Canadian Politics 101

I had a whole plan for this newsletter. A little local stuff, a little provincial stuff, then some stuff about polling. Had most of it written too.

And then Jagmeet Singh went off and “ripped up” the confidence and supply agreement the NDP had with the Liberals.

There were some sections in the newsletter where I discussed a possible early federal election in relation to a possible early provincial election, but that quick of a turnaround means that most of what I wrote was outdated less than 24 hours after I typed it out. Things move fast!

Anyway, I’ve rewritten most of this week’s edition in a panic.

So what does that mean? Not my panic. I was referring to the end of the confidence and supply agreement.

I’ve realized I should be explaining some of this stuff a little more, considering even the most engaged people can get confused about the specifics. And, unfortunately, we’re in an age where low-information voters drive much of the conversation. For much of last week, the media was fixated on a steelworker from Sault Ste. Marie who refused to shake Justin Trudeau’s hand until he explained why, despite paying 40% of his income in taxes (implying he made somewhere around $275,000 a year), he didn’t have a family doctor. This curmudgeonly man seems to not understand the constitution, which gives power over healthcare to the provinces. Funny how the F*CK TRUDEAU crowd seems to give Doug Ford a pass.

Anyway, for the nerds and the uninitiated alike, here’s a real quick run-down.

The first elections to the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada occurred in 1792, wherein property-holding men were allowed to…

[VCR fast-forward sounds, the smell of amyl heavy in the air]

…which means Canada’s Parliament is based on the Westminster system, like what they use in the UK. One of the little quirks in the Westminster system is that a government must always retain the “confidence of the people”, meaning it has to have the support of at least 50% of the members of the legislature to keep on governing. It is, very basically, an accountability mechanism.

A government can fall if a member introduces a “motion of no confidence” which is passed by a majority of members. This is a pretty straightforward way to say “no, you no longer have the support of a majority of parliament”. It’s just a one-off vote introduced with the intent of triggering an election.

A government can also fall if they fail to pass a “supply” bill. A “supply” bill is anything to do with money. Think of it as “supplying” the government with the ability to pay for programs. Because it would be unfair for a government to pay for programs without the support of at least half the members of the legislative body agreeing to it, right?

At the 2021 election, Canadians returned a “hung” parliament (stop giggling). This means that no one political party had a majority of seats. The Canadian media has a very bad habit of automatically calling it a “minority” government, assuming the party with the most number of seats will automatically take power. There are some weird cases where they don’t or where smaller parties make agreements to govern (or, once, were asked to govern…that’s too much for today, but you can ask Lord Byng about it), but the general idea is that they have the first crack at running the country.

To do that, they need to get a majority of MPs on board with their agenda. Sometimes, they just, as the kids would say, “raw dog” it (stop giggling) and work with individual parties on a case-by-case basis to pass supply bills and other motions relating to their legislative agenda.

That’s what happened in 2004, after Canadians re-elected the most charismatic man in Canada, Paul Martin (you may giggle now). Martin’s Liberals only had 135 seats - 19 short of a majority. So they needed to work with the other parties to get stuff done. It just so happened that Jack Layton’s NDP had 19 seats, so when it came time for the big budget vote in June of 2005, they needed to throw the NDP a few bones to ensure they were satisfied enough to vote in favour of it. Layton was able to negotiate with Martin and his finance minister, Ralph Goodale, to reduce corporate tax cuts and increase funding for important social programs. It also helped that Martin was able to lure Belinda Stronach, the one-time Conservative Party leadership contestant, over to his party, meaning they would have just enough votes to pass the budget. Combined with support from Carolyn Parrish (who had been kicked out of the Liberal caucus for her extreme anti-Americanism) and the absence of a few Tories, the budget passed 152 to 147.

But governing that way is very, very precarious. So a party without a majority has two other options: a formal coalition or a “confidence and supply agreement” (otherwise known by nerds as a CASA).

Canada does not do coalition governments. It’s just a thing we don’t play with. A formal coalition means that a few parties sign a formal agreement that includes MPs from all those parties in the cabinet. Most other Western democracies do this. Germany does it, Denmark does it, Australia does it, Ireland does it, Spain does it. It is very, very normal, especially when you have more than two dominant parties. But we haven’t done that federally since WWI. The last formal coalition at the provincial level was in Saskatchewan in 1999 when the NDP formed a coalition with the three Liberal MLAs elected there. That went so badly that the Saskatchewan Liberals have never won a seat in the province since. Maybe that’s why people are hesitant to pursue it.

