In an interview with CTV News host Evan Solomon on a weekend edition of his political observer programme, Overview, former federal New Democratic Party leader Tom Mulcair stunned the avuncular host by telling Mr. Solomon that he believes we are in the midst of a “wave election” (an election in which one party makes significant gains), that rising support for Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party, aided by the sharpest two-week decline in confidence for a sitting Prime Minister that he’d witnessed in his political lifetime will translate into a massive majority win for the Conservatives, out of power in the nation’s capital since the end of the 2015 federal election.

“As we neared the end of the 2011 federal election campaign, despite all the work that Jack and I had put into growing the New Democratic Party in the province of Québec, our internal polling showed us that we were likely to make only minimal gains, likely only two additional seats in the province, raising our number from three to five. And then the French Leaders’ Debate took place, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking halting French, and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff speaking perfect Parisian French. Only Jack, who’d spent a good part of his childhood in Québec, spoke the familiar language of the Québécois, employing the patois of the Québec people throughout, showing that he was “one of us.” Coming out of the debate, approval ratings for the NDP skyrocketed, such that by election day we won 59 out of 75 seats, while catapulting the NDP into the position of Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition.

In 2015, the federal New Democratic Party began the election with the rock solid support of 35.7% of the electorate, with the Tories stuck at 31.7%, and a hapless Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party mired at a 23% approval rating. On September 26, 2015, during the Munk debate in Toronto the probable outcome of the election changed, as Mr. Trudeau went after me for condemning the work his father had undertaken, a feckless Stephen Harper standing between the two of us, mute, unamused and confused. Now, Liberal support had grown to 27% by the end of September — which put them a long way off from power — but in the final 19 days of the campaign, Campaign 2015 became a wave election, with support for my New Democratic Party crumbling to as low as 21%, with support for Stephen Harper’s Tories also taking a hit.

Justin Trudeau won that election with 39.7% of the popular vote.

Last week the polling graphic above was fiction. This week? Not so much.

Long story short, when the electorate gets it into their heads they want change — as they have in 2021 — change is what they’re gonna get. In 2021, as support for Erin O’Toole grows daily, only the province of Québec is denying Mr. O’Toole the majority he seeks. Québécois citizens are not fools — in the same way that 2015 support for the Liberals grew from 5 seats to 40, because under no circumstance do the people of Québec wish to be left out of the power equation, I believe that it is only a matter of time before Mr. O’Toole and Conservatives begin to sweep Québec, effectively eliminating the Bloc Québécois as serious contenders for office, while dramatically downsizing the number of Liberal seats in the province.

Make no mistake, with three weeks to go, Canadians are in the midst of a wave election — nothing can stop this wave. On Monday, September 20, as hard as this is for me to voice to you, Canadians will elect a strong, secure majority Conservative government to Ottawa.

God help us all!”

Recent polling in British Columbia shows an utter collapse in support for the Liberals, and a two-way fight for dominance between New Democrats and the Conservatives. The Liberals will be lucky to come away with five seats.

Federal Tory popularity in Alberta — in the 2019 election at 71% — has grown 14 points in the past two weeks, wiping out any support whatsoever for Justin Trudeau, and maybe, just maybe, allowing the New Democrats to hold onto their lone seat in Edmonton. A week in politics is a lifetime.

Support for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals has collapsed across the Prairies.

One of the reasons that Justin Trudeau called an unnecessary summer election occurred as a consequence of the internal polling numbers that showed that, thanks to the Liberal party’s work on the COVID-19 pandemic, Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives, the New Democratic Party, and the Bloc Québécois would be all but wiped out come Election Day — with particular application in the province of Ontario, where the Liberals held a commanding 45% to 27% lead over Erin O’Toole’s hapless Conservatives.

Clearly, that is no longer the case, with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals losing more and more support in Ontario with each passing day, as is occurring in Québec and, most surprisingly, in the Maritimes. The only factor in play denying Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives a healthy majority government — support for the Tories in la Belle Province, Québec always a potent decider.

If the politically astute lifelong resident of Québec, Tom Mulcair, is right — and there’s no reason to doubt Mr. Mulcair’s political acumen — the people of Québec will soon jump on the political wave that is currently sweeping the nation and, as Mulcair states will also “not want to be left out of the party, and be denied access to power in Ottawa”, translating into massive support for Erin O’Toole’s Conservative, growing the party exponentially over the next three weeks, gaining as many as 40 seats in Québec, predicts Mr. Mulcair, providing the Tory leader with a comfortable majority in Parliament with which to govern over the course of the next four years.

