It was such a beautiful day, a picture perfect postcard of my beautiful Canada, on the fine line between summer and fall.
So all I wanted to do was rush out there and join all the other boats in the bay.
And I didn't really feel like waiting around for the election to be called.
But as it turned out it all worked out well.
For that also looked like my Canada.
And this was worth waiting for.
"After making it through 17 months of nothing like we've ever experienced, Canadians deserve to choose what the next 17 months, what the next 17 years & beyond, will look like," asserts Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as federal election campaign gets underway.#cdnpoli | #elxn44pic.twitter.com/knStN3mFJK
For it needed to be said. We live in a democracy and the Canadian people have the right to be consulted at such a critical time in our history.
And those who don't believe in that sacred right, are only thinking about themselves.
And are only scared that Trudeau is going to beat the shit out of them.
The bad news is that the Con media is trying to give both those losers a boost, by attacking Trudeau like rabid bats out of hell.
Bombarding him with rude and absurd questions like "Will you resign if you don't get a majority?"
It's not surprising of course. Their corporate masters are desperate to try to bring down our decent Prime Minister.
And their equally grubby stooges are too Con or too cowardly to resist.
But there is good news.
Despite the Con media's best efforts, Erin O'Toole's campaign is already falling apart.
His refusal to go along with the Liberal plan to mandate vaccinations has played straight into Trudeau's trap.
Canada on Friday said it will soon require all federal public servants and many other workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, as it looks to boost its already world-leading inoculation rate amid a Delta variant-driven surge in new infections.
By rejecting a vaccine mandate even though 80% of Canadians support them.
A spokesman for Trudeau's chief rival, Conservative leader Erin O'Toole, called vaccines the "most important tool in the fight against COVID-19," but suggested the vaccine mandate was a step too far.
Even the ugly Con stooge Robyn Urback could see the trap...
But somebody forgot to warn poor old Erin. Sad.
And to make matters worse, this can only make O'Toole look even more disgusting.
Especially since the cover of his party platform makes it clear why O'Toole's foreign advisors produced that ugly ad.
So they could try to make Trudeau look like a girly man, while portraying old jelly belly as some kind of macho man...
Can you believe that? No wonder people are laughing at him all over the country.
But if O'Toole is getting pumped up like a helium balloon, some in the Con media are also trying to pump up Jagmeet Singh, as the man who could steal Justin Trudeau's majority.
But I don't consider Singh to be a serious threat.
And when we've exposed his lies, his fraudulent claims, and his childish games...
Then Erin O'Toole came out with a statement that he would cancel all of the Child Care agreements the Federal Government has signed with the provinces.
If I am the Liberals I am pointing this out to Canadians at every opportunity. However, what I would also be doing is asking Mr. Singh about what he thinks of Mr. O'Toole's plan. If he comes out against it he will nullify any accusations of the Liberals not carrying through on their promises for the foreseeable future because he will be endorsing it. If he he equivocates to try not to do that then the Liberals can spend the election questioning the NDP's commitments to universal child care in Canada.
Mr. O'Toole gave the Liberals a stick with which to beat both of their principle opponents in English Canada I just hope that they realize that and they begin to use it.
I agree with Ottlib in that I wish the Liberals would hit harder sometimes. Sunny ways isn't enough when your opponents are feckless, Machiavellian liars. That being said, if the NDP are willing to play a game of strange bedfellows, then the Liberals can too.
“We have worked closely with Conservative premiers from across the country throughout the pandemic, including Premier Ford,” the senior Grit said.
“And we are looking to work with Premier Ford to bring $10-a-day child care for Ontario families and we believe we can get this done together,” the insider said, referring to ongoing negotiations between Ottawa and Queen’s Park.
O'Toole needs to be asked if he is willing to piss off Ford by cancelling a popular childcare deal that could prove crucial to Ford's own reelection bid. Singh, meanwhile, is long overdue to be pressed on what he would have done better to bring "the Resistance" to the table. Instead of giving him a free pass to ignore and obfuscate provincial responsibilities as he has done for two years.
I'm fed up with the media and their narrative games. They see this as their one chance to get rid of Trudeau at last. Ironically the successor to Lester Pearson was Pierre Trudeau, duh. What are they going to do if the public polls and aggregators (which are all over the place right now) are underestimating his chances as they have in two successive elections, and he does repeat his papa's trajectory?
Oh, to be a fly on the wall right now at LPC HQ and see whatever their number crunchers are seeing. Because the question should instead be asked of Singh and O'Toole, "if Justin Trudeau wins a majority government, will YOU resign?"
