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      As Populists Decline, the Center-Left Sees Hints of a Comeback

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      A long-struggling political faction has seen surprising gains this year, in part because of changes wrought by the pandemic. Can it hold on to them?A style of politics long considered in decline is experiencing something of a reprieve, even seeing glimmers of a possible return.The gray-suited technocrats of the center-left are once more a serious force, at the expense of both the establishment conservatism that prevailed among Western democracies for much of the 21st century, and the right-wing populism that arose in backlash to the status quo.This month alone, center-left parties have taken power in Norway and appear on the verge of doing the same in Germany. They hold the White House, share power in Italy and lead a newly credible opposition movement in authoritarian-leaning Hungary.Calling it a comeback would be premature, analysts warn. Center-left gains are uneven and fragile. And they may be due less to any groundswell of enthusiasm than to short-term political tailwinds, largely a result of the coronavirus pandemic.Canada, where the center-left has faced a battle to hold onto power in Monday’s election, may best encapsulate the trend. The forces boosting center-lefts globally have nudged the Liberals’ poll numbers there from poor to middling — a fitting metaphor for the movement’s prospects. Still, even modest gains among Western democracies could give a long-struggling political wing the chance to redeem itself with voters.And it would counteract a dominant trend of the past decade: the rise in ethno-nationalism and strongman politics of the new populist right.“People have been writing for several years now about how the Social Democrats are going to die out for good, and now here they are, they’re the leading party,” said Brett Meyer, who researches political trends at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, referring to the center-left’s sudden rise in Germany.“That’s been an enormous surprise,” he added.A Test of Covid PoliticsIf Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, keeps his job, it may be due in large part to political changes brought about by the pandemic.Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call an election just two years after the last vote proved unpopular, initially sinking his party’s poll numbers into second place. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a campaign stop on Friday in Windsor, Ontario.Carlos Osorio/ReutersBut a few factors hinting at wider trends have since tightened the race.Mr. Trudeau was expected to lose support to the left-wing New Democratic Party. But that party, after years of growth amid global polarization to the left- and right-wing margins, has stalled in its rise. This fits with voters worldwide tilting toward establishment parties in response to the uncertainty of the pandemic.Two political scientists, James Bisbee and Dan Honig, identified this change by analyzing dozens of primaries and races. The pandemic, they found, boosted mainstream candidates, at the expense of political outsiders, by a sometimes-decisive 2 to 15 percentage points. They call this effect a “flight to safety.”Other research suggests that the nature of a pandemic leads voters to crave strong institutions, forceful government actions and social unity in response.Those preferences naturally privilege the agendas of left-wing parties. That may be why, even as Canadians express weariness with Mr. Trudeau and disapproval of some of his choices, they remain drawn to the policies that his party represents.But Mr. Trudeau’s luckiest stroke may be how the pandemic is dividing the political right.In the 2010s, right-wing coalitions broadly unified over identity issues like immigration. But pandemic-related questions — whether to mandate vaccines, when to impose lockdowns, how forcefully to intervene in the economy — have split moderates from the activist base.Canada’s Conservative Party, led by Erin O’Toole, has tacked left on climate and social issues. But Mr. O’Toole’s ambiguity on pandemic issues might have allowed the anti-vaccine-mandate People’s Party to siphon off votes. And it has opened him to attack from the left, with Mr. Trudeau challenging him to disavow anti-lockdown activists.Canada’s opposition Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole and his wife, Rebecca, arriving for a campaign event on Friday in London, Ontario.Blair Gable/ReutersPolls worldwide also show lopsided support for vaccine mandates, greater welfare spending and other pandemic policies that fit better with the agendas of the left than the right — and that left-wing parties can more safely embrace without risking backlash from their base.Canada is representative in another way, experts say. It shows that, while the pandemic might give the center-left an assist, it is not always enough to ensure victory. Though this year’s Dutch elections saw centrist and left-wing gains, the center-right remains firmly in power in the Netherlands. And polls in France suggest that next year’s elections will split between the centrist incumbent and the far-right Marine Le Pen. The center-left, all but obliterated in 2017, is considered unlikely to soon recover.“Can you say that the period over the last 18 months is one of social democratic revival?” Pippa Norris, a Harvard University scholar of party politics, said. “Well, it depends on the election you’re looking at.”While such a trend might become clear in retrospect, she added, for now, “What we’ve got is realignment and volatility.”The Populist Stall-OutThat realignment is taking at least one clear form. The once-formidable right-wing populist wave has, for the moment, stalled — and may even be slightly reversing.The movement’s rise has been slowing since late 2018, when its leaders faced a series of setbacks in Europe and the Americas. Its challenges have since deepened.Half of Europe’s right-wing populist parties saw their support decline under the pandemic, though often by small amounts, according to a study by Cas Mudde and Jakub Wondreys at the University of Georgia. Only one in six gained support.“It is possible that Covid-19 may have exposed the soft underbelly of populist politics,” Vittorio Bufacchi, a scholar at the University College Cork, wrote last year.The populists who indulged anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine sentiments suffered the most in polls, such as Donald J. Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.Most populists initially defied their anti-institution, anti-expert brands, pushing for forceful government interventions and deference to scientists, Dr. Meyer found. It was another sign of circumstances favoring left-leaning politics.But many have since reverted to form. Populists typically rely on distrust of institutions and social division to rule, making those habits hard to break.Right-wing populist governments in Poland, Hungary and Slovenia face sliding poll numbers and rising opposition movements, often led by the center-left.Signs outside of an advance polling station in Burnaby, British Columbia.Jennifer Gauthier/ReutersPopulists are faring little better in opposition. Ms. Le Pen’s far-right party faced setbacks in French regional elections this summer. Alternative for Germany, once seen as the vanguard of the new far-right, has been stuck or backsliding in polls. After championing anti-lockdown sentiment, it suffered losses even in its homeland, Saxony.This presents a challenge for center-right parties, too. For much of the 2010s, they found success by co-opting nationalist sentiment. But this was easier when identity issues dominated politics. It has become a political albatross, at least for now.The Flight to SafetyThe center-left has benefited from all these trends, but it’s not clear how long it will continue to, scholars say.“There are short-term forces that always move parties up and down,” Dr. Norris said.The conditions that drove the breakdown of establishment parties in recent decades still hold, she added. This remains an era of unstable coalitions and shifting electorates, which only momentarily favor the brand of politics that it previously almost killed.“If parties in the center-left do capitalize on that, which is plausible given the pandemic and the role of government in that,” she said, “they can’t necessarily consolidate that.”“Can you win on it? You can. But can you maintain it?” More

