Off the Deep End

 

Despite some improper attempts to shout down Trudeau at campaign stops, and even a little gravel throwing, I was mildly pleasantly surprised by the relative lack of acrimony in the recent Canadian election, at least compared to recent elections in the US and UK.

But now Maclean’s has sullied its reputation by publishing a late hit piece on the People’s Party of Canada: “The PPC got more than 800,000 votes, and that should worry all of us.”

I’m not sure it should worry the people who voted for the People’s Party, should it? I guess, chillingly, the 800,000 fellow Canadians who voted PPC are now not part of “us.”

Author Pam Palmater refers to the PPC as a “threat to public safety.” This promotes hatred towards a group of fellow citizens.

It would be different if the PPC advocated violence, like Antifa or Black Lives Matter. But the PPC is a political party. As leader Maxime Bernier said when he was arrested in Manitoba, “my only weapons are my words.”

Palmater refers to the PPC as “far right” and “populist,” and is alarmed at how quickly it is growing. 

These concerns are contradictory. If it is indeed growing quickly, it is no longer “far right.” Being “extreme” does not make you wrong; that is the ad populum fallacy. Gandhi, Mandela, Einstein, Socrates, or Jesus were extreme in their milieu. But beyond that, there is no absolute standard of “right” and “left”: positions considered right wing in Canada would be left wing in the US. The standard is how distant a party or faction’s views are from the majority opinion. Since the PPC garnered a larger share of the popular vote than the Greens, you cannot call them far right unless you also refer to the Greens as far left. Nobody does.  It sounds foolish.

In fact, when polled on the issues, the average Canadian’s political views are usually closer to the PPC’s than the other political parties: on immigration, for example. Palmater admits this by calling them “populist.” You cannot be both populist and far right.

Every political party in a democracy of course claims to be populist, to be for the common people. By declaring the PPC populist, Palmater is saying she believes the rest are lying, and is, further, endorsing their right to lie to the public. Of course they do not have the public’s interests at heart. That’s for suckers.

Palmater goes on to lie about the PPC in detail. She says it “includes those who were rejected by the Conservative party,” and cites Derek Sloan—who is not a member of the PPC. She says it harbours those who have “gained some degree of notoriety from racist rhetoric,” and cites Bill Capes. Capes had put up some jokes on his Twitter feed a few years ago that, while they sound merely good-natured, could have offended. He has apologized. Demonstrably, he had gained no notoriety for the tweets―or they would have been turned up in the PPC’s vetting process. 

Palmater point out with concern that hate crimes grew in Canada last year. This is no doubt meant to imply that the PPC has something to do with this. Why is the PPC any more responsible than the Anti-Defamation League? It is the left that is fomenting race hatred in Canada.

Palmater claims that “Canada produces more far-right [sic] online content per web user than any other country.” If true, that shows the need for the PPC: it has a legitimate constituency in Canada, that is otherwise not being represented electorally. Besides having the right to be represented, it is dangerous to the public peace to suppress the views and voice of one’s fellow citizens. Yet that is exactly what Palmater demands.

Palmater cites examples of the PPC’s intolerable far right views: the PPC “promises to maximize freedom of expression …; cut funding to universities if they silence those espousing hateful [i.e. dissident] views; cut funding for CBC; cut funding for foreign aide [sic]; and lower the number of immigrants and stop the flow of refugees into Canada.”

In other words, Palmater is opposed to freedom of speech, wants government control of the media, and wants unrestricted immigration into Canada.

I can see legitimate reasons why many of her fellow citizens might disagree. There is a reason why freedom of speech is guaranteed in our constitution, and in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. There is a reason why nations have borders. And the PPC nowhere calls for an end to accepting refugees; Palmater only imagines this, or lies.

No doubt aware of how reasonable the PPC platform might sound, Palmater explains that “beneath the surface of these promises are deeply embedded racist views against non-white people.” In other words, she can read minds, and wants to root out and prosecute thought crimes.

She does cite “their plan to repeal multiculturalism laws and cut funding for multiculturalism with a view to forcing integration into Canadian society and culture.” This is “racist” only if you think culture is racially determined and those of other races cannot be expected ever to integrate. That is a profoundly racist claim, although an increasingly common one on the left. No doubt they must be kept in ghettos, and not allowed to vote.

She concludes by warning against “Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups.” This would be more compelling if the Proud Boys were white supremacists, and if they had anything to do with the PPC. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, Palmater and Maclean’s are dangerously insane. There’s a lot of that going around.

The Morning After

 

The results are in for the Canadian federal election, and nothing has changed. Nobody won. There is something profound and existential in that. Canada is the land where nothing changes, and nobody wins.

