The headline was juicy about Twitter adding a warning label to a tweet from Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland. The tweet summarized that Conservative leader Erin O'Toole would agree to bring private, for-profit health care to Canada. O'Toole responded "yes" to the question. O'Toole said in his remarks that universal access remains paramount.
The manipulation came in not having the entire excerpt in that moment. Freeland did tweet the entire response in a separate tweet.
The manipulated media charge would have to imply/infer that people would jump to the wrong conclusion about O'Toole's position on health care access.
O'Toole wants to bring private, for-profit health care into the mix to Canada. He said this on the "manipulated media" and the full excerpt and in subsequent interviews. As far as we know, no one thought that would be in lieu of getting rid of universal access. The manipulation would imply that universal access would disappear. Even the most hardened NDP or Greens supporter wouldn't believe the Conservatives are arguing in 2021 about giving up universal access.
The Conservatives have run for years on a two-tier system. If you have enough money, you can move to the front of the line. You might disagree with that approach, and most Canadians do. No one is saying that isn't the conservative position.
There is also the concern of the friendship with Kate Harrison (Conservative strategist who was asking O'Toole questions in the video) and Michele Austin. Both were staffers with then Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Austin is in charge of policy at Twitter Canada.
This isn't to justify what Freeland and the Liberals did. The idea is to look beyond the headlines. Is there fire behind the smoke? Do Canadian voters feel manipulated by the video or the subsequent coverage?
Strategically edited material should be addressed in political campaigns. Having covered more than my share on the U.S. side, I've seen too many countless attempts at strategically edited material by mainstream journalists.
Didn't want to bring in an American story but felt the need to show true manipulated media. Katie Couric was managing editor and anchor of the CBS Evening News. The interview with presidential candidate John McCain was altered to provide a different answer on Iraq than the one McCain gave in the interview. This happened after an accusation of plagiarism earlier in her tenure. That is manipulated media.
Between the Twitter Canada charge and the Willy Wonka ad, let's say the 2021 campaign is not off to a good start.
When I heard about a town called Bolton, the first thing that leapt to mind was Monty Python's Blackmail sketch. (The sketch is hilarious; the video is a bit NSFW.) There are a lot of similarities in town names with England and Ontario.
When they talk 905 areas (suburban Toronto), Bolton, Ontario could be a picture of what that looks like.
The Liberal Party rally in Bolton on Friday night was cancelled over security concerns. The venom and signs were disturbing.
Conservative candidate Kyle Seeback (Dufferin–Caledon) said Saturday some of his campaign volunteers were at the Liberal event and as a result they are "no longer welcome on my campaign." Conservative leader Erin O'Toole said any Conservative volunteer found to have been a part of the Bolton event "will no longer be involved with our campaign, full stop. I expect professionalism, I expect respect. I respect my opponents."
Liberal leader Justin Trudeau will meet "anger with compassion."
"No one should have to cancel an event because they worry about the safety of people coming out. I just want to condemn that. Mr. Trudeau and his team should never worry about their safety," NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said.
Canada is a safer place for abortion though access should be improved
Erin O'Toole is checking off boxes to show he is not Andrew Scheer. The previous Conservative Party leader, Scheer wasn't terribly convincing in 2019 when he said he was "pro-life" yet wouldn't move to change abortion laws.
O'Toole says he's pro-choice. That could have been the end of that. Instead, O'Toole had to defend the Conservative platform position of supporting "conscience rights" allowing medical professionals to not perform medical procedure for moral or religious reasons.
“This is not at all a contradiction. I think it’s very important to defend the rights of all Canadians. That’s what I will do. Making sure that women have the right to access abortion services across this country. I am pro-choice, I have a pro-choice record and that’s how I’ll be. I think it’s also possible to show respect for our nurses, our health-care professionals with respect particularly to the expansion of medical assistance in dying,” O'Toole said.
"Pro-choice doesn't mean the freedom of doctors to choose. It means the freedom of women to choose. Leaders have to be unequivocal on that. He's saying certain things to some people and the opposite to others and that's not good enough," Justin Trudeau said.
There is some recognition of "conscience rights" on the provincial level, where health care is administered. In those cases, doctors are supposed to refer their patients to other resources available.
Trudeau announced earlier this summer that the federal government will withhold $140,000 in transfer payments to New Brunswick for the province's refusal to fund abortion services outside 2 hospitals in the entire province. New Brunswick covers abortions in hospitals, one in Moncton and the other in Bathurst. Clinic 544 in the provincial capital of Fredericton has been trying to fill that gap.
Fredericton MP Jenica Atwin (recently turned Liberal, formerly of the Green Party) announced $366,000 for University of New Brunswick researchers to look at “the work done at Clinic 554 between 2015 and 2020 and identify gaps and barriers, such as costs, transportation, and discrimination.”
Bathhurst is in far northern New Brunswick. Moncton is a couple of hours east of Saint John and a similar distance southeast of Fredericton. New Brunswick is a very rural province. Poor people would pay a great financial cost to travel that far for a surgical abortion.
Canada's recent history has shown significant barriers to abortion in the Maritime provinces.
