General Election: Oct 21, 2019

[Spencer100]

To lose the NY Times!  That is like death to progressives and liberals
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/opinion/trudeau-brownface-canada.html?fbclid=IwAR1y3_vrO_CoWsiLKg3D0bXXz9GywtMFF0cUVEVI-6dBo7l6wDt-Lyb1xHI

There is way more to this story.

It has the feel of an internal hit job by old line Liberals.  They must really hate Justin and Butts

 

[Remius]

Still early in the scandal but...

https://election.ctvnews.ca/no-drop-so-far-in-liberal-support-after-bombshell-revelations-nanos-1.4602168

 

[QV]

Yes, I read the PPC platform in its entirety, to the extent it had been published a few days ago. Max is head of a racist nationalist party, which is why we’ve seen racist nationalists flocking to it. A politician will absolutely be judged by the company they keep and the candidates and views that assemble under their banner. PPC, apparently completely ignorant of demographics and Canada’s low birth rates, want to greatly restrict the number of foreigners immigrating to Canada. They also want to make sure they are tested against the PPC’s idea of the ‘right’ set of values. They quite explicitly want to target their immigration quotas to minority Christians specifically. So yes, they absolutely have heavy ideological and racial biases in who they want to admit as newcomers to Canada in various categories. The very layout of their website places immigration and cultural issues prominently above energy infrastructure, foreign and domestic trade, healthcare, and the environment. They’ve made their priorities and who they’re appealing to crystal clear.

There have been a number of insider accounts from disenfranchised PPC enthusiasts who were quite active in the party, and have since bailed when they saw what sort of people were being welcomed into and embraced by the party. Now that’s not to say they’re a step away from running around wearing white sheets; they aren’t populated solely with reprehensible people. A lot of normal people are disaffected enough to have gone their way for lack of anything they feel is a better option. But they seem perfectly comfortable with building their platform and appeal on an ugly foundation.

With that said, I will credit Bernier with avoiding hypocrisy for not calling Trudeau out on this particular foulup- though any credit I grant is heavily discounted by Bernier likely knowing he hasn’t a leg to stand on in this one anyway; he spoke because in an election season he needs to be seen and heard.

Suggesting this party is racist is a gigantic and disappointing leap for you to make.  Frankly, with a declaration like that, you are part of this toxic problem.  Reasonable debate on important issues can't even take place when one side screams racist because they disagree with a position.  If they were publishing hateful and racist material in their election platform, they would come afoul of the laws on hate speech.  Prioritizing skilled immigrants over unskilled is not racist.  Believing in less immigration than the LPC each year is not racist.  Opposing Trudeau's view that Canada has no core identity is not racist.  Almost all of the PPC candidates' Twitter and Facebook links are posted on their site, are you suggesting all of these people are racists or comfortable to be in a racist party?  There is an entire province that has taken ample steps to protect their identity - is that racist?

        “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’”
— Thomas Sowell
 

 

[FJAG]

Singh says he'll talk with Trudeau to accept apology only if it's in private and politics-free

Justin Trudeau says he wants to talk with Singh to offer an in-person apology for blackface images
Peter Zimonjic · CBC News · Posted: Sep 20, 2019

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said today he'd be happy to talk with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to discuss racism in the wake of the prime minister's blackface revelations — provided the conversation happens in private and is not used for political purposes.

"His office reached out and I have indicated that I am open to having a conversation, as long as it remains private and I am not in any way used as a way for the Liberal Party to redeem the situation," Singh told CBC Radio's The House in an interview airing Saturday. "That is for Canadians to make the decision."

...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/singh-trudeau-meeting-blackface-1.5292001

Call me a cynic but I can't see any way, regardless whether its in private or not, that this would be anything but a political stunt by Trudeau. The mere fact that such a meeting has been asked for is an act of political damage control.