Is it strange that O'toole is bragging about how he would've handle the Afghanistan crisis but he did not specify which types of Afghans he would've help saved. As a matter of fact, Trudeau was able to save feminist militants and LGBTQs while O'toole generalises that this first did not save anyone and that thus the medias where focusing on the military.
Shame on the CONservatives and NDP for politicizing the situation in Afghanistan by blaming past and current Liberal governments.
Harper changed our role in Afghanistan from peacekeeping to combat to please his American masters, sacrificing 158 Canadian soldiers for nothing and was supported by the NDP in the HOC for doing so, only to abandon the country in 2011. I will never forgive CONservatives under Harper and O'Toole for doing so and will never forgive the NDP for supporting it.
According to some of the public poll trackers, it looks like the NDP liars might indeed be nipping at Trudeau's heels and conning the kids into believing magical promises that aren't there. I remember this well with Sanders vs. Biden/Hillary. Don't count out the ideologically blinded hardcore left because they are on a kamikaze mission and don't respond to facts.
I sure hope Trudeau 1) has an answer for how to crush the Dippers; 2) has a plan B for going after the Bloc if they won't go away; and/or C) that the Grits' private polls are saying something different. If Singh manages to lie his way into another minority government, I fear that Trudeau will be hounded out the door with torches and pitchforks and Canada will be a bankrupt mess.
Hi Ottlib...When I read that O'Toole had vowed to scrap the Child Care agreement, I felt I was on a time machine travelling back to the days when Stephen Harper killed a national daycare plan with the help of the NDP. Harper killed a great plan and replaced it with one that barely covered one week in a daycare establishment. And many children paid for that bestial decision by being forced to attend third-rate establishments where some even died. And of course, they did it for the same reasons O'Toole is doing it today, to satisfy his SoCon brigade who believe that women should stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. It's sickening and depressing, but it is one more reason the Cons must be defeated...
Hi Jackie....I know what you mean, and I also sometimes feel like the Liberals should be going after the Cons and the NDP harder. But Justin Trudeau has started targeting both of those parties, and one must never forget that being nice has helped him in the past. When Canadians see the Cons and the NDP going after Trudeau like rabid beasts, they are not inflamed they are disgusted. Also, Trudeau won't have to ask O'Toole and Singh whether they will resign if he wins a majority government, since I'm pretty sure that if that happens the not so dynamic duo will be given the boot by their own supporters...
Hi Myworld1916....When I see O'Toole with his pathetic military record presuming to advise anybody what to do about Afghanistan I feel like vomiting. Captain Outhouse should do us all a favour and STFU...
Hi Unknown@8:14 AM....Yes, it's a good one, and I intend to use it in my next post, tentatively titled The Many Lies Of Jagmeet Singh. O'Toole and Singh have got away with murder for so long, I can only hope that our shabby media will finally start fact checking them, as they should have been doing a long time ago....
Hi anon@9:11AM...The tragedy in Afghanistan affected me so deeply that I can hardly write about it. And seeing the Cons and the NDP trying to score cheap political points by distorting the truth is simply sickening. Women and LGBT people are in the firing line, and they need to be helped the most....
I would not worry too much about the NDP. Always remember that they have the most inefficient vote of all of the major parties. There are patches of the country where they are competitive and whenever they see a bump in their polling numbers it is usually in those areas. So those bumps rarely translate into seats.
We saw an exception in 2011 but that was because they suddenly took off in Quebec of all places. However, lost in all of the hype behind the Orange Wave was the fact that while the wave was a tsunami in Quebec it was barely a high tide in the rest of Canada.
Will that happen again? Anything is possible I guess but I would not count on it if you are an NDP supporter.
As well, Canada is blessed with having a pretty even keeled electorate. There is a reason why all of the party leaders try to portray themselves as moderate and centrist. Certainly, there are ideological purists on both ends of the spectrum but they are a small proportion of the electorate and they are often a hindrance to their respective parties instead of an asset, as Mr. O'Toole will probably find out this time.