Instead, we tend to do CASAs. These are agreements that a small party will always vote in favour of supply bills and against confidence motions to keep a government in power while still sitting in opposition. The expectation is that the government will then reward that small party by helping them with their own legislative agenda.

That’s what was supposed to happen between the NDP and Liberals after the 2021 election. But as Trudeau’s poll numbers sank and the Tories worked to equate Trudeau with the NDP, the agreement seemed like less and less of a good deal for Singh.

So, yesterday, he announced he was done with the CASA and would now only support the government if the legislation they introduced was really appealing to the NDP.

Does this mean we’ll have an election in the coming weeks?

No, not necessarily. Parliament doesn’t even come back from summer recess until September 16. After that, the NDP said it will consider each confidence motion and supply-related bill on a case-by-case basis. Hell, they might just keep passing all of them until the scheduled end-date for the original CASA, which was in June of 2025.

But a couple of things are going to happen that will help determine when an election happens.

The most important also happens on September 16. There are two by-elections scheduled for that day. One is in an NDP-friendly seat in Winnipeg called Elmwood–Transcona and one is in a previous Liberal seat in Montreal, LaSalle–Émard–Verdun.

By ending the CASA, the NDP can signal to voters in those ridings that they’re different than the Liberals. If they keep Elmwood–Transcona and, if rumours are true, pick up LaSalle–Émard–Verdun (the NDP hasn’t held more than 1 seat in Quebec since 2019 and are running a popular city councillor there), it might put some wind in their sails and give them the confidence to topple the government sometime in October or November. If they lose one or both of them, the calculous starts to look different.

Another factor will be polling. As has been the case for a long, long time, the Conservatives are up in the polls. But that might change. The Bank of Canada keeps cutting interest rates, the Liberals are starting to tighten their policy on immigration, and the ongoing slide for the Republicans south of the border has opened the floodgates of criticism, with people starting to think of conservatives as “weird”. Thank you, Tim Walz. A new poll from the UK shows that it’s even hopped the Atlantic, with more voters over there starting to see their Conservative Party as a bunch of weirdos.

For his part, Pierre Poilievre isn’t giving up. In fact, he’s doubling down on his message. He’s painting a picture of Canada as some kind of apocalyptic hellscape overrun with murderers, rapists, violent criminals, and a cavalcade of woke pink-haired librarians determined to change your child’s gender at a safe injection site and then force them into team sports to give them an unfair advantage.

Poilievre’s own response to Singh’s announcement was his standard “fire-and-brimstone” bit, lamenting about the “Costly Coalition of NDP-Liberals who tax your food, punish your work, take your money, double your housing costs and unleash crime and drugs in your communities”.

That last bit is an actual quote from his long X/Twitter post about the end of the CASA. Wasn’t so far off with my exaggerated bit there, was I?

No matter what happens - if a federal election happens in December, in February, or next October - Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives will run a campaign encouraging Canadians to be the worst version of themselves possible. He’ll divide our communities, stoke hatred and distrust, and turn people against one another for his own aims. And his goal is to cut the size of government, privatize services, and give corporations more freedom to make more money off more people.

Whatever happens, anticipate one of the worst federal election campaigns in Canadian history.

When that comes to pass, it’ll be important to keep looking out for one another. Because the Tories have millions of dollars, which they’ll pump into our communities to poison the well of dialogue for their own advancement. To protect our dignity, our neighbours, and our democracy, we’ll have to work extra hard to counter their campaign of brutality.

Because those weirdos are going to make life really hard if they win.

From the pages of a magazine

Il, Elle, In, Out

I can’t say I’m very familiar with Elle Magazine’s editorial offerings. Or, at least, wasn’t until very recently.

The 79-year-old magazine, founded in France after WWII, focuses mainly on lifestyle and fashion and is generally aimed at a female-identifying audience. But, like many publications today, Elle is trying to branch out and highlight the significant contributions of a wide array of people from a whole host of professions and backgrounds.

Elle Canada, a relatively new offshoot of the main brand, tried to do just that with their September edition. In an article originally titled “These Eight Incredible Canadians Have Broken The Glass Ceiling”, the magazine profiled Canadians who have distinguished themselves in the fields of the arts, politics, journalism, activism, and athletics.

