Election 2015

[agc]

NDP offers Quebec right to opt out of federally funded programs

An NDP government would allow Quebec -- but no other province -- to opt out of new federally funded social programs and receive its share of the money with no strings attached.

The policy reflects the NDP's full embrace of asymmetrical federalism and is a marked departure from the approach taken by Conservative and Liberal governments, which have generally been careful to give all provinces the ability to opt out, even if Quebec was typically the only one to take up the offer.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair has confirmed that the policy would apply to his promises to boost funding to the provinces for health-care initiatives, including creation of a national prescription drug plan.

But that could be a recipe for conflict with the other provinces. Already, Ontario is signalling that it would demand equal treatment.

"We welcome new health-care investment," said a spokesperson for Premier Kathleen Wynne's office. "We would expect that the same rules apply to all provinces."

The issue first came up in last week's French-language leaders' debate when Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe pressed Mulcair to explain whether he intended to make his promises of new health funding conditional on provinces accepting his health-care priorities.

"When it comes to Quebec: a right to opt out; full compensation; no conditions," Mulcair responded.
On Thursday, Mulcair did not directly answer when asked if other provinces would have the same right to opt out.
He referred instead to the Sherbrooke Declaration, the NDP's 10-year-old policy on Quebec, noting that it spells out that "when it's a federal expenditure in an area of exclusive (provincial) jurisdiction, Quebec would be allowed to opt out."
The declaration's embrace of asymmetrical federalism was intended to lay to rest one of the most divisive issues of the past -- one which Mulcair said had led many Quebecers to conclude the only solution "was to break apart this extraordinarily successful, wonderful country that is Canada."

While Quebec could unconditionally opt out and take the money from the NDP's promises to create a drug program, boost home care and hire more doctors, Mulcair said the basic principles of the Canada Health Act, to which Quebec has signed on, would continue to apply. The act stipulates that federal health transfers to the provinces are conditional on the health system being universal, publicly administered, comprehensive, accessible and portable.

Under the terms of the Sherbrooke Declaration, the opt-out policy would also apply to the NDP's promised national, $15-a-day child-care program, and other social program initiatives. Mulcair has said, however, that his child-care program would be flexible, taking into account different programs already offered by each of the provinces.

Senior campaign adviser Brad Lavigne confirmed that the opting-out policy applies only to Quebec.

"If the provinces agree to the creation of a national program in an area of provincial jurisdiction, Quebec would be the only province that is able to opt out . . . with compensation under Sherbrooke," Lavigne said an email.

He did not respond when asked why other provinces aren't entitled to the same treatment.

The Sherbrooke Declaration touts asymmetrical federalism as "the best way to consolidate the Canadian federal state with the reality of Quebec's national character" and the province's challenge of "preserving the French fact in America."
"This asymmetry vis-a-vis Quebec can be applied in real terms through opting-out with compensation. The right to opt out applies where the federal government, on its own or with the agreement of the provinces, intervenes in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction (in particular health and social services, education, family policy, housing, municipal infrastructure, etc.) In such case, no conditions or standards should be applied to Quebec without its consent, obtained after consultation and negotiation."

Keith Banting, a Queens University political scientist and social policy expert, said the "calculated ambiguity"of the declaration's wording raises the possibility that the opt-out policy is meant to apply to all manner of federal social policy initiatives, including direct federal transfers to individuals like the universal child-care benefit. That would be a big change that would court "intense controversy," he said.

In the past, efforts to resolve the issue have centred strictly on programs whose cost is shared by the federal and provincial governments and they've attempted equal treatment for all provinces.

The failed Meech Lake and Charlottetown constitutional accords in the early 1990s proposed to give all provinces the right to opt out of cost-shared programs, provided they spent their federal share of the money on programs of their own with comparable objectives. Critics of the accords feared that would result in a patchwork quilt of social programs across the country, with no national standards.

In the 1999 Social Union Framework Agreement, which remains in force although Quebec never signed it, the federal government agreed it wouldn't use its spending power to create new shared-cost programs without the consent of a majority of the provinces and that dissenting provinces could opt out with compensation, provided they established equivalent or comparable programs.

In 2004, the federal government and provinces negotiated a 10-year health funding accord, in which the federal cash was tied to provincial agreement to meet certain reform targets, including reduction of hospital wait times. Quebec insisted on a separate agreement adapted to the province's "specificity," although it accepted the overall principles and objectives of the accord.

While that was hailed or criticized by some as asymmetrical federalism, the targets ended up being unenforceable so Quebec's separate agreement was largely symbolic.

