A new public opinion study on the carbon tax finds that the issue polls poorly in ridings across Canada.
While the study, funded by several environmentalist NGOs, found that a small majority of Canadians support the carbon tax, it also found that there is opposition to the carbon tax in all regions of Canada.
As originally reported on by Blacklock’s Reporter, there is at least one riding in every province except Nova Scotia where the majority oppose the carbon tax, most notably seven ridings held by Liberals.
“Fewer than half of voters said yes in seven Liberal seats: Coast of Bays-Central-Notre Dame, Nfld. & Labrador; Egmont, P.E.I.; New Brunswick Southwest; Lac-Saint-Jean, Que.; and Vaughan-Woodbridge, Nickel Belt and Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Ont.” Blacklock’s wrote last week.
The carbon tax has long been expected to be a major issue this election, as the tax has a considerable financial impact on Canadian families.
Concern over the carbon tax may have increased considerably after environment minister Catherine McKenna hinted in August that the government will raise the carbon tax if re-elected, this despite promising the opposite when the carbon tax plan was announced.
Matto Mildenberger of the University of California Santa Barbara, who helped create the study, says that much of the opposition to the carbon tax is cost.
“The point is that with policies like a carbon tax, a lot of the politics revolves around the cost on consumers,” he said.
The election of anti-carbon tax governments in Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Alberta over the past few years can also be partially attributed to backlash against the federally imposed carbon tax plan.
Whether their study is actually indicative of how Canadians will vote is not clear, Mildenberger pointed out, noting that the issue is complex.
“Our data show people really care about climate change issues, but we shouldn’t use public opinion as a predictor of the future,” he said.
“I’m not in the business of predicting who will win the election or why.”
The Law Society of Ontario voted to scrap a provision of their code of conduct that required all lawyers to sign off on a statement of principle affirming support for diversity.
True North’s Andrew Lawton says there’s nothing wrong with diversity but there is something wrong with compelled speech – when you force someone to say something.
Although this is a victory for free speech in Canada, Andrew says we can’t take free speech for granted.
Reports in the Globe & Mail detailing how the RCMP is investigating the possible obstruction of justice in the SNC-Lavalin scandal and how their efforts to get documents from the Trudeau government has been stymied by the Clerk of the Privy Council.
The Prime Minister could, at any time, waive cabinet confidentiality on the documents sought by the RCMP with a simple Order-in-Council.
Except that would likely expose the Prime Minister to possible prosecution and certainly members of his staff and staff at the Privy Council.
There are a few parts to all of this. Not the least of which is Section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act, which gives Cabinet members and the Clerk of the Privy Council authority to decide what is shielded by asserting cabinet confidentiality and what doesn’t.
If confidentiality is being asserted, the Clerk of the PCO has to file a Certificate of Confidentiality outlining specifically which documents are being claimed as subject to confidentiality without revealing the contents of the document.
The legislation allows for this certificate to be challenged which would then be reviewed by a superior court. There is no indication the RCMP has done this or has considered this.
In looking at the Act, the government claims almost absolute authority and nowhere is the “public interest” mentioned.
The concept of cabinet confidentiality emanates from the Westminister system of Parliament which of course forms the basis for our law through common law, the British North America Act, the Constitution Act and latterly the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Ostensibly it exists to allow members of cabinet to speak their minds at meetings, in memos and in dialogue without fear that their position could later be used against them. It is also meant to keep secret discussions that could affect national security. Oddly enough, covering the Prime Minister’s butt is not mentioned anywhere.
The RCMP has been looking into the SNC-Lavalin matter since the spring. We know this because former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould has admitted she was interviewed by the RCMP in April.
I have substantial difficulty with the concept that any government could frustrate an RCMP criminal investigation with the claim of privilege. How are we as citizens supposed to have confidence in our government if they are never subject to investigation, especially when the allegations relate to corruption?
To my knowledge, the right to cabinet confidentiality and the ability to decide what can and cannot be disclosed has only been tested once in the Supreme Court in the 2002 case of Babcock v. Canada. The SCC affirmed the right of the PCO to determine what is held confidential and only left a small window of opportunity for any PCO decision to be challenged in a superior court. But that was a matter of civil litigation, not a criminal investigation.
The Criminal Code of Canada is also very clear in the authority of the police to investigate crimes and lays out specific procedures for the police to further their investigations by using an Information to Obtain a search warrant.
In an ITO, the police lay out the case they have at that point in time and requests the search warrant to allow them to obtain certain things they anticipate finding in their search which will further their investigation. Often times, the police will use language like “we have exhausted all other avenues of investigation” and that’s why the warrant is needed.
What might happen if the Commissioner of the RCMP would assert the independence of the Force and instruct the investigators to write an ITO and apply to the Court of Queen’s Bench, a superior court, for a search warrant?
What might then be the position of the Clerk of the PCO when the RCMP showed up to execute that warrant? If he refused to cooperate, under the Criminal Code he would be subject to arrest and the RCMP could force the issue. Equally, the PCO could assert privilege under the Canada Evidence Act and request that the courts sort it out.
However this matter sorts itself out, I doubt the Commissioner of the RCMP will assert herself. She seems little more than an affirmative action appointment and a sycophant of the Prime Minister. What she should do and what she will do are likely two separate things.
And then there are the political ramifications of all of this. How will it all play out during an election campaign remains to be seen.
