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The Conservatives seem to be in damage control mode right now. They've brought in Jason Kenney to help campaign in Ontario in areas he was previously popular in. To me, that indicates a lack of faith in Scheer's popularity. It certainly doesn't help that CTV and CBC have both had analyses on Scheer's current status that haven't exactly inspired confidence in him.
The opening of Don Martin from CTV's analysis is particularly rough:
Talk to a true-blue Conservative for more than five minutes and it inevitably comes out.
Their eyes glaze over, they sigh and say something like: “Imagine if we had Rona Ambrose or Lisa Raitt or Peter MacKay as leader. The majority would be in the bag.”
Well, maybe.
But the leader they’ve got, Andrew Scheer, had a simple path to victory – and it looks like he’s strolling toward a cliff.
Scheer was never supposed to be the big headline in this campaign. Justin Trudeau’s record was the story.
All Scheer had to do was catch every football, post a few easily-understood policies in the window, unleash effective attack ads and calmly watch the Liberals sink under the weight of public weariness with their preachy prime minister.
But suddenly Scheer is on trial by fire. It’s his career background, his religious beliefs, his citizenship and his wince-worthy wiggling-about when confronted with tough questions about himself that’s under scrutiny.
He is gulping on centre stage. Trudeau is clapping from the stands.
Don Martin has been relatively harsh on Trudeau in the past, especially after the blackface scandal so it isn't like he's some hardcore anti-Conservative guy. He concludes this piece by saying that this should the Liberals end up winning this election, it won't be so much them winning it as the Conservatives losing what should have been an easy win. I think I agree for the most part. The Liberals have an okay platform, but given the number of times they've shot themselves in various limbs (both feet and at least one hand at this point) with dumb decisions and scandals, this election could have been much more one-sided than it has been so far.
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The debate is starting. Scheer appears to be going for full on negative attacks on everyone else. I have a feeling this might backfire on him.
edit: Bernier is going 100% at Scheer and it's kind of intense. He has had several rather amusing digs.
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This is kinda painful to watch. Scheer has said several rather misleading things already (especially the gas cost increase thing, which was found to basically be a completely dishonest cost analysis based on only using worst case scenarios).
Blanchet's attack on Scheer and his claim that Scheer was basically willing to abandon 3400 Quebecers was pretty good.
edit: And now Blanchet is going after Scheer again on the "energy corridor" bullshit. Blanchet actually did this in the previous debate too and it really made Scheer squirm. He said a line that was pretty sharp and was along the lines of "The translation of 'energy corridor' to French is 'pipeline'".
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On October 08 2019 08:54 JimmiC wrote:
I'm surprised that Scheerer is the main target I thought it would be JT since he is the favorite to win. May has had some good digs.
Scheer was the target in the TVA debate last week too, which was bad for him because he got flustered. He seems to be handling the attacks a bit better this time around but still is pretty rough to watch at times. His strategy this time appears to be constant attacking, but everyone else seems fairly prepared for it and have been rebutting him quite a bit.
I was curious how May would do. She seems to be doing well. She always seems quite well prepared for these things.
edit: err... this current attack she's doing seems a little over-the-top. She has a point but still.
edit: this line from Singh is pretty good (from the CBC feed on this debate):
"You do not need to choose between Mr. Delay and Mr. Deny," Singh says, to laughs from the crowd, after exchange between Trudeau and Scheer.
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Singh has had some good zingers like that tonight, it'll probably show up in soundbites over the next few weeks, fun stuff
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Yes, I think Singh has been the strongest so far tonight. He seems much more comfortable than the others. Trudeau seems a bit shaky. Scheer is... I dunno, he always seems uncomfortable and weird. Blanchet's been okay, especially since he warned that his English isn't very good (it seems fine). May has been hit or miss. Bernier seems to mostly be there to throw out one-liners.
edit: this summary of Scheer's climate argument from reddit: "Scheer: Justin Trudeau can't fight climate change! So let's not fight it at all!"
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Ultimately, thanks to the FPTP system my vote doesn't matter so I just keep track of this stuff for the horse race aspect of it and let it fuel my hatred of the Conservatives. The Conservative candidate in my riding has over 50% in all polling I've seen with the rest split evenly between the NDP and Liberals.
I'll probably end up protest voting Green or voting NDP again. Either way it doesn't matter. I wish we had proportional representation. Still unhappy the Liberals didn't go through with any electoral reform.
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Did May just say Scheer will not be prime minister? I gotta roll back the tape and see that again.
edit: YUP. DAMN
double edit: well that was that. Pretty tepid overall. I'm conflicted between Trudeau's "Mr. Bernier's role tonight is to say what Mr. Scheer thinks", Singh's "You don't have to choose between Mr. Delay and Mr. Deny", and May's "Mr. Scheer you will not be prime minister" as the best zingers of the night.