The magazine immediately faced backlash for including two trans activists in their list: Vivek Shraya and Fae Johnstone. Shraya has found success as a writer and musician, and Johnstone has been a strong advocate for the queer community, as well as having the distinction of being one of the last good people on X/Twitter.

Because of the inclusion of Shraya and Johnstone, the magazine was slammed by transphobes and bigots of all sorts, who attempted to use X/Twitter’s new lax standards to add “community notes” to the post announcing the article that deliberately misgendered both people and mocked their professions and identities.

The article was briefly taken down and then reposted, this time with a new headline: “These Incredible Canadians Have Broken The Glass Ceiling”. One word is missing from the new headline and there were a couple of changes to the article.

In a more subtle change, Elle Canada changed the wording of a drophead by removing the word “women”, making it seem like they were giving in to the transphobes. But they didn’t change anything about Shraya and Johnstone’s profiles.

More consequentially, they removed one of the profiles originally presented in the piece. Alongside Shraya, Johnstone, journalist Connie Walker, social media personality Taylor Lindsay-Noel, director Fawzia Mirza, professor Suzanne Simard, and coach Cassie Campbell-Pascall, Elle Canada profiled Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama.

When the article was reposted, Jama’s profile had been excluded from the online edition.

Johnstone posted about the incident, noting that her “inclusion in this article sparked another wave of anti-trans bigotry and hatred,” but that she really wanted “to make clear my shock and disappointment with Elle’s decision (?!?) to remove Sarah Jama from this list.”

Elle Canada provided a disclaimer at the top of the new article, noting the decision was made “due to threats issued”. The writer of the piece also had her byline removed to make it clear they were not the source of the changes.

The article remains the same in print, but people will no longer be able to see the profile unless they use the Wayback Machine and access it there (at this link).

Jama’s profile does mention her stance on the Israel/Gaza conflict, with the MPP quoted as saying:

I had not heard of any controversy around this article until Johnstone posted about the changes. The pro-Israel X/Twitter account Facts Matter posted about the article on August 30, as did #HamOnt’s extremely online Victoria Mancinelli, who presently works as LiUNA’s Director of Public Relations, Communications, Marketing and [gasp, deep breath] Strategic Partnerships (and frequently interacts with the Facts Matter account), but I hadn’t heard their protests before looking into it.

Then again, I am making an effort to actively avoid Mancinelli’s online content, which is a hodgepodge of Ontario Progressive Conservative Party propaganda and culture war nonsense engineered to provoke responses which, in turn, allows her to control the narrative because you’re talking about the fight rather than anything of substance. Straight out of the right-wing populist playbook. Very Trumpian.

What is clear is that Elle Canada received complaints about Jama’s inclusion at the same time they were enduring online attacks by transphobes and, with great clunkiness, removed Jama’s profile from the online edition while making it seem like they were “addressing” the transphobia. Overall bad messaging on their part.

In the days that followed, a chorus of other voices spoke up online to question Jama’s exclusion from the online edition. For her part, Jama posted on X/Twitter that she was “Very honoured to be listed by Elle Canada as one of 8 trailblazers in Canada this year.”

There has not been much discussion of this in the media, aside from a Toronto Sun article that gives ample page space to transphobes and an 8ish minute spot on AM 640’s “Toronto This Weekend” hosted by Ben Mulroney where the son of the former PM says that “Sarah [Jama] is a…well, she’s a special case. She’s a spe…she’s a special kind of anti-Semite,” before welcoming his guest, who represents the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. Finally today, The Spec covered the issue in the paper, which I saw just before publishing, and apparently Canadaland did an episode on the issue. But, prior to today, it was a bit of a niche story.

And then came Tuesday.

Doug Ford and the Neverending Election Story

Tuesday morning saw Premier Doug Ford in Brampton making a strange announcement about housing. Well, not really about housing. Really about an investment in fixing up Brampton’s water infrastructure. But he made the claim that it would help get 12,900 new homes built in Brampton which no one really questioned because I guess we’ve just given up on holding Ford accountable anymore.

How will $29.7 million help build new homes, Doug? Where will those new homes be built, Doug? Who will be building them, Doug? Will they be affordable, Doug? Why have I lost all the joy in my life, DOUG!?