Hi Ottlib….What worries me about the NDP is that Singh has managed to fool so many young Canadians. His smearing of Trudeau and his wild claims have not been challenged by our loser media, so many Canadians believe him, and have lost faith in Trudeau. I’m still hopeful that Singh will be exposed during the campaign, and I have seen that some in the media are finally challenging some of his claims. But unless he is closed as the charlatan he is, he can still help the Cons, and kill any chance of a majority. It’s tragic, but I hope that those of us in social media can put the pressure on him, and help younger Canadians see the real Singh…
Hi Jackie….I don’t think what happened in Nova Scotia will have any effect on the federal election. As hard as it is to believe I am told the reason Rankin lost, is because he allowed the Cons to outflank him on the left, particularly on health care. Hospitals were unable to handle even a small rise in cases, and a senior who collapsed on his driveway was forced to lie there for hours before help could get to him. The Nova Scotian PCs are a more progressive party than other provincial Cons and they have gone to a fair amount of trouble to disassociate themselves from the O’Toole gang. So the only effect I can see last night’s election result might have is making sure that more Liberals turn out to vote for the federal Liberals….
The results of the Nova Scotia election are not an omen for the Federal election. However, they are a reminder that elections are crap shoots. Of course, that will not prevent media commentators from saying otherwise for the next couple of days but they will move on from that and the results of the Nova Scotia election will be a distant memory on September 20.
This election call was analyzed every different way you could imagine and some serious data science went into it. If that analysis even hinted that there was a significant probability of the Liberals losing the election would not have been called. That does not mean they cannot be wrong but they are right more often than they are wrong.
While many are looking at the NDP and their potential roll as spoiler I would point out the rise of the PPC, at least according to the public polls. If they can maintain 4% or higher then Mr. Bernier will be in the debates. If he can actually win that percentage or even increase it to Green Party levels that is the ballgame for the Conservatives. And that is not taking into account the Maverick party which could be like the Bloc, with low national support hiding greater strength in their home region. Again, if they can garner even 5 percent of the vote in the Prairies the path to victory for the Conservatives becomes much tougher.
I would also like to point out that the party that prevented the Liberals from winning a majority in 2019 was the Bloc, not the NDP and not the Conservatives. Those 25-35 seats around core Montreal, which had been part of the Orange Wave in 2011, all went to the Bloc in 2019 with the Liberals being a very competitive second in each. The Liberal vote in those ridings is solid so if the the rise in the NDP leads to a split in the anti-Liberal vote in those ridings the Liberals will win those seats. Assuming they can hang onto the major cities and their suburbs in the Rest of Canada that would give them a comfortable majority government. A rise in the NDP vote, with its usual inefficiency, would actually help the Liberals in Quebec, which is the most probable path to a Liberal majority.
In 2004 and each succeeding election until 2015 there were clear signs that the Liberal base was soft. That is not the case for this election. It appears to be rock solid and it will probably stay that way for the next few weeks so that gives the Liberals a 30% foundation. If they add just three percentage points to that, with their vote efficiency, they win the election. Remember they won 157 seats with 33% of the vote in 2019. For every point they add on top of that their seat count increases and that is assuming the Conservatives and NDP manage to hang onto their bases, which is by no means certain.
As with all elections it will be the non-aligned late breakers who will decide the election and we will not know how they will vote until September 20. Those are the voters the national campaigns are targeting and if the Liberals can run a tight, disciplined campaign like they did in 2015 and 2019 they will put themselves in a great position to win, possibly winning big.
Then Erin O'Toole came out with a statement that he would cancel all of the Child Care agreements the Federal Government has signed with the provinces.
ReplyDeleteIf I am the Liberals I am pointing this out to Canadians at every opportunity. However, what I would also be doing is asking Mr. Singh about what he thinks of Mr. O'Toole's plan. If he comes out against it he will nullify any accusations of the Liberals not carrying through on their promises for the foreseeable future because he will be endorsing it. If he he equivocates to try not to do that then the Liberals can spend the election questioning the NDP's commitments to universal child care in Canada.
Mr. O'Toole gave the Liberals a stick with which to beat both of their principle opponents in English Canada I just hope that they realize that and they begin to use it.
I agree with Ottlib in that I wish the Liberals would hit harder sometimes. Sunny ways isn't enough when your opponents are feckless, Machiavellian liars. That being said, if the NDP are willing to play a game of strange bedfellows, then the Liberals can too.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thestar.com/politics/federal-election/2021/08/16/doug-ford-was-justin-trudeaus-punching-bag-in-2019-for-this-campaign-insiders-say-the-leaders-have-called-a-truce.html
“We have worked closely with Conservative premiers from across the country throughout the pandemic, including Premier Ford,” the senior Grit said.
“And we are looking to work with Premier Ford to bring $10-a-day child care for Ontario families and we believe we can get this done together,” the insider said, referring to ongoing negotiations between Ottawa and Queen’s Park.