General consensus I'm seeing on social media and elsewhere is that Singh was probably the winner, with May second, Trudeau and Blanchet tied for third, Bernier fourth, and Scheer last. I'm seeing a lot of negativity towards Scheer's performance. He basically never answered a question. Most opinions on Trudeau seem to think he wasn't great, but also wasn't terrible and did okay enough at defending himself (though he did dodge some questions). Bernier seems genuinely crazy but at least he talked about his platform, unlike Scheer. Blanchet did what he needed to and stuck up for Quebec as I'm sure his supporters would want him to (I thought his dig at Scheer on SNC was actually pretty good. Scheer had basically no response to it).
tr-tr-triple edit: Singh has stated that he won't rule out working with other parties in a minority situation... except the Conservatives, who he will not work with. So I guess both the NDP and Liberals going for similar pharmacare policy means that the two may end up working together should a minority situation arise. That's somewhat comforting. I'd rather a Liberal-NDP coalition government than a Conservative minority government.
The Conservatives' twitter account announced Scheer won the debate??? Apparently they did the same in the last debate. That seems like something an insecure person/group would do.
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TLADT24920 Posts
Watched parts of the debate. Trudeau always looks so composed while Scheer looked like he had a couple of bad moments. There was one moment in particular, can't remember what the topic was, where it almost seemed like Scheer was going to start crying in the middle of the debate with Trudeau. May also seemed comfortable. Singh did ok imo and Bernier was just being himself rofl.
Another good zinger took place when the debate first started. Bernier kept interrupting everyone so when it came to Blanchet's turn, he asked how long it'll be before he's interrupted and then once he got interrupted, his response was "so 10 seconds". The crowd started laughing and so did I lol.
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Canada11496 Posts
Blanchet's attack on Scheer and his claim that Scheer was basically willing to abandon 3400 Quebecers was pretty good.
I missed the debate, but I don't see why 'we had to be corrupt, or we else SNC would've collapsed' rings true at all. I highly doubt SNC is so unstable that investigating corruption charges would bring it under, but it certainly sounds like a tacit approval of corruption- a too big to fail, if you will. But it creates a false dilemma of 'you must pick corruption or jobs'. How about both? We can have two things, lo, even three. But four is too much and five is right out 
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On October 08 2019 11:20 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +Blanchet's attack on Scheer and his claim that Scheer was basically willing to abandon 3400 Quebecers was pretty good. I missed the debate, but I don't see why 'we had to be corrupt, or we else SNC would've collapsed' rings true at all. I highly doubt SNC is so unstable that investigating corruption charges would bring it under, but it certainly sounds like a tacit approval of corruption- a too big to fail, if you will. But it creates a false dilemma of 'you must pick corruption or jobs'. How about both? We can have two things, lo, even three. But four is too much and five is right out
I think the worst part is that I have zero faith any party would've handled it differently in an election year. It's possible the NDP would have, but where the news would've been all about how they lost these jobs, specifically in Quebec (which is an important province in the elections), it seems it would be a great way to throw away your chances. I don't like having the choices that I can make be between people who have done a bad thing, to other people who would've done that same bad thing but also criticize them for doing that bad thing.
And before anyone says the conservatives would've... nah. Don't even bother with the intellectual dishonesty. They're pro-corporation through and through. They would've bent the knee, like they have so many times in the past.
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I didn't get to watch the debate, but from my browsing around I think the general impression was that Trudeau was unexceptional, but survived without bleeding too much, which is enough for him right now; Scheer continued to stumble and not make much of an argument for himself other than taking potshots at Trudeau; Singh showed strength, but not enough to make him truly competitive; May was just May; Bernier was everyone's target and mostly spent the pulpit lashing out against the usual; and Blanchet is basically not even really relevant here other than maybe taking votes away from other parties in Quebec.
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Blanchet's language around SNC was essentially that he believed Trudeau handled it wrong (and he stated that Trudeau admitted to that) but I don't think it was so much Blanchet was condoning corruption as he was criticizing the fact that Scheer was incredibly critical of Trudeau and used the scandal to score political points rather than come up with a better solution of his own that would protect workers. I also agree with goiflin that had the Conservatives been in charge they would have done the exact same thing. Harper's government itself had previously looked into DPAs, and DPAs have been added as a legal option by governments in other countries for these types of situations where the company had done something obviously wrong but a large number of jobs were at stake.
Here's the Blanchet quote from CBC:
"When Mr. Trudeau tried to find a solution, he did it the wrong way and he admitted it. What you are doing Mr Scheer … is you are trading the idea that Quebec is corrupt," Blanchet said. "Those 3,400 people [working for SNC-Lavalin] have done nothing wrong, now the value of the shares are going down, the employees are leaving, clients are leaving and we are losing it all because of you."
edit: Yes, this scandal wouldn't have happened under the Conservatives because they only tend to put people who they know won't develop an independent streak and who strictly toe the party line into higher up positions.
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EPT
