And they're off: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, left, Conservative Party of Canada Leader Erin O'Toole, centre left, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, centre, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul. (Andrej Ivanov/AFP/Getty Images, Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press, Patrick Doyle/Reuters, Patrick Doyle/Reuters, Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
https://twitter.com/DavidRaymondAm1/status/1431970520493436932
'Their hearts are not in it.' Liberals in Atlantic Canada accused of being unfocused
Published Sunday, August 29, 2021 7:29AM EDT
http://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2020/02/peter-mackay-not-happy-with-tweet.html
Tuesday, 4 February 2020
Peter MacKay 'not happy' with tweet needling Trudeau over yoga expenses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFNNtRMi5Q0&ab_channel=CBCNews
Federal Conservative Leadership Debate | Power & Politics
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-erin-otoole-prescription-drugs-1.6157010
O'Toole won't commit to keeping P.E.I. prescription drug program
Conservatives pledge to boost annual growth of federal health transfers
"Erin O'Toole is not saying whether he'll discard the prescription drug cost deal that Ottawa inked with P.E.I. earlier this summer.
At a campaign stop in Fredericton on Saturday, the Conservative leader did not commit to keeping the program, which is meant to help Islanders pay for medication.
"I...hope to be having a call sometime with [Premier Dennis King]," O'Toole said. "I've always enjoyed my interactions with him and that'll be my approach."
https://twitter.com/DavidRaymondAm1/with_replies
The Kevin J. Johnston Show PAT KING'S BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
Kevin J. Johnston and FreedomReport.ca Published August 14, 2021
28 COMMENTS
Methinks if Dougy Force is oh so clever he would have noticed that the document of Hinshaw's that they display at 1 hour 11 minutes of this video has been altered since they secured that copy. Now it claims that her investigation confirms that the questionable virus does exist in Alberta N'esy Pas?
https://open.alberta.ca/publications/cmoh-order-30-2021
CMOH order 30-2021: 2021 COVID-19 response
Summary Detailed Information
Description Record of Decision of the Chief Medical Officer, which outlines public health measures for Stage 1 of Alberta’s Open for Summer Plan.
Updated May 28, 2021
Tags Resources CMOH
order 30-2021: 2021 COVID-19 response
Downloads: 3790
From: Premier of Ontario | Premier ministre de l’Ontario <Premier@ontario.ca>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 13:57:37 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: YO Erin O’Toole Methinks before the writ is
possibly dropped today you and Trudeau The Younger should enjoy
watching ths video beginng at the 50 minute mark Nesy Pas?
To: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
Thank you for your email. Your thoughts, comments and input are greatly valued.
You can be assured that all emails and letters are carefully read,
reviewed and taken into consideration.
There may be occasions when, given the issues you have raised and the
need to address them effectively, we will forward a copy of your
correspondence to the appropriate government official. Accordingly, a
response may take several business days.
Thanks again for your email.
______
Merci pour votre courriel. Nous vous sommes très reconnaissants de
nous avoir fait part de vos idées, commentaires et observations.
Nous tenons à vous assurer que nous lisons attentivement et prenons en
considération tous les courriels et lettres que nous recevons.
Dans certains cas, nous transmettrons votre message au ministère
responsable afin que les questions soulevées puissent être traitées de
la manière la plus efficace possible. En conséquence, plusieurs jours
ouvrables pourraient s’écouler avant que nous puissions vous répondre.
Merci encore pour votre courriel.
From: "O'Toole, Erin - M.P." <Erin.OToole@parl.gc.ca>
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2021 02:19:41 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: YO Patrick King your Buddy JohnSTON is still LIEING
To: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
On behalf of the Hon. Erin O’Toole, thank you for contacting the
Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition.
Mr. O’Toole greatly values feedback and input from Canadians. We read
and review every incoming e-mail. Please note that this account
receives a high volume of e-mails. We reply to e-mails as quickly as
possible.
If you are a constituent of Mr. O’Toole’s in Durham with an urgent
matter please contact his constituency office at:
Office of Erin O’Toole, M.P.
54 King Street East, Suite 103
Bowmanville, ON L1C 1N3
Tel: (905) 697-1699 or Toll-Free (866) 436-1141
Once again, thank you for writing.
Sincerely,
Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition
------------------------------
Au nom de l’hon. Erin O’Toole, merci de communiquer avec le Bureau du
chef de l’Opposition officielle.
M. O’Toole apprécie beaucoup le point de vue et les commentaires des
Canadiens et des Canadiennes. Nous lisons tous les courriels que nous
recevons. Veuillez noter que ce compte reçoit beaucoup de courriels.
Nous y répondons le plus rapidement possible.
Si vous êtes un électeur ou une électrice de M. O’Toole dans la
circonscription de Durham et que vous avez une question urgente,
veuillez communiquer avec son bureau de circonscription, au :
Bureau d’Erin O’Toole, député
54, rue King Est, bureau 103
Bowmanville (Ontario) L1C 1N3
Tél. : (905) 697-1699 ou sans frais : (866) 436-1141
Encore une fois merci d’avoir pris le temps d’écrire.
Veuillez agréer nos salutations distinguées,
Bureau du chef de l’Opposition officielle
Canada's headed for a federal election on Sept. 20
Trudeau visited Rideau Hall this morning to ask for dissolution of Parliament
![](https://liveimages.cbc.ca/H8YHYG0T7mxUCcnCzhtT/thumbnail.jpeg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Canadians will head to the polls on Sept. 20.
Following a meeting with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau this morning, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon approved his request to dissolve Parliament, triggering the issuing of the election writs and formally beginning Canada's 44th federal election.
The campaign will last 36 days — the minimum campaign length permitted by law.
Opposition parties have argued against an early election call. Canada's next fixed-date election was set for October 2023.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh went so far as to urge Simon to refuse Trudeau's request. Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole said Monday he was concerned about holding a campaign during a fourth wave of the pandemic and accused Trudeau of pursuing an election in his own political "self-interest."
The federal Liberals continue to hold a lead in public polling, capturing 35.6 per cent of public support against 28.8 per cent for the Conservatives and 19.3 per cent for the NDP, according to CBC's Poll Tracker. That level of support puts them just in range of the 170 seats needed to form a majority government.
The Conservatives say they plan to argue that Canadians can't afford to trust the Liberals with the country's post-pandemic economic recovery.
O'Toole also wants to use the short campaign to reintroduce himself to Canadians and try to grow his party's tent with a climate plan that includes a form of carbon pricing for consumers.
-
Have an election question for CBC News? Email us: Ask@cbc.ca. Your input helps inform our coverage.
-
Find out who's ahead in the latest polls with our Poll Tracker.
The NDP, meanwhile, is hoping the work New Democrat MPs did in pushing for more generous COVID-19 aid programs will resonate with Canadians at the ballot box and carry them out of fourth place.
The NDP has also released a platform which includes universal pharmacare, a guaranteed livable income and free tuition.
The Liberals are expected to point to their record on navigating the country through a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, while campaigning on commitments for the future. The party enters the campaign after the government signed agreements with multiple provinces to bring child care costs to $10 a day within five years.
The Liberals currently hold 155 seats in the House of Commons, while the Conservatives have 119, the Bloc Québécois 32, the New Democrats 24 and the Green Party two. Five seats are held by independents.
Election comes as new cases rise
The campaign begins as new daily cases of COVID-19 continue to rise in much of the country — part of what Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, has described as the "early signs" of a delta variant-driven fourth wave.
Tam has said that, thanks to Canada's high vaccination rate, a federal election can be conducted safely by putting in place health and safety protocols.
Stéphane Perrault, Canada's chief electoral officer, called last summer for a longer campaign to give Elections Canada time to prepare health measures and logistics, though the agency says it can execute a 36-day race safely. The country's electoral agency estimated late last year that as many as five million Canadians could vote by mail in this election.
And
they're off: Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, left, Conservative Party of
Canada Leader Erin O'Toole, centre left, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh,
centre, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet and Green Party
Leader Annamie Paul. (Andrej Ivanov/AFP/Getty Images, Adrian Wyld/The
Canadian Press, Patrick Doyle/Reuters, Patrick Doyle/Reuters, Sean
Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
The election call marks the official start of campaigning in Canada's 338 electoral districts. Informally, many candidates have been at work in their ridings for weeks.
7th major campaign during COVID-19
The federal election is be the seventh major election campaign in Canada since the start of the pandemic, following races in Nova Scotia, Yukon, Newfoundland and Labrador, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and New Brunswick.
When an election is called, the federal government enters a "caretaker" mode, designed to limit most major decisions.
According to Elections Canada, the estimated cost of the 43rd federal general election is $502 million.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
---------- Original message ----------
From: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 10:57:33 -0300
Subject: YO Erin O’Toole Methinks before the writ is possibly dropped
today you and Trudeau The Younger should enjoy watching ths video
beginng at the 50 minute mark Nesy Pas?
To: Julian Assange <julian@julianassange.com>,
gordon.kromberg@usdoj.gov, wikiusticeJulianAssange@gmail.
hussain@theintercept.com, charlesglassbooks@gmail.com
Cc: "Jacques.Poitras@cbc.ca" <Jacques.Poitras@cbc.ca>, djtjr
<djtjr@trumporg.com>, washington field <washington.field@ic.fbi.gov>,
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<ministryofjustice@gov.ab.ca>, "Kaycee.Madu" <Kaycee.Madu@gov.ab.ca>,
"jcarpay@jccf.ca" <jcarpay@jccf.ca>, "freedomreport.ca"
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"blaine.higgs" <blaine.higgs@gnb.ca>, "David.Lametti@parl.gc.ca"
<David.Lametti@parl.gc.ca>, Norman Traversy <traversy.n@gmail.com>,
"pm@pm.gc.ca" <pm@pm.gc.ca>, "Ian.Shugart"
<Ian.Shugart@pco-bcp.gc.ca>, "Kevin.leahy"
<Kevin.leahy@rcmp-grc.gc.ca>, "themayor@calgary.ca"
<themayor@calgary.ca>, "mike.lokken@rcmp-grc.gc.ca"
<mike.lokken@rcmp-grc.gc.ca>, "don.iveson@edmonton.ca"
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<Bill.Blair@parl.gc.ca>, "Brenda.Lucki" <Brenda.Lucki@rcmp-grc.gc.ca>,
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<memberservices@libertarian.
https://www.bitchute.com/
On The Kevin J. Johnston Show we have guests, Logan Murphy & Valerie Keefe
Kevin J. Johnston
3900 subscribers
Tonight we will touch on a few things that came up today. Logan
discusses his visit and experiences at the capital building, his
epiphany photo book of Capital hill, which he has published. Valerie
Keefe talks about taking the leadership of the Libertarian Party of
Canada.
WATCH THE KEVIN J. JOHNSTON SHOW, Monday to Friday from 7 PM to 9 PM
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https://davidraymondamos3.
Wednesday, 11 August 2021
Election soon, or election later? For Trudeau, it's a gamble either way
https://twitter.com/
Image
David Raymond Amos
@DavidRaymondAm1
Replying to @DavidRaymondAm1 @thevivafrei and 21 others
142 MPs elected for the first time on October 19, 2015. Defeat in an
election taking place before October 19, 2021 would deprive them of
the pension. At a minimum, they could lose a retirement allowance of
just over $32,000 per year at age 65 N'esy Pas? @Puglaas
@Carolyn_Bennett
Image
David Raymond Amos
@DavidRaymondAm1
Replying to @DavidRaymondAm1 @AaronWherry and 25 others
WOW Nearly 8000 comments that CBC has not deleted thus far Methinks
Friday the 13th may go down in history as a VERY bad day for Trudeau
et al because of Omar Alghabra's major faux pas N'esy Pas?
https://davidraymondamos3.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/
Federal government to require vaccinations for all federal public
servants, air and train passengers
'We need to reach as many Canadians as we possibly can' — Transport
Minister Omar Alghabra
John Paul Tasker · CBC News · Posted: Aug 13, 2021 12:28 PM ET
---------- Original message ----------
From: "O'Toole, Erin - M.P." <Erin.OToole@parl.gc.ca>
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2021 13:26:12 +0000
Subject: Automatic reply: YO Patrick King Methnks Gemma O'Doherty is
way ahead of you and your buddy Dougy Force is lost behind the eight
ball Nesy Pas?
