Trudeau, Justin

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      5 Takeaways From Canada’s Official Election Debates

      by

      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

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Takeaways From Canada's Official Election Debates

      by

      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

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Trudeau Weighs Snap Election in Canada

      by

      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

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

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

      by

      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