On the Canadian Election Results

It is typical that the media are playing the just-finished Canadian election as a striking defeat and rebuff for Poilievre and the Conservatives. Warren Kinsella has a column out urging the Tories to get a new leader. Poilievre has failed.

Never take advice from your enemies.

It is sad that the Conservatives did not achieve power. It is sadder that Poilievre lost his own seat. But actually, the Conservative vote was at a near-all-time high. They missed the brass ring only because of the collapse of the NDP.

Carney could have an awkward time of it. The NDP ought to take the lesson that they lose by propping up the Liberals: doing so last time cut them down to below party status. To have any chance at a future, they must now distinguish themselves sharpy from the Liberals. 

At the same time, the Liberals will likely pay a price in the rest of Canada for making any deals with the BQ, an avowedly separatist party. And there is nothing in such cooperation for the Bloc either. The Liberals are their main opponents in Quebec. Strategically, they hardly want to make the Rouge look good by forcing them into new programs popular in Quebec. The credit in the popular mind is liable to go to Carney, not Blanchet and the Bloc.

So I see a good chance that Carney will soon be unable to command the support of the House. Meantime, the Liberals’ environment policies seem bound to alienate Aberta into at least talk of separation. And some economist has argued that whoever wins this time is unlucky, because the tariffs and trade war are going to lead to hard times soon. They will be blamed. Or they are going to have to cut a deal with Trump, and they will be tarred with inconsistency if not duplicity.

There will be good incentive soon enough among the other parties to bring down the government, and not be seen to prop them up. This may only be the first round.

Canadian Leaders and the Oncoming Election

 R

RB Bennett: the risks of winning the wrong election.

The talking heads at CBC’s At Issue think Pierre Poilievre, Yves-Francois Blanchet, and Jagmeet Singh all face likely loss of their party leadership after Monday’s election.

I believe only Singh is in trouble. Singh’s caucus will probably be cut in half; Singh will lose his own seat; and it will be his own fault—for backing the unpopular Liberals until they themselves pulled the plug. According to the polls, by stalling, he lost a chance for the NDP to form the Official Opposition. The latest polling has them down to eight seats, losing party status. He should have known, historically, that third parties are always punished for entering a coalition. And such a coalition, with an already unpopular prime minister! He really seems to have intentionally destroyed the NDP.

But Blanchet will surely not be blamed if the BQ loses seats. He is brilliant; the BQ cannot do better. It is circumstances--the tariff scare, and the fear of Canada breaking up--that have caused Quebec voters to rally, temporarily, around the Canadian flag and the obvious federalist alternative in Quebec, the Rouge. I expect BQ regulars to understand that, and see Blanchet as their best option going forward.

And about the same is true of Poilievre. He has run a flawless campaign; he is a brilliant rhetorician, a brilliant tactician. He was poised, six months ago, to crush the Liberals. That big win slipped away due to circumstances beyond his control: Trudeau’s resignation, Trump’s tariffs, Carney’s coronation and adoption of key elements of the Conservative platform. These show, if anything, just how effective a politician he has been. He forced his opponent to resign. He managed to kill the carbon tax, without even being in power. Nobody else in the Tory party is likely to do better. And, if in opposition, nobody else in the Tory party is likely to be a more effective opposition leader.

True, the Tories have dumped their last two leaders after only one election loss. But neither Scheer nor O’Toole had Poilievre’s legitimacy. 

Scheer’s leadership was tainted by scandal. First, he snuck past Bernier, the front runner in his leadership bid, by making a backroom deal with the dairy lobby. That left a lot of bad feeling in the party. Second, since he won in this way, he did not have a strong personal following; he was second choice for most who supported him. Third, he had falsified his job history and concealed his dual citizenship. Fourth, he lost his ideological cred by waffling on the abortion question. It is not that he was either pro or con: it was that he seemed to change his position for the sake of power. So he did not come across as a man of principle.

O’Toole ran for and won the leadership as a “True Blue” Tory; then campaigned in the election as “Liberal lite.” There is a saying in politics: if you abandon your principles for power, you’d better deliver power. Otherwise, you’ll have no nothing to fall back on. Ask Tom Mulcair. 

But Poilievre, like Harper, has ideological cred to sustain him through a season of want. He inspires loyalty; he won the Tory leadership by a wide margin on the first ballot. 

I have no special insights, and therefore no ability to predict the outcome of the election. I can only look at the polls. As of this morning, 338 Canada predicts a Liberal majority government at 186 seats. With the NDP at just 8 seats.

