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Day: October 9, 2020

This is your daily campaign trail update with everything you need for Oct. 9, 2020.

The B.C. provincial election will be held Oct. 24.

This is your daily campaign trail update with everything you need for Oct. 59 2020.

This page will be updated throughout the day, with developments added as they happen.

WHERE THE LEADERS ARE TODAY

John Horgan, NDP

: The NDP leader will make an announcement this morning about economic recovery from the pandemic. He will tour the Seaspan Shipyards with CEO Mark Lamarre and North Vancouver-Lonsdale BC NDP candidate Bowinn Ma. Following the tour and announcement, Horgan will take questions from the media.

Sonia Furstenau, Green:  

The Green leader starts her day in the Cowichan Valley and then heads to Nanaimo where she will hold a news conference on “rebuilding a better economy” at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre. She will then campaign with local candidates in Nanaimo and then visit Shawnigan.

Andrew Wilkinson, Liberal:

The Liberal leader will make an announcement on child care with BC Liberal candidate for North Vancouver-Seymour Jane Thornthwaite at a childcare centre in North Vancouver.

TWEETS FROM THE TRAIL

GUIDES AND LINKS

• B.C. Election 2020: Stay informed with our daily newsletter, delivered to your inbox every day at noon. Sign up here.

• Read the latest news on B.C. Election 2020

• Here’s how, where and when to vote

• Received a blank ballot? Here’s how to fill it out

• What candidates are running in my riding?

• Register to vote in the B.C. Election

• Find your electoral district

CAMPAIGN TRAIL NEWS

8 p.m. – Vaughn Palmer: Furstenau the ‘lastenau,’ but new Green leader relishes election challenge

John Horgan had three years of ups and downs as NDP leader before facing an election.

For Andrew Wilkinson, there were 2½ bumpy years between winning the B.C. Liberal leadership and this fall’s reckoning with the electorate.

After winning the Green party leadership, Sonia Furstenau had all of a week before plunging straight into an election campaign.

The Greens announced Sept. 14 that Furstenau was elected leader over Vancouver lawyer Cam Brewer with 53 per cent of some 4,555 ballots.

READ MORE

4:30 p.m. – NDP aiming to harness the protest vote

The NDP election campaign is tapping into people’s urge to protest by launching online petitions opposing key elements of the Liberal platform and in support of taxes on speculators and free contraception.

A petition embedded in a Facebook ad in favour of the popular Speculation and Vacancy Tax — and opposing the Liberals’ pledge to replace it — has collected more than 6,000 digital signatures, according to the NDP campaign.

Tearing a page from the opposition playbook, a new set of ads have appeared urging people to sign up in support of Premier John Horgan’s recovery benefit of $1,000 per family or $500 per individual (1,545 signatures) and opposing Liberal bailouts for “big business and the wealthy.”

The New Democrats have launched a wave of petition-style ads encouraging people to sign and give their email addresses and phone numbers to the party.

 

3 p.m. – NDP, Liberals both promise to cap food delivery fees

The NDP and B.C. Liberals both issued a promise on Friday that, if elected, their respective governments would impose a 15 per cent cap on fees paid to food delivery apps.

B.C. restaurants, dealing with COVID-19 related restriction on capacity and operating hours, have relied heavily on customers placing delivery orders through third-party apps, such as Uber Eats and DoorDash, to stay afloat during the pandemic.

However, some restaurants have complained that some apps charge restaurants up to 30 per cent in addition to a delivery fee paid by the customer.

David Eby, NDP candidate for Vancouver Point Grey, said Friday if third-party apps don’t voluntarily cap fees at 15 per cent, an NDP government would move to regulate a six-month temporary cap to protect B.C.’s restaurant industry, and the 180,000 people it supports.

The B.C. Liberals also put out a statement Friday in which they also promised to cap online food delivery charges at 15 per cent.

 

Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson is seen during a campaign stop at an indoor soccer facility in Surrey on Tuesday, October 6.

10 a.m. – Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson makes an announcement about child care

The B.C. Liberal Party says it would bring in $10 a day child care for families with incomes under $65,000.

B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson made the announcement during an election campaign stop at Bee Haven Child Care in North Vancouver on Friday.

He said in addition to the $10 a day child care the B.C. Liberals would bring in $20 a day child care for families with incomes of up to $90,000 and $30 a day for families with combined salaries of under $125,000.

“This is real. This is not a slogan. This is an opportunity,” he said. “We will deliver affordable for British Columbians.”