All of the above said, we’re still three weeks out from Election Day.

If, in fact, a week is a lifetime in politics, absolutely anything could happen over the course of the next 20 days to change the political calculus.

As campaign co-chair on the successful 2015 Liberal campaign, and long a senior advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, although Gerald Butts is probably tearing his hair out at the current state of affairs vis-à-vis Liberal fortunes in the 2021 federal election, Mr. Butts is absolutely correct …

Campaigns Matter

Any day now, Erin O’Toole could step in the muck, and absolutely destroy his campaign, or a Tory candidate or three or five could go rogue, and say something so off-putting that it could destroy the Conservative campaign once and for all, setting the stage for a change in the electoral fortunes of the beleaguered Liberal Party of Canada, allowing Justin Trudeau to pull off a come from behind election victory, once again installing him as Prime Minister of Canada. Everyone likes a good, old-fashioned underdog story.

In 2021, the Leaders’ Debate — when the vast majority of people first take notice of the election — emerges as an especially important and perhaps even pivotal event in the life of the current campaign to form government in Ottawa, after Election Day 2021, on Monday, September 20th. Let’s face it, this election will be about what it was always going to be about: which one of the major political parties and which one of the political party leaders is best prepared to protect families across Canada from the continuing and ongoing ravages of COVID-19, and the deadly Delta variant.

Erin O’Toole Says If He Wins Justin Trudeau’s New Office Will Be A Porta-Potty

There’s an easy answer to the question above, and it isn’t Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party of Canada. As you’ve heard so many times, “It ain’t over til the tubby, 71-year-old guy sitting in front of his computer, says it’s over.”

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Round and round she goes, where she stops nobody knows. David Herle presents details on the latest EKOS Research data, compiled by founder Frank Graves and his crack team, on the Curse of Politics podcast, above.

In addition, here’s Mr. Graves on Twitter late last night ……

In 2019, when asked, federal New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh told reporters — and the nation — that a Jagmeet Singh-led NDP would never support the Tories in a Conservative Party minority, or majority government. A chasm existed, he said, between the values that New Democratic Party members hold dear, and the far right values of intolerance Conservative party members have long held close to their mean bosoms.

Last week, in a radical departure from NDP party policy, and what he’d said in the past, Jagmeet Singh told reporters that the federal NDP would have no problem in supporting an Erin O’Toole-led Conservative government, that now may be the time for change, that he felt he could hold sway over Mr. O’Toole that would allow the NDP to inform Tory government policy.

The cynical electoral politics of the federal NDP always come to the fore.

At this juncture, a bit of history respecting the federal New Democratic Party’s policy of accommodation with right-wing parties is in order.
In late 2005, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin met with relatively newly-anointed NDP leader Jack Layton to discuss with him legislation that he would introduce in the House of Commons within the coming 30 days …

• Child Care. Arising from a report submitted by Social Development Minister Ken Dryden calling for the implementation of a universal child care programme in Canada, his government would soon be introducing legislation that would create the first national universal social programme in 40 years, a fully-funded national child care programme, and …

• The Kelowna Accord. Arising from a First Ministers’ Meeting in Kelowna, British Columbia in the autumn of 2005, and the passage of an initiative entitled “First Ministers and National Aboriginal Leaders Strengthening Relationships and Closing the Gap” — more commonly known as The Kelowna Accord — legislation that Mr. Martin had fought for his entire political life that would fundamentally change the relationship of Canada to its Indigenous peoples, wherein the federal government would commit to $5.085 billion in spending over 5 years on bettering health care services for Canada’s Indigenous peoples, create a new Indigenous education system that would be run by native bands across Canada, and would train new Aboriginal teachers while constructing new schools on remote Indigenous reserves, while also addressing the issue of clean water in remote Indigenous communities.

Prime Minister Martin asked Mr. Layton for his support for both of these progressive and groundbreaking pieces of social legislation, how important it was for him personally, for families with young children — and for women held out of the workforce due to the inadequate provision of affordable quality child care and, finally, for Canada’s Indigenous peoples, that their concerns might finally be addressed in a caring and fulsome manner.

Sadly, it was not to be.

With the enthusiastic support of the New Democratic Party, and that of its leader, Mr. Jack Layton, Mr. Layton colluded with then Official Leader of the Opposition, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper to vote against the child care and the Indigenous relations legislation brought before the House by the Liberal minority government of Paul Martin, with Mr. Layton voting to thwart both pieces of groundbreaking legislation, in the process defeating the government, and leading to the calling of a federal election, and subsequent minority Harper-led Conservative government in Ottawa.

As he repeatedly told Canadians throughout the 2005-2006 election period, Conservative leader Stephen Harper was admantly opposed to both pieces of “social legislation,” neither of which pieces of “social engineering legislation” would move forward in a Stephen Harper-led government.

And so, such socially regressive government policy — opposing any sort of universal national child care programme, nor any re-definition of the relationship between the government of Canada to its Indigenous peoples — came to pass, with the full and cynical support of NDP leader, Jack Latyon, who would go on to become best friends with Stephen Harper, the two party leaders meeting regularly for friendly, but utterly non-productive, chats at 24 Sussex, for five long years, Mr. Layton cynically propping up a corrupt Tory government led by his good pal, Prime Minister Harper.

A bit of background on Mr. Layton’s cynical approach to politics. From the time Jack Layton became leader of the federal New Democratic Party in 2003 thru until 2011, Mr. Layton had one dual-pronged goal on his mind …

• Gain seats for the NDP in the House of Commons, and

• Replace the Liberal Party as the official Opposition, with the eventual goal of forming an NDP government in Ottawa.

Under Jack Layton’s leadership, support for the NDP increased in each election. The party’s popular vote doubled in the 2004 election, which gave the NDP the balance of power in Paul Martin’s minority government. In May 2005, the NDP had supported the Liberal budget in exchange for major amendments, in what was promoted as Canada’s “First NDP budget”. In November 2005, Layton voted with other opposition parties to defeat the Liberal government. The NDP gained more seats in the House in the 2006 and 2008 elections, in which the party elected 29 and 37 MPs, respectively.

In the 2011 election, Mr. Layton’s NDP won 103 seats, the most successful party result ever — enough to allow him to form the Official Opposition. Federal support for the NDP in 2011 was unprecedented, especially in the province of Québec, where the party won 59 out of 75 seats. Unfortunately, Jack Layton was never afforded the opportunity to lead the Opposition in the House of Commons, succumbing to cancer on August 22, 2011.

In 2015, under the soon-to-be deposed leadership of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, the New Democratic Party of Canada did not realize its dreams of government, instead devolving its meagre riding count to only 44 seats.

Here we are in 2021. By the end of the 2019 election, the seat count for the NDP in the House of Commons had been reduced to 24 seats.

NDP attack ad, not against Erin O’Toole, but against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Current federal New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh has clearly taken a page out of the cynical electoral playbook created by Jack Layton: child care, who needs it?; improved relations with Canada’s Indigenous peoples … yeah, tell it to someone who cares; the Liberals’ Child Care Benefit that has reduced child poverty 40% since 2015 … children want money, they can work in factories or go begging on the streets, the NDP just don’t care; seniors living in care or assisted living facilities, yeah well, you’ve had your time enjoying the good life on this planet … if Erin O’Toole wants to place former Ontario Conservative Party leader Mike Harris in charge of privatizing corrupt seniors care centres across Canada, such that Mr. Harris can rake in even more millions of dollars than he has running Ontario’s corrupt Sienna Senior Living, Revera, Extendicare and Chartwell seniors facilities, where thousands have died … again, we just don’t care.

Another cynical NDP ad targeting Justin Trudeau, not Tory leader Erin O’Toole

Federal New Democratic Party Members of Parliament want more seats in the House of Commons, so that more Dippers can earn $168,000 annual salaries (plus all those great benefits, like free dental care, unlimited massages, and more) as sitting members in the House of Commons — not to mention, those gold-plated pensions that will keep them living the life of riley when they retire, or are defeated — with Mr. Singh earning even more, given the top up he receives as leader of the fourth Opposition party.

Rabid and violent non-mask wearing anti-vaxxer, anti-democratic supporters of the Conservative party, fools all, create mayhem at a Justin Trudeau rally, where he committed to a one billion infusion of monies to the provinces to fund vaccine passports, to keep all Canadians safe. Tory leader Erin O’Toole’s response, “People have the right to voice their concerns about the Liberal government’s overreaching pandemic policy. Conservatives are opposed to federally-funded vaccine passports.” O’Toole later moderated his position on rally violence, given that some protesters were Conservative Party supporters. And what did we hear, initially, from NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, when asked about the violence at the rally … crickets; only later did he condemn the attack.

