suppression — of keeping people to cross their arms and stay home instead of coming forward and build and believe and choose a path forward.

Let us be absolutely clear on this point: I am neither a populist nor a nationalist.  I think the average human being is too ill-informed to vote.  I moved away from Canada because my family's best interests were more important.  I have referred to myself as a globalist and a technocrat, unironically and often.  I have said things about high-profile populists in Canada and elsewhere that I dare not repeat here.

I am, however, deeply cynical perhaps the most consistently cynical Canadian writing columns right now.  So please believe me when I advise you to try, just once, to stop deflecting blame for a political status quo that you have done more to maintain than to fix.

First of all, populists are not crossing their arms and staying home.  Far from it.  The last few provincial elections should be enough to tell you that.  They're the ones voting, because they believe however mistakenly that at least one candidate speaks for them, cares about them, and wants to do what's right.  It is fortunate that the most openly populist party in Ottawa has an abysmal infrastructure and the most embarrassing slate of candidates this side of Phil Davison.  But what they lack in skill and sense, they make up for in dedication and passion.

Most voters will never match them on that score.  Most voters care only about their kitchen table clutter.  If you cannot convince them that you can help them resolve a serious personal problem, or lead the way on solving a larger societal problem that they ought to care about, or minimize the little inconveniences and disappointments in their lives, or at least stop creating new inconveniences and disappointments, they will vote for the person who can.  And if there is no such person running, they may not vote at all.

That's the kind of cynicism you're up against.  Those populists and nationalists you're blaming want a revolution.  Everyone else wants basic competence and respectability.

Which brings us to your role.  Maybe you'll squeak out a second win if voters decide four more years of you would be better than the lumpen windbag, the indifferent slacker, the hectoring hippie, or the [TEXT OMITTED].  But they'll know, on some level, that they've chosen four more years of you cloaking yourself in righteousness whenever you take an obviously self-interested step.  I don't think I need to offer up a list of examples of those steps; Hasan Minhaj already covered it.

And here's the thing, Justin: By taking those steps, you exposed yourself as the biggest cynic of all.  You've had many opportunities to break with the backstabbing, cronyism, incrementalism, hypocrisy, and image-obsession that has characterized Canadian politics for years.  You've taken the easy path almost every time because, to you, change is just a hashtag.

So don't act surprised that voters need more than hashtags.  They need a reason not to cross their arms and stay home.  They thought you were inspiring enough once.  If you want to know why they're not inspired anymore, take a look in the mirror.  Just don't let your biceps distract you.

I am, dear sir, etc., etc. 

Written by Jess Morgan

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


The debate about the debates has not been as fierce as in previous electoral cycles.  One of the reason, perhaps, is that this time around, according to the criteria set by the Liberal government, Green Party leader Elizabeth May is included by the media consortium and was indeed invited to participate by the Leader's Debates Commission.

One that has not been invited, however, is Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada.  Bernier and the PPC are appealing the Commission's decision.  The Commission, strangely, will conduct its own polling in five ridings selected by the People's Party strategists, and based on that, will come to a final decision.  If they reverse, this will be gold for Maxime Bernier a government-sanctioned chance to win!  If they don't, the unfairness of it all may galvanize his base.  But his base only.

Because contrary to May, Bernier is not selling apple pie and doesn't have the sympathy of many members of the media elites, although some have been advocating for his inclusion.  But he certainly doesn't have as many advocates as May had back in 2008, when she had similar polling numbers.

Interestingly, we haven't heard much from May about Maxime Bernier's presence in the next debates.  Certainly, according to the criteria that she pushed for debate participation, she should be supportive of his inclusion.  Unless maybe she agrees with the NDP, who has argued that Maxime Bernier should be excluded because of "his ideology of hatred and intolerance".

Irrelevant, stated the Commission.  To be invited, the People's Party must satisfy two of the following three criteria, none of which are ideological purity:

  • Have at least one member elected under the party's banner; (Nope!)
  • Nominate candidates to run in at least 90% of all ridings; (Check!)
  • and have captured at least 4% of the votes in the previous election (Nope!) OR be considered by the Commissioner to have a legitimate chance to win seats in the current election, based on public opinion polls. (Who knows!)

