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.
“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 …
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.
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 — thanks 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.
At the outset of David Herle, Scott Reid and Jenni Byrne’s Curse of Politics podcast yesterday, the three ‘given to being profane’ / celebrated pundits regaled Conservative Party of Canada leaders, Andrew Scheer — leader of the Conservative Party in the 2019 federal election — and Erin O’Toole, the Conservative Party’s current, beleaguered leader, for achieving the near impossible: losing the vote of the single most reliable portion of the electorate, those folks who will move the sun, the Earth, the moon, the stars, and push any boulder or impediment out of their way in order that they might exercise their democratic franchise, and vote, vote for the candidate and party of their choice: those members of the seniors’ population, those of us poor, woebegotten folks who are over age 65.
Yes, Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole have lost the votes of seniors!
David Herle presented the following demographic breakdown figures …
“Under age 35, 30% NDP, 28% Liberal, 23% Conservative. In the 35 to 49 age category, 34% Conservative, 31% Liberal, 21% NDP. In the next age group, 50 to 64, 41% Liberal, 29% Conservative, and 15% NDP. And age 65+, 38% Liberal, 33% Conservative, 14% NDP.”
“And now gender. Among men, 37% Conservative, 29% Liberal, 19% NDP. Among women, 40% Liberal, 22% Conservative, and 22% NDP.”
Jenni Byrne’s reaction: “The thing that jumps out at me is the breakdown of the 50 – 64, and the over 65 categories of the electorate. The Conservative Party has owned these two demographics since voting began, and the vast majority of the time I worked for Prime Minister Harper, even during our time in Opposition, and after we formed government. The same was true in Ontario when I worked campaigns in that province. More mature voters have always voted Conservative. But no more, it seems. The fact that the Liberal Party now owns the votes of that portion of the electorate age 50+ jumps out at me as something that will prove to be a significant factor in the current federal election.”
Scott Reid weighed in with this: “The Conservatives have lost the seniors vote, and the older middle-age vote, which is fascinating, and a watershed change in voting patterns for the most reliable sector of the population when it comes to finding their way to the ballot box. Maybe in this election, the move of these 50+ voters to the Liberals has something to do with the pandemic: during the pandemic, the people in that cohort have felt vulnerable, they’re anxious about their jobs and their prospects, CERB and rent subsidies have made a huge difference for many of Canada’s older citizens. The Liberals have created the conditions that has allowed people to feel as secure as it is possible, given the current set of conditions impacting on all of our lives.”
In the 2021 election, the loss of the seniors vote is the least of the worries dogging the beleaguered Conservative Party of Canada campaign.
The western separatist, far right-of-centre, libertarian and Prairie-based Maverick Party, formed by former Prince George-Peace River Conservative Member of Parliament (from 1993 – 2010) and a former Government House Leader in the House of Commons during his tenure an an MP, the scandal-ridden Jay Hill, will have an impact on the ability of the Tories to retain, or win new, seats in western Canada.
Jay Hill, leader of the western Canada separatist Maverick Party
Shortly after retiring from Parliament — when he was feted at a dinner held in Fort St. John and attended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Premier Christy Clark, Reform Party of Canada founder and former Opposition Leader Preston Manning, among other right-of-centre luminaries — Hill was found to have breached ethics rules in the Conflict of Interest Act when he took advantage of his previous position and contacted ex-colleagues about a forthcoming multinational energy deal. Canada’s federal ethics watchdog found that Hill used his former position to facilitate access to the ministers on behalf of his spouse, Leah Murray, and her employer, National Public Relations, a firm that had drafted a communications plan for the deal.
What better way to revive one’s tarnished reputation that to form a right-of-centre, in the pocket of corporations, western separatist party?
In the 2021 federal election, Mr. Hill has stated that his Maverick – The West’s Federal Party will run more than 50 candidates in the current federal election, in ridings across northern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. To date, more than 27 Maverick Party candidates have won nominations: three in British Columbia, including Dave Jeffers in the riding of Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies, Dr. Stacey Gastis in the riding of North Island-Powell River, and Bill Howie in Surrey-Newton, with another dozen B.C. candidates set to be announced this week or early next; 17 current Maverick Party candidates in Alberta, with another dozen set to be announced soon; six Maverick Party candidates in Saskatchewan, and another six who have accepted a Maverick Party nomination but are not yet on the party’s website, and one lonely Maverick Party candidate in Manitoba, with another three who have accepted a party nomination.
Each of these Maverick Party candidates — many of whom are running in ridings where the Conservative Party barely eked out a victory, or in 2015 and 2019 came within a spitting distance of winning the riding — will cost the Conservative Party votes, and in many cases cause the Tories to lose in ridings they either hold or otherwise might have won.
Jay Hill, leader of the western independence Maverick Party, recently told a reporter for the Western Standard online that the election of Conservative leader Erin O’Toole as prime Minister would do nothing to address the feelings of Western alienation, telling The Standard that the Maverick Party is running on a Western independence platform, and intends to elect members to Parliament in order to facilitate the separation of western Canada from the Canadian federation.
