Typically, historically, graciously, when a byelection is called to permit a brand new party leader to gain a legislative seat, the opponent parties typically, historically, graciously run candidates with no chance to win.
Typically, historically, graciously, a government comfortable in its skin grants this as part of an unwritten political code because it also believes it has nothing to fear from a new foe in the chamber.
John Horgan’s BC NDP honoured no such nicety in Vancouver Quilchena. It nominated the spouse of Vancouver’s mayor to contest new BC Liberal leader Kevin Falcon for yesterday’s byelection in the riding.
Rather than offer a golf gimme or a baseball intentional walk, it was a warning shot on what the former cabinet minister can expect when returns to the legislature – only more viscerally and vigorously.
Quilchena is a Liberal stronghold and the party could have run pretty much anyone and do well. While Jeanette Ashe may be greeted with polite thanks-but-no-thanks at the door, her husband is a west side pariah. Whether she is auditioning for his Forward Together makeshift municipal party, or prepping for another provincial run in a general 2024 election, or just taking one for the team, no one can know. But even as the overwhelming favourite in the byelection, Falcon was wise to be campaign to the end.
Last Monday, it was to honour a long-ago promise to speak to a discussion group at Terminal City Club. As he has experienced in the weeks since winning the party helm, Falcon draws people to see just how much of his vibrant earlier political days are wedded to the wiser recent ones.
Judging how he performed over more than an hour without any scripting and a lot of navigation of audience statements posing as questions, provincial politics are about to get more compelling in Falcon’s presence.
The BC Liberals can benefit from his energy. The public can benefit from its application.
Much as he had competent opponents in the race for the leadership, it’s evident Falcon’s faculties, facilities and familiarities with policy will prove helpful in holding the Horgan team to account. The BC NDP may claim to be licking its chops awaiting his arrival as some sort of Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark dark-days redux, but he will be a handful they’ve never handled.
With the benefit of age and fatherhood, and with a different perspective of the economy through his private-sector executive years, his directness is no longer ultra-brash.
“It does change you,” he says. “My principles haven’t changed, but my values have.” He is more attuned to the environment, more attentive to those who haven’t benefited from the economy, more assertive on the pandemic’s effect on mental health and on the system that contends with its impact.
In his case, it also means levelling with British Columbians – including his chosen Vancouver riding of plentiful single-family homes – about the need for a larger supply of housing to meet the next generation’s needs. It’s a difficult sell, but “when I explain it is a way for their children and grandchildren to live in the city they grew up in, they get it.”
If you’re wondering, he’s proud of how the BC Liberals governed but not exactly an earlier-era apologist. “Were we perfect in government? Of course not,” he tells the room.
If you’re also wondering if his return to politics is personal, he’s not biting. “It’s not that they’re bad people, it’s just that they don’t know what they’re doing.”
He will say he left politics to be present for his children and returned out of concerns about their future. He argues that “on every metric,” whether it’s housing, health care, child care, the opioid crisis, mental health, economic investment and growth, “they have failed to deliver, failed to get results, been an abysmal failure” and that their sub-competence will be more evident under his leadership. To do that, of course, he needs to win Saturday.
It’s a tall task facing him in today’s tentative pandemic reset with a government and leader still popular, but there is time. He doesn’t think Horgan will be his opponent in 2024, but he looks forward to their parrying in the days ahead. What won’t be fun, he says, “is cleaning up 10 years of their government.”
Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
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.
MONTREAL – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will not be taking advice from Pierre Poilievre after the Conservative leader challenged him to bring down government.
“I say directly to Pierre Poilievre: I’m not going to listen to you,” said Singh on Wednesday, accusing Poilievre of wanting to take away dental-care coverage from Canadians, among other things.
“I’m not going to listen to your advice. You want to destroy people’s lives, I want to build up a brighter future.”
Earlier in the day, Poilievre challenged Singh to commit to voting non-confidence in the government, saying his party will force a vote in the House of Commons “at the earliest possibly opportunity.”
“I’m asking Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to commit unequivocally before Monday’s byelections: will they vote non-confidence to bring down the costly coalition and trigger a carbon tax election, or will Jagmeet Singh sell out Canadians again?” Poilievre said.
“It’s put up or shut up time for the NDP.”
While Singh rejected the idea he would ever listen to Poilievre, he did not say how the NDP would vote on a non-confidence motion.
“I’ve said on any vote, we’re going to look at the vote and we’ll make our decision. I’m not going to say our decision ahead of time,” he said.
Singh’s top adviser said on Tuesday the NDP leader is not particularly eager to trigger an election, even as the Conservatives challenge him to do just that.
Anne McGrath, Singh’s principal secretary, says there will be more volatility in Parliament and the odds of an early election have risen.
“I don’t think he is anxious to launch one, or chomping at the bit to have one, but it can happen,” she said in an interview.
New Democrat MPs are in a second day of meetings in Montreal as they nail down a plan for how to navigate the minority Parliament this fall.
The caucus retreat comes one week after Singh announced the party has left the supply-and-confidence agreement with the governing Liberals.
It’s also taking place in the very city where New Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat on Monday, when voters go to the polls in Montreal’s LaSalle—Émard—Verdun. A second byelection is being held that day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, where the NDP is hoping to hold onto a seat the Conservatives are also vying for.
While New Democrats are seeking to distance themselves from the Liberals, they don’t appear ready to trigger a general election.
Singh signalled on Tuesday that he will have more to say Wednesday about the party’s strategy for the upcoming sitting.
He is hoping to convince Canadians that his party can defeat the federal Conservatives, who have been riding high in the polls over the last year.
Singh has attacked Poilievre as someone who would bring back Harper-style cuts to programs that Canadians rely on, including the national dental-care program that was part of the supply-and-confidence agreement.
The Canadian Press has asked Poilievre’s office whether the Conservative leader intends to keep the program in place, if he forms government after the next election.
With the return of Parliament just days away, the NDP is also keeping in mind how other parties will look to capitalize on the new makeup of the House of Commons.
The Bloc Québécois has already indicated that it’s written up a list of demands for the Liberals in exchange for support on votes.
The next federal election must take place by October 2025 at the latest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante is defending her decision to turn off comments on her social media accounts — with an announcement on social media.
She posted screenshots to X this morning of vulgar names she’s been called on the platform, and says comments on her posts for months have been dominated by insults, to the point that she decided to block them.
Montreal’s Opposition leader and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have criticized Plante for limiting freedom of expression by restricting comments on her X and Instagram accounts.
They say elected officials who use social media should be willing to hear from constituents on those platforms.
However, Plante says some people may believe there is a fundamental right to call someone offensive names and to normalize violence online, but she disagrees.
Her statement on X is closed to comments.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