O'Toole needs to be asked if he is willing to piss off Ford by cancelling a popular childcare deal that could prove crucial to Ford's own reelection bid. Singh, meanwhile, is long overdue to be pressed on what he would have done better to bring "the Resistance" to the table. Instead of giving him a free pass to ignore and obfuscate provincial responsibilities as he has done for two years.
I'm fed up with the media and their narrative games. They see this as their one chance to get rid of Trudeau at last. Ironically the successor to Lester Pearson was Pierre Trudeau, duh. What are they going to do if the public polls and aggregators (which are all over the place right now) are underestimating his chances as they have in two successive elections, and he does repeat his papa's trajectory?
Oh, to be a fly on the wall right now at LPC HQ and see whatever their number crunchers are seeing. Because the question should instead be asked of Singh and O'Toole, "if Justin Trudeau wins a majority government, will YOU resign?"
Is it strange that O'toole is bragging about how he would've handle the Afghanistan crisis but he did not specify which types of Afghans he would've help saved. As a matter of fact, Trudeau was able to save feminist militants and LGBTQs while O'toole generalises that this first did not save anyone and that thus the medias where focusing on the military.
ReplyDeleteTheo,Our National Treasure, did it again ! https://twitter.com/TheoMoudakis/status/1427601471646978055?s=20
ReplyDeleteShame on the CONservatives and NDP for politicizing the situation in Afghanistan by blaming past and current Liberal governments.
ReplyDeleteHarper changed our role in Afghanistan from peacekeeping to combat to please his American masters, sacrificing 158 Canadian soldiers for nothing and was supported by the NDP in the HOC for doing so, only to abandon the country in 2011. I will never forgive CONservatives under Harper and O'Toole for doing so and will never forgive the NDP for supporting it.
According to some of the public poll trackers, it looks like the NDP liars might indeed be nipping at Trudeau's heels and conning the kids into believing magical promises that aren't there. I remember this well with Sanders vs. Biden/Hillary. Don't count out the ideologically blinded hardcore left because they are on a kamikaze mission and don't respond to facts.
ReplyDeleteI sure hope Trudeau 1) has an answer for how to crush the Dippers; 2) has a plan B for going after the Bloc if they won't go away; and/or C) that the Grits' private polls are saying something different. If Singh manages to lie his way into another minority government, I fear that Trudeau will be hounded out the door with torches and pitchforks and Canada will be a bankrupt mess.
Dear god, I'd be content with even 171 seats.
Hi Ottlib...When I read that O'Toole had vowed to scrap the Child Care agreement, I felt I was on a time machine travelling back to the days when Stephen Harper killed a national daycare plan with the help of the NDP. Harper killed a great plan and replaced it with one that barely covered one week in a daycare establishment. And many children paid for that bestial decision by being forced to attend third-rate establishments where some even died. And of course, they did it for the same reasons O'Toole is doing it today, to satisfy his SoCon brigade who believe that women should stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. It's sickening and depressing, but it is one more reason the Cons must be defeated...
ReplyDeleteHi Jackie....I know what you mean, and I also sometimes feel like the Liberals should be going after the Cons and the NDP harder. But Justin Trudeau has started targeting both of those parties, and one must never forget that being nice has helped him in the past. When Canadians see the Cons and the NDP going after Trudeau like rabid beasts, they are not inflamed they are disgusted. Also, Trudeau won't have to ask O'Toole and Singh whether they will resign if he wins a majority government, since I'm pretty sure that if that happens the not so dynamic duo will be given the boot by their own supporters...
ReplyDeleteHi Myworld1916....When I see O'Toole with his pathetic military record presuming to advise anybody what to do about Afghanistan I feel like vomiting. Captain Outhouse should do us all a favour and STFU...
ReplyDeleteHi Unknown@8:14 AM....Yes, it's a good one, and I intend to use it in my next post, tentatively titled The Many Lies Of Jagmeet Singh. O'Toole and Singh have got away with murder for so long, I can only hope that our shabby media will finally start fact checking them, as they should have been doing a long time ago....
ReplyDeleteHi anon@9:11AM...The tragedy in Afghanistan affected me so deeply that I can hardly write about it. And seeing the Cons and the NDP trying to score cheap political points by distorting the truth is simply sickening. Women and LGBT people are in the firing line, and they need to be helped the most....
ReplyDeleteI would not worry too much about the NDP. Always remember that they have the most inefficient vote of all of the major parties. There are patches of the country where they are competitive and whenever they see a bump in their polling numbers it is usually in those areas. So those bumps rarely translate into seats.
