Daily Archives: August 18, 2021

The Liberals in Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo will be represented by lawyer Jesse McCormick, who will carry the party's flag after the partys original acclaimed candidate withdrew four days after his candidacy announcement.

While neither the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo riding association nor the federal wing of the party has announced the new candidate in a press release, McCormick (and the party) tweeted the news on Twitter.

McCormick announced the news on his Twitter account on Saturday, Aug. 14: I am honoured to stand with #Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo as your @liberal_party candidate for #elxn44. Lets work together to build a strong economy, fight climate change and advance reconciliation. We need to keep Canada moving #ForwardForEveryone.

McCormick's arrival as candidate comes after acclaimed candidate George Petel bowed out on Aug. 11, four days after he was acclaimed. Petel said he wanted to focus on work and family.

Calls to the Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Liberal riding association have been referred to the national party, which told KTW prior to McCormicks tweet that the nomination process was continuing. KTW is awaiting a response from both the local riding association and the national wing of the party.

In the 2019 federal election, McCormick was brought into the Lambton-Kent-Middlesex riding in Ontario at the last minute after a local Liberal candidate could not be found. He finished second in the race, 14,000 votes behind Conservative Lianne Rood.

According to the Sarnia Observers coverage of the 2019 federal election, McCormick is the Haudenosaunee-Ishinabe son of an off-reserve couple with ties to the Chippewas of the Thames and Oneida First Nations, and at the time was a resident of Mt. Brydges, west of London, Ont.

According to his LinkedIn profile, McCormick was director of rights implementation at the office of the minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from December 2019 to June of this year.

Prior to that, he spent almost four years with the federal Department of Environment and Climate Change. In his role as the department's drector of Indigenous relations and regulatory affairs, McCormick visited Kamloops in 2016 to meet with KGHM Ajax, the City of Kamloops, the Kamloops Area Preservation Association (KAPA) and the Stkemlupsemc Te Secwepemc Nation as part of the Ajax mine proposal, which was later rejected by the provincial and federal governments.

McCormick also spent three years at the Donovan and Company law firm in Vancouver.

Read more here:

Liberals find candidate to run in Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo - Kamloops This Week

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Canada needs to learn to look out for its own interests no matter who is in the White House

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The unmitigated disaster, and tragedy, that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan has turned into will likely soon fade out of the news cycle. But the consequences of the disaster are likely to be long reaching, and spell trouble for Canada. An increasingly unreliable and inward looking America is a dangerous reality we need to quickly adjust to.

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Pierre Trudeau once said that living next to the United States is like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. Its an apt quote. Trudeaus use of an elephant in this case is, unintentionally, extremely symbolic of a pervasive facet of the Canadian psyche and how we view America. The mascot of the Republican party, the party of red state America, is an elephant (the Democratic mascot is a donkey). Mainstream Canadian opinion, both among ordinary Canadians and Canadian elites, is marked by a strong anti-American streak. But calling it anti-Americanism doesnt quite do it justice. It would be better to describe this sentiment as being more about being anti-red state America.

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When you drill down into what parts of America we tend to focus our smug sense of superiority on it is overwhelmingly the bits that are associated with red state America. Guns, evangelicals, MAGA hats, lack of public healthcare, social conservatism. The things we look down on America for and build our were not American identity around are things that contrast us with red state America. Were not anti-California. Were anti-Alabama. Whenever a Republican is in charge, Canada must be wary. When Democrats are running the show, we can relax.

This is a mindset we must shake off. The last eight months, and last week especially, demonstrate why. Bidens presidency was seen in many capitals, including Ottawa, as a sort of return to normal. The America first attitude of the Trump administration, bluster about NATO, trade deals, and reneging on Americas global commitments would fade and some semblance of normalcy would return.

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But what we need to realize is that normalcy has returned, and it isnt the old consensus. The speed at which Afghanistan fell to the Taliban is stunning. But what is even more stunning is that the Americans seem to have genuinely had no idea this was coming. In July Biden was insisting a collapse like this couldnt happen, and evenlast weekintelligence still suggested Kabuls fall was 90 days away. None of the explanations for how this happened are comforting. Either their intelligence just had no idea what was going on. Or maybe intelligence and military officials knew and werent saying anything. Or maybe Biden and other officials knew and just didnt care.