To: David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
On behalf of the Hon. Erin O’Toole, thank you for contacting the
Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition.
Mr. O’Toole greatly values feedback and input from Canadians. We read
and review every incoming e-mail. Please note that this account
receives a high volume of e-mails. We reply to e-mails as quickly as
possible.
If you are a constituent of Mr. O’Toole’s in Durham with an urgent
matter please contact his constituency office at:
Office of Erin O’Toole, M.P.
54 King Street East, Suite 103
Bowmanville, ON L1C 1N3
Tel: (905) 697-1699 or Toll-Free (866) 436-1141
Once again, thank you for writing.
Sincerely,
Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Au nom de l’hon. Erin O’Toole, merci de communiquer avec le Bureau du
chef de l’Opposition officielle.
M. O’Toole apprécie beaucoup le point de vue et les commentaires des
Canadiens et des Canadiennes. Nous lisons tous les courriels que nous
recevons. Veuillez noter que ce compte reçoit beaucoup de courriels.
Nous y répondons le plus rapidement possible.
Si vous êtes un électeur ou une électrice de M. O’Toole dans la
circonscription de Durham et que vous avez une question urgente,
veuillez communiquer avec son bureau de circonscription, au :
Bureau d’Erin O’Toole, député
54, rue King Est, bureau 103
Bowmanville (Ontario) L1C 1N3
Tél. : (905) 697-1699 ou sans frais : (866) 436-1141
Encore une fois merci d’avoir pris le temps d’écrire.
Veuillez agréer nos salutations distinguées,
Bureau du chef de l’Opposition officielle
On 8/15/21, David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
> https://rumble.com/vl5xc8-the-
>
> The Kevin J. Johnston Show PAT KING'S BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
> Kevin J. Johnston and FreedomReport.ca Published August 14, 2021 1,823
> Views
> 50 rumbles
>
> Rumble — PAT KING'S BIG ANNOUNCEMENT - LIVE on a very special KEVIN J.
> JOHNSTON SHOW - SAT, AUG 14 at
> 6:30
> PM #Calgary Time /
> 8:30
> PM #Toronto Time
>
> WATCH THE KEVIN J. JOHNSTON SHOW, Monday to Friday from 7 PM to 9 PM
> Calgary Time
>
> (www.Rumble.com/KevinJJohnston)
> (
> http://www.Rumble.com/
> )
> (
> http://www.Odysee.com/@
> )(
> http://www.Odysee.com/@
> )(
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> )(
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> #yyc #calgary #kevinjjohnston #noblesavages #Calgarymayorelect
> #Freekevinjjohnston DONATE TODAY! - www.KevinJJohnston.me (
> http://www.KevinJJohnston.me
> )
>
>
> 21 COMMENTS
>
>
> DavidRaymondAmos
> YO Patrick King Methnks Gemma O'Doherty is way ahead of you and your
> buddy Dougy Force is lost behind the eight ball Nesy Pas?
>
> https://www.bitchute.com/
>
> Irish Health Service Admits Covid19 Does Not Exist
>
> First published at 21:58 UTC on January 13th, 2021.
>
> GemmaODoherty
>
> https://ourtube.co.uk/watch/
>
> Government in Ireland Forced to Admit Covid-19 Does Not Exist
> 59791 Views
> otview
> 01 Aug 2021
>
> Gemma O'Doherty is an Investigative Journalist in Ireland. This Irish
> Investigation into Covid shows that The Department of health refuse to
> confirm existence of a “virus” in writing. Confirmation that the virus
> was never isolated. On top of this, the CDC in July revealed that
> there is no Covid-19 in a document titled "CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus
> (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic panel", dated July 13, 2020.
> On Page 39 of this document titled "Performance Characteristics", we
> see written "Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are
> currently available..." So... What are they testing for? Because it's
> not the virus... That hasn't been proved to exist... What is being
> tested for is RNA that is PRESUMED to come from the virus... Which
> hasn't been proven to exist...
>
> So, what are people dying of? Well... The same thing they die of every
> year!
>
> UPDATE:
> As part of our legal action we had been demanding the evidence that
> this virus actually exists [as well as] evidence that lock downs
> actually have any impact on the spread of viruses; that face-masks are
> safe, and do deter the spread of viruses - They don’t. No such studies
> exist; that social distancing is based in science - It isn't. it's
> made up; that contact tracing has any bearing on the spread of a virus
> - of course it doesn't. This organization here - is making it up as
> they go along." - Gemma O'Doherty
>
>
> DavidRaymondAmos
> Methinks if Dougy Force is oh so clever he would have noticed that the
> document of Hinshaw's that they display at 1 hour 11 minutes of this
> video has been altered since they secured that copy. Now it claims
> that her investigation confirms that the questionable virus does exist
> in Alberta N'esy Pas?
>
> https://open.alberta.ca/
>
> CMOH order 30-2021: 2021 COVID-19 response
>
> Summary
> Detailed Information
>
> Description
>
> Record of Decision of the Chief Medical Officer, which outlines public
> health measures for Stage 1 of Alberta’s Open for Summer Plan.
> Updated
>
> May 28, 2021
> Tags
> Resources
>
> CMOH order 30-2021: 2021 COVID-19 response
>
> Downloads: 3790
>
> On 8/13/21, David Amos <david.raymond.amos333@gmail.
>> https://www.facebook.com/
>>
>> Derek Storie is live now.
>> 17m ·
>> Laurence Smith
>> ? What are you going to do about 5G
>>
>> · Reply
>> · 10m
>>
>> David Raymond Amos
>> The cops have not called me yet
>>
>> · Reply
>> · 2m
>>
>> David Raymond Amos
>> Produce the DM in which you claimed I threatened you
>>
>
Large crowd marches in Montreal to protest against Quebec's vaccination passport
Passports will be implemented across the province as of Sept. 1
A large group of people gathered in downtown Montreal on Saturday to protest against Quebec's vaccination passport, just a few weeks before the system is expected to be in place.
The crowd, which stretched at least four to five blocks on René-Lévesque Boulevard West, began marching toward Place des Festivals at 2 p.m. ET, with people chanting "No to vaccine passports," in French.
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé confirmed earlier this week that a vaccination passport system will be implemented as of Sept. 1 in an effort to combat a growing COVID-19 caseload and what he described as an "inevitable" fourth wave.
Details about the vaccination passport are still being worked out, but it is expected to only allow those who are fully vaccinated access to festivals, bars, restaurants and physical training facilities.
Limits on other venues and activities will be contingent on further spread of the delta variant, which is gaining a foothold in the province, Dubé said.
People chanted 'No to vaccine passports,' in French during a
large gathering on Saturday in downtown Montreal. (Xavier
Savard-Fournier/Radio-Canada)
According to the Facebook page of Québec Debout, the online group behind Saturday's protest whose name means "Quebec Stand Up," the vaccination passport system is "an unprecedented prejudice for the population that is strongly discriminatory."
CBC News approached several protesters on Saturday, most of whom declined to be interviewed. Those who were willing to speak were shouted down by the crowd and decided not to.
Montreal police are on scene and are monitoring the situation closely, according to a spokesperson for the Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). The protest is scheduled to end at 6 p.m. ET.
More than 10,000 people have indicated online they would participate in the protest. Police wouldn't say how many people were at the protest.
Critics call for public debate, but Legault opposed
Civil liberties groups have raised concerns about data security, and opposition parties have called for a public debate regarding the rollout of vaccination passports.
Quebec Premier François Legault, however, is refusing to hold a debate in the legislature on vaccine passports partly because he said he fears Quebecers would be exposed to conspiracy theories.
More than a hundred people protested Thursday in front of La Cage, a sports bar and restaurant in Quebec City — the first business to test the vaccination passport system as part of the province's pilot project.
"People are allowed to express their concerns and to protest," said Marjorie Larouche, a spokesperson from Quebec's Health Department, adding that the protests are troubling to see.
Dubé said on Friday more people have signed up to get their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine since Legault announced plans for a vaccination passport last week.
Dubé said in a tweet that a steadily increasing number of people got their first doses for a total of 26,000 between Tuesday and Thursday.
As of Friday, the vast majority of new infections in Canadians have been among the unvaccinated, even though they make up an increasingly smaller segment of the population. Of the 11 COVID-19 patients that were in intensive care in Montreal and Laval as of Friday, none were fully vaccinated.
Mutation of virus a key concern, virologist says
Benoit Barbeau, a virologist in the department of biological sciences at the Université du Québec à Montréal, said getting the maximum number of people vaccinated is the only way to stop the spread and mutation of the virus.
"It's obvious that you need to have this vaccine coverage so that at least, first of all, the goal will be to minimize the impact on the health of individuals who are infected, especially the older people... but also to minimize or to reduce the likelihood of transmission," he said.
Barbeau said one of his biggest fears is that the virus will evolve and mutate within the unvaccinated population and reach a point where even those who are vaccinated could be affected by new and more highly transmissible variants.
"The more it's transmitted, the more it infects people, the more it changes," he said. "That's the way it mutates."
Dr.
Donald Vinh says reaching 85 per cent of fully vaccinated eligible
Quebecers is critical to prevent further spread of the delta variant in
upcoming weeks. (Submitted by Sandra Sciangula)
Dr Donald Vinh, an infectious diseases expert at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, said incentivizing people to get the jab is one way to reach maximal vaccine coverage.
"The vaccine passport helps to achieve a much higher level of vaccination in the city and in the province," he said. "And what that does in turn is that it protects the people and then that allows a return to more normalcy while preserving our health-care system's capacity."
Vihn said it's both doable and necessary for Quebec to have 85 per cent of its eligible population fully vaccinated in order to prevent further spread of the delta variant in upcoming weeks.
According to the Friday's update from the Quebec government, 85 per cent of the province's eligible population has received a first dose of vaccine — slightly higher than the Canada-wide average of 82 per cent of eligible people vaccinated — and 73 per cent have received both.
With files from Sarah Leavitt and The Canadian Press
COVID-19 vaccine mandates are coming — whether Canadians want them or not
'Patchwork' system of vaccine mandates emerging in Canada as 4th wave takes off
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/193/659/VACCINE-THIRD-DOSES-ADHOPIA-130821.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Canadian and American health officials suggest third doses for most vulnerable
This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
Like it or not, COVID-19 vaccine mandates are coming to Canada.
Whether they're government-ordered for certain jobs and activities, or implemented in a piecemeal way by the private sector, Canadians can expect to see more aspects of society require proof of vaccination in the weeks and months ahead.
And with a fourth wave underway in much of the country ahead of schools restarting and borders reopening to some fully vaccinated travellers next month, experts say now is the time to put vaccine mandates in place before another potential surge.
Michelle
Quick, 33, gets her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine
at a one-day pop-up clinic in the Eaton Centre shopping mall in Toronto
on July 27. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
"They're coming — one way or the other," said Raywat Deonandan, a global health epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa.
"Do you want to do it while we are calm in the water? Or do you want to do it when the storm is raging around us?"
Pedestrians
in Toronto carry and don masks on Aug. 12. Health officials are citing
rising COVID-19 case counts as a sign Ontario is in a fourth wave of
infection. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Provinces 'choosing their own adventure'
Instead of a co-ordinated approach across the country, a patchwork system of vaccine certification is emerging throughout Canada as some provinces outright oppose the concept while others fully embrace it.
