Experts give nod to Saskatchewan Party but expect tight October election race

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad says the federal government has been “absent” and failing to live up to commitments to First Nations on housing and clean water issues, and his government would step in and then send Ottawa the bill.

Rustad says if his party wins the Oct. 19 provincial election, B.C. would partner with First Nations and “unleash the potential” for prosperity through mining, forestry and other resource projects.

The B.C. Conservative Leader has previously pledged to repeal B.C. legislation adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and his party says in a release it would instead honour the declaration “as it was intended,” with laws advancing economic reconciliation and Indigenous autonomy.

Rustad, speaking in Cultus Lake, B.C., on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, says his government would create a loan guarantee program for First Nations to allow full participation in large projects.

He says he’s committed to returning 20 per cent of the province’s forestry volume to First Nations, who would be “landlords of that land” and reap the benefits rather than governments getting stumpage fees with only a fraction going to First Nations.

Greens Leader Sonia Furstenau meanwhile says B.C. has been a leader recognizing Indigenous rights, warning that some want to “undo that progress and go back to a paternalistic relationship” with First Nations.

She said in Victoria on Monday that governments need to abandon the past of “transactional approaches” to First Nations that she says have been “used to dispossess Indigenous peoples of land, culture and language, and move to relationships that are rooted in recognition of Aboriginal rights and title.”

The party leaders in B.C. all acknowledged Indigenous issues on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, as the province’s election campaign entered its second week.

Furstenau said the Green party wants “ubiquitous” First Nations leadership in the province.

NDP Leader David Eby was attending a ceremony at the University of British Columbia marking the day.

Rustad, wearing an orange shirt pin on his lapel, was accompanied at Cultus Lake by Sq’ewlets First Nation Chief Joseph Chapman and Indigenous candidates Chris Sankey and A’aliya Warbus,

Rustad, a former minister of Indigenous relations and reconciliation, said provincial legislation had created “friction” with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and his government would remove and replace laws that get in the way of full economic reconciliation.

Nominations for the election officially closed on Saturday, and with their teams of candidates in place, leaders are looking ahead to their upcoming televised debate.

The Oct. 8 debate will be one of the few occasions B.C. voters will see the leaders of the New Democrats, B.C. Conservatives and the Greens face each other during the campaign.

Eby and Rustad spent the first week of the campaign taking verbal personal swings at each other and criticizing their policies.

Eby said Rustad’s “conspiracy theory” anti-vaccine position could end up hurting people and the health care system, while Rustad said the NDP leader was damaging the province with weak leadership and left-wing viewpoints.

Elections BC said its final list of nominated candidates for the vote includes 93 from the NDP, 93 from the B.C. Conservatives, 69 from the Greens and 40 Independents.

The list from Elections BC does not contain any official Opposition BC United candidates but does include five Freedom Party of B.C. hopefuls, four Libertarians, three representing the Communist Party of B.C. and two candidates from the Christian Heritage Party of B.C.

— With files from Brenna Owen

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 30, 2024.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said the leaders’ debate would take place on Oct. 9. In fact, it is scheduled to take place on Oct. 8.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

OTTAWA – The Liberal government is announcing more details on its existing strategy and funding to fight a rise in hate crimes targeting multiple communities.

Diversity Minister Kamal Khera released the Action Plan on Combatting Hate last week, which aims to co-ordinate how various departments promote diversity and prevent violent incidents and speech online targeting minorities.

Khera said the funding is needed because Statistics Canada is reporting an increase in hate crimes involving Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ+ people and other communities.

“Whether it is online or on our streets, hateful words (and) actions are having a devastating impact on our communities and our entire country, whether it is our mosques being attacked, communities being divided or even losing loved ones,” she said outside a mosque in Brampton, Ont.

She noted the arrest last week of a London, Ont. man whom police say had verbally harassed a woman wearing an Islamic headscarf and brandished a knife. A self-described white nationalist in that same southwestern Ontario city murdered four members of a Muslim family in 2021 in what a judge ruled to be an act of terrorism.

“We cannot allow hate to go unchecked; the cost of inaction is far too great,” Khera said.

The action plan released last Tuesday details how Ottawa intends to spend the $273.6 million the Liberals allocated in this April’s budget for various programs, over the course of six years.

Khera said that allocation includes a $65 million top-up to a fund that helps community institutions and religious centres cover the cost of installing cameras or hiring security guards. She noted Ottawa has increased the annual amount of cash institutions can apply for, such as those who feel it’s necessary to get round-the-clock security.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said the extra cash for security is “very welcome as many institutions have been stretched beyond capacity,” noting Jewish schools have been shot at, synagogues have been vandalized and Jewish businesses have been set ablaze.