There has been the odd exception over the years, but generally Banting said: "Intergovernmental relations have functioned okay with asymmetry if the same offer (to opt out) is made to other provinces," whether or not they take it up.

Cutting separate deals for Quebec alone has led to trouble, he said, pointing to the Canada-Quebec immigration accord, under which only Quebec gets a say in the selection of immigrants and a disproportionate share of funding for settlement services. Ontario, which receives the lion's share of newcomers, has strenuously objected that it has not been offered a similar deal.

 

[PuckChaser]

If that's not going to drive people away from the NDP outside of Quebec, I don't know what will. The Liberals don't really have to do anything, just sit and watch the NDP implode and gather their votes.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Conrad Black offers his views on the leaders in this opinion piece which is reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conrad-black-the-ndp-still-isnt-ready-but-it-turns-out-trudeau-may-be

The NDP still isn’t ready, but it turns out Trudeau may be

Conrad Black | October 2, 2015 | Last Updated: Oct 3

With just over two weeks before the federal election, several points appear to be emerging.

The New Democrats have been given their star turn as a potential government, but have not made it. Their leader, Thomas Mulcair, has avoided the pink scare — deservedly, as he is not an extremist — but New Democrats, who can sometimes run a province more or less competently, have too many hare-brained ideas to be entrusted with the federal government. Its budget plan of insignificant tax rises, bountiful increases in social spending and a balanced budget, won’t fly. The positions of the Conservatives (balancing the budget through spending restraint) and of the Liberals (modest deficits for spending on infrastructure), are at least plausible.

The NDP’s foreign policy has all of the party’s usual hobbling foibles, which are not relevant at the provincial level. Mulcair advocates complete avoidance of any military role in opposing ISIL, as if Canada were neutral in a contest between a savage gang of rabid sectarian torturers and decapitators of civilians, on the one hand, and almost every other civilized country on the other. Dispensing aid to victims is necessary, but as Prime Minister Stephen Harper, especially has forcefully responded, giving humanitarian assistance and training local forces and going on the odd bombing mission in the same week does not overstretch this country’s talents at multi-tasking. (Canada flies about two per cent of the Allied missions, and avoids over-straining the wings of our venerable CF-18’s.)

The same fantasyland problem arises in Mulcair’s insane demand for a boycott of Saudi Arabia. We would lose our $15 billion defence sale contract with them, and if our action had any impact (it would in fact be completely ineffectual), it would be to assist ISIL in its furtive struggle against the House of Saud. In its almost endearing naivete, the NDP fails to apply the proper litmus test to any attempted ostracization and destabilization of uncongenial foreign governments: would regime change produce an improvement? Particularly after the disasters that followed the overthrow of the Shah in Iran, Saddam in Iraq, Qaddafi in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt (though the incompetence of the Muslim Brotherhood saved us from the full horror of that debacle), Canadian voters had the right to hope that NDP views would have matured a little. They seem no longer to demand withdrawal from NATO, though they would contribute even less to it than Harper has…

The NDP is still thrashing around in the deep end of climate change where very little is actually known, bandying about the discredited concept of cap-and-trade, and railing about Harper withdrawing from the Kyoto agreement. In fact, no country signed or remained in Kyoto except those that were going to be rewarded for their disintegration (Russia), or their economic primitiveness in not having a high level of carbon emissions (Zimbabwe’s Mugabe and comparable despots, and all the world’s failed states). The most amusing element of this part of the debate was Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s harassment of Mulcair for once having advocated the sale of water to the United States. It was slightly reminiscent of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis’ success in the 1956 provincial election campaign, in which he accused the federal Liberals of having imported 300,000 dozen “Communist eggs” from Poland. Of course there was nothing wrong with buying Polish eggs, just as there is nothing wrong with selling water to the U.S., as long as it comes from rivers flowing toward salt-water oceans and doesn’t reduce our water tables. But Mulcair’s discomfort was humorous.

It should be remembered that the current position of the NDP is aberrant. In 2011, Quebec realized it could not go on forever voting for a separatist party in a federal election. Most Quebecois are not separatists and like to have some influence in Ottawa. Yet most find Harper’s unmitigated waspiness and failure to truckle to Quebec irritating (the latter is rather to his credit). Former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff was in a time warp, talking earnestly about the constitutional problems of 30 years before, like a man who had been away from the country that long. The late NDP Leader Jack Layton, meanwhile, conducted a whirlwind campaign in the interior of Quebec promising to repeal the Clarity Act and let Quebec secede on a 50-per-cent-plus-one vote on a fuzzy question; in the meantime, he would abolish the English language in the federal workplace in Quebec (i.e., federal government offices and federal sections of the private sector, such as banks). The habitants lapped it up. Ignatieff didn’t figure out what was happening and didn’t try to rouse a federalist response, while Harper was happy enough to have the ancient Liberal foe cut down at the knees, tearing away the base of its support since Laurier’s time.