Quebec took the bold first step of announcing this week that vaccine passports for non-essential services, like bars, restaurants, gyms and festivals, would be mandated on Sept. 1 in an effort to avoid reintroducing lockdown measures.
British Columbia announced Thursday that anyone working in long-term care and assisted-living facilities in the province will be required to be vaccinated by Oct. 12, and Manitoba has launched a new proof-of-immunization mobile app for fully vaccinated residents.
But Alberta has repeatedly said it will not bring in vaccine passports and Premier Jason Kenney has outright dismissed the notion of mandatory vaccinations, even amending the province's Public Health Act to remove a 100-year-old power allowing the government to force people to be vaccinated.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford also firmly rejected the possibility of vaccine passports last month, even for health-care workers, saying the province is "not going to have a split society."
The federal government made its position known Friday ahead of an election call, announcing it will soon require all public servants to be vaccinated, as well as passengers on commercial planes, cruise ships and interprovincial trains in Canada.
But while Ottawa has taken a hard line on vaccine mandates and committed to creating proof-of-vaccination documentation for international travel by early fall, it stopped short of implementing a domestic vaccine passport system across Canada.
"Unfortunately, the provincial and territorial scene is likely to remain a patchwork for ideological reasons," said Dr. David Naylor, who led the federal inquiry into Canada's response to the 2003 SARS epidemic and now co-chairs the federal government's COVID-19 immunity task force.
"And I don't think the federal government can force vaccine certificates on subnational jurisdictions."
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/525/267/vaccine-passport-ottawa-boudjikanian-110821.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Ottawa working out details of vaccine passport
Naylor says he hopes the federal government can work with provinces and territories to adapt the newly announced vaccine document for international travel into a national vaccine passport for use in all provinces and territories in the future.
"The provinces would probably wave that idea off," he said. "But in a rational universe, we'd have one standardized Canadian document for domestic and international use."
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases physician and member of Ontario's COVID-19 vaccine task force, says it's become clear that Canada will not take a national approach to vaccine certification because the federal government doesn't have the authority to direct provinces and territories to come on board.
"We're going to have vastly different strategies, with Alberta at one end of the spectrum, and Quebec at the other end of the spectrum — and probably many provinces in between," he said.
"But from a policy standpoint, it's clear that the provinces are choosing their own adventure."
Instead
of a co-ordinated approach across the country, a patchwork system of
vaccine certification is emerging throughout Canada as each province and
territory takes its own path. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Mandating vaccines 'not the be all and end all'
The question remains as to how effective vaccine mandates will be in controlling the spread of COVID-19 among the unvaccinated during the fourth wave, and whether testing is sufficient enough to keep community transmission low.
"You can definitely see how mixing vaccinated and unvaccinated people in high-risk environments could ripple out into unvaccinated populations — particularly ones that are high risk," said Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton and an associate professor at McMaster University.
"It makes sense if you get to a certain community incidence, where the odds of someone walking into that place with COVID-19 are starting to get higher and higher by the day, it could start a chain effect."
Chagla says Quebec's approach of only mandating vaccines for non-essential services prevents ostracizing those who aren't vaccinated — due to choice, eligibility or accessibility — while encouraging more people to get vaccinated so they can engage in more activities.
He doesn't think vaccine passports are the "be all and end all" in the push to get people vaccinated. "But it certainly is a downstream effect that you do bring people on board and … make them minimize the risk even more going forward," he said.
"The verification of vaccines is going to be really important, especially as we're struggling with this in the next little while — maybe the next six months — where we're going to see a little bit of discomfort with more transmission."
People
walk by a COVID-19 vaccination sign in Montreal on Aug. 8. Quebec
became the first province in Canada this week to introduce a
wide-ranging vaccine passport system, to begin on Sept. 1. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious diseases physician and immunologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, says that while she's fully in favour of vaccine passports, there are other options for keeping Canadians safe in high-risk settings for COVID-19 transmission.
"We want to protect public places and people attending them by not having infectious folks around. You can do that with double vaccine — or by showing a negative test for the minority not vaccinated for various reasons," she said.
"It's obviously better on a personal front to be vaccinated, but it preserves some choice while people are getting there."
Barrett says while she prefers vaccination for controlling COVID-19 levels, she hates the idea of exclusion until all other options have been exhausted; she points to the ample supply of rapid antigen tests in Canada to help bridge the gap.
Bogoch agrees that while vaccine mandates are an effective strategy at increasing our vaccination levels across the country, unvaccinated Canadians are a diverse population with many different reasons for foregoing a shot — and that needs to be approached with care.
"Some people still have remaining questions and issues and anxiety that hasn't been addressed. We obviously have to take those questions and issues and anxieties seriously, and address that in an empathetic manner," he said.
"I think it's also fair to say that some people regardless of what we say — regardless of science, reason, logic — some people are just never going to get vaccinated."
'Window of opportunity' to prevent brutal 4th wave
Canada has emerged as one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, with more than 60 per cent of the Canadian population fully vaccinated after a relatively slow start to the rollout.
But with 40 per cent of the population with lower protection from COVID-19, with only one shot or none at all, there are still millions of susceptible Canadians — especially in the face of the more contagious and potentially more deadly delta variant.
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/720/162/covid-unvaccinated-cda-adhopia-090821.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Unvaccinated adults driving COVID-19 case increase in Canada
"Given the fact that we're about to open everything up, it seems likely that those 40 per cent are going to get infected at some point, which means that we're going to have a lot of stress on our society," Deonandan said.
"There's a window of opportunity to prevent a lot of societal suffering and frankly, the selling point should be to businesses — do you want to stay open? Do you want your employees to have jobs? This is what we do to make sure that happens, because we see a storm coming."
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Liberal, NDP candidates must be fully vaccinated to run for election
Conservative, Green, Bloc Québécois recommend but don't require shots for their candidates
The Liberals and NDP are telling their candidates running in the coming federal election that they must be fully vaccinated as Canada enters a fourth wave of the pandemic.
Both parties are in the midst of verifying that all nominated candidates and those in the nomination pipeline now have received two doses of vaccines approved by Health Canada. Anyone who isn't vaccinated won't be allowed to run under the Liberal or New Democrat banners.
"We have been confirming vaccination status with our team of candidates across Canada," wrote Liberal party spokesperson Braeden Caley in a statement to CBC News. "The health and safety of Canadians is always our top priority, and adherence to all COVID-19 public health guidance is taken extremely seriously."
The NDP said all of its current MPs have already received two doses and is telling candidates to wear masks while door-knocking and at community events. The Bloc Québécois said all of its candidates are already fully vaccinated so it doesn't need to make it a requirement and is now encouraging staff and supporters to do the same.
The Conservatives and the Greens, meanwhile, said they're encouraging their candidates to get vaccinated — but are not making it mandatory.
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"While we respect Canadians' right to keep their personal health information private, Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole publicly announced that he received his vaccine in April, and has encouraged Canadians, as well as candidates, to get vaccinated as soon as possible," wrote Conservative Party spokesperson Cory Hann in a statement.
CBC News has reported that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is planning to visit Rideau Hall on Sunday to ask that Parliament be dissolved, triggering a federal election on Sept. 20.
WATCH | Federal election expected on Sept. 20:
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Just days before the election call, the government announced it will soon require all public servants to be vaccinated. All commercial air, train or cruise ship passengers must also be fully vaccinated before travelling.
The Conservatives argued Friday that while vaccines are "the most important tool to fight against COVID-19," it "supports Canadians' right to determine their own health choices."
Conservative MP David Yurdiga, who represents Fort McMurray, Alta. in the Commons, recently called the idea of mandatory vaccination "tyrannical" and suggested the Liberals would be "using severe government overreach for political gain."
The People's Party of Canada said it will not be requiring or encouraging candidates to get vaccinated. Party Leader Maxime Bernier has tweeted his party is "not 'pro-vax' or 'anti-vax.'"
"It's not our business, it's a personal decision," wrote People's Party of Canada spokesperson Martin Masse in a statement. "We believe in freedom of choice, personal autonomy and informed consent on such matters."
While the Conservatives are not requiring that their candidates be vaccinated, they are making it mandatory for all staff and media travelling with O'Toole to be fully vaccinated. It's a move in line with what all other major parties are requiring.
The party is also requiring that journalists travelling with the leader provide proof of double vaccination and stating that regular COVID-19 screenings and rapid tests might be required daily, according to a media registration form.
The Bloc Quebecois said its campaign bus is considered a place of work and it has installed plastic barriers between seats, according to its media registration form. Passengers must also be seated two metres sideways from one another, according to the form.
"If the Trudeau government confirms its ill-advised decision to call an election in the midst of the resurgence of the pandemic, we can ensure that we will follow the health measures in place such as wearing masks or physical distancing for all of our activities," wrote the Bloc's campaign president Yves Perron in French in a statement.
The NDP is planning, when possible, to hold events outdoors and, when indoors, collect the names and contact details of everyone there for contact tracing, according to George Soule, the NDP's campaign communications director. The party is also considering having its team wear masks both inside and outside at events along with on bus, planes or public transport, said Soule.
The Green Party said it also will have protocols in place for pandemic campaigning, according to a statement.
Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said Thursday that all organizations need to follow local health protocols during the election campaign in order to hold an election safely. There are more than 13,000 active COVID-19 cases across the country, mostly among the unvaccinated. She called on all workers, campaigners and voters to get fully vaccinated, hold gatherings outdoors and wash their hands.
Elections Canada has been preparing for an election call and plans to lease larger spaces for this election — places like hotel ballrooms, hockey rinks and vacant retail spaces. The agency is also planning to have fewer poll workers interacting with voters, to ensure those workers have personal protective equipment and that plexiglass shields are added between voters and workers. Elections Canada said it has also made the process for applying online to vote by mail easier.
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Federal government to require vaccinations for all federal public servants, air and train passengers
'We need to reach as many Canadians as we possibly can' — Transport Minister Omar Alghabra
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced today that the federal government will soon require that all public servants be vaccinated — a mandate that he said will also be implemented by Crown corporations and other federally regulated businesses in the coming weeks.
While Canada's vaccination rate is among the highest in the world — 81 per cent of all eligible Canadians have had at least one dose — Alghabra said the country "must do better."
"We need to reach as many Canadians as we possibly can," he said.
After a blitz in April and May, the number of new first doses being administered daily has been stuck at well under 100,000 since mid-June.
There are still more than 5.7 million people over the age of 12 who have chosen to forgo a shot altogether, or to wait for a later date. The number of unvaccinated Canadians is roughly equivalent to everyone living in the Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton metropolitan areas combined.
Starting as soon as next month, the vaccine will be made mandatory for federal employees and those working in some federally regulated industries (airlines and railways, among others) in an effort to boost stalled vaccination rates.
The government says it also "expects" that other employers in federally regulated sectors — like banking, broadcasting and telecommunication — will require vaccination for their employees. "The government will work with these employers to ensure this result," the government said in a statement announcing the new mandate.
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra: "Vaccine requirements ...
will hasten Canada's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic." (Adrian
Wyld/The Canadian Press)
There are more than 300,000 federal public servants and tens of thousands more people are working in industries that fall under the federal labour code.
Alghabra said the government will work expeditiously with public service unions and employers to get the mandate in place "by the end of October" at the latest.
This is not a recommendation. Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said that all public servants and some employees in federally regulated sectors must comply with the vaccine mandate or risk losing their jobs.
"This is a mandatory requirement to go to work in a federal workplace or work in the government of Canada," he said.
"Obviously, there will be certain individuals for medical reasons that will not be able to be vaccinated and the appropriate officials will work with them to ensure that the appropriate measures are in place."
WATCH: Unvaccinated adults driving COVID-19 case increase in Canada
Unvaccinated adults driving COVID-19 case increase in Canada
Beyond the mandatory vaccination requirement for federal employees, Alghabra said, a similar mandate will be extended to "certain travellers."