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Its probably a combination. But what that signals is disturbing. America is increasingly ambivalent about its global commitments, and a nation increasingly divided into two warring political tribes. Biden appears ready to continue the America first approach of Trump, and while there remain differences between Republicans and Democrats on foreign policy, a new America first consensus is emerging. It might be safe to describe this new America as a rogue superpower.

The way the Biden administration has treated Canada since January is a perfect illustration of what this looks like. One of Bidens first decisions was to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. But Biden had no problems waiving sanctions on the company building the Russian pipeline Nord Stream 2. Just last week Biden asked OPEC to increase oil supply. Biden has strengthened a Buy American pledge that may freeze out Canadian companies fromthe U.S. government procurement market. The Americans were unwilling to reciprocate on the borderreopeningsearlier this month, when we decided it was time to open the border to fully vaccinated Americans for non-essential travel.

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The point is not that Biden is uniquely bad and a Republican would be good. Its that this kind of mindset needs to die if we are to protect our interests dealing with a rogue and unreliable America. We still have a safe relationship, our survival isnt threatened. But after the last week there are plenty of countries wondering whether they can rely on the Americans when push comes to shove. In Taiwan these questions take on an existential urgency.

Geography means that Canada is tied to America, for better or for worse. It doesnt matter whether the president has an R or a D after their name, a realism is needed here to recognize that as American hegemony fades we need to be ready to be able to defend and protect our own interests without always being dependent on the Americans. Sharing a bed with an elephant is dangerous, but we shouldnt be complacent about sharing a bed with an unstable donkey either.

Ben Woodfinden is a doctoral candidate and political theorist at McGill University.

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Ben Woodfinden: Smug liberal Canadians should realize Joe Biden is no friend of the world - National Post

A re-elected Liberal government is promising to extend federal pandemic aid to help companies rehiring workers through until the end of next March.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau visited a machine manufacturing firm on Montreals south shore this morning to make his first policy announcement of the campaign.

It was the second day in a row Trudeau held an event at a business that has benefited from some of the federal pandemic financial supports provided by the Liberals since March 2020.

Trudeau said the Liberals would extend the Canada Recovery Hiring Program that covers up to half the wages of rehired workers.

For hard-hit businesses who get the workers they need, to workers who get the jobs they need to support their families, this is a win-win, he said.

From Day One, we focused on having your back, because thats what weve always stood for.

Trudeau is also promising targeted support for the tourism and arts industries hit hardest by the pandemic.

Tourism companies would get additional wage and rent supports to help them get through the winter, while Trudeau says a Liberal government would match ticket sales for performances to compensate for pandemic restrictions on venue capacity.

Canadians have worked too hard to see change since the Harper government era to settle for what the Conservatives are offering, Trudeau said.

The Tories would cut the programs that families, workers and businesses rely on, he said.

These are the same people who wont commit that all of their candidates will be fully vaccinated. That approach wont protect Canadians or create jobs.

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Trudeau promises tourism and arts would get more aid from Liberals | News - Daily Hive

It's Day 30 of Nova Scotia's 31-day provincial election.

In the final days of the election, NDP Leader Gary Burrill is sticking with the issue his party believes is resonating the most with voters: affordable housing and rent control.

Burrill made an appearance on the Dartmouth waterfront on Sunday with Dartmouth South candidate Claudia Chender and Dartmouth resident Mike Sangster.

Sangster has lived in the same Dartmouth apartment building for 25 years. But he's preparing to move out after receiving notice in the spring that his rent will increase by $850 a month to $1,850 on Sept. 1 if rent control is no longer in place, or in the month following whenever it is lifted.

Sangster's landlord also plans to increase the monthly parking fee to $150.

When Stephen McNeil's Liberal government introduced rent control last fall in the face of a housing crisis, its shelf life was tied to the removalof the COVID-19 provincial state of emergency or Feb. 1, 2022, whichever came first.

Chender and Burrill said Sangster's story and those like it have become increasingly common and the necessaryresponse is permanent rent control, something the NDP has promised if it forms government.

"One of the most common things I find people say is, 'They're not allowed to do this, are they?'" said Burrill.