Mulcair has tried to go Layton one better by po-facedly telling English Canada the nose-lengthening whopper that he is the true federalist, on the grounds that only when the Quebec nationalists are armed with these concessions will they have the self-confidence to remain in Canada. The walking political corpse of Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe is picking up a bit of the nationalist vote, and Trudeau and Harper are both gaining votes among the 40 per cent of Quebecers who are outright federalists and the 40 per cent who are somewhere between enthusiastic Canadians and Quebec separatists. Mulcair is being gradually exposed for selling the country a pantomime horse where the front and back legs aren’t coordinated. More could be made outside Quebec of his desire to allow the separatists to produce another trick question, then to allow them to drag four million Quebec federalists out of Canada and into a sovereign Quebec.

Mulcair has been strong in Parliament and is perfectly presentable in person, but on the hustings he has seemed flaccid, elderly and unstylishly hirsute. Barring an astonishing turn in the next two weeks, the Conservatives and NDP will both slip significantly from their performance in 2011. Regardless of which party ends up with the most seats, the big winner will be Trudeau, who seems likely at least to triple the Liberal parliamentary contingent. Four years ago, there was rampant speculation about whether the federal Liberal party would survive, rather than fold into the NDP with the centrist and right-of-centre Liberals gravitating to the Conservatives. Now, the NDP seems to be retreating very gradually back to a third party just outside the federal mainstream.

What seems to be shaping up is a contest between comfort with the executive competence of Harper and a rising confidence that Trudeau is not just a pretty face with famous and controversial parents. The pompous Conservative advertising about “Justin’s not ready” has been largely debunked and Trudeau is carrying the fight to Harper on several issues. He has been exposing the scandalous enfeeblement of the Canadian Armed Forces despite all Harper’s King Lear fist-shaking at Russian President Vladimir Putin and others. Both opposition leaders have stuck to their guns against Harper’s repressive endorsement of more and longer and harsher imprisonment, and Trudeau has rather courageously attacked the practice of revocation of citizenship, even for terrorists.

An argument can be made for revoking the citizenship of those who have violated the oath they took in becoming citizens, but expelling people could prove a totalitarian measure and Trudeau and Mulcair are right to oppose it. Here, as with his absurdly draconian crime bill and his Orwellian security bill (C-51), Harper’s disregard for human rights is worrisome. Nor should Harper get away with his mistaken claim that Canada is the leading economic performer of the G-7. No one can complain that the U.S. has a higher economic growth rate after it has doubled the national debt in seven years to buy a pallid recovery. But Germany, and even the United Kingdom, have better unemployment levels and economic growth rates than Canada, a country which is now, unlike other G-7 nations, in a recession.

There is some truth to Mulcair’s allegation that “Harper put all his economic eggs in one basket (oil), and then dropped the basket.” It is surprising that there has not been a greater public outcry that the reduction of the price of gasoline has only been about a third of the reduction of the world oil price. With all that said, Canada weathered the 2008 financial crisis well and Harper deserves some credit for that.

Trudeau seems to be regaining enough of the old Liberal dexterity of being just far enough to the left of the Conservatives as not to seem like tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum to voters of the centre-left, and adequately to the right of the NDP not to frighten the cautious Canadian bourgeoisie. It is almost always a question of natural tactical political skill that determines whether the centre, which Trudeau is trying to rebuild, is a position of strength or weakness.

As of now, a parliamentary majority seems unlikely. The largest party will probably form the government, but if that is the Conservatives, Harper will have great difficulty persuading either of the main opposition parties to keep him in office unless he is well ahead of them and close to a majority. Another Conservative might manage it, but Harper does not have the minority governing skills of Mackenzie King, whose opportunistic cunning he in some ways replicates, nor the ability to dragoon the NDP that Pierre Trudeau exercised from 1972 to 1974. (The Pearson government is not comparable, as it was only four or five votes short in a four-party House of Commons.)

They are an interesting trio of quite different leaders, and it should be an intriguing election night and aftermath.