Starting soon, all commercial air travellers and passengers on interprovincial trains and large marine vessels with overnight accommodations (such as cruise ships) will have to be vaccinated, Alghabra said. He said accommodations will be made for "those few who are unable to be vaccinated," such as testing and screening.
"Vaccine requirements in the transportation sector will help protect the safety of employees, their families, passengers, their communities and all Canadians. And more broadly, it will hasten Canada's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic," he said.
Asked when these measures for travellers would take effect, Alghabra said the government is developing "a measured and practical approach to requiring vaccines in these sectors as quickly as possible."
With a fourth wave of new infections poised to hit Canada in the coming weeks, experts say boosting vaccine coverage will protect the country's health care system from again being overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients.
To date, the vast majority of new infections have been among the unvaccinated, even though they make up an increasingly smaller segment of the population.
There have been a number of "breakthrough" cases among the fully vaccinated but early data suggest those with two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are much less likely to require hospitalization or die from the virus.
Proponents of mandatory shots maintain it's the best way to develop herd immunity, protect the collective health of Canadians and rid the country of a very serious disease. Almost universal vaccine coverage has eradicated other diseases, such as polio and tetanus.
Critics, meanwhile, say that requiring vaccines is a heavy-handed approach that could lead to discrimination against the unvaccinated.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole said vaccines are "the most important tool in the fight against COVID-19" and the party encourages "every Canadian who is able to get one."
But when asked about the federal mandate, the spokesperson said that "Conservatives support Canadians' right to determine their own health choices."
Before the new requirements were announced Friday, Conservative MP David Yurdiga, who represents Fort McMurray, Alta. in the Commons, said a government plan to make vaccination mandatory for federal bureaucrats was "another example of the Liberals using severe government overreach for political gain."
Yurdiga said forcing these workers to get a vaccine is a "tyrannical" idea that should give all Canadians pause.
David Yurdiga, Conservative MP for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. (David Thurton/ CBC)D
"Canadians deserve the right to liberty, whether they choose to be vaccinated or not. Mandating the vaccine as a requirement to work would be the beginning of a slippery slope," Yurdiga said.
The MP said such a policy would punish Canadians for "what they choose to do with their bodies."
While there's certain to be resistance from some circles, at least one federal public service union said Friday it's open to the mandate.
Debi Daviau is president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents 60,000 bureaucrats across the country. She said in a media statement that the union "welcomes all efforts to increase vaccination coverage in Canada."
"That includes a vaccine policy in the federal government that makes vaccines more accessible to our members and accommodates legitimate reasons for which an employee may not be vaccinated."
Mark Porter, executive vice-president of people and culture at WestJet, said the airline would be "working diligently to implement the government's policy on mandatory vaccines for airline employees."
"Vaccinations are the most effective way to ensure the safety of our guests and employees, while curbing the spread of COVID-19," he said, promising to work with employees who may have questions about the new requirement.
Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, said requiring vaccines for some workers is "absolutely the right thing to do.
"These measures should be implemented as soon as possible" so that Canada can avoid further pandemic-related economic disruption, he said.
"We must do better if we hope to avert a significant fourth wave. Canadians and Canadian businesses cannot endure any more lockdowns."
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/three-liberal-mps-not-reoffering-1.6134329
3 Liberal MPs say they will not run in the next federal election
Adam Vaughan was first elected in 2014, Karen McCrimmon and Will Amos in 2015
McCrimmon has served as parliamentary secretary to several ministers since her election in Kanata—Carleton in 2015, and is the chair of the parliamentary committee on national defence.
First elected in a 2014 byelection in the now defunct riding of Trinity—Spadina, Vaughan currently represents Spadina—Fort York and serves as parliamentary secretary to the minister of families, children and social development.
Will Amos has represented the Quebec riding of Pontiac since 2015. He was parliamentary secretary to the minister of innovation, science and industry from 2019 until earlier this year, when he stepped down after two incidents during hybrid sessions of the House of Commons, one in which he was caught on camera naked and another in which he said he "urinated without realizing (he) was on camera."
After the second incident, Amos said he would step away from his parliamentary duties and seek assistance.
Pontiac Liberal MP Will Amos responds to a question on Parliament Hill Dec. 11, 2020. (Patrick Doyle/Canadian Press)
Amos said in a statement Sunday he was "not closing the door to politics" but that now was not the right time to run for re-election.
"Politics is a beautiful and tough profession. But it is not the only means by which progressive, transformative change can be achieved to move our society forward," he wrote.
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Amos won convincing victories in 2015 and 2019 in a riding that is often considered a bellwether in Canadian politics.
Amos's statement came a short time after Karen McCrimmon tweeted her own announcement that she would not reoffer.
She said on Twitter she was facing health challenges and would not be running again, calling the news "disappointing." She added that the timing was "undeniably difficult" but noted that she "was not in any way pushed to make this decision."
"It is a painful realization that I cannot continue to serve you in the manner you so rightfully deserve and to the standard that I have always striven to achieve," she wrote.
McCrimmon kept her suburban Ottawa riding solidly red over the past two elections, in an area that was largely Conservative territory prior to redistribution of seats in 2012. She also participated in the Liberals' 2013 leadership race.
The news of Amos, McCrimmon and Vaughan's withdrawals come ahead of a widely anticipated election call later this summer. They join nine other Liberal MPs who have already announced they will not be running again.
'I've done as much as I think I can do': Vaughan
CBC News reported earlier Sunday Vaughan would not be running in his downtown Toronto riding.
"First and foremost it's a family decision," he said in an interview. Vaughan also said that turning 60 this year made him reflect on the stresses of life as a parliamentarian.
"It's not a job you can do at half-speed. When I looked at the term ahead and the work that is still to be done, I thought, 'I've done as much as I think I can do.'"
Liberal
Karen McCrimmon speaks to supporters and volunteers after her
re-election in Kanata—Carleton on Oct. 21, 2019. McCrimmon announced
Sunday she would not run in the next federal election. (Matthew Kupfer/CBC)
"As my mother once told me, when you feel like you've run out of steam and out of fire, it's time to get out of the way and let someone else with the passion to be on the floor of Parliament or the office that you hold, to let them take that spot," Vaughan said.
He said he had notified Prime Minister Justin Trudeau several months ago that he would not be seeking re-election.
The Liberal MP first won a seat in Parliament in 2014 after a byelection in the downtown Toronto riding of Trinity—Spadina, which was scrubbed from the electoral map after redistribution.
He has represented Spadina—Fort York since 2015, when he defeated NDP candidate Olivia Chow by a comfortable margin. He easily held the seat in 2019.
Vaughan says he won't run for office elsewhere
Vaughan also ruled out running for office at any other level of government, including for mayor of Toronto when that city holds its municipal elections next year.
"I think I'll leave it to the city to choose its next generation of leaders, and if I can support them I will," he said.
"But the idea of running for another term of office in another level of government is not in the cards. It's time for a new chapter."
Vaughan celebrates his byelection win in the Trinity—Spadina riding in June 2014. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press)
Vaughan said he was looking forward to revisiting, in some capacity, old projects he had envisioned during his years as a Toronto city councillor from 2006-14, such as the revitalization of city parks and other spaces.
He also said he had a "wicked" collection of cartoons that he'd never published. Vaughan was a cartoonist before working as a journalist for various outlets including the CBC.
Reflections on 7 years in Parliament
Vaughan said he was proud of the work he and the government had done around affordable housing and poverty reduction.
He also reflected on his years as an MP, saying there was too much of a partisan atmosphere in the House that got in the way of good policy.
"And this is coming from someone who's had as much fun as anybody heckling," he said, while emphasizing an equal focus on policymaking.
"Politics works better when it's collaborative and when we meet together on common ground, instead of always looking for the battleground."
Vaughan said he was looking forward to seeing what a new generation of politicians would be able to do in federal politics, pointing to work done by ministers Ahmed Hussen, Maryam Monsef, Karina Gould and fellow MP Marci Ien.
The MP said he would continue to make government announcements focused on housing as part of his role as parliamentary secretary.
"There is still work to do."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/retiring-mps-leaving-interesting-races-behind-1.6124619
Some MPs are leaving interesting races behind them as they move into retirement
NDP MP Jack Harris, Liberal Wayne Easter and Conservative Peter Kent are serving their final terms
Nine Liberal MPs have said they will not be running again. The Conservatives are losing seven incumbents to retirement, three NDP MPs are bowing out and the Bloc is losing two. Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould announced a month ago she won't be running again.
Some of these ridings are considered safe seats for their incumbents' parties. Others promise tight races between two or more parties.
"When a prominent long-time incumbent has held a seat and then retires, a party would have a little bit of natural nervousness because they would always look at that seat as a lock," said Conservative strategist Tim Powers.
Case in point: the Newfoundland riding of St. John's East, currently held by the NDP's Jack Harris.
Harris won three of the last four races in that riding; he lost by a margin of just 1.4 per cent in 2015 before coming back to win in 2019 by 13.7 per cent.
The seat was the first to see a Liberal nomination contest for the coming election. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited St. John's the week of July 26 — part of what a Liberal official told CBC News was an effort to shore up support in the area.
Anne McGrath, the NDP's national director, said the party regrets losing a strong candidate and colleague like Harris.
"It is a loss for sure. But it also opens up opportunities for other folks who have been active in their community or active in the party to step up and to potentially become candidates," she said. "You have to fight hard for every inch of support for every riding.'
Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau and Newfoundland Premier Andrew Furey in St.
John's, N.L., the week of July 26 to announce a child care agreement. (The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan)
Another competitive seat losing its incumbent is Ottawa Centre, where cabinet minister Catherine McKenna has announced she will not be running again. While she won the seat by a comfortable margin of 19.6 per cent in 2019, she squeaked by on a 4.1 per cent margin in 2015.
McGrath said that, with no incumbent and with the NDP representing the area at the provincial level, the party likes its chances in Ottawa Centre.
Ottawa Centre has a history of flipping between the two parties. The Liberals held the seat from 1988 to 2003; the NDP had it from 2004 to 2015.
"If somebody has been an MP for two or three terms and they do well and they get resoundingly supported, you've gotten used to putting that in your win column," Powers said. "So when you make a change and that MP steps down, then there's a little bit of uncertainty about it."
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The New Brunswick riding of Miramichi—Grand Lake and the Quebec riding of Trois-Rivières are two more districts that promise tight races.
The Liberals won Miramichi—Grand Lake by a margin of just 1.1 per cent of the vote in 2019, a steep decline from its 13 per cent margin in 2015. The riding has been held by the Conservatives (2008 to 2015) and the Liberals (1993 to 2008 and from 2015 on).
The 2019 election saw a very tight race in Miramichi—Grand Lake between the Liberals and the Conservatives, who split the vote there with 36.6 per cent and 35.7 per cent, respectively. The Greens came a distant third at 11.3 per cent. Liberal MP Pat Finnigan's coming retirement puts a question mark over this riding.
Pat Finnigan, MP in Miramichi-Grand Lake, narrowly won his riding in 2019. (CBC)
Trois-Rivières is currently held by the Bloc Québécois; it won the riding back from the NDP in 2019 by a margin of just 2.4 per cent over the second-place Liberal candidate. It's also shaping up to be a close three-way race. The NDP won the riding from the Bloc in 2011 and barely held it in 2015 by a margin of just 1.6 per cent.
The riding has been held in the past by both the Conservatives and the Liberals. In 2019, the race was a three-way contest between the Bloc (with 28.5 per cent of the vote), the Liberals (26.1 per cent) and the Conservatives (25.2 per cent).
Another interesting three-way race could take place in B.C.'s Vancouver Granville riding, now that Wilson-Raybould has announced she plans to retire.