I hear speculation about this or that party leader losing their job. I doubt that. 

Justin Trudeau is not going to lose his job, because he is still prime minister, and he bought that party back from the dead in 2015, after a string of unsuccessful leaders. The Liberal Party is now “Team Trudeau”; they are entirely invested in him. 

Some say Erin O’Toole should lose his job, because he got a result no better than Andrew Scheer in 2019, and Scheer lost his job. But if changing the leader did not lead to a better result, why do it again? It makes more sense to try something new—like giving the guy a second chance, and Canadians time to get to know him. Last Tory leadership contest, nobody much seemed to want the job; most of the obvious candidates declined to run. So I doubt there is a lot of pressure from possible rivals to dump him.

Jagmeet Singh is not going to lose his job—the NDP is happiest when they are losing, and they tend to stick with leaders so long as they do not threaten, like Tom Mulcair, to win an election. That would be selling out.

Yves-Francois Blanchet surely does not deserve to lose his job. Like Trudeau, he pulled his party back from the brink a few years ago. It is now very much his party. And politicians with his talent are not easy to find.

Maxime Bernier is not going to lose his job, because he is better known and more popular than his party. Without him, it does not exist.

Annamie Paul will probably lose her job, but she was going to lose her job before the election was called. She has even suggested she does not want the job. 

So there is unlikely to be any political excitement as a result of this election either. The Green Party will choose a new leader, and at 3% and falling, nobody will care.

Canadian politics looks like it is in a deadlock. This has happened before. I’m an old fart; the last time I remember a mood like this was in 1963-67, when it seemed as though the Pearson Liberals and the Diefenbaker Conservatives could not get beyond exchanging minorities. That logjam was broken by the emergence from the wings of the exciting new figure of Trudeau.

But the Tories have already tried a leadership change, and the Liberals have already used up the “exciting new figure of Trudeau” gambit. This time, the one possible source of a reshuffle and new deal is Bernier and the PPC. They are offering something new. While they elected nobody, they expanded their support exponentially. 

Next time, with nothing changing elsewhere, and everyone that much more frustrated with the status quo, they may become the most important factor.

Vote Prediction for the Canadian Election

 

I have no idea who will win today's Canadian federal election, and I have no special insight. Just for fun, though, here is a seat projection--more or less what I think justice should produce as a result of the campaign. Now let's see how far it is from the reality.

NDP 40

Given that everybody likes Singh, and O'Toole does not look threatening to the left, and the Green vote will collapse, and a lot of people are fed up with Trudeau, I think the NDP's numbers should go up.

Bloc 40

Blanchet is good, and found a good issue. Again, I think people are annoyed with Trudeau. So the Bloc ought to pick up seats.

PPC 10

Okay, this is mostly wishful thinking. But the PPC is getting a lot of attention, and if people are really fed up, it is the ideal protest vote vehicle.

Greens 1

Elizabeth May holds her seat.

Liberals 120

Trudeau will probably do better than this based on the polls, but he really should not based on the campaign. He took the worst hit during the debates, Jody Wilson-Raybould's book came out, he called an unnecessary election, and there was nothing inspiring in his platform.

Conservatives 127

Also mostly wishful thinking--just enough to pip Trudeau. Basically calculated by giving them the remainder by default. This would be a gain of six from last time, which feels about right. O'Toole's campaign did a better job than Scheer. He came out of the starting gate well, and did not stumble in the debates. I do not see the PPC being much of a spoiler for him. The votes they get might have stayed home or gone to the Greens as the next best "plague on both your houses" option. If they cut his margin in some places, that works two ways: it may leave the Tory support more economically distributed, so they do not waste so much of it on unnecessarily high margins in Alberta. So the same rough voting percentage as last time could give them more seats.

Dumbest move in the election: O'Toole getting endorsed by Brian Mulroney. Mulroney is not remembered fondly even by Conservatives, and his term as leader ended in disaster for the party.

Voting Day

 Just returned from voting. Surprised by the lineup. When the polls opened there were at least two dozen people in line. When I exited, there were still twenty outside waiting to get in, not counting the lines inside the polling place. This is despite the fact that there seem to be no real lightning rod issues in the election, the platforms of the major parties are very similar, this riding is not competitive in an ordinary election, and the Conservative candidate was forced to withdraw before voting day.

Usually a heavy turnout is supposed to help the Liberals. But it might also betoken a “throw the rascals out” mood.

Late polls predict a Liberal, minority.