My guess is that the Liberal machinery is spinning into high gear to set up umpteen meetings with Liberal friendly groups of colour for a short burst of "all is forgiven" media moments and then it will be back to business as usual to let the issue die in the later part of the campaign.

Maybe Singh should meet with him and then come out of the meeting and say I couldn't accept the apology because the acts were too egregious and he didn't seem sincere. Win-win! But that won't happen.

op:

 

[ModlrMike]

For the record, I usually find Piers Morgan an insufferable blow-hard, but it's difficult to disagree with him this time:

PIERS MORGAN: Blackface Trudeau should apply the same high horse standards to himself that he applies to everyone else – and demand his own racist head on a plate

So, let me get this absolutely straight…

Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada and arguably the most woke, virtue-signalling and PC-crazed leader in the history of Mankind – or ‘Peoplekind’ as he insisted we rename it last year - turns out to have a rather cracked halo?

Wow. I’m so shocked…not.

I’ve not met a high-horse rider yet who doesn’t eventually tumble off into a pit of shameless hypocrisy.

[MORE]

 

[The Bread Guy]

Interesting bit from some members of the #NotYetBoughtMedia ...

Statement on Unifor’s political actions and Canadian journalists
Mason Wright, September 20, 2019

As unionized employees of media outlets, we are members of Unifor, the private-sector trade union that represents more than 300,000 Canadian workers in 20 sectors of the economy. But many of us are also journalists whose livelihoods depend on being able to report the news free of outside influence.

Like the vast majority of Canadians we have the right to join a union and defend our jobs and working conditions. Sometimes, this aligns us with the broader labour movement — unionized workers in a variety of sectors who can and do take stands on many issues. We recognize that for them, this is fine. But it may leave some observers with a false impression of Unifor-affiliated journalists because we are under the same labour umbrella. While we have no doubt that our journalism is uncompromised by our union membership, others may see things differently.

Public perception of our work matters for us in a way that it doesn’t for workers in most industries. Having the trust of our audiences is what gives us credibility. And these days, the perception of journalists is not always great. This is magnified in an election year. Readers and politicians alike may harbour suspicions about the motivations of the journalists who cover politics, and their bosses. But we hope and believe that most audiences understand this fact: our professionalism and integrity are too important to be subject to the whims of our employers — or our union.

We have been watching with growing concern as the president of Unifor, Jerry Dias, has led a very public campaign against the leader of the federal opposition, Andrew Scheer, and his Conservative Party. When the head of Unifor speaks, many of our readers assume that his words reflect the views of his members, including media workers. Attacks aimed at any political party, leader or candidate can introduce doubt among readers about bias and the independence of journalists. Meanwhile, those on the receiving end of such attacks will gladly inflame such doubt to further their own agendas.

To us, it doesn’t matter which political parties Mr. Dias or the Unifor executive decide to support or oppose. Our response would be the same if Unifor’s political action was against Justin Trudeau and the Liberals. Journalists must remain independent to be taken seriously.

Mr. Dias says that he and the national union office will carry on with an “aggressive campaign” to warn Canadian voters about the Conservatives’ “anti-worker” platform ahead of election day. As journalists first and foremost, we would like to make this point clear: On matters of partisan politics, Jerry Dias and Unifor do not speak for us.

