In preparation for that, one of the questions the moderators asked me to consider is why Canada seems so far to have avoided the kind of bitter polarization that’s overtaken the U.S. during the Trump era. A different question, which came up this week while I was talking to Canadian pollster Frank Graves of EKOS Research, was whether Canada is actually still avoiding it.
“The mood of the country coming out of the pandemic, it’s terrible. It’s polarized in ways that it’s never been,” he said. “When I asked Canadians, what’s the number one cost, when you look back at the pandemic … they say it was the degree to which the country’s become polarized on issues around the vaccine.”
And that polarization, once in place, doesn’t just exist on one issue. Graves went on to say that when polling Canadians’ opinions on the war in Ukraine, he sees those who are unvaccinated agreeing with Russian talking points to an astonishing degree. Those points come out of the same misinformation ecosystem that drives the right-wing extremist support for Donald Trump in the U.S.
And even as the U.S. continued to grapple with the results of that this week, when the public hearings of the Jan. 6 Commission began Thursday night outlining a moment of “maximum danger” for U.S. democracy, as I wrote Friday morning, Canada may be in for the same kinds of grappling.
“In his quest for the national Conservative leadership it seems there are no limits on what Pierre Poilievre is prepared to say to curry favour with the angry anti-vax constituency in his party, the same people prone to disappear down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories about globalist plots to run the world,” the Star’s editorial board wrote on Wednesday, about the man who appears destined to be the next leader of that party.
Graves told me Poilievre is running the textbook campaign to appeal to “the northern Trumpist crowd,” a constituency with an authoritarian political outlook that has grown to be a substantial chunk of Canadian voters. He said that may be a recipe for electoral success even in a general election, in a country where a majority government could be won with less than 35 per cent of the vote. “Yes, he could definitely win. In fact, I would bet that he would win if there was a vote in the next year.”
That last fact of the first-past-the post electoral system led the editorial board to call for change to the voting system on Thursday, reacting to a system that saw Doug Ford win re-election late last week with only 40.8 per cent of the vote, while only 43 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot.
That the combined votes of the other parties represented an actual majority was another topic of debate this week. “NDP-Liberal merger talks were in the air a decade ago, as they are now,” Susan Delacourt wrote, although she concluded the option was “not likely.”
“I have one message for the Ontario Liberals — resist the temptation,” former Liberal cabinet minister John Milloy wrote on Monday of a potential merger. Among his reasons? “An NDP-Liberal merger might fuel polarization,” he wrote. “Although Canadian society is divided, we have thankfully avoided the ‘you are either a Democrat or Republican’ phenomenon we see south of the border. Being forced to self-identify as either ‘left’ or ‘right’ has created two growing solitudes in the U.S. We don’t need it replicated in Ontario.”
Interestingly, major recaps of the Ontario election campaign focused on how Ford — who, in my days in Toronto in the not-that-distant past, was the most polarizing politician around — won in part by portraying himself as a uniter, not a divider. The “populist who likes to be liked,” Robert Benzie wrote on Thursday, shunned the anti-vax wing of his party, diversified its candidate pool and made appeals to working-class voters in traditional NDP areas to become “the big-spending ‘party of yes.’”
“He is not a partisan or ideological guy at his core. He’s comfortable working with people who have traditionally been in the other side of the fence,” Conservative strategist Kory Teneycke told Benzie. “There are whole swaths of ridings across Ontario that we’re only competitive in because of his brand.”
As I say, this is fascinating for me — having covered Ford as a municipal and provincial politician when he regularly villainized his opponents and the “downtown elites” who voted for them — to observe. At least rhetorically, as Graves told me on the phone, Ford has moved away from rage-fuelled populism — even if his base of voters hasn’t.
Graves said the same authoritarian outlook that drives Trump voters in the U.S and is driving Poilievre’s federal Conservative campaign was “highly predictive of Doug Ford’s supporters.” The same block of voters, Graves said, also supported Ford’s brother Rob as Toronto’s mayor, and have been with him a long time. But Ford also has a high degree of support from self-defined “upper class” voters, a crossover that may be possible because of the softening of his rhetoric to appear less polarizing.
While Poilievre is leaning into Trump-style polarization, Ford has been backing away from it while retaining the support of those it appeals to, at least for now.
In considering the question of whether Canada is heading toward the kind of U.S.-style toxic partisanship I’ll be discussing at the panel this coming week, the different approaches of Ford and Poilievre — and the reaction of voters to them — may be one key to determining the answer in the near future.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
