Politics
What's ON: The week ahead in Ontario politics (February 14-February 18) – TVO
On Mondays, TVO.org provides a primer on what to look for in the coming week in Ontario politics, and features some stories making news now.
Here’s what we’ve got our eye on:
Queen’s Park Keywords
Whose streets?: Ottawa residents made it very clear yesterday that they want the Freedom Convoy to leave their city. Counter-protesters, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, gathered at several intersections to block supporters of the convoy from driving downtown. “I spoke to the driver of almost every truck in the ‘blue-collar convoy’ that’s been blockaded at Riverside and Bank [Streets],” Ottawa resident Sean Devine wrote on Twitter. “I was polite, and civil, but determined to let them know that Ottawa residents are suffering from their actions, and won’t stand for it.” Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden, who was at the counter-protests, said scenes on Saturday of convoy participants sitting in makeshift hot tubs and partying in the downtown without any apparent police pushback drove many residents over the edge. “The straw broke last night,” he told Paul McLeod of Buzzfeed News. “The patience of our various communities broke. This was organized on Facebook groups normally for cookouts and dog walking.”
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Emergencies Act: The federal cabinet apparently discussed the Emergencies Act at a meeting last night. The law gives the government the power to deal with a “public order emergency.” It has been on the books since 1988, but has never been used. A first ministers’ meeting has been scheduled for this morning, presumably to discuss invoking the act.
“Backchannel” debacle: Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson announced yesterday he had reached a “backchannel” deal with one of the Freedom Convoy leaders to have all trucks leave residential streets and limit their presence to a smaller set of streets in the downtown core. The idea was to reduce the negative effect the protest has had on residents. However, messages from convoy leaders late last night claimed no deal had been made. But then later, one of the organizers said the deal with Watson is still on. (It’s all very confusing).
Ambassador Bridge: While the occupation of Ottawa continues, the blockade by anti-vax and anti-government protesters at the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit is over. A large police presence cleared the blockade Sunday, and the bridge reopened to traffic late last night.
Trade: While the Ambassador Bridge blockade has ended, the damage to Canada’s economy may already be done. Flavio Volpe of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association told CTV News yesterday the days-long shutdown at the key Canada-U.S. trade route may scuttle any chance Canadian lobbyists have of convincing American lawmakers not to go ahead with “Buy American” policies that could hurt several Canadian industries, particularly auto manufacturing based in southwestern Ontario. “I just came back from Washington last week, where we were trying to work Canada quietly into that ‘Buy American’ legislation,” he said. “Now, that’s all blown up.”
Rogue cop: Video surfaced this weekend showing an OPP officer expressing sympathy with the Freedom Convoy. “I get what you guys are doing. I support you guys 100 per cent,” the officer says at one point. The OPP’s Professional Standards Unit is now investigating the matter. There was also news that three members of the armed forces, including two current members of the elite Joint Task Force 2 unit, are being investigated for allegedly taking part in the Ottawa anti-government protests.
2,000 guns: Police in Peterborough are investigating the theft of a truck containing more than 2,000 firearms. They say they do not believe the truck was carrying any ammunition. Authorities across the province have been notified.
COVID-19 restrictions: The provincial cabinet is scheduled to meet this morning to consider lifting some public health restrictions earlier than planned, according to the Toronto Star. However, the first ministers’ meeting announced late last night, mentioned above, may force cabinet to reschedule.
Case numbers: The province reported there were 1,540 people are in hospital with COVID-19 yesterday. Of those, 402 were in intensive care. The previous Sunday, there were 2,230 patients with COVID-19, and 486 of them were in ICU.
Surgical backlog: An analysis by the Toronto Star suggests that the province now has a backlog of more than 300,000 postponed surgeries caused when hospitals had to suspend certain services to handle surges in COVID-19 patients. “This is a catastrophic problem the health-care system will face for at least the next five years,” said David Gomez, an acute care and trauma surgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. “Unless we redesign surgical care in the province, many, many Ontarians are not going to get their surgeries. There’s going to be a significant impact to people’s lives, but also to their mobility, fertility and quality of life.”
Upcoming Ontario politics coverage on TVO
Tonight on TVO at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., The Agenda covers the latest news on the convoy protests, and discusses what can be done to end them.
And be sure to check out TVO.org this week for the latest #onpoli podcast, articles covering issues from around Ontario, as well as regular columns from John Michael McGrath and Matt Gurney.
This article was updated at 7:26 a.m.
Politics
The Earthquake Shaking BC Politics – TheTyee.ca
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.
If the two recent polls prove accurate and that gap is much smaller, the NDP faces a tougher campaign challenge than anyone expected a few weeks ago.
Next: What’s behind the B.C. Conservatives’ surge?
Politics
Political longevity of Sunak smoking ban likely to outlast PM – BBC.com
Unless the opinion polls shift and shift quite a bit, Rishi Sunak knows his time left as prime minister might be running out.
But he is the instigator of a smoking plan with substantial, cross-party political support, which looks set to herald a sizeable social change.
And that cross-party support suggests it’s an idea with greater political longevity than he might have, because Labour wouldn’t scrap it if they win the election.
In other words, whatever happens, it is what some in politics call a legacy.
As I wrote here when Mr Sunak first set out his plans last autumn – in what he described at the time as “the biggest public health intervention in a generation” – this is a government seeking to nudge, or elbow, a societal shift along: the near end of smoking.
On Tuesday, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said she hopes creating a smoke free generation will “spare thousands of young people from addiction and early death as well as saving billions of pounds for our NHS”.
What was once mainstream is already marginal. Now the attempt to near-eradicate it, over time.
This isn’t the end of this discussion: what we have seen so far are the early parliamentary stages. There is more to come before it becomes law.
So that is the big picture, potential social change stuff. What about the politics?
Nearly 60 Conservative MPs voted against Mr Sunak’s idea.
Yes, they had a free vote – they weren’t told how to vote – but they defied him nonetheless. The cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch among them.
Another 100-ish abstained. The cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt among them.
A source close to Ms Mordaunt told me that she abstained because “she was not a supporter of the bill. She has many objections to it. The practicality of it. The implementation and enforcement of it. But being a serving cabinet minister she thought voting against it would look more confrontational and posturing than abstaining would have been.”
Who could that possibly be a dig at? Ah, Kemi Badenoch.
And what do Ms Mordaunt and Ms Badenoch have in common? A splash of ambition.
They are both talked up by some as future Conservative leaders.
Read more about the smoking ban
When you look at the numbers, nearly half of Conservative MPs couldn’t bring themselves to endorse one of their leader’s flagship ideas of the last six months.
Which tells you something about the fractious nature of the Conservative parliamentary party, although not a lot that wasn’t pretty clear to the regular observer already.
Labour are already gleefully talking up that it is a good job they backed the idea or Mr Sunak would have lost.
And they are also publicly pondering what those opponents might do once the chance arises to change the ideas, to bolt on amendments.
But then again they would be defeated if those in favour keep backing the plan as it is.
When governments manage to latch on to a plan which goes with the grain of where a society is already heading, the might of the law can shove it along profoundly and, probably, permanently.
This idea – for now at least – looks like it might be one of those.
And, for all his political troubles, it is Mr Sunak who is its author.
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