For the second time in 16 years, the federal New Democratic Party is not only willing, but actively working towards the goal of ensuring Canada will not have a national child care programme, nor do the federal NDP seem interested in preserving or improving the Child Care Benefit that has made life so much easier for young families, and neither does the federal NDP seem to care, in supporting the Tories, about Indigenous reconciliation.

Nor does Jagmeet Singh and the federal NDP seem to care about the health of Canadians during this once in a century pandemic, for while the Liberals offer up one billion dollars to provinces to ensure the implementation of vaccine passports to support the 90% of Canadians who are demanding that we be kept safe, allowing the pandemic to end sooner than later, Erin O’Toole’s cynical and fanatical Conservatives seem deeply indebted to the support offered by the violent fools in the the anti-vaxx movement. Jagmeet Singh seems not to care one iota about our safety and our health. Of course, as always, New Democrats talk a good game — but when it comes right down to it, the federal NDP cannot be counted on.

The New Democratic Party of Canada is running some great candidates, and as a lifelong member of the NDP (dating back to 1963) VanRamblings would like to see more New Democratic Party members of Parliament elected — becauses there are good and great persons of conscience and integrity in the NDP, like longtime federal MP Don Davies, or newcomers like the recently nominated Vancouver-Granville NDP candidate, Anjali Appadurai.

EKOS Research founder Frank Graves says Erin O’Toole NDP support tone deaf.

But if achieving the goal of more Dippers in Parliament means the federal NDP have made the cynical calculation that the only way for them to gain more seats in Parliament is to target Justin Trudeau, while keeping absolutely mum on what a far-right-of-centre Erin O’Toole-led Conservative government in Ottawa would portend, for VanRamblings that is simply a bridge too far, as well as cynical and repugnant electoral politics in the extreme that, we believe, most thinking, progressive members of the NDP — who truly do not want an Erin O’Toole government in Ottawa — will find utterly insupportable, leading to an inevitable decline in support for the NDP, with many New Democrats strategically casting a vote for the Liberal party which, although far from perfect, do not represent the abomination a Tory government in Ottawa would mean for most caring Canadians.

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Today, VanRamblings returns to the serious business of covering #Elxn44, after going on a bit of a lark in the column we published yesterday.
Twelve days into our current 36-day election, it’s still anyone’s guess as to how things will turn out come E-Day — Monday, September 20th.
That said, trends have emerged …

• Support for the Conservative Party has risen sharply, to 34.7% — a consequence of the party’s traditional base deserting both Jay Hill’s Maverick Party and Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada, and coming home to support the Conservative Party of Canada;

• Since The Writ was dropped on Sunday, August 15th, support for Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party has dropped — same thing happened in 2019. The Liberals tend to be slow out of the gate (Justin Trudeau is not a natural campaigner, nor a particularly enthusiastic campaigner. Unlike, say, a Donald Trump, or even a Bill Clinton, Mr. Trudeau doesn’t require the adoration of the electorate … he knows he’s loved by his wife Sophie, his children and his family, and has the support, and more often than not, the friendship of those to whom he’s been close his entire life, or who have come into his orbit in years most recent — no, generally, it takes Mr. Trudeau two to three weeks to rev up his campaign engine and give the campaign the inspiring leadership it requires from its leader, as it dawns on him that there’s a job to be done, and without any ego in the equation, that it is he who is best equipped to provide service of an outstanding humanity and caring to the Canadian people).
  Yes, twelve days into #Elxn44 support for the Liberals is down — but, even now, if one was to take Alberta out of the equation, polls would show either a dead heat, or an undeniable advantage to the Grits.

Support for Jagmeet Singh is rock steady at around 20% — the Dippers could pick up as many as a dozen seats. With all of the internal bickering and funds dedicated to run an election being poured into legal fees to oust Annamie Paul, the Green Party is simply not a factor in this election. Meanwhile, support for Yves-François Blanchet’s Bloc Québécois has been in a state of flux — safe to say that they’ll lose at least 10 seats once all the votes have been counted at the end of the 2021 Canadian federal election.

