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Tag: Jagmeet Singh
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.
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.
The signs are there. The language is clear. The tea leaves are easy to discern.
Canadians will soon be going back to the polls to choose a new federal government. It may happen in the dog days of summer, although it’s far more likely to occur in the fall. Either way, the writ of election will soon drop.
As things currently stand, the Liberals seem like a safe bet.
The most recent opinion polls confirm this. Ipsos had Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals ahead of Erin O’Toole and the Tories by 38-26 percent on June 22. Abacus Data’s June 30 poll showed the Liberals leading by 37-25 percent. Nanos Research had the Liberals over the Tories by 38.1-23.6 percent in its July 2 poll. Leger is currently showing the closest margin, with the Liberals ahead by 33-30 percent.
Jagmeet Singh’s NDP are sitting in third place in these recent polls at 20, 20, 20.4 and 19 percent respectively. Yves-Francois Blanchet’s Bloc Quebecois are hovering around 5.1-8 percent. Annamie Paul’s Greens sit at 5-7.5 percent. Maxime Bernier and the People’s Party are around 3-4.3 percent.
Polling data must be taken like a grain of salt. Nevertheless, these numbers show a near-carbon copy of current Parliament for Trudeau, albeit with some notable differences.
The Liberals have led in every federal poll taken since Sept. 25, 2020, when Nanos had them briefly behind the Tories by 34-2-34.1 percent. If they fall below the magic number of 38 percent, the likely result would be a strong minority government once again. While it’s mathematically possible to get a small majority with 36 or 37 percent, it largely depends on the riding-by-riding breakdown, seat impact, results in close two-way and three-way races, and so forth. The way things currently stand, Trudeau will either hit or miss majority territory by 7-10 seats.
The Tories are in an unusual position. They should finish a comfortable second, but could slip into third behind the NDP even if they’re ahead in the popular vote. The NDP will most likely finish third, but a doubling of seats from its current tally of 24 doesn’t seem unreasonable. The BQ should be able to protect most of its 32 seats, and may capture 1-2 new ones. The Greens are in the midst of a massive internal struggle, and this could allow the Liberals and NDP to siphon its already-dwindling support. As for the PPC, it’s high enough in the polls that Bernier could become the King of Beauce once more.
It certainly seems like the forthcoming federal election is a foregone conclusion. Or is it?
Elections matter. Leaders and candidates make mistakes. Breaking news of a domestic and international nature can unexpectedly pop up. Policies and narratives can change on the fly. Controversies and pitfalls can be sidestepped, but can’t always be avoided. A successful GOTV (get out the vote) strategy is crucial to winning close races and changing hearts and minds.
If you’ve lived, breathed, ate and slept politics, you’ve seen some strange things occur on a near-daily basis. I certainly have. Many others have, too. We know where the political bodies are buried – and some of us helped design the invisible shovels to boot!
To quote the immortal New York Yankees great Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” There are several ways for political parties to grow and/or leapfrog one another before the final vote has been tabulated.
O’Toole must release policy positions that are rich in detail and keep semantics in check. The Tories and Liberals are obviously different from one another, but voters want to understand what those differences would exactly entail if he became prime minister. He needs to build a clearly defined plan to deal specifically with COVID-19, taxes, public spending, military funding, Canada’s international role, building better relations with Indigenous peoples, tackling issues of racism and genocide, and so on. This would place O’Toole in a stronger light, and potentially make him more appealing to independent and traditionally non-Conservative voters.
Singh needs to stop wasting time on TikTok and following Trudeau’s lead of getting on magazine covers like GQ. While this fluff may have endeared him with some Millennials and young progressives, the federal government has shifted to the left and lifted some of his policies and strategies. The only Canadians who believe today’s NDP is different from today’s Liberals are (surprise, surprise) NDP activists. They don’t count; the voters do. Hence, Singh needs to avoid radical policies and build unique, moderately left-leaning policies in areas like personal and corporate taxes, healthcare, education and international affairs. If he doesn’t distinguish himself from Trudeau, his chances of electoral success in the fight for many available progressive votes seem rather slim.
