The fallout from the parliamentary foreign activity report did nothing to re-establish Canadians’ trust in the system.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 17, 2024.

OTTAWA–The cloud of suspicion hanging over Members of Parliament was partly lifted by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May last week.

May spoke out at a lengthy press conference on June 11 after having read the classified document on parliamentary foreign activity produced by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP).

May said she was “relieved” to read that, in her opinion, none of the “few” Members of Parliament mentioned in the document are being disloyal to Canada.

There was one former MP who knowingly colluded with a foreign government, but their identity was not revealed. May stated that her reading of the report concluded that no current MPs were involved in any malfeasance.

May asked, “are there currently MPs sitting with us in the Chamber who would set out knowingly to sell Canada out for personal benefit? If there are, there’s no evidence of that in the full report.”

She urged other party leaders to read the report, and to draw their own conclusions.

Reports of the document state that “the committee has also seen troubling intelligence that some parliamentarians are, in the words of the intelligence services, ‘witting or semi-witting’ participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics.”

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh, who also read the report, said he was even more concerned after reading it, and urged Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to do the same. The current leader of the opposition refuses to seek the security clearance required to read the document.

Singh also questioned whether Poilievre was refusing to read the document because it included references to potential foreign influence in the Conservative leader’s own party leadership bid. The NSICOP report references interference by Indian and Chinese governments in the Conservative leadership race.

Singh said: “In short, there are a number of MPs who have knowingly provided help to foreign governments, some to the detriment of Canada and Canadians.” CBC News later reported that Singh’s office would not confirm if he was referring to current sitting MPs.

Meanwhile, with no specifics on which Members of Parliament have been named, the House of Commons agreed on June 11 to a Bloc Québécois motion to refer the parliamentary report to the public inquiry into foreign interference.

That inquiry, led by Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue, is already reviewing the issues surrounding foreign election-meddling allegations.

Hogue produced her interim report last month, which said there is evidence of foreign interference, but the integrity of Canada’s electoral system remains intact.

The commissioner also concluded that “vigorous measures” must be taken to re-establish Canadians’ trust in the system after unveiling evidence that foreign governments did interfere in the elections of 2019 and 2021, leaving “a stain on our electoral process.”

The fallout from the NSICOP report did nothing to re-establish Canadians’ trust in the system. Instead, the report left the impression that there were multiple Members of Parliament knowingly sharing confidential information with foreign influencers.

Poilievre and his Alberta-based attack dog Michael Cooper both called on the prime minister to immediately release the names of all members cited in the document.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc told a parliamentary committee that it would be illegal to release names. “I am not going to violate the Security of Information Act, and risk prosecution for a political stunt,” he said.

He, too, encouraged Poilievre to get full security clearance so the Conservative leader could read the report, and decide for himself what level of foreign influence has affected our democracy and electoral process.

Poilievre refuses to read the report himself, claiming that to do so would prevent him from asking pertinent questions. The Conservative leader says clearance would limit his capacity to comment on issues, since top-secret material is usually only for the eyes of the security-cleared reader.

But his refusal to gather all the data begs the question: if Poilievre were to win the election, would he be able to become prime minister without a full security clearance? And if so, why would he want to make decisions without being in possession of all the facts?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for a leader to gather as much background as possible before deciding on what direction s/he would be taking on the foreign interference question?

Poilievre is simply demanding that the prime minister name names. He cares not for illegality, or due process.

His insouciance really makes you wonder what kind of prime minister he would be.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Carey Price learned that lesson last week when he weighed in on the current anti-gun debate roiling in the House of Commons.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on December 12, 2022.

OTTAWA—Hockey players should stay out of politics. Carey Price learned that lesson last week when he weighed in on the current anti-gun debate roiling in the House of Commons.

Poor Price should have stuck to hockey. He is definitely one of the best goalies in the business, but his depth of political knowledge is somewhat limited.

How else to explain the claim by the Montreal Canadiens that Price had never heard of the misogynistic massacre at École Polytechnique?

Their apologetic excuse, subsequently denied by Price, was that the event happened before he was born.

But that poorly-crafted lie inflamed the situation to the point where it even became a main topic for discussion in the Quebec National Assembly.

Price remembers who scored the winning goal in the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series, even though he wasn’t born when it happened. 

Price remembers the famous Montreal Canadiens record-breaking lineup of the Rocket Richard, Jacques Plante, Doug Harvey, and Jean Béliveau.

But for some reason, Canadian women’s history does not seem to have had the same historical resonance, according to the Canadiens’ management. 

There is nothing wrong with someone weighing in on the facts around gun possession.

As a gun owner, Price was speaking from a place of personal experience. 