He said only two per cent of child care spaces in B.C. are offered at the $10-a-day rate, saying that the NNP used it as “a slogan” in the 2017 election campaign.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has hit low-income families harder than most, which is why $10-a-day child care now, not later — on top of eliminating the PST for one year — will mean huge savings for those who need it most,” said Wilkinson.

 

9:30 a.m. – New Westminster’s Burger Heaven releases burger poll

B.C.’s Burger Heaven “bunofficial” election poll results are hot off the grill, and it looks like once again patrons relish the John Horgan burger.

It’s a bit of a pickle though for the Green Party, with the Sonia Furstenau veggie burger in third place.

The New Westminster eatery has been holding election burger polls for more than 30 years.

On Friday, the restaurant said 43 per cent of patrons were ordering the John Horgan burger, billed as a “nicely done patty of ‘lean-to-the-left’ Grade A “premier” beef” which is “attempting to gain ‘ground’ on the front left burner as it stirs the pot in its attempt to secure a majority leadership in the BC government.”

The Andrew Wilkinson burger, a “lean-to-the-right burger sizzling on the right centre burner” garnered 19 per cent of patron votes, while 17 per cent ordered up the environmentally conscious Sonia Furstenau veggie burger.

The Conservative Trevor Bolin burger, frying on the front right burner, got nine per cent, while 12 were “bundecided.”

 

9:15 a.m. – John Horgan pledges a re-elected NDP government would launch a shipbuilding plan for B.C.

The B.C. NDP is pledging to launch a long-term shipbuilding strategy if re-elected, including pushing the federal government for Canada’s next Polar Icebreaker to be built in B.C.

“As a maritime province we should be building ships,” said NDP Leader John Horgan, during a tour of Season Shipyards in North Vancouver Friday.

“For years, shipbuilding was being outsourced to other countries — leaving B.C. workers and companies behind,” said Horgan.

“Our long-term strategy is about making strategic investments that will keep B.C. shipyards modern and competitive, able to win more contracts and create more jobs.”

Horgan said he would also keep fighting to bring construction of Canada’s next Polar Icebreaker back to British Columbia shipyards, a project he said would create up to 1,400 jobs.

The NDP pledged to work with Ottawa and B.C. shipyards to identify the areas where strategic investments could have the most impact, and invest in repair, maintenance, and refit.

 

6 a.m. – Leaders campaign ahead of long weekend

B.C.’s political leaders are gearing up for another day of campaigning today before they head into the Thanksgiving long weekend.

NDP Leader John Horgan will kick off the day with an announcement at the Seaspan shipbuilding yard in North Vancouver while the Greens’ Sonia Furstenau plans to talk about climate change and clean jobs in Nanaimo.

Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson says he will make an announcement on child care that will particularly help women and low-income parents return to the workforce.

The campaigns have been dominated by virtual events in the lead up to the Oct. 24 vote amid COVID-19 restrictions and Elections BC says more than 625,000 people have requested mail-in ballots.

On Thursday, Horgan, Wilkinson and Furstenau shared their visions for economic recovery involving everything from tax breaks, benefits, housing and transit investments at a discussion hosted by

the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

The board says one quarter of businesses say they don’t believe they’ll survive a year under current economic conditions.

— The Canadian Press

 

12 a.m. –Mulgrew: Pandemic-induced apathy over ICBC reform plagues B.C. election campaign

Calling a provincial election during a pandemic has proven to be a recipe for a lack of public engagement and debate, even about the radical changes proposed for ICBC.

Like many activists and advocates in B.C., Geoffrey Sing and Nazneen Chow had hoped to be lining up behind microphones at all-candidates meetings, dogging party leaders at town hall meetings, and discussing the future of the financially troubled Crown corporation.

But public health orders have restricted the usual campaign meetings, door-knocking, demonstrations and general civil discourse.

“This no-fault stuff went completely off the radar because people became completely focused on COVID, and they still are,” said Sing, a survivor of a brain injury who works with and lobbies for other victims.

“I did one television interview to express our concern about this, but generally there has been no real interest in it. This is a significant change in survivor rights — theoretically, they have a legal right to receive fair compensation, and we’re not certain they are going to get this through the enhanced care model.”

 

WHAT THE LEADERS ARE SAYING:

Andrew Wilkinson, Liberal:

“We need to be highly competitive. We need to drive down your costs. We mean need to make it possible for you to get ahead in British Columbia.”