“We are running against a system that doesn’t work,” Hill told The Western Standard. “Many people in the West have given up, and we in the Maverick Party want to lay the foundation of independence,” indicating that following the Québec model would be a good start towards achieving western Canada separation.
Poor Erin O’Toole and the beleaguered Conservative Party of Canada — they just can’t seem to win for losing.
Maxime Bernier lost his Conservative Party leadership bid in 2017, so he went out and formed The People’s Party of Canada.
Seems that no one in the Conservative Party can get along.
Former Tory Jay Hill doesn’t like the fact that current Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole isn’t a westerner — about which he feels alienated — so he goes out and forms the separatist, independiste Maverick Party, and picks up all his Tory marbles to do everything in his power to defeat his former Tory comrades, and that dastardly Erin O’Toole in particular.
Meanwhile, former Conservative Party leadership hopeful Maxime Bernier was so angry with Andrew Scheer and the Conservative Party when he lost his 2017 leadership bid that he went out and formed the far-right-of-centre, libertarian People’s Party of Canada, whose claim to fame these days is that — apart from the party’s bona fides as a homophobic, transphobic, anti-immigrant and white nationalist federal political party — is proudly home, now, to the avowedly anti-vaxxer crowd, every single one of their candidates who believe that COVID is a hoax, from the leader on down.
The People’s Party of Canada will run candidates in all 338 ridings across Canada. The Maverick Party — a latter day version of the 1990s western independence Reform Party, and long home to Stephen Harper — will run more than 40 high profile candidates in Alberta and Saskatchewan and, if history offers any lessons, has a good chance of displacing the Tories as they did in 1993, when the Reform Party won nearly as many seats and replaced the Progressive Conservatives as the major right-wing party in the Commons, although the party won only one seat east of Manitoba.
Combine the information above with the fact that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is the least popular Premier in Canada, heading up a so-called United Conservative Party that, if an election were called tomorrow, would lose to Rachel Notley and her New Democratic Party — well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the Conservatives will lose votes to the Liberals or NDP in Alberta (a protest vote against Kenney), while the PPC will garner the quite substantial anti-vaxx vote in Alberta and across western Canada, and look ready to take at least 8 percentage points of the vote away from Erin O’Toole and his Tories come September 20th, in Tory strongholds across western Canada, while Jay Hill and his merry band of western separatists in the Maverick Party look to pick up 20% of the vote, or better, in the ridings they’re running in across western Canada.
What does all of the above mean — if you ain’t already figured it out?
Whereas in 2019, Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives won 70+% of the popular vote in each of Alberta and Saskatchewan, in 2021 the Tories have a strengthened, anti-vaxx People’s Party of Canada running, and running hard, against them, with high profile candidates set to run in all western Canadian ridings, from British Columbia to Manitoba, with an eye to picking up the quite substantial anti-vaxx / anti-immigrant / white nationalist vote, and when you combine that vote with the western alienation vote of the Maverick Party, Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives are likely to hold on to only 50% of their vote in Alberta and Saskatchewan, losing enough votes to the PPC and Maverick Party in urban and rural ridings across western Canada, that it is almost a certainty that the Tories will lose as many as a dozen seats across western Canada, most particularly those where they barely scraped by with a victory at the polls in 2019.
And, hell, we’ve not even written about how badly Erin O’Toole and the Conservatives are doing in Ontario thanks to the unpopularity, verging on hatred / disgust with current Ontario Conservative Party Premier, Doug Ford, or how badly the Tories are doing in Québec and more particularly in the Maritimes — despite how well newly-electedProgressive Conservative Party leader / Premier Tim Houston did in Nova Scotia last evening …
Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party Premier-elect Tim Houston declares victory Tuesday, August 17th evening after running a left-of-centre winning campaign for office.
… at the end of a brutal, 32-day summer provincial election, who throughout his campaign for office ran as far away from Erin O’Toole and his band of intolerant, far right-of-center Tory ne’er-do-wells as he possibly could — folks, he said, with whom he shares absolutely NO values …
Yes, the Conservative Party of Canada is, by far, the best funded of the federal political parties, with $63.5 million in their coffers at campaign outset — but despite all the incessant Tory ads you’re seeing during the evening news and throughout the day and late into the evening, the Conservative Party cannot buy this election, cannot buy your affection, fealty or devotion, cannot convince women to vote for them, and cannot stop the People’s Party of Canada and the Maverick Party from hiving off substantial vote totals in dozens of ridings across western Canada.
Little wonder that Justin Trudeau set about to call a late summer election.
Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets a well-deserved drubbing at the polls in 2015.
And now, once again, David Herle, Scott Reid and Jenni Byrne weigh in on the current federal election, in their own inimitable and idiosyncratic way …
The indispensable Curse of Politics podcast on #Elxn44, for Wednesday, August 18, 2021.
Anjali Appadurai, the high profile NDP 2021 hopeful in Vancouver Granville.
