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    Election 2015: The day that was, Sept. 23

    Mulcair meets ‘Mr. Jackhammer’ in Montreal, the Tories fail to make friends with their rivals, and a candidate with no face

    Aaron Hutchins
    Content image

    NDP Leader Tom Mulcair chats with Mayor Denis Coderre, left, at city hall during a campaign stop in Montreal on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

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    The Important

    Prime Minister Stephen Harper didn’t host any major rallies in Montreal on Wednesday, most likely due to his preoccupation with prepping for Thursday night’s leaders debate, the first of two in French. But the Prime Minister still appealed to Quebec voters via a pre-recorded announcement on the Conservative Party’s website, explaining his party would re-establish Quebec’s College Militaire Royal de St. Jean as a full degree-granting military university.

    The move, the Conservatives claimed, would help improve bilingualism in the Canadian Armed Forces by recruiting Quebec-based cadets.

    The college, founded in 1952, was closed by the Liberal government in 1995, but the Tories re-opened it in 2008 as part of Quebec’s CEGEP school system.

    Out on the town, meanwhile, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair met with Montreal mayor Denis Coderre to reemphasize the NDP’s election promise to reverse Canada Post’s elimination of door-to-door mail delivery. Coderre has long lobbied against Canada Post’s decision, including once taking a jackhammer to a concrete slab slated to host a community mailbox.

    Mulcair also addressed the discussion about women and niqabs, saying women seeking citizenship should uncover their faces at some point before swearing an oath, but these women should be allowed to wear a veil at the citizenship ceremony if they choose. “No one has the right to tell a woman what she must—or must not—wear,” Mulcair said.

    Trudeau, meanwhile, spent part of Wednesday doing his regular pre-debate workout.

    The Interesting

    During his stop in Montreal on Wednesday, Mulcair said there was not “a snowball’s chance in hell” that he would support a Conservative minority. This comes one day after Trudeau exclaimed “there are no circumstances” in which his Liberals would get behind a minority government led by Harper. Considering the Bloc Québécois previously said it is open to a coalition with anyone but the Tories, and one would be hard-pressed to imagine the Greens and Conservatives joining forces, the Conservatives may need a minor miracle to form a lasting government.

    Unless someone changes their mind, of course.

    https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/646711391685054465

    The Fun

    Don’t like any of the candidates in the riding? Rather than sit at home on Oct. 19, why not vote for nobody? Elections signs are popping up across Moncton encouraging locals to show up at voting stations—and choose none of the above.

    https://twitter.com/patricklacelle/status/646763333379604484

    The city isn’t sure who is putting up the signs, but at least whoever is behind it at least plans to vote.

    tags:Federal election 2015