John Horgan, NDP:

“Whether it’s working with business, labour, not-for-profits, Indigenous communities or the federal government, my approach over the past 3½ years has been to focus on the needs of people, businesses and community.”

Sonia Furstenau, Green:

“COVID-19 has made it clear how vulnerable our communities are to sudden shocks…We need to look at the changes on the horizon and make sure B.C. communities are strong enough to weather them. By taking action now, we can make ourselves resilient to the inevitable changes we will experience in coming years, while also creating jobs and opportunities for British Columbians. We can make sure we are managing our resources sustainably and responsibly so that our communities derive maximum value from them now, and so that British Columbians can enjoy their benefits and security for generations to come.”

DAILY POLL

SOCIAL MEDIA STUMPING

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A stunningly gorgeous day in whistler. Meeting with the Squamish elders was the perfect way to start the day. We heard about their concerns and also learned about their history and their solutions for their region and for the province. It was fantastic to make an announcement about supports to small business, to tourism operators, and to some of the large backbones of our province’s tourism economy. We have solutions to put on the table right now that will ensure that these businesses make it through the winter. I’m so excited to see @jervaleriote as the next MLA for Vancouver Sea to Sky. He brings a calm and determined commitment to his community which is something that is so needed in the BC legislature. #bcpoli #bcpolitics #press #bcelection #bcelection2020 #bcelxn2020 #bcelxn #britishcolumbia #bcgreens #beautifulbritishcolumbia #campaining #campaign #event #community #leadership #tourism #vancouverseatosky #vancouver #seatosky

A post shared by Sonia Furstenau (@soniafurstenau) on Oct 8, 2020 at 6:12pm PDT

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Having declared victory after pushing on an open door and taking credit for actions the government was going to take already in the lead-up to the Speech from the Throne, the NDP have set their sights on so-called "profiteers" who have committed the sin of making money over the course of the current pandemic.  And to be sure, there have been some very problematic choices by some of these companies, like the decision to cut the "hero pay" of front-line grocery workers, but nothing the NDP suggests would actually be a suitable fix for what happened.

The NDP have proposed a suite of measures that they say will ensure that the "richest elites and most profitable corporations" pay their fair share, and leader Jagmeet Singh has raised the spectre of this being preferable to a GST/HST hike to pay for the deficits that have accumulated as a result of emergency measures something that no party has actually suggested.  To that end, they propose:

a) Applying a 1 per cent annual wealth tax to families with fortunes over $20 million.

b) Cracking down on Tax Havens and closing tax loopholes.

c) Making web giants like Amazon, Google and Facebook pay their fair share of taxes as has been done by other countries.

d) Introducing a temporary COVID-19 Excess Profit Tax.  This would, at least, double the tax rate on excess profits.

e) Pairing these programs with tough enforcement against tax evasion and penalties for millionaires and big corporations who try to avoid paying their fair share.

If most of these measures look familiar, it's because they are largely a warmed-over version of the very same handwavey promises they made in the last election, and they have the very same problems that they had then in large part because they, along with Singh's rhetoric, have mostly been lifted wholesale from the Bernie Sanders/Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Democrat playbook, and don't necessarily fit into a Canadian context.

For example, the imposition of an annual wealth tax on family fortunes is unworkable in the Canadian tax system because unlike the American tax system, we tax individual incomes and not households.  In order to tax family fortunes, we would need to build an entirely new tax system to capture this small amount or revenue the juice not being worth the squeeze.  But this is what happens when you simply ape American talking points without thinking them through.

Cracking down of tax havens is the common refrain we keep hearing, under the assumption that there are just billions of dollars waiting to be scooped up that successive governments have simply been too lazy/cozy with the billionaire class (all tens of them) to bother with, which is simplistic nonsense.  Tax havens are an incredibly complex problem to deal with, which this government has invested fairly heavily in combatting, and have been dealing with some of the necessary intergovernmental work of tax information treaties with foreign governments so that we can get proper disclosures of what are in those accounts.  It's slow work, and can't be done with the flick of a switch (or the wave of a magic wand).

Likewise, promises to tax web giants like Amazon are easy to promise, but difficult to follow through on because they use foreign tax jurisdictions to shift their burden methods that have been largely legal until recently, and again isn't something that the CRA can simply swoop in and collect on.  And while sure, France has instituted taxes on some of these web giants, it doesn't mean that they are actually collecting much on them or that they're not facing reprisals either.

