The six candidates to lead the federal Conservative party will be making their case to win the race at a French-language debate Wednesday night.
The debate in the Montreal suburb of Laval is the second organized by the party committee managing the race after a previous debate, in English, held in Edmonton on May. 11.
The event will be a kind of political homecoming for candidate Jean Charest, the premier of Quebec from 2003 until 2012. The other candidates in the race are Ontario MPs Scott Aitchison, Leslyn Lewis and Pierre Poilievre as well as former Ontario legislature member Roman Baber, and Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown.
In recent days the candidates have been in Quebec preparing for the debate.
Mr. Charest and Mr. Poilievre are fluent in French as is Mr. Brown. It remains to be seen how the other candidates will make their points during the debate, which begins at 8 p.m. and runs for two hours.
The moderator is Marc-Olivier Fortin, a former Conservative Party regional councillor and national councilor for the party.
The debate comes a week before the June 3 deadline for selling party memberships, an exercise that has dominated the candidates’ time as they seek to rally support in the race. The winner will be announced by the party on Sept. 10.
When the leadership committee announced its debate plans in April, it said it was reserving the right to add a third debate in early August, but there has been no decision announced on such a gathering.
Please watch The Globe and Mail for coverage on Wednesday’s debate. There’s also an explainer here on the leadership race, with information on the candidates, and more details on the race itself.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
OTTAWA NOT RULING OUT COURT ACTION ON QUEBEC LANGUAGE LAW – Federal Justice Minister David Lametti says his government is not ruling out a court challenge to Quebec’s newly adopted language-reform law. Story here. Meanwhile, there’s more from Quebec correspondent Eric Andrew-Gee on the law, which is the largest expansion of Quebec’s language laws in more than 40 years. Story here.
TRUDEAU FORCED TO CANCEL APPEARANCE AT FUNDRAISING EVENT – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to cancel plans to attend a fundraising dinner in Surrey, B.C. on Tuesday after two speakers at the event said protesters hurled racial slurs at the mostly South Asian attendees entering the venue. Story here. Meanwhile, Mr. Trudeau says Canada Border Services Agency will be the department that decides whether Iran’s men’s soccer team is allowed into the country for a game next month. Story here.
CANADA SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN TRADE TALKS: BUSINESS LEADERS – Canadian business leaders say Canada should not have been left out of the launch of new American-led trade talks about the Indo-Pacific region. Story here.
PROSPECTS TO SUCCEED KENNEY CONSIDER OPTIONS -The race to replace Jason Kenney as United Conservative Party leader and Alberta Premier has two entrants so far along with a number of cabinet ministers who, when asked if they plan to run, delivered answers ranging from maybe to a hard no. Story here.
ONTARIO ELECTION – Ontario election today: The main party leaders are all holding in-person events for the first time in days. There’s a profile here of Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca, who says his politics come from personal life as he makes a run for premiership. TVO looks here at what women and racialized candidates face on the campaign trail. And check Vote of Confidence, The Globe’s Ontario election newsletter.
THIS AND THAT
TODAY IN THE COMMONS – The House has adjourned until May 30.
ANNUAL TEDDY WASTE AWARDS – The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has released their 24th annual Teddy Waste Awards, highlighting the “best of the worst” in government waste. Details here.
ALGHABRA IN NEW BRUNSWICK Transport Minister Omar Alghabra is in Saint John, N.B., announcing new funding for the port of Saint John and for the railway system in New Brunswick.
BLAIR IN INDONESIA – Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair is in Indonesia, leading a Canadian delegation at the seventh session of the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction from Wednesday to May 28.
MENDICINO IN HALIFAX – Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino made a crime-prevention announcement in Halifax.
THE DECIBEL
Wednesday’s edition of The Globe and Mail podcast features children’s rights and technology researcher Hye Jung Han , an advocate with Human Rights Watch, and lead researcher on a new report that found that some online learning platforms are tracking children in ways they say actively or passively infringe on a child’s privacy rights. The Decibel is here.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
In Saskatoon, the Prime Minister held private meetings, met with long-term care home residents, and was scheduled to make an an announcement on long-term care with Saskatchewan Seniors Minister Everett Hindley and hold a media availability. The Prime Minister was also scheduled to meet with students from the University of Saskatchewan College of Agriculture and Bioresources as well as researchers from the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. And the Prime Minister was scheduled to visit a local daycare facility and meet with families to discuss early learning and child care.