Instead, the gathered reporters asked Ford about the oft-speculated early election he’s been teasing for months. “We aren’t having an election this year, so we’re going to make sure that we focus on what the people of Ontario need,” he told the reporters. So they asked the next logical question: what about next year? He didn’t respond to that question, dancing awkwardly around his talking points about jobs and jobs and something about jobs.2

But that’s not the only dancing he’s been doing. Ford seems to be locked in a kind of “Conservative Early Election Fever” tango with Pierre Poilievre. Or that’s what columnists like Susan Delacourt think.3 Though, after the end of the CASA, all those assumptions have been watered down a little.

Ford’s refusal to “rule out” an election in 2025 doesn’t mean much. In fact, it means the election machine is still firing on all cylinders. There’s no rest for incumbent PC MPPs, to whom Ford has given a deadline of December to decide if they’re going to run again (though that might be bumped up now that the CASA is KAPUT). And it means that opposition parties can’t wind down their candidate recruitment and fundraising efforts, which have been trucking along with enthusiasm all summer.

And it’s clearly working, because, shortly after Ford’s Brampton press conference, the Ontario NDP announced they exceeded their goal of raising $1 million by Labour Day. In fact, they were able to raise $1.1 million from 20,000 contributions (don’t know if that means unique contributors or just contributions).

And that brings us back to Hamilton Centre.

Split me like a vote

A few hours after the ONDP’s fundraising announcement, Jama announced she would be holding a “nomination meeting” at the Worker’s Arts and Heritage Centre on September 12.

Astute observers of our provincial electoral system will note that all an independent candidate needs to do to run in a provincial election is file an F0400 - Candidate Nomination Paper with Elections Ontario. Unless you’re being nominated by a party, you don’t really need to have a meeting (though it is a good chance to collect the 25 signatures you need to stand for MPP).

What Jama is doing is a repeat of her announcement rally when she declared her intention to seek the Hamilton Centre NDP nomination in July of 2022. It’s a show of force, a flexing of political muscle, a challenge to anyone who would oppose her.

This time, of course, is different. In 2022, she needed to show the party she was a serious and capable candidate. In 2024, she needs to rally the people necessary to do what has never, ever been done in Hamilton’s history: elect an independent MPP to represent a local riding at Queen’s Park.

Seriously. I checked. Hamilton has never sent an independent MPP to Queen’s Park. It’s only ever been Conservative/Progressive Conservative, Liberal, and Labour/CCF/NDP members.

Best I can tell, this means there is no longer any chance of a reconciliation between Jama and the ONDP. I don’t know what efforts were made by either side to come to some sort of agreement, though.

Jama indicated to Spec columnist Margaret Shkimba in July that she planned on running as an independent. But, even then, it seemed like a conversation was still possible, especially since Shkimba wrote that “There are people working toward a rapprochement. Jama has support within caucus.”4

At the time, I wrote that, because of some comments Marit Styles was making at the time, it seemed entirely possible that Jama would rejoin the caucus. I thought this would be the case because:

Because this has happened once before. Kinda.

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MPP Paul Miller was a long-time NDP MPP (though, as some seasoned union folks liked to remind me, he had a Conservative Party sign on his lawn on every election until he was nominated to run for the NDP). After Miller was removed from the NDP caucus after being accused of Islamophobic behaviour, he ran as an independent. The NDP decided to run Zaigham Butt (of the politically-involved Butt family), a member of the influential local Pakistan Business Association in Miller’s place.

After securing 51.2% of the vote in HESC in 2018, Miller’s independent run saw him shed 44.3% of his support. Because of the drop in voter turnout, he lost around 20,000 votes. Butt lost 23.8% of the people who voted for his in 2018 party - around 12,900 votes. The PCs were able to essentially maintain their support from 2018 and win the seat.

The comparison isn’t great. Miller served on Stoney Creek council for years and had decades of political experience in both elected office and labour unions before 2022. The NDP strategically picked a candidate from the community Miller had offended, but miscalculated badly. Neither candidate could avoid the impact of voter disinterest and the story around Miller barely made headlines, meaning there wasn’t a groundswell of support for or opposition towards him.

Jama is a relatively new political player. She’s been involved in small left-wing activist circles that have, at best, a mixed track record when it comes to winning campaigns. Many of her core supporters are deeply militant, but every seasoned campaigner knows you need to appeal to a broad array of people, many of whom may have been turned off by the negative attention Jama has received in the media. This whole Elle Canada thing may make her look, to some, as a persecuted politician trying to advocate for what she believes in. To others, it will remind them why she was removed from the NDP caucus in the first place.