The "Temporary COVID-19 Excess Profit Tax" is another notion that sounds easy, but is incredibly complex to administer, especially when you have to start with the assumption of just what constitutes "excess profit"?  Yes, these kinds of taxes existed during the Second World War, but that was also in the context of massive tax increases across the board, and it was done as a way to ensure a modicum of social peace from that population, especially when there were certain industries that would do well in wartime like munitions or food supplies many of whom had their profits coming straight out of government contracts, none of which applies today.  And with this context in mind, trying to decide what constituted "excess profit" was easy to game after all, if you tried to go for the historical average, you have to remember that before the war was the Great Depression; if you tried to determine what was a justifiable return on investment, that was easily manipulated.

This isn't the Second World War.  Capital is much more mobile now, and the Tax Code is much more convoluted.  We also have to remember that the economic contraction lasted only two months we have been in recovery since May, and it's going to be hard to attract investment when they have to worry about this tax where there is no articulated exit strategy from its "temporary" nature.  Singh also told Power & Politics that he wanted to work with the Parliamentary Budget Officer to set the rate, which should set of loud alarm bells because that is explicitly not the PBO's function, and it would explicitly politicize his office in doing so.

If the issue is that hero pay got cut, there are better mechanisms to deal with it, such as using the Competition Bureau to investigate and punish these grocery chains for the apparent collusion they engaged in when it came to withdrawing that pay (something Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith is pursuing).  If the issue is that more people went to grocery stores because restaurants closed, or that there were higher prices because supply chain disruption triggered the laws of supply and demand, it's hard to consider this "profiteering."  If this is about the morality of capitalism, then that's a broader discussion that this handwaving and fixation on supposed "easy solutions" (that are not easy at all) won't fix, and is not the same preoccupation in Canada as in American politics.  If the NDP wants to propose solutions to help people in this pandemic, this suite of measures is not it.

Photo Credit: Maclean's

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.

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Green leader Sonia Furstenau, left, was campaigning on Friday in Nanaimo. “I seem to be in a relentless underdog story,” she said recently, but is working to change that before the Oct. 24 vote.

VICTORIA — John Horgan had three years of ups and downs as NDP leader before facing an election.

For Andrew Wilkinson, there were 2½ bumpy years between winning the B.C. Liberal leadership and this fall’s reckoning with the electorate.

After winning the Green party leadership, Sonia Furstenau had all of a week before plunging straight into an election campaign.

The Greens announced Sept. 14 that Furstenau was elected leader over Vancouver lawyer Cam Brewer with 53 per cent of some 4,555 ballots.

Later that day former leader Andrew Weaver posted a perfunctory “congratulations” to Furstenau.

Earlier, he’d made no secret of his disdain for her, denouncing one plank in her leadership platform as “absolutely kooky” and serving as an adviser to Brewer.

Weaver had also endorsed John Horgan for re-election. “I hope he is premier again,” he told podcaster Mo Amir. “There’s no fake John Horgan. There’s the real John Horgan and that is the only John Horgan.”

A day after Furstenau assumed the leadership, Weaver provided cover for the “real” John Horgan to repudiate his own signature on the confidence and supply agreement (CASA) with the Greens.

“Were Premier Horgan to call an election I would unequivocally say his reasons to do so would not be a violation of CASA,” the former Green leader told CTV.

The agreement explicitly precluded Horgan from calling an early election. But Weaver blamed Green MLAs Furstenau and Adam Olsen for working to “hamper and hijack” the NDP’s ability to manage the COVID-19 crisis, though neither of them voted against any measures to manage the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Nevertheless Furstenau took a stab at persuading Horgan there was no need for an election to stabilize the NDP’s hold on power.

She met with him in the premier’s office on Friday the 18th, invoking the CASA commitment to mutual consultations for what would prove to be the last time.

“I assured the premier that he had a stable government and outlined concrete areas of co-operation for us to work on,” she would say later.

She also reminded the premier that CASA was a signed agreement among all NDP and Green MLAs, not just himself and Weaver.

Horgan heard her out, not letting on that he was on the verge of calling an election. On the Monday, after meeting the lieutenant-governor, he made it official.

Furstenau got the news at the same time as everyone else in the province. Despite the “no surprises” clause in CASA, “Furstenau was the lastenau,” as one wag put it. In light of the new leader’s rough treatment by Weaver and Horgan, the Greens might have considered the 1970s pop hit

Backstabbers

as their campaign song.

Instead, Furstenau had some good comebacks ready.

“Tearing up a signed contract with your partners, ignoring the law that establishes fixed election dates and plunging this province into an unnecessary election risks undoing so much of the progress we have seen,” she declared, addressing Horgan directly.