Signed,

Mason Wright, The Globe and Mail
Adrian Morrow, The Globe and Mail
Amberly McAteer, The Globe and Mail
Doug Saunders, The Globe and Mail
Matt Lundy, The Globe and Mail
Steven Chase, The Globe and Mail
Daniel Leblanc, The Globe and Mail
Evan Annett, The Globe and Mail
Adrian Lee, The Globe and Mail
Peter Scowen, The Globe and Mail
Michael Haslett, Global National
Carrie Tait, The Globe and Mail
Bryan Gee, The Globe and Mail
Sean Silcoff, The Globe and Mail
Elizabeth Renzetti, The Globe and Mail
Joy Yokoyama, The Globe and Mail
Simon Houpt, The Globe and Mail
David Akin, Global News
Cliff Lee, The Globe and Mail
Carine Abouseif, The Globe and Mail
Janice Dickson, The Globe and Mail
Michael Snider, The Globe and Mail
Chris Hannay, The Globe and Mail
Campbell Clark, The Globe and Mail
Marieke Walsh, The Globe and Mail
Michelle Zilio, The Globe and Mail
Erin Anderssen, The Globe and Mail
Kristy Kirkup, The Globe and Mail
Nicolas Van Praet, The Globe and Mail
Jeffrey M Jones, The Globe and Mail
Sherrill Sutherland, The Globe and Mail
Jeremy Agius, The Globe and Mail
Renata D’Aliesio, The Globe and Mail
Christine Dobby, The Globe and Mail
Melissa Tait, The Globe and Mail
Josh O’Kane, The Globe and Mail
Nathan VanderKlippe, The Globe and Mail
Shannon Proudfoot, Maclean’s
Ricardo Veneza, CTV News Windsor/AM800 News
Brian Thomson, The Globe and Mail
David Parkinson, The Globe and Mail
Robyn Doolittle, The Globe and Mail
Judith Pereira, The Globe and Mail
John Daly, The Globe and Mail
Adam Radwanski, The Globe and Mail
Tom Cardoso, The Globe and Mail
Jeff Gray, The Globe and Mail
Ryan Thorpe, Winnipeg Free Press
Kathy Tomlinson, The Globe and Mail
Matthew Uhrig, Winchester Press
Justin Ling, Freelance, member of the Canadian Freelance Union
Joe Castaldo, The Globe and Mail
Tim Smith, Brandon Sun
Max Wark, CTV Kitchener
Oliver Moore, The Globe and Mail
Tom Brodbeck, Winnipeg Free Press
Steve Alexander, Global News
Tim McKenna, The Globe and Mail

 

[George Wallace]

It seems to me that Justin Trudeau has never been very observant of current events; not even within his own Party.  Long-time LPC supporter and National Post Commentator Stephen LeDrew has been criticizing Trudeau and his Government for over a year now.  His latest commentary on Trudeau's 'racism' and 'hypocrisy' is here (dated 19 Sep 19):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=uvJc03K4VVw

 

[brihard]

Suggesting this party is racist is a gigantic and disappointing leap for you to make.  Frankly, with a declaration like that, you are part of this toxic problem.  Reasonable debate on important issues can't even take place when one side screams racist because they disagree with a position.  If they were publishing hateful and racist material in their election platform, they would come afoul of the laws on hate speech.  Prioritizing skilled immigrants over unskilled is not racist.  Believing in less immigration than the LPC each year is not racist.  Opposing Trudeau's view that Canada has no core identity is not racist.  Almost all of the PPC candidates' Twitter and Facebook links are posted on their site, are you suggesting all of these people are racists or comfortable to be in a racist party?  There is an entire province that has taken ample steps to protect their identity - is that racist?

        “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’”
— Thomas Sowell

Here's the thing- your reply is basically predicated on the line you used, "when one side screams racist because they disagree with a position". But that's not what I'm doing. I guess I'll accept the backhanded compliment that you're 'disappointed' - but the reason you're 'disappointed' to see this post from me is that this is not generally something I say. I don't shrilly call racism because I disagree with people. I absolutely don't need to resort to allegations of racism to criticise PPC's policies. I didn't use the term 'racist' because I have nothing else to go on. I described them as a racist party because in totality their views on a number of issues - and the prominence those issues take in their platform - paint that picture for me. You're basically ignoring the forest for the individual trees and putting each platform plank in a frictionless vacuum. I'm looking at the bigger picture and seeing something that I believe is pernicious, ugly, and based on some underlying racist attitudes shared by enough of their party to inform their policy. When one of their own candidates a bit over a week ago called publicly on Bernier to clearly and publicly repudiate racist and white supremacist attitudes in order to help clear that up and make it easier for him as a candidate to run for the party without that cloud hanging over him, the party instead booted him as a candidate. I firmly beleive the PPC knows who its appealing to and has decided that for the sake of votes they're OK with that.