LEADERS
No schedules released for party leaders.
OPINION
The Globe and Mail Editorial Boardon how, with Bill 96, François Legault is trying to tiptoe out of Canada’s constitutional order: “It was always assumed that, if Quebec ever left Canada, it could only happen through the front door, and only if a clear majority could be persuaded to vote “oui” to an unambiguous referendum question. Such a result being of no interest to a majority of Quebeckers, Canada needs to recognize the fact that the current government of Quebec is trying to tiptoe out the back door. It is doing so by poking ever larger holes in Canada’s constitutional order, which protects fundamental rights, and replacing it with a parallel regime where the executive can curb rights and meddle in people’s lives with little to no judicial oversight.”
Eva Jewell and Ian Mosby (Contributed to The Globe and Mail)on how reconciliation can’t be achieved with only symbolic gestures: “We write an annual report for Yellowhead Institute on Canada’s implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action. When these calls were first released on June 2, 2015, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau – before he became Prime Minister – promised that his party would complete all 94 if elected. But the reality has proven to be much different. According to our most recent analysis, Canada has completed only 11 of the 94 calls to action over the last seven years. While overall progress has been glacial, last year we found that in the three weeks following the Kamloops revelations, Canada completed three calls to action – more than in the previous three years combined.”
Jillian Oliver (Contributed to The Globe and Mail)on how Australia’s `teal wave’ is a wakeup call for Canada’s Conservatives: “The results should be a wake-up call for Canada’s federal Conservatives, whose leadership candidates are pledging to roll back Canadian climate policies if they were to form a government. Their presumed frontrunner, Pierre Poilievre, has said he wants to “build pipelines in all directions” and eliminate Canada’s price on carbon. His main challenger, Jean Charest, would not honour Canada’s emission-reductions commitments to the UN and instead reinstate weaker climate targets from more than a decade ago.”
Tom Mulcair (The Montreal Gazette)on how Quebec’s Bill 96′s passage to be followed by holy chaos: “The first big chapter of the Bill 96 saga has come to an end with the bill’s adoption by the National Assembly. By a linguistic quirk, on the anglo side it will always be called Bill 96 (like “Bill 101,” which actually became a law in 1977). On the franco side it will get a promotion to being called Loi 96 (Law 96). One way or the other, it’s on its way to court, where it is likely to get eviscerated, much to the quiet delight of separatists, who will see that as further proof Quebec independence is the only way forward. Bill 96 is overtly unconstitutional. It creates outrageous powers of search and seizure for language police who could inspect a company’s computers looking for inappropriate use of English. This is Keystone Kops material, but the Coalition Avenir Québec government has its spokespersons out there denying that Bill 96 actually says what it says in black and white.”
Murray Mandryk (Saskatoon StarPhoenix)on how Saskatchewan’s next NDP leader must depart from the approach of outgoing leader Ryan Meili: “In what turned into a bit of an exit interview Thursday, outgoing NDP Leader Ryan Meili was asked what advice he had for his successor. Don’t be your own attack dog on every issue, Meili essentially told reporters in his last scrum at the legislature as Opposition leader. Leave it to others to carry the attack and present your broader, more positive vision as to where your party is going. It was sage counsel for either Carla Beck or Kaitlyn Harvey, vying to become the next NDP leader of what is now a 12-member opposition rump. It also pretty much sums up most — if not all — of the problems of not onlyMr. Meili’s leadership but what’s ailed the Saskatchewan NDP for the past decade and a half.”
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WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.
The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.
Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.
The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.
A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.
“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.
The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.
“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”
Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.
“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.
Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.
His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.
Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.
It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.
“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.
When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”
In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.
“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.
The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.
Singh called it a “big victory.”
“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.
“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”
New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.
Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.
The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