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      What Canada's Election Could Mean For Gun Ban

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      The Conservative Party leader, Erin O’Toole, rolled back a promise to end a ban on assault weapons, giving his opponents less room to maneuver.With the debates now over, we have come to the final days of the high-speed election campaign that was called last month by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Mr. O’Toole, the Conservative leader, with Mr. Trudeau, who leads the Liberals. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressAt the official debates, moderators dominated and, in the view of many, party leaders hardly debated.[Read: 5 Takeaways From Canada’s Official Election Debates]Among the issues given cursory treatment was gun control, a topic that the Conservative Party’s platform has reversed course on.Few issues divide urban and rural Canada more than guns. In cities and suburban areas, polls have shown for years that there’s strong support for even tighter restrictions. Horrific crimes like last year’s shooting and arson spree in Nova Scotia increase that sentiment.But in many rural areas and Indigenous communities, guns are a part of everyday life. Totaling up the numbers has been difficult since the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper eliminated the registry for shotguns and standard rifles. But the Small Arms Survey, a project based in Switzerland, estimates that there are 12.7 million legal and illegal guns held by private owners in Canada. There are 2.2 million Canadians who hold a license to buy and own guns.Last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau banned 1,500 models of assault-style semiautomatic rifles after the shooting rampage in rural Nova Scotia that left 23 people dead. Although some designs of semiautomatics can still be owned, their use is limited.Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader, began the election campaign by promising to roll back Mr. Trudeau’s assault weapon ban and roll back other Liberal anti-gun measures. He argued that they penalized law-abiding gun owners but did little or nothing to stop gun crime, although assault weapons have been used in mass shootings in Canada.In place of a ban, he proposed cracking down harder on smuggling, something Mr. Trudeau had already advanced, and hiring 200 additional members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who would be assigned to gun and gang crimes in Toronto and Vancouver.While there was little broad public support for loosening of gun rules, gun groups and many gun owners are strong and reliable supporters of the Conservatives.But as criticism grew over his plan to cancel Mr. Trudeau’s ban, Mr. O’Toole began to change his tune.An assault rifle of the type banned last year by Mr. Trudeau’s government.Chris Young/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressFirst, he said during an unofficial French debate on TVA, the Quebec-based broadcaster, that he would “maintain a ban on assault weapons.” While he didn’t make it immediately clear, he didn’t mean Mr. Trudeau’s ban. Instead, Mr. O’Toole was referring to a ban that dates to the 1970s on weapons like fully automatic rifles.But eventually Mr. O’Toole said that he would keep Mr. Trudeau’s assault weapon ban in place if the Conservatives take power. But that came with a significant qualifier: Mr. O’Toole also promised that a group that will include gun makers will review firearms laws and regulations.The National Firearms Association, which once hired one of Mr. O’Toole’s top aides as a lobbyist, soon issued a statement saying that it was “completely confident that the election of a Conservative government” and the review would lead to the repeal of Mr. Trudeau’s assault weapon ban. Mr. O’Toole has only said that he won’t prejudge the proposed review.The platform change that the Conservatives made appears to have worked for their campaign by muting criticism of Conservative gun policy — guns received just cursory attention at the English debate. And when Angus Reid Institute asked Canadians to list the top issues in the campaign, guns didn’t meet the minimum reporting threshold. Going Inside FacebookMy colleagues Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang will be speaking on Sept. 14 at 5 p.m. Eastern about their new book “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination” in a virtual event organized by the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. The school has a special offer for Canada Letter readers. If you use the code NYTIMESROTMAN21 when registering here you’ll be able to join the livestream and receive a hardcover copy of their book by mail for 21.99 Canadian dollars, a 20-dollar reduction.Trans CanadaBen Solomon for The New York TimesPerhaps the biggest distraction from politics this week for many Canadians was the U.S. Open where Leylah Fernandez, 19, of Montreal will play in the women’s final against Emma Raducanu, a British player who was born in Toronto. David Waldstein writes that Fernandez is the most successful member of a group of Canadians at the Open, “where Canadian players are winning on courts across the grounds and beyond.” Fernandez is also part of a group of teenagers who are on a run at the open. But Matthew Futterman writes that, in tennis, early success can quickly “go off the rails.”As Hurricane Larry continues on a path that appears to be taking it to Newfoundland, you can track its progress here.In 2018, a team of paleontologists from the Royal Ontario Museum discovered the preserved shell of a spaceship-shaped creature during a fossil hunting expedition in the Rockies. Now Titanokorys gainesi has been declared to be one of the earliest-known large predators on Earth.Stephen Vizinczey, who formed his own publishing company in Toronto to publish his racy and successful novel “In Praise of Older Women: The Amorous Recollections of Andras Vajda,” has died at the age of 88.Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for The Times, writes that Drake’s new album “demonstrates how sonically rigorous even the most casual, tossed-off Drake songs are.”Brandon Valdivia, a producer from London, Ontario, better known as Mas Aya, told Isabelia Herrera that he is “trying to meld a political take in addition to a very spiritual take” in his music.A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.How are we doing?We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. More