“The more you let partisanship pollute public discourse the less trust people will have in their leaders. And trust in our leaders will be essential for the difficult road ahead.”

Her response to the premier’s decision to repudiate CASA: “What the agreement didn’t stipulate was absolute total obedience to the NDP.”

When Horgan went on to accuse the Greens of sabotaging the NDP’s $10-a-day child care plan, Furstenau produced evidence she had worked with the government for three years on comprehensive child care.

She and Horgan had “both studied history” in university, said Furstenau. But only he was bent on rewriting it.

Still, the Greens had a mountain to climb in terms of election readiness. Horgan was counting on it.

“We are going to show them we are not in a weakened state,” she vowed in that first week. “We are very strong. We are very prepared.”

But when nominations closed Oct. 2, the Greens fell short of a full slate, running candidates in 74 of  87 ridings. Yet it was an impressive showing for a leader who had been on the job for less than three weeks.

While pulling together a platform, Furstenau has been buttonholing the voters to elect another minority government.

“What John Horgan appears to want is absolute power,” she told Les Leyne of the

Victoria Times Colonist

. “Absolute obedience and no accountability for the decisions he had his government make. That is not the best thing for this province.”

Has she been burned so badly by Horgan that she could never work with him? CKNW broadcaster Simi Sara asked recently. Not necessarily.

“I ran for leader because I think we need a different kind of leadership, a different kind of politics,” Furstenau replied.

“When we get to the other side of the election, one thing that will be guiding any decisions I make is how does it serve the people of B.C.? We’ve got caught up in this idea that parties are like these clubs and they can never talk to each other and never work together. We showed over the last 3½ years that that’s absolutely not true.”

Her next big test is Tuesday, when she faces off against the more experienced Horgan and Wilkinson in the televised debate.

“I seem to be in a relentless underdog story,” Furstenau told Amy Smart of The Canadian Press recently. But that leaves her with nowhere to go but up.

Vpalmer@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/VaughnPalmer

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Sylvie D'Amours must have been cringing, as she watched Premier François Legault refuse on Thursday to reiterate his confidence in her, the then Minister responsible for Indigenous Affairs.  Legault refused to do it not once, not twice, but three times in a row, during a press conference that was meant to be, once again, a call to Quebecers to stay home, especially ahead of the Thanksgiving weekend.

Sadly for D'Amours, her hours were numbered.  A few minutes after Legault's comments, Minister D'Amours had to rise in the National Assembly to defend her record.  A few hours later, she was told her services were no longer required.

D'Amours completely mishandled the tragic death of Joyce Echaquan, an Atikamekw mother of seven, who died earlier this fall after seeking emergency treatment for stomach pain at a hospital in Joliette, while facing racist insults hurled from her nurses.  But there is more to it, of course.  Notably, she was completely invisible during the aboriginal blockades of early 2020.  She has been unable to make progress on the 142 recommendations laid out a year ago by retired Superior Court justice Jacques Viens, the head of the Public Inquiry Commission on relations between Indigenous Peoples and certain public services in Québec.

Replacing D'Amours, François Legault's is raising more than a few eyebrows with his choice.  Ian Lafrenière, a CAQ MNA from the Montreal area, who has been part of the Government's action group against racism, formed in the wake of the death of Georges Floyd, last June.

But, more importantly, it is Lafrenière's background that is sending a signal: he was a police inspector and a longtime spokesperson for the City of Montreal Police Department.  A cop.  To handle the natives.  Many applauded the move: it's about time to have a new Sheriff in town and bring peace and order, they say.

Not surprisingly, aboriginal leaders and activists see the appointment at best as suspicious, at worse an act of provocation.  Maïtée Saganash, a columnist for Metro and Cree Nation News, stated coldly: "In Canada, the police have always been the preferred tool of terror of governments to control Aboriginal people and enforce the Indian Act."

Caquiste operatives were quick to defend the appointment, stating that Lefrenière had shown sensitivity to the realities of urban natives.  A flak of the Public Safety Minister, under whom Lafrenière served as Parliamentary Assistant, told me that "before being a police officer, he is above all a very caring human being.  Can we give him a chance?"

His chance, Lafrenière will get.  But in politics, perceptions are quick to set in and soon become a reality.  And a cop appointed to handle the natives by a Premier who denies systemic racism exists will need to deliver results quickly to mitigate these perceptions.

Photo Credit: Radio Canada

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.

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