Good morning,
After the 2015 election, men and women responding to Nanos Research polls liked the Liberals in roughly equal numbers: about 45 per cent of each supported the Liberals.
Since then, support among women for Justin Trudeau has barely shifted. But among men? Liberal support has plunged, and now Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives are ascendant.
“Some Liberal MPs think the issues Mr. Trudeau’s government has focused on have struck fewer chords with male voters. Voters evaluate governments on whether they can relate to their priorities – if they don’t, they judge their mistakes more harshly,” Campbell Clark writes in today’s Globe.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay Ottawa, Mayaz Alam in Toronto and James Keller in Vancouver. If you’re reading this on the web or someone forwarded this email newsletter to you, you can sign up for Politics Briefing and all Globe newsletters here. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
The Liberal government is set to introduce legislation this week to try to unclog Canada’s justice system. The bill could include curtailing the practice of preliminary hearings and reform administration of justice offences, such as breaching bail conditions.
The Liberals will also have to get moving soon on their election legislation if they want to have them in place in time for next year’s vote.
A former director of Canada’s spy agency says a Chinese firm’s takeover of a Canadian construction company should not go ahead because of national security concerns.
And adult-film star Stormy Daniels appeared on 60 Minutes last night to talk about her alleged affair with Donald Trump, the $130,000 payoff and threats to her safety.
Luke Stark (The Globe and Mail) on Canada’s bet on AI: “Canada’s AI strategy aims to ‘develop global thought leadership on the economic, ethical, policy and legal implications of advances in artificial intelligence’ – but that’s tough to do without experts in those fields at the table. Social scientists and humanists can also take the lead in creating forums for Canadians from all walks of life to learn about AI and machine learning, and have their say about the benefits, and pitfalls, it could bring to Canadian society.”
Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star) on our next federal election: “Over the past few weeks, the current government has talked a good game about taking preventive measures to protect the integrity of Canada’s next election. But in this the Liberals are judge and jury. And that’s a dual role they have so far not been in a hurry to share with less self-interested agents. One of the central safeguards of a sound electoral system is the presence of an independent elections overseer liable, if need be, to blow the whistle on government attempts to stack the decks. It is now 15 months since Canada last had a permanent chief electoral officer. That is the longest hiatus in recent memory.”
Elizabeth Renzetti (The Globe and Mail) on Cynthia Nixon: "Putting aside her celebrity, Cynthia Nixon is emblematic of a far more interesting trend: She’s part of a large, committed, progressive wave of female candidates running for office in the United States. This particular wave has unusual origins – it was first spotted in the middle of the country, right around Washington in January, 2017, just as a shark was spotted moving toward the White House."
Lawrence Martin (The Globe and Mail) on John Bolton, superhawk: “If you were worried before about what this President might do, be alarmed now.”
Gerald Caplan (The Globe and Mail) on the Rohingya: “People look back now and try to recollect where they were during the Rwandan genocide and why they didn’t speak out while it mattered. In a few short years, they’ll be asking themselves the same thing about Myanmar. But this time, ignorance will be no excuse. We know exactly what is happening, and who is making it happen. That’s no longer the issue. The only questions are: What will we and our government do about it this time? Has Never Again actually become Again and Again?”
Nina Khruscheva (The Globe and Mail) on Russia: “What is certain is that Mr. Putin cannot fulfill his promise of military might and a prosperous future. The two promises are at odds, because sustaining Russian militarism will require raising the retirement age, increasing taxes, and other difficult reforms. In the end, Russians have voted for less social and political freedom, and more economic stagnation. They have decided to go back in time, to a future that they once dreaded.”
Anne Applebaum (The Globe and Mail) on Ukraine: “Ukraine’s patient diplomacy, the state’s dogged pursuit of recognition of the famine as a genocide, has its place. The legal definition of the word has been interpreted too narrowly. If only to undermine the Soviet definition of the term, in due course, all Western states should recognize the Ukrainian famine, along with the persecution and mass murder of other ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, as a genocide. But now – after more than a quarter-century of independence, two street revolutions and a Russian invasion that was finally halted by a Ukrainian army – sovereignty is a fact, not a theory that requires historical justification, or any justification at all. Ukraine’s resurrection is a triumph over Stalinism – and Ukraine’s persistence is a triumph over Putinism, too.”
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