National Post

This is, mainly, an analysis of why M Mulcair is foundering but I think Lord Black (is he still a lord?) is right that Prime Minister Harper will have difficulty unless he has a very strong majority.

 

[ModlrMike]

It will be interesting to see what happens if the Torries manage a bare majority. I expect the usual culprits will lodge court challenges to tightly contested ridings... all the while ignoring similar results in favour of the Liberals or NDP.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Given "An NDP government would allow Quebec -- but no other province -- to opt out of new federally funded social programs and receive its share of the money with no strings attached" and "This agreement would never come into effect unless it's ratified in the House of Commons, and I will not put before the House of Commons an agreement that sacrifices the family farms of hard-working people across Canada who right now are prospering under supply management", I hope the NDP gets spanked hard.

 

[Altair]

Trudeau is on it, no worries.

I'm just kidding for those with no sense of humor.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Not everyone will like this video of Bob Rae taking to Steve Pakin (TVO/Agenda) about the substance of his book, What's Happened to Politics? I don't agree with everything he says but I do agree that too many Canadians are "politically illiterate," we get fed all the spin through and by a politically 'engaged' (which is to say biased) media. (I also agree with Mr Rae that almost all politics is "filtered" through the media.) But, I think that he has bought into the spin business when he says, for example, (8'30") that as circumstances change the politicians must change, quickly, too. He faults Prime Minister Harper, for example for being repetitive and says that leaders cannot take time to ponder changing circumstances ~ those pesky "events" ~ in my opinion changing circumstances often require a pause for reflection but the media wants "instant gratification" and the spin doctors are eager to provide it, considered,. correct or not.

I worry (12'50") that Mt Rae is wrong; I'm not sure that all the leaders have a clear vision of "where they want to go." I am, of course, repeating my fear that M Trudeau is little more than a sock puppet for the Kathleen Wynne/Gerald Butts faction of the Liberal Party. My best guess is that Prime Minister Harper and M Mulcair do have their own visions, but I'm less sure that their party bases will follow.

I agree (15'45") that IF Canadians are going to decide much of anything they will do so over and in the week after the Thanksgiving holiday.

 

[Remius]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/nanos-polls

Again the Nanos poll has the Liberals trending up.  NDP down and CPC holding.

 

[Edward Campbell]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/nanos-polls

I have no authority to make this claim, but IMO, what we're seeing here is a reflection of strategic voting intentions starting to take shape. Those on the left who want change, but were split between NDP and LPC, are finally making a decision (or changing their decision) and leaning toward Liberal.

I think if the Liberals want to keep this momentum, they need some really inspiring capaign ads. They don't need anti-conservative attack ads; the left-wing already doesn't like harper, and red-tories won't believe the ads. Anti-Mulcair ads might help, but IMO they're not as effective real inspiring ads, and the NDP are doing a fine enough job on their own.

Bob Hepburn, writing in the Toronto Star agrees but says Stephen Harper needn't worry, "because, as past close elections have shown, the impact of strategic voting has been minimal, affecting only a handful of extremely tight races in individual ridings."


    "In recent days, Mr Hepburn writes, near-panic has started to emerge among progressive voters who fear Harper and the Conservatives will be re-elected, possibly with a majority government, in the election just over two weeks from now.
   
    Their worries are sparked by recent polls showing the Conservatives starting to break the three-way log jam with the New Democrats and Liberals that has marked this campaign for months and edging ever closer to a majority.

    In hopes of derailing Harper, loose groups of progressive voters, such as Leadnow.ca, are urging voters to end vote splitting between the Liberals, NDP and Green Party that allows the Tories to win ridings with less than 50 per cent of the votes cast.

    Instead, they want strategic voters to choose either the Liberal or NDP candidate with the best chance of defeating the Tory in their riding.

    Proponents insist strategic voting will be huge and that more and more voters are seeking information to assist them in deciding which candidate to back."

Further:

    "Why, Mr Hepburn asks, doesn’t strategic voting generally work?

    First, strategic voting groups are fairly unorganized and underfunded, which results in them being unable to get information out to large groups of voters, such as which of the 338 ridings are in play.

    Second, there is little serious research into which candidate is best in which riding. Ultimately that means casual voters must guess on which candidate to support. Too many emotions are at play, with NDP voters believing their
    candidate is best to defeat the Tory while Liberal voters stick with their candidate as the best choice. That’s especially true for people who want to vote with their heart.

