Category Archives: Politics

Decision 2021 | Day 11 | Erin O’Toole Declares Early Victory

August 25, 2021Decision Canada 2021, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Reviewing the latest polling results, earlier today Conservative Party leader, Erin O’Toole, declared victory in #Elxn44. Despite the fact that the official election day is still 26 days away, the Tory leader stated that it is clear that his party — the new name of which, he enthusiastically told Canadians this morning, would be the Taliban Party of Canuckistan — would triumph at the polls, declaring the election over, and appointing himself as the “new head of state” of the new, independent republic of the holy state of Canuckistan.

Victory! | Erin O’Toole, the President of the new independent, holy state of Canuckistan

In his victory speech this morning, the once-and-forever President of the independent, holy state of the newly named country of Canuckistan, today “The Toole”, as he likes to be called, addressed loyal Taliban supporters …

“Today is a great day! The new, independent, holy state of Canuckistan will be returned to its rightful place on the world stage, standing side by side with authoritarian leaders and nations who share our values: Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko; Haji Waddaulah, the Sultan of Brunei; Xi Jinping, the President of China; Ali Khamenei; President of North Korea, Kim Jong-un; Vladimir Putin, President of Russia; Recep Erdoğan, Prime Minister of Turkey; Losang Jamcan, Chairman of Tibet; and General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan, the once-and-forever President of Sudan; among a host of other authoritarian leaders ruling across the globe.

Mark this day on your calendar! Today, as my good friend, Premier Jason Kenney has done in the newly-named state of Albertistan, I am declaring that the COVID-19 pandemic is over! Today is a day for us all to rejoice! No more masks, ever! No more vaccines! No more lockdowns! The Taliban Party of Canada is bringing back your freedom and independence, a return to the life you so cherished before the declaration of so-called COVID-19 — I mean, did you ever really believe that there was such a thing as a “pandemic”? I didn’t. Quite simply, it was a government-inspired hoax!”

“Now down to the business of state: no more damn, dirty child care centres. A woman’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot, pregnant and entirely dependent on her husband! And because seniors have failed to support us in this election, we will retroactively move the retirement age to 80 — and eliminate the Guaranteed Income Supplement & all other needless supports for seniors. Decrease the surplus population, we say — if you can’t contribute to the economy, your time is on this planet is done!”

“Climate change? Ain’t no such thing! Drill, drill, drill baby. And while we’re at it, let’s revive the coal industry once and for all, and get rid of that damnable “carbon tax” & tax the communists who drive electric cars.”

“Gays, did you say, gays! We don’t like ’em, never have, never will — no wonder our party didn’t support the banning of God-inspired conversion therapy. And no more of those pervert, so-called “trans” folks in the military — just like our spiritual leader, the once-and-forever American President, Donald Trump, who had the U.S. election stolen from him — we’ll be rooting out those perverts, and sending them to re-education camps and, quite obviously, for much-needed conversion therapy.”

Yes, it’s a new and glorious day in the newly-named state of Canuckistan!
“The Toole” went on to assure Canuckistans that our nation state will adhere to the Darwinian “survival of the fittest” ethos; eliminate taxes for corporations and the wealthy; get rid of the Child Care Benefit (“If you can’t afford children, don’t have ’em”); reinstate the wrongfully-removed Canadian generals; repeal the Canadian Human Right Act; declare the country a republic; remove Mary Simon as Governor General and install Stephen Harper in the newly-created Canuckistan position of Prime Minister; dismiss the justices sitting on the Supreme Court of Canada; move toward the independence and separation of Québec (“We don’t like those Frenchies, anyway, don’t want ’em, don’t need ’em”); will charge Justin Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet with treason, and have them imprisoned with all possible haste, while welcoming Maxime Bernier into a prominent position within the new republican government.

