Today is election day in Canada, typically presenting members of the pundit class with a practical problem.
This is the day on which interest in election news peaks. It’s also a day when nothing much usually happens through the day except citizens voting. A journo can only collect so much B-roll and file so many stories about people wandering into a polling place and then wandering out again.
And, this year, you can’t even see the expression on their faces as they come out the door!
Having very little of significance to report on, except perhaps the size of the turnout, the temptation to talk for the sake of talking is powerful, especially among broadcast media, where silence is held to be anathema.
This is a formula for drivel, so expect to hear a lot of drivel throughout the day today.
Last night, media for the most part was megaphoning it in – that is to say, their reports were loud and forceful, but not particularly complicated or insightful.
The big political story, in media’s estimation? It’s a horserace. (We already knew that.)
The collective wisdom of pundits and pollsters? Justin Trudeau and the Liberals will win, but probably not a majority. (Could be. But never underestimate the ability of conservatives to get out the vote.)
This might explain why there is relatively little interest in the remarkably good campaign by Jagmeet Singh, the New Democratic Party Leader, and whether it will be enough to push the NDP back above 40 seats.
It may not be fair but it’s to be expected that, having seen the NDP win 103 seats under Jack Layton in 2011, the national press is never going to get all that excited about the party’s progress until it’s back in 100+ territory again, which everyone agrees won’t happen this time.
The most significant 11th-hour story? Probably that Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole is pleading with his supporters not to stray to the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier’s revenge vehicle for being edged out of the Conservative Party of Canada leadership by Andrew Scheer in 2017.
Indeed, this has become the Big Question of Election 44. Will the PPC, which has polled more strongly than pundits expected for a new party with an extremist platform, hang onto its support today? Or will its supporters hold their noses and head back to the Conservatives now that it looks as if the Liberals could win if too many of them park their votes with Mr. Bernier?
Remember, polls, no matter how professionally they are done, have a history of underestimating the conservative vote.
So, have the zealots who could always be counted on to get out and vote for the Conservatives abandoned Mr. O’Toole and the CPC for the PPC? Or not?
This could be the question on which the outcome of today’s election hinges.
In Alberta, of course, there is intense interest in whether the deadly incompetence of Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party since its ill-advised Best Summer Ever reopening in the midst of the fourth wave of COVID-19 will result in New Democrats and Liberals capturing a few seats in the province from the ever-dominant Conservatives.
And, for that matter, will Mr. Kenney’s instinct to do the opposite of what was needed to control the pandemic have a significant impact on Mr. O’Toole’s fortunes in the rest of Canada?
The premier is, like Mr. O’Toole, a former federal Conservative cabinet minister and, also like the federal leader, seen as former prime minister Stephen Harper’s creature.
Meanwhile, here in Alberta, Mr. Kenney, true to form, is already backsliding on his promise last week that everyone will have to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to get full services at non-essential businesses.
Last night there was also talk on social media that UCP Caucus rebels and constituency association presidents are plotting a bid to topple Mr. Kenney.
It’s too late for either of these things to have much impact on voting today, but they should give us something to talk about soon.
When I see a picture of Maxime Bernier, I see an image of a vacuous white racist bigot. Living in a (very outer suburban) subdivision in Halifax NS Regional Municipality where numerous South Asian and Asian families also reside, with professional or managerial heads of household, it is disquieting to see a fair number of PPC lawn signs around on other properties. One wonders if these latter people are so insensitive they don’t realize their signs are an implicit threat to many of their non-white neighbours to say “you’re not wanted here”. But my guess is they really mean it. Disquieting, to say the least.
On a more minor level, it’s been over four decades since I or my friends felt welcome in Quebec. Maritimers travelling by car to Ontario or points west generally only stop for gas in Quebec, to get the hell out of it as quickly as possible. Interactions at restaurants outside Montreal, for example, are not pleasant with boorish sullen service once your identity as an Anglo is obvious. Since I imagine the reciprocal case is true for Quebecois French-speaking tourists in most of Atlantic Canada, I can chalk that one up to the Twin Solitudes basis on which this country was born. And live with it.
However, the export of a mulishly and intransigently stupid Bernier from a province where the majority seem perfectly happy, buoyed up by the same peculiar Gallic logic evident in France to not be very welcome of non-white immigrants or citizens or their customs, is telling. Bernier gallivanting around Canada maskless and attending anti-vax rallies is particularly troubling to me. Could a person such as he have appeared on the national scene from anywhere else? Despite Legault, Blanchet and Trudeau taking extreme umbrage at the very idea that Quebec is racist, such protestations have not seemed convincing to me. Especially in light of Legault using the Notwithstanding Clause to pass that bill on banning religious attire in certain public circumstances. A clearer admission of guilt in the matter could hardly be more evident, and no peep of protest about its passage came from Trudeau, coward that he is.
Locally, I presume my PPC neighbours are unvaccinated — I know none personally — but the numbnuts PPC people sent a message in New Brunswick to the government by picketing schools complaining about student masking rules as if Covid did not exist and getting into a shouting match with NB Minister of Education Cardy who was rightly fit to be tied afterwards. Then just a few miles from me on Friday, some PPC covidiots picketed the personal residence of our Chief Medical Officer of Health, complaining about our vaccine passport coming in next month. That’s pretty outrageous and unacceptable behaviour to picket a private home, and I’m not at all sure that these people even possess the social awareness to understand why. Apparently a libertarian PPC dork now feels free to act on a racist or bigoted or uninformed “I got my rights” whim and to hell with what everyone else thinks.