But before he decided to become the chief spokesperson for the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights, he should have done a little research into the details of the subject.

The ongoing gun violence in Canada’s major cities obviously needs action. But that urban desire for action runs smack into a rural desire to continue recreational hunting and fishing. 

Any political move must balance the wishes of both, unless the government has decided it does not want to elect any rural Members of Parliament. 

Price isn’t the only one who is opposing the current gun amendments.  

The Saskatchewan Party is using the legislation as a fundraising tool, having already launched a protest petition called “Stop the Trudeau gun ban”.

When it comes to gun laws, even some Liberals and New Democrats think the proposed legislation has gone too far.

New Democrat MP Charlie Angus has publicly attacked the government for amendments which include banning approximately half a million widely used hunting rifles that were approved for sale in the last batch of gun amendments. 

“I think they made some serious mistakes with this amendment and they have to fix it” was his blunt assessment of the gun ban extension to semi-automatic SKS rifles.  

Angus is right. Chances are the decision to extend the ban to SKS rifles was made by someone who had no idea of the political uproar it would cause.

The government has always argued that its gun legislation was meant to prevent mass murder, not to criminalize legal hunters. 

Many Canadians have actually purchased the SKS rifles in good faith as they were not on any previous ban list.

But the recommendation by Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino that the government should buy back the banned weapons is not going to cut it. 

Instead, the cabinet needs to incorporate some political smarts into its policy-making.

If a key opposition voice like Angus, a northerner with a long and successful political career, can’t stomach the amendments, chances are they need to go.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last week that the current list of banned guns is being reviewed to ensure that it does not target legitimate gun owners. 

But Price’s inflammatory comments could encourage the government to double down on its position. 

The issue was a public relations fiasco for the Montreal Canadiens, who wrongly issued the original statement that Price did not know of the Polytechnique massacre.

He subsequently reversed that position in a social media post when he said he knew about the massacre of 14 women on Dec. 6, 1989.

On the eve of the anniversary, further outrage was provoked when the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights used the promo code “POLY” for purchasers to secure a 10 per cent discount on arms’ items from its online store. 

Price’s posting gave oxygen to the PolySeSouvient movement, which is lobbying for more limits on guns. 

Gun laws in Canada have proven to be political quicksand for successive governments in the past half century. 

It is impossible to table a piece of legislation which will satisfy both sides of this highly polarized debate.

However, if politics is defined as the art of the possible, the government needs to find a middle ground.

The best new gun law will likely satisfy neither side completely.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

If Danielle Smith doesn’t like a federal law, she and her cabinet will simply toss it out. Sovereignty in a united Canada—sounds just like the separatists. 

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on December 5, 2022.

OTTAWA—Alberta Premier Danielle Smith wants sovereignty in a united Canada.

She claims it has nothing to do with a desire to separate, but the first bill she tabled as premier says otherwise. 

The crux of the bill is to give her cabinet the right to refuse to proceed with any federal legislation or action that it perceives as detrimental to Alberta. 

Notwithstanding her promises while running for the United Conservative Party leadership, she makes it very plain that her cabinet decisions take precedence over the Canadian Constitution.

Observers have underscored problems with the legislation, but they have more to do with internal Alberta politics than anything coming from Ottawa.

The decision to give cabinet the right to overturn all laws could actually cause problems for democracy in Alberta.

The move certainly seems to diminish the power of the legislature’s involvement in the approval, rejection, or amendment of any legislation.

In a majority government, the cabinet recommendation is usually carried by the legislature. But that is not a given. 

Minority governments are unlikely in Alberta, given the dominance of only two political parties. But the decision to simply override parliamentary opinion by way of a cabinet fiat is definitely a political mistake. 

At this point, the premier has to be a lot more concerned about her standing amongst Alberta voters than her popularity, or lack thereof, in the rest of the country.

She has to face the voters in less than six months, and even her immediate predecessor has made it very clear that he disagrees with her sovereignty pitch. 

In resigning on the same day that Smith tabled the sovereignty bill, outgoing premier Jason Kenney took an indirect hit at Smith’s first piece of legislation by way of his retirement statement: “I am concerned that our democratic life is veering away from ordinary prudential debate towards a polarization that undermines our bedrock institutions and principles.”

There has never been any love lost between Kenney and Smith, but this oblique reference underscores the divide that still exists inside the UCP.

While its name is “United,” in reality the party is badly split. That division is natural during a leadership period, but Smith doesn’t have much time to heal the deep wounds that can occur during internal party races. 

Some are already characterizing Smith’s legacy as that of the shortest-serving premier.  

