The first Canada leaders debate on Thursday in Montréal was spirited. A few minor jabs but nothing that will register huge headlines. Most debates should be more about the exchange of ideas than "gotcha" moments.
Erin O'Toole (Conservative) had a plan but couldn't or wouldn't talk about what that plan was. Justin Trudeau (Liberal) and Yves-Francois Blanchet (Bloc Quebecois) each tried to get O'Toole to talk about what was in the plan but O'Toole would not budge.
O'Toole stuck to lines about respecting Quebec and not wanting to put restrictions on money given to La Belle Province. Politicians have talking points but O'Toole played closer to the vest than other party leaders.
Blanchet acted like he lived upstairs from the TVA studio, as in we were in his maison. Trudeau was the second most comfortable: Blanchet represents the Beloeil-Chambly riding on the South Shore of Montréal; Trudeau represents the Papineau riding, east of downtown Montréal.
O'Toole talked about a contract with Quebec. Blanchet attacked the concept of the contract with O'Toole since there was no negotiation with anyone else.
If you wondered why the Bloc Quebecois did so well in 2019, watch Blanchet in French. He isn't running for prime minister so he was free to go past talking points. Blanchet got defensive talking about the Troisième Lien, a potential transportation tunnel running through Quebec City and Lévis. He said he never supported the project.
The debate brought up a couple of issues dear to Quebec but may not come up in the debates this week: medical assistance in dying and assault weapons. These are weak points for O'Toole as the Conservatives are on the wrong end of these issues in the province.
O'Toole said "we will maintain a ban on assault weapons," though the Conservative platform would "start by repealing C-71 and the May 2020 order in council and conducting a review of the Firearms Act." That "assault-style" firearms ban outlawed about 1,500 makes and models of "military-grade weapons."
CanadianCrossing.com Quebec coverage
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pointed out that unlike Trudeau, who says he will deliver, the NDP will actually deliver. As hard as the Conservatives were pandering to Quebecers, the NDP is in a really bad situation in Quebec with 1 MP. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie) is the only NDP MP representing a riding in Quebec. The Orange Wave of 2011 feels like a distant memory: 59 of the party's 103 seats were in Quebec.
The Conservatives only have 10 MPs, mostly in the Quebec City area. The TVA debate really was more for the Liberals (35) and Bloc Quebecois (32). The Liberals need to pull back a few seats from the Bloc Quebecois to get that majority.
The voice for Erin O'Toole on the @CPAC_TV coverage of the @TVAreseau debate would have won the #BillyConnolly sound alike contest. #elxn44 #cdnpoli
— Chad Rubel (@canadian_xing) September 3, 2021
O'Toole's French was better than Andrew Scheer, though both of them are above average for most anglophones. CPAC provided voices for the translation, giving O'Toole an audio dead ringer for Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. Porquoi? Je ne sais pas.
The TVA debate featured all of the major leaders except for Green Party leader Annamie Paul. The Greens don't have a MP from Quebec.
Pierre Bruneau ran another good debate. Bruneau let politicians battle but pulled in the reins once they made their point. He had a firm control on the debate. Paul Wells could learn a lot from Bruneau on running a debate but Wells' arrogance levels are rather high.
CPAC showed the debate on tape delay at 10 pm Eastern with English translations for Anglophones. CPAC aired the debate on its cable channel and at cpac.ca.
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Travel budgets are rather extensive in a political campaign. The leaders go all across the country. There is still some travel in a pandemic.
The Conservatives have been trying a different strategy with Erin O'Toole. The party has been running virtual telephone town halls out of the Westin Hotel in Ottawa.
The New York Times does a lovely job at explaining what the Conservatives are doing. The idea of cold-calling people likely to be friendly to your policies feels more like an infomercial than Candid Camera.
O'Toole is doing some live events as well. When people don't know who you are, the obvious advice is to go and meet them.
The CBC reported what we noted last week about Green Party leader Annamie Paul not having left Toronto. Paul will leave for the Ottawa area to participate in the Leaders Debates Commission debates.
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Speaking of the Leaders Debates Commission debates, the 2-hour debates run this week at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, QC:
- French: September 8 (8 pm Eastern)
- English: September 9 (9 pm Eastern)
Patrice Roy of Radio-Canada will moderate the French debate with Hélène Buzzetti (Les coops de l'information), Guillaume Bourgault-Côté (L'actualité), Paul Journet (La Presse), Marie Vastel (Le Devoir), and Noémi Mercier (Noovo Info).
Shachi Kurl, president of the Angus Reid Institute, will moderate the English debate with Rosemary Barton (CBC News), Melissa Ridgen (APTN News), Evan Solomon (CTV News), and Mercedes Stephenson (Global News).
On the English side, a pollster as the moderator is an odd choice. The panel should include print media since most TV journalists often ignore or underestimate economic questions where average Canadians are suffering.
There should be several ways to watch these debates online.
2021 Canada election preview
Housing affordability was an issue before the pandemic, but the pandemic made this worse. We did say, and still believe, that there wasn't a trend in the Nova Scotia election results that could translate to the federal election. Housing affordability might be a concern in certain areas. Toronto and Vancouver and their surrounding suburbs have had chronic housing issues for a long time. The place that kept coming up on housing during the pandemic: Nova Scotia.
