WEEKEND RECAP: Liberals say staff 'regrettably got carried away' with button stunt
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The Liberal Party of Canada insists it “acted quickly” to review reports of Liberal insiders allegedly planting Donald Trump-style buttons at a conservative policy conference at a downtown Ottawa hotel last week.
“While it is worth noting that many materials being shown online have nothing to do with members of our team, the party has acted quickly to review the matter,” said a statement sent to the Toronto Sun‘s Bryan Passifiume, which he posted on social media.
“As leader, Mark Carney has also made it clear to the campaign that this does not fit his commitment to serious and positive discourse.”
A bombshell story published Sunday by CBC News says Liberal election staffers planted controversial buttons at last week’s Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Ottawa, which the Conservative campaign says was a failed attempt to smear the Tories.
TIME TO TIGHTEN FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY: POILIEVRE
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising to tighten financial transparency rules for elected officials — and is using that promise to take aim at Liberal Leader Mark Carney, The Canadian Press reports.
Poilievre told a press conference in Ottawa on Sunday that if his party forms government, he’ll ban what he calls “shadow lobbying.”
“We will eliminate the lobbying loophole and require anyone who is acting as an adviser to government officials to declare themselves and register as a lobbyist, whenever they are advising on matters that touch upon their financial interests or that of their company,” Poilievre said.
He said this rule would have forced Carney to register as a lobbyist when he advised former prime minister Justin Trudeau through the Liberal party.
‘STOP THE STEAL’ BUTTONS PINNED ON LIBERAL OPERATIVES
For the second time in less than a week, the federal Liberals have been accused of unethical election campaigning, Bryan Passifiume writes.
A bombshell story published Sunday by CBC News says Liberal election staffers planted controversial buttons at last week’s Canada Strong and Free Network conference in downtown Ottawa, which the Conservative campaign says was a failed attempt to smear the Tories.
The conference, referred to often as the Manning Conference — its former name — provides conservative-leaning Canadians a chance to get together to talk about policy proposals and to network. This year’s conference was held at a hotel in downtown Ottawa.
While the staffers successfully infiltrated the conference and planted the buttons in places where they would be found, their scheme soon unravelled — thanks to Liberal campaign workers who couldn’t resist loudly bragging about it in an Ottawa bar Friday evening. They were overheard by both a Conservative party worker and CBC News reporter Kate McKenna.
GENERATIONS CONTINUE TO CLASH ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL
With just two weeks to go before federal election day, this appears to have become a campaign between the past and the future. The Liberals represent the past. They appear likely to win because voters 55 and older will vote disproportionately for Mark Carney and his party, Lorne Gunter writes.
This week’s debates may be a turning point if Carney flops and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre can be more prime minister than smart-aleck.
But why are older voters skewing so heavily to the Liberals?
Have those voters not seen the economic damage and cultural disruption the Liberals have wrought over the past decade? Are they unaware that the same cadre of cabinet ministers, caucus members and senior civil servants from the Justin Trudeau era are still in charge under Carney?
BIZ LEADERS BACK TORIES WITH COUNTRY AT ‘CROSSROADS’
Pierre Poilievre received a huge boost from some of Canada’s top business titans on Saturday, Spiro Papuckoski reports.
The Friends of Free Enterprise in Canada, a group of 33 current and former company presidents and CEOs such as the “Canadian Warren Buffett” Prem Watsa of Fairfax Financial, and Paul Godfrey, past president of the Toronto Sun and Toronto Blue Jays, took out a newspaper ad endorsing Poilievre and the Conservative party in the upcoming federal election.
“Our country stands at a crossroads – and the decisions we make now will shape the future of Canada for generations to come,” the business leaders wrote.
In choosing to back Poilievre, the entrepreneurs said Canada is an exceptional country that is full of talented people, has strong values, and an abundance of natural resources.
JEWISH PEOPLE ‘UNDER SIEGE’ FROM HATE: POILIEVRE
You are not alone. That was Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s message to Jewish Canadians on Saturday, reacting to Canada’s explosion of antisemitism and anti-Jewish hatred since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel, Bryan Passifiume writes.
“The rampage and chaos that we see in our streets, the targeting of synagogues and Jewish schools with hate, vandalism, violence, firebombings of synagogues – these things were unheard of 10 years ago,” Poilievre said during a morning press conference in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean.
“The Jewish community feels, understandably, under siege as these hate marches and antisemitic outbursts have become an unfortunate part of Canadian life – and frankly, the Liberals have encouraged these divisions.”
The Liberals, he said, routinely say one thing to one group, and something else to another group.
POLITICS CAN BE A DRAG
Federal election outreach tends to play it straight, but Drag the Vote knows a little camp can move the room, the Ottawa Citizen reports.
The national campaign taps Canadian drag stars, including some of Ottawa’s best-known drag kings and queens, to mobilize voter turnout ahead of election day on April 28.
More than 200 drag performers across Canada have volunteered to fold civic engagement into their shows at bars, brunches and other places that traditional politics don’t reach.
Organizers say drag uses hope and humour to reach people worn down by a political climate growing more hostile to LGBTQ+ communities.
TARIFF DEFENCE WEAKENED BY RECKLESS LIBERAL SPENDING
Liberal government misspending has left us ill-equipped to fight a tariff war with the U.S. – and one of the only alternatives the government has will be to increase taxes to do so, Lorrie Goldstein writes.
But don’t take my word for it.
Those warnings came from Chrystia Freeland when she was finance minister and from parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux.
Freeland’s warning in her Dec. 16, 2024, resignation letter to then-prime minister Justin Trudeau could not have been more clear.
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