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      5 Takeaways From Canada’s Official Election Debates

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called the snap election two years ahead of schedule, was repeatedly attacked by the other four candidates.OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to call an election two years ahead of schedule has not worked out as planned.Polls have consistently tracked a decline in voter support for his Liberal Party and a rise in backing for its nearest rivals, the Conservatives, leaving the parties in a statistical tie.The bulk of the 36-day campaign, the shortest allowed by law, came during Canada’s all-too-brief summer, when many voters’ minds were far from politics. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, where the Canadian military fought, further distracted the public’s attention.So for Mr. Trudeau and his rivals, particularly Erin O’Toole of the Conservatives, the debates this week in each of Canada’s official languages were crucial opportunities to define the campaign before Election Day, Sept. 20.Mr. Trudeau faced off not only against Mr. O’Toole, who is leading his party in an election for the first time, but also against Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the left-of-center New Democratic Party; Annamie Paul, who heads the Green Party; and Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois, a regional party that endorses Quebec’s independence. With the five leaders receiving equal time, it was difficult for any to break through with a detailed message.The French-language debate on Wednesday often focused on issues of interest to Quebec. With English being the language of three-quarters of Canadians, the debate on Thursday in that language was considered the more important of the two.Trudeau struggled to justify his pandemic election.Mr. Trudeau said he called an election because he needed a new mandate to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly.Blair Gable/ReutersIn both debates, Mr. Trudeau’s rivals relentlessly challenged him for calling what they viewed as an unnecessary election in the middle of the pandemic. The subject came up 13 times during the French-language debate.In 2019, the Liberals under Mr. Trudeau failed to secure a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. That forced him to rely on votes from opposition parties, usually the New Democrats, to pass legislation and allowed the opposition parties to pool their votes in committees to tackle subjects embarrassing to the government.Mr. Trudeau said he needed a new mandate with a majority in order to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly. His opponents, however, repeatedly pointed out that none of Mr. Trudeau’s major objectives had been blocked during the past two years — although some important bills had been delayed and then died with the call for an election.In the Thursday debate, Mr. O’Toole challenged Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call for the election just as efforts to repatriate Canadians in Afghanistan and to aid Afghans who had worked for the Canadian military were in a critical phase.“You put your own political interests ahead of the well-being of thousands of people,” Mr. O’Toole said. “Mr. Trudeau, you should not have called this election; you should have gotten the job done in Afghanistan.”A complex format and a crowded stage limited debate.Mr. O’Toole, the Conservative leader, with Mr. Trudeau, who leads the Liberals. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe two-hour debate had a complex structure. The moderator, Shachi Kurl, the president of the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit polling organization, asked questions written by a committee, with questions also posed via video by members of the public and at the site by journalists.Ms. Kurl assiduously enforced rules that prevented the candidates onstage from speaking out of turn or responding to questions not addressed to them. There were no closing statements.Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, said that the formula worked against Mr. Trudeau, who was constantly targeted by the four other leaders, and that it aided Mr. O’Toole.“O’Toole could talk about his climate plan in 30 seconds and then just move on to another subject, which is, I think, what he wanted,” Professor Bratt said. “The formula didn’t allow Trudeau time to really dig into some of O’Toole’s weaknesses.”But voters, Professor Bratt added, were the debate’s clear losers.“If this was the first time that you’re paying attention to the election, you were not well served tonight,” he said.Climate change and Indigenous issues got their due.Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh, who leads the left-of-center New Democratic Party.Pool photo by Sean KilpatrickClimate change, in particular, stood out as an issue, although no leader made a compelling case that his or her party offered the best approach, said Cara Camcastle, who lectures on political science at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.“It’s good to see that all the leaders think it’s an important issue,” she said. “But none of them have the solutions of our own.”Mr. Trudeau was repeatedly attacked, particularly by Mr. Singh, for the rise in carbon emissions in Canada during each of the six years the prime minister has held office. Mr. Trudeau responded that his government’s climate measures, including the introduction of a national carbon price, had put Canada on a path to not just meeting but also exceeding its emissions commitment under the Paris Accord, which has a target date of 2030.Partly because of the organizer’s themed approach to the debate, reconciliation with Indigenous people received an unusual amount of attention.While all the other leaders picked apart Mr. Trudeau’s record — he has made Indigenous issues a top priority — they all agreed with his position that the process of replacing the 19th- century laws governing Indigenous people must be led by their communities rather than by the government.Guns and child care were largely absent in the English debate.Mr. O’Toole’s plan to scrap a Trudeau program under which several provinces provide child care for 10 Canadian dollars a day or less with a tax credit was prominent in the French debate but was largely bypassed on Thursday.Similarly, Mr. O’Toole’s backtracking on an earlier promise to eliminate Mr. Trudeau’s ban on 1,500 types of assault-style semiautomatic rifles received limited attention.The verdict: ‘A meaningless waste of time’?Professor Bratt and Dr. Camcastle said they believed that the two debates would not give form to what had been a largely shapeless campaign that lacked a clear issue — aside from Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call it.Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates, a polling firm in Ottawa, offered a blunt assessment on Twitter.“Let me spare you the speculation of who won, lost, what impact,” he wrote. “It was a meaningless waste of time. Possibly the most vacuous and tedious debate in Canadian political history.”Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, left, and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, taking part in the federal election English-language Leaders debate in Gatineau, Canada, on Thursday.Pool photo by Adrian WyldVjosa Isai More