Canada election 2019 debates preview
Canada election 2019: MacLean's, Citytv big losers in the first debate
Paul Wells was on a Canadaland episode saying what we had suspected: Wells and MacLean's are not doing a debate in 2021. Wells hosted debates in 2015 and 2019. These debates were problematic since he didn't hide his preferences. Justin Trudeau did Wells a favour by not showing up in 2019 to make him seem more important.
Wells talked with Jesse Brown in the Canadaland episode about how there should be more debates, especially on specialised topics. We absolutely agree with Wells as long as he isn't hosting any of them.
Wells' bias in the debates was definitely pro-Conservative and anti-Liberal. His tone and questions to parties on the left weren't as hostile as they were toward the Liberals. Moderators and others who ask questions should be a lot more neutral.
The Toronto Star was the first to report, at least in English, on a French-only debate on September 2. Pierre Bruneau from TVA Nouvelles will once again host a debate on TVA at 8 pm Eastern. The Green Party will not be in this debate; the 2019 logic was that the party doesn't have a MP from Quebec.
We refer to TVA Sports in our NHL coverage. That is a cable channel. TVA is an over-the-air network. The network is essentially CFTM, Channel 10 in Montréal, but does have affiliates throughout Quebec, including Gatineau (Ottawa). If you can't access TVA, CPAC will likely carry the debate with an English translation.
The consortium debates will run September 8 (French) and September 9 (English)
You have to go back to 2011 to find an election where there were only 2 debates. Those were the consortium debates.
Wells might want to consider that the consortium debates have reporters asking the questions. Moderators who ask their own questions lose perspective on what the public needs to know.
We know the 2021 consortium debates will have the Bloc Québécois, Conservative Party of Canada, Green Party of Canada, Liberal Party of Canada and New Democratic Party. Maxime Bernier and the People's Party did not qualify. The Leaders' Debates Commission calculated the People's Party of Canada's average level of national support at 3.27%, slightly below the 4% threshold.
David Johnston, former governor general and debates commissioner, was highly generous to Bernier in the 2019 debates. The big difference is that Bernier is no longer a MP.
Canada election 2021: Conservative Willy Wonka ad is the opposite of a good start
This week, we wanted to run positive ads from the top parties. The Liberal Party ad is more of a general ad.
The Conservative ad covers more specifics.
Québec turns to Coalition Avenir Québec to run province
The Bloc Québécois has released its electoral platform. The Bloc did really well in the 2019 election, going from 10 seats in 2015 to 32 seats in 2019. Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet is now upon the challenge of whether the party will win more seats or fall from the high mark of 2019.
The +22 boost is higher than the 15 seats needed to get a Liberal majority.
The party did get a boost as a result of the 2018 provincial election where the Coalition Avenir Québec won a majority and brought back the nationalist voice to power.
2021 Canada election preview
We haven't seen the electoral platform from the Green Party of Canada. Will gladly post that when we see it.
The folks at the Backbench podcast pointed out in their last episode that Annamie Paul hasn't left Toronto during the campaign. We noted last week that Paul is running in Toronto Centre. As a federal party leader, Paul should be traveling to areas where the Greens are strong, candidates with promise.
ATTENTION STUDENTS! Many of you have asked us about whether you’ll be able to vote on campus for #Elxn44. Due to the challenges brought on by the pandemic and the minority government situation, we are not able to run the Vote-on-campus program this election. 1/3 #CdnPoli pic.twitter.com/VI4Z2zmpnn
— Elections Canada (@ElectionsCan_E) August 25, 2021
The Vote on Campus program allowed students to vote in their home ridings while they were away at school. The program started in 2015 and expanded to 109 colleges and universities in the 2019 federal election.
We assume the Elections Canada wording on "the minority government situation" has to do with the uncertainty of when the election would fall.
Students could vote before they leave for school, if still applicable. They might be best advised to vote by mail if there is some concern and to make sure they are registered. Most college and university students would be voting in their first federal election.
Making voting easy for young people strengthens a democracy by ensuring people can participate.
2021 Canadian politics preview
We do try to approach things in a non-partisan fashion (always pick non-partisan over bipartisan or tripartisan) to the political notebooks. We will gladly point out serious spelling errors, regardless of party. We have our own spelling errors on the blog, but certain words really need to be spelled properly. The city where the government is would be a great example. When you trying to spell anti and you leave out the "i."
The Conservatives flyer is concerned with "ant-corruption" in "Otawa" and falls short with "creatng" and "essental." Some Canadian spellings can confuse most Americans but not these mistakes.
The question we wonder if are they checking and not catching mistakes or just not checking.
Canadian politics coverage on CanadianCrossing.com
Occasionally people ask why we don't publish poll numbers. Good question. The only poll that counts is who people vote for in an election. Politics isn't a horse race. The point is the politics matter because people's lives can be improved or made worse.
Treating politics like a horse race is demeaning to the people whose lives are helped or hurt by who is in power.
photo credit: @cafreeland; CBC News
video credits: Liberal Party of Canada; Conservative Party of Canada
Twitter capture: @ElectionsCan_E
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