Back in 2008, the media consortium announced that the Greens would again be excluded from the debates, despite disgraced Liberal MP Blair Wilson becoming the first Green MP just days prior to dissolution.  The Conservatives and the NDP were opposed to the inclusion of the Green leader, especially considering that the Greens and Liberals had made an electoral coalition of sorts, with the Liberals not running against Elizabeth May and the Greens reciprocating towards Liberal leader Stéphane Dion.

Both Stephen Harper and Jack Layton were adamant that they would not participate if May was included because it would effectively mean two Liberal supporters being on the stage.  The Green's entire campaign became about May's inclusion in the debates and there was considerable public outcry as a result, particularly coming from Liberal and NDP supporters.  The Conservatives and NDP finally dropped their opposition to May's participation and the consortium invited May to participate.  May's participation in the debates increased the Green Party's exposure.  They ended up with an extra quarter-million votes and 2,30% more than in the 2004 election.

In 2011, May was again excluded from the debate by the media consortium, as the Greens did not have representation in the House of Commons.  The Greens tried to replicate their 2008 campaign to get into the debate, but it didn't lift off as it had in the previous election.  The Green Party even tried to bring the matter in front of the Federal Court and got turned down.  The Party shifted gears and focussed instead on successfully electing Elizabeth May as the first elected Green MP.  But overall, May's exclusion from the debates resulted in the Green Party's vote share being cut almost in half, with a net loss of 360,000 votes.  Bernier is, no doubt, fully aware of this fact.

The debate about the debates occupied much of the early days of the 2015 election.  In May, the Conservatives said they would not participate in the consortium debates and instead would agreed to up to five independently staged debates.  Tom Mulcair simply stated that he would participate in every debate with the Prime Minister.  Five debates were held in different configurations, with the Greens making it into two of the five.  Meanwhile, a new party, Strength in Democracy, which had the same number of MPs at dissolution as the Greens and Bloc Québécois, were not invited to participate in any of the televised debates.

Which brings us to 2019.  While the government ostensibly wanted to put an end to the debate about the debates, it is still raging.  Leaving aside the multiple unofficial Leader's debates that are being organized, the Liberals unilaterally established rules to determine which party leaders were to be invited to the official debates.  Back in November 2018, Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould said that Bernier would qualify for the debates.  Yet, two official debates are being organized and held by the Leaders' Debates Commission, with invitations extended to Justin Trudeau, Andrew Scheer, Jagmeet Singh, Elizabeth May and Yves-François Blanchet.   The Commission has judged that Maxime Bernier and his People's Party did not qualify.  Why?  Because they don't have a legitimate chance to win.

And this is the crux of the problem, isn't it?  What is a legitimate chance to win?  Certainly, Bernier has a good shot at his own riding.  But one seat is not enough!  Why?  Unclear.  Are current polls telling the whole story?  Earlier this year, a poll put the PPC in 3rd place in the Greater Quebec City area.  Is being in 3rd place a legitimate chance?  Keep in mind that the current government started the last election in 3rd place…

The Leaders' Debates Commission relied on public opinion polls and poll aggregators to make its decision, basically telling voters not to bother with the PPC.  They might as well have used witchcraft, though, considering the less-than-stellar predictions we have seen from pollsters and aggregators, sixty days out of past elections.

Photo Credit: National Post

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Be careful what you ask for.  It's a wise old saying that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney may hear softly whispering in his ear for the next four years.

The blue ribbon panel on the province's finances, led by former Saskatchewan NDP Finance Minister Janice MacKinnon, provided Kenney with the cover he wanted to slash provincial spending.  It had little choice given a mandate which could not address the revenue side of the budget equation.

Immediately after the report Kenney was happy to tweet the report's verdict: "As former NDP Finance Minister Janice MacKinnon says, Alberta has a spending problem, not a problem we should address by raising taxes."