Now that Jama is committed to running as an independent, her and her supporters face an incredible uphill battle.

The results from last time should not be any comfort. Jama won with 9,477 votes. But just under 22% of the riding’s 80,172 voters bothered showing up to cast a ballot last March. That means Jama secured the support of 11.8% of people in Hamilton Centre.

It is unlikely we’ll have the same scenario we saw in HESC where voter turnout continues to drop. Because of Jama’s high profile, his race will receive national attention of all kinds. Right wing media will fixate on the race, combing through everything Jama and her supporters say. Mainstream media will focus on the salacious nature of the campaign. Money will pour into both her campaign and the campaigns of other candidates based on the messaging they put out and the focus of their campaigns.

But it is impossible to know what will happen until we have some idea who the other parties will put up as candidates. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea who they will be. If anyone has insights or thoughts, let me know because I’m 100% in the dark on this one. Why aren’t I in the loop!? I know people want insights, but all the parties have been very quiet about their intentions in Hamilton Centre. Yes, some high-profile people in the community have been rumoured to be interested, but no one has said anything substantive so far.

Ultimately, the odds are stacked against Jama. Hamiltonians don’t often vote for independents and, with the focus that will be on Hamilton Centre from the media and a host of folks with other motives, expect a bruising and controversial race.

Like a Jer Bear

A few days ago, former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn announced he was starting a new political “grouping” in their House of Commons with four other independent MPs who were elected on a platform that one could broadly characterize as “pro-Palestine”.

Each of the MPs who will be part of what they’re calling the “Independent Alliance” was elected to a seat with a significant Muslim-identifying population and, in some cases, won because of a vote split between them, Labour, and the socially-conservative pro-Palestine outfit called the Worker’s Party of Great Britain.

There are some Jama supporters who might point to Corbyn’s success in getting elected as an independent against a strong left-wing party that he was once a member of as an indication that her re-election is a guarantee. But I think it is important to remind everyone that Jama is not Corbyn.

Corbyn has been an MP in the UK since 1983. He briefly led the Labour Party, had established himself as a strong anti-war voice, and has the support of four other MPs in their House of Commons. Jama has been in office for just over a year and, despite purported support in the legislature, has not had an MPP opt to sit with her and support her stances.

Corbyn’s seat of Islington North is slightly more diverse (38% non-white, 38% immigrant) than Hamilton Centre (22% non-white, 24% immigrant), but there is no indication that residents here are so energized by the conflict in Israel/Gaza that they’ve become single-issue voters on that front. And, Corbyn sits in the House of Commons, giving him a chance to directly address the UK’s foreign policy on the matter. Jama is a provincial politician. To her credit, she has been doing work on the cost of living, renters rights, and healthcare, but she only makes the news for Palestine now.

All this is to say that the scene is different. How different? I don’t know.

When it comes to this coming provincial election in Hamilton Centre, there are a lot of things I don’t know. I don’t know when the next provincial election will be. I don’t know who the other candidates in Hamilton Centre will be. I don’t know who will win.

But I do know that, if we keep getting stories like the one about Elle Canada including and then removing Jama from an article, it will get harder and harder to have a substantive conversation about the actual provincial issues that matter to voters in Hamilton Centre.

And I know that’s a conversation I want to have.

Does the size of the poll matter?

Okay, back to federal politics.

Polling is a complicated little affair. On one hand, it shows us the relative temperature of the electorate at any given time and offers an opportunity for parties to change course or shift their messaging. On the other hand, polling is (no matter what pollsters tell you) not an exact science and can easily be manipulated to show what the pollster or person commissioning the poll wants.

Last week (pre end of the CASA), a series of posts from the ever-informative aggregator account Polling Canada were circulating on social media. They focused on a new Leger poll of vote intention at the federal level. Key point to remember here is that Polling Canada is the messenger, not the pollster.

Since last summer, every poll released by Leger has shown Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives ahead. They even had one poll from this past spring showing the Tories 21 points ahead of the increasingly lethargic Liberal Party.

Now, something to note about Leger: their federal polls are conducted for the right-wing newspaper, the National Post. This isn’t to impugn their motives and they spend a great deal of time and space explaining how accurate and trustworthy they are before showing the results of every poll. But it is important to know for whom the poll tolls.