    Third, neither Liberals nor New Democrats really like the notion of strategic voting. They see the idea as being a rejection of their own candidate, their own leader and their own policies. Indeed, there is more bad blood between the
    Liberals and NDP than at any time in recent memory. Lately they’ve spent more time fighting with each other on everything from what Canada’s role should be in fighting Islamic extremists to the rules around Quebec separation
    than they do uniting to fight together against the Conservatives.

    Fourth, polling experts suggest it requires up to 60 per cent of NDP or Liberal voters to switch to the other party’s candidate in order for that candidate to garner enough votes to defeat the Tory opponent. The odds of that many voters loyal
    to another party switch their allegiance in the privacy of a polling booth must be astronomical.

    Ultimately, strategic voting seems like a great idea for those who want to see Harper defeated. In reality, it may work in a few ridings, but isn’t too effective on a national scale."

 

[Altair]

Bob Hepburn, writing in the Toronto Star agrees but says Stephen Harper needn't worry, "because, as past close elections have shown, the impact of strategic voting has been minimal, affecting only a handful of extremely tight races in individual ridings."


    "In recent days, Mr Hepburn writes, near-panic has started to emerge among progressive voters who fear Harper and the Conservatives will be re-elected, possibly with a majority government, in the election just over two weeks from now.
   
    Their worries are sparked by recent polls showing the Conservatives starting to break the three-way log jam with the New Democrats and Liberals that has marked this campaign for months and edging ever closer to a majority.

    In hopes of derailing Harper, loose groups of progressive voters, such as Leadnow.ca, are urging voters to end vote splitting between the Liberals, NDP and Green Party that allows the Tories to win ridings with less than 50 per cent of the votes cast.

    Instead, they want strategic voters to choose either the Liberal or NDP candidate with the best chance of defeating the Tory in their riding.

    Proponents insist strategic voting will be huge and that more and more voters are seeking information to assist them in deciding which candidate to back."

Further:

    "Why, Mr Hepburn asks, doesn’t strategic voting generally work?

    First, strategic voting groups are fairly unorganized and underfunded, which results in them being unable to get information out to large groups of voters, such as which of the 338 ridings are in play.

    Second, there is little serious research into which candidate is best in which riding. Ultimately that means casual voters must guess on which candidate to support. Too many emotions are at play, with NDP voters believing their
    candidate is best to defeat the Tory while Liberal voters stick with their candidate as the best choice. That’s especially true for people who want to vote with their heart.

    Third, neither Liberals nor New Democrats really like the notion of strategic voting. They see the idea as being a rejection of their own candidate, their own leader and their own policies. Indeed, there is more bad blood between the
    Liberals and NDP than at any time in recent memory. Lately they’ve spent more time fighting with each other on everything from what Canada’s role should be in fighting Islamic extremists to the rules around Quebec separation
    than they do uniting to fight together against the Conservatives.

    Fourth, polling experts suggest it requires up to 60 per cent of NDP or Liberal voters to switch to the other party’s candidate in order for that candidate to garner enough votes to defeat the Tory opponent. The odds of that many voters loyal
    to another party switch their allegiance in the privacy of a polling booth must be astronomical.

    Ultimately, strategic voting seems like a great idea for those who want to see Harper defeated. In reality, it may work in a few ridings, but isn’t too effective on a national scale."

Strategic voting may not work, but wholesale shift in voter intentions happens pretty often.

Most recently in England when there was a prospect of a coalition that would include the Scottish nationalist party.

Here in Canada, when the orange wave was happening,  liberal support collapsed and a lot of it went to the Tories to prevent the ndp from wining when the polls showed they were surging.

I expect in the final days of this campaign, progressive voters will look at the polls and see who is doing better, trudeau or mulcair, and vote for the guy with the best chance to beat harper. Right now that's trudeau but we'll see what the situation is in 2 1/2 weeks.

 

[Kirkhill]

An event:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/us-australia-reportedly-reach-deal-on-pharma-protection-in-tpp/article26643347/

Two more long times and a sleep to go.

 

[Remius]

Looking more and more like a trend.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/nanos-polls

I'm not sure the TPP is going to qualify as an event.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The three day Nanos numbers at a glance:

                        >>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->>

Two points:

    1. Other polls may, most likely will, show other, perhaps quite different, results; and

    2. There are, now, two full weeks of hard, full throttle, no holds barred campaigning to go ~ including the Thanksgiving weekend.