But MacKinnon's report, complete with 26 pretty specific recommendations, contains some poison political pills the government swallows at its peril.

"We have the stomach to be responsible to the Albertans that elected us, to bring this province to fiscal balance," says Travis Toews, the province's unflappable finance minister.

But intestinal fortitude isn't the only quality that keeps voters on your side.

The basic Conservative formula for tightening the budget is well trod ground.  Reduce the size of the civil service and cut their pay, tighten spending on social programs, stop building courthouses in every rural municipality, maybe close a smallish hospital or two, shave a bit off the education budget, transfers to municipalities, — just basically share the pain across the province for a couple of years until natural resource revenues comes back up.

Ralph Klein did it and, although his legacy of delayed infrastructure spending is vilified even in some conservative circles, the party stayed happily entrenched in power.

But the MacKinnon report, at its heart, asks for a different order of budget restructuring.

The province needs to cut $600 million in operating expenses to get to a balanced budget by 2022-23.  And the restrained spending continues for decades to beat the debt down to zero by 2043-44.

The report's targets and tactics will take brass knuckles.

For instance the panel takes aim specifically at doctors, a not inconsiderable political force in the province.  Physicians should get incentives to go to alternative payment plans and the agreement with the Alberta Medical Association should be renegotiated.

"Every effort should be made to achieve a negotiated agreement, but the government should also consider its legislative options."

While the NDP official opposition probably won't man the ramparts to protect well-paid physicians in a protracted fight over compensation, a sweeping recommendation that also recommends legislation on the public sector wage front will trigger a fight in the legislature and major challenges in the courts.

The recommendation to lift the current cap on tuition at post secondary institutions will raise the usual hackles, but it still rests comfortably in a conservative budget-tightening scenario.

But there's also this: "Assess the financial viability of Alberta's post-secondary institutions and move quickly to address the future of those that do not appear to be viable in future funding scenarios."

Close colleges?  The ground is shaking under the feet of a number of rural UCP MLAs who will fight such a move tooth and nail.  Portage College in Lac La Bichewas singled out in a KPMG analysis in the report's appendix for having less than a 40 percent completion rate.  It's not alone among the rural colleges for poor performance.

Toews, who represents Grande Prairie-Wapiti in the legislature, has already signalled to a reporter from Postmedia he's not planning to immediately close colleges.

(Curiously, another sacred political cow in Alberta, the high level of taxpayer support for private schools, is not mentioned as a potential target in the recommendations.)

MacKinnon's report also takes aim at municipalities.  The province should consider "funding formulas that require municipalities to share more of the costs of major projects."

Already Edmonton's mayor is arguing Kenney promised to honour a city charter deal signed before the election.  The deal provided some surety that transit projects underway can be completed.  If the government snips back that assurance, the small beach-head the UCP has established in traditionally left-leaning Edmonton could vanish.

And that undercurrent of potential political unrest may be the tide that keeps Kenney from wholesale implementation of MacKinnon's audacious blueprint to budget balance.

The political climate in 1992 when Ralph Klein took office and wielded a service and program slashing axe to slay the deficit was very different.  Klein was personally popular.  The polls show Kenney doesn't enjoy the same adoration.  The Progressive Conservative dynasty was at its height in the mid 1990s.  Now the province has tasted the forbidden fruit of an NDP government.

And the oil boom is not coming back.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


This content is restricted to subscribers

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


As we inch ever closer to the writs being drawn up for the 43rd general election, I find myself wondering if this election is going to be fought over any actual Canadian issues, or if once again, it will play out with a bunch of staffers in the party backrooms trying to LARP (live-action role playing) the West Wing  or quite possibly Veep, given the level of competence that each of the campaigns has been demonstrating to date.  Given the weeks-long drama that has just played out over comments made by Andrew Scheer about his comments about same-sex marriage and the debate about whether the party would allow any abortion-related legislation has shown that the appeal of importing the American culture war is evident in the campaign backrooms, as the staffers who decided this would be the perfect trap for Scheer seem to be getting high by huffing the fumes of whatever political effluent is coming from south of the border.  It leaves one to wonder whether there is anything Canadian to fight about?