There are housing issues in Nova Scotia, even outside Halifax. This isn't to say the Liberals will lose significant ground with MPs in the province. People being upset changes their dynamic over how they vote.
The pandemic elections in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick may have benefited from being in the eye of the storm as opposed to this election, where the storm is there but people can see the damage clearly.
The pandemic also exposed to a more obvious level the growing concern over child care. Trudeau pointed out during the TVA debate that Quebec's child care system is the model for the Liberals $10/day child care system proposal. Women dropped out of the workforce at an alarming rate during the pandemic with children home from school.
Trudeau and Blanchet went after O'Toole during the debate on whether the Conservatives would honour the $6 billion deal with Quebec on child care. O'Toole avoided the question. Trudeau has gone after O'Toole on the campaign trail on going back on established deals with 7 provinces and 1 territory. The 3 provinces that haven't agreed (Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick) have conservative premiers. Manitoba and Nova Scotia have conservative premiers who have made deals (the Nova Scotia agreement came under a Liberal premier).
The Conservative plan would cancel those deals and create a refundable tax credit that could pay up to $6,000 for eligible families, replacing the current non-refundable tax deduction. Trudeau pointed out during the debate that tax credits won't help poor families.
We hope the housing and child care concerns will get questions in both official languages at the debates.
We wanted to run a Green Party ad since we have run ads from the 3 major national parties. This isn't really an ad but couldn't find a video that had a traditional ad.
The Greens aren't running 338 candidates, so this video may be more helpful for future elections and for local elections. If nothing else, you get to hear a bit from party leader Annamie Paul before she takes the stage in Gatineau this week.
Free advice: We know the Greens don't have much money but producing an ad can't cost that much. Having an ad doesn't mean the ad has to run on TV; online viewing doesn't require an advertising budget.
2021 Canadian politics preview
Canadian politics coverage on CanadianCrossing.com
Conservative leader Erin O'Toole has a plan to deal with mental health: depression, anxiety, and more. This might be a bit shocking that conservatives care about mental health. O'Toole has some charisma to personalise a topic. He cites his own issues after his air force squadron responded to the 1998 Swiss Air disaster off the coast of Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia. O'Toole noted "operational stress disorder" as a result of the mission.
We do not like raining on parades but this is a stickler on conservatives and mental health. We saw out west during the pandemic, especially with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, of this sudden concern over people's mental health as an excuse to open things up before the science could back that up. This is not the kind of help people with mental health issues really need. There are real mental health issues before, during, and after the pandemic (when the pandemic is actually over). Using them as a smoke screen to get non-essential businesses open is worse than not trying at all.
Mental health is yet another area where the party leader is way ahead of the majority of his MPs and MP candidates. Love that there is a plan; hope O'Toole can rally his members on mental health.
We searched for a Bloc Quebecois election ad and could not find one. This CBC News report gives some insight on promises by the party in this election.
We do find Quebec premier François Legault's neutrality in this election to be intriguing. Quebec will have its provincial election next year. Trudeau has worked with Legault on a number of issues.
CanadianCrossing.com Manitoba coverage
Brian Pallister announced his retirement as premier of Manitoba on August 10. Pallister made that official as of Wednesday. The Progressive Conservatives went with Manitoba MLA and deputy premier Kelvin Goertzen as the party's interim leader and new premier. Goertzen is expected to be in the post for 2 months with a new party leader emerging at that point.
There are 3 candidates so far in the party leadership race: former PC cabinet minister Heather Stefanson, backbencher Shannon Martin, and former Conservative MP Shelly Glover. Manitoba has never had a female premier (Martin is a male).
Pallister has been the premier since 2016. He has been under fire for a number of issues from how Manitoba handled the pandemic to his extensive time spent in Costa Rica. You might remember that he called the election a year early in 2019, an actual genius move versus having an election in 2020.
The real question for these GTA voters is: Why is @nationalpost asking such lazy questions about #elxn44. Voters have needs and concerns: housing, food, jobs, climate crisis. #cdnjournalism https://t.co/dRIEbkfKfc
— Chad Rubel (@canadian_xing) September 4, 2021
Theoretical questions lead to theoretical answers and confused speculation. NDP leaders get a lot of, well, stupid theoretical questions by lazy journalists. The answer to those questions can still make news.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said he couldn't work with then Conservative leader Andrew Scheer in 2019 in a potential minority government. Singh did not rule out working with Conservative leader Erin O'Toole in 2021.
The Conservatives had a minority government under Stephen Harper from 2006-2011. They didn't work with any party but kept government running. The question really is asking whether the NDP would take down a minority government if the Conservatives had more seats than any other party.
Technically, the Liberals (because they are the current party in power) would have first chance to form government so the non-Conservative parties might have enough seats to make that work. Chances of this happening are smaller than my chance to be the Toronto Maple Leafs backup goalie for a day.
Singh would try to work concessions from O'Toole in that scenario. Doesn't mean that will work. All Singh is saying is that he would try with O'Toole where he wouldn't try with Scheer,
The NDP is campaigning on the fact that their party has won concessions from Justin Trudeau, especially helpful during the pandemic. There is no scenario where Singh wins as many concessions with O'Toole. Liberals are talking pharmacare while the Conservatives aren't.
The better question to ask Singh is what he might want from the Conservatives if they did win a minority government.
photo credits: TVA; CPAC
Twitter captures: @canadian_xing
video credits: Green Party of Canada; CBC News
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