The PPC are a joke for a host of reasons. The party's very existence is a tantrum manifest. They're dug to the bottom of some pretty gross barrels for candidates. They cannot keep their house in order; candidates and staff have been dropping out or getting punted all over the place. Bernier, in an ego trip, basically tried to forcibly cobble together a party too late in the game that would run a full slate, and some huge shortcuts have had to be taken... It's more amateurish than a former leadership contender for the CPC has any business being, but it is what it is. They have a fraction of a platform, with their biggest focus on immigration and identity not being grounded in demographic reality. Even aside from the populism and the identity politics, it's just flat out economically unsound.

So no, I don't need to call out the PPC as having racist motivations in order to critique their many issues. I callet it out because it came up in discussion here, and because frankly I felt it was worth saying. The rise of crass populism within our democracy is concerning. If identity politics is distasteful and tawdry when coming from the left, then it's sure as hell also distasteful and tawdry coming from the right.

I'm not sure why you asked about Quebec's policies, because frankly it's not pertinent to this at all. But since you ask, yes, I believe Quebec's recent legislative changes to try to repress religious minorities is similarly racist.

Xenophobia is alive and well in this country, and it has been re-emboldened. I'm not going to ignore it or pretend it isn't there.

 

[Cloud Cover]

I would say that Salim Mansur, a PPC candidate, is probably one of the most thoughtful, intelligent and balanced people running for a seat in this election. Unfortunately, his party is not at all at his standard but the Conservatives dropped him because he spoke truth to powerful interests.

I’m looking for a good independent in my riding ( North Okanagan) to vote for. All the mainstream parties are ill. 

 

[brihard]

I would say that Salim Mansur, a PPC candidate, is probably one of the most thoughtful, intelligent and balanced people running for a seat in this election. Unfortunately, his party is not at all at his standard but the Conservatives dropped him because he spoke truth to powerful interests.

I’m looking for a good independent in my riding ( North Okanagan) to vote for. All the mainstream parties are ill.

That is indeed an unfortunate disqualification. It speaks to one of my earlier comments about how there will be some good people who have become sufficiently disenchanted with the major parties that they fall back on or are pushed to the PPC as a last resort that still presents as electorally relevant.

 

[Remius]

Latest poll tracker.

CPC with slight lead.  LPC seat rejection slips a bit.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

 

[Cloud Cover]

If you look at calculates politics, even at the high end of seat projections the conservatives do not have the seats to win a majority.
I wonder how things will work out if the Libs and the Cons both come in with ~140 seats each.

 

[brihard]

Latest poll tracker.

CPC with slight lead.  LPC seat rejection slips a bit.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

Pretty long ‘tail’ on the weighting they assign. All by 15.7% of the weight is from the 17th or earlier. It’ll take a while for any significant events or shifts in support to be particularly reflected. Not a bad thing in and of itself when looking at longer trajectories, but not a good barometer from day to day swings when there’s ‘big’ news...

 

[Haggis]

Well the Liberals have just mobilized the majority of gun owners to go help the local CPC candidate.

Not quite.  The Liberals have mobilized all the hunters to support them with a promise to leave them alone.

"And as we take concrete action, we’ll continue to respect Canadian hunters, farmers, and sport shooters. We will not bring back the long-gun registry. Hunters do not use or need assault weapons."

 

[ballz]

338 Canada is showing a significant change over the last two days in favour of the Conservatives.... The odds of forming government has gone from 80% Liberal / 20% CPC to 60%/40%. The Liberals had slowly moved up to 178 seats in the projections, and have now dropped to 161.

http://338canada.com/?fbclid=IwAR1PDYPCFzvluAlOYF-nVuiaGqHUGm5DDZfBnrmZShT0cpjjsAmqIWsDAqU

 

[Remius]

Eric Grenier's latest poll tracker.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

One would think the LPC would have dropped more.

