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Wednesday October 16, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 16, 2019

From Thanksgiving and Straight into Fear Season

Trudeau digs for NDP, Green votes, issues dire warning about ‘Conservative cuts’

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau aimed a pitch at NDP and Green voters today, warning darkly that a Conservative government would mean deep spending cuts, a lack of action on climate change and weak support for abortion services — and arguing that voting Liberal is the only way to prevent it.

October 25, 2016

“In terms of the NDP and the Greens, remember this: If you want progressive action, you need a progressive government, not a progressive opposition,” Trudeau said during a campaign stop in Fredericton.

“Voting Liberal is the only way to stop Conservative cuts. Liberals know that the way to grow the economy is by investing in people and we have the record to prove it.”

Questioned by journalists after his statement, Trudeau was asked bluntly if the current Liberal strategy is to drive votes away from the NDP and Greens by whipping up fear among Canadians.

“We have been very positive in the approach that we take and we will remain so,” he said. “I’m looking for a strong mandate to continue to invest in Canadians and I will be sharp in the policy differences between us and the Conservatives.” 

October 7, 2015

Asked about an abortion clinic in Fredericton that’s under threat of closure due to a lack of funding, Trudeau said if he’s re-elected he would meet with New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs to discuss the province’s obligation to fund abortion clinics. He said he would use all the tools at the government’s disposal under the Canada Health Act.

“A Liberal government, a Liberal prime minister, will always stand up to provinces who want to limit women’s rights to choose, something that the Conservatives, particularly under Andrew Scheer, will not do,” he said.

Trudeau also said he is best positioned to push back against Conservative premiers such as Alberta’s Jason Kenney and Ontario’s Doug Ford, “who don’t want to act on climate change.” (CBC)

Conservatives stoke fear of NDP-Liberal coalition as Scheer pushes for majority

Andrew Scheer is raising the spectre of a reckless, tax-and-spend Liberal-NDP coalition government to urge Canadians to hand the Conservatives a majority on Oct. 21.

October 31, 2017

The Conservative leader warned Monday that such a coalition would lead to out-of-control spending, “massive” new taxes and “endless deficits” that would drive away investment and throw thousands of Canadians out of work.

Scheer played the fear card even though Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau refused to contemplate forming a coalition and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh walked back his earlier speculation about joining forces with the Liberals to prevent the Conservatives from forming a minority government.

Scheer pounced on what he portrayed as Trudeau’s failure to rule out a coalition.

“Now, he’s even leaving the door open to coalition government with the NDP in a desperate attempt to cling to power, a coalition that will lead to even higher taxes, less jobs, more deficits and bigger household bills,” Scheer said during a campaign stop in Winnipeg.

“So my message to Canadians is this: only a Conservative majority government can prevent a government with Justin Trudeau as the spokesman but the NDP calling the shots.”

Scheer asserted that Canadians have “a crystal clear choice between a Trudeau-NDP coalition that will raise taxes, run endless deficits and make life more expensive and a Conservative government, a majority government, that will live within its means, lower taxes, put more money back in your pockets.” (CTV) 

 

Monday June 25, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday June 25, 2018

The flip side of Ford’s content-free campaign: Unpleasant surprises may be in store

October 28, 2003

Starting next week, when they formally take over the levers of government, the Tories are going to have a real problem on their hands: the Liberals were historically unpopular by the time voters had to render a verdict on election day, but many of their policies weren’t. Indeed, the Liberal budget from the spring briefly seemed to make the pre-election period more competitive until voters remembered who had written the big-spending, big-deficit document. Liberal promises on child care, pharmacare, and transit spending were all extremely popular — it was the Liberals themselves that voters had tired of.

June 7, 2018

Now, Ford has promised substantial tax cuts — above and beyond the end of the cap-and-trade system — that will either (a) further burden a budget that’s already in deficit or (b) require substantial service cuts to bring the province’s books back into balance. So what’s going to give? The Tories spent years raising hell about the increase in the provincial debt under the Liberals, so big deficits are going to be awkward. But they’re not going to give up the tax cuts they promised.

That leaves service cuts. And to make cuts substantial enough to raise the billions of dollars Ford needs to find — without affecting front-line service in schools and hospitals — he will need to find lots and lots of small cuts.

June 21, 2018

(Well, technically, there’s also the possibility that the Tories will lose their promised challenge to the federal carbon tax and start receiving billions of dollars in federally imposed carbon revenues, but that would fill only part of the hole Ford’s promises have dug.)

Ford may have promised that there will be no layoffs under his tenure, but even if we don’t replay the labour unrest of the last Tory government, the fate of GreenON suggests that something else could emerge that would be difficult for him in a different way. Voters who planned major spending in their lives around the government they had at the moment — and were promised there would be no major changes to the level of service they receive — will be irritated by any serious efforts to alter its policies.

June 15, 2018

That prospect might not be enough to stop the Tories from making these kinds of cuts. It certainly wasn’t going to save cap and trade, something that, earlier this year, Ford and all of his leadership rivals unanimously promised to destroy. But public backlash to seemingly trivial cuts can sometimes surprise governments — as happened when the Liberals were caught flat-footed by mobilized parents opposed to cuts to autism therapy.

The Tories undoubtedly think they’ll do a better job than the Liberals did of running government. But changing the folks at the top doesn’t make the problems they need to solve any less complicated. (Source: TVO) 

 

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