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With two provincial byelections coming in the first half of 2022, Manitoba's Liberal party likely calculated that concentrating on the one in Winnipeg was better than spreading their resources between both.

Although virtually everything about the legally required byelection to fill the vacancy left when Thompson MLA Danielle Adams died in a car accident last month is unknown, the Manitoba Liberals have come out publicly to say that they will not be running a candidate out of respect for the late NDP representative.

That a byelection will be held is certain. Under Manitoba law, a byelection must be held within six months of a vacancy opening up unless there is a scheduled general election within a year. The next scheduled provincial election in Manitoba isnt until 2023, so the government will be required to hold a race to fill the seat.

Apart from the fact that it must take place by early June, when they byelection will happen is up in the air at this point. However, given that there must be another byelection in the Fort Whyte electoral division in Winnipeg, the seat previously held by former premier Brian Pallister and that that byelection must be held by the end of March (a date for that one has not yet been set either), odds are that Thompsons will happen in either April, May or the first week of June. It just seems unlikely that the Progressive Conservatives would like to run simultaneous byelections. When it comes down to it, the party certainly wants to keep Fort Whyte in its roster of seats. Thompson will not be a priority.

That said, it doesnt seem that likely that the PCs will do what Manitoba Liberal leader Dougald Lamont has encouraged them to and also decline to run a candidate in Thompson.

There is some merit to the Liberals argument that the government should just let the party that already held Thompson keep it, since it wont make any difference in the legislature. The PCs will still have a majority and be able to pass the legislation that they wish to. On the other hand, that argument goes for any byelection. Except in a case where there isnt a majority government or the second- and third-place parties have an equal number of seats, there isnt any real immediate advantage to be won from winning a byelection, per se. There are, however, other reasons to seek success in them.

For the Progressive Conservatives, Northern Manitoba is a bit of a white whale to their Ahab. In recent history, it has been dominated by the NDP, which often takes all the seats of the region The Pas-Kameesak, Flin Flon, Thompson and Keewatinook under the current electoral division map. In the last election, those seats accounted for more than 20 per cent of the opposition partys total. Having the ability to whittle that down by even one would certainly make it tougher for the NDP to form a provincial government in a general election, since their support is mainly in the north and in Winnipeg.

Of course, a byelection win wont give the NDP a chance to form a government but there is going to another general election in a year or two and no one knows precisely what the political landscape will look like then. From this perspective, a Thompson byelection can be viewed as a dress rehearsal for the real deal and the PCs would probably like to get someone to run to see if they have enough support to win this time, or to potentially win the next time, though it wont be a perfectly calibrated predictor of the next general election, since byelections usually motivate far fewer voters to cast a ballot.

Six or seven years ago, the PCs might have been tempted to abstain from running a candidate in a Thompson byelection. Prior to them ousting the NDP from government in 2016, the riding had been held for 35 years by Steve Ashton, who was defeated by political rookie Kelly Bindle in his first foray into politics. Three years later, however, Bindle lost to Adams by about 1,000 votes, indicating perhaps that any imagined breakthrough in support levels that the PCs experienced was more about the unpopularity of a government that had been in power for over 17 years and a feeling that Ashton had outlived his usefulness. In short, it might not have had anything to do with the PCs at all, deep down.

While the Liberals decision not to contest the race to capture the vacant seat is honourable, its probably also pragmatic. The Manitoba Liberals currently have only three seats and less money than the other parties. It doesnt make a lot of sense for them to spread their resources between two back-to-back byelections. And although they were nowhere close to winning Fort Whyte in 2019, they did come close to matching the NDPs vote total. Although the odds are still long, they would have a better shot this time, simply because they are not up against the sitting premier. In Thompson, on the other hand, they finished with less than 10 per cent as many votes as the NDP in 2019 and were fourth in the riding, behind the Green Party. Thompson has been a Conservative or NDP (mostly NDP) riding since it was created. Hoping for a miracle in the upcoming byelection wouldnt do anything for the Liberals chances of increasing their seat total in the next election. And politics, it has been said, is the art of the possible.

Here is the original post:
Multiple reasons Liberals won't run in Thompson byelection - Thompson Citizen

Elizabeth Lee MLA is leader of the Canberra Liberals.

2022 was not the start that we all hoped for; the omicron variant still poses many challenges for our community.

The Canberra Liberals first priority remains the safety of all Canberrans. Our community has done an amazing job in coming forward to get vaccinated and heeding the medical advice to keep everyone safe. During an extraordinary time when governments exercised extraordinary power, the Canberra Liberals made sure that ACT government decisions that hugely impacted Canberrans freedoms and liberties were warranted, reasonable, and within the rule of law, and did not leave behind any vulnerable members of our community.