 

[Old Sweat]

This Reuters story is reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act. It is the only one of this nature I have seen and we should remember that one Robin does not make a Spring.

Canada's Trudeau campaigns after blackface images deliver blow to polling numbers

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned to the campaign trail on Sunday in his bid for re-election in October as polls showed his Liberals took a significant hit with voters after photos emerged of him in blackface.
FILE PHOTO - Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during an election campaign stop in Toronto, Ontario, Canada September 20, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
Trudeau has repeatedly apologized for the photos, which jarred with his oft-stated position that he wants to improve the lot of minorities in Canada and prompted accusations of hypocrisy.
Trudeau was headed for the Ontario city of Brampton, where 58% of the population is either south Asian or black. The Liberals took all five of Brampton’s seats in 2015 and need to retain them to stand a chance of winning the Oct. 21 election.
Before the photos emerged last week, surveys of public opinion strongly suggested Trudeau would beat the opposition Conservatives of Andrew Scheer, who is a legislator.
Now the polls have shifted and the Liberals are looking particularly vulnerable in Ontario, said pollster Frank Graves of EKOS Research, who said he would release his exact survey figures later this week.
The day before the pictures emerged, “the Liberals were at or very close to a majority” in the House of Commons, Graves said. “That’s completely turned around and maybe the Conservatives are in majority range now.”
“The Liberals’ Ontario lead appears to have evaporated almost overnight,” he added. At the end of August, the Liberals had a 15 percentage point lead on Conservatives Ontario, according to an EKOS poll.
Conservatives would now win 35.5% of the vote and the Liberals 32.9%, a Nanos Research poll released on Sunday said.
The theme of Trudeau’s campaign stop in Brampton is making life more affordable for Canadians, which had been one of the main thrusts of the campaign before the photo scandal.
Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland is due to attend a Toronto town hall hosted by the National Council of Canadian Muslims on Sunday. The council has accepted Trudeau’s apology after initially issued an angry statement.
Freeland has said she was saddened by the photos but stressed she fully backed Trudeau. Other Liberal legislators and candidates have also expressed unhappiness.
Insiders have dismissed the idea of anyone in the party mounting a challenge against Trudeau during the campaign, saying that would be tantamount to electoral suicide.
Reporting by David Ljunggren, additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall

 

[ModlrMike]

Red Liberals were never going to be moved by this scandal. The goal is to move blue Liberals right and orange Liberals left. If the Torries can cause enough vote splitting between the Liberals and NDP, particularly in the more multicultural ridings, then that's a win for them.

 

[Haggis]

I don't think for a moment that hunters, farmers, and sport shooters will be duped by the Liberals fancy prose on this one. They're well aware that they're up next. Death by inches.

The Liberal's updated backgrounder now makes no mention of respecting the rights of sport shooters.

How will that affect the thousands of LEOs, military and other armed professionals who own and use personal handguns?  How will that affect competition shooters from IPSC to the Olympics?

Edit to fix malformed URL to enable hyperlink to backgrounder - Staff

 

[SeaKingTacco]

The Liberal's updated {url=https://2019.liberal.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/292/2019/09/2019-backgrounder-guns-ENG-1.pdf]backgrounder[/url] now makes no mention of respecting the rights of sport shooters.

How will that affect the thousands of LEOs, military and other armed professionals who own and use personal handguns?  How will that affect competition shooters from IPSC to the Olympics?

You don't actually think they thought through the practical implications of this, do you?

Take for example giving munipicalities the right to ban guns in their boundries. Most municipalities do not own ranges for their police forces- most use civilian facilities. Most of those ranges will either cease to exist or will refuse to rent to Law enforcement agencies if this goes through.

Then what?