"And we have to say that for most people in Canada in most parts of the country they're not allowed to do it, but they are allowed to do it in Nova Scotia because we don't have permanent rent control."

While the Liberals and Tories both oppose permanent rent control and focus insteadon the need to increase affordable housing supplysomething the NDP is also promisingthere are differences between their two positions.

As he did in the spring, Liberal Leader Iain Rankin, who replaced McNeil as leader in February, said on Sunday that he would not tie the existence of rent control to the state of emergency. He said letters such as the one Sangster and other tenants have received would not be considered accurate if his party is re-elected to form government.

"Rent control will stay in place until we have a better supply mix in the market," said Rankin, adding it could be for a period of years.

"I think that it was an effective tool to use and we will use it to protect Nova Scotians."

Tory Leader Tim Houston said he's sympathetic to Sangster's story and, if his party forms government, it would study whether rent control needs to be extended in the short term even after the state of emergency is lifted.

But Houston said he continues to believe the best answer is to increase the housing supply as quickly as possible.

"We need to fix the housing crisis. I don't feel that rent control fixes it, so I'd rather move right to actual solutions."

Rankin campaigned through the Annapolis Valley on Sunday, including a stop at the family farm of Kings West candidate Emily Lutz.

Rankintalked about improved health care for women.

Herevisited the party's promise to spend $1.75 million a year to increase the number of midwives in the province from 16 to 24. The increase was determined based on a needs assessment that showed service gaps in the Annapolis Valley and Cape Breton, said Rankin.

The issue, which Kings South Liberal candidate Keith Irving pushed for the party to champion, is a close one for Rankin because he and his wife, Mary, plan to use a midwife later this year for the birth of theirchild.

Rankin said they made the choice after hearing positive feedback from people they know who have used midwives, including his sister.

"Just the fact that they are so caring and they go through the whole process from beginning to end and everyone I've talked to had a positive experience [with] it," he told reporters while standing in an apple orchard.

The aim of the promise is to ensure equitable access to the service around the province, said Rankin.

Houston spent his Sunday campaigning in Cape Breton where he continued to talk about health care.

Health care has been the central focus for the Tories from the beginning of the campaign, with a pledge to increase spending by $423 million in the first year alone of a mandate as the Tories work to expand primary care access, build more long-term care beds and attract thousands more health-care professionals.

Change won't happen overnight, but Houston said he thinks it won't take long for the public to begin noticing a difference.

"I think, you know, in the first few months as we travel the province and work with health-care professionals, I think there's a lot of things that can be changed relatively quickly," he said.

People understand it will take time to increase access to primary care and build long-term care beds, but Houstonsaid the party's plan gives people the sense that "there's light at the end of the tunnel."

"We're committed and we're going to be completely focused on it," he said.

"I think certainly in one mandate I would expect that we would see significant, positive improvement. I feel very strongly about that and that's the measuring stick that I'll be holding myself to."

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NDP rolls on with rent control, Liberals and Tories talk health care - CBC.ca

Professor Holden and Dr Hamilton, Blueprints chief economist, and others decided to leave after being presented with plans to poll Coalition-held electorates to test attitudes towards climate change, according to two sources familiar with events inside the organisation.

The research team and advisers were unhappy with the design of the project, the sources said, which was the culmination of differences over a question that faces many think tanks: should they concentrate on policy or politics?

The research department wanted to concentrate on in-depth policy. Professor Holden, who was a Blueprint adviser, is close to Warwick McKibbin, an Australian National University economist and one of the countrys intellectual leaders on climate policy.

Three former Liberal ministerial advisers, Harry Guinness, Lachlan Crombie and Ian Hancock, designed Blueprint as the only right-wing think tank in Australia to advocate for a more interventionist climate policy. Blueprint became a registered charity, which meant donations to it are tax deductable.

Even the left-wing Australia Institute offered to collaborate. Helping get research and evidence into policy-making and politics is key and Blueprint plays a role, executive director Ben Oquist said on Tuesday.

Mr Crombie and Mr Hancock both work at Sydney lobbying firm PremierState, which represents renewable energy companies and lobby groups, including the Australian Solar Energy Society, the Climate Council of Australia, Genex Power and the Smart Energy Council.

