The pandemic, climate, racism, affordability: Here are the choices on the big issues this election
CAMBRIDGE, ONT.-The choice in this election is clear.
At least, that's what federal leaders have been telling you for the past 35 days.
In reality, no political party has been successful in establishing a narrative that has stuck in this snap summer election.
But time is up. Millions of Canadians will cast ballots tomorrow and determine the direction of the country in a time of significant uncertainty. Their decisions will come after a vitriolic campaign about everything and nothing, conducted against a backdrop of anxiety, anger and ambivalence.
Is it about COVID-19 or a post-COVID recovery? About child care or climate change? About affordability and housing, about racism and reconciliation, about who can be best trusted to lead?
However unsatisfactorily the federal campaigns' answers to those questions have been over the last five weeks, the parties differ on some key questions that will help voters' make up their minds.
Pandemic management
If your main concern is how Canada gets out of COVID-19's fourth wave - and handles future pandemics - the campaign has highlighted at least one area of profound disagreement: vaccinations.
Nearly seven million eligible Canadians remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to the Delta variant. It is mainly the job of provinces to get jabs in arms, but federal parties would juice provincial efforts differently.
The Liberals have made proof of vaccination mandatory for all federal public service workers, and for Canadians who want to board planes or interprovincial trains. Trudeau would give $1 billion to provinces to develop domestic proof of vaccination. Most provinces except for P.E.I. and New Brunswick - which has not ruled it out - now say they will require vaccine cards to allow people to enter public spaces, like restaurants, theatres or gyms.
The NDP is all for mandating vaccine certificates, would extend it to federally regulated workers and would have moved faster, by Labour Day, to impose them.
Conservatives, on the other hand, would not tell provinces - or their own federal candidates, many of whom refuse to make their vaccination status public - what to do. Erin O'Toole has said vaccines are critical, but would respect people's personal health choice" not to get vaccinated. O'Toole is also encouraging the wider use of daily rapid tests for the unvaccinated. The Greens also do not embrace mandatory vaccination certificates.
All parties are committed to giving more health-care money to provinces - but there are differences here, too, when it comes to their levels of ambition.
The Conservatives promise $3.6 billion more in health-care transfers over the next five years, and as much as $60 billion more over the next decade with no strings attached.
The Liberals promise $10 billion for the 2021-22 budget year, but it comes with strings attached: $6 billion must go to clear treatment backlogs and $3.2 billion to hire more nurses and doctors. Trudeau says he'll increase health transfers but only after negotiating with provinces post-pandemic. The NDP promises $68 billion over five years and is the only party promising to eliminate private for-profit operators in long-term care homes, which Jagmeet Singh says contributed to pandemic deaths in Canada.
Trust and leadership
But for all the anxiety about COVID and the focus on vaccinations, voters often home in on a more fundamental question: who do you trust? And why?
Trudeau has a six-year record in government. He wants you to look at how he handled the pandemic as well as his plan to build back better" in a post-COVID future. His rivals, however, highlight a different aspect of his track record: a series of ethical violations - his Christmas family trip to the Aga Khan's island, the SNC-Lavalin saga, and the WE Charity controversy. They also cite his failure to deliver on past promises, like democratic reform or pharmacare.
O'Toole, a rookie federal leader, is a lesser-known politician, and admits it. I'm not a celebrity." He wants voters to look past his own party's internal struggles to his middle-class upbringing, military career as a flight navigator and his business experience as a corporate lawyer.
His detractors - including within his own party - see it differently. He won the party leadership as a True Blue" conservative with the backing of social conservatives, and immediately pivoted to a progressive" Conservative with a message of inclusion. He's also reversed course on some core issues: campaigning on a carbon tax after vowing to scrap" the Liberal system, flip-flopping on conscience rights" for medical professionals, and leaving open the possibility that he'll maintain the Liberals' ban on assault-style" firearms.