The Greens need to bring their internal civil war to an end before it ends their electoral hopes. The BQ must push its role in helping get Quebec’s right to unilaterally change the Constitution as step one – and produce step two and three. Bernier’s PPC and Jay Hill’s Maverick Party need to keep focusing on the Tories’ low poll numbers and show why they represent a conservative alternative.
Can any of this work? Absolutely.
Will any of this work? Time will tell.
Michael Taube, a long-time newspaper columnist and political commentator, was a speechwriter for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper.
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.
Welcome to the Summer of 2021, when politicians are doing what politicians like to do best: shifting blame.
With the bodies of Indigenous children now being found all over Western Canada, and with an unwanted and unneeded federal election in the offing, our political leaders can be observed energetically passing the buck. Trying to pin it the horror on someone else.
Justin Trudeau insists the Pope needs to come to Canada and apologize. Putting on his Serious Face, Trudeau says: “It is not just that [the Pope] makes an apology, but that he makes an apology to Indigenous Canadians on Canadian soil.”
Gotcha. But the Prime Minister hasn’t travelled to Kamloops – or Cranbrook, or Marieval, or Brandon – to do likewise, has he?
No, he hasn’t.
Back in December, Erin O’Toole told some young Conservatives that the inaptly-named residential schools actually provided schooling. And that the issue provide a handy way to “silence Liberals” politically.
When caught out, O’Toole had to apologize.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, meanwhile, doesn’t think Trudeau is solely to blame for inaction on Indigenous issues. He blames O’Toole, too. It’s all the fault of “the inaction of Conservative and Liberal governments,” Singh has said.
Predictably, some partisans have gotten in on the act, and reached for the history books to find scapegoat. Some, to this writer’s astonishment, have started pointing fingers in the direction of Jean Chrétien.
So, a senior advisor to former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer took a swipe at Chretien on Twitter, calling the respected Liberal leader’s policies “racist,” quote unquote.
Chretien being the father of an Indigenous boy, and the highest-regarded ministers of Indian Affairs ever, this seemed particularly unhinged. The slender basis for the anti-Chretien drive-by smear, it seems, was the 1969 “white paper” that was written by Chretien’s bureaucrats.
Chretien met with dozens of Indigenous leaders from across Canada in Ottawa in May 1969. A couple months later, the white paper was published, but not passed into law.
Here are the main things the white paper advocated:
a) it called for Indigenous people to be finally made equal, in law, to every other Canadian,
b) it suggested permitting Indigenous people to do what other Canadians have always done, which is own land – and sell it and buy it without government approval,
c) it criticized the separation of racial and ethnic groups,
d) it offered millions to compensate for changes to treaties, and,
e) it called for Indigenous people to be given the power to run their own schools.
That last one would have ended residential schools a generation before they actually came to an end (under one Jean Chretien, Prime Minister). Oh, and this: Chretien was essentially calling for he, himself, to be removed from his job – because the “Indian Affairs” department would no longer be needed.
The white paper hit a wall of controversy, and was scrapped.
A source close to Chretien told me this: “In his attempt at eliminating the Indian Act in the white paper, [Chretien] believed strongly in eliminating the apartheid/reserve system that existed at the time.
“He got rid of the governor system. He created local decision-making and worked at protecting Indigenous languages. And he ended residential schools once and for all in 1996.”
So, as you all get haircuts and shaves in anticipation of the looming election, Messrs. Trudeau, O’Toole and Singh, consider looking elsewhere as you try to shift blame for the growing residential school scandal.
Consider blaming the men who actually hold power and influence right now, for example.
You know: the guys you see looking back at you in the bathroom mirror every morning.
[Kinsella was Chretien’s Special Assistant.]
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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.