In a three-hour speech, “The Toole” went on to tell Canuckistans that his government will serve the interests only of those who voted for him (“Everyone else is an enemy of the state. God help ’em, cuz we surely won’t. Donald Trump taught us that!”); get rid of the CBC (“Those communists! Not one ‘red’ cent will go to that treasonable crew of reprobates”); do away with the Census (“White people like me are the only ones that matter anyway!); remove all Muslims and other foreign enemies of the state and deport them with all possible haste; declare Canuckistan a military state, while declaring Joe Biden’s U.S. an illegitimate rogue state.

Hey, elections don’t matter. Vote any way you want — won’t make one bit of difference.

A new, halcyon day has been declared in Canada. Hallelujah & praise God!

The Curse of Politics podcast for Wednesday, August 25, 2021.

Decision 2021 | Day 10 | A Survey of Perspectives on #Elxn44

August 24, 2021Decision Canada 2021, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Today, VanRamblings was planning on publishing a satirical column on Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives aka the Canadian Taliban, but truth to tell we’re simply not in the mood. Instead, on this late August summer’s day, please find below a series of “items” of possible interest pertaining to #Elxn44.
Kiavash Najafi over at Press Progress, the publishing division of the left-wing Broadbent Institute think tank, writes …

“We’re more than a week into a snap election in Canada and the top question on everyone’s mind is still: Why are we having this election?”

Opinion polls have been consistently good for Trudeau’s party. The pandemic measures that came out of the minority parliament are popular with Canadians. And, until recently, every provincial government that went through an election during the pandemic ended up winning big.

Very good. Last year, poll after poll showed him with support between mid-30 and low-40 per cent, with the Conservatives performing much lower than their 2019 election results. A government’s ability to manage the timing of an election gives it an upper hand. But it’s not always a sure bet. Snap elections can snap back and snap hard.

So how’s Trudeau doing?

Not great, to be honest. We’re more than a week into the campaign and everyone is still wondering why we’re having this election. And his party is the only major party that hasn’t introduced a platform yet. Still, a lot can change in the next few weeks. At this point in the campaign, Trudeau is still first in most polls, but definitely not in the majority territory anymore.

And his drop in the polls isn’t helping the Conservatives much. Most projections suggest that Trudeau would see a modest increase to the number of his MP’s. Conservatives are likely to lose a few seats. It looks like Jagmeet Singh and the NDP could be the main beneficiaries of an election they didn’t want.”

Um, the projections above hardly match the latest polls. Whereas it seems likely that Jagmeet Singh’s NDP will pick up a few seats, as will Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives, the only reason why Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are hanging on — at least on Day 10 — is thanks to the almost complete collapse of the Bloc Québécois vote, and the record unpopularity of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, which may result in a seat gain of as many as six Liberal seats in Alberta, and as many as 20 additional seats in Québec.
Of course, it’s still very early in #Campaign44 — anything could happen.

Going negative. Justin Trudeau and members of his cabinet have been attacking Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives on mandatory vaccines, abortion and conscience rights, and universal health care. Former Liberal Rick Anderson, who morphed into a Reform Party / Canadian Alliance, and then Stephen Harper strategic advisor and acolyte, got to wondering …

Meanwhile, Mike McDonald, who ran Christy Clark’s miraculous come from behind 2013 British Columbia campaign for office, who now pours his thoughts into his Rosedeer blog, recently told Politico’s Zi-Ann Lum …

“These days, Conservatives are nowhere in Vancouver, so the riding of Vancouver-Granville is safe for the Liberals unless they get knocked off their stride which, of course, would be welcome news for high-profile NDP candidate Anjali Appadurai, who recently won the nomination race to represent Vancouver-Granville.

Anjali Appadurai, the high profile NDP 2021 hopeful in Vancouver Granville.

“Ridings the Liberals won in 2015 and lost in 2019 are probably the first places the Grits will look to win back seats,” says McDonald. “That means: Vancouver Granville; Steveston-Richmond East; Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge; Cloverdale-Langley City; Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon; and, in the Okanagan, the very winnable riding of Kelowna-Lake Country.”

“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.”