The fact that Canadian political operatives are enamoured with American politics should not be any surprise given just how inundated our popular culture is with Americana, and how much American news drowns out our own.  Many of our understandings about how politics works are coloured through American lenses, whether it's false constructions about how things like campaign financing works, the nature of lobbying, or those racist emails and Facebook posts that go around that complain that soon there will be enough Muslims in Canada that they could elect one to become prime minister (never mind that it's both untrue and doesn't grasp our electoral system in the slightest, and simply replaced "America" with "Canada," and "president" with "prime minister").

The wistful longing about how "exciting" their politics are takes on a life of its own here, while political journalism here starts trading in pervasive Americanised terms, whether it's things like "checks and balances," or using wholly incorrect terms like "prime minister-elect."  Political parties have long-since turned our leadership contests into quasi-presidential primaries, complete with the fact that the successful leadership candidates have behaved increasingly presidential in the ways that they have centralized power in their parties.  Meanwhile, every party convention for the past several years has had some American campaigners come up to talk to Canadian parties even if they're not really equivalent about their successful campaign tactics, as though the ways in which our elections are run are at all analogous.

To an extent, every Canadian election becomes one about healthcare in one shape or another, and there is always a promise to uphold our system from privatization, without necessarily delving into the nuances of the problems with our system as it exists.  Likewise, when it comes to gun control, we tend to use American terms without necessarily understanding the ways in which things like handguns are already restricted in Canada.  In many ways, the current debate over pharmacare is piggybacking on the American rhetoric around "healthcare for all," particularly in how different parties are positioning themselves.  This aside, there are plenty of other ways in which the Canadian parties are looking to fight this election on American memes and talking points.

For the Liberals, it's clear that off the start, they are trying to use the American culture war to their advantage, laying out a lot of markers around abortion and LGBT rights, while trying to paint Andrew Scheer as being a misogynist or homophobe, and Scheer's inability to manage this particular issue has made it all the more likely that the Liberals will keep it up.  And for all of their professed love of data, they have previously built campaigns around American memes about middle-class stagnation and economic figures that were true for Americans, but not Canada.  We'll see if they keep this up.

The Conservatives also seem to relish in importing the culture war memes and talking points, so much so that there have been "lock her up" chants in Canada among their base (particularly in Alberta and Ontario, where there were women premiers to be ousted).  More recently, there has been a great deal of time and attention to the situation with irregular migration and the asylum seekers, where the Conservatives have been insistent upon using the rhetoric of "illegals" despite the fact that even though the action of irregularly crossing is illegal, the ability to make a refugee claim inland ensures that the notion of "illegal immigration" is not really a Thing in Canada.  Nevertheless, they are hung ho to use the term.  The kinds of climate denialism that pervade the Conservative ranks are also largely traded upon American talking points, and only sometimes do they bother to attach Canadian statistics to it.

And the NDP?  Bereft of any actual policy ideas since "Good, competent public administration" failed to take off under Thomas Mulcair, they have increasingly grasped at anything that the Democrats in the US are doing and trying to make it work in Canada, whether it's things like the "fight for $15" minimum wage campaign (never mind that the $15/hour figure doesn't actually mean anything in Canadian terms), and anything that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweets suddenly becomes NDP policy.  The Democrats pushing for a "Green New Deal" has suddenly become NDP gospel, so much that Jagmeet Singh has branded his election platform a "New Deal for People," never mind that Canada never had a New Deal, and it's a wholly American term he's trying to claim.

Add to this, the fact that the parties are trying to make this election about "affordability" makes me wonder if this isn't also importing the American culture war of "economic anxiety," while trying to round off the nastier edges of racism that pervade the American progenitor.  After all, if that's what was so exciting about the last American election, surely it could make our own election exciting too!  This kind of thinking, and the kind of LARPing that it engenders, ensures that the unique challenges that Canada faces will be once again be ignored while the campaign is fought on American terms, in the hopes that it's "exciting."

Photo Credit: Marie Claire

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.