Armin Laschet could scarcely conceal his delight last year when the carnival club in his hometown of Aachen named him an honorary knight. “Finally I get a job on the first attempt, without having to lose twice first,” he said.
Faced with the kind of painful setbacks Mr Laschet has suffered in his career, most politicians would have given up and tried something else. He slipped off the greasy pole so many times that some thought he would never get back on it again.
Friends see him as a political survivor whose sheer grit and stamina have finally paid off. Faced with electoral setbacks, “he never just threw in the towel and walked away”, said Serap Güler, a CDU politician who has known him for 15 years. “His defeats never dragged him down — he always kept going.”
The son of a miner who studied law and later worked as a journalist, Mr Laschet was long considered the “nearly man” of German politics. He won a seat in the Bundestag in his early thirties but lost it again four years later. In 2010 he ran to be boss of the CDU’s branch in his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia — and was once again defeated.
“The CDU in NRW was famous for its internal power struggles, and he always seemed to be on the losing side,” said one local opposition MP who has known him for years.
In the race for the CDU leadership he was also the underdog. For weeks he trailed his two rivals, Friedrich Merz, a corporate lawyer popular with conservatives in the party, and Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee. But in the end he beat them both.
One characteristic that has helped him win through is his good humour. Affable and approachable, he frequently appears in fancy dress at carnival time. The award he won in Aachen last February was the “Medal Against Deadly Seriousness”, in recognition of his “individuality, popularity and natural wit”.
“He’s the classic cheerful Rhinelander — the kind of person you’d want as your neighbour or friend,” said Jürgen Hardt, a CDU MP.
However, for some traditional hardliners in the party, he has an image problem: he is seen as too liberal, and too closely identified with Ms Merkel. As a Bundestag MP, Mr Laschet was part an informal discussion group that brought together young lawmakers from the CDU and Green party.
As a minister in the NRW cabinet of the 2000s, he touted the benefits of immigration, saying in 2009 that ethnic and religious diversity should be seen as a “chance” for Germany, “not a threat”. Fellow Christian Democrats nicknamed him “Turk Armin”.
“He was the first politician in this country to really give people from immigrant communities the feeling they were important,” said Serap Güler, who worked as his adviser in the 2000s and is now his state secretary for integration.
That carried through into the refugee crisis of 2015, when Mr Laschet was such a staunch defender of the chancellor’s “open-door” immigration policy that the Berlin press called him “Merkel’s bodyguard”.
CDU conservatives may have been appalled, but it did not harm his chances at the ballot box. In 2017, the CDU defied expectations to win regional elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, long considered the “beating heart” of the left-of-centre Social Democrats. Mr Laschet became prime minister.
“Beating a popular incumbent is a very hard thing to do in politics, and all the polls said he couldn’t do it,” said one of his close allies. “The thing about Laschet is people always underestimate him.”
Though everyone knew he was a Merkel-ite moderate, the cabinet he put together reflected the full spectrum of views in the CDU. He has a tough law-and-order interior minister who has launched high-profile raids on criminal clans. He has a labour minister who is a well-known expert on social policy from the left of the CDU. And he has Ms Güler, the integration secretary, who is the daughter of Turkish immigrants.
“Laschet is a unifying figure — that’s his main strength,” said Josef Hovenjürgen, general secretary of the NRW CDU. “He understands that the CDU needs economic liberals, value-conservatives and those with more of a social agenda. It must remain a broad church.”
Based on his success in North Rhine-Westphalia, Mr Laschet was considered favourite for the CDU leadership when he threw his hat in the ring last February, especially after he recruited health minister Jens Spahn, popular with young conservatives, as his running mate.
But his approval ratings sank during the coronavirus pandemic, when he caused consternation in Berlin by arguing forcefully for a swift relaxation of the shutdown. In appearances on TV talk-shows he was badly prepared and over-emotional. And he was often overshadowed by Markus Söder, the tough-talking prime minister of Bavaria. However, none of that seemed to matter on Saturday.
In his speech to delegates, Mr Laschet presented himself as the only one of the three candidates who could keep the CDU’s various competing camps together. Any party leader “has to be able to unify”, to reach compromises and find solutions, and not polarise, he said. He also positioned himself as the continuity candidate who would maintain Ms Merkel’s pragmatic course. “We’ll only win if we remain strong in the centre of society,” he said.
Having won the leadership election, he is now well-placed to run as the CDU’s candidate for chancellor in September’s election. But he has to deal with Mr Söder first. Any decision on who runs will have to be made in consultation with the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU — and Mr Söder is its leader. Speculation is rife in Berlin that Mr Söder might himself entertain ambitions for the top job.
Many in the CDU, however, are now convinced that Mr Laschet must be their candidate in September.
“Söder is a polarising figure, while Laschet is a unifier,” said one CDU MP. “And that’s what has always set the CDU apart from other parties, like the Republicans in the US. We have to represent the whole of society.”
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.