On the eve of the federal election, news broke courtesy of The Globe & Mail that the RCMP was looking into possible obstruction of justice on the part of the lead players in the Lavscam file but was blocked from properly interviewing witnesses.
The cause, according to the Globe, was “the federal government’s refusal to lift cabinet confidentiality for all witnesses.”
If you asked the Left or the mainstream media, this election is all about stopping the rise of right-wing populism. But that’s obviously not the case for the majority of Canadians.
True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses what he thinks should be the top issues for this election.
Will NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh be a factor in the federal election? It sure doesn’t seem like it right now. Polls have Singh as a poor third finisher and everybody seems to have counted him out already. Sound familiar?
This is where Justin Trudeau saw himself at the beginning of the 2015 election.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has agreed to appear at three out of the six debates planned ahead of the federal vote in October.
Originally, Liberal insiders suggested that the prime minister was only going to appear for the two debates organized by the government-created Leaders’ Debates Commission.
According to La Presse, one party insider suggested that the reasoning was because “there is not much benefit for us to participate in all these debates.”
The commission was created in 2018 with the intended goal of making the federal election debates more “predictable” and “accessible”.
Five moderators have since been announced, including CBC’s Rosemary Barton. Althia Raj (Huffington Post), Dawna Friesen (Global News), Lisa LaFlamme (CTV News), and Susan Delacourt (Toronto Star) will also be moderating the debates.
Several critics have pointed out the Liberal bias of the moderators chosen by the government commission, including former vice president of the Global Television Network, Ray Heard.
“Given this reality, if I were Scheer, Singh or May… I would question these appointments,” said Heard on the decision.
A few days later it was announced that the prime minister will also appear for a french-language debate hosted by TVA Nouvelles.
Curiously the debate only invited the party leaders from the NDP, Conservative Party, Bloc Quebecois, and the Liberal Party. Both Green Party leader Elizabeth May, and PPC leader Maxime Bernier, who represents the Quebec-riding of Beauce, have been excluded from the debate.
The prime minister has yet to confirm whether or not he will be appearing at the debates hosted by Maclean’s/CityTV or Munk.
True North’s Andrew Lawton catches up with the Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Aaron Wudrick, to discuss the future of 24 Sussex – the official residence of Canada’s prime minister.
The problem is that the prime minister currently doesn’t live at 24 Sussex. Even though it sits empty, it still costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just for basic upkeep!
Aaron Wudrick argues that it’s time to bite the bullet, tear 24 Sussex down, and move on — one way or another.
It’s been clear for a while now what issues the major federal party leaders want to fight the campaign over. But are these the issues that now warrant Canadians’ attention?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have the electorate believe the biggest concern is some sort of scary hidden agenda on the party of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer that relates to his historic views on same-sex marriage and abortion. That, and Trudeau continues to pile on the climate alarmism.
Meanwhile, Scheer wants Canadians to focus on Trudeau’s record, in particular, his abysmal four years of budgetary and foreign affairs blunders. And of course the Lavscam wreckage. When it comes to the positive sell, Scheer says “it’s time for you to get ahead”. This is clearly in reference to Canadians of all income brackets who feel their dollars aren’t going as far as they once did.
Then there is NDP leader Jagmeet Singh who, well, is just trying to cling on for dear life and not be pushed into fourth-party status by an advancing Elizabeth May whose Green Party is amazingly eating the NDP’s lunch. The two parties may be fighting over table scraps, but they seem to find them tasty morsels.
Is that it? Will there be any big picture national conversation to come in the weeks ahead? There will most certainly be curveballs – like how the Syrian refugee saga took centre stage in the middle of the 2015 campaign. Brace yourselves for almost anything.
Almost. That’s the key.
There are important issues that just won’t be discussed. This is odd in the case of some of the issues I have in mind, because they are ripe for the picking – policies that have either been in the feeder system of ideas for some time now or likely have the support of a majority of Canadians. Or, in some cases, both.
The most obvious example is immigration, which mainstream voices in media and academia have managed to turn into the third rail of Canadian politics.
Maxime Bernier told me the other week on my SiriusXM show that one reason he should be allowed into the debates is that he is the only leader calling for a decrease in overall immigration numbers and that polls show a majority of Canadians agree with him.
One way to responsibly bring this issue to the fore is to make clear what any honest person already knows – that what concerns Canadians of all walks of life is not so much immigration broadly speaking, but integration (people of all backgrounds getting along harmoniously in their communities under a shared national identity).
Canadians’ concerns about the volume of immigration may decrease if they feel they’re more able to discuss integration factors. This idea that’s taken hold that many Canadians harbour bigoted exclusionary views entirely based on race or ethnicity just needlessly defames our tolerant and welcoming nation.
There are other issues that will go almost ignored during the federal election. While Scheer will be right to bring up debt, there is a broader conversation we need to have about the size of government. There once was a time when people turned to their family or community associations as the first recourse to deal with their problems. Now we first turn to the government. Do we wish to continue down this undeniably socialist path?
There are also structural issues that, while politicians don’t need a mandate to enact, still deserve a public airing. Like the 11% premium that public servants make over their private sector counterparts. Is this fair? Should it be corrected? Aside from labour strife, devising a formula that corrects this wage gap for new hires shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish.
If we’re going to responsibly grapple with Canada’s problems though we first must be able to talk about them.
Former PM Kim Campbell is still teased for saying years ago that election campaigns are no time to discuss serious affairs.