Tuesday’s action plan largely reiterates work that federal departments and agencies are already doing, with the idea of creating consultation panels that can spot gaps in laws and programs or address barriers to implementing an existing Anti-Racism Strategy.

It listed various programs helping anti-racism organizations to monitor and combat online hatred, as well as training for Crown prosecutors on “the unique dynamics of hate crimes.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 29, 2024

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

VIENNA (AP) — Austria’s far-right Freedom Party could win a national election for the first time on Sunday, tapping into voters’ anxieties about immigration, inflation, Ukraine and other concerns following recent gains for the hard right elsewhere in Europe.

Herbert Kickl, a former interior minister and longtime campaign strategist who has led the Freedom Party since 2021, wants to become Austria’s new chancellor. He has used the term “Volkskanzler,” or chancellor of the people, which was used by the Nazis to describe Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Kickl has rejected the comparison.

But to become Austria’s new leader, he would need a coalition partner to command a majority in the lower house of parliament.

And a win isn’t certain, with recent polls pointing to a close race. They have put support for the Freedom Party at 27%, with the conservative Austrian People’s Party of Chancellor Karl Nehammer on 25% and the center-left Social Democrats on 21%.

More than 6.3 million people age 16 and over are eligible to vote for the new parliament in Austria, a European Union member that has a policy of military neutrality.

Kickl has achieved a turnaround since Austria’s last parliamentary election in 2019. In June, the Freedom Party narrowly won a nationwide vote for the first time in the European Parliament election, which also brought gains for other European far-right parties.

In 2019, its support slumped to 16.2% after a scandal brought down a government in which it was the junior coalition partner. Then-vice chancellor and Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache resigned following the publication of a secretly recorded video in which he appeared to offer favors to a purported Russian investor.

The far right has tapped into voter frustration over high inflation, the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic. It also been able to build on worries about migration.

In its election program, the Freedom Party calls for “remigration of uninvited foreigners,” and for achieving a more “homogeneous” nation by tightly controlling borders and suspending the right to asylum via an “emergency law.”

Gernot Bauer, a journalist with Austrian magazine Profil who recently co-published an investigative biography of the far-right leader, said that under Kickl’s leadership, the Freedom Party has moved “even further to the right,” as Kickl refuses to explicitly distance the party from the Identitarian Movement, a pan-European nationalist and far-right group.

Bauer describes Kickl’s rhetoric as “aggressive” and says some of his language is deliberately provocative.

The Freedom Party also calls for an end to sanctions against Russia, is highly critical of western military aid to Ukraine and wants to bow out of the European Sky Shield Initiative, a missile defense project launched by Germany.

The leader of the Social Democrats, a party that led many of Austria’s post-World War II governments, has positioned himself as the polar opposite to Kickl. Andreas Babler has ruled out governing with the far right and labeled Kickl “a threat to democracy.”

While the Freedom Party has recovered, the popularity of Nehammer’s People’s Party, which currently leads a coalition government with the environmentalist Greens as junior partners, has declined since 2019.

During the election campaign, Nehammer portrayed his party, which has taken a tough line on immigration in recent years, as “the strong center” that will guarantee stability amid multiple crises.

But it is precisely these crises, ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting rising energy prices, that have cost the conservatives support, said Peter Filzmaier, one of Austria’s leading political scientists.

Under their leadership, Austria has experienced high inflation averaging 4.2% over the past 12 months, surpassing the EU average.

The government also angered many Austrians in 2022 by becoming the first European country to introduce a coronavirus vaccine mandate, which was scrapped a few months later without ever being put into effect. And Nehammer is the third chancellor since the last election, taking office in 2021 after predecessor Sebastian Kurz — the winner in 2019 — quit politics amid a corruption investigation.

But the recent flooding caused by Storm Boris that hit Austria and other countries in Central Europe brought back the topic of the environment into the election debate and helped Nehammer slightly narrow the gap with the Freedom Party by presenting himself as a “crisis manager,” Filzmaier said.

Nehammer said in a video Thursday that “this is about whether we continue together on this proven path of stability or leave the country to the radicals, who make a lot of promises and don’t keep them.”

The People’s Party is the far right’s only way into government.

Nehammer has repeatedly excluded joining a government led by Kickl, describing him as a “security risk” for the country, but hasn’t ruled out a coalition with the Freedom Party in and of itself, which would imply Kickl renouncing a position in government.

The likelihood of Kickl agreeing to such a deal if he wins the election is very low, Filzmaier said.

But should the People’s Party finish first, then a coalition between the People’s Party and the Freedom Party could happen, Filzmaier said. The most probable alternative would be a three-way alliance between the People’s Party, the Social Democrats and most likely the liberal Neos.

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Associated Press videojournalist Philipp Jenne contributed to this report.