Monday November 13, 2023 | VICTORIA, BC [Updated 9:04 pm]
Political analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
SECTIONS: POLITICS | NEXT FEDERAL ELECTION
Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre today frequently repeated one of his latest slogans — Commons Sense Conservatives, in a 28-minute press conference held in Vancouver, that was posted mid-day on Twitter.
He says that the carbon tax is contributing to the rising cost of food and also housing affordability. Fuel upon which carbon tax is charged is an input cost to nearly everything in the economy.
“We can’t have more taxes on our food when two million people are already forced to food banks,” said Poilievre today. Food Banks Canada recently reported two million coming to food banks in one month. He repeated some stats as to one in five people skipping meals due to the cost of food.
Bill C-234 is in the Senate:
Poilievre said that Liberal senators should be passing private members Bill C-234, which would extend a carbon tax exemption farmers receive on gasoline and diesel to natural gas and propane used in such activities as irrigation, grain drying, feed preparation and heating and cooling barns and greenhouses.
Island Social Trends has reached out to NDP Agriculture critic Alistair MacGregor for comment.
Bill C-234 is intended to help farmers with the cost of food production. If it passes, this would effectively be another (extended) carve-out of the carbon tax — something the Conservatives roasted Liberals for over recently bringing in an exemption for carbon tax for three years for home-heating oil under pressure from Liberal MPs in Atlantic provinces.
Bill C-234, an act to amend the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, was tabled in the House of Commons by Conservative MP Ben Lobb in February 2022.
Last Thursday (November 9), the Senate was in the midst of third reading debate on Bill C-234, which passed in the House of Commons in March, when Senator Bernadette Clement suddenly moved to adjourn debate, effectively delaying a final vote on the private member’s bill until at least November 21 (when the Senate is scheduled to sit next).
Twenty-nine senators voted in favour of adjourning debate, while 24 senators voted against. Notably, 37 senators did not vote. No abstentions were recorded.
Back on Vancouver Island:
It appears Poilievre is resuming what was a summer tour on Vancouver Island that was put on hold due to wildfires. In September he held a rally at a Black Creek winery that saw about 1,500 in attendance; that’s near Campbell River where he was expected to visit back in August.
Poilievre is holding a ‘Bring it Home’ rally in Duncan on Monday evening following a press conference in Vancouver earlier in the day. Tonight’s event will be at the Cowichan Exhibition Park community hall (capacity about 1,500).
Today the podium banner said ‘Axe the Tax’. Simplistic, appealing to the base, building up to the next federal election.
Today on CHEK TV, Poilievre said that NDP MPs here on Vancouver Island are “working for the Liberals”. That’s a misleading political slant. By pressuring the Liberals, the 25 NDP MPs have effectively used political mechanisms to help Canadians with affordability (CERB, doubling of the GST rebate — twice, and a dental program for children and soon also seniors).
The Liberals and NDP have a supply and confidence agreement. It’s incorrect for Poilievre to refer to that as a ‘coalition’.
Conservative efforts on Vancouver Island:
The federal ridings of North Island-Powell River and the Cowichan-Malahat-Langford have been held by the NDP since 2015, by Rachel Blaney and Alistair MacGregor, respectively. Conservative Party candidates have otherwise made a strong showing in those and three other Vancouver Island ridings in the last two elections.
The Conservatives made a strong showing in Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke (ESS) in 2021. The Liberal-Conservative see-saw of centre-right voters could possibly tip the scales in the next election in ESS, if the pushback against the Liberals continues in 2023 and 2024.
Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke has been held by NDP MP Randall Garrison since 2011 (chased hard by the Conservative vote in 2011, a combo of Liberal-Conservative in 2015 and 2021, but more so by the Greens in 2019).
Garrison is retiring ahead of the next federal election; he apparently kept the pressure on Sooke Mayor Maja Tait in recent years until she agreed to be the next federal candidate in that large urban-rural island riding. For a sure win, Tait will need to rely on a strong NDP ground game (cross-pollinated with NDP workers and connections who supported former Premier John Horgan in much of that area) if hoping hope to beat the long-standing Conservative and Green support which is rising up strong in the area. The recent summer 2023 provincial by-election in Langford-Juan de Fuca (which includes Sooke) held its own for the NDP but there was a strong second-place for the right-leaning conservative flank.
The NDP held Nanaimo-Ladysmith in 2021 with former school trustee Lisa-Marie Barron in her first federal run.
The Liberal candidate in a previous election in Cowichan-Malahat-Langford says he runs there federally (twice now) as a way to siphon off votes that might otherwise go to the Conservatives. That helps the NDP incumbent win.
In Saanich-Gulf Islands, the Greens have held the seat with Elizabeth May, MP since 2011 (when she had ousted a Conservative MP).
Next election:
The next federal election is scheduled for October 2025 but could happen sooner if the Liberal-NDP supply and confidence agreement falters.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives under Poilievre have lately shifted into a more obvious campaign mode, though Poilievre always seems to have a campaign style in his simplified, repetitive delivery. He’s been calling the next election the “carbon tax election”, at least for now hanging a lot of hopes on gathering steam with bashing that tax though now saying a Conservative government would ‘speed up’ approval of clean energy projects.
Recent polls have shown the Conservatives to be strongly ahead of the Liberals ‘if an election were called today’.
The quiet thing that people are not saying, is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been a bit weaker in his overall stride than usual, in recent months, likely due to the lifestyle impact of his recent marital separation. Politics is a blood sport, and Poilievre is jumping in hard at this time when his main opponent is showing weakness.
Trudeau will be in BC tomorrow.
Fixing things?
The Conservatives appear to be targeting ridings held by the Liberals and the NDP across the country with a $3 million ad campaign where Poilievre promises to fix what’s “broken” in Canada.
What is not always obvious to the average voter is that the sort of changes which appeal to current pocketbook (economic) issues would undermine a range of socioeconomic programs upon which millions of Canadians depend — especially low-income Canadians, seniors and families.
Island Social Trends has reached out to the federal Finance Ministry for comment.
Since 2015, the Trudeau government has worked hard to push the small-l liberal agenda quite hard to the left (with considerable support by the NDP in recent years), knowing full well that the Conservatives will try to reverse progressive directions should they ever (next) form government.