• subscribe
    • Politics

    Election 2015: The day that was

    Sept. 14, 2015: Bocce with seniors, another Tory on trial and Bernier’s catchy radio jingle

    Aaron Hutchins
    Content image

    The Important

    With more than 200,000 residents in British Columbia looking for a family doctor, Tom Mulcair used a campaign stop in Vancouver to promise $500 million to increase access to health care across the country. The NDP leader said he would spend $300 million over four years to build or expand 200 health care clinics, while spending the other $200 million on grants to recruit doctors, nurses and health practitioners.

    Justin Trudeau, meanwhile, made a few promises of his own for Canada’s most reliable voting demographic. Speaking with the seniors’ advocacy group CARP in Toronto, the Liberal leader said he won’t cut pension-income splitting for seniors, and will return the year of eligibility for Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement back to 65. Perhaps most exciting, he even got out to play a little bocce with them. Of course, Trudeau played with the red balls.

    https://twitter.com/GordonPEI/status/643486919607873536

    The Interesting

    “It’s all about a pretty girl,” the Crown said at Monday’s preliminary hearing, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former senior adviser Bruce Carson was on trial. Carson pleaded not guilty to a charge of influence-peddling. He allegedly tried to help H2O Pros—a company where his then-fiancée had a contract for which she received a commission on future sales of equipment to First Nations communities—get a meeting with government officials in 2010 and 2011.

    It doesn’t have the same buzz as, say, the Mike Duffy trial, but it could still hurt the Conservative brand in what remains the tightest of races. A Nanos Research poll released today showed the three major parties in a dead heat: The Tories and Liberals are each at 30 per cent, while the NDP holds a slim lead with 31 per cent.

    The Fun

    Maxime Bernier, veteran Cabinet minister and one of only five Conservative MPs from Quebec, on Monday released—of all things—a radio jingle for his re-election bid.

    The up-tempo, retro-style tune features lyrics such as: Do like us and vote for Bernier — Maxime Bernier! Our deputy! and He’s a guy who resembles us, a guy who we know.

    Love it or hate it, it’s the catchiest thing to come out of #elxn42 thus far.

     

    tags:Federal election 2015