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      Takeaways From Canada's Official Election Debates

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called the snap election two years ahead of schedule, was repeatedly attacked by the other four candidates.OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to call an election two years ahead of schedule has not worked out as planned.Polls have consistently tracked a decline in voter support for his Liberal Party and a rise in backing for its nearest rivals, the Conservatives, leaving the parties in a statistical tie.The bulk of the 36-day campaign, the shortest allowed by law, came during Canada’s all-too-brief summer, when many voters’ minds were far from politics. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, where the Canadian military fought, further distracted the public’s attention.So for Mr. Trudeau and his rivals, particularly Erin O’Toole of the Conservatives, the debates this week in each of Canada’s official languages were crucial opportunities to define the campaign before Election Day, Sept. 20.Mr. Trudeau faced off not only against Mr. O’Toole, who is leading his party in an election for the first time, but also against Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the left-of-center New Democratic Party; Annamie Paul, who heads the Green Party; and Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Québécois, a regional party that endorses Quebec’s independence. With the five leaders receiving equal time, it was difficult for any to break through with a detailed message.The French-language debate on Wednesday often focused on issues of interest to Quebec. With English being the language of three-quarters of Canadians, the debate on Thursday in that language was considered the more important of the two.Trudeau struggled to justify his pandemic election.Mr. Trudeau said he called an election because he needed a new mandate to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly.Blair Gable/ReutersIn both debates, Mr. Trudeau’s rivals relentlessly challenged him for calling what they viewed as an unnecessary election in the middle of the pandemic. The subject came up 13 times during the French-language debate.In 2019, the Liberals under Mr. Trudeau failed to secure a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. That forced him to rely on votes from opposition parties, usually the New Democrats, to pass legislation and allowed the opposition parties to pool their votes in committees to tackle subjects embarrassing to the government.Mr. Trudeau said he needed a new mandate with a majority in order to put pandemic recovery measures in place swiftly. His opponents, however, repeatedly pointed out that none of Mr. Trudeau’s major objectives had been blocked during the past two years — although some important bills had been delayed and then died with the call for an election.In the Thursday debate, Mr. O’Toole challenged Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call for the election just as efforts to repatriate Canadians in Afghanistan and to aid Afghans who had worked for the Canadian military were in a critical phase.“You put your own political interests ahead of the well-being of thousands of people,” Mr. O’Toole said. “Mr. Trudeau, you should not have called this election; you should have gotten the job done in Afghanistan.”A complex format and a crowded stage limited debate.Mr. O’Toole, the Conservative leader, with Mr. Trudeau, who leads the Liberals. Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressThe two-hour debate had a complex structure. The moderator, Shachi Kurl, the president of the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit polling organization, asked questions written by a committee, with questions also posed via video by members of the public and at the site by journalists.Ms. Kurl assiduously enforced rules that prevented the candidates onstage from speaking out of turn or responding to questions not addressed to them. There were no closing statements.Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, said that the formula worked against Mr. Trudeau, who was constantly targeted by the four other leaders, and that it aided Mr. O’Toole.“O’Toole could talk about his climate plan in 30 seconds and then just move on to another subject, which is, I think, what he wanted,” Professor Bratt said. “The formula didn’t allow Trudeau time to really dig into some of O’Toole’s weaknesses.”But voters, Professor Bratt added, were the debate’s clear losers.“If this was the first time that you’re paying attention to the election, you were not well served tonight,” he said.Climate change and Indigenous issues got their due.Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Singh, who leads the left-of-center New Democratic Party.Pool photo by Sean KilpatrickClimate change, in particular, stood out as an issue, although no leader made a compelling case that his or her party offered the best approach, said Cara Camcastle, who lectures on political science at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia.“It’s good to see that all the leaders think it’s an important issue,” she said. “But none of them have the solutions of our own.”Mr. Trudeau was repeatedly attacked, particularly by Mr. Singh, for the rise in carbon emissions in Canada during each of the six years the prime minister has held office. Mr. Trudeau responded that his government’s climate measures, including the introduction of a national carbon price, had put Canada on a path to not just meeting but also exceeding its emissions commitment under the Paris Accord, which has a target date of 2030.Partly because of the organizer’s themed approach to the debate, reconciliation with Indigenous people received an unusual amount of attention.While all the other leaders picked apart Mr. Trudeau’s record — he has made Indigenous issues a top priority — they all agreed with his position that the process of replacing the 19th- century laws governing Indigenous people must be led by their communities rather than by the government.Guns and child care were largely absent in the English debate.Mr. O’Toole’s plan to scrap a Trudeau program under which several provinces provide child care for 10 Canadian dollars a day or less with a tax credit was prominent in the French debate but was largely bypassed on Thursday.Similarly, Mr. O’Toole’s backtracking on an earlier promise to eliminate Mr. Trudeau’s ban on 1,500 types of assault-style semiautomatic rifles received limited attention.The verdict: ‘A meaningless waste of time’?Professor Bratt and Dr. Camcastle said they believed that the two debates would not give form to what had been a largely shapeless campaign that lacked a clear issue — aside from Mr. Trudeau’s decision to call it.Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates, a polling firm in Ottawa, offered a blunt assessment on Twitter.“Let me spare you the speculation of who won, lost, what impact,” he wrote. “It was a meaningless waste of time. Possibly the most vacuous and tedious debate in Canadian political history.”Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, left, and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, taking part in the federal election English-language Leaders debate in Gatineau, Canada, on Thursday.Pool photo by Adrian WyldVjosa Isai More