ReplyDeleteWe saw an exception in 2011 but that was because they suddenly took off in Quebec of all places. However, lost in all of the hype behind the Orange Wave was the fact that while the wave was a tsunami in Quebec it was barely a high tide in the rest of Canada.
Will that happen again? Anything is possible I guess but I would not count on it if you are an NDP supporter.
As well, Canada is blessed with having a pretty even keeled electorate. There is a reason why all of the party leaders try to portray themselves as moderate and centrist. Certainly, there are ideological purists on both ends of the spectrum but they are a small proportion of the electorate and they are often a hindrance to their respective parties instead of an asset, as Mr. O'Toole will probably find out this time.
What is with that smile, showing his guns is one thing, but that smile makes me wonder if they could only take on shot.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: What does everyone think of whether the Nova Scotia election is an "omen" for Trudeau???? God I hope not!!!
ReplyDeleteChange is in the air and the polls aren’t catching it.
DeleteNot good news for Justin.
Hi Ottlib….What worries me about the NDP is that Singh has managed to fool so many young Canadians. His smearing of Trudeau and his wild claims have not been challenged by our loser media, so many Canadians believe him, and have lost faith in Trudeau. I’m still hopeful that Singh will be exposed during the campaign, and I have seen that some in the media are finally challenging some of his claims. But unless he is closed as the charlatan he is, he can still help the Cons, and kill any chance of a majority. It’s tragic, but I hope that those of us in social media can put the pressure on him, and help younger Canadians see the real Singh…
ReplyDeleteHi Jackie….I don’t think what happened in Nova Scotia will have any effect on the federal election. As hard as it is to believe I am told the reason Rankin lost, is because he allowed the Cons to outflank him on the left, particularly on health care. Hospitals were unable to handle even a small rise in cases, and a senior who collapsed on his driveway was forced to lie there for hours before help could get to him. The Nova Scotian PCs are a more progressive party than other provincial Cons and they have gone to a fair amount of trouble to disassociate themselves from the O’Toole gang. So the only effect I can see last night’s election result might have is making sure that more Liberals turn out to vote for the federal Liberals….
ReplyDeleteThe results of the Nova Scotia election are not an omen for the Federal election. However, they are a reminder that elections are crap shoots. Of course, that will not prevent media commentators from saying otherwise for the next couple of days but they will move on from that and the results of the Nova Scotia election will be a distant memory on September 20.
ReplyDeleteThis election call was analyzed every different way you could imagine and some serious data science went into it. If that analysis even hinted that there was a significant probability of the Liberals losing the election would not have been called. That does not mean they cannot be wrong but they are right more often than they are wrong.
While many are looking at the NDP and their potential roll as spoiler I would point out the rise of the PPC, at least according to the public polls. If they can maintain 4% or higher then Mr. Bernier will be in the debates. If he can actually win that percentage or even increase it to Green Party levels that is the ballgame for the Conservatives. And that is not taking into account the Maverick party which could be like the Bloc, with low national support hiding greater strength in their home region. Again, if they can garner even 5 percent of the vote in the Prairies the path to victory for the Conservatives becomes much tougher.
I would also like to point out that the party that prevented the Liberals from winning a majority in 2019 was the Bloc, not the NDP and not the Conservatives. Those 25-35 seats around core Montreal, which had been part of the Orange Wave in 2011, all went to the Bloc in 2019 with the Liberals being a very competitive second in each. The Liberal vote in those ridings is solid so if the the rise in the NDP leads to a split in the anti-Liberal vote in those ridings the Liberals will win those seats. Assuming they can hang onto the major cities and their suburbs in the Rest of Canada that would give them a comfortable majority government. A rise in the NDP vote, with its usual inefficiency, would actually help the Liberals in Quebec, which is the most probable path to a Liberal majority.
In 2004 and each succeeding election until 2015 there were clear signs that the Liberal base was soft. That is not the case for this election. It appears to be rock solid and it will probably stay that way for the next few weeks so that gives the Liberals a 30% foundation. If they add just three percentage points to that, with their vote efficiency, they win the election. Remember they won 157 seats with 33% of the vote in 2019. For every point they add on top of that their seat count increases and that is assuming the Conservatives and NDP manage to hang onto their bases, which is by no means certain.
As with all elections it will be the non-aligned late breakers who will decide the election and we will not know how they will vote until September 20. Those are the voters the national campaigns are targeting and if the Liberals can run a tight, disciplined campaign like they did in 2015 and 2019 they will put themselves in a great position to win, possibly winning big.