There appears no end in sight to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
Despite the death of at least 213 Gazans, 61 of whom were children, and the wounding of 1,500 others (along with 12 Israelis, including two children), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains undeterred in his campaign of violence against the Palestinians.
Dismissing calls from many in the international community, pleading for an immediate ceasefire, the ever-belligerent Netanyahu has doubled down on Israel’s “natural right of self-defense” and pledged “full force” against Gaza.
The repercussions of Netanyahu’s destructive aggression cannot be understated.
By continuing Israel’s immoral (not to mention completely disproportionate) onslaught on Gaza, Netanyahu is escalating the cycle of violence that has plagued the middle east for decades.
Then, as in now, the overwhelming victims are Palestinian children. As Israeli bombs fall relentlessly down from the skies above, far too many young Palestinians will have their lives cut short. And even those that do survive will have their innocence forever tainted by the carnage they were forced to witness and endure.
Not that Netanyahu could give a dam.
As long as the Israeli government’s most prominent backer, the United States, maintains its duplicitous support- by blocking UN Security Council attempts calling for an immediate ceasefire, and by providing billions in no-strings attached military aid – they are unlikely to prematurely end their deadly air strikes.
In Canada, our influence in the middle east is far less consequential than our American neighbours, though no less complicit.
In response to the crisis, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and foreign affairs minister, Marc Garneau, issued the usual round meaningless statements, full of government jargon, all while offering nothing to end the bloodshed.
Conservative leader Erin O’Toole was even worse.
With his entirely pro-Israeli statement (in which he makes no mention of the immense suffering endured by the Palestinian people) O’Toole demonstrated again that the Conservatives are even more ill-suited than the Liberals to advocate for justice in the middle east.
After all, the Conservatives are a party that still endorse, in full Trumpian fashion, the relocation of the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They, like their Republican compatriots to the south, are both blinded by their unconditional support for Israel’s intolerant and repressive government, and to the principles of international justice.
In fact, the only major political leader who has displayed even an ounce of integrity on the issue was the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh.
During a press conference last week, and later in Question Period, Singh demanded that the governing Liberals suspend their arms sales to Israel. Singh wisely noted that “…by arming one side of the conflict” the federal government “is undermining the peace process and it is supporting illegal occupation.”
Not only is this an entirely reasonable proposal, but it is also an incredibly necessary one to limit Canada’s culpability for the violence and systemic oppression incurred upon the Palestinians by the Israeli government.
Of course, that is not the opinion held by the “esteemed” thinkers in the editorial newsroom of the National Post, who went on the offensive against Singh.
According to them, because Canada’s military arms sales to Israel is limited ($13.7 million worth in 2019) and because Canada has had “longtime friendly relations” with Israel, Singh’s proposal is both absurd and yet another example of misguided equivocation between a fellow democracy (Israel) and a terrorist cell (Hamas).
Views like this must be countered, as this is a shockingly simplistic take on the situation; one that fails to recognize that the violence unleashed by an internationally recognized, democratic country such as Israel, is no more morally acceptable than the violence unleashed by the militant Hamas.
Nor does it consider, as wiser minds have (like United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) that even if it was more morally acceptable, Israel is still anything but an egalitarian, rule of law democracy, as “apartheid states aren’t democracies”
But this is the reality of Israel.
After years of systematically oppressing millions of Palestinians and denying them even their most basic human rights, it is little wonder that Israel has been credibly charged by the Human Rights Watch for committing “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.” With indictments like these, it is credible to argue that Israel should not even be considered a “flawed democracy.”
As such, any arms sales to Israel under the current circumstances is utterly unacceptable. As argued by both Singh and Human Rights Watch, continued arms sales from some of the world’s wealthiest do nothing but enable the Israeli government to continue its human rights abuses against the Palestinians.
By stating as much, Singh has faced a barrage of ridicule and admonishment for his lonely stance amongst Canada’s political elites.
He need not fret though.
His position is a noble one that would do more to bring about peace in the middle east than anything either of his two main political rivals are proposing.
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.