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      How Canadian Leaders Campaign in a Pandemic

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      While the Conservative leader Erin O’Toole is still hitting the road, his party has also created a virtual method of reaching voters.After nearly two weeks of campaigning, it would be a stretch to say that election fever is sweeping Canada. Lawn signs are relatively scarce in Eastern Ontario, where I live, and others tell me similar stories from other parts of the country. Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader, during a virtual town hall meeting this week.Ian Austen/The New York TimesPolitical scientists and pollsters expect, or hope, that the nation’s focus will turn to the campaign after Labor Day brings an unofficial end to summer’s all-too-short reign.Meanwhile, inside the campaigns, candidates and their teams are busy looking for new ways to get their messages across and interact with voters during the pandemic, without risking in-person gatherings.This week, I checked out a modified campaign event hosted by the Conservative Party in Ottawa, my first event of this campaign. The party has transformed part of a ballroom in a downtown Ottawa hotel into a television studio that Erin O’Toole, its leader, uses for what the party calls virtual town hall meetings, which it targets to specific parts of the country. On Tuesday, when I dropped by, the audience was in British Columbia.For about an hour, the Conservatives robot-dialed voters in the province and asked them if they would listen in and try to ask Mr. O’Toole questions.Mr. O’Toole had an answer for every question, of course. But the callers weren’t allowed to follow up, making it impossible to determine if his answers actually satisfied them. That said, it’s likely safe to assume that the man who asked if Mr. O’Toole would take the advice of a recent U.N. report to immediately start moving away from fossil fuels was not sated. After acknowledging that the Conservatives did not have a valid climate plan in 2019, Mr. O’Toole praised the party’s new proposal, a system that would aim for substantially smaller emissions reductions than the government’s current target.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigning in Surrey, British Columbia, this week.Jennifer Gauthier/ReutersMr. O’Toole has conducted 10 virtual town halls from Ottawa to date. The sessions are streamed live on YouTube and through Facebook, where questions can be submitted in writing. But the questioners, and the listeners, are found mostly through automated phone calls placed by the campaign, and none of them appear on video. The party declined to describe the screening process it uses before putting anyone through to Mr. O’Toole. But there are clearly people vetting the callers.Whether by chance or by design, many of the questions at the session that I attended, and others that I watched, were on issues that polls show resonate the most with Conservative voters, such as the budget deficit and rolling back recently strengthened gun controls. But at least two people called for action on climate change far beyond what the Conservatives are proposing.The session had the feel of a video stream of a talk radio show. Its moderator was Michael Barrett, a Conservative member of Parliament from Eastern Ontario, who never challenged any of Mr. O’Toole’s claims and promises, the way an independent host might.The vast ballroom-turned-studio, dominated by a flag lined stage that vaguely evokes the interior of the Parliament buildings, was utterly devoid of campaign atmosphere during the session.The only people physically present during the town hall were professionals. In addition to me, the very socially distanced, in-person audience consisted of a television producer, a television network camera operator, a handful of Conservative Party technicians running the show, Mr. O’Toole’s bodyguards and, briefly, a photographer.Despite the absence of a crowd, let alone crowd energy, Mr. O’Toole remained enthusiastic and energetic for the entire hour.Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party, during a stop in Winnipeg on Thursday.Shannon Vanraes/ReutersIt’s much too early to say if virtual town halls, like other pandemic make-dos, will succeed the traditional campaign road show with its jets and buses. Mr. O’Toole is, like the other leaders, still hitting the road. I’ll also be out there soon to see how the campaigns of Mr. Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh of the New Democrats have adjusted to the pandemic.Trans CanadaCanadian and British troops helping an Afghan climb up onto a wall on Sunday.Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCanada ended its evacuation operation in Afghanistan on Thursday, shortly before explosions at the Kabul airport killed nearly 200 and injured scores of people.“We stayed in Afghanistan as long as we could,” Gen. Wayne Eyre, the acting chief of the defense staff, told a news conference. “We wish we could have stayed longer and rescued everyone who was so desperate to leave. That we could not is truly heartbreaking.”The exact number of Canadians, permanent residents and others evacuated by the Canadian military in recent weeks is still not clear, nor is the number of people left behind. But General Eyre said that the country airlifted about 3,700 people out on a combination of Canadian military flights and aboard planes of allied nations.The Gurkhas who were hired by a contractor to guard Canada’s embassy — a task that had fatal consequences in 2016 for 13 of them — have also been returned to their homes in Nepal.Canada was effectively pushed out of Kabul by American efforts to finish its evacuation plan by Tuesday. The Times is continuing to provide constantly updated coverage which you can find at our home page.Alina Chan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., is questioning the consensus view that the coronavirus naturally spilled over to humans from bats through an intermediary host animal. Now, Dr. Chan, who was born in Vancouver and who studied at the University of British Columbia, is in the middle of a maelstrom, Roni Caryn Rabin reports.R. Murray Schafer, the composer who pioneered the field of acoustic ecology, has died at his home near Peterborough, Ontario, at the age of 88.Rod Gilbert, who was born in Montreal and became the face of hockey in New York, has died at the age of 80.Chinese officials are cracking down on celebrity idol worship like that surrounding Kris Wu, the popular Canadian singer who has been detained on suspicion of rape.SUMMER GAME FUNThis week: Letter Boxed, where you try to create words using letters surrounding a square. All of The Times’s games, and tips on playing them, can be found here.A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.How are we doing?We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. More