But there is a trend towards the Conservatives in recent days. So I’m hoping for a Liberal minority. Then perhaps, we may get a chance to remove them in a year or two.

I expect the Liberals’ policy of fighting a trade war with the US will prove disastrous. Their “green” agenda will provoke a national unity crisis. Even without this, one pundit says whoever wins this current election is likely to rue the day, since bad times are coming, and they will be blamed. 

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Let’s hope he still likes Canada, despite our arrogance.

Reactions to the Debate

 

Watching the English-language debate last night, I thought it was a draw. I thought Poilievre did a fine job, but Carney did not mess up, and I thought seemed likeable. Blanchet was really good; but it didn’t matter, because he was not speaking to his constituency. I thought Jagmeet Singh, with his constant interruptions, was intolerably obnoxious; of no relevance, but preventing viewers from hearing the contenders. It also seemed to me obviously bad strategy for Singh to keep interrupting Poilievre more than Carney, the frontrunner and his obvious competitor for votes. It was almost as if he was there to sabotage his own party. Given how far he was prepared to go against his party’s interests to secure his pension, I do wonder if he has been bought by the Liberals.

Accordingly, I was surprised and pleased to hear the immediate reaction from the CBC At Issue panel, partisan and pro-Liberal. To them, the big story was not the self-immolation of the NDP. It was that Poilievre won the debate, and probably gained ground.

They argue that he came across as reasonable and not scary. Meanwhile, Poilievre and Blanchet heaved some bombshells at him that he did not parry. He simply changed the subject; perhaps leaving them there, unexploded ordinance.

And the truly historic moment may have been when Carney got a free question, and chose to ask Poilievre: Why did he refuse to get security clearance? 

Dumb idea. Surely he should have known Poilievre had a ready answer, that took away this favoured Liberal talking point. And he was giving Poilievre a perfect opportunity to bring up Chinese interference.

Maybe they are right. Maybe Carney lost the election last night.

The State of the Race

 

I am profoundly depressed by the state of the polls in the Canadian election. Careny and the Liberals are projected to win a majority government, and I believe this will be the end of democracy in Canada; even the end of Canada. See my last post.

It would be divine justice for the arrogance of so many Canadians: thinking they are better than Americans, and better that Albertans and Saskatchewanians, and those guys had better just give us what we want, or else…

Narcissistic thinking.

Too many Conservative commentators are relying on the polls being wrong. That is an irrational, delusional, thought. That too is narcissistic thinking: as though the world is obliged to conform to my desires.

I think it is rational, at least, to hold out some hope for the upcoming debates. Because he is leading in the polls, all the other parties will be attacking Carney. And leaving each other alone. Blanchet is masterful in debate; and his party's current situation gives him every reason to go for broke and try for the knockout. Poilievre is masterful. Singh is desperate. Carney’s French is limited. And he has little experience in debate. He was not challenged in the Liberal leadership debate. He has been prickly even taking questions from essentially friendly reporters. He is not good at taking criticism. He is liable to blow his cool, or look a fool, or be caught lying.

I think the drip, drip, drip of scandals may also catch up with him. I overheard on the bus a few days ago one guy trying to convince others that Carney’s ties to the CCP are too sinister. Now there is the scandal of dirty tricks at a Conservative event. There is the issue of using tax havens. There is the issue of lying about moving his corporate headquarters to the States. There is the issue of possible conflicts of interest, and lack of transparency on what he owns. There has to be a tipping point.

We can pray and hope.

Reasons Not to Vote Carney

 

As a public service, here are a few reasons not to vote Carney and Liberal in the upcoming Canadian election:

Carney, like Trudeau, seems to be run by China. He seems to be cooperating with Beijing, naming candidates with known connections to the CCP; and refusing to remove candidates known to have such ties. We know the CCP is backing him on social media. His hostility to the US looks like China’s bidding. He looks, in short, like a Manchurian candidate.

We know there is foreign interference in our electoral process. We know there is foreign interference from China specifically. We must know what candidates are compromised. The Liberals have been doing whatever they can to suppress this information, and Carney seems even worse on this than Trudeau. 

In order to find out what is going on, and ensure the security and legitimacy of elections, we must get the Liberals out of power now so we can have an open investigation. 

We seem to be entering a new Cold War, between China and the United States. Carney seems to side with China against the USA. He has declared the US a “national security threat.” Do we really want to side with China in this global conflict? Leaving aside the obvious rights and wrongs of this, we are too vulnerable to attack from the US to contemplate turning on them. It would be fatally arrogant.