Meanwhile, B.C. riding-wise, Politico’s Nick Taylor-Vaisey weighs in with …

“Another riding Team Trudeau lost in 2019 was South Surrey-White Rock. It went blue in 2015, red in a 2017 byelection, and blue again in 2019. The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh is also looking to make gains in B.C. after losing Nanaimo-Ladysmith; Port Moody-Coquitlam; and Kootenay-Columbia.”

Wondering which ridings are in play in British Columbia? Now you know.

As always, VanRamblings will complete the day’s post with …

David Herle, Scott Reid, Jenni Byrne | Curse of Politics podcast | August 24, 2021.

Decision 2021 | Day 9 | Lib Support Softens as Tories Gain Ground

August 23, 2021Decision Canada 2021, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Given the state of the election, the Liberals and the Conservatives are almost exactly where they want to be: tightening polls allows the Liberals to scare the beejuzus out of New Democratic Party supporters, none of whom could stomach an Erin O’Toole victory at the polls on Monday, September 20th — which will cause a wholesale defection of NDP voters to the Liberals, as occurred in the 2015 and 2019 federal elections.
Meanwhile, Erin O’Toole — who has spent an inordinate amount of time in Alberta, since campaign outset, shoring up the failing Tory vote in Alberta — given the record unpopularity of beleaguered Premier Jason Kenney, and his ongoing failure to responsibly address the pandemic, dating back to the inception of COVID-19 — by scaring the beejuzus out of voters for both the nascent, Alberta-based Maverick Party, which was polling at 20% in ridings outside of the urban and suburban metropolitan areas of Edmonton and Calgary, and for Maxime Bernier’s libertarian, anti-vaxxer People’s Party of Canada, which was polling at anywhere between eight and ten percent in the polls across northern British Columbia and the Prairie provinces.

Now, according to insider party polling for both the Liberals and the Conservatives, Erin O’Toole has been able to convince disaffected Tory voters that a vote for either the Maverick Party or the People’s Party of Canada is a vote for another Liberal government in Ottawa led by Justin Trudeau — who many on the right believe to be not only an apostate, but the devil incarnate himself, Tory voters as disdaining of the current Prime Minister as most progressives are of the much-reviled Donald Trump.

Unless Justin Trudeau and the Liberals can turn their lacklustre campaign around, and remind voters that their personal safety vis-à-vis government response to the COVID-19 pandemic depends almost entirely on re-electing a Liberal government — I mean, really, do you want what’s occurred in Alberta and Ontario to roll out nationally, under an Erin O’Toole administration in Ottawa, the kind of butchery we’ve witnessed down south under a Donald Trump administration, and continue to witness in Florida with Governor Ron DeSantis, or in Texas under Governor Greg Abbott?
No, I didn’t think so.
Not to mention that an Erin O’Toole administration would jettison the wildly popular national child care programme, to which eight provinces and territories have signed on, which will build hundreds of thousands of child care spaces over the course of the next five years — or what about preservation of the current Child Care Benefit programme brought in by the Trudeau government, which has reduced child poverty in Canada by 40% since 2015 — which would be cancelled by an Erin O’Toole-led government. Gonzo. Cuz Erin O’Toole and his band of regressives don’t care about families. Little wonder women are refusing to cast a ballot for the Tories.
Or how about old folks?
Only the Liberal party has a concrete plan to improve the living conditions and the safety of residents in long term care and assisted living facilities, which over the past year contributed to the deaths of more than 20,000 seniors across Canada. And why is Justin Trudeau not reminding Canadians that Erin O’Toole’s Conservative party voted against the bill that would outlaw conversion therapy, in a direct attack against the life and liberty of members of the LGBTQ community? Or the Tory plan to “limit” access to reproductive services for women living in the rural areas of Canada, access to which would be made near impossible thanks to the “conscience provisions” legislation Erin O’Toole has said he would introduce in Ottawa?
Honestly, ask yourself. Do you share Erin O’Toole’s values, do you hate members of the gender variant community, and women, seniors, children and the poor, who are struggling to get by, and lead a life of dignity?
Do you not care about these folks at all?
Then why, oh why, come late in the evening of Monday, September 20th, do you accept the prospect of an Erin O’Toole government in Ottawa, that would allow Mr. O’Toole to become Canada’s 43rd Prime Minister, offering a Stephen Harper-style return to Tory intolerance and rampant corruption.
Campaigns matter, they always matter.
And, if you feel you can do little else during the course of the current federal election, the very least that you might do as a Canadian is cast a thoughtful ballot at the polls, recognizing the impact of your vote matters, really matters. Please vote consciously, wisely and with compassion.