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      Trudeau Weighs Snap Election in Canada

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      The prime minister hopes his handling of the pandemic will help his Liberal Party win an early election. No decision has been made on the date.OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is considering dissolving Parliament, perhaps as soon as Sunday, to set Canada on a path for an election in late September. Such a move has been widely anticipated and would signal his confidence that voters will return him to power after three consecutive campaigns.If called, the election would come less than two years after the previous vote and at a time when coronavirus cases are rising in many parts of the country, leading health officials to declare that a fourth wave is underway. Mr. Trudeau could have waited until 2024 to call an election.Officials in Mr. Trudeau’s government and his Liberal Party have been told to prepare for the prime minister to request the dissolution on Sunday from Governor General Mary Simon, Queen Elizabeth’s representative as head of state. Their understanding is that the vote will be held on Sept. 20, after the minimum period for campaigning by law.The final decision on timing rests with Mr. Trudeau, and on Friday it was not clear if it had been made. Mr. Trudeau’s office declined to comment.For several weeks, Mr. Trudeau, prominent members of his cabinet and the leaders of the main opposition parties have been making campaign-style appearances throughout the country. Over the past few months, several politicians have announced their retirements, also a signal that a vote was looming.Mr. Trudeau appears to be gambling that the government’s generally well received measures, particularly on financial support to Canadians and Canadian companies and vaccine procurement, will return his government to office with a majority in the House of Commons. His Liberal Party won the most seats in the 2019 election, 157, but fell short of a majority in the 338-seat house, leaving him to rely on the support of opposition parties to pass legislation.Polls show the Liberals with enough support to return to power but not necessarily with a majority. Mr. Trudeau may be hoping that his noted campaign skills and celebrity image may still turn that around.Erin O’Toole, the leader of the Conservative Party, the largest opposition group, has struggled to attract attention and win support during his first year in that role.Lori Turnbull, a professor of political science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said that waiting to go to the polls could also bring risks for Mr. Trudeau.“Canada’s been great at managing the spread of Covid-19,” she said. “We didn’t see the kind of crisis situation develop that developed in other places like within the U.S.”“Trudeau wants to ride the Liberal’s record into this election,” she said. “But if you let too much time go by, voters forget about what you’ve done for them.” More

