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This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

Existing COVID-19 income support programs will expire as scheduled on Saturday and will be replaced by a more “targeted” approach until early May at a cost of $7.4-billion, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced today.

Several of the main federal income support programs are currently scheduled to expire on Oct. 23. They include the Canada Recovery Benefit and related versions - the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit and the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit - that go directly to individuals who are unable to work for reasons related to the pandemic.

The Oct. 23 deadline also applies to benefits that go directly to employers to help offset their costs for staff and rent. These benefits include the Canada Emergency Rent Subsidy (CERS) and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS). At an estimated cost of over $111-billion, the CEWS has been the largest by far of Ottawa’s more than $289-billion in direct support measures announced during the pandemic.

Deputy Ottawa Bureau Chief Bill Curry and Independent Business Reporter Chris Hannay report here on today’s development, which came during a news conference also attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Also, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the Canadian government will forgo issuing a federal vaccine passport for international travel and will instead rely on a standardized proof of vaccination that will be issued by provinces and territories, which will feature a Government of Canada logo and Canadian flag. Story here.

ERIN O’TOOLE TALKS

On the campaign trail, Erin O’Toole was a man with a plan, namely Canada’s Recovery Plan platform. But the Conservative Party leader was also a man with a raft of talking points he tended to stick to no matter what questions he was asked by journalists on his tour.

The wisdom of that approach was one of the issues an unusually relaxed Mr. O’Toole reflected on in his first extended TV interview since the federal election campaign, taking questions on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin. You can watch the interview here.

When Mr. Paikin pointedly raised the issue, M. O’Toole said he prefers “in-depth interviews” then said that it was important for him to talk about what he wanted to talk about. “There is a healthy to and fro. It sometimes frustrated the journalists that I was trying to get my message out, but I only have 36 days.” He added there were things to learn from the experience.

Conservative Senator Michael MacDonald wrote of the talking-points issue in a letter to the party caucus, suggesting Mr. O’Toole tended to evade questions. “I know Trudeau did the same, but most Canadians had already formed an (unfavourable) opinion of him. Erin needed to show them he was different in that regard. You cannot do that with evasion and talking points.”

In the campaign the Conservatives won 119 seats, losing ridings in various parts of Canada, while making some gains. The party ended where it started at dissolution in seat totals.

“Many people that were kicking the tires with the Conservatives didn’t buy the car,” Mr. O’Toole told Mr. Paikin, referring to the party’s performance.

The Conservative leader said the party needs to do more to win the trust of those people. He also said the party has to get into urban and suburban ridings after an overly cautious campaign due to COVID-19. “I should have been into some of the urban centres more, hearing from people more.”

On other issues, Mr. O’Toole said:

- Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party, which won 5 per cent of the vote but no seats, is not hindering the Conservative’s electoral success. Mr. O’Toole said Mr. Bernier’s approach is divisive and “scares people in some cases,” when asked if the former Conservative cabinet minister who created the fringe party is a deterrent to the success of the Conservative Party. During the campaign, Mr. O’Toole was averse to specifically mentioning Mr. Bernier or his party. “There is a portion of [Mr. Bernier’s] vote that is conservative, or right of centre voter, libertarian, absolutely. And I do think, working better to show some of our ideas on effective government, fiscal responsibility, can probably bring some people back.

“But there were many candidates who were who were kind of anti-GMO people, they were kind of anti- sort of more green type voters, running as PPC candidates. He got people that hadn’t voted in the past to vote, motivated largely on the vaccine question.”

- Referring to an order that all MPs must be vaccinated to attend the House of Commons precinct, Mr. O’Toole said Conservatives will respect all public-health guidance. Anthony Rota, the Speaker and chair of the Board of Internal Economy, which manages Parliament and includes members from different parties, announced the plan in a statement Tuesday. Members of the Conservative party are opposed to the plan. “We’ve always said that accommodating folks, a small number using rapid testing and other measures is fair,” Mr. O’Toole said. “We will follow all public health guidance… the [Board of Internal Economy] and the speaker have ruled, and we will respect that. Of course, we also think though, that we have to look at not dividing people on the issue.”

