News roundup, 14 March 2025

- An American Airlines Boeing 737 en route from Colorado Springs to Dallas made an emergency landing in Denver due to an engine issue, and then caught fire as it was taxiing to the terminal. The aircraft was successfully evacuated without any serious injuries, though.

- Donald Trump once again repeated his threats to annex Canada and Greenland, this time in front of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. Rutte, who previously served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands, was notably quiet on the matter of a threat to conquer one NATO member in its entirety and steal a territory from another. Trump hasn't forgotten about the Panama Canal either; he's asked the military to develop "options" for the territory.

- The latest poll from Nanos puts the Conservatives at 36%, just one point ahead of the Liberals. The NDP is at 15%, which if nothing else is better than some early polls had them. The margin of error is 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, meaning that the two main parties are statistically tied. Notably, this poll was done before Carney took over as the Liberal leader. A poll from Leger a few days later, over a time period that includes the Liberal leadership election, has the two parties tied at 37% and the NDP down to 11%. The Leger poll also has a regional breakdown as well as a breakdown by age and gender; notably the Liberals are ahead in the 55+ age group but behind the Cons in younger age groups. I guess the silver lining to that is that boomers are more likely to vote; even then, though, it's a mixed bag, because the NDP does especially poorly in this group. So if the Liberals win there's a good chance it will be with a majority; while much better than a Conservative majority this would still be a disappointing result.

- South Korea sent a delegation to Ottawa to advocate for their country as a more reliable source of military hardware than the US. They're offering to sell advanced submarines with a 7,000 NM range; furthermore, they're prepared to set up maintenance facilities in this country and give Canada full access to the technologies behind the subs, which is more than the Americans are willing to do with some of their hardware.

- Empire Foods, the parent company of Sobeys, Canada Safeway, and Freshco, reports that sales of goods from the US are declining sharply as shoppers are increasingly unwilling to buy American stuff if they can avoid it.

- A Canadian entrepreneur was arrested by ICE while trying to reenter the US from Mexico in order to get a new visa, after her previous visa had been revoked. Because of the revocation of the first visa, she was told that she would have had to go to a US consulate outside of the country to reapply. The key phrase is "would have", because they weren't going to give her another chance - or even let her just leave and not return. She's currently being held in a private, for-profit prison in Arizona while they decide what to do with her. She describes the conditions as "inhumane", which is telling, because if they're treating a white person whose first language is English that way, it's probably worse for almost everyone else in the facility.

- A bill before Alberta's legislature to amend the province's Wildlife Act (which governs hunting) would, among other things, allow kids as young as 12 to use firearms without adult supervision. I can't see anything going wrong with this, no siree. The bill also allows "cervid hunt farms", where you'd be able to pay to shoot captive cervids (i.e. deer, including things like elk as well as whitetails or mule deer). They have that in some places in the US but it's worth noting that even the Alberta Wildlife Federation, which advocates for hunters in the province, thinks that allowing canned hunts is going too far.

And they're off...

As you will doubtless be aware by now, the Harper government has been defeated in a confidence vote, which means an election is coming. The situation is unfortunate, because at best we're looking at another Conservative minority government... but the latest poll looks much, much worse:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives begin an election campaign this weekend far ahead of their political rivals in public favour and would be poised to win a "comfortable" majority if Canadians cast their votes now, a new poll has found.

The national survey, conducted exclusively for Postmedia News and Global National, reveals voter support is declining for the opposition Liberals who have put forward a non-confidence motion that will lead to the defeat of the Conservative government in the House of Commons this afternoon.

The March 22-23 poll by Ipsos Reid found public support remains solid for the Tories despite recent opposition attempts to draw attention to such controversies as the government's treatment of Parliament and revelations that an ex-senior aide to Harper lobbied a department to get funds for his fiancée, a former escort.

The Conservatives are now supported by 43 per cent of decided voters -- up by three points from two weeks ago.

Just as important, the Tories now have a widening 19-point lead over the Liberals led by Michael Ignatieff.

The Grits, who have been trying to incite public fury over the government's ethical record and improve the public's negative impression of Ignatieff, now have the support of just 24 per cent of voters, down by three points.

Jack Layton's NDP, which put the country on the path to a spring election by announcing earlier this week it would not support the Conservative budget, are backed by 16 per cent of voters -- no change from the previous poll.

What's confusing, though, is the fact that another poll found that voters are increasingly skeptical of the government:

A poll conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV by Nanos Research shows that 41 per cent of Canadians trust the Conservative government less than they did a year ago. Only 6 per cent trust it more. Forty-eight per cent feel about the same, and 5 per cent just don’t know.

What is going on here? One interpretation is simple - one (or both) of those polls is just plain wrong. But there's another possibility, and a disturbing one at that. It could well be that corruption and dishonesty in government tends to favour the political right, even when it's a right wing party that's being corrupt and dishonest. After all, people who have made up their minds that all politicians are crooks are going to be more inclined to give their (grudging) support to a party they believe will reduce the role of government... which is precisely how right wing parties like to market themselves. Notably, prominent Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella thinks the Ipsos poll is accurate, and that a Conservative sweep is coming.

I'm not 100% certain of this, of course, and I really hope it's not the case. If it is, our democracy is even more broken than previously thought.

Of course, one of the biggest problems in our democracy is first-past-the-post. Given this, some people are bound to advocate tactical voting (or, as it's become trendy to call it in this country, "strategic voting"). Now I'm a "never say never" kind of person, and I recognize that in extremis this might be necessary. However, most of the time it doesn't do any good, and you're simply wasting a vote on a party you don't even really like in the mistaken view that you're helping stop the Cons. That said, tactical voting might help if, and only if:

1) The national situation is such that the Cons are either on the verge of a majority (as they may well be now) or on the verge of being pushed into second place. The key, though, is on the verge. If things are such that a majority is inevitable - or impossible for that matter - there's no benefit for tactical voting (though there may be a benefit to the party that advocates tactical voting, which usually means the Liberals). Now this is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for this approach to help. The other is:

2) The situation in your own riding must be such that the Conservative candidate could credibly either win or lose. This rules out a riding like Winnipeg Centre or Elmwood-Transcona (where the Cons are a non-entity) as well as ridings like Provencher or Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette (where most of the population thinks they'll go to Hell if they vote for anyone else).

It's worth noting too that even in such a case, the best tactical vote might actually be for the NDP (especially in parts of BC or Saskatchewan) or even the Greens (in Saanich-Gulf Islands, for instance) but I doubt too many Liberals are going to point out subtleties like this. Myself, I'm kind of hoping a Liberal canvasser comes to my door and tries to sell me on the subject of tactical voting so that I can rub his or her face in this fact.