Advance polling got underway today. By this afternoon there were reports of long lines at polls in cities across the country. Those early voters have made up their minds even though they weren’t given a chance to see the published party platforms of the Conservative and NDP parties. That’s quite a change from past federal elections. In 2011 all three parties had released their platforms three weeks before election day. This year only the Liberal party put out its full platform that early.
But that changed this morning. Tom Mulcair went to Montreal to release his party’s 72-page package of election promises and Stephen Harper was in Vancouver to unveil his 159-page platform. That left Justin Trudeau in Toronto to get specific on one of his key platform items – lower taxes. Trudeau revealed what he said will be the first bill a Liberal government would introduce if elected on October 19.
Trudeau was in a grocery store in the ‘up for grabs’ riding of Don Valley West. Conservative John Carmichael won the riding in 2011 narrowly defeating the Liberal Rob Oliphant. Oliphant is running again to win back the seat. The recent Liberal surge in the GTA makes this riding one to watch on election night.
Why the grocery store? The Liberals used it as the prop to highlight its latest promise for Canada’s middle class. Trudeau brought his platform brochure along and waved it around as he promised all Canadians earning between $45,000 and $90,000 a tax cut. The Liberal release on the new tax rate was more specific. “We will lower taxes for Canadians with incomes between $44,700 and $89,401 per year from 22 percent to 20.5 percent.” Trudeau said it will be paid for by raising the tax rate for those making more than $200,000 to 33%. “Middle class families need a government that believes in helping them directly.” Trudeau said.
In Montreal Mulcair used his party’s platform release as a last chance to put his full case to Canadian voters. The NDP platform opens with the party’s commitment to better health care for Canadians followed by the NDP promise on affordable child care. Mulcair went over the highlights one more time and repeated his commitment to repeal Bill C51. He attacked Stephen Harper’s secret negotiating on the TPP. Then Mulcair turned on Liberal Justin Trudeau and once again linked Trudeau to Harper on Bill C51 and the TPP.
Polls suggest the NDP is slipping in Quebec so, in French, Mulcair turned to the camera and said he wanted to speak “directly to Quebecers.” He asked Quebec to consider carefully who to vote for. Mulcair did his party’s math for voters reminding them that the NDP needs to add “just 35 seats” to win while the Liberals need more than 100 seats. Mulcair then repeated it all in English. Election math of course must take seat losses as well as gains into consideration. Mulcair’s math assumes his party will hold all the seats it has. With ten days to go in the campaign that election math might not get an A from political pundits. Oddly Mulcair chose not to brandish the platform document during his speech and question session. He saved that moment for the cameras, in an awkward photo op, before taking questions from reporters.
Minutes after Mulcair left the hall in Montreal, Conservative leader Stephen Harper walked to the podium in Vancouver to talk about his party’s platform. The difference was stark. Standing in front of a big sign, “Protect Our Economy” Harper led the crowd, and the television audience, through a carefully crafted promotion of his economic platform. It included three videos, one with an Ontario family, then with a senior from Saskatchewan and finally a small business owner in Edmonton. It was all about the economy. Harper didn’t mention health care or the environment. A check of the full platform revealed that the Conservatives squeezed in health care on page 134 after a section on “promoting arts, culture and sport” and just before a section on “protecting Canada’s West Coast. Climate change gets two pages down on page 146.
Harper left those issues to the back pages of the document but at the very end he made sure to find a few minutes to talk about “Canada’s place in the world” and the Conservative commitment to keeping Canada secure while defending Canadian values.
After the Conservative platform show the questions from reporters all focused on the Prime Minister’s involvement this past spring in the Syrian refugee issue. A report last night by the CTV’s Bob Fife revealed more details on the Globe and Mail report on the PMO’s involvement with the refugee file. For weeks Harper has talked about helping the “most vulnerable refugees” from Syria and Iraq. Fife reported sources said the government discouraged Sunni and Shia refugees in favour of Arab Christians. Today Harper chose his words carefully and said the religious minorities were, “not exclusively Christian by any means.” He repeated that his political staff did not make refugee determinations. “They’re not made by political people,” Harper said. “Those decisions are made by arm’s length bureaucrats.” Sources had told the Globe the PMO’s office was directly involved in that decision making.
Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair again heaped scorn on Harper for the perception that his office intervened in the refugee issue. Trudeau used the toughest language today. “To know that somewhere in the Prime Minister’s Office, staffers were pouring through their (the applicants’) personal files to try to find out which families would be suitable for a photo op for the prime minister’s re-election campaign? That’s disgusting,” Mulcair said that Harper was playing a dangerous game with the refugee issue and accused the Conservative leader of “playing the race card non-stop in this campaign.”
The most recent national polls all show the Liberals and Conservatives in a close national race. Quebec is looking more and more like a three-way contest between the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP. The GTA and the greater Vancouver area are also showing signs of volatility. There will lots of politics to talk about at family gatherings and feasts this long Thanksgiving weekend. One thing to watch for will be if there are new TV ads from all the parties. How will each party approach the end game in this 78 marathon? With the election this close there might well be a temptation to pull the attack ads off the shelf.
