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Canada election: Do federal results affect provincial politics? – Global News

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A blue wave swept across the Prairies once again.

The Conservative Party won every riding between the eastern Manitoba border and western limit of Alberta, including all Saskatchewan constituencies, with the exception of 11 on Monday’s federal election.

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It’s not the total seizure the Conservatives saw in 2019, but Premier Scott Moe, speaking Tuesday, still rejoiced at the result.

Read more:
Erin O’Toole disappointed after election loss, triggers campaign review

“In what I saw in the result last night, 90 per cent of Saskatchewan residents don’t want Justin Trudeau to be their prime minister,” he said, taking care to criticize the Liberal leader for what he said was an unnecessary election.

He began his brief statement with an anecdote — or, perhaps, a joke — about how his nephew said he wasn’t having a good birthday because Trudeau was still Prime Minister.

A University of Saskatchewan political scientist said the results weren’t a surprise, even in the hotly-contested Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River and Saskatoon West ridings. But Daniel Westlake cautions that the strong Conservative showing doesn’t necessarily mean support for conservative governments in the same region.

“If I was an Alberta provincial conservative, I’d be a lot more nervous than if I was an Alberta federal conservative right now. And the same for Saskatchewan,” Daniel Westlake said.

Things look very different for the respective legislatures than the do the in House of Commons. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney sacked his health minister for a disastrous response to the fourth wave of COVID-19 on the same day Moe used a 10-year-old’s birthday to take a swing at Trudeau.

And Brian Pallister vacated the premier’s position in Winnipeg after facing similar, severe criticisms over the pandemic and other matters.

Front-line health-care workers in Saskatchewan have criticized Moe for his responses to COVID.

Global News asked him about dissonance between the federal election results and his fellow premiers’ political fortunes.

Read more:
Other parties gain ground on Conservatives in federal Lethbridge riding

“I’m not sure I precisely understand the question,” he said, before stating, “we had 14 Conservative seats going into this election. There’s were 14 Conservative seats going out.”

Westlake said the ridings and races affect whether political support overlaps.

Of the nearly dozen seats the Tories lost, all but one were urban and suburban and in major centres like Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg.

Conservatives don’t usually do well — or at least as well — in urban centres as they do in rural ridings, Westlake pointed out.

And the fact there are more of those ridings in the more populated provinces provides more opportunity.


Click to play video: 'Canada election: Trudeau bills electoral win as ‘clear mandate’ in speech to supporters'



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Canada election: Trudeau bills electoral win as ‘clear mandate’ in speech to supporters


Canada election: Trudeau bills electoral win as ‘clear mandate’ in speech to supporters

But the main distinction Westlake makes is in the campaign. Party leaders at different levels talk about different issues.

“The opponents that Erin O’Toole faces in Saskatchewan also have to win ridings in Vancouver and Toronto and places that hold views that are very different from the rest of the province,” he said.

A party leader seeking the broad support needed to garner a plurality of seats at the federal level will (and did, in this case) lose out on seats in specific areas because the broader policies aren’t as appealing, Westlake explained.

He said the Saskatchewan NDP, or any provincial opposition party, can tailor their message to voters in a way federal leaders can’t.

“If I were Scott Moore, I wouldn’t read too much into this,” he said.

“The reality is provincial elections are different than federal elections, especially on the Prairies.”

© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Politics

Former PQ minister turns back on politics, records jazz album

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A former minister with the Parti Québécois (PQ) says his time in politics is over, and he’s ready to focus on his first love: the arts.

“People have to remember that I was dealing with the arts for 30 years before I went into politics,” Maka Kotto tells CTV News a day before boarding a flight to his native Cameroon for a music festival. “After 14 years in politics, I felt that I did what I had to do. And so, I decided to get back to my old practices.”

Kotto represented the PQ in the riding of Bourget from 2008 to 2018 and was also the culture minister in Pauline Marois’ short-lived government.

In addition to his time in provincial politics, Kotto represented the Bloc Québécois from 2004 to 2008 in the Canadian House of Commons — the party’s first Black member of Parliament.

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“It drained my energy and I lost contact with my family, with my friends. When I was inside, I didn’t realize that,” he said. “My mother went to the other side in 2018 and I couldn’t say good-bye… I wrote a song about that.”

Kotto says his mother’s death was a moment that notably marked him.

“This was very awful. Until now, I still suffer for that,” he said. “You see, when you’re investing in politics, you have many, many sacrifices that you’re facing.”

Closing the political door and turning his attention back to music and acting was an effortless decision for the 62-year-old.

“This was much, much more, easier than politics,” he said.

Kotto says he remembers his father not liking the idea of him getting involved in the arts as a child — he wanted him to “be a good student.”

“The last time I sang, I was between 16 or 17 years old,” he recalls. “That was in college, at the boarding school church. It was a French Jesuit boarding school in Cameroon.”

When asked what’s scarier: putting out a jazz album or working in politics, Kotto doesn’t miss a beat.

“Oh, politics is scary because you don’t have fun in politics. You have problems every day, every night, every morning and you have to solve real problems,” he said. “When you’re singing, it’s a passion…The only goal you have to reach is to share what you feel.”

Kotto says he worked for about six months on his album, collaborating with the likes of Antoine Gratton, Taurey Butler and the Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal (ONJ).

“We have a lot of fun. That was the goal, and I hope that everybody listening to this album will have the same fun as the one we had in studio,” he said.

A few words he uses to describe his music: fun, love and friendship.

The release of Kotto’s first album is scheduled for the winter of 2024.

 

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Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

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Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

The Trump campaign is saying that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was referring only to the US auto industry when he warned of a “bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected. Republican strategist Alice Stewart and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona debate what he meant.

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Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

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Trump campaign defends his ‘bloodbath’ warning. Hear what political strategists think

The Trump campaign is saying that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was referring only to the US auto industry when he warned of a “bloodbath” if he wasn’t elected. Republican strategist Alice Stewart and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona debate what he meant.


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