The sovereignty legislation did little to reach out to those inside the party who share Kenney’s perspective.

As for Smith’s attempt to clarify that sovereignty and separation are not the same thing, she needs to take a deeper dive into Quebec’s peregrination.

While the rest of Canada considered them separatists, successive leaders of the Parti Québécois claimed the movement was about sovereignty, not separation. 

Sovereignty is a positive moniker. Separation represents division. But in the end, all Quebec sovereigntists want to leave Canada to start their own country. 

Smith claims otherwise, but that is about the only affirmation of Canadian unity that she is likely to make. 

Her main reason for running the province seems to be a plan to run down the country.

Smith probably thinks that an anti-Eastern sentiment will encourage a majority of Albertans to vote for her. 

But chances are their interest in personal prosperity outstrips that of her continuous assertions of public enmity. 

She will be running against Ottawa, while Alberta New Democratic Party Leader Rachel Notley will be running against the Alberta Tory record. 

The blame game actually works in two directions, and at this point in time, Notley appears to have the edge. 

By introducing her sovereignty bill as the first piece of legislation, Smith is signifying that fighting the federal government will be her top priority.

Notley says she wants to work with the feds on common issues of economic importance. 

That message of co-operation may resonate with Albertans who are looking for solutions, not brickbats.

At the end of the day, Smith’s sovereignty move does not look much different from the Parti Québécois’ offering during the last referendum.

They told Quebecers they would keep the dollar, the military, the trade agreements and all the benefits of belonging to Canada, while setting up their own sovereign country.

Smith is seeking a similar sort of autonomy.

All the reasons to endorse Canada remain intact, including access to currency, international treaty status, and military protection while none of the responsibilities will matter.

If Smith doesn’t like a federal law, she and her cabinet will simply toss it out.

Sovereignty in a united Canada—sounds just like the separatists. 

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

If members choose the leader in the first place, why don’t they do the firing?

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on October 24, 2022.

OTTAWA—What do British Tories and British Columbian New Democrats have in common?

They both moved with dispatch last week to get rid of leaders or potential leaders of their respective parties.

In the case of the British prime minister, Liz Truss’s resignation—after just six weeks in office—marks the end of a tumultuous term during which a massively unpopular mini-budget saw the party’s numbers plummet.

The party elected the leader but, in the end, it was a loss of caucus confidence that cost her the job.

Even after sacking the finance minister and rescinding the millions of pounds in tax cuts, Truss was unable to right her sinking ship. One vitriolic British newspaper headline characterized the Tory governance as a clown car.

Truss will suffer the fate of having the shortest prime ministerial tenure in British history. The next leader will be chosen by the party, but given the capacity to dump a leader after six weeks, it must be hard for members to believe their participation really counts.

Another leadership will not be facing the New Democrats in British Columbia because, as a result of an internal report, the party has chosen a coronation.

In either case, the leader is much less dependent on party support and much more dependent on caucus support.

Is that necessarily a good thing?

In the British system there is absolutely no room for error. If an unpopular move is made by the prime minister, he or she has no time to rebuild support and confidence.

To use a Canadian example, when the Liberals came to power in 1993, the country was deemed a financial basket case by certain financial institutions.

There was no choice but to cut, and cut deeply. The government laid off thousands of employees, and cut budgets across the board by between 15 and 25 per cent.

The only budget that then-prime minister Jean Chrétien refused to cut was spending for Indigenous services. But that financing normally increases with a hike in population, so even a standstill amounts to the equivalent of a cut.

The reduction process took a year as every minister had to present their budget cut proposals to a cabinet committee. I sat on one that was nicknamed “the Star Chamber.”

Some ministers could not agree on what the cuts should be. For example, when the department of foreign affairs recommended meeting its target by ending its funding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the minister of finance vetoed that move. The foreign minister was sent back to the drawing board.

During this period, there was a fair bit of internal grumbling about the shape of the cuts, and it was particularly difficult for Ottawa-area members of Parliament to explain the job reductions to their constituents.

How easy it could have been to organize a group within caucus to dump the leader, and end the cost-cutting exercise before it even began.

The Brits are facing a fifth Conservative leadership in six years.

In British Columbia’s case, current Premier John Horgan enjoyed longevity.

But what would have been a party election for leader has been replaced by a coronation, since the elections committee has disallowed the candidacy of the only other opponent.

The decision to refuse the candidacy of Anjali Appadurai was based on an internal report which found that, “Ms. Appadurai engaged in serious improper conduct by co-ordinating with third parties” to recruit new members.
Anjali Appadurai was disqualified from the NDP leadership race on Oct. 20—the same day that Liz Truss stepped down as British prime minister. Photograph courtesy of Twitter

The candidate vigorously denied the claims, suggesting instead that the party introduced a mid-campaign interpretation of the membership rules which was applied retroactively.