After a weekend break, the Curse of Politics podcast returns, with political apparatchik hosts David Herle, Scott Reid and Jenni Byrne …

The indispensable #elxn44 Curse of Politics podcast for Monday, August 23, 2021.

Decision 2021 | Day 5 | Liberals Remain in the Catbird Seat

August 19, 2021Decision Canada 2021, PoliticsRaymond Tomlin

Justin Trudeau and his family visit Governor General Mary Simon at Rideau Hall

The latest public polling indicates that the race is tightening in #Elxn44.

Don’t you believe it for one galldarn pickin’ minute, cuz it just ain’t so.
With a combined total of much more than $100 million in their coffers heading into the election, both Justin Trudeau’s Liberals and Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives had their party’s reliable, longtime pollsters conduct in-depth research into what seats each of the parties could hold, and which seats are up for grabs in this most contentious 2021 national Canadian election.
Conservative party apparatchik Jenni Byrne went into the current Canadian federal election bemoaning the fact that, according to the polling conducted for the Conservatives by her firm, Jenni Byrne + Associates, her beloved Tory party, the party she’s dedicated her life to, was mired at an all-time low of 27% popularity among a broad cross-section of Canadians.

“It’s not just that Erin O’Toole has brought the party to an historic low in the party’s popularity,” Ms. Byrne intoned in a recent Curse of Politics podcast, “he’s caused the party to reconsider what they’ve long believed to be their base, their core vote. When I worked with Stephen Harper, in the early days, our base constituted 31% of the Canadian population. After our minority win in 2006, the base for the Conservative Party grew to 33% — these were the reliable voters the Tories could always count on. All we had to do was add five points to our base, and as was the case in 2011, we would form a majority government in Ottawa.”

“Those days are long gone.”

“The Conservative Party has now lost the vote of women. Who’d have believed that Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives would have only 22% support among women voters? And as I’ve repeatedly pointed out on the podcast, the Tories have lost the support of the most reliable Conservative vote across the population — we’ve lost the vote of the seniors, the folks who actually get out and vote. The Liberals are eating our lunch among the seniors population, and those over the age of 50!”

“Unbelievable!”

After spending the past couple of days reporting out on the prospects of the federal Conservative Party in the current federal election — in a word, dire — today on VanRamblings we’ll report out on the results of the inside polling conducted by the Liberal Party of Canada. The Liberal party has identified 202 seats where their prospects for victory are the most salutary.

CBC | Battleground ridings across Canada the Liberals need to win to gain a majority

British Columbia | Liberals say they’ll win back 6 seats that gave them 17-seats in 2015

In British Columbia, the Liberals believe that they’re on track to winning six additional seats to the 11 seats they won in 2019, for a total of 17 seats — the same number of seats they won in the historic 2015 federal election.

Alberta | Liberals are on track to win 6 seats, 4 in Redmonton, and 2 more in Calgary