These sorts of people used to be inhibited enough by societal norms to at least act civilized in public. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, with Bernier stamping across this land like an ass, effectively okaying bigotry and oafishness, they are more than happy to show us that loutish dolts were living among us all the time, apparently seething with an inner anger that the white man’s world they treasure so much was changing. And in coming out with figurehead Bernier excusing their errant stupidity, they want the rest of us to know what complete anti-social buffoons they really are, their heads stuffed full of complete bullcrap and indeed hate.
What a hell of a mess this country is in.
Jason Kenney, like some of the Globe’s comments section apparently, is a big fan of natural immunity. It might be a different story if mRNA vaccines were derived from petroleum byproducts. Watch personal responsibility go out the window then.
I expect CPC will lose some seats in Alberta, as a result of backlash to Jason Kenney’s incompetence, and the PPC siphoning off some conservative votes. I will take great delight if the Alberta seats lost have a significant impact on the CPC’s standing in the final outcome.
At first I was surprised to see the PPC were competing in ridings that could go either way; a lot of extreme right wing parties only run in solidly conservative ridings to avoid vote splitting. Then I realized that Maxime Bernier is probably just motivated by revenge against the party that rejected his leadership bid, so he will probably be delighted to see Liberal victories in Alberta.
When I looked at the 338Canada website, which predicts election outcomes in Canada, it shows the CPC incumbent leading Maxime Bernier 41% to 28%, which if it holds, means M. Bernier will not even win his own seat. In spite of that, Bernier spent the last weekend of the campaign leading rallies here in Alberta. I wonder if, in the next election, he will run in whatever Alberta riding casts the most PPC votes. If so, it would appear Ontario right wing nut jobs will not be our only problem.
https://338canada.com/24007e.htm
“Having very little of significance to report on, except perhaps the size of the turnout, the temptation to talk for the sake of talking is powerful, especially among broadcast media, where silence is held to be anathema.”
There are other things going on in the world. Why don’t they take the opportunity to do some journalism. Haha.
Because that wouldn’t be infotainment. Now back to Ben Mulroney and E! Canada.
More and more Canadian elections are about a handful of party “leaders” – not about people who actually vote and their reasons for doing so for a particular local candidate. Though in reality, having poll clerked for a federal election, I have had to bite my tongue more than once as people come in and query those of us working at the station as to how they can vote for _________ [insert name of federal leader here]; or have local candidates parked at the doorway to the station directing certain people to the appropriate places. Used to be that all signs had to be taken down everywhere on the eve of the election day, but that is obviously too onerous! So tired of these “presidential” elections.
The issue of sovereignty is very much on the line today, but it’s not what you think. It’s this: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17441692.2021.1906927
Some interesting speculation from my conspiracy addled mind …
So, Premier Crying & Screaming Midget decides to reimpose restrictions, bringing the “Greatest Summer Ever” to a crashing end. COVID infections and ICUs are near the bursting point. It’s so bad other provinces can’t handle the overflow and there are pleas for the army to be called in. Alberta is effectively a pandemic disaster.
Kenney’s action has caused an extreme rift between him and the CPC campaign. The situation is so bad that, apparently, Erin O’Toole has completely forgotten who Kenney is and what an Alberta is. Judging by their campaign suddenly going silent over the weekend, and avoiding Alberta in particular, leaves one to believe that Kenney maybe, for now, is personna not grata.
What was Kenney thinking when he decided to act like an adult (for once) and act in the public interest? Waiting until after Election Day would have been possible, but the rising body count would have been impressively embarrassing. The growing uproar from the UCP’s riding associations, that was leaked onto Twitter over the weekend, seems to indicate that Kenney has gone into full emperor-mode and is ready to burn the whole Sky Palace down. kenney actions were meant for self-survival and to keep the wolves from breaking down his door. O’Toole’s campaign was not pleased by Kenney’s action, believing it now gives Maxime Bernier’s PPC and huge buffet of red meat to throw at Alberta’s angry population. Judging by the so called Freedom Marches that broke out in Calgary and Edmonton, it appears that the size of the opposition to vaccines and passports in Alberta are legion and growing fast. Weekend polls indicated that the PPC got a healthy bump in its numbers. In blue Alberta, this maybe an indicator of that Red Tory O’Toole is starting to hemorrhage support.
Now that some polling suggests that there maybe as many as eleven Alberta CPC ridings in play, O’Toole’s best hope for a minority government may have been smashed because Kenney isn’t very good at playing chicken with the pandemic.
Nobody wants an even stronger version of the Reform Party. Most Canadians don’t. Obliteration for the PPC.
Maxime Berner spent election night in Saskatoon, instead of his riding. Bernier’s riding is south of Quebec City, right against the American border; in other words, not easily accessed. It seems unlikely he went back to Beauce to vote yesterday; Beauce is time consuming enough to get to that an advance poll seems unlikely as well. Did Maxime Berner Bernier go through the hassle of requesting a mail-in ballot, or vote remotely at an Elections Canada office?
I am wondering if Bernier even voted.