Appadurai, an environmentalist, had little caucus support, but was said to have sold many more memberships than her leadership rival and former Attorney General David Eby.

Eby automatically becomes the premier as a result of the coronation. When Eby announced his candidacy last summer, he had the support of 48 colleagues.

That support was likely what caused several other caucus colleagues to stay out of the race.

A coronation may be the simplest route forward for the party, but it may not enhance New Democrat chances with the general public.

Leadership campaigns provide an opportunity to recruit new members. Many stay, even after the race is over. Appadurai supporters, who joined the party for the race, are already leaving in despair.

The British decision to dump a leader after six weeks, or the B.C. NDP move to dump a candidate, may both cause members of each respective party to quit.

If members choose the leader in the first place, why don’t they do the firing?

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

But by associating with these extremists, Tory appeal to ordinary Canadians is diminished. Short-term gain for long-term pain.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on January 31, 2022.

OTTAWA—Hundreds of anti-vaxx truckers descended on Ottawa on Saturday and the longer the convoy actually goes on, the more the Conservatives seem to be tangled in the anti-vaccination web.

Now even the New Democrats have been embroiled in the drama after the brother–in-law of NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh donated $13,000 to support the convoy.

According to Singh’s office, his relative did not fully understand what the convoy was up to and has now applied to have his funds reimbursed through a GoFundMe process.

Meanwhile, the truckers are rolling in the dough with more than $6-million already collected in support of the convoy.

With the funding come questions as to exactly what the money will be used for. Tamara Lich, convoy organizer, is associated with the Maverick Party, a separatist movement in Alberta. She also launched the GoFundMe page which has been under review by the funding platform because of questions about the transparency of the flow of funds and the plan for disbursement.

However, the truckers have no support from any official provincial or national trucking organization. The international vaccine requirement for truckers was instituted both by Canada and the United States, effective mid-January. Almost 90 per cent of international truckers are already vaccinated so convoy protesters represent a very small number of commercial trucking operations.

Truckers are actually ahead of the rest of Canada when it comes to the numbers of fully vaccinated workers.

That hasn’t seemed to stop the Conservatives from throwing their support behind the movement, with vocal, high-profile approval from former leader Andrew Scheer and current deputy leader Candice Bergen.

Likewise, leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis has accused the vaccine mandate of promoting segregation. Outspoken critic Pierre Poilievre has called the federal requirement a “vaccine vendetta.”

As usual, leader Erin O’Toole is sending out a confusing vaccine message. On the one hand, he refused last week to say whether he planned to meet with truckers, but his caucus was collecting signatures for a petition seeking the reversal of the vaccine mandate for federal workers and international truckers.

If the GoFundMe response is any indication, the Tories could raise a lot of money by jumping on the anti-vaxx wagon. But they also risk alienating a huge percentage of the population that is simply fed up with the refusal of anti-vaxxers to consider science and society in defending their positions.

Just last week, Canadian musical icon Neil Young pulled his music from Spotify after the music streaming platform refused to drop anti-vaxxer and podcaster Joe Rogan. In another health twist, a Boston hospital patient was removed from the wait-list for a heart transplant after refusing to be vaccinated.

The hospital explained its decision by saying vaccination is a lifestyle behaviour “required for transplant candidates … in order to create both the best chance for a successful operation and to optimize the patient’s survival after transplantation.”

The medical community is unanimous, and the public is not far behind, in Canada and globally.

Tennis whiz Novak Djokovic was literally run out from Down Under after failing to meet Australian Open tennis vaccination requirements. Djokovic said he was planning on studying the matter further after he was deported. He faces the same requirement for the upcoming French Open and apparently may take a pass there as well.

Bearing the new nickname NoVax, Djokovic has allied himself with the same group of vaccine deniers who came to Ottawa.

Some of the Canadian protesters have even gone so far as to suggest they wanted to replicate the Jan. 6 takedown of the American capital, which resulted in five deaths.

Two Canadian convoy participants were photographed—one wearing a Donald Trump MAGA hat and the other wearing a yellow star of David—mimicking the Nazi requirement for Jewish identification.

Convoy organizers have distanced themselves from racist supporters but that didn’t stop white supremacist Paul Fromm from tweeting “I pray this is Canada’s Budapest, 1956, when patriots and ordinary citizens rose up and overthrew tyranny.”

With so few anti-vaxxers, why would the Conservatives even bother to align themselves with the so-called “Canada Unity Convoy.”