Now, the reason you’ve arrived at the VanRamblings website today — a detailed provincial and regional breakdown of support for the political parties who’ve nominated candidates for office in the 2021 election.
Whether it’s pollster Quitto Maggi at Mainstreet Research — publisher of the provincial and regional polling you’ll find below, or Bruce Anderson and David Coletto at Abacus Data, Jenni Byrne at Jenni Byrne + Associates, David Herle with the Gandalf Group, Shachi Kurl at Angus Reid, Frank Graves at EKOS Research, Nik Nanos at Nanos Research, or folks at any of the other reputable polling companies churning out data on this election, on Day 12 of this Canadian election, the information you’ll find below offers an up-to-date snapshot of the support for the major political parties, and the probable seat count when the election is over. These are still early days, though — next Monday, we’ll be three weeks out from Election Day, and in all likelihood the pollsters and the rest of us will not be able to more accurately predict the outcome of #Elxn44 until after the Thursday, September 10th Leaders’ Debate, and where the polls and the support for the parties and the leaders moves in the last ten days of the election.

As VanRamblings reported on Tuesday, respected British Columbia-based political strategist Mike McDonald continues to believe that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are on track recapture the 6 seats they lost in 2019 …

“What with raging wildfires burning across the province, and what looks to be the nascent beginning of a fourth wave of the pandemic, climate change and COVID-19 vaccines are two issues that are likely to resonate with British Columbia voters as they head to the polls in mid-September,” suggests McDonald. “Although those are national issues, they might play out in British Columbia more so than other regions. If that comes to pass, the advantage would go to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.”

Child care is another issue much on the minds of British Columbia voters. Premier John Horgan was the first Canadian Premier to sign on to the Liberal national child care programme — should Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives sweep to victory on September 20th, you can kiss a federally funded national child care programme goodbye. Yes, the polling above suggests both a growth in support for the Tories, and a dip in support for the Grits. VanRamblings is willing to wager that once British Columbians become more acutely aware of what they’d be losing were the Conservatives to sweep to victory — a national child care programme, competent management of the pandemic, and oversight, funding and legislation that would create the safest seniors care programmes anywhere in the developed world — Liberal support will return, with more Grit seats.

If an election were to be called tomorrow in Alberta, NDP leader Rachel Notley would win in a landslide, so unpopular is Premier Jason Kenney.
Who are the most unpopular provincial leaders in Canada? Jason Kenney in Alberta, Brian Pallister in Manitoba — so unpopular that he recently resigned his office — and the incredible disappearing man (he ain’t been seen in 3 weeks), Ontario Premier Doug Ford. And why are Messrs. Kenney, Pallister and Ford so loathed by the majority of citizens in their respective provinces — easy answer that: their complete and utter bungling of the health care file during our current once in century pandemic. And what do these three gentlemen have in common? Yep, you guessed it: they’re all leaders of their respective Conservative parties, with both Mr. Kenney & Mr. Pallister having sat as Tory MPs and Mr. Ford a former federal Tory hopeful.
More successfully than any other jurisdiction across the globe, the Liberal Party of Canada has provided stewardship of COVID-19 and the economy superior to any country in the world, ordered and delivered more vaccine doses per capita than any other country, such that Canada is now the world leader in persons who have received one dose, or are fully vaccinated. What makes anyone in their right mind think that an Erin O’Toole-led Conservative government in Ottawa would perform any better than his provincial counterparts — particularly given Mr. O’Toole’s expressed support for a two-tier health care system, with first-rate, privatized health care for the wealthy, and barely up to standard health care for the rest of us.
And let us not forget, either, that Mr. O’Toole is the only national leader who has not mandated that his party’s candidates be vaccinated (Knocking at the door of a potential constituent: “Yes, I’m your local Conservative Party candidate. Have I been vaccinated? No. I think COVID is a hoax!” Why did she slam the door in my face?), and has repeatedly stated that he opposes Liberal legislation mandating that all federal and federally regulated employees be fully vaccinated, or risk losing their jobs — a federal initiative supported by more than 90% of the Canadian population.
Erin O’Toole & his band of troglodyte Tories protect us from the ravages of the killer fourth wave of the pandemic? Not on your life. No wonder seniors are deserting the Tories in droves, as are any other thinking persons concerned with the common good. Vote Tory? Shyeaah, and sign the death warrants of thousands more Canadians across the breadth of our land.

The Liberals look to reclaim their only Saskatchewan seat — held by former Liberal Cabinet Minister, Ralph Goodale, from 1993 through the 2019 election — while NDP fortunes are also looking up. Premier Scott Moe did Erin O’Toole’s cause no favour, after stating that his government will be privatizing parts of Saskatchewan’s health care system, an initiative fully supported by Mr. O’Toole (although just two days ago he said he was opposed to two-tier health care), and roundly opposed by Mr. Trudeau, who said if re-elected he would move to withdraw health care funding from the province should Mr. Moe move forward on a two-tier health care system.