In Alberta, thanks to the historic unpopularity of Premier Jason Kenney, not to mention the splitting of the vote on the right, with the emergence of the Maverick Party and the anti-vaxxer / libertarian popularity of The People’s Party of Canada, even though Justin Trudeau was unable to convince retiring and popular progressive Mayors, Don Iveson in Edmonton, and Naheed Nenshi in Calgary, to run as Liberal candidates in the 2021 federal election, internal Liberal party polling projects a four-seat win in Edmonton (it’s not called Redmonton for nuthin’), and two more Liberal seats in Calgary — six more seats than the Liberals won in 2019, when the party wiped out across Canada’s most conservative, right-of-centre province.
The Liberals believe they can win six seats in Saskatchewan — where they lost their lone seat, in Regina, that of longtime party stalwart, Ralph Goodale, in 2019 — and in Manitoba, where they handily won four seats, a gain of two seats if that scenario comes to pass.
In western Canada, then, the Liberals believe they can pick up 18 seats over the results of the 2019 federal election, which gave them a minority government of 157 seats (170 seats is needed for a majority). If that scenario occurs, Justin Trudeau will have achieved his much sought after majority government. We’ll know sometime soon after September 20th, once the mail-in ballots have been verified & counted by Elections Canada.

Ontario | The Liberals are wildly popular in the seat rich 905 & on track to win 87 seats

In Ontario, and particularly in the vote and seat rich 905 Metro Toronto region, where —&#32thanks to the record unpopularity of Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford — Justin Trudeau and the Liberals believe they can gain at least 10 additional seats to the 77 seats they won in the province during the 2019 federal election. In the GTA, much to Jenni Byrne’s chagrin, the Liberals are sitting at 45.9% popularity, with the Tories & NDP tied at 26%.

Québec | Justin Trudeau has the hometown advantage & is on track to pick up seats

Meanwhile, in Québec, the Liberals believe they can increase their seat count — mostly in urban and suburban ridings in and around Montréal — from the 40 seats they won in 2019 to 45 seats in the current federal election, given that Mr. Trudeau has made Québec’s popular Premier, François Legault, his new best friend, a development that has caused much consternation in the Conservative and Bloc Québécois camps. C’est la vie.

Maritimes | Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundand & PEI spell victory for Trudeau

When the Conservatives win in a riding, they win big, their victory and vote count outsized (the same can be said for the B.C. Liberals). Despite a projected popular vote count in the 2021 federal election of 32.3% for the Conservative Party in the Maritimes (according to both Liberal and Tory pollsters), that popularity is focused on six rural ridings, and nowhere else.
Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party’s popularity in the Maritimes is widespread. Not for nuthin’ that Justin Trudeau won all 32 seats in the 2015 federal election. Going into the election, almost all public pollsters had the Liberals performing a 2015 clean sweep of the Maritimes in 2021 — maybe they will, and maybe they won’t, but to stay on the safe side, the Liberal party’s pollsters have told Justin Trudeau and his team that the Liberal party has a rock solid guarantee of winning 25 seats across the Maritimes.
Erin O’Toole and his beleaguered Conservative Party of Canada don’t have a hope in hell of forming government post the September 20th election day — although, it’s possible that the Conservatives, Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party and Yves-François Blanchet’s Bloc Québécois will deny Justin Trudeau the majority government his father gained in his third election in 1974, after working with then New Democratic Party leader David Lewis from 1972 until an election was called in 1974, when Pierre Elliott Trudeau went on to a smashing victory and a majority government.

Should Justin Trudeau and the Liberals hang on to their 11 seats in British Columbia, and gain even three more, and in Alberta win even half of the 6 seats they’re projected to win, and pick up another 2 seats in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and even half of the 10 seat gain that the party is expecting in Ontario, and a couple more seats in each of Québec and the Maritimes, that comes to an increased seat count of 17 additional seats, and a comfortable majority of 174 seats in the House of Commons.
More than likely the tale of the 2021 Canadian federal election will be told in the election’s final nine days, after the certain-to-be-raucous Thursday, September 9th Leaders’ Debate, to be held at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Québec, to be moderated by no nonsense journalists Shachi Kurl, currently President of the Angus Reid Institute, with the participation of some of our country’s finest journalists, including the incomparable Rosemary Barton (CBC News), Melissa Ridgen (APTN News), Evan Solomon (CTV News), and Mercedes Stephenson (Global News).

The Curse of Politics podcast for Thursday, August 19, 2021.