Last year was incredibly challenging for many Canberrans, including our small business owners, families with school-aged children, and our frontline workers. When the first case of 2021 was announced and the ACT was plunged into a snap lockdown on 12 August, it was a defining moment for many of us. Within hours, businesses shut their doors, parents pulled their children out of school and early education, and office workers packed up and went home for remote work.

During this time, the community came together, rallying around to make sure that some of the most vulnerable had access to food and essentials, and that no one felt alone. It was incredibly inspiring to see thousands of Canberrans devote their time, resources, and funds to help.

Throughout the 2021 resurgence and lockdown, my team and I worked with the ACT government to support the health advice; to keep Canberrans safe; and to provide a calm and measured response in a time of incredible uncertainty. But we were also fierce advocates for many Canberrans who were forgotten and left behind by this Labor-Greens government.

Since the election in October 2020, the Canberra Liberals team have spoken to, engaged with, and listened to thousands of Canberrans, and the message is clear that this Labor-Greens government is out of touch; that this government is complacent, arrogant, and does not care about the issues affecting Canberrans.

Rising costs of living, the plight of our businesses during the lockdowns, concerns about our already overstretched health system, the future of our childrens education, the lack of transparency and accountability in the planning of our city, the complete disregard for community safety with police let down by a complete lack of resourcing and one of the greatest bug bears for many Canberrans the sheer incompetence or care of basic municipal services in maintaining our roads, footpaths, and community green spaces. For too long, under this Labor-Greens government, we have not been a city befitting the nations capital. These issues are important to Canberrans, and we will continue to advocate on them.

As we head into 2022 a little more uncertain about what the next few months will bring, the Canberra Liberals first priority is keeping Canberrans safe. We will continue to work with the ACT government in supporting the health advice that has kept us safe.

Second, we must work together to make sure that our children can safely return to school and early education. The last two years have been incredibly disruptive for our school communities. The wellbeing, development, and education of our children is incredibly important as we move into the next phase of responding to the pandemic. Subject to health advice, we will work with our school communities to make sure our children are safely back at school.

Third, whilst there is no formal lockdown in the ACT, our businesses, especially in hospitality, are doing it incredibly tough. Sadly, some local businesses have shut their doors some permanently and some indefinitely, with no clear date when they will re-open. Behind every local business is a Canberra family feeling pain. A thriving business community is important for the future of our economy, and we will support our small businesses through this pandemic.

I am proud of the achievements of the Canberra Liberals in 2021. Despite coming off an election loss, and despite the enormous challenges of COVD, we put forward a genuine and different way of being in opposition; of working together on issues like climate change, prevention of sexual violence and harassment, pregnancy and infant loss, and territory rights; and a genuine and different vision for the economic priorities over the next 12 months (which I delivered in my Budget Reply speech in October).

The next 12 months will build on the good foundations we laid in creating an alternate vision for the future of Canberra. We know that Canberrans are resilient, community-minded, and politically engaged. Canberrans expect a lot from their elected representatives, and so they should. Whilst there is a lot more work to be done, and as we grapple with the uncertainties of the future of COVID, I am also excited about what 2022 holds for our city.

Lets bring on a fresh new year!

See the original post here:
Opinion: Canberra Liberals excited for the new year - Canberra Weekly

Many thought the Labor preselection contest for the Wollongong-based seat of Cunningham would be a one-horse race, but a new high-profile late starter has entered the line-up.

Misha Zelinsky, the assistant national secretary of the Australian Workers Union and a former criminal defence lawyer,will run against Alison Byrnes-Scully, staffer to the retiring sitting member Sharon Bird and partner to state MP Paul Scully.

Mr Zelinsky, a recent Fulbright scholar to the United States, has warned Australiais heading down the path of the US where he says home ownership is now out of reach for the average person.

"We don't want to head that way here, and the warning signs are there," he said.

"You look at housing prices, for example;housing prices have absolutely exploded in this country but wages haven't, job security hasn't.

"If you are a young person today trying to make it in the Illawarra, the quality of our schools is going down because we are cutting there, there's no apprenticeships, there's cuts to TAFE, university has become more expensive."

In a nod to aspirational voters being targeted by Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese, Mr Zelinsky said people should not be poor if they worked hard.

"And that's something that is very dear to me."

It is unclear yet if other candidates will come forward before preselections close Monday, but whoever wins is likely to also win the seat currently held by Labor with a 13.3 per cent margin.