Some of it is about building a power base, with petitioners getting embedded into future Conservative communications. Some is about raising money, because the angry folks attached to this convoy are ripe for campaign donation pitches.

But by associating with these extremists, Tory appeal to ordinary Canadians is diminished.

Short-term gain for long-term pain.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

An internal Liberal fight in Ottawa Centre would sap the strength of party volunteers, and definitely cut into the enthusiasm of key election workers. It would also help the NDP.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on July 12, 2021.

OTTAWA—Inside party politics you find the toughest fight of all.

Last week, I wrote about some rumours flying around about the surprise departure of popular Liberal cabinet minister Catherine McKenna.

Turns out those rumours were wrong. The last time McKenna, Liberal guru Gerald Butts, and former bank governor Mark Carney were in the same room was at a European negotiating session on climate change.

They did not break bread in Ottawa recently, nor did they hatch a plan to have Carney replace McKenna and vice-versa.

The story came from other insiders in the Ottawa Centre political world.

McKenna left with the intention to spend more time with her family and to work on her passion for climate change, in whatever shape that might take.

She has previous experience in international negotiations so it is natural that she might consider something on the global stage. However, she did not, nor would she entertain, an offer to switch jobs with Carney.

So how did the rumour start?

The interest in taking a shot at the vacant seat is not surprising.

The Liberals are running high in the polls and the Ottawa Centre seat has been considered among the safer seats in the country. Former provincial attorney general Yasir Naqvi has already announced his intention to run for the Liberal nomination.

There was a tremendous amount of internal support for his decision, and he moved quickly to block the path of a potential chosen candidate like Carney.

Carney is certainly entitled to pursue the nomination if he chooses. But in a political city like Ottawa, many local executive members have already backed Naqvi against an outsider.

Carney actually lives in Ottawa, so the accusation of parachute would not actually stick.

And parenthetically, the NDP would be hard-pressed to claim interloper status because at one point, Ottawa’s mayor Marion Dewar, and mother of beloved Paul Dewar, actually became the NDP MP for Hamilton Mountain.

After McKenna’s unexpected announcement, the New Democratic Party has its eye on the prize as well. Within hours, the NDP made it clear that this is now a riding in their potential win column.

Historically, the riding has flipped between Liberals and New Democrats federally and provincially.

And with the possible exception of Ottawa-Vanier, there is no other Ottawa-area riding where the New Democrats even come in second.

So, they will be strategic and pour their considerable human resources into the open riding in the heart of the capital.

The other thing that separates the New Democrats from the Liberals is that party in-fighting on the left is less prevalent.

That is partly because they usually are not fighting to form government.

But their origins in the labour movement also promote a belief in solidarity, with all for one and one for all.

In the Liberal Party, there is a tendency for the insiders to take many sides.

In the last municipal election, even though there were no party labels on candidates, the New Democrats threw all their support behind one candidate in Capital Ward.

The Liberals split their votes in two, thus managing to ensure that New Democratic Shawn Menard emerged as a winner.

The NDP work as a combined team on education, municipal, provincial, and federal politics.

They will do their best to jump on the opportunity created by the McKenna vacuum.

Liberals must work hard to remain united.

An internal nomination division runs the risk of creating enmities with the party that could be costly.

In that scenario, a united New Democratic organization could close the huge gap that existed in the last election.

When McKenna defeated Dewar in 2015, it was by the slimmest of margins. He was a hugely effective local member, and she was a newbie.

Her margin was only five per cent in a Liberal majority sweep. But a testament to McKenna’s own work ethic and popularity was the 2019 result, where she led her NDP opponent by almost 20 points.

Her work in the environment and tireless commitment to the riding stood her in good stead, and she seemed unbeatable.

All that has changed, and it would behoove the Liberals to remember Julius Caesar’s motto regarding “divide and conquer.”

An internal fight would sap the strength of party volunteers, and definitely cut into the enthusiasm of key election workers.

On what appears to be the eve of an election, Ottawa Centre Liberals need to come together to carry the seat.

Without McKenna in Ottawa Centre, anything is possible.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

If the prime minister’s team thought an early election could move the Liberals into majority territory, the uncertainty in Newfoundland may give them pause.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 8, 2021.

Three elections and three majority governments sent the message that a government managing COVID-19 is rewarded by the voters.

That was the general school of thought when Newfoundland and Labrador called its COVID election. But the arrival of the variant crisis has changed all that.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government was forced to call an election by August. Based on previous results in British Columbia, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan, it appeared as though the electorate would put their trust in the party that was actually managing the pandemic. In all three of those previous elections, the governing party was returned with a comfortable majority.

