Veteran economist Don Drummond has advised federal and provincial governments on the best ways to keep public spending under control. Now that all three major parties have released costed platforms, he sees a common point of concern: further increases to the national debt – and no clear plans to pay for it.
The NDP was the last of the three main parties to release a detailed costing on Saturday.
The Globe’s Politics Briefing asked Mr. Drummond, who is adjunct professor at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, for his assessment of the three fiscal plans now that their numbers are public.
“They are of like mind in taking the pandemic debt, adding to it, stuffing it in a box, gift-wrapping and passing it onto future generations,” he wrote in a detailed e-mail response. “They implicitly answer the question: Who should pay for this extraordinary fiscal intervention? Someone, way, way into the future.”
Another common element of concern for Mr. Drummond is that new spending promises are rarely linked with specific explanations for how the measures will be funded, either through tax increases or a spending cut elsewhere. He notes the NDP does list a wealth tax as a source of revenue, but the party also counts on further deficit spending.
On tax policy, Mr. Drummond says he sees a lot of bad ideas, pointing to Liberal pledges to impose higher corporate tax rates on banks and insurance companies with profits above $1-billion. The NDP plan includes raising the corporate tax rate for all corporations by three per cent.
“All fiscal studies show the corporate income tax has the highest economic cost. And its all the worse when it is applied selectively,” he said. As for the NDP’s wealth tax, Mr. Drummond said the goal of taxing the wealthy would be better achieved by focusing on income and reducing deductions.
“Despite many differences, they all feature similar philosophies: Push the risk curve by building up even more debt and hope someone, somehow, can deal with it way into the future. Maybe that will all turn out well. But with risk, one does not know, and that is the point. The next generation may have their hands full with other issues on top of dealing with our debt.”
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THE FINAL WEEK
There’s only a week left before voting day on Monday Sept. 20, and the campaign is clearly taking on a more negative tone.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau both opened their news conferences Tuesday with lengthy criticisms of each other.
This change in tone can also be seen as the volume of paid advertising increases. The Conservatives are running ads criticizing Mr. Trudeau. The ads end with the tagline: “We can’t afford more of the same,” and state that Mr. Trudeau puts his own interests first. The Liberal attack ads borrow from Mr. Erin O’Toole’s party leadership slogan “Take Back Canada,” warning that Conservative policies will “take Canada backward.”
The NDP have also been running ads that criticize Mr. Trudeau, using the tagline “Justin Trudeau is all talk, no action.”
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Jody Wilson-Raybould is calling on the Liberal government to remove roadblocks to a long-standing RCMPinquiry into possible obstruction of justice, and said she is not surprised that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau denied urging her to lie about a pressure campaign to subvert the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.
Some high-ranking Ontario politicians and prominent health-care organizations are issuing warnings ahead of a number of protests expected to take place at hospitals across Canada on Tuesday. Story here.
Lisa Robinson, who was dropped by the Conservative Party as a Toronto-area candidate over the weekend, says she never wrote the online posts that led to her dismissal and that she’s gone to the police because fake posts continue to appear under her name online.
Now that all three main parties have released have released the costing details of their party platforms, the University of Ottawa’s Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy, led by former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, has provided an assessment of the three plans. The Globe story is here.
LEADERS
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, in Gaspé, Grande-Vallée,Sainte-Anne-des-Monts and Rimouski, has a campaign day that includes a media availability on the appointment of judges. He will also meet with the mayors of Gaspé and Grande-Vallée.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole made an announcement and held a media availability in Carp, Ont., where he highlighted his party promise to allow parents to earn an additional $1,000 per month without causing a deduction in their maternity or parental leave. Mr. O’Toole is also scheduled to hold a virtual telephone town hall for Ontario voters and one for British Columbia voters.
Green Party Leader Annamie Paul is making a rare campaign stop outside of Toronto Centre, where she is on the ballot and has spent the vast majority of her time. On Tuesday, she isin Prince Edward Island to attend a University of P.E.I. student barbecue, and has a scheduled news conference with Green Party candidates. She was also scheduled to tour an organic farm, attend a Toronto Centre all-candidates meeting via Zoom, and attend a pep rally.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau made an announcement in Vancouver, focused on the party’s health care pledges.
Jody Wilson-Raybould (Contributor to The Globe and Mail)on her professional relationship with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau: “I know the Prime Minister had always considered me a bit of a challenge – not political enough, too independent-minded, and ultimately not part of the inner Liberal crowd. I think I was foreign and incomprehensible to him. After all, I was from the other side of the tracks. I was an Indigenous girl from a small fishing village – Cape Mudge, on the southern tip of Quadra Island just off Vancouver Island. I am Kwakwaka’wakw. The PM did not grow up in my neighbourhoods, with the kids I grew up with. None of his family went to residential schools. My childhood memories are closer to Comox and Cape Mudge than Rockcliffe. My political point of reference was the Big House, not the House of Commons. To be fair, he did not choose how and where he grew up or who his parents were. But Liberals? Political parties? Not my world.”
The one-and-done theory of party leadership that the Liberals and Conservatives alike have adopted makes little sense to me. It seems to be predicated on the notion that Harper or Trudeau are so beyond the pale that anyone who fails to beat them on a first try deserves banishment. But if any Conservative leader could lose this election to Trudeau and stay on as opposition leader, O’Toole seems very unlikely to be him – not despite he ran a moderate campaign that pleased many progressive conservatives and Liberal swing voters, but precisely because of that. At the end of the day, that’s not the leader party members voted for.”
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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.