Oh, and yes, effective today, I think the polls matter because I believe ~ there is some, but not a whole lot of evidence to support me ~ that polls matter to voters. The (scarce and conflicting) evidence suggests that some voters are enticed to switch, to back the winner, if you like, which would, right now, help M Trudeau to gather up some soft NDP supporters ~ see strategic voting, just above. The other factor is that polls seem to energize the undecided, silent majority, the one "behind the lace curtains," as appears to have happened in the UK, and if that happens here it will likely favour the CPC.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Six brand new CPC attack ads: all attack Justin Trudeau, very directly, and all deal with "pocketbook" issues

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxU72UJsARs  )
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVr_ICZ0zo        } Theme: It's Decision Time
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHMjguZBQGA  )
And
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k38Yv8kfOec    )
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b6ARwRfxeM  } Theme: Economically Clueless
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeFdqzIINxY      )

 

[Edward Campbell]

In this report, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, John Ibbitson discusses (also referring back to the UK election) how the TPP trade deal might impact the vote:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tpp-deal-could-be-a-boon-for-harper-mulcair-for-entirely-different-reasons/article26648455/

TPP deal could be a boon for Harper, Mulcair – for entirely different reasons

JOHN IBBITSON
The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Oct. 05, 2015

With the federal election only a fortnight away, all three political parties are positioning themselves for the crucial last laps. But there’s a wild card. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement reached Monday could upend the best-laid plans.

The announcement that Canada and 11 other Pacific nations had signed the biggest regional trade agreement in history is golden news for Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, and “it comes at a time when they are probably feeling like they’ve got control of their campaign,” said Janet Brown, a Calgary-based pollster and political analyst. “They’ve made some bold moves and they’ve paid off.”

Ms. Brown detects the hand of Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby in Mr. Harper’s pivot from an exclusive focus on the economy to one of social values – such as the Conservative policy of banning the niqab at citizenship swearing-in ceremonies and the policy of stripping dual citizens who commit terrorist acts of their Canadian citizenship.

Now Tory strategists are hoping that the signing of the TPP, as it’s known, will give the Conservatives an economic issue as powerful as the Islamic State mission and the niqab debate were on national security and social values.

The Conservatives need to find five percentage points, give or take, of voters – the Persuadables, who voted Conservative in the past, and might do so again. Expect to see a heavy rotation of ads asserting that only Mr. Harper can be trusted to keep Canada safe and its economy strong.

In the late stages of Britain’s election earlier this year, British Conservative Leader David Cameron warned of the dangers of a weak minority Labour government, which contributed to a voter shift that delivered a Conservative majority. Mr. Cameron was guided by Mr. Crosby, and Ms. Brown expects to see the same from Mr. Harper.

If the TPP agreement is golden for the Conservatives, it is no less a boon to the struggling NDP, giving them the economic equivalent of Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism legislation that the Conservatives and Liberals supported and only the NDP opposed.

The NDP’s low-key, front-runner campaign has failed them thus far. Mr. Mulcair “has run a very cautious, classic, front-runner campaign,” said Shachi Kurl, senior vice-president at pollster Angus Reid. That campaign has not only failed to win over cautious Conservative and Liberal switch voters, Ms. Kurl said, “it has clearly turned off the left flank of his base.”

But now the gloves are off in the biggest free-trade debate since the Canada-U.S. deal of 1988. A senior party official said that Mr. Mulcair will campaign intensively in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia over the coming days, warning of the perils posed by the Pacific trade agreement. Quebec dairy farmers could be at risk, Mr. Mulcair will warn, and Ontario automotive workers. Prescription drugs could get more expensive.

In fact, Mr. Mulcair decided not to bother waiting to see the agreement before condemning it. A much more aggressive and unbuttoned NDP Leader vowed Sunday morning that a New Democratic government would never support the TPP on the backs of farmers, factory workers and seniors in need of medicine. Expect more of this, in an extremely crowded schedule, in the coming days.

The NDP situation, in any case, is not as dire as some believe, according to John Parisella, who was chief of staff to Liberal premiers Robert Bourassa and Daniel Johnson. The party, he observes “is still in the lead in Quebec,” although he believes voters are also impressed “with how [Justin Trudeau] has grown.”

That latter observation explains why Grit partisans are in fine and fighting spirits. The party began the campaign lagging the other two parties. But the Liberal Leader’s confident, assertive performance in the debates surprised and impressed many observers. And the party’s strategy of moving to the left of the NDP by embracing deficits and tax hikes for high-income earners, all aimed at infrastructure spending and tax-breaks for middle-income earners, appears to be paying off. The party is ahead of the NDP and in a see-saw battle for dominance with the Conservatives.