Singh has presented himself as the true progressive in this race. He's betting it all on his likeability" and authenticity" as a young, hip leader. But he often fails to offer detailed policy prescriptions for his promises - like addressing climate change, child care and pharmacare - basically saying he'll get things done.
Rookie Green Leader Annamie Paul, a bilingual, Black and Jewish woman, remains an unknown to most Canadians. Paul had a strong performance in the national election debates, her first real chance to introduce herself. But she has fought her toughest electoral battles within her own party. She lost a popular Fredericton MP to the Liberals. Her critics want her gone. As leader, she says for now she's not going anywhere but has not ruled out stepping down after the election.
Affordability
Political strategists never tire of highlighting the importance of pocketbook issues in Canadian elections. And with the economy slowly coming out of its COVID coma, affordability" has been a central part of each party's pitch.
In 2021, that focus is primarily on housing, with younger Canadians despairing at the chances of ever owning their own home. Each party has its own schemes to address the housing supply shortage and tweaks to various tax measures to make home ownership more affordable.
But the clearest contrast between the front-running parties is on the issue of child care. The Liberals are pledging to invest billions, and have signed deals with a number of provinces to make $10-a-day child care a reality in Canada. The New Democrats and Greens are largely on side with that.
The Conservatives are emphatically not. They would scrap the Liberals' plans - and the deals already reached with premiers - in favour of boosting direct payments to parents. The Conservatives' commitment for parental tax breaks would provide just a fraction of the savings the Liberal plan would deliver, and, experts say, would not address the shortage of child-care spaces in cities like Toronto.
Climate change
Typically, the choice for voters on climate change is starker than it is this time. But the Conservatives' eleventh-hour conversion on carbon pricing has complicated that.
After long decrying the Liberals' job-killing carbon tax," O'Toole has made carbon pricing official party policy - albeit with a more complicated customer-rewards-style rebate program, and less aggressive overall targets than the Liberals are promising to meet. It may be enough to convince some voters, but those who rate climate change high on their political priority list are unlikely to be persuaded.
The Liberals set a new emission reduction target of 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Trudeau has also pledged to ratchet up their minimum price on carbon from $40/tonne to $170/tonne over that time.
Singh is pledging to do all that and more - upping the emission reduction target to 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, changing how the carbon price applies to industrial emitters, and putting a stop to all federal subsidies to fossil fuel companies.
The Green platform is, naturally enough, the most aggressive on the climate crisis - cancelling all new pipeline projects, dramatically increasing the minimum carbon price, and phasing out" Canada's oil and gas sector by 2035.
Racism
Canada is going through a wave of hate-motivated crime, with Toronto police receiving 50 per cent more hate crime reports in 2020 than the previous year.
It's going to take more than just the federal government to address that issue. But three of the four major parties put an emphasis on diversity, inclusion and combatting racism in their platforms.
The Liberals have faced pointed criticism for their failure to address racism and sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces - something they're pledging to fix if re-elected. The party is also pledging a national strategy to address hate crimes, including curbing hateful speech online - although their proposal for dealing with internet toxicity was met with intense criticism.
The NDP and Green platforms both have strong wording on the urgent need to address racism and hate, with the NDP pledging to ensure all major cities have dedicated hate crime police units and both parties focusing on restorative justice rather than mandatory minimums.
The Conservative platform is relatively quiet on these issues. In fact, the word racism" does not appear in the document.
The Tories favour a tough on crime" approach to dealing with hate. While the party tends to focus on free speech, it is committing to criminalize statements encouraging violence against others, and boosting a relatively modest federal fund for places of worship to put security measures in place.
Based on the latest public polling, the Liberals and Conservatives are running neck-and-neck with the New Democrats seeing modest gains, the Greens holding steady and the People's Party potentially making surprising strides on Monday night.
The choices might be clear. But one day out from Canada's 44th general election, the political landscape is anything but.
Alex Boutilier is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @alexboutilier
Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc