“Another Damn Election”

The Canadian PM’s cynical election call looks like it is backfiring

In general, voters don’t like politicians. That is especially true when their summer holidays are interrupted by an opportunistic election call. Add in a pandemic that’s far from over, and it’s easy to see why the prospects for Justin Trudeau’s governing Liberal Party are looking increasingly grim.

Recent polls have shown his Liberal Party now trailing the Official Opposition Conservative Party, and momentum in the crucial province of Ontario is continuing to shift toward the Tories. If sustained, it would almost certainly mean a change of government in a few weeks’ time.

Although those with a keen interest in the federal election pay close attention to polls, political scientists and pollsters say poll questions, available answers, and skewed headlines can mislead voters.

Continual opinion polls throughout election campaigns help candidates, parties, and political strategists to gauge support and adjust their approach accordingly. However, poll results released to the public may also affect what voters themselves do, according to Tom Flanagan, a political science academic who led various candidate and party campaigns.

SAINT-SAUVEUR, QUEBEC — A phony war on guns.

Back in March, one of the main groups lobbying for stricter gun controls declared that Justin Trudeau was no longer welcome to attend their activities commemorating the École Polytechnique feminicide.

Trudeau had often been a speaker at these very moving events held in memory of 14 women who were killed because they were women.

Some Canadians really, really, really dislike Justin Trudeau.

We have seen this anger manifest in large protests — sometimes ugly, vulgar and unruly — across the country at Trudeau’s campaign events.

His decision to call a snap election has backfired disastrously

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is fighting for his political life. His decision to bring down his minority government and call an early election has seriously backfired. His Liberals are behind in the polls to the Conservatives, and are sinking fast.

Many Canadians are furious about voting during Covid-19. They’re irritated with Trudeau’s wasteful spending on expensive programmes like a national carbon tax and childcare plan. But above all, they’re tired of the smug, know-it-all attitude of this sire of political royalty (his late father also served as PM) who, before politics, had accomplished next to nothing in life.

In the past 12 months, courts across Ontario have withdrawn or stayed 85 per cent of drug possession charges in the system before they ever reached trial, according to public data analyzed by CBC Toronto.

By comparison, 45 per cent of such charges were dropped in 2019, prior to the pandemic.

The data — which spans July 2020 to June 2021 — reveals inconsistent patterns in various regions across Ontario in how prosecutors have dealt with a backlog of cases caused by COVID-19 disruptions, while Canada’s politicians move closer toward decriminalization.

It also comes a year after a 2020 directive, asking federal Crowns to avoid prosecuting drug possession charges.

Gun violence is up I wonder if there’s a link? Fact check: is gun violence rising in Canada?

… Criminal gun violence has risen in Canada — and by a fairly significant margin, according to Statistics Canada.

From 2009 to 2019 criminal use of firearms increased 81 per cent, the agency reported. 2019 saw a nine per cent increase over the previous year.

This includes not just discharging a firearm, but also pointing it — for example, as part of a bank robbery.

And the COVID-19 pandemic did not do much of anything to reverse the trend.

What does Justin Trudeau do for an encore?

Much of his media availability in Welland, Ont., on Monday was devoted to belittling Erin O’Toole.

It is a sign of how rattled the Liberals are that Trudeau invoked the trifecta of progressive hobgoblins — anti-vaxxers, anti-choicers and climate deniers, all of whom, Trudeau claims, are pulling O’Toole’s strings.

“He can’t even convince his party that climate change is real,” Trudeau said, conjuring up the vote at the Conservative policy convention in March, where delegates rejected the statement that “climate change is real” and the party is “willing to act.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is going to pound Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole for the rest of the campaign on the fact O’Toole promised in his platform to repeal a May 2020 Liberal Order in Council banning 1,500 firearm models.