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Politics Briefing: 'Scary' rise in COVID-19 cases – The Globe and Mail

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Hello,

The approvals of two COVID-19 vaccines last month were a bright spot in a difficult time. They showed there could be light at the end of the tunnel for the nearly year-long public-health emergency we find ourselves in.

But the truth is that the fight against the virus is going badly and it looks like, at least in the short term, things will only get worse.

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Ontario’s associate medical officer of health, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, said the sharp rise in COVID-19 cases is “scary.” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the current lockdown could be extended further. Alberta, which has among the highest per-capita cases, and B.C., which is a bit better, are both extending restrictions. Premiers jointly say the federal government needs to do better at providing a reliable supply of vaccines.

Among the most worrying news is that conditions at long-term care homes, which were the sites of horror last spring, are still very vulnerable to outbreaks.

With new variants of the virus possibly hastening its spread, the message from public-health officials to Canadians continues: keep our distances, wear masks and not let the virus find new hosts.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

Canada says the arrest this week of Hong Kong political leaders by pro-Beijing authorities is an “assault on representative democracy.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau similarly condemned the actions of U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday and said he incited the mob to violence.

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Mr. Trudeau also said in a radio interview this morning that there could well be an election this year.

Statistics Canada’s monthly jobs report shows employment is trending down again, after months of recovery from the early pandemic-fuelled crash.

A dozen foreign-owned airlines have received money through Canada’s wage subsidy, despite also receiving bailouts in their home countries.

Another analysis shows some recipients of the wage subsidy are deep-pocketed companies that could possibly survive without the funds.

Some Canadians vacationing in sunny spots have already been denied flights home due to new rules that they have to show a negative COVID-19 test before boarding.

And Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are gearing up for a possible second impeachment of Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, says he will not attend Joe Biden’s inauguration in two weeks.

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Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on the lies that fuelled the violence in Washington: “American political polarization, and its mistrust, helped Mr. Trump promote his unreality. But it could never have succeeded without disinformation propagated by others. Not just political differences, but the embrace of lies and conspiracy theories, which he took up with the birthers, fed against opponents, and fuelled in office. He pushed the notion of a Deep State inside government conspiring against him and winked at messianic QAnon crackpottery. The believers came to the Capitol.”

Andrew Coyne (The Globe and Mail) on the U.S. President: “[Trump] is, indeed, unbound by constraints of any kind: neither of laws, nor civility, nor even a rational sense of his own interest, but slave only to his desire to consume and destroy whatever frustrates his appetites or wounds his vanity. He has the mental age of an 11-year-old and the emotional age of a five-year-old, and for the past four years he has been President of the United States.”

Omar El Akkad (The Globe and Mail) on the trajectory of America: “But what is more likely than outright war is simply that the occasional frenzy of political violence, the occasional storming of a legislature or attempt to kidnap a governor, will join mass shootings and preventable virus deaths as something this country just learns to shrug off.”

James Hohmann (Washington Post) on the Trump cabinet secretaries resigning this week: “Resigning now feels a little like eating all but the last bite of a piece of cake at a restaurant and then asking for a refund.”

Aaron Wherry (CBC) on politics of providing COVID-19 vaccines to vulnerable prisoners: “The simple politics of the issue are still obvious. Most Canadians are eager to receive the vaccine, current supplies are limited and those who commit crimes tend to be viewed as unsympathetic. But the idea that we’re all in this together can’t coexist with the notion that some people are more or less worthy of protection than others.”

Rita Trichur (The Globe and Mail) on Air Canada promoting leisure travel in the pandemic: “Those marvelling over Air Canada’s inability to do the right thing during this spiralling crisis are forgetting that our flag carrier, which was built with public money, has long had a malfunctioning moral compass.”

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Trump faces political risks as trial begins – NBC News

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April 15, 202400:53

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As Donald Trump the candidate overlaps with Donald Trump the defendant, new polling finds that many crucial independent voters consider his trial to be a serious issue. NBC News’ Hallie Jackson reports.

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Florida's Bob Graham dead at 87: A leader who looked beyond politics, served ordinary folks – Toronto Star

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A leader like Bob Graham would be a unicorn in the hyper-partisan politics of today.

The former Florida governor and U.S. senator wasn’t a slick, slogan-spouting politician. He didn’t have an us-against-them mentality. Sometimes, he even came across as more of a kind-hearted professor just trying to make the world a better place.

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The Earthquake Shaking BC Politics

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Six months from now Kevin Falcon is going to be staggering toward a catastrophic defeat for the remnants of the BC Liberals.

But what that will mean for the province’s political future is still up in the air, with the uncertainty increased by two shocking polls that show the Conservatives far ahead of BC United and only a few percentage points behind the NDP.

BC United is already toast, done in by self-inflicted wounds and the arrival of John Rustad and the Conservative Party of BC.

Falcon’s party has stumbled since the decision to abandon the BC Liberal brand in favour of BC United. The change, promoted by Falcon and approved by party members, took place a year ago this week. It was an immediate disaster.

That was made much worse when Rustad relaunched the B.C. Conservatives after Falcon kicked him out of caucus for doubting the basic science of climate change.

Falcon’s party had fallen from 33 per cent support to 19 per cent, trailing the Conservatives at 25 per cent. (The NDP has 42 per cent support.) That’s despite his repeated assurances that voters would quickly become familiar with the BC United brand.

BC United is left with almost no safe seats in this election based on the current polling.

Take Abbotsford West, where Mike de Jong is quitting after 30 years in the legislature to seek a federal Conservative nomination. It’s been a BC Liberal/United stronghold. In 2020 de Jong captured 46 per cent of the votes to the New Democrats’ 37 per cent and the Conservatives’ nine per cent.

But that was when the Conservatives were at about eight per cent in the polls, not 25 per cent.

Double their vote in this October’s election at the expense of the Liberals — a cautious estimate — and the NDP wins.

United’s prospects are even worse in ridings that were close in the 2020 election, like Skeena. Ellis Ross took it for the BC Liberals in 2020 with 52 per cent of the vote to the NDP’s 45 per cent.

But there was no Conservative candidate. Rustad has committed to running a candidate in every riding and the NDP can count on an easy win in Skeena.

It’s the same story across the province. The Conservatives and BC United will split the centre-right vote, handing the NDP easy wins and a big majority. And BC United will be fighting to avoid being beaten by the Conservatives in the ridings that are in play.

United’s situation became even more dire last week. A Liaison Strategies poll found the NDP at 38 per cent support, Conservatives at 34 per cent, United at 16 per cent and Greens at 11 per cent. That’s similar to a March poll from Mainstreet Research.

If those polls are accurate, BC United could end up with no seats. Voters who don’t want an NDP government will consider strategic voting based on which party has a chance of winning in their ridings.
Based on the Liaison poll, that would be the Conservatives. That’s especially true outside Vancouver and Vancouver Island, where the poll shows the Conservatives at 39 per cent, the NDP at 30 per cent and United lagging at 19 per cent. (The caveat about the polls’ accuracy is important. Curtis Fric and Philippe J. Fournier offer a useful analysis of possible factors affecting the results on Substack.)

And contributors will also be making some hard choices about which party gets their money. Until now BC United was far ahead of the Conservatives, thanks to its strong fundraising structure and the perception that it was the front-runner on the right. That’s under threat.

The polls also mark a big change in the NDP’s situation. This election looked like a cakewalk, with a divided centre-right splitting the vote and a big majority almost guaranteed. Most polls this year gave the New Democrats at least a 17 per cent lead over the Conservatives.

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