The connection has led to allegations in the NSW Parliament of conflicts of interest. One Nation MP Mark Latham asserted in February that Blueprint was hired by the state government to provide energy production forecasts as a political favour to the Liberal Partys left faction.

Mr Hancock, who is PremierStates managing director and Blueprints chairman, has emphatically denied any connection between the think tanks advocacy and his lobbying.

A source close to the organisation said Professor Holden and Mr Hamiltons departures were more related to personality differences than disagreements over strategy.

The resignations happened a month ago, but became public on Monday when Dr Hamilton referred to them on social media.

These resignations followed several weeks of dissatisfaction with a Blueprint research proposal, to which I along with the Director of Research and Operations had objected internally, he said in a tweet.

After sending his tweet, Dr Hamilton received a legal threat from a lawyer hired by Blueprint, Rebekah Giles (who represented Industry Minister Christian Porter when he sued the ABC for defamation).

Mr Hamilton, who has deleted the tweet, said he was unable to comment when contacted on Tuesday.

Continued here:

Pro-Liberal think tank another victim of the climate wars - The Australian Financial Review

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A section of self-proclaimed responsive citizens of New India celebrated the Independence Day insarkaristyle,affirming all is well sab changa si!

But all is certainly not well, especially for Muslim individuals like me.I find it hard to speak only as aMuslimas if this is the only identity attribute I have.I am more than a Muslim. I follow a liberative interpretation of Islam that encourages me to offer Namaz and observe fast without giving up my commitment tolarger issues of social justice and economic equality.

When I oppose the othering of Muslims, I speak as a member oftheMuslim community as well as an advocate of human rights embedded in the Indian Constitution.

Yet, I am always reduced to a stereotypical image ofapuccamusalmanan image that seems to define Muslim presence in contemporary India.

Also read: Indian Muslims have come to terms with Hindutva. They are now looking for survival strategies

Does it mean that a Muslim in India must always be seen through the prism of his/her religious identity? Or, alternatively, does it also mean that India cannot become a nation-State (in typical Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan sense) because Muslims live here? These questions become more pertinent in the contemporary political environment, where the word Muslim has been transformed into a problem category.

Hindutva politicscategorisesMuslims as a monolithic religious group in order to create a grand Hindu constituency.The liberals, on the other hand, claim to protect Muslims as a homogeneous religious minority to uphold secularism. In both cases, Muslim identity is envisioned as a one-dimensional phenomenon.

Many self-declared old progressives and liberalsdo not hesitate to preach Muslimsto respect Hindu customs and beliefs,to integrate more into the mainstream.On many occasions,in last five years, I have beenpolitelyadvisedby well-meaning acquaintances to change the topic of my lectures or talksas they cited pressure from outside.

On the other hand, the malicious attacks I face on social media have their own trajectories. I am asked to be thankful to Hindus that they have tolerated me in India. According to theseTwitter nationalists,I survive ontax-payers money.

What does it symbolise? What went wrong?

Also read: Pew report tells why Indians dont assert on pandemics, unemployment, economic exploitation

I belong to a generation that grew up in the 1990s.That is when so many versions of India of today began to take shape includingHindutva Indiaand the politics of social justice and equity.

We forcefully rejected the Hindu-Muslim divide, histories of Partition, English dominance of urban elite, caste-based prejudices, patriarchal values and gender injustice. We cherished these values without being apologeticabout our religious and caste identities and class locations.

This moral-political imagination of the 1990s was different from the nation-building project of Nehruvian elites. There was a radical impulse in ita commitment to create a just and egalitarian society. In this creative-radical context, it was possible to think of a liberative, pro-people andsecularinterpretation of Islam and Hinduism. Something that Asghar Ali Engineer and Swami Agnivesh conceptualised andpractised.

This political imagination, however, suffered from two internal problems.

It did not pay any attention to the idea of comprehensive socio-political transformation and reduced the radical impulse to electoral calculations. The so-called coalition of Dalit-Muslims-Backwards was nothing but an electoral game plan used and nurtured by the political elite.

This moral decline of political partiesand subsequent transformation of many peoples movements into funded NGOspaved the way for a strange political correctness, an imagination of a fragile secular network of progressive and deprived sectionsMuslims, Dalits, Women, Adivasis, Workers, Peasants, Displaced communities, People-with disabilitiesand so on.