A party official speaking on background said the Liberals will continue to focus on the Liberal plan to increase taxes on the rich and cut them for the middle class, while financing a national infrastructure program through budget deficits.

But Angus Reid’s Ms. Kurl said it’s not policy that’s the Liberals’ strong suit.

“When we poll on who’s best on policy, if you had to make up your mind on a leader or a party based on policy, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals don’t win,” she observed. “If you are voting on heart and gut, absolutely Justin Trudeau wins on heart and gut.”

The Liberals will be focusing their attention almost exclusively on Mr. Harper in the coming days. The party released five radio and TV ads, Sunday, going straight at the Conservative Leader and hardly mentioning Mr. Mulcair.

But just as the Liberals found themselves boxed in on Bill C-51 – which they supported, angering many progressive voters – so too are they awkwardly placed on TPP, essentially supporting the Conservative position, which could leave them as bystanders in a fight over the deal between the Conservatives and the NDP.

For all three parties, the job over the next two weeks is to secure and deliver to the polls their own core voters, while also making final pitches to undecided voters.

While voters in ridings that are safe for one party or another may barely notice there’s an election campaign under way, voters in swing ridings can expect an endless succession of phone calls, leaflets, people at their door, and a slew of local advertising.

Mr. Harper will warn of the dangers of left-wing coalitions, Mr. Mulcair will warn of the damage to farmers and auto workers from the TPP deal, and Mr. Trudeau will promise speedy and massive investments under the Liberals – the campaign slogan has morphed from “real change” to “real change now.”

“Whoever has a very good week this week is going to do well on the 19th,” Mr. Parisella predicts. The longest campaign in more than century is finally in high gear.

First point: the trade deal isn't signed ... yet. It was supposed to have been announced yesterday evening but, reports say, envoys are pulling an "all nighter" in an effort to clear the last hurdles ... which may include pressuring Canada into agreeing to tougher dairy trade quotas.

Second point: the TV ad wars appear to be Harper <> Trudeau <> Harper, M Mulcair is not, apparently, a factor ... this week.

-----

New Liberal ad:

1. https://youtu.be/0yWe8JleMx8

 

[Edward Campbell]

OK, a tentative trade deal has been agreed. CTV News says, "parts will be controversial in Canada. Cars will be allowed without tariffs, as long as they have 45-per-cent content from the TPP region -- lower than the 62.5 per cent regional-content provision under NAFTA ... Canada's protected dairy sector remains mostly intact, with a modest increase in permitted imports for supply-managed sectors."

At the same time, Justin Trudeau is making his major platform announcement in Waterloo, ON.

It will be interesting to see which story "leads" in the media. Trade is infinitely more important but far, far less sexy than M Trudeau making promises.

 

[PuckChaser]

Both CBC and CTV cut away from Trudeau to go to Harper's announcement.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Both CBC and CTV cut away from Trudeau to go to Harper's announcement.

You don't suppose, do you, that the Canadians dragged these talks out, through an all night, negotiate by exhaustion session, just to capture the 10:00 AM news slot?  :nod:

 

[The Bread Guy]

It depends upon the security classification/designation applied ~ presumably for some good reason ~ to the original document. The public servant who leaked the document should be called to account for his or her choice ... and I believe (s)he made one. I must assume that someone had a valid reason for designating that document, in some way, as being "for official use only" or SECRET or whatever; perhaps it was a briefing related to a Cabinet Confidence, in which case the public servant who leaked it is guilty of a very, very serious "crime" against one of the foundation stones of our, Westminster, style of parliamentary government.

Well, I guess we'll find out in the fullness of time ....

The Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development has called in the RCMP to conduct an investigation into a leak last week to The Globe and Mail newspaper of an internal Foreign Affairs briefing document warning senior federal government insiders that Canada’s clout in the international community is diminishing.

“Any unauthorized disclosure of information is investigated and, in cases involving suspected criminal wrongdoing, the department works with the RCMP. The RCMP has been notified of the incident in question. We do not comment on ongoing investigations,” Joséphine Laframboise, a Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development spokesperson, told The Hill Times in an email last week.

(....)

A source told The Hill Times that Mr. Harper, Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ont.), and the Privy Council Clerk Janice Charette were “livid” that the internal document was leaked to media. The source said that, given the timing, it was clear it was orchestrated to inflict some political damage or put the Conservatives off-balance in advance of the televised leaders’ debate on foreign policy.

The source said that Ms. Charette ordered the RCMP investigation ....