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      in Elections

      A Possible Election Call as the Pandemic’s 4th Wave Gets Underway

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may call an early election as soon as Sunday despite rising Covid-19 cases. If so, it won’t be campaigning as usual.The country may, or may not, be headed into an election at the same time that a fourth Covid-19 surge is now underway thanks to the Delta variant.A polling station in Ottawa on election day in 2019.Ian Austen/The New York TimesBased on indications to officials in his government and the Liberal Party, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is contemplating a visit to Governor General Mary Simon, perhaps as early as Sunday, to dissolve Parliament and set an election for Sept. 20. That call on timing is Mr. Trudeau’s to make, and on Friday afternoon it was still unclear if he had reached a decision.[Read: Trudeau Weighs Snap Election in Canada]Whatever the precise date of the election call, it is widely anticipated that the vote will come soon. And it won’t be the first campaign Canada has seen during the pandemic. Including Nova Scotia, which votes on Tuesday, elections have unrolled in five provinces plus Yukon.In Alberta, any federal vote in the near future will come on top of municipal election campaigns as well as referendums on Canada’s equalization system and daylight saving time.While none of the provincial elections were blamed for major outbreaks, a surge in cases caused Newfoundland to switch to mail-in ballots just 12 hours before voters were supposed to visit polls on Feb. 12, and to extend the election period until March 1. Things only got worse after that, with the final results not being confirmed until the end of that month.Stephane Perrault, the chief electoral officer, has warned that a pandemic vote will likely lead to an enormous increase in mail-in ballots and perhaps a delay of a few days in announcing some results. Canada does not start counting mail ballots until the day after in-person voting to make sure that no one double-voted and to allow people to submit their ballots right up to the closing of polls.That may leave some close races in limbo. In-person voters will also see changes such as voting at movie theaters because many usual voting spots like schools are currently reluctant to open up to large numbers of outsiders.For weeks it’s been apparent that an election is coming soon. Mr. Trudeau and his cabinet members have been traveling the country making spending announcements, and the opposition leaders have similarly hit the road.If Mr. Trudeau goes ahead less than two years into his last mandate, it will be the third time since it passed in 2007 that Canada’s fixed election date law has been treated with roughly the same respect as highway speed limits. (After introducing that measure Stephen Harper, the former Conservative prime minister, made the first two early calls.)Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Blair Gable/ReutersEarly elections are rarely greeted with enthusiasm. And a poll released earlier this summer found little enthusiasm for a fall election. Both Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader, and Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democrats, have condemned the idea of a pandemic vote as reckless.Mr. Singh sent the governor general a note asking her to turn down any request to dissolve Parliament from Mr. Trudeau. (When that happened in 1926 to William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Liberal prime minister at the time, it set off a constitutional crisis over the powers of the governor general. Most experts agree that Ms. Simon will not refuse to dissolve Parliament.)The question, then, is whether voters will punish Mr. Trudeau for the early vote. Shachi Kurl, the president of the Angus Reid Institute, a nonprofit opinion research firm in Vancouver, told me earlier this week that history suggests it won’t be a worry for the prime minister.“At the beginning of every advantageously called election, there are always several days of grumbling,” she told me. “Then people get on with it and judge the leaders and the issues accordingly.”The other question, of course, is will it be safe? While announcing that Canada is now in its fourth wave this week, Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada, added that “cases are plotting along a strong resurgence trajectory.”Deaths, she noted, remain comparatively low.Dr. Theresa Tam said this week that Canada is now in its fourth wave of the pandemic.Blair Gable/ReutersOf course this resurgence of the virus comes at a time when vaccination rates are high in Canada and still rising. Vaccination does not 100 percent guarantee protection against Covid infections or death from them. But a team of colleagues at The Times went through data from 40 American states on so-called breakthrough infections — when fully inoculated people contract the virus.The findings of their analysis, which likely apply broadly to Canada, are encouraging: “Fully vaccinated people have made up as few as 0.1 percent of and as many as 5 percent of those hospitalized with the virus in those states, and as few as 0.2 percent and as many as 6 percent of those who have died.”The Times report also found that “people who were not fully vaccinated were hospitalized with Covid-19 at least five times more often than fully vaccinated people, according to the analysis, and they died at least eight times more often.”[Read: See the Data on Breakthrough Covid Hospitalizations and Deaths by State]Earlier this month, Dr. Tam said that in-person voting can be done safely with public health guidelines but added that mail-in ballots are an option for anyone who feels uneasy.That will likely lead to an unusual campaign, assuming it begins before the current infection wave ends. The leaders will be spared endless handshaking, and they won’t cozy up to voters for selfies and baby kissing — something that in my experience happens with astonishing frequency. Big rallies will likely be outdoors with participants socially distanced, and virtual events will likely be common.And perhaps I’m being optimistic, but the pandemic may also have the effect of creating a campaign, whenever it comes, that’s actually focused on issues and substance rather than personality and stagecraft.Trans CanadaA Chinese court sentenced Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison.Associated PressIn a case widely characterized as an act of hostage diplomacy by China, a court in that country sentenced Michael Spavor, a Canadian businessman, to 11 years in prison for spying this week. The decision followed another Chinese court’s rejection of a death sentence appeal by Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian convicted of drug trafficking. The decisions came as final arguments were underway in Vancouver at the extradition hearing for Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese telecommunications executive held in Canada who is facing fraud charges in the United States. The Canadian government contends that the two men as well as a Michael Kovrig, another Canadian arrested in China and accused of spying, are victims of political retaliation by China for Ms. Meng’s detention.Vjosa Isai continues to follow the disruption and devastation brought by wildfires in Western Canada and has also written an overview on how British Columbia is battling 300 wildfires all at the same time.Catherine Porter revisited Ted Freeman-Atwood, 90, a long-term care home resident who is now back in the greater world after nearly a year locked indoors because of coronavirus restrictions.I headed down to the border with the United States earlier this week when it reopened to fully vaccinated Americans for nonessential visits. While there were considerable delays crossing into Canada, largely because of new rules, the number of visitors heading north did not surge.Qianshi Lin, a botanist at the University of British Columbia, has discovered the secret of the Western false asphodel, a wildflower: It’s a carnivore.Tony Esposito, the Chicago Blackhawks’ goaltender for 15 seasons, died at the age of 78.As a director, David Cronenberg is credited with creating a subgenre of film known as body horror. Now he’s acting and starring in Season 4 of the Canadian horror anthology series “Slasher.”Joshua Barone, a music critic for The Times, writes that Robert Carsen, a Canadian, “might be the most, well, reliable director in opera. I meant it as high praise: His work is by no means repetitive, cautious or dull. But in more than 125 productions over three decades in the field, he has been peerlessly dependable.”A native of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.How are we doing?We’re eager to have your thoughts about this newsletter and events in Canada in general. Please send them to nytcanada@nytimes.com.Like this email?Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up here. More

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      in World Politics

      Seeking Truth and Reconciliation in America

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      After over 50 years in the US as an immigrant from the UK, of which 40 have been spent in Washington, DC, I thought I had seen it all. Clearly, I was wrong. The mob invasion of the Capitol on January 6 was a historic first. Thankfully, it was followed by President Joe Biden’s peaceful inauguration on January 20. Democrats went on to achieve a majority in both houses of the US Congress. With the change in the political wind, America has a unique opportunity to borrow from three previous truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) to bring harmony where there is discord.