So Liberal Leader Andrew Furey, a medical specialist, probably thought he was on solid ground when his government called the election in Newfoundland and Labrador. But in the middle of the vote, a virus variant crept into Newfoundland, taking a province that was almost COVID-free by storm, as Mount Pearl and parts of St. John’s were hit hard with the new virus.

All of a sudden, the province went from a place that had been a spectator in the coronavirus battle to a province that was facing a distressing multiplication of a frightening variant. Questions started coming: how can you have an election when people cannot get to the polls because they are forced into a quarantine to protect community transmission of these new variants?

So, health and election officials tried to sketch out a roadmap for a safe election. The government responded with more opportunities for mail-in ballots, but in order to achieve that goal, they needed to change the shape and date of the election.

In mid-February, the chief electoral officer of Newfoundland and Labrador postponed the voting date for almost half of the voting districts in Newfoundland. The delays occurring on the Avalon Peninsula represented most urban voters in the capital’s periphery.

The cancellations were spurred because frightened election workers resigned out of fear of interacting with the public on election day, according to chief electoral officer Bruce Chaulk. And voters were also frightened about what they might face in a lineup going into the voting booths.

Unlike most other provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador had been largely free of the virus, so citizens were extremely concerned that the variant had hit them hard.

The whole election process has been somewhat odd, with the premier participating in regular briefings with the chief medical officer of health, in the middle of an election.

Progressive Conservative Leader Ches Crosbie complained about the conflict of the premier’s appearance during an election, but that complaint was overridden by citizens’ desire for information.

Crosbie and Furey both carry an impressive political pedigree. Crosbie’s father was John Crosbie, the inimitable Newfoundland minister who served in the cabinet of prime minister Brian Mulroney.

Furey’s father is former backroom Liberal organizer and now Senator George Furey, who is the current Speaker in the Senate of Canada. His uncle is Chuck Furey, who served as a minister in the government of premier Brian Tobin.

Polls still predict victory for Furey, but the confusion around the COVID election has definitely eaten into his popularity.

Newfoundlanders are experiencing their first full lockdown. After three weeks, they are getting crusty. They understand it is for the collective good, but they also want to know why an election is happening in the middle of a medical crisis.

Taking a page from the Newfoundland book, a parliamentary committee in Ottawa passed a unanimous resolution last week demanding that no election be called during a pandemic. The Procedure and House Affairs Committee, not usually known for controversial recommendations, unanimously sought a commitment from the government that there would be no election, except in the case of a lost confidence vote. New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh endorsed the resolution, promising that his party would not trigger an election.

The Tories have not chimed in, although they claim the Liberals have been trying to trigger an election.

For their part, the governing grits claim they don’t want an election, but will not allow their legislative agenda to be blocked in by the Tories. The Liberals have accused the Conservatives of trying to block pandemic-related aid legislation designed to assist individuals and small businesses.

Now that Newfoundland’s election has been torpedoed by the pandemic, the prevailing wisdom that governments are rewarded during an election is definitely at risk.

If the prime minister’s team thought an early election could move the Liberals into majority territory, the uncertainty in Newfoundland may give them pause. Pandemic elections may not be so fruitful after all.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

In a minority situation, an election can happen at any time if parties clash on spending priorities. But these are not ordinary times. In the middle of a pandemic, even getting to the polls is complicated.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 28, 2020.

OTTAWA—The election cat and mouse games begin.

In a minority situation, an election can happen at any time if parties clash on spending priorities.

But these are not ordinary times. In the middle of a pandemic, even getting to the polls is complicated.

The British Columbia government just called an Oct. 24 election. Hours after the call, it was revealed that voting results could take weeks to tabulate.

Because of the second wave of the pandemic, many people are limiting their movement amongst larger crowds.

Within hours of the election call, 20,000 requests for mail-in ballots had been sent to Elections BC.

According to officials, they expect a mail-in participation of up to 40 per cent, which means 800,000 ballots, compared to only 6,500 people in the 2017 campaign.

Election law says that absentee ballots cannot be tallied until the final results of the polls are counted, and that could be up to 13 days after the vote.

Given Canada Post’s COVID-based backlog as more people shop via the internet, the arrival of that many ballots could clog up the system for up to three weeks.

British Columbia Premier John Horgan called the snap election a year sooner than the end of his mandate, but his announcement came as no surprise. He and his team have been busy rolling out pre-election promises for weeks.

The early call is a gamble for Horgan, but he is also banking on the pandemic bounce that has been felt by leaders across the country.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs recently launched a similar quick COVID call two years into his minority mandate and was rewarded with a comfortable majority.