Yes, at Erin O’Toole’s explicit request (and that of his political staff), Ontario Premier Doug Ford has gone into hiding, so as to not “interfere” with the federal election. Mr. Ford’s presence would do Mr. O’Toole’s cause no good.
Justin Trudeau and the Liberals began this election with the unbridled support of Ontarians, Liberal insider polling having the Liberals at 45% support, and Mr. O’Toole at a measly 27%. So, what happened?
Seems that the electorate in Ontario can’t put two and two together: Mr. O’Toole is a Conservative, and the despised Doug Ford is a Conservative. Does the voting population of Ontario honestly believe that an Erin O’Toole-led Conservative government in Ottawa would do any better job on the pandemic file than Mr. Ford has (mis)managed in Ontario? According to Abacus data, support for Mr. O’Toole remains at 26% (+5 since the onset of the election), while his negatives remain at 41%, for a net score of -15.
Jagmeet Singh enjoys a positive impression among 42% of Ontarians, with negative impressions at 24%, for a net score of +18 — which, if you look at the projected Ontario NDP seat count looks promising for the federal New Democrats, with an increased presence in Ottawa. Justin Trudeau enjoys a positive impression among 39% and negative impressions among 42%, for a net score of -3. The rub? At the time of the 2019 election, 69% of Ontarians wanted change, including 52% who felt strongly about it. Today, 71% of the Ontario voting public want change, including 44% who feel strongly about it. The desire for change seems to be driving the waning support for the Liberals — which is why this week, the federal Liberal party has begun a negative campaign targeting Doug Ford (which proved a very successful strategy in 2019), and will carry on with a well-devised multi-media campaign they believe will cost Erin O’Toole support among Ontarians, particularly those living in the vote rich 905. Politics: it ain’t for wimps. Look for Justin Trudeau’s approvals to climb over the next 24 days.

Premier François Legault and the people of Québec are saving Justin Trudeau’s vegan bacon in the 2021 election — Mr. Legault has not only become Mr. Trudeau’s new best friend, but has sought to help the Liberal cause in the province by not missing an opportunity to deride Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet, as may be witnessed in the Bloc’s plummeting support. Mr. Trudeau: hometown boy made good — not to mention that he’ll be handing over $6 billion scot-free, no questions asked.

Polling has been all over the map for Justin Trudeau since the election began. Polls at election outset had the Liberals sweeping the Maritimes, just as they did in a rout in 2015. On Monday of this week, the polls showed Mr. O’Toole set to win 11 seats, seven of them at the expense of the Liberals. Then, one supposes, the people of the Maritimes remembered when then Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to Nova Scotia, and called the people of the Maritimes “ne’er-do-wells and lazy bums.”

“There’s a dependence on the dole in the Maritimes, and hand-outs from the federal and provincial governments that breeds a culture of defeatism across the region,” Mr. Harper boldly stated during what turned out to be a truncated Maritime visit for the Prime Minister back in 2014, making so, so many friends among Maritimers in the process. Which lead, of course, to the Tories being wiped out politically in the Maritimes in the 2015 federal election. Little wonder newly-elected Progressive Conservative leader in Nova Scotia, Tim Houston, did everything in his power to distance himself from Erin O’Toole and the federal Conservatives during the recent provincial election. Memories: they die hard in the Maritimes.

Just like the people of Québec, the good-hearted folks who live in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland are coming to the rescue of wrong-headed folks living in British Columbia, Alberta and the Prairie provinces and Ontario 12 days into the current election, folks who haven’t yet gotten their heads on straight, and realized what a disaster it would be for all Canadians to elect a mean-spirited, corporatist party of Trumpian right-wingers, who could give a good goddamn about any of us.

Come Election Day, it’s the seat count that matters — not party percentage popularity.

As the fourth wave of the pandemic grows, look for this election to become the election Mr. Trudeau wanted from the outset: a referendum on how the Liberal party has handled the pandemic over the past 17 months, keeping the public safe and the economy humming, versus the uncertainty of what electing an Erin O’Toole-led Conservative party government would mean for families across Canada, for our seniors population — and for all Canadians.
Look for the Liberal party, the New Democrats and the Bloc to hammer Mr. O’Toole into the ground on the issue of his lack of fitness and that of a Tory administration to govern — in the midst of a once-in-a-century pandemic.

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The Curse of Politics podcast for Thursday, August 26, 2021.