Confucius and Solomon on Whom to Vote for Tomorrow

 

Erin O'Toole

The first reading at mass this morning sounds like a comment on Erin O’Toole:

“The wicked say: 

Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us;

        he sets himself against our doings,

    reproaches us for transgressions of the law

        and charges us with violations of our training.

    Let us see whether his words be true;

        let us find out what will happen to him.

    For if the just one be the son of God, God will defend him

        and deliver him from the hand of his foes.

    With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test

        that we may have proof of his gentleness

        and try his patience.

    Let us condemn him to a shameful death;

        for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”—Wisdom 2:12, 17-20

If someone pretends to be a friend to all, he is a friend to none; he is only acting in his own self-interest.

Anyone who is genuinely moral will stir up strenuous opposition: whether he calls them out or not, the evil will hate him.

Confucius made the same point. From memory: “If a man has no friends, it is necessary to make enquiries. If a man has no enemies, it is necessary to make enquiries.”

Just saying. I'd still be pleased if O'Toole removed Trudeau.

Maxime Bernier: An Endorsement

 

Max Bernier

Everybody seems to be endorsing someone in the current Canadian federal election, over the last few days. Probably nobody cares; I’m just a guy; but it is time to again endorse Maxime Bernier.

Erin O’Toole has been warning against vote-splitting on the right. “If you want to get rid of Justin Trudeau, there’s only one choice.” This does not sound reasonable. O’Toole has run on a platform barely distinguishable from Trudeau’s; that makes the stakes trivial. Moreover, if the polls are right, we are going to get a minority government. If it is a Tory majority, they are going to need the cooperation of the NDP or Bloc to stay in power; this will pull them further left. 

So why waste your vote?

A vote for the PPC that is a vote for change. If we can get PPC representation in parliament, we can change the political discourse. We will start pulling the debate to the right, just as the NDP and the CCF before it have pulled it to the left for so long. Making the Liberals the Natural Governing Party.

I actually do not care much about Bernier’s signature issue this iteration, opposition to vaccine mandates. I do not think vaccine mandates are that sinister. They are an imposition on our freedom, but they seem reasonable; even Jason Kenney explains “we have run out of options.” As with the War Measures Act, when the emergency passes, such restrictions have always in the past been rescinded.

What does alarm me is the tendency to scapegoat the unvaccinated. A recent correspondent wrote “They're not listening to the bells in any temple except their own. They cling to their ‘rights’ without any corresponding sense of ‘responsibility’ to the wider community. And yet, they're the ones currently clogging our hospital systems.”

Logically, if the vaccines work, there is no reason to worry about anyone else being vaccinated, so long as you are. If the vaccines do not work, there is no reason to get vaccinated. 

So the issue is only the secondary one of “crowding the ICUs.” Others might miss treatments. Politicians like Trudeau are lying and stirring up hate by suggesting it is more than this. The appeal is “fifteen days to slow the spread.” Oops, sorry, make that eighteen months and counting.

But it is ambitious to expect many more than 72.9%--the current figure--to agree to vaccination. For some people—kids, for example, or people with allergies—the risk of vaccination is greater than the risk from the virus. Others will have phobias about vaccinations; phobia is not trivial. Others, especially racial minorities, do not trust the health system or the government. Do we want to target racial minorities for general condemnation?

The bottom line is, we are probably near the limit of what we can accomplish without coercive measures. Coercive measures are not warranted, and must be anathema. So insisting on vaccination rates higher than this may only be postponing our return to normalcy indefinitely.

But we are also near the limit we were told would lead to at least partial herd immunity; the more so when you realize that some of the unvaccinated will have already had COVID. Presumably, at 72.9%, almost everyone at high risk has been vaccinated. The wisest course might be to drop all restrictions and let the virus itself give us herd immunity quickly. The UK government seems to have decided on this course. 

Whether we do this or not, that it is a reasonable option means it is a misdirection to blame the continued lockdowns or the persistence of the virus on the unvaccinated.

The idea is being pushed aggressively by politicians and health officials, I suspect, because they have a tiger by the tail. If they lift restrictions, cases will spike for a time, and they will be blamed. Jason Kenney is living through this nightmare now in Alberta. If they continue the restrictions, people will blame them as they lose their savings, lose their jobs, lose their businesses, lose their homes, inflation gets worse and food becomes a problem too. Those in charge need a scapegoat, to deflect blame from themselves, and to avoid having to make a tough decision. “The unvaccinated” serves their purpose.

We ought not to fall for it. For one thing, if we do, innocents will suffer. For another, so long as we do, lockdowns will probably continue, as no politician has the nerve to end them.

Bernier says he will end them.

And his other policies are even better.