This new Leger poll carried on showing a commanding lead for the Conservatives. In this particular instance, they showed 43% of respondents saying they would vote Conservative if an election were held today. The Liberals were way back at 25% and the NDP was languishing at 15%. The Greens were up a bit at 7%.

Polling Canada works with folks in the industry to provide hypothetical seat breakdowns for each poll. In this case, the Conservatives would win 224 of 343 seats in the House of Commons, or 65% of all seats. That would be the largest governing majority since Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives swept the country in 1984.

Fantastically, the maps shared by Polling Canada show that, if those poll numbers are to be believed, the Conservatives would win 100% of the seats in Atlantic Canada.

Now, I know the Liberals have been sinking in the polls and, at times, it seems like they’re actively trying to lose the next election, but that just seemed off to me.

So I took a look at Leger’s data to figure out why this might be the case. The numbers from Atlantic Canada (counted as one region in Leger’s polling) show why this is the case. 55% of respondents said they’d vote Conservative, 19% said they’d vote Liberal, 10% said they’d vote Green, 9% said they’d vote for the PPC, and only 8% said they’d vote NDP.

That stuck out to me. I know Jagmeet Singh hasn’t exactly been distinguishing himself, but 8%? And 9% for the PPC!? The party that couldn’t even crack 4.3% and failed to run a full slate of candidates in Atlantic Canada in the last election had suddenly doubled in support, despite there being far less of a pandemic for them to scaremonger about?

All that just seemed…wrong.

And then I looked at the number of people Leger surveyed in Atlantic Canada.

The “weighted” number of people (adjusted for parity and to better reflect the population) was 88.

Yeah, only 88 people.

For the 2,409,874 people living in Atlantic Canada across 32 electoral districts, our best indication as to how the next federal election will go has been provided by 0.00004% of the region’s population.

I know polling is hard and I know that it can be a challenge to engage with people. But if I submitted an academic paper to a peer reviewed journal that featured a statistical analysis of only 88 people and tried to make any definitive claims based on that data set, my reviewers would have a lot to say about that.

Of course, now we get into the weird and controversial territory of questioning the value of these polls. Pollsters have notoriously thin skin and, much like some journalists, hold themselves to be above critique, standing as righteous paragons of impartiality. But that denies human nature. I mean, they definitely exist in the context of all in which they live and what came before them. Because of the pedestal on which they put themselves, it can be controversial to state this, but I may as well come out with it: sometimes, it seems like people are guided by polls more than polls are a reflection of popular sentiment.

If a poll comes out saying the Conservatives will win 100% of the seats in your province, then if you’re a Liberal, New Democrat, Green, or other partisan, you might think that showing up to help your local candidate is a lost cause. Why subject yourself to possible harassment at the doors or ostracization in the community by proudly advancing the candidacy of someone almost guaranteed to lose? And, if you’re undecided, a poll like that might tell you that it’s useless to vote for anyone other than a Conservative candidate or even to bother showing up at all. Why make the effort to go vote if the outcome is already certain?

That’s why a lot of people in the know tell folks that the only poll that matters is the one on election day itself. But these pre-election polls can go a long way to influencing the one poll that does matter. And if we’re getting word that 100% of the seats in Atlantic Canada will go Conservative because 48 people out of a sample of 88 said they want Pierre Poilievre to be Prime Minister, then how reflective of popular sentiment is that pre-election poll?

Yes, the Liberals are unpopular, but it is entirely possible that the size of Tory support in Canada might be overstated because of small polling sample sizes. But, hey, what do I know? I’m just a social scientist with a PhD. Pollsters, don’t “@” me.

Cool facts for cool people

• AAANNNNDDDDD back to provincial politics. Bit of a plug here, but the ever-wonderful MPP for Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas, Sandy Shaw, is hosting a free movie screening and discussion at The Westdale Theatre on Sunday, September 8 from 2 to 4:30 PM. This will be an interesting discussion about health care and how we can work to strengthen universal care for everyone. RSVPs are requested, but not required, and you can get tickets by clicking on the photo below.

• Folks over in Saskatchewan will be going to the polls a few days before Halloween this year. Like with much of the prairies, it’s a two-party race. The governing right-wing Saskatchewan Party has been faltering slightly, but polls have them slightly ahead. The opposition NDP has experienced a noticeable polling bump, though, and they’re campaigning hard to win the election. Their most recent ad spot is actually very good, combining a down-to-earth and relatable approach with some pretty striking imagery. Take a look when you get a chance.