Wilson-Raybould won the seat as a Liberal in 2015 by a margin of 17.1 per cent. After Trudeau removed her from caucus in 2019, she ran as an Independent and took the riding again by a much tighter 6 per cent margin.
The 2015 election also saw strong performances in Vancouver Granville from the NDP (26.6 per cent of the vote) and the Conservatives (26.1 per cent of the vote).
Not every retiring MP is leaving a battle behind.
Halifax West — currently held by former Speaker and Liberal MP Geoff Regan — and Moose Jaw Lake Centre Lanigan, currently held by the Conservatives' Tom Lukiwski, are shaping to deliver much the same results they did in years past after their incumbents retire with the coming election.
The retirement of Liberal MP Wayne Easter may have created an opening for the Green Party's Anna Keenan. (Laura Meader/CBC)
Regan has served uninterrupted as the MP for Halifax West since 2000. He won the seat in 2019 by a margin of 30.2 per cent, down from his margin of 53 per cent in 2015. Moose Jaw Lake Centre Lanigan has remained in Conservative hands since its creation in 2015; Lukiwski won it by a 54.1 per cent margin in 2019.
Liberal and Conservative party officials say they don't expect those ridings to change hands this time. And while it's likely that the P.E.I. riding of Malpeque — a riding represented by Liberal MP Wayne Easter that's been in the Liberal column since 1988 — will stay Liberal this year, it's not a certainty.
In 2019, Easter won the riding with a margin of 14.9 per cent, taking 41.4 per cent of the vote to the Greens' 26.5 per cent and the Conservatives' 25.6 per cent. With Green Party Leader Annamie Paul now engaging in open conflict with party brass, the Greens' poll numbers have sagged and it's not clear where disgruntled Green supporters in the riding might send their votes.
"Historically, it probably has a better chance of being a Liberal seat than not, given Prince Edward Island's, not unlike Newfoundland and Labrador's, more established tendency to vote Liberal," said Powers, adding that "... an individual candidate's personality can also be an important factor in influencing outcomes, particularly in Atlantic Canada."
Powers said that the Greens are well established in P.E.I. now, having formed the Official Opposition in the province's legislature, and the Greens' troubles at the national level might not affect their prospects in P.E.I.
Anna Keenan, the Green candidate in Malpeque, said Easter's departure changes things on the ground in the riding.
"It was quite exciting for a lot of Green supporters when they heard that Wayne was not going to be running again," Keenan told CBC News. "My response is a little bit more cautious. I think this definitely makes the race more exciting and higher stakes, but it doesn't make our work easier."
The current list of retiring MPs:
Liberal
Larry Bagnell — Yukon
Navdeep Bains — Mississauga Malton
Bob Bratina — Hamilton East Stoney Creek
Wayne Easter — Malpeque
Pat Finnigan — Miramichi-Grand Lake
Paul Lefebvre — Sudbury
Geoff Regan — Halifax West
Catherine McKenna — Ottawa Centre
Kate Young — London West
Conservative
Peter Kent — Thornhill
Tom Lukiwski — Moose Jaw Lake Centre Lanigan
Phil McColeman — Brantford-Brant
Cathy McLeod — Kamloops Thompson Cariboo
Bruce Stanton — Simcoe North
David Sweet — Flamborough Glanbrook
Diane Finley — Haldimand Norfolk [has already stepped down]
Bloc Québécois
Louise Charbonneau — Trois Rivières
Simon Marcil — Mirabel
NDP
Scott Duvall — Hamilton Mountain
Jack Harris — St. John's East
Mumilaaq Qaqqaq — Nunavut
Independent
Jody Wilson-Raybould — Vancouver Granville
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jwr-won-t-run-next-election-1.6094409
Jody Wilson-Raybould won't run in next election, denounces 'toxic' environment in Parliament
Wilson-Raybould kicked out of the Liberal caucus in 2018 during the SNC-Lavalin scandal
Independent MP and former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould says she won't run in the next federal election.
Wilson-Raybould announced Thursday that she decided not to put her name forward for re-election, in part, because she is dismayed by the state of Canadian politics. She said that Parliament is focused on partisanship rather than achieving positive change for Canadians.
"From my seat over the last six years, I have noticed a change in Parliament, a regression," Wilson-Raybould said in a letter posted online.
"It has become more and more toxic and ineffective while simultaneously marginalizing individuals from certain backgrounds. Federal politics is, in my view, increasingly a disgraceful triumph of harmful partisanship over substantive action."
In her letter, Wilson-Raybould said she can contribute more to progress on the issues important to her — reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, social justice and the fight against climate change — outside of the House of Commons.
"With others, I fought for change from outside of federal politics for 25-plus years, and I fought for change within federal politics for the past six years. Both inside and outside of government, I know the fight continues," she wrote.
The SNC-Lavalin affair
A former B.C. Crown prosecutor and regional chief in B.C., Wilson-Raybould was first elected as a Liberal to represent the Vancouver Granville riding in 2015. She became Canada's first Indigenous justice minister but resigned from cabinet and was subsequently ousted from the Liberal Party during the SNC-Lavalin affair.
At the centre of the controversy were claims that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his office attempted to bully Wilson-Raybould into offering a deferred prosecution agreement to the Quebec engineering firm that would have shielded it from prosecution on corruption charges. Wilson-Raybould refused to grant the agreement and was demoted to the Veterans Affairs ministry before she resigned.
The allegations of political interference prompted a parliamentary inquiry that eventually led to the departure of Wilson-Raybould and her close friend Jane Philpott from cabinet, the resignation of one of the prime minister's key aides and opposition calls for Trudeau to step down.
The ethics commissioner subsequently ruled that Trudeau violated the Conflict of Interest Act by trying to influence Wilson-Raybould in the matter.
LISTEN: Jody Wilson-Raybould interview on CBC Radio's The Early Edition
Following the scandal, Wilson-Raybould was re-elected as an Independent MP in the 2019 federal election. Since then, she has been outspoken about her experiences as a minister and as an MP.
She has said she plans to publish a political memoir that will shed new light on her controversial final days in the Trudeau government. That book could come out in the middle of an election campaign widely expected to take place in September of this year.
Wilson-Raybould says Parliament needs reform
Wilson-Raybould's letter includes a blistering critique of how Parliament functions. She argues that partisanship needs to be reduced and structural changes must be made to the electoral system to allow the country to tackle major challenges, such as the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The privileges we give political parties. The out-of-date norms of our first-past-the-post electoral system. The lack of inclusiveness. The power of the prime minister and the centralization of power in the hands of those who are unelected. The erosion of governing principles and conventions to the point where there are limited or no consequences for wrongful acts undertaken for political benefit," she wrote.
"Canadians need to lead our leaders."
Independent
Members of Parliament Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould speak to
journalists in the Foyer of the House of Commons in Ottawa on Wednesday
April 3, 2019, one day after being removed from the Liberal caucus. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
While Wilson-Raybould hasn't said what she plans to do after leaving politics, she told CBC Radio's The Early Edition that she will continue to push for democratic reform.
"We need to be constantly vigilant and look at how we are functioning as a democracy in Canada in order to ... address the major issues that are facing us," Wilson-Raybould told host Stephen Quinn.
"That's what I'm going to continue to do and find ways to build consensus and continue to bring people together."
MPs react with sadness
News of Wilson-Raybould's decision was met by expressions of regret from other members of Parliament.
NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq — who herself has decided not to run again — said Canadians should reflect on what Wilson-Raybould went through before making this decision.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner shared a 10-minute video on Facebook in which she held up Wilson-Raybould's criticism of Parliament as proof of the dysfunction afflicting federal politics in Canada.
"I'm a little emotional because it's rare to come across someone like that in Parliament. And I really appreciate her friendship and her kinship. I really think that our Parliament will be a less vibrant place," Rempel Garner said.
Kamloops Conservative MP Cathy McLeod said she has never experienced the kind of toxicity in Parliament that Wilson-Raybould claimed.
"Parliament has always been a rough and tumble place," McLeod told Shelley Joyce, the host of CBC's Daybreak Kamloops, on Friday.
"If you look in terms of what has happened to a number of the female Liberal MPs, you do have to question that [whether the parliament is toxic] … but I think the Conservative Party and the leadership that I've been under has been very respectful of … myself."
Tap the link below to hear Cathy McLeod's interview on Daybreak Kamloops
Recently, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett apologized publicly to Wilson-Raybould after suggesting that her expressions of concern over what she called Trudeau's "selfish jockeying for an election" was a ploy to secure a generous MP pension.
MPs become eligible for pensions after being in office for six years, a date which lands on Oct. 19 for those MPs first elected in 2015.
An early election call, which many expect could come in mid-August, would mean Wilson-Raybould would not qualify for the pension.
With files from The Canadian Press
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bennett-jody-wilson-raybould-racist-1.6078596
Bennett issues public apology after Jody Wilson-Raybould accuses her of sending 'racist' private message
Bennett suggested Wilson-Raybould's recent Indigenous activism was ploy to secure MP pension
The federal cabinet minister responsible for Crown-Indigenous relations apologized publicly to an Indigenous MP today after suggesting Jody Wilson-Raybould's concern over residential schools and Indigenous rights was really a ploy to secure a generous MP pension.
"Earlier I offered my apologies directly to the MP for Vancouver-Granville. I let interpersonal dynamics get the better of me and sent an insensitive and inappropriate comment, which I deeply regret and shouldn't have done," Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Carolyn Bennett said in a social media post.
Former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, the Independent MP for Vancouver Granville, famously resigned from the Liberal cabinet and was later removed from the party by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Earlier today, Wilson-Raybould took to Twitter to call out Trudeau over what she called his "selfish jockeying for an election" and to demand he deliver on his 2018 promise to deliver transformative Indigenous rights legislation.
Bennett apologized after Wilson-Raybould posted an image of a private message she received from Bennett citing her tweet. The message consisted of a single word: "Pension"
Wilson-Raybould described the message as "racist & misogynist." She said it reflects the "notion that Indigenous peoples are lazy" and suggests that "a strong Indigenous woman is a bad" Indigenous woman.
According to the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, MPs have to contribute to the plan for at least six years before they can claim a pension.
Indigenous Services Marc Miller said Bennett's message was "unacceptable" and attributed the exchange to "interpersonal issues" between the former colleagues.
WATCH: Indigenous Services Marc Miller discusses the exchange between Carolyn Bennett and Jody Wilson-Raybould on CBC's Power & Politics
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/157/391/CLIP_MILLER_BENNETT_TWITTER_frame_2320.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Miller says Bennett should be judged by her actions throughout her career
Wilson-Raybould was one of 142 MPs elected for the first time on October 19, 2015. For those MPs, defeat in an election taking place before October 19, 2021 would deprive them of the pension.
At a minimum, they could lose a retirement allowance of just over $32,000 per year starting at age 65. This amount is indexed and becomes more generous based on the number of additional years of service.
The annual base salary for MPs is $185,800. Ministers and parliamentary secretaries receive more generous salaries and allowances.
According to a count by Radio-Canada, more than half of the Liberal caucus — 92 MPs, including 23 ministers — could lose access to the pension in an early election.
FYI Wherry and I also agree about something else
https://davidraymondamos3.blogspot.com/2021/08/election-soon-or-election-later-for.html
On the Consequences of Sharing Classified Material with the House of Commons
If you can’t keep secrets, no one will share them with you.
On July 5, 2019, two microbiologists at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg were escorted off the premises. Their security clearances were subsequently removed. Although the precise reasons for the dismissals have not been made public, recent media reports state that the allegation is that intellectual property was transferred to China. Opposition parties assert that the dismissals of employees with established ties to China demonstrated that the government had failed to act soon enough to protect Canada from Chinese espionage.
Because the Opposition has a voting majority in the House of Commons and its committees, the dispute has generated a political collision with potentially destructive consequences for Canada’s national security and intelligence system.
