Scheer offers "hope" to displaced Manitobans

Image: Yahoo: (A photo of) Canada's Next Leader


Scheer offers "hope" to displaced Manitobans

... and other heartwarming pre-election events.

From CTVNews: 

• Frustration among Manitobans evacuated from their homes after a brutal snowstorm spilled into the campaign trail Monday as Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer arrived at a hotel housing  a group of Indigenous evacuees .
• Hundreds of people from Lake Manitoba First Nation, about 180 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, were evacuated from their homes Saturday after the wintry weather knocked down power lines across the region.

Apart from the fact that this report seriously seems to refute the global warming theory ... it seems these weather-displaced people were looking for something a little more substantial than what Scheer was offering:

Using the royal "we" Scheer said: “We certainly hope that people are able to go back to their homes as quickly as possible” ...

• Scheer added that he had made a personal donation to the Red Cross, but ...
• [He] did not answer when asked when he made the donation, or how much he donated.

One assumes the Red Cross observes privacy rules and would neither confirm nor deny.

Meanwhile: CTV: Rural Albertans express frustration over election cold shoulder

Albertans experienced two kinds of cold, an early snowfall on top of having been left with an overwhelming sense of being ignored.

Obviously, Scheer doesn't waste time preaching to the already converted.

From Politico: 

• Even though the police are pausing their investigation until after the election on Oct. 21, Trudeau’s main rival, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, seized on the news as proof that Trudeau doesn’t deserve another term.

How nice that the election campaign is also a donut break for the "serve and protect" guys.

From CTV: Jagmeet Singh announces:

• "I'm proud of the fact that I'm ready to fight Conservatives no matter what, and however I can.

But ... he doesn't seem to have fought Scheer very hard:

• ... Singh continued to back away from his weekend comment about forming a coalition government with the Liberals after Scheer called that toe expensive a proposition for Canadians.

Humourous misprint, eh?  But maybe too much credit has been given to Scheer in this professed back-off. Trudeau himself reportedly showed a decided cold shoulder to Singh's earlier offer of what would have amounted to a coalition:

From CTV: 

• Trudeau repeatedly refused to say Monday morning whether he’d be open to form a coalition government with the NDP. Instead, he took shots at the NDP, suggesting that they would rip up the new NAFTA deal and start from scratch.

And, from GlobalNews:

• Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau is ... not just defending his record as prime minister, but also defending against the progressive platforms touted by both the Green Party and the NDP ...

So far, it seems pretty clear the Trudeau will not form a majority government, and may come to wish he hadn't spurned Singh's well-meaning advances.

The Tyee, in the person of a political scientist turned crystal ball reader, predicted in 2015 that the Liberals and NDP would coalesce.

Proving only that media predictions are not gospel. 

Moving on ...

Don't know how many people have actually seen The Canada Guide to elections, but there's an historical part of it that we should not miss and should consider seriously whenever we preen about Canada's social values.

There are parts of it that will seem ancient to young voters, but there are still plenty of us who were alive and in school when most of those various changes occurred, and it's shameful to realize the extent of racial discrimination revealed by who and who not was allowed to vote in Canadian elections in "the olden days".

The changes are not even rational, considering that in 1948 people supposedly achieved provincial voting status regardless of race, yet it wasn't until 1960 that "Status Indians" were allowed to vote in federal elections.  Meanwhile, Brits who didn't even have citizen status were allowed the vote up until 1975 -- presumably because they were of the approved race and had pledged allegiance to the Monarch, though not to the Canada we think of as "our" country.

1948 - Parliament overturns a section of the Dominion Elections Act that allows provinces to deny voting rights "for reasons of race." 1948 - Failure to own property is also no longer permitted to be used to deny voting rights.
1960 - Status Indians are permitted to vote in Canadian federal elections.
1970 - Canada's voting age is lowered from 21 to 18.
1975 - British citizens can no longer vote in Canadian elections.

It seems that Elections Canada now has little control over who gets to vote, and if it weren't for an honest non-citizen, we might not have been aware of that:

Facebook: "Your election is about to be stolen from you by illegal voters

• Look what I got, heres the problem,I can vote with this card and an Alberta Drivers licence, but I am NOT a Canadian citizen, and asking around some of my non citizen friends , I am not alone. I am not going to vote because I am not legally entitled to vote, but others will. Your election is about to be stolen from you by illegal voters and we all know who gave them this ability and who they will vote for. Take your country back my Canadian friends, before its too late.

Of course, the guy could be a Ruskie frontman trying to get us all worked up about the election, (or an RCMP plant preparing us for stricter oversight of the Internet?) but given the prevailing mood, this could actually cause fights at the polling booth, especially if a "true Canadian" hears an accent in the lineup.  Good thing there's a yellow-vester taking photos at the advance polls -- in Orillia, at least.  Maybe more of them will turn out when the real polling begins.

All this election hoopla makes me feel a little bit crazy. How about you?