 

[Edward Campbell]

I have said a few times, that the suburbs around Toronto, especially, and Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and so on, are the key battlegrounds. This article reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail looks at the famous 905 belt around Toronto:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/torontos-905-suburbs-turning-into-race-between-tories-and-liberals/article26646089/

Toronto’s 905 suburbs turning into race between Tories and Liberals

CAMPBELL CLARK
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Sunday, Oct. 04, 2015

A lot of this election has already been decided in Toronto’s suburbs. A lot of it remains to be decided there, too.

The so-called 905 is where the Orange Wave crested, the place where Thomas Mulcair’s NDP needed to make inroads if it wanted to keep climbing into a clear lead, but didn’t. It’s where Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have rebounded. And it’s where Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have proved resilient.

It is now a region with a mostly two-horse race between the Conservatives and the Liberals. And a small shift, perhaps 5 per cent of voters, can have a big impact on who wins the national election, flipping 30 or 40 seats one way or the other. In election math, that’s like sweeping Alberta or British Columbia. In 2011, Stephen Harper won a majority by winning the 905.

There are other places with potential to alter the national race, of course, notably in British Columbia’s three-party dynamic and in Quebec, where an NDP slip could resuscitate the Bloc Québécois and revive the Conservatives. But even before the NDP slid in Quebec, its hopes faltered in Toronto’s suburbs.

In August, as the campaign began, the New Democrats were riding high in national polls and still targeting breakthroughs in the 905, notably in “inner” suburbs of Mississauga and Brampton just west of Toronto’s city limits – areas where they surged in the 2011 campaign. Mr. Mulcair made early campaign stops in those places. But now, as October begins, their real hope for a gain in the west side of the 905 is in one riding, Brampton-East.

“For a while there, the NDP was in the race in the 905, but they’ve dropped off significantly,” said pollster and political strategist Greg Lyle, president of Innovative Research Group. In the GTA suburbs, the NDP fell from from 32 per cent just before the campaign to 16 per cent in late September, according to his firm’s surveys.

A breakthrough in Toronto’s suburbs would have made the NDP the clear front-runner. But the party had always found it tough in most of the 905, and voters didn’t have much NDP tradition. And the Liberal campaign managed to win on the left and with clearer promises to pour money into infrastructure, and with middle-class tax cuts. The New Democrats started the campaign being seen as the party championing the middle class, well ahead of the Liberals – but Mr. Trudeau’s party won back that ground and overtook them, Mr. Lyle said.

Navdeep Bains, the Liberal candidate in Mississauga-Malton and Ontario campaign co-chair, said voters clearly think the economy is the big issue. Infrastructure was already an issue in Mississauga’s municipal election campaign, and gridlock makes transit infrastructure top of mind with voters. “They see it every day when they go to work,” he said.

But as the Liberals in the 905 have rebounded, they’ve witnessed resilience in their traditional adversary, the Conservatives, as much of the Tory traditional base of support returned to the fold.

The ring of suburbs around Toronto is not uniform political territory. Closer to Toronto, they tend to lean more left; farther out, more Conservative. There are newer suburbs east of Highway 400, such as Markham, with a large East Asian and Chinese-Canadian population, with middle-class “strivers” who are more receptive to the Conservative message, Mr. Lyle said. “They’ve got big dreams, and they’re on their way to get them,” he said. To the west of Toronto, in Brampton, Mississauga or even Oakville, many of the suburbs are more established, more like Toronto, and more Liberal. The Conservatives picked up many of those ridings in 2011, but they’ll be the first 905 ridings they lose, Mr. Lyle said.

In August, Mr. Harper’s supporters were drifting away, as events in the Mike Duffy trial shook some soft Conservative supporters. But many have returned.

Mr. Trudeau’s gamble on stimulus spending and deficits helped him win over several voter segments, but pushed a few – those who say it’s important for government to spend only the money it has – more solidly into Mr. Harper’s camp. Mr. Harper’s emphasis on balanced budgets helped, and the niqab issue his government created has won over some populists.

But the Conservative bounce back hasn’t made it 2011 again. The party won 48 per cent of the vote in the GTA suburbs in 2011 and has 42-per-cent support now, Mr. Lyle said. But instead of the 19-point lead the Conservatives held over the Liberals in the past election, they had only a seven-point edge in late September. And a slight shift either way can turn a swath of seats red or blue – and turn the national results.

It looks to me as if the six new Conservative ads are aimed squarely at middle class families in those very suburbs.