On December 10, 2019, the House of Commons approved a motion establishing a Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, and the committee subsequently held hearings on the dismissals. To pursue its inquiries, the committee passed orders on March 21 and May 10, 2021, calling for unredacted copies of all documents related to the case to be deposited with the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. Under the order the Law Clerk would advise the committee at an in camera meeting of any information in the documents that “might reasonably be expected to compromise national security or reveal details of an ongoing criminal investigation.” The committee subsequently reported to the House of Commons that the documents produced had been redacted by the government, contrary to the order.
On June 1, 2021, an opposition motion was passed in the House of Commons ordering that the documents be produced without redactions. As with the original committee order, the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel would be authorized to redact them for national security reasons. However, the motion specified that the committee, after hearing the reasons for redactions from the Law Clerk, could still decide to make redacted information public.
On June 4, the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) wrote to the Law Clerk stating that he was unable to release the documents without appropriate guarantees that information could be redacted for national security and privacy reasons.
In response to a question of privilege on the failure to produce the documents as requested, the Speaker ruled on June 16, 2021, that the government could not limit the right of the House of Commons to call for documents to be produced. He further ruled that the House was entitled to specify the conditions under which documents must be produced, including insisting on unredacted documents. Failure to comply with an order constituted a breach of the privileges of the House.
Having maintained that he was unable to give unredacted documents to the House of Commons, the president of the PHAC was publicly censured at the bar of the House of Commons on June 21. Two days later, the government referred the dispute over the production of documents to the Federal Court of Canada.
It is the government’s response to Parliament’s right to call for the production of documents that is at the core of the dispute and the case now before the Federal Court. Does parliamentary privilege, and the supremacy of Parliament, mean that the government must produce any documents ordered by the House of Commons, without any ability to withhold or redact any document for any reason? Are privilege and parliamentary supremacy absolutely unqualified, or are they limited by the Crown prerogative, laws passed by Parliament itself and the government’s knowledge that releasing documents would cause real harm, in this case to national security? (Crown prerogative was defined by constitutional authority A. V. Dicey as the “residue of discretionary or arbitrary authority, which at any time is left in the hands of the Crown.” This definition was cited in the 2018 annual report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians [NSICOP]).
The Federal Court will have to consider how these long-standing, complex and possibly contradictory principles are reconciled in a system in which a prime minister and his government must have the confidence of the House of Commons, but the House does not actually run the government.
The Federal Court may also comment on whether the government and the Opposition have made reasonable attempts to find a workable compromise.
What are the implications for the conduct of government, in particular a minority government, if the House of Commons can call for any document without exception? Who is responsible for the consequences of the unrestricted release of sensitive information?
In this instance, we don’t know the nature or the origin of the intelligence material the government is withholding, but the House of Commons is asserting an absolute right, not one limited to the current situation, or even to security intelligence.
For Canadian government intelligence and security organizations, the ability to safeguard sensitive information is fundamental. If security and intelligence branches of government cannot control the distribution and release of classified information, they cannot function.
Nor is the government absolutely denying the right of the House to be informed about the matter. It released the material to NSICOP. Parliamentary members of the committee have security clearances. The staff could advise the committee on what information needed to be protected, and any report could have sensitive information removed from the version made public. A report could be written to respond to opposition concerns without disclosing classified information.
The assertion of parliamentary supremacy therefore means that the House of Commons claims an absolute right to receive highly classified documents without any right by the government to review and protect classified documents.
The Opposition rejected this solution because NSICOP is a committee of parliamentarians, rather than a committee of the House of Commons. This is true — the device of a “committee of parliamentarians” under the executive is the means of giving members of Parliament (MPs) and Senators on the committee access to Top Secret information. Objection was also made to the provision in NSICOP enabling legislation that the prime minister can veto a report. This provision is really a guarantee to the executive that it can ensure that sensitive classified information is not included in the public version of an NSICOP report. NSICOP is supported by an expert professional staff able to negotiate with the government on the wording of reports. (A full explanation of the legislation was prepared by the Parliamentary Library, which comments on the sections relating to ministerial discretion and the prime minister’s discretion. Section 21(5) of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act specifies that the prime minister, after consultation with the NSICOP chair, may require that a revised version of a report be prepared if the original version compromises national security.)
The second offer made by the current government was to use the process the Conservatives proposed when they were in government. In the minority government of 2010, the Opposition, then led by the Liberals, demanded, through a motion approved by the House of Commons, the release of information on the detention by Canadian troops of Afghan captives. The Speaker at the time ruled that the government had to comply, the key precedent in the present case. The Conservative government and the Liberal-led opposition agreed that the release of material would be reviewed by a group of MPs and a panel of arbiters, who were retired judges. In the present case, the Conservative opposition refused this compromise.
The assertion of parliamentary supremacy therefore means that the House of Commons claims an absolute right to receive highly classified documents without any right by the government to review and protect classified documents. Under the terms of the motion, the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, without the benefit of advice from security experts, would redact the documents and explain to the committee what had been removed. The committee could still decide to release the redacted material. All this would take place without the committee necessarily being informed that some information could not be released without the permission of the originating country, might endanger a person providing information to Canada or would disclose to a foreign country, possibly China, that Canada had access to sensitive information. In some intelligence documents the origin of information is clear. In other cases, reports draw on sources that are not identified. For access to information requests, if the sourcing behind a statement is not specified, it has to be painstakingly traced so that sensitive intelligence is not released.
What would be the predictable consequences if the House of Commons had the unqualified right to receive unredacted but highly classified documents?
The answer is not complicated. Canada’s access to classified intelligence would completely disappear. We would move instantly from being a country with privileged access to very sensitive intelligence because of our membership in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) to one with no intelligence allies, and very little capacity to recruit intelligence assets on our own. If you can’t keep secrets, no one will share them with you.
Canada, its allies and its opponents all take similar, extraordinary steps to protect their intelligence assets. The whole point of having intelligence is to give yourself an advantage that your opponents either do not know you have or have not been able to eliminate.
Members of the Five Eyes alliance must adhere to common standards. These include compatible procedures for security clearances, secure premises, encrypted communications, protection of cyber assets, prevention of electronic leakage from computers and printers, and even blockage of window vibrations that can be picked up by sensitive microphones. There are standards for office safes, telephone “scramblers,” use of electronic devices, and the length of time materials can be stored before being shredded. Even within secure premises, which are protected by special passes and monitored by security staff, security patrols make sure employees have securely locked up all classified documents at the end of the day.
Beyond physical and personnel security measures, there are standard rules. Intelligence is “user-controlled,” which means non-standard distribution must be approved by the originating agency or country. Recruiting an “intelligence asset” — a spy — requires extraordinary measures to keep the person safe from detection. Having a Top Secret clearance does not mean that anyone with that clearance can see anything. Information is restricted by the principle of “need to know.” It is easier to protect information if it is not accessed by people who don’t need to see it.
Intelligence material is usually at least Top Secret, and there are classifications beyond that level that further restrict the distribution.
When sensitive material is circulated within government at a lower classification, it is not usually redacted, as it would be in the public release of a document. Instead, material is “sanitized.” Documents are rewritten to provide useful information, but the source and the collection method are obscured. Sanitization facilitates wider distribution of the information to more potential users.
In assessing the possible release of documents, experts must be aware of current operations that could be compromised. Countries that share intelligence with Canada only do so with the guarantee that our procedures for protecting their information are as rigorous as their own. After Halifax naval officer Jeffrey Delisle was arrested in 2012 for selling secrets to the Russian intelligence service, Canada was warned that its security procedures needed to meet standards, or else. Counter-intelligence experts study any material available from hostile powers to see if they can analyze how it was obtained and to cut off the source. If the source is found to be a person, the consequences could be imprisonment or death. If analysis reveals that encrypted messages are being read, then the encryption cipher will be changed, and the intelligence source will disappear.
Even a solution that would see parliamentarians have temporary access to the documents in dispute would be problematic. Parliamentarians do not need a security clearance to run for election.
It would not be difficult to give the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel a clearance to match the highest level of the material that needs redaction. It would be infinitely more difficult to sensitize that person to all the considerations that go into circulating sensitive documents. If the Law Clerk had no assistance from an expert from the intelligence community, there might be no way to tell if information was from a Canadian source, from an ally and subject to control by the originating agency, sensitive because of the source or the collection method used, or related to an ongoing security or criminal investigation.
The advent of NSICOP was an important advance in making the intelligence and security community accountable to parliamentarians. Parliamentarians may be given access to Top Secret materials provided they obtain a security clearance and observe the same security standards as public servants who have access to the information. Sensitive material is included in reports that go to authorized recipients but is removed from the versions available to the public. So far, the system has worked well, giving parliamentarians a substantive review function on the performance of Canada’s security and intelligence machinery. All of our Five Eyes allies have some combination of procedures to provide classified information to legislators — security clearances, in camera meetings, qualified staff, limits on what can be made public, or a special status for an intelligence and security committee.
The catch for opposition parties is that it is not possible to have both access to classified material and total freedom to exploit a security controversy in public. Unfortunately for partisan politics, the choice is between knowing everything you need to know to improve Canada’s intelligence and security machinery, or having only publicly available knowledge but complete freedom to mount a partisan attack.
There may be a middle ground, with the government releasing sanitized or rewritten versions of important documents. The potential for this solution is limited by the degree of trust that the Opposition would need to have in the government’s good faith, and the very large number of documents that might require processing. NSICOP could report on the current controversy without disclosing sensitive information. However, NSICOP is not controlled by an opposition majority, and the leader of the Opposition announced on June 17 that he was withdrawing his party’s MPs from the committee. The leader of the Opposition has also stated that NSICOP cannot investigate an ongoing operation, but this only applies if the responsible minister believes the committee review would damage national security. Since the government sent the documents to NSICOP, it does not appear to be invoking this provision.
The 2010 panel of arbiters appears to have worked well but was also rejected by the Opposition.
Even a solution that would see parliamentarians have temporary access to the documents in dispute would be problematic. Parliamentarians do not need a security clearance to run for election. Most have limited knowledge about how intelligence is protected or why. They do not have storage facilities or cleared employees. Hostile powers would immediately see parliamentarians as ideal targets — people with access to sensitive information and little experience in protecting it.
To return to the critical question, what would happen if the House of Commons obtained the absolute right of access to classified material that it demands?
Our allies would immediately cut off our access to intelligence so that their own operations would not be compromised. We might remain as a member of the Five Eyes, but our membership would be meaningless.
Canadian officials trying to recruit intelligence assets would be rebuffed.
Such an outcome would have immediate consequences for senior officials trying to understand our options in dealing with important foreign policy actors, whose motives and plans we could only speculate about. Our military would be starved of the information it needs to defend Canada from hostile powers. Understanding the capability and intent of potential opponents is central to defence planning. People within Canada knowledgeable about developing threats of terrorism or right-wing extremism would not talk to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Ironically, since the theme of the opposition attack is Canada’s inadequate response to Chinese intelligence operations, we would go blind on that subject as well.
One thing we can be sure of: our allies will be following this court case closely, as will those who threaten the security of Canadians.
The opinions expressed in this article/multimedia are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIGI or its Board of Directors.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-election-call-pandemic-1.6136567
Election soon, or election later? For Trudeau, it's a gamble either way
An early election poses political risks for the Liberals. So would waiting.
Justin Trudeau seems to be the leader who thinks so right now. There's at least some chance he'd end up regretting the decision to trigger an early election. But there's an equal (perhaps even greater) chance that he'd regret passing up the opportunity.
It is a feature — not a bug — of the parliamentary system that an election can occur at almost any time, either because the prime minister has requested the dissolution of Parliament or because the House of Commons has withdrawn its confidence in the government. In Canada, even the threat of an election call can be a tool both for accountability and for conflict resolution.
But that means the exact timing of an election is a political choice.