Posted as a Public Service

 

Longtime Liberal ooperative Warren Kinsella says "don't vote for Justin Trudeau."

Was Trudeau's Fate Sealed Last Night?

 

Last night five of the Canadian federal party leaders held their only English-language debate. 

My scorecard:

Best zinger—Annamie Paul telling Trudeau he is no feminist.

Best overall performance—Yves-Francois Blanchet. 

Winner- Erin O’Toole

Loser- Justin Trudeau

Mr. Congeniality- Jagmeet Singh

Possibly also a winner – Maxime Bernier

The clip from the debate that is being most shown now is Annamie Paul telling Trudeau he is no feminist, and naming Jane Philpott and Jody Wilson-Raybould. This cleverly reminded everyone of the Lavalin scandal, and strongly suggested that those who want to show support for Philpott and Wilson-Raybould should do so by voting Green. Trudeau made it worse with his comeback: “I’ll take no advice from you on caucus management.” By responding sharply, he tended to reinforce exactly what Paul was saying, that he was no feminist and would not listen to women. People are as likely to sympathize with Paul over her caucus problems as to blame her for them. And women outrank men socially. It never looks good when a man speaks harshly to a woman in public. Most people are instinctively uncomfortable at this. Trudeau looked ungentlemanly, and Canada is a polite society. 

Trudeau was then cut off by the moderator, so he was unable to make any further response. It left the charge by Paul standing. Torpedo taken below the water line.

Although she got in the best line, I do not think Annamie Paul profited from the debate, other than by being featured on the same platform as the major party leaders. And that may have been a problem instead of an advantage: the Greens exist as a protest vote, and it was hard to see how they were any different on the climate policy questions than the NDP, Liberals, or Conservatives. She too often made everything about herself, not policies, and kept pulling rank as a woman and a “person of colour.” Most egregiously, she offered to “educate” Blanchet about racism, and criticized him for failing to submit to this demand. One begins to sense what makes her own caucus and party dislike her. She is too openly all about Annamie Paul, and contemptuous of others.

By contrast, I really would like to vote for Blanchet, were it not for everything he stands for. He came across as though he was speaking for the rest of us against these lying politicians. It was an engaging performance. He was helped, no doubt, by the fact that the other leaders ignored him as irrelevant to the English-language debate. So he took little incoming fire. But then, when Paul tried to criticize and talk down to him, it was a terrible look for her. Perhaps, given his engaging style, it would have been a bad look for any of the other party leaders.

The debate will probably not help Blanchet much; he is indeed irrelevant to the English-language audience, since he is running candidates only in French Canada. Perhaps he will have burnished his credentials with his constituency by standing up for Quebeckers against charges of racism—that very exchange with Annamie Paul. She may have helped him and hurt herself; the implication was that Quebeckers in general needed to be “educated” by her about racism.

Erin O’Toole’s performance was, I think, ideal for his purposes, and he is the one candidate most helped by the debate. His tactic was to come across as moderate and unthreatening, not a scary right-winger who might stampede the NDP vote over to the Liberals. He did that: always smiling, always speaking in an even tone, sounding sensible. I think he also got in one good zinger against Trudeau: “you’ve never met a target.”

None of the other party leaders but Trudeau went after him, so he did not have to spend much time on the defensive. For Trudeau, he is only one of three dangerous adversaries. The BQ is their rival in Quebec, and it is as important for the Liberals to win votes on the left from the NDP as to win votes on the right from the Conservatives. So the Liberal fire was scattered. By the same token, it made sense for the NDP and the BQ to concentrate fire on Trudeau rather than O’Toole. 

O’Toole had been boosted the day before by Premier Legault of Quebec coming close endorsing him publicly. Legault is popular in Quebec. The Conservatives may not win many Quebec seats as a consequence, but this gives voters in Ontario license to vote for him. O’Toole had momentum; he had to lose the debate to break it. He did better than not lose. Nobody got a shot at him, and he looked prime ministerial.

I understand why Trudeau took the aggressive approach he did. He is on a downward trend in the polls; he needed to score some fast punches, or lose the decision. But his aggressiveness helped O’Toole, by making the latter look calm and reasonable by contrast. The moderator often stepped in and told him to be quiet, that he was speaking out of turn. This was not good optics; it made him look like a disobedient child instead of a leader.

Everyone else on the podium also came after him, forcing him onto the defensive. Good zingers do not come out of a defensive stance. 

Jagmeet Singh came across as likeable, as he has in previous debates. It may not help him much, because he was already likeable. More significant, perhaps, is that he sounded as though he were likably agreeing with the Conservatives at several points, and disagreeing with Trudeau. This makes sense for the NDP; for them, the Liberals are the main competition, not the Conservatives. And the main issue of the election seems to have become the Liberals’ calling of an unnecessary election. Singh may have helped the NDP. But in helping the NDP, Singh was also helping the Conservatives.