There was an internal contraction in this conception. Thesesegments of society were seen as inherently progressive and secular. This assumption was so strong that there was virtually no discussion on thecomposition of this progressive-secular camp and its power elite. There was a fear that critical questioning might disturb the equilibrium of this network and would strengthen what was then called thecommunal-regressive forces.

There was a second problem as well.This tendency to view some sections as inherently progressive meant that the rest were adversaries. That meant viewing thenorth Indian-Hindi-speaking-upper-caste-religiously-practising-Hindu-maleasresponsible for social backwardness, institutional exclusions and communal prejudicesagainst the others.

It was a fertile ground for Hindutva politics. It was easier for them to raise the question of nationalism as well as the marginalisation of Hindu religious identity in the public sphere. In this volatile political context,something else happenedMuslims were given thestatus of a recognised,permanent national minorityunder the National Commission for Minorities Act 1993. In a way, this official move transformed Hindus as a national religious majority for the first time in independent India.

The outcome of these processes become evident in post-2014 India when that older1990sdiscourse of inclusion is replaced by a powerful assertion of Hindu victimhood.

Also read: BJP version of Hindutva is rising but there is one aspect where it failed to convince Hindus

The termcommunalismcannot capture the magnitude of recent anti-Muslim violence and aggressive media-driven discourse of Hindutva supremacyin India.These inflammatory incidences deeply destabilise the Muslim psyche at various levels. Muslims, especially Muslims like me, are provoked to react as a member of a targeted community.

Thissets up a trap. Every reaction ofaMuslim individual in public sphere is now linked to their religious identity. TheTwitter nationalistsare not interested in the substance of my arguments; for them,my religion is enough to refute me as a Pakistani/Talabani and so on.

This harsh reality disturbs all of us. However, the intelligent way to deal with this public discourse is not to take refuge in the emerging liberal versus Hindutva nationalist binary. These templates are tricky because both adhere to a problematic one-dimensional Muslim identity.

Muslims like me still find solace in the creative resolve offered by M.S. SathyusGaram Hawa(1973). In the final scene of the film,young and unemployed Sikandar Mirza (Farooq Sheikh), whose family has finally decided to move to Pakistan after facing communal prejudices of all kinds, refuses to go. Sikander eventually joins a group of demonstrators demanding equality and radical-pro-people transformation.

I think Sikander is rightfight against anti-Muslimism cannot be separated from the wider struggle for social justice and economic equality.

So, the answer lies in a radically revised template of progressive politics one which allows me to critique economic injustice and social inequalities while adhering to my conception of a liberative Islam.

Hilal Ahmed is a scholar of political Islam and associate professor at Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)

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Dear Muslims, dont take refuge in liberal vs Hindutva binary. These templates are tricky - ThePrint

Fear, and the raising of it, has been weaponized quickly in the federal election campaign. Generally speaking, the approach works.

Personal attack, and the presence of it, has been tried as a portion of the arsenal, too. Specifically speaking, the approach fails.

On Day 2 of the campaign, the Conservatives released an ambitious 160-page platform that serves as a guide to how they would govern. But their giant problem was how Day 1 and the day before that served to obscure the plan, in part because fears raised about their pandemic tactics and in part because of a deep miscalculation to release a puerile Justin Trudeau video.

Day 1 displayed the lingering libertarian qualities of a party that just wont crack the whip in its ranks and cant seem to contemplate doing so in preferring to select personal choice over public safety in the pandemic.

Thus it appears some of its candidates who knows which ones? will show up at the door to court our vote unvaccinated. Conservative leader Erin OToole says all the right things about the importance of the coronavirus vaccine, but cant bring himself to make it a condition of his running mates or for federal workers.

He is now juggling the live grenade Justin Trudeau tossed him late last week on election eve in mandating that federal workers be vaccinated. There may be legal or contractual consequences to Trudeaus directive, but in the immediate campaign it implies care and empathy the most serious asset the prime minister will possess for the next five weeks.

OToole is quickly conceding ground on that issue he cannot regain. His approach is to let people opt out of the jab but be required to be regularly tested, a far less popular option.