According to the letter of the Constitution Act of 1867, the House can sit for as long as five years between elections. There might be general agreement now (perhaps because of our exposure to American presidential elections) that a vote should occur at least every four years. But even by that standard, most federal elections of the past 25 years have come "early."
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien with then-finance minister Paul Martin in 2002. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)
In 1997, Jean Chrétien called an election after 43 months in office. It was at the time the shortest turnaround for a majority government since 1911. Three years later, Chrétien went even earlier. The opposition parties accused Chrétien of being vain, arrogant and cynical. The Liberals returned to power with a majority both times.
After succeeding Chrétien as prime minister, Paul Martin decided to go early too by calling a vote for June 2004. Martin's government was reduced to a minority and the opposition parties voted to defeat it in November 2005.
Fixed, but not in stone
When Stephen Harper became prime minister with a minority government, he passed legislation that said elections should be held on fixed dates every four years — but the law didn't actually prevent a prime minister from going to the governor general and asking for Parliament to be dissolved. And that's what Harper did when he decided he wanted an election in 2008.
The opposition parties criticized Harper's "broken promise." The Conservatives gained 16 seats.
Two and a half years later, the opposition parties chose the timing of the election when they found the Harper minority government in contempt of Parliament. Harper complained the election was "unnecessary." The Conservatives were returned with a majority.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper waves to the crowd after
winning a majority government on election night in 2011. (Jonathan
Hayward/The Canadian Press)
With that majority in hand, Harper decided to honour his fixed-date election law in 2015. But after amending elections regulations to allow for more spending by parties over a longer campaign period, Harper had Parliament dissolved in August 2015 for an election in October, setting up the longest writ period in modern Canada history.
In theory, that gave the well-financed Conservative party an advantage and significantly curtailed the ability of outside groups to advertise ahead of the vote. But the Liberals won a majority.
Finally, in 2019, the country experienced a relatively unremarkable election call — the vote was held according to Harper's fixed-date law and the campaign lasted six weeks.
The timing is now a campaign issue
A little less than two years later, with the Liberals doing reasonably well in the polls, Trudeau seems set to call for a new vote. The Conservatives and New Democrats are already arguing that a vote now would be both unnecessary and — in light of the pandemic — reckless.
- Have an election question for CBC News? Email us: Ask@cbc.ca. Your input helps inform our coverage.
A pandemic hasn't stopped several provinces from holding elections, some of them earlier than necessary (NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh should be familiar with the contest in British Columbia). And it's fair to wonder whether the opposition parties would feel differently about the necessity of an election right now if they — and not the Liberals — were leading in the polls.
NDP
Leader Jagmeet Singh visits the Parkdale Public Market with Angella
MacEwen, left, NDP candidate for Ottawa Centre, in Ottawa on Thursday,
Aug. 5, 2021. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
But at some point, Trudeau would have to actually explain why an election is a good use of anyone's time right now. After some grumbling in the spring about the opposition parties tying up business in the House, Trudeau mostly stopped publicly entertaining the idea of an election this summer.
However unpleasant Parliament was in June, it's not obvious that Trudeau couldn't try again in September; the NDP is now loudly insisting that it is "ready to work."
So the prime minister might need to point to something more than opposition intransigence — which, presumably, would be his first task after he finished having tea with the governor general.
Singh has gone so far as to suggest that Gov. Gen. Mary Simon should refuse Trudeau's request to dissolve Parliament. This far removed from the last election, such a move would be unprecedented and arguably undemocratic.
Indeed, the handy thing about calling an election is that voters are immediately granted an opportunity to pass direct judgment on that decision.
Ontario
Premier David Peterson (right), NDP Leader Bob Rae and Conservative
Leader Mike Harris (left) stand together prior to a leaders debate in
Toronto in August, 1990. (Hans Deryk/Canadian Press)
It's at this point in any professional analysis of election timing that we're obliged to remember the example of former Ontario premier David Peterson. Peterson had a massive majority and was just three years removed from the previous vote when he called an early election in the summer of 1990. He was promptly thrown out of office.
Elections are always choices about the future. Peterson's story is a reminder that the public's tolerance for early elections can't be taken for granted.
But there's another event in Canadian political history that teaches a different lesson. Justin Trudeau is probably familiar with it already.
Ontario Premier David Peterson (right), NDP Leader Bob Rae and Conservative Leader Mike Harris (left) stand together prior to a leaders debate in Toronto in August, 1990. (Hans Deryk/Canadian Press)
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau gives a speech on election
night Oct. 30, 1972. He lost his majority that year. (Peter
Bregg/Canadian Press)
In 1977, Pierre Trudeau had a majority government but was facing pressure from advisers to call an election just three years after the previous vote. Trudeau had been in office for nearly a decade, but the arrival of a separatist government in Quebec seemed to give new purpose to the prime minister. Support for the Liberals was up, the economy was doing well and Joe Clark's Progressive Conservatives were struggling.
Trudeau considered triggering an election, but ultimately decided to wait.
"It was Trudeau's worst political decision," the historian John English wrote in Just Watch Me, the second part of his two-volume biography of Trudeau.
Trudeau also resisted pressure to call an election in 1978. By the time he did call an election, in the spring of 1979, the economy and the public mood had soured. The Progressive Conservatives won a plurality of seats and Pierre Trudeau lost power.
If not for a remarkable and unlikely comeback — and a legacy-defining final term in office — that would have been the end of the elder Trudeau's political career.
Maybe the younger Trudeau wouldn't suffer for waiting now. But sooner or later there has to be an election. And since the Liberals don't have a majority, Trudeau isn't the only person who could trigger an election between now and 2023.
Going for an early election is always something of a gamble. But not going now would be a gamble of a different kind — one that assumes the political climate for the federal Liberals won't be less favourable months from now.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wilson-raybould-to-publish-memoir-1.5944350
Jody Wilson-Raybould set to publish memoir of her time in cabinet and SNC-Lavalin affair
Former Liberal cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould is set to publish a political memoir that's promising to shed new light on her controversial final days in the Trudeau government.
HarperCollins Canada says it has acquired the rights to the former Liberal justice minister's book, titled "'Indian' in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power."
The publisher says the memoir will detail why Wilson-Raybould got into federal politics, her experience as an Indigenous leader at the cabinet table and how she moved forward after the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Wilson-Raybould's three years in cabinet came to an end in early 2019 after a clash over how a potential criminal case against SNC-Lavalin should be handled.
That head-butting exploded into a political scandal for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, ultimately leading to Wilson-Raybould's resignation as a minister. She now sits as an Independent.
Her political memoir, set for release in October, is her second book.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jody-wilson-raybould-newsmaker-1.5400649
Jody Wilson-Raybould is Canadian Press newsmaker of the year for 2019
Former justice minister was the choice of news editors across the country
The former justice minister was the runaway choice of news editors across the country surveyed by The Canadian Press.
Prime Minister Trudeau, whose Liberal government was reduced to a minority in the Oct. 21 election, polled a distant second.
"Jody Wilson-Raybould made us think about governance and fairness and loyalty and how all of those things play out every day behind the scenes on Parliament Hill," said Toronto Star senior editor Janet Hurley.
"She lifted the curtain and let us see inside and, as the election results ultimately revealed, not everyone liked what they saw. Some called her courageous; others were less kind — but in the face of all that she created a national dialogue unmatched this year."
This time last year, Sun News editor-in-chief Mark Towhey said, "The number of Canadians who could tell you who Jody Wilson-Raybould was would fit in a mid-size restaurant.
"In 2019, she became a household name at the centre of the biggest political story of the year."
Trudeau, Butts, Wernick say they did nothing wrong
It began with an anonymously sourced story in the Globe and Mail in early February, alleging that Trudeau and his staff had inappropriately pressured Wilson-Raybould to stop a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal engineering giant facing corruption charges related to contracts in Libya.
It suggested Trudeau's demotion of Wilson-Raybould, Canada's first Indigenous justice minister, to Veterans Affairs in a mid-January cabinet shuffle was punishment for her refusal to override the director of public prosecutions, who had declined to negotiate a remediation agreement — a kind of plea bargain in corporate-corruption cases — for SNC-Lavalin.
The controversy quickly spiralled out of control for the government.
Within a week, Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet. Less than a week after that, Trudeau's long-time friend and most trusted political adviser, Gerald Butts, resigned as the prime minister's principal secretary.
The controversy dragged on for months and would eventually trigger the early resignation of the top public servant, Michael Wernick, and prompt senior minister Jane Philpott to resign from cabinet in solidarity with Wilson-Raybould.
In almost four hours of explosive testimony before the Commons justice committee, Wilson-Raybould detailed what she described as relentless pressure to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case from Trudeau, senior staff in the Prime Minister's Office and Finance Minister Bill Morneau and his aides. She accused Wernick of issuing veiled threats, on behalf of Trudeau, that her refusal to comply could cost her her job as justice minister and attorney general.
She would later reveal that she had secretly recorded a phone conversation with Wernick — a revelation that proved to be the last straw for her former Liberal colleagues. At the behest of Liberal MPs, Trudeau booted both Wilson-Raybould and Philpott from the governing party's caucus and informed them they would not be allowed to seek re-election under the Liberal banner.
Independent
Members of Parliament Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould make their
way to speak with the media before Question Period in the Foyer of the
House of Commons in Ottawa, Wednesday April 3, 2019. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
Trudeau, Butts, Wernick and others maintained they'd done nothing wrong, that their conduct was entirely within the law and motivated solely by the desire to protect the thousands of innocent employees, shareholders, pensioners and others who could be hurt if SNC-Lavalin were to be convicted criminally and forced to scale back its Canadian operations or relocate to another country.
Although she felt it was inappropriate to pressure the attorney general, who is supposed to be independent and above partisan considerations, Wilson-Raybould herself said she didn't think anyone had done anything illegal.
But for opposition parties, just months away from an election, it was the gift that kept on giving. The Conservatives asked the RCMP to investigate possible obstruction of justice. The NDP demanded a full public inquiry.
Hit to Trudeau's feminist credibility
In August, a month before the start of the campaign and just as Liberal poll numbers had begun to recover somewhat from the downward plunge precipitated by the SNC affair, federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion issued a scathing report that concluded Trudeau violated federal ethics law by improperly pressuring Wilson-Raybould.
Gerald
Butts, former principal secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,
prepares to appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human
Rights regarding the SNC Lavalin Affair, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on
Wednesday, March 6, 2019. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)
Both Wilson-Raybould and Philpott ran for re-election as Independent candidates. Philpott lost but Wilson-Raybould defied the odds and handily won her Vancouver Granville riding.
Just this month, she was in the news again for refusing to move out of the offices on Parliament Hill assigned to her when she was a minister.
Some news editors surveyed saw Wilson-Raybould as an inspiring example — "a beacon of hope" who spoke "truth to power" and left Trudeau's feminist credentials in tatters.
"She chose principle over politics and will not be soon forgotten for staying true to her convictions, regardless of the consequences," said Danny Kingsbury, national format director for Rogers Media.
Others took a more nuanced view.
"The Wilson-Raybould saga laid bare for many Canadians the sort of wheeling and dealing that goes on inside governments — a necessary evil if you buy the prime minister's arguments, a corruption of the justice system if you accept her viewpoint," said Christina Spencer, editorial page editor at the Ottawa Citizen.
Either way, the scope of the story and its repercussions left little doubt among news editors that the woman at the centre of it was this year's dominant newsmaker. She may well continue to influence events as the SNC-Lavalin case makes its way through the judicial system and Wilson-Raybould's successor as justice minister, David Lametti, grapples with whether to order a remediation agreement.
As Spencer put it: "It involved Quebec, jobs, justice, a woman, an Indigenous cabinet minister, two senior officials who had to leave their jobs — and the issues that loom ahead have yet to be resolved."