Maxime Bernier was excluded from the debates. I believe his followers were protesting outside the building. This was a boon for Erin O’Toole, as he escaped any sniping from the right. It may also have helped Bernier. It solidifies the impression that a vote for the PPC is the true protest vote. If you want to send a message to Ottawa and the Laurentian elite, Bernier now looks like the vehicle. Apparently, pollsters are finding a movement of Green voters to the PPC on the West Coast. Paul looked too welcome and at home on that stage. 

Some recent polls are showing PPC support as high as 10 or 11 percent, well ahead of the Greens, and in striking distance of the NDP. Other polls show it much lower. But I suspect the “shy Tory” syndrome. The higher figure is more likely to be accurate. Something may be happening. We may be faced with another minority government, leaving the big news of election night the unexpected strength of the PPC.

The Conservatives and the PPC

 

Not scary.

The latest poll shows the Canadian Conservatives increasing their lead. At the same time, the People’s Party of Canada is getting more attention, with the anti-Trudeau protests, and some polls show its support growing. 

This violates conventional wisdom. The fear on the right has long been that splitting the conservative vote gives the government to the Liberals forever. The Reform Party in the 1990s and 2000s split the vote with the Progressive Conservatives. While they did, the Liberals looked invulnerable. The Wildrose Party in Alberta split the vote and allowed the NDP into power.

I think this conventional wisdom may be wrong. 

The vote on the left has been split for generations, since the 1930s, currently between the Liberals and the NDP; yet the Liberals win power more often than not.

I think it matters HOW the vote is split.

The NDP actually helps the Liberals, by pulling the public debate to the left. Canadians, always wanting harmony and compromise, accordingly vote Liberal as the safe and centre, to keep the Dippers happy. For the same reason, that they always want compromise, they are eternally suspicious of the Conservatives. Aside from offending the NDPers, the Tories probably, unlike the middle-hugging Liberals, harbour some radical members with radical ideas—the frightening “hidden agenda.”

Why did the Reform Party not do the same on the left? Because the Reform Party was not ideological. The Reform Party/Alliance was not a ginger group pulling the conversation further right. It was more an expression of Western alienation. Preston Manning insisted the party was neither left not right; it was competing for the centre, nationally under the name “Alliance.” So it lacked the intent or ability to move the needle to the right. Instead, it simply split the conservative vote.

The Wildrose Party in Alberta was also not really ideologically distinct from the PCs. Rather, it existed as a right-wing alternative for those who thought the PCs were too long in power and had become arrogant and unresponsive, but could not imagine voting left-wing to oppose them. Wildrose existed to “send them a message.” It was competing for the same ideological constituency.

The PPC is more like an NDP of the right. Its platform is distinct from that of the Conservatives, and its appeal is national. Rather than splitting the vote, its existence may tend to legitimize the Conservatives in the eyes of the majority who want government from the middle: it will soak up the ideologues, making the Conservatives look less scary. At the same time, it shows that a significant body of people are upset with the current situation. The mushy middle will want to assuage their concerns. Moving the entire discourse in a conservative direction.

Look at it this way: O’Toole, Bernier; good cop, bad cop.

On the Canadian Campaign Trail

 

The loud protests that now dog Justin Trudeau’s campaign stops are reprehensible. I suspect they are also likely to work.

Canadians crave consensus. Canada is historically run from the centre. The squeaking wheel can generally get whatever they want, to preserve consensus, so long as they are not given power. The indigenous people have recently been exploiting this tendency enthusiastically; Quebec did so for decades under the separatists. The feminists have done it over abortion. If even a small minority seems very strongly against something, everyone else will back away. I suspect a lot of people are going to back away from the Liberals as a result of this.

Unless, that is, anyone can trace it back to the Conservative Party. If they can, the Conservatives have no chance of being given power.

Conversely, although his platform is without principle, and he was caught recently shifting his position on gun control even in the middle of the campaign, Erin O’Toole may have the right formula to get elected in Canada. As Bill Davis used to say, “bland works.” Or, as F.R. Scott said of Mackenzie King, the Commonwealth’s longest serving prime minister, “never do by halves what can be done by quarters." Stephen Harper, the last Conservative prime minister, was pretty buttoned-down and low-key.

Canadians want peace and quiet. 

Trudeau may have made a mistake, accordingly, by being too visible during the COVID crisis. Canadians really do not want to see that much of their politicians.