He now cant win on the matter. In opposing mandatory vaccines, he will find it impossible to point fingers if the fourth wave of the virus takes on greater seriousness; after all, hes sanctioning individualchoice ahead of collective care. Trudeau has instilled fear in how O'Toole would have handled the pandemic and what might be ahead under that government.

But the most troubling development in the Tory camp, short- and long-term, has to be its inane video that inserted Trudeaus face on the bratty Veruca Salt character who cannot get her way in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a 1971 film somehow actually remembered by someone as an opportunity to disgrace.

Troubling, not only because it was an elementary meme even frat boys would have found juvenile, but because obviously someone didnt concoct this without collaborators or a process of review and approval.

How large was the posse that gave the go-ahead? Who thought this was how to win votes in 2021? Who didnt know this is how you lose them?

Ive read a defence of the video as some sort of algorithmic genius feat to gather online traffic that ultimately lays a larger foundation for subsequent serious messages, but in fashioning a technical manoeuvre they have flubbed an intellectual and emotional one. The Conservatives are trying to skip across a minefield to get to their oasis from the desert.

It is true that even Usain Bolt wasnt known as a fast starter, but the Conservatives will find themselves up the track if they portray Trudeau as effeminate or infantile. Their best approach is to steer clear of his image and propose ideas better than his.

Their leader needs to be properly introduced to Canadians without any further distraction that consumes precious news cycles and stirs embarrassment in the ranks. Placing him in a designer t-shirt on the platform plans cover is, yes, another distraction; Trudeau, the day before, ran shirtless. Better to stay in your lane.

The good news for the Conservatives is twofold.

First, once you get past the attempted GQ cover, their policy platform is a serious blend of solid tax reforms leavened with short-term help to hire workers, dine out and travel, albeit with child care tax credits instead of direct funds a policy that wont create spaces or build a sustainable profession. Trudeau set out a challenge to think beyond the last 17 months toward the next 17 years, and OToole has at least given us food for thought. Time and effort went into the package, and if open-minded voters can forget the video episode and forgive the vaccine policy, there is a considerable guide to how Tories would govern in the details.

Second, Trudeau appears to be promising some of the ideas to recover from the pandemic that didnt made the earlier cut in the pandemic. It takes a lot of imagination to keep spending this kind of money, and it appears that the prime minister is unbridled in this campaign from the advice in his earlier years that made him a lot less lusty with the public dime.

OToole can only hope that one of Trudeaus morsels will prove a political feast. On the basis of Day 2 of Trudeaus campaign, there has to be optimism that a nutty idea or five to define the spendthrift times will emerge.

They are certainly far better to let the Liberal leader self-inflict problems than to try to perpetrate them, far better to let the government defeat itself than to think theycan defeat it. Campaigns are all about incumbents losing altitude. And if the underlying message is that the prime minister is a bit of a child, it is hard to understand how behaving like one could ever help.

Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of Business in Vancouver and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.

Excerpt from:

Tories would be wiser to step back and let Liberals trip themselves up - Business in Vancouver

The Bloc Qubcois wants to win 40 of Quebecs 78 seats in the House of Commons in the federal election on Sept. 20, said Bloc Leader Yves-Franois Blanchet on Monday.

Forty is the majority in Quebec, Blanchet told QUB Radio.

Since the 2019 election, in order to pass legislation, the minority Liberal government has needed the support of the Bloc, the NDP, or both, which it has received, Blanchet said.

Both the Liberal budget and the throne speech were adopted with minority support, and resolutions such as the Blocs motion affirming that Quebec is a French-speaking nation would not have been adopted under a Liberal majority.

Most political commentators agree that, in calling an early election, Prime Minister Trudeaus main goal is to win that majority.

Taking reporters questions in a park within sight of the Quebec national assembly, Blanchet said Quebec voters want another minority.

I think only the Bloc Qubcois can (accomplish) that.

The party only runs candidates in Quebec.

In the 2019 election, and under Blanchets leadership, the party went from 10 seats to 32, while the Liberals dropped nationally to 157 seats, 13 short of a majority.