Now she is @cibcVice Chair of Global Investment Banking Nesy Pas? @RobMoore_CP
https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/and-now-the-alternative-reality-government/
And now, the alternative-reality government
Paul Wells: Two formidable former politicians, Anne McLellan and Lisa Raitt, are hosting an economic summit that says a lot about the state of Canadian politics today
Anne McLellan attends a news conference in Ottawa on Dec. 13, 2016 (Adrian Wyld/CP)
At last, a policy conference. On Thursday word spread that Anne McLellan and Lisa Raitt, respectively the Liberal and Conservative prime ministers who got away, will be co-chairs of an October summit in Ottawa to champion Canada’s long-term growth.
It’s rather an ambitious thing. McLellan and Raitt are the heads, or the front, of the Coalition for a Better Future, which seeks “a more inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous Canada” but worries that “if we if we do not act now… Canadians’ long-term standard of living is at risk.”
“Too often the focus of economic discussions is only on the problems, not on the opportunities and solutions,” McLellan says in the news release. “We want to have a different kind of discussion… a national conversation about what actions we can take to ensure that future generations can continue to enjoy the quality of life and standard of living that has made Canada the envy of the world.”
Who’s joining the two former ministers in this enterprise? Basically everybody, is who. The coalition/summit’s advisory council is a veritable Hy’s Who of Laurentian elites, including Yaprak Baltacioglu, a retired deputy minister under Liberal and Conservative governments who could reasonably have been Clerk of the Privy Council; Paul Desmarais III of the Yes, That Desmarais Family; Suncor CEO Mark Little; the heads of the best-connected think tanks in Ottawa, Ed Greenspon of the Public Policy Forum and Anna Gainey of Canada 2020; Carolyn Wilkins, who could reasonably have been governor of the Bank of Canada; and Hassan Yussuff, the former Canadian Labour Congress head who just got elevated to the Senate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The broader coalition reads approximately like the list of sponsored tables at a Politics and the Pen dinner: the Asia-Pacific Foundation, the Business Councils of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba, the Canadian Meat Council, the Canadian Red Cross, the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, Smart Prosperity and the associations representing Canada’s colleges, universities and the smaller association representing the 15 largest research universities. If you worry that someone’s been left off the list, it’s likelier that they’re on the list and I simply left them off this summary.
I have questions.
I think it’s never a bad idea for smart and experienced people to discuss the economy. This should happen more often, not less. Everyone I know on this list is impressively experienced and full of goodwill. In the present case, however, I’m struck by the confluence of three things:
• apocalyptic language (“standard of living is at risk”);
• a bunch of people yearning for a government that would do what the current incumbent government never stops claiming to do (“inclusive, sustainable and prosperous Canada”);
• and the fact that most of these people have a long history of working closely with the current government and, in many cases, its predecessor.
I mean, I promise you that Perrin Beatty, Eddie Greenspon, Mark Little and the Montreal Chamber of Commerce can get calls returned from the PMO quicker than I can. On a more formal note, every business group in this coalition has a long history of submitting written briefs, and often testifying, in the House Finance Committee’s annual pre-budget consultations. So do most of the associations. As for the think tanks, most of the ones on this list can routinely get four cabinet ministers to show up for each of their conferences. Anna Gainey, newly arrived at Canada 2020, is after all a recent past Liberal Party of Canada president who remains on excellent terms with Team Trudeau.
So it’s not immediately clear what these groups hope to accomplish together that they haven’t been accomplishing singly for years.
Each will have their own reasons, and in any coalition with 60 member organizations and a 14-member advisory council, not all will agree with the theory I’m about to advance. But here goes. I think this event and the coalition that’s sprung up around it respond to a yearning. A sense that, whatever it is that preoccupies the Trudeau government or would preoccupy any currently imaginable Conservative alternative, it isn’t long-term prosperity or a smoothly-functioning economy.
Not to put too fine a point on things, the last several years have been disillusioning for people who think a government should worry about Canada’s long-term standard of living and do effective, coherent things to preserve it. We’re heading into an election campaign, so I should emphasize that this isn’t meant as a particularly partisan dig, and that it’s hard to be encouraged by the alternative on offer. The events of the past year in particular have rattled a lot of people who work at the intersection of business and politics. The Trudeau government fired its minister and deputy minister of finance with no good explanation before producing, after a year’s delay, the thickest budget document in history, one which has interested stakeholders still scrambling, months later, to figure out what the hell that brick says or means. (The chapter on science and research, one researcher told me, “seems to have been written in a panic.”)
In 2019 a senior Liberal campaign strategist told me that one reason they were polarizing that campaign so hard on values was that traditional incumbent-Liberal appeals to sound economic management, the sort of stuff that Jean Chrétien ran on in 1997 and 2002, were unpersuasive to today’s swing voters. This trend continues. This week’s Angus Reid Institute poll is as dire for the Conservatives as most polls lately, but when respondents were asked which leader looks best at managing “the economy,” Erin O’Toole has a nine-point lead over Trudeau. This isn’t fatal: Trudeau soundly thumps O’Toole on management of “health care” and “environment/climate change,” though on the former issue Jagmeet Singh ties Trudeau and on the latter Singh actually outpolls Trudeau.
If anything I was more amazed by the previous week’s Angus Reid poll. It asked supporters of each party whether they have a favourable impression of the party’s leader; and whether they think that party’s leader would be a good prime minister. Again: this is a poll that asks prospective Liberal voters what they think of the Liberal leader.
Trudeau’s favourable impression is barely higher among Liberal voters—78 per cent—than O’Toole’s among Conservative voters, at 75 per cent. In contrast, 92 per cent of people who say they’ll vote NDP have a favourable impression of Singh. Even more striking, the expectation that Trudeau would be a good PM is the same among Liberals supporters as the expectation that O’Toole would be a good PM among Conservative supporters. Both are at 68 per cent. Among NDP supporters, 78 per cent think Singh would be a good PM.
So a third of the people who are planning to vote Liberal don’t agree with the proposition that Trudeau would be a good prime minister, after six years of watching him be Prime Minister. His enthusiasm gap is comparable to that of the sad-sack Conservative leader. And when respondents in general are asked who’s best on the economy, they’re unlikely to mention the person who’s been in charge of the economy for half a decade.
This is, in particular, a difficult situation for two types of people: those who broadly share the Liberals’ values but wish the government of a G7 country were more than an endless Instagram stream; and those who, when they imagine a first post-Harper Conservative budget, panic a little at the faces that come to mind when they try to imagine who would deliver it. The two groups will gather in Ottawa in October. The McLellan-Raitt coalition is, in many ways, a support group.
A fall election? The Liberals may not get a better window.
Philippe J. Fournier: The latest 338Canada model suggests it will be a challenge for the Liberals to win a majority, and it's unlikely to get any easier
Trudeau makes at an announcement in Moncton, N.B., on July 27, 2021 (Ron Ward/CP)
Who is in the mood for a general election in Canada this fall?
Not many of us, according to a recent Nanos Research poll published by CTV News. Results from this survey indicate that only 26 per cent of Canadians “support the prospect of a federal election in the fall,” while 37 per cent would be upset if the writ were to drop in the coming weeks. Regardless, the brief reprieve that was July 2021 has come and come, and August promises to be much busier on the political front, with an election call expected soon, perhaps even in the next fortnight.
So, why an election, you ask? Although federal polls released in the past month have shown some divergence, they all agreed on which party is leading in voting intentions. In June, Abacus Data, Ipsos and Mainstreet Research all measured the Liberal Party (LPC) leading the Conservatives by double digits nationally, while Léger, Research Co. and Angus Reid showed a closer race, but still all gave an edge to the Liberals. Most polls fielded in July (see complete list here) measured a somewhat closer race with Liberal leads ranging from 2 points (Mainstreet Research) to 7 points (EKOS). Only Innovative Research had the Liberals far ahead of Conservative Party (CPC), namely 41 per cent support for the LPC against 27 per cent for the Conservatives.
Here below are all federal polls since January 2021. Looking at the big picture, we see plenty of statistical fluctuations, but very little net movement:
This week’s 338Canada federal update has the Liberals leading the CPC by an average of 6 points, with the LPC sitting at 35 per cent and the CPC at 29 per cent. Worthy of notice is the NDP still standing strong in third place with 20 per cent, despite terrible numbers in the province of Quebec:
It bears repeating that the numbers presented above represent averages, and the coloured bars on the graph depict the projection’s confidence intervals, which follow a bell-shaped distribution. On the graph below is a comparison of this distribution with the latest federal polls for the Liberals. Only Innovative Research lies outside the current confidence intervals:
Here is the graph with results for the Conservatives. Abacus Data is at the edge of the distribution with 25 per cent, but, in fairness to Abacus, its latest public poll was fielded in late June (others were conducted in July), so those numbers may have changed since then. We shall see in the coming days and weeks. Worthy of note: All polls show the CPC below its 2019-result of 34 per cent.
As for the NDP, recent polling has the party near the 20 per cent mark on average. Additionally, every polling firm except Mainstreet measures NDP support higher than the party’s 16 per cent result from 2019. However, let us also recall that most firms had overestimated NDP support in 2019 (by an average of two points), so NDP hopefuls should not count their chickens just yet.
Using data from aforementioned polls, the 338Canada model has the Liberals winning an average of 163 seats, a mere six seats above its 2019-result and seven seats short of the threshold for a majority at the House of Commons. While the Liberals remain clearly in the driver seat, currently available data indicate that the most likely scenario, should an election have been held this week, would be a LPC-lead minority government in Ottawa.
With the Bloc Québécois still holding its own in Quebec and the NDP near the 20 per cent mark, the Liberals would have to benefit from either a collapsing CPC vote in Ontario (which data doesn’t show) or an incredibly efficient LPC vote—meaning getting their vote out in all the right places and winning a majority of toss up districts.
Among the simulations performed by the 338Canada model, 54 per cent of simulations result in a Liberal minority, 41 per cent in a Liberal majority, and 5 per cent a in razor-thin CPC minority.
Naturally, national numbers do not tell the whole story. While the CPC is currently down 5 points on average compared to its 2019 national result (34 per cent), this loss of support appears to be mostly concentrated in Western Canada, especially Alberta, where the CPC blew away it rivals in 2019, and thus could afford to shed some support without losing many (if any) seats. Current levels of support for the Conservatives in both Quebec and Ontario haven’t bulged much compared to 2019, which explains why the CPC is still projected to win between 100 to 120 seats, and thus making an LPC majority victory mostly dependent on either the Bloc or NDP collapsing.
On the other hand, Mainstreet Research’s latest federal numbers in Ontario showed the LPC and CPC neck-in-neck in the province, while other firms measured LPC leads ranging from 6 to 12 points. Mere subsample fluctuation or a new trend? Should we see a tightening race between both parties in Ontario (and with the NDP still polling at or above 20 per cent), no fewer than 25 to 35 seats could become in play, enough to flip this projection on its head.
So, why an election? The latest polls hold at least part of the answer: Because the Liberals could potentially secure a majority and may not have another window to do so in the foreseeable future, even though reaching the threshold of 170 seats may still be quite a challenge according to the data. Nonetheless, if not this fall, then when exactly could the Liberals hope for a better window to go for their third straight mandate? Next spring, after a second consecutive budget with a deficit ranging in the hundreds of billions? Unlikely.
Some have cited the cases of past premiers whose early election gambles backfired: David Peterson, Jim Prentice, and Pauline Marois all come to mind. However, John Horgan in British Columbia and Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick were both leading minority governments when the COVID-19 pandemic reached our shores, and both came out with majority mandates last year. The Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals also went from a minority to a majority this past winter.
So which of these outcomes will best mirror the next federal campaign? We shall see very soon.
If there is an election, that is.
* * *
Follow 338Canada on Twitter here. Details of this projection are available on the 338Canada page. To find your home district, use this list of all 338 electoral districts, or use the regional links below:
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