If it’s a minority government, Liberals can stay in power even if Conservatives win more seats on Oct. 21, but could prompt public backlash
With public opinion polls suggesting Canada is heading towards a minority government, the Liberals will have the first crack at maintaining power if they can gain the confidence of the House of Commons, even if the Conservatives win more seats, but fail to gain a majority. As of Oct. 11, the CBC poll tracker projects […]
‘They’re really riled up here’: Conservatives circling Goodale’s lone Liberal seat in Saskatchewan
Conservatives from across the Prairies are working to try to unseat longtime Liberal MP Ralph Goodale in Regina-Wascana, Sask., where a local columnist says anger towards Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax has reached a boiling point. “It’s a pretty hostile campaign,” said Murray Mandryk, a columnist for The Regina Leader Post who […]
Good thing this isn’t the integrity election
HALIFAX—There was a time when Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer probably hoped that October’s vote would be remembered as the Integrity Election. And why not? Scheer held a smoking gun when it came to the prime minister’s lack of integrity. And best of all, it didn’t come from the exertions of that Tory mud-diving team known […]
How would the Liberals achieve our 2030 emission reduction pledge and move on to net zero emissions by 2050?
TORONTO—If there is one thing most Canadians seem to agree on, it is that the English-language leaders’ pre-election debate was a disaster. The purpose of such debates should be to help Canadians decide how to intelligently cast their votes. On that test, the English-language debate failed spectacularly. The big issues facing Canada were not addressed […]
Debt, deficit ‘not ballot booth issues’ for most Canadians: pollsters
A majority of Canadian voters doesn’t rank balancing the budget or managing federal debt as key issues, say two leading pollsters. The proportion of people who say Canada’s federal debt should be a top priority for the government fell from 88 per cent during the debt crisis in the mid-1990s to 61 per cent this […]
Could elections be about measurable goals?
Another election season with its caricatures of professional wrestling. Personal insults. Skeletons in closets. Spending promises with unstated conditions and no accounting for results. Financial treats for major voting groups. Sound bites. Political theatre. It’s what we might call pandering politics, and it distorts democracy because it ignores how well Canada is doing overall as […]
The Trudeau record: promises kept and broken
OTTAWA—Populists on the right are the best communicators we have ever seen. They boil complex issues down to bumper sticker slogans which voters can remember. Liberals and progressives, well that’s another story. They seem to translate bumper sticker slogans into paragraphs, pages, or PhD theses, making sure to address all the nuances and to use […]
Scare tactics still a winning strategy for Grits, Tories
VANCOUVER—It has been an eventful campaign so far, but the question now is, where will this all take us? Both Jagmeet Singh and Yves-François Blanchet have made big personal breakthroughs. Singh, in particular, is building capital, not just within NDP partisans but among other parties’ supporters as well. As a result, more voters are considering […]
‘It’s definitely in the top quadrant’: election campaign one of dirtiest in recent history, say political insiders
With the 2019 election in the home stretch and both parties still running neck and neck in national polls, some political insiders are describing the current campaign as one of the dirtiest in recent history, which was also predicted months in advance by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer. “It’s probably in […]
Elections, democracy face watershed moment while society transforms digitally
As Canadians get set to cast their votes, the country’s electoral system and its democracy face a defining moment. As society undergoes a digital revolution, our voting and governance systems are leaving people behind. There are many challenges facing elections, democracy, and how societies are governed. Modern pressures include factors such as fake news and previously […]