When asked which seats he thought the Bloc could win this time, Blanchet named eight ridings the party came close to winning in 2019, all but one of them now Liberal: Quebec (in the centre of the provincial capital),ChateauguayLacolle, Hochelaga (in Montreal), ChicoutimiLe Fjord, Sherbrooke, ArgenteuilLa Petite Nation, LongueuilCharles-LeMoyne, and GaspLes les-de-la-Madeleine.

Then he added RichmondArthabaska, now held by Conservative Alain Reyes, and Louis-Hberts riding in Quebec City, where his old buddy Marc Dean is challenging Liberal incumbent Jol Lightbound.

Some polls suggest support for the Bloc is slipping.

The Quebec riding was won in 2019 by Jean-Yves Duclos, now president of the Treasury Board in the Trudeau cabinet. Duclos got 325 votes more than his Bloc opponent, Christiane Gagnon, who held the seat for the Bloc from 1993 until 2011.

ChicoutimiLe Fjord is held by the Conservatives Quebec organizer, Richard Martel.

The Liberal MP for GaspLes les-de-la-Madeleine is Diane Lebouthillier, minister of National Revenue.

This time, the Bloc has a record to put on the table, Blanchet said, referring to legislation the party has backed, such as Bill C-10 to tax and regulate online media companies, and efforts in favour of Quebecs aluminum, forestry, and dairy sectors.

Friendly relations between Trudeau and Quebec Premier Franois Legault have been described as a bromance, with the two appearing chummy at announcements of federal funding for daycare and industrial development in the province.

Blanchet said he understands Legault is working with Trudeau to get federal money, but he doubts Justin and Franois have coffee together every morning.

I havent spoken recently with Mr. Legault, he said, adding he also has very, very, very many points of agreement with the Parti Qubcois.

Blanchet said one gain the Bloc made in this Parliament was a $50-million research fund for forestry, not only in Quebec, but across Canada.

But thats peanuts, compared to the billions the Trudeau government has injected in oil and gas, he said.

And rather than going ahead with the Trans Mountain Pipeline to carry Alberta oil to the Pacific coast, Blanchet said he wouldnt object if Ottawa took the $10 billion it promised to Trans Mountain and gave it to Alberta to help it diversify its economy.

While the Blocs position is that it exists to represent the interests of Quebec, and considers Quebec City our only national capital, ending oil and gas production is necessary for Quebec and the planet, he said.

Continued fossil-fuel development would also hurt Albertas agriculture sector, leaving its fields as deserts, he added.

Albertas transition from fossil fuels would mean developing alternative sources of energy and new sources of income.

But, Im not the one to tell Alberta what to do, Blanchet admitted.

More from iPolitics

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Battle in Quebec is between the Liberals and the Bloc: Blanchet - iPolitics.ca

Elections BC has issued an administrative fine to the 202 B.C. Liberal candidate for the North Island Norm Facey.

Facey was fined $250 for not including an authorization statement in an advertisement.

According to a release from Elections BC, they received a complaint that an advertisement for Faceys campaign published in the Mirror did not include an authorization statement.

Elections BC reached out to the campaign team the following day to discuss the apparent omission. Unfortunately, given communication limitations between members of the Facey team, as well as the print schedule of the newspaper, a second advertisement ran without an authorization statement, the summary says.

Under the Election Act, advertisements need to include authorization statements, identify authorization agents and provide contact information.

Elections BC fined the Facey team $250, considering the reach and cost of the advertising.

Norm Faceys campaign admitted fault and was cooperative throughout Elections BCs investigation, the summary says.

Two other penalties were issued, one to the BC Green Party for similarly not including an authorization statement on an advertisement in the Times Colonist. Also BC Liberal candidate Jane Thornthwaite for not including the statements on campaign flyers.

The Green Party was fined $1,000 and Thornthrwaite was fined $50.

RELATED: Facey nominated as BC Liberal candidate for the North Island riding

2020 voter turnout second highest in B.C.s history

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North Island BC Liberal candidate fined by Elections BC Campbell River Mirror - Campbell River Mirror

The hypocrisy of liberals is not new, but their ability to plumb new depths each day is particularly remarkable even for somebody used to it. The latest nadir even by their already low standards is the way they have reacted to the Taliban contrasted with the way they have reacted to Islamists within India and the utterly bizarre comparisons that they draw.

