Good morning. Wendy Cox here. I’m The Globe’s B.C. Bureau Chief and the current election campaign has been one of my preoccupations this month. The vote is Saturday, and the debate on key issues remains in the details. More on that, but let’s start with Justin Trudeau’s stunning testimony at the foreign interference inquiry yesterday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears as a witness at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Foreign interference inquiry
Trudeau on the stand
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified for a second time at the inquiry, but yesterday had a very different tone. He alleged that he has received highly classified intelligence that Conservative Party politicians and members engaged in, or are susceptible to, foreign interference by unnamed hostile states. Trudeau later testified that he has also received intelligence about Liberals and members of other political parties who are compromised by, or engaged in, foreign interference.
The explosive testimony comes while support for the Prime Minister is being put to the test. Some Liberal MPs have quietly called on Trudeau to resign. But what started as murmurs months ago is quickly snowballing into a concerted effort to force him out.
Multiple Liberal MPs have told The Globe and Mail they anticipate the demand to be presented first in writing, as soon as this weekend, then at an open-microphone session at the next scheduled caucus meeting on Wednesday. So far, there’s no ultimatum attached to those demands.
More from The Globe
- Campbell Clark says: Trudeau brought a twist to the tale, and testified to hurl a grenade
- Watch back: Here’s a short clip from yesterday’s testimony
Meanwhile, the House of Commons public safety committee unanimously agreed to launch an emergency study of RCMP allegations that Indian government agents are connected to violent crimes in Canada. The British government weighed into the diplomatic row, saying “the right next step” for New Delhi is to co-operate with Ottawa’s investigation. Check out today’s Business Brief newsletter to read more on the fraying trade relationship between Canada and India.
A sample voter card being used to demonstrate the voting process as it's inserted into a new electronic tabulator on Sept. 25.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
Politics
British Columbia votes this weekend
Whoever first uttered the oft-repeated phrase “campaigns matter” might be a bit dismayed at how little this month’s B.C. Election campaign seems to have moved voters.
The NDP and the B.C. Conservatives – a party that only managed about 2 per cent of the popular vote in 2020 and not even a per cent in 2017 – went into the campaign roughly neck-and-neck in the polls.
Today, with just two days to go in the month-long campaign, the polls are indicating the margin of error will decide the winner: Plotted on a graph, opinion polls for both parties do little more than bend a bit here and there before coming to rest not far from where they started: with the NDP a little bit ahead but far from the 14 percentage-point lead it had after the last election.
There has been substantive debate on what both parties appear to agree are the key issues. The real differences in policy between the two are to be found in the details.
On the opioid crisis
- In response to heightened public perceptions of deteriorating civil order, both parties have pledged to open new facilities aimed at involuntarily treating the mentally ill and addicted. While NDP Leader David Eby says the NDP will make such an option available to the tiny subset – the party estimates about 100 people – of those who suffer from brain injury and mental health and addictions disorders, the Conservatives will make the option available based on addiction alone.
- As Mike Hager and Andrea Woo write after months of inquiry, the innovative program at the Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction provides a model for the path forward. But both political parties were not keen during the campaign to discuss the conflicting science about whether an involuntary approach actually works.
On the economy
- Both parties plan to run record-breaking deficits and neither envisions reaching balanced books any time soon The NDP plans to add an extra $3-billion to its unprecedented deficit of $9-billion next year to meet its campaign promises. The Conservatives plan to add $2.6-billion to the deficit to meet their campaign promises.
- Conservative Leader John Rustad has promised what his party has dubbed the Rustad rebate, a tax deduction allowing people to exempt up to $1,500 from their income taxes for mortgage payments or rent. The NDP has proposed an elaborate new financing program which would see middle-class, first-time homebuyers qualify for government financing for 40 per cent of the cost of one of the 25,000 homes built as part of the program.
But both leaders spent at least as much time trashing the other as they did promoting their own visions, reaching for folksiness that didn’t really land. Did voters really respond to Rustad’s pledge to bring back plastic straws as he awkwardly declared “Paper straws suck” during the televised debate? And did the NDP’s spoof declaration that Rustad would bring back the McDonald’s McRib get voters to do much more than scratch their heads?
Voters apparently also haven’t responded to the torrent of questionable past comments made by Conservative candidates and even Rustad himself. Brent Chapman, running in a key Surrey riding, was forced to apologize for vile 2015 Facebook comments about Palestinians and was also attacked for comments seemingly questioning mass shootings at a mosque in Quebec and at Sandy Hook in the U.S. Rustad himself was forced to issue a rare apology last week after he appeared to endorse a comparison of COVID mandates to the Nazi Nuremburg trials during a conversation with an anti-vaccine-mandate group in July.
From the newsroom
- The Decibel: B.C. politics reporter Justine Hunter walks us through the province’s unpredictable election
- B.C. Insider newsletter: Why Surrey and its 10 ridings are so important in the upcoming election
The Shot
‘We do not use algorithms to determine a driver’s wage’
Harrison Amit launched Hovr in Toronto this spring.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
By providing better wages to Canadian drivers, the ridesharing app Hovr is hoping to compete with heavyweights Uber and Lyft. Read more about the startup here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Shane Nedohin worked in the Canadian military’s special operations force, serving in the Middle East and Africa. Today, he’s struggling to get Veterans Affairs Canada to accept he has a traumatic brain injury after 22 years of exposure to blasts.
Abroad: Video footage of a man being burned to death after an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital compound has been broadcast around the world this week. The family of Shaban al-Dalou recounts the night the video was taken.
Going green: Global oil demand is projected to peak by the end of the decade as countries push to electrify their economies, according to the International Energy Agency.
Going to the unions: Globe foreign correspondent Nathan VanderKlippe spent time on a Teamsters picket line in Detroit to explore how blue-collar workers in Michigan, a crucial swing state, are processing the final days of the U.S. presidential election.