Popularity numbers for Ontario Premier Doug Ford and François Legault have also risen during the pandemic.

Even though both provinces are plagued by high levels of contagion and an increasing concern with the arrival of the second wave, the electorate has been happy with their work.

Voters are also witnessing unprecedented federal-provincial harmony which provides a peaceful backdrop in a world pandemic that could easily morph into panic.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not oblivious to the crisis bump.

When the Corona virus impact appeared to be waning, the summer was replete with scandal stories like the one that caused WE Canada to shutter its operations.

But with the return of kids to classrooms, and more people back at the workplace and larger social gatherings, the predicted second wave is upon us.

The prime minister’s televised national address was designed to promote calm but also encourage Canadians to stay the course with limited social contacts and self-distancing.

He has also set out a plan designed to put the Liberals on a collision course with all opposition parties.

On the left, New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh is doing his best to put his party’s stamp on promised items like national pharmacare and childcare.

But the Liberals are crowding their space with the intention of securing support from voters who might swing between both parties.

On the right, Erin O’Toole is going to have to refrain from coming away from the Throne Speech as Mr. No. His focus on the deficit and spending may sit well on Bay Street but it does not comfort Main Street Canadians who are losing jobs, homes and life savings because of the financial havoc wreaked by the pandemic.

Then there is the Bloc Québécois. Trudeau’s promise to introduce national standards for long-term care facilities, a direct result of the deaths of thousands of innocent seniors, has raised the hackles of the premier and the nationalists in the province.

They claim that Ottawa should merely increase health budgets and that will solve all the problems.

However, the image of the premier calling in Canadian soldiers to clean up the mess in multiple facilities was not lost on the ordinary Quebecer.

Long-term care is solely the provincial jurisdiction, but it is obvious that the basic rule of protecting the health of citizens and workers was sadly ignored in multiple institutions in more than one province.

Canadians are wise enough to know that it makes sense to work on a national plan in a pandemic that has already killed almost 10,000 people. There is a public interest argument that trumps federal-provincial fights.

Trudeau is itching to test his vision in a federal election, but he risks a backlash if the Liberals are seen to provoke it.

However, Liberals would be happy if an opposition party pulls the plug,

Meanwhile the political war games are on.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The debate about that strategy could well decide the next election.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 18, 2020.

OTTAWA—The prime minister’s admission that we are not doing well by our most vulnerable seniors should come as no surprise.

In reality, we live in a culture obsessed with the fountain of youth.

Media messaging is mostly about how to look young, stay young, be young.

Face creams and rejuvenating emollients do not target older women, they seek to influence the buying power of 20-year-olds.

The spike in plastic surgery and Botox enhancement procedures amongst young people is a direct result of the value we place on the superficiality of looking young.

Trendsetters include the Kardashians whose only claim to fame appears to be what they can wear and who they can sell it to.

Just try getting a job when you reach middle age. At the ripe old age of 50, it is not uncommon to lose your job, whether on a shrinking assembly line or because of a business failure or sale.

It matters little that you might have multiple years of experience in your field. Experience is generally not considered an asset. Employers want younger people whose wage rates are lower.

The survival of many companies actually depends on hiring less experienced people at reduced wage rates.

Just look at the pay differentials between an employee of Air Canada and Tango.

When I left politics at the ripe old age of 52, I was headhunted by a number of potential employers but in the final analysis my advanced age was a factor in their decision to go elsewhere.

Ageism is not only alive and well in the workforce, it is particularly prevalent in politics.

This is the only area where the more experience you get, the more people want to get rid of you.

When Justin Trudeau was elected in the sweep of 2015, the majority of his caucus and cabinet were under the age of 45. There were a few experienced ministers, like Lawrence MacAulay, Ralph Goodale, and Carolyn Bennett. But the general feeling amongst most Liberals was that the Prime Minister’s Office preferred to work with those who had little political experience, but met the age demographic.

After all, having an attractive young minister in front of the camera looks good for the party and the caucus.

The second term has brought more wisdom to the job, with ministers who are older and wiser by all accounts.

Some have learned on the job and other newer, but senior faces have been appointed in the last cabinet shuffle by a more wizened prime minister facing a minority government.

There is a nation-wide consensus about the problem. Something needs to be done to secure safe living accommodations for vulnerable people in long-term care. But consensus on the solution will be much harder to reach.

The Bloc Québécois has made it very clear, that it wants cash with no conditions.

The prime minister promises to respect the Constitution, which clearly designates the provinces as responsible for delivery of care but determines it is a shared responsibility.

Of all the provinces, COVID containment in long-term care facilities in Quebec has been the least successful. The number of deaths there is almost equal to all deaths in the rest of the country.