In India, we have long been used to so-called secular parties bestowing the secular honorific on the most rabidly sectarian and communal persons and groupings. For example, in 2020, we were told to believe that a gathering of barely disguised Islamofascists (protesting a law that would fast-track the citizenship application of persecuted minorities from our neighbourhood) was a peaceful student movement. The reality was that Shaheen Bagh was a foil created by rioters who had carried out violence at a Delhi suburb called Seelampur. Liberals completely whitewashed this fact and soon hordes of self-proclaimed intellectuals started descending on this charade to confer on it a halo of inclusivity and tolerance. Ignore the fact that most of them were protesting to deny persecuted minorities protections and were irate that their coreligionists across the border had been accused of said persecution. And when this allegedly peaceful protest morphed into Delhi riots, every statistical game and selective reporting whitewashed where the real culpability lay.

The phenomenon is not exclusive to India. Globally, we have seen a coming together of the most regressive Islamists, and the most self-proclaimed progressives amongst the so-called progressive into a rainbow alliance of gripe, victimhood, and unbridled hatred for the talented, intelligent and better off. Not surprisingly, the Talibans recent and spectacular takeover of Afghanistan has been the latest trigger for online virtue signalling by this coalition of hypocrisy and failure.

For the longest time, these liberals were advocating for a government in Afghanistan that would take all points of view on board. This was of course just jargon for accommodating the Taliban under the guise that it was in fact are legitimate representative of rural Afghanistan. While this is true they would completely gloss over the fact that the Taliban were responsible for extraordinary violence against women and their fellow Afghans. One particularly impassioned plea was to stop calling the Taliban terrorists because apparently in the warped logic of the so-called liberals a stakeholder cannot be a terrorist. Now, while there are many differing definitions of what constitutes a terrorist being a stakeholder or not has never made the criteria.

When horrors of the last few days unfolded, it was the same virtue signalling liberals who had been asking us to include the Taliban in government, to not call them terrorists, and who had been normalising their brutality as cultural relativism started shedding tears about what this would mean for the global liberal project and women and minorities rights in general. In the space of 24 hours, the facile comparisons began.

According to one local truth teller with bylines in the New York Times, the only thing her followers needed to understand was that the RSS was the local equivalent of the Taliban. Needless to say US liberals and the clueless editorial boards of the New York Times and Washington Post have a great affinity for charlatans like these. After all they are quite happy to acknowledge charlatans such as Ahmed Chalabi and nonentities such as Ashraf Ghani who had no traction on the ground but knew how to socialise and tell them what they wanted to hear not what they needed to hear. Meanwhile, a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, a body that has no constitutional validity but arrogates to itself extraordinary privileges, came out and endorsed the Taliban as a model of inclusivity, transparency, grit and determination.

However, even this phase was short-lived. Within hours a 180 turn began, where a Taliban official being interviewed by an unveiled female anchor on a local TV channel, where the Taliban seemed willing to take all questions were deemed greater transparency, and a higher from of democracy than electoral choices of the worlds largest democracy. The irony of calling a democratically elected government fascist while endorsing a government that had taken over power by force was apparently entirely lost on them.

As long as the belief remained that Taliban 2.0 was no different than the earlier Taliban, these same liberals start screeching from the rooftops about minority rights, but curiously they only used it as a segue to highlight the alleged plight of minorities in India. Mind you, these were the same people who head up until a few months back claimed that minorities were not being persecuted in Indias neighbourhood and wanted to deny them the right of getting their citizenship applications fast-tracked. When the contradiction was pointed out, they immediately changed tack, wanting us to believe that the thousands of men thronging Kabul airport were also persecuted. Note how disingenuously political persecution and the fear of reprisals (that have not eventuated) was conflated with religious persecution.

What then do we make of these liberals? How do we take someone who changes tack more often than a chameleon changes colours in an hour? How and when and by what measure did these clowns become the interpreters of India to the outside world and the conscience keepers of India as per the western press? Is it that India needs to introspect about its education system producing such an oversupply of buffoons, or is it the West that needs to introspect about taking these buffoons seriously? Perhaps, the answer lies somewhere in between.

Disclaimer:Abhijit Iyer-Mitra is Senior Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.)

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On Taliban's Takeover of Afghanistan, the Hypocrisy of Liberals Stands Exposed - News18