The PM should beware karma in deciding to call an election
KAMOURASKA, QUE.—Sigh. It is that time again. Sometime this week, if the pundits are correct, the prime minister will visit newly installed Governor General Mary Simon at Rideau Hall and pull the plug on the weirdest Parliament ever. Even when the Parliament buildings burned and they held sessions in the Museum of Nature, nothing could […]
Survey says: health care, COVID benefits, affordability, and climate change top of mind for voters
OTTAWA—Over the past two weeks, I have had the great pleasure of guest hosting VOCM’s Openline program in Newfoundland and Labrador. Openline is a long-standing platform for all manner of discourse in my home province. It can often be a useful barometer of which issues are top of mind for the people of the Rock […]
Threat of low voter turnout hangs over anticipated election call
Voter turnout federally in Canada has, historically, been average in the best of times. It reached a high in 1958 when 79.4 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot, and a low in 2008 when just 58.8 per cent turned out, according to Elections Canada. In the last 20 years, the highest turnout was […]
Senior Liberal ministerial staffers start to trickle into party office to help run upcoming election campaign, say ministerial staffers
With the next election call around the corner, senior ministerial staffers have slowly started to move to the party office to help run the upcoming election campaign, but a majority will make the move once the election is called. “While we don’t comment on specific election-readiness preparations, we will always be ready to take our […]
Rising NDP support more of a ‘serious threat’ to a Liberal majority than Conservatives, say some pollsters
Rising support for the NDP in public opinion polls is more of a threat to a potential Liberal majority in the next election than the opposition Conservatives, say some pollsters. “Are they a serious threat to a Liberal majority? Yeah, absolutely,” said Ekos Research president Frank Graves in an interview with The Hill Times. “In […]
PM Trudeau should decide writ period for next election in consultation with Chief Electoral Officer Perrault
The next federal election is expected to be called in the coming days, and one key question on the minds of political insiders and party strategists is how long will it last. According to the Canada Elections Act, the minimum length of a campaign is 36 days and the maximum is 50 days. It’s the […]
Conservatives, Liberals trade barbs over spending, gun control in pre-election digital advertising runs
The Conservative Party attacked the governing Liberals’ spending and tax policies in its pre-election digital advertising campaign last week, while Justin Trudeau’s Grits focused on gun control, the environment, and childcare in a series of ads that ran on Facebook. Meanwhile, Unifor and other labour-funded groups have begun running pricey attack ads disparaging Conservative Leader […]
A solid campaign could deliver a Liberal majority
OTTAWA—Happy people vote governments back in. It is not surprising that at the close of the Olympics, the Canadian government will soon pull the plug on the current minority government. Some ministerial employees were issued layoff notices last week, standard operating procedure for governments just before an election. On the Olympic scene, Canadians keep piling […]
Election 2021 won’t be pay TV worthy
HALIFAX—Try as some might—including pollsters, consultants, ex-politicians, and ever-infernal party “insiders,” Election 2021 will not be an item for pay TV. Which is to say, it will have as much drama as a morning in traffic court when the ticketing officer doesn’t show up. What’s coming down in perhaps days is a political mismatch. The […]
Political veterans weigh in on the still elusive 2021 election ballot-box question
With speculation continuing to swirl around a 2021 federal election call, former Conservative deputy leader Lisa Raitt says she doesn’t see a clear ballot-box question and thinks the Liberals will be hard pressed to justify the choice to call an election in the middle of a pandemic, as MPs, candidates, and volunteers continue gearing up […]