According to an article in The Globe and Mail, as of May 7, 2,114 of the 2,631 Quebecers who died of COVID-19 lived in an elder-care facility. That’s nearly twice as many as in Ontario, where 1,111 long-term care residents died. In addition, Quebec’s health-care system is missing 11,600 workers who are either sick, quarantined, or unwilling to show up.

So, the notion being floated by the Bloc Québécois that Ottawa should hand over money with no strings attached is a non-starter.

Almost 40 years ago, the Canada Health Act solidified the role of the federal government in establishing standards for institutional hospitalization.

That move is a model that could be considered in any attempt to reform the patchwork of care standards currently in place across the country.

The New Democratic Party proposition to shut down all private nursing homes is completely unworkable.

There are thousands of Canadians living in non-contaminated circumstances in homes across the country and the Canadian government cannot afford to nationalize their living quarters.

The fact that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is promoting nationalization is proof that his party’s last-place status is not about to change any time soon.

We need a national strategy to restore confidence in long-term care.

The debate about that strategy could well decide the next election.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By Sheila Copps

First published in The Hill Times on September 3, 2018.

OTTAWA—The New Democratic Party exodus continued last week, with two more veterans announcing they would not seek re-election.

Linda Duncan and Irene Mathyssen joined five others from three different provinces who have already announced they will not re-offer. One has already stepped down to run for mayor of Vancouver, which gives Jagmeet Singh a chance to finally get a seat in the House of Commons.

But what happens if Singh does not win the byelection? Could he be the first NDP leader to step down before he has even run in a single election?

The party is probably wondering why they dumped Thomas Mulcair after a single electoral loss. Mulcair would have made a much better foil for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in Parliament and on the hustings.

Singh has more than a year to go until the next election but the number of NDP members voting with their feet is growing exponentially. Sixteen per cent of the current caucus has announced retirement plans, with the number bound to swell in the next few months.

Singh’s star has not been shining very brightly. Most members base future political decisions on a combination of their personal ambition and their party’s potential for growth. Heading into the last election, Thomas Mulcair was running first. Polls were predicting he would be the next prime minister. But some major mid-campaign missteps put an end to that dream, and Mulcair ended up in third place.

Nonetheless, his party posted one of their strongest performances, and managed to solidify re-election in a number of Quebec seats based on his popularity and organizational skills. Had Mulcair stayed on, he would have been able to build on the natural erosion of second-term Liberal support to continue his party’s growth.

If the Conservatives do manage to bifurcate, with a new party launched under libertarian Maxime Bernier, the NDP could well benefit from an eroding base on the right. But with Mulcair gone, and his bench strength diminishing, it does not seem very likely that Singh is going to be able to achieve the kind of success that eluded his talented predecessor.

Singh’s caucus is shrinking and he currently boasts only one colleague with cabinet experience in any previous federal or provincial government. Party fundraising has been lagging behind the other two parties. The financial situation is so grim that Singh has generously refused to take a paycheque until the numbers improve. Working for nothing will not solve his party’s deep-seated problems.

Singh himself was elected in a party vote system that predetermined a leadership without support from more than a single province. The one-person, one-vote system adopted for the last NDP leadership race meant that signing up 50,000 people in a few Toronto-area ridings was more politically lucrative than building a national team. That works for a leadership. But in the end, Singh needs broad-based national support to be in the running for the prime minister’s job.

If Singh’s future is as cloudy as it currently appears, the party exodus is likely far from over. The loss of senior members like Hamilton’s David Christopherson and Montreal’s Hélène Laverdière creates problems for the party in its effort to build new strength from the party’s base.

Generally a Parliamentarian can improve their local electoral numbers by five to 10 per cent over the national average. In a tight election, successful incumbents are the ones who make the difference between government and opposition.

In the case of the NDP, the situation could be much more challenging. If Singh loses the seat he is currently contesting in British Columbia, the outcome will trigger a new retirement stampede for incumbent New Democrats.

It will also make the job of recruiting new candidates much more difficult, as potential candidates will be frightened off by the possibility of election defeat. However, if he wins, the bump will likely play out across the country. With these stakes, don’t expect the other parties to follow Elizabeth May’s lead and decline to put a candidate against Singh. No doubt, the New Democrats have taken all these byelection issues into consideration.

But politics is also a game where the only certainty is uncertainty. Singh may surprise everyone and capture the imagination of West Coast voters. That would set the stage for a national surge.

His loss would most help the federal Liberals. Trudeau needs left-wing support and erstwhile New Democrats to achieve a second majority. Bad news for Singh would definitely be good for the Grits.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.