Carney has said he will impose even stricter censorship in Canada—making it more like China. “We announced a series of measures with respect to online harm… a sea of misogyny, anti-Semitism, hatred, conspiracy theories—the sort of pollution that's online that washes over our virtual borders from the United States. My government, if we are elected, will be taking action on those American giants who come across [our] border.” Under Trudeau, we have already largely lost freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and a free press. Carney plans to push further down this road. He must admire China’s “basic dictatorship.”

Carney says he will not repeal the “no new pipelines” bill. He says he will not force a pipeline on Quebec. He and his cabinet want to hobble the oil and gas industry, with their “net zero carbon” program. He has made this a cornerstone of his personal philosophy, in his book “Values.” 

This, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith warns, will trigger a “national unity crisis.” Scott Moe in Saskatchewan is also threatening action. The mechanism to separate is available to them, established through the Quebec referenda. They can vote to leave, and if to their advantage to join the United States. Doing so, they avoid both tariffs and equalization payments. If Alberta merely pulls out of the Canada Pension Plan, they theoretically have the right to take half the fund with them. Canada may be split in two, and without Alberta shovelling cash eastward, much poorer. It is suicidally arrogant for voters in eastern Canada to ignore Alberta’s concerns and vote Carney.

Justin Trudeau, having declared the Emergency Act and frozen bank accounts without legal justification, needed to be so utterly rebuked no future government would ever again try such a thing. Unfortunately, Trudeau resigned without facing a vote. Therefore, we must rebuke his successor Carney, his party, and the cabinet and caucus who supported Trudeau in his actions. Under Carney they remain in power. For the sake of Canadian democracy, they must be thrown out. Every Liberal vote is an act of treason.

While both Carney and Poilievre are foolishly (or cynically) calling for a trade war against the US, this is suicide for Canada. But now that Trump has delayed most tariffs until after the election, in order to negotiate with a new government, Poilievre is at least better placed to negotiate that new trade deal. A new government can more easily reset the relationship and avoid responsibility for the belligerence of the past. It helps that Poilievre is broadly aligned politically with Danielle Smith and Doug Ford, the two premiers who have been most active and most flexible in talks with the Americans. It helps that Poilievre is, like the Republicans in power in the States, a conservative.  Ford, for all his initial bellicosity, has already proposed the obvious solution, reciprocal complete free trade and a shared defense perimeter.

Carney is the perfect globalist. He holds three passports. He has lived and held high government positions abroad. He has declared himself a European. He moved his businesses offshore. There is no reason to believe he holds any great allegiance to Canada. His allegiance is to the globalist elites and their agenda. This may not be in our interests. We need someone who will speak for us to international fora, not speak to us for international fora.

As a high-level investment banker at Brookfield and manager of investment funds, Carney has huge possible conflicts of interest. He is dodging questions about this. He seems even to have suspended his campaign or a few days to avoid questions about this. At a minimum, we must get a good look at the books, his tax returns, and his Cayman Islands and Bermuda addresses before we give him the PM chair for four years. 

He has, he says, put everything in a blind trust. But can he really remain blind to what, for example, Brookfield is invested in day by day? It’s probably in the papers. And in his memory. And, assuming he stays honest, what good is a Prime Minister who must recuse himself from most government decisions?

In modern times, democracies are gradually being taken over by the bureaucracy, the “Deep State,” the “blob.” This becomes an unaccountable ruling class. To forestall this, we must insist always on civilian oversight, on final power remaining always with out elected representatives.

Carney, unfortunately, is the personification of the bureaucratic mind. Voting in a bureaucrat to oversee bureaucrats is surrendering our democracy.

Over the past ten years, under Liberal stewardship, Canada’s GDP per capita has stagnated. Government debt has skyrocketed. The loonie is at a 50-year low against the dollar. We are slipping into the Third World. Carney was economic advisor during half of that time. We already know his policies are a disastrous failure. We must pull out of this nose dive.

Over the past ten years of Liberal leadership, mass migration and multiculturalism have badly damaged Canada’s social fabric, and produced shortages in housing and health care—essentials for life. At the same time, we are being warned that many low-skilled jobs will soon be obsolete due to automation, and a UBI may be needed. Meaning all these new immigrants are likely to be a growing burden to the taxpayer. 

Carney is committed to continuing these policies: mass migration and multiculturalism.

I discover that a Parliamentary committee has, with full support from both the Liberals and the NDP, called for withdrawing tax-exempt status from religious charities. This will further erode our social fabric, and withdraw the most effective support for the poor. 

Carney has been caught lying to the public repeatedly. He plagiarized his doctoral thesis. He has promised new laws that are already on the books. Would you buy a used car from this man?

Would you buy a used government?