      Will American Democracy Perish Like Rome’s?

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      The most famous TRC was instituted by South Africa’s 1995 Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. The goal of the new TRC was to uncover the truth about human rights violations during decades of apartheid. The emphasis was on finding the truth from both victims and perpetrators, not on prosecuting individuals for past crimes. In this regard, it differed from the Nuremberg trials that prosecuted Nazis for their crimes.

      Societal Schism

      The events of January 6 have exposed societal schism to the world. Now, the US needs actions, not words, to form a fully representative, multi-party equivalent of the South African TRC to deal with enduring injustices across the nation. The current American social problem is complex, multi-generational and multi-dimensional. As such, it is not likely to be easily or speedily ameliorated. However, admitting the problem in the style of alcoholics anonymous is a necessary first step to avoiding a looming cultural and economic civil war.

      The fundamental problem in America is its broken education system. According to Pew Research Center, a large percentage of Americans still reject the theory of evolution. As per the National Center for Educational Statistics, 21% (43 million) of American adults are functionally illiterate — e.g., lacking the basic ability to use reading, writing and calculation skills for their own and the community’s development. The US may be the world superpower, but its poorly educated citizens often lack critical thinking and judgment. Seduced by demagogues, they have drifted into warring camps.

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      Many thoughtful Americans are worried about divisions in society. The December 2019 issue of The Atlantic was a special report titled “How to Stop a Civil War.” It examined “a nation coming apart.” The magazine brought together the nation’s best writers to confront questions of American unity and fracture. That issue has proved to be prescient.

      Since the 2020 elections, the rhetoric in the US became increasingly toxic. Disinformation was rife, calls for insurrection came right from the top and the pot of anger boiled over on January 6. It may not be 1861, but disunity reigns in the United States. A TRC that digs out the truth might be exactly what America needs in a post-truth world.

      Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

      There have been three significant TRCs since 1990 in South Africa, Chile and Canada. The results of these appear to be mixed. In balance, they seem to have had a positive impact on the arc of the history of their respective societies.

      The story of South Africa’s TRC is too well known to be told in full here. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, investigated crimes during apartheid to record the truth. The TRC offered amnesty to perpetrators of many crimes and rehabilitation as well as reparations to the victims. It might be fair to say that the work of the TRC allowed South Africa to make a peaceful transition from a horrendously unjust apartheid regime to a plural, democratic society.

      Chile’s TRC predates the South African one. It operated from May 1990 to February 1991. The mandate of the Rettig Commission, as Chile’s TRC has come to be known, was to document human rights abuses that resulted in death or disappearance during the years of military rule from September 11, 1973, to March 11, 1990. Notably, investigating torture and abuses that did not result in death did not form part of the mandate of the Rettig Commission. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument to be made why Chile’s TRC was the first step that led to last year’s referendum in which Chileans voted to rewrite the military-era constitution.

      Canada’s TRC emulated the Chilean and South African ones. Between 2007 and 2015, it provided those directly or indirectly affected by the legacy of the Indian residential school system with an opportunity to share their stories and experiences. The TRC spent six years traveling to all parts of Canada and recorded experiences of 6,500 witnesses. It recorded the history and legacy of the numerous injustices perpetrated by the residential school system to the indigenous peoples. Its six-volume report with 94 “calls to action” has been accepted by the Canadian government and marks a watershed in the country’s history.

      An American Truth and Reconciliation Commission

      Unlike South Africa, Chile and Canada, America’s injustices and even its divisions are messier. There is no equivalent of an apartheid or military regime to investigate. Investigating only the injustices against the indigenous Native Americans or formerly enslaved African Americans would be too narrow a remit to renew the American social fabric.

      America’s schisms include, but are not limited to, those in education, culture, geography, politics, religious beliefs, skin color and immigration. Just as Catholics and different Protestant sects interpret the Bible in various ways, Americans have radically different interpretations of the Constitution and its amendments. Like many reports, articles and documentaries have now recorded, social media has exacerbated the fractures in American society. Truth itself is in question and distrust in institutions is dangerously high.

      The purpose of establishing an American TRC is to slow down, and potentially reverse, the steady rupturing of a fundamentally decent society espousing equal opportunity for all. To avoid the growing risk of a dystopian cultural war, the US needs to identify the problems it faces. If social media is exacerbating divisions, how exactly is it doing so? Is polarization in America based on resentment of the white working class against metropolitan elites, or is it the rural versus urban divide? If so many Americans are functionally illiterate, what exactly is going wrong in the education system? If social mobility is now below that in my home country of the UK, why is that so?

      For a truth and reconciliation commission to be credible, it must not only identify problems but also provide solutions. Like its Canadian counterpart, it could come up with “calls to action.” Members of an American TRC must come from all walks of life, different political, cultural and religious philosophies, and have a reputation for integrity. In a partisan democracy with tribal political loyalties, they must not belong to any political party. Their core task must be to diagnose what ails America and what can heal it. Only then can this nation, which I have made my home, can be restored to its much-haloed promise.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More