TODAY’S HEADLINES

TORIES OPPOSE MANDATORY COMMONS VACCINATION - The Conservative Party is opposing a mandatory vaccination policy for the House of Commons that was announced this week by an all-party board of MPs. “While we encourage everyone who can be vaccinated to get vaccinated, we cannot agree to seven MPs, meeting in secret, deciding which of the 338 MPs, just elected by Canadians, can enter the House of Commons to represent their constituents,” Conservative Whip Blake Richards, a member of the board, said in a statement. Story here.

ONTARIO EASES UP ON WORK CERTIFICATION FOR IMMIGRANTS - Immigrants to Ontario who qualify for certain trades and professions will no longer have to gain job experience in the province to receive work certification, under legislation to be introduced by Labour Minister Monte McNaughton.

QUEBEC MINISTER QUESTIONS LAND CERTIFICATION -A Montreal Canadiens land acknowledgment that refers to unceded territory of the Mohawk Nation may be a mistake, according to Quebec Indigenous Affairs Minister Ian Lafrenière.

NEWFOUNDLAND/LABRADOR AMENDS COAT OF ARMS - The Newfoundland and Labrador government is moving ahead with plans to drop the word “savages” from the official description of the Indigenous people depicted on the province’s nearly 400-year-old coat of arms. Story here.

INTERVIEWING THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL - CBC North reporter Pauline Pemik writes here on being the first to interview Governor-General Mary May Simon, and doing so in Inuktitut.

PRIME MINISTER'S DAY

Private meetings. The Prime Minister visited a health-care facility with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. They also held a news conference.

LEADERS

Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet held a news conference in Ottawa.

No other schedules were provided by party leaders.

OPINION

Patrick Brethour (The Globe and Mail) on why Doug Ford is completely wrong in his suggestion that immigrants are aiming to laze around: “Ontario Premier Doug Ford is not just wrong in suggesting that prospective immigrants to his province are aiming to laze around on the dole. He’s exactly wrong. The Premier’s statements are completely at odds with an unprecedented shift in the labour market, in which the most recently arrived workers with landed-immigrant status have seen the biggest gains in employment rates, now nearly 10 percentage points higher than prepandemic levels. And that trend is more pronounced in Ontario than for Canada as a whole.”

Konrad Yakabuski (The Globe and Mail) on why a House of Commons redistribution proposal advanced by Canada’s chief electoral officer is a time bomb for Justin Trudeau:In announcing that Quebec’s representation would fall by one seat to 77, as part of a decennial review that would result in an overall increase in size of the House to 342 seats from the current 338, Stéphane Perrault effectively threw a ticking time bomb into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s lap. It is now up to Mr. Trudeau to decide whether to overrule Elections Canada.”

Adnan Khan (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on how Doug Ford said the quiet part of Canada’s view of immigrants out loud: Mr. Ford’s comments make explicit that there are two types of Canadians. There’s the “old stock,” which need not prove themselves against the Premier’s “one criteria,” and whose worthiness does not need to be assessed or proven because it’s enough to be born on the soil. They have won what scholar Ayelet Shachar calls the “birthright lottery,” and one of the prizes is that society will not debate your value. Then there are the other Canadians, to whom Mr. Ford said two things at once: You’re only here for your labour, and, simultaneously, you’re lazy. He narrowed migrants’ worth – you’re only good if you work – but also mocked efforts at integration, on top of that.”

Dave McKay, president and chief executive officer of Royal Bank of Canada (Contributed to The Globe and Mail) on why Canada needs a new playbook on climate:As Canada prepares for next month’s historic UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, we need to see climate as an opportunity to transform every sector of our economy. Our country’s ambitious climate goals include a 40-per-cent emissions cut by 2030 and a complete shift to “net-zero” by 2050. At this point we are behind. With our current path and speed, we can see our way to about a 27-per-cent reduction by the end of this decade and will have at least 30 per cent of emissions left in 2050. We are not tackling climate change fast enough to succeed. And we need to make the biggest economic transition of our lifetime in an orderly fashion so we create prosperity for Canadians rather than destroy industries and sectors that Canada relies upon. Business as usual won’t get us there.”

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