Meanwhile, former NSW transport ministerAndrew Constance has announced his Liberal Party preselection for the Shoalhaven and South Coast-based seat of Gilmore.

Making the announcement in front of the half-built Nowra Bridge, Mr Constance, dressed casually in a checked shirt, played the role of wanting not to be seen as a regular politician.

"What is important over the next few months is the way in which I prosecute the case (and) change politics in our region in a way that we bring back the unity," he said.

"And I think when people are struggling every day with their businesses, not being able to get staff, we have got seniors who are huddled in doors through fear of going down the local shops and contracting the virus."

Mr Constance is casting himself as a game-changer willing to stand up to anybody, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison as he has in the past on the bushfire issue.

"The last thing people are going to want is a mouthful of politics, they are not going to get it from me," he said.

"I could have walked from politics but I have chosen not to.

"I want to see an absolute change in the way in which politics works within this country and works within a regional level."

Mr Constance won preselection after the withdrawal of other candidates including Gilmore Federal Electoral Conference president Paul Ell.

Labor's Fiona Phillips holds the seat with a slim 2.6 per cent margin.

Read more from the original source:
Labor preselection in Cunningham heats up; Andrew Constance confirmed for Liberals in Gilmore - ABC News

OTTAWA Two new reports released this morning reveal what Canadian families have been experiencing for years: the cost of housing in Canada is skyrocketing making it out of reach for many. Meanwhile, the Liberal government's response to this escalating crisis is more talk instead of action. New Democrats have and will continue to push and advocate for tangible actions so that access to safe, secure, affordable housing is a basic human right, and for those who dream of buying a home so they can have their dream come true.

Its no secret that buying a house has become unaffordable in this country, making it an impossible dream for so many families, said the NDPs Critic for Housing, Jenny Kwan. This crisis is only going to get worse as long as the federal government continues to allow housing to be treated like a stock market. Immediate action needs to be taken to crack down on speculation that is driving up the cost of housing."

The Parliamentary Budget Officer indicated that housing affordability will only continue to grow if nothing is done. Canadas population-adjusted housing stock is the lowest in the G7, with Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta being the worst affected provinces. In Ontario alone, 650,000 units would be required to reach the same level of homes per capita as the average in other provinces.

New Democrats are urging the Liberals to build 500,000 affordable units to address the countrys affordable housing supply shortage. We are also calling on the federal government to establish a fund for not-for-profit organizations to acquire residential housing that comes onto the market; immediately put a moratorium on the acquisition of affordable homes by Real Estate Investment Trusts; and establish a meaningful foreign buyer's tax to stop rich investors from treating our housing market like a stock market and driving up prices.

I have heard from too many Canadians who dont think they will ever be able to buy a home. Thats not right, added Kwan. Trudeau made a lot of big promises on housing during the election, its time he stuck to them. New Democrats will keep fighting to help families find a place to live."

Read the rest here:
Canadian housing crisis worse than ever as Liberals sit by - ndp.ca

My Twitter accounts pinned tweet is one that says Trump would have elevated his reputation if he had conceded the election quickly; it concludes now people just hope he croaks. The tweet is dated Jan. 4, 2021so elevating the tweet is admittedly a kind of virtue signal: I am not the kind of Trump guy who backed his post-election antics, and Im pleased to have made that clear two days before what one writer aptly called the cornpone intifada.

But the people just hope he croaks line is too vague. The sentiment is shared by never-Trumpers and no small number of once pro-Trump activists and intellectuals who generally approved of his stated policy goals, only to experience a dysfunctional administration that accomplished little. As Ann Coulter (an early and vital Trump supporter) memorably put it, Trump is the opposite of a duck, flailing madly and going nowhere instead of moving quietly ahead in the water.

But it is not shared by Joe Biden, most elected Democrats, and the huge interlocking liberal complex of that makes up the mainstream media: for them, Trump is the best thing ever, someone they can portray effectively as a buffoonish fascist wannabe, while he remains an ineffectual foe with no real sense of how to use power. He is the essential glue and greatest hope of the Democratic coalition, and probably the only Republican a Democrat could defeat in 2024. Indeed, if the Democratic primary electorate moves leftward, as well it might, Trump could conceivably lose to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, ushering in authoritarian socialist rule in the United States by free election.

Of course, Trump is a useful foil to Biden, whose aging communication skills revive when speaking of his 2020 adversary. But the fixation on Trump and January 6 envelops the whole party. How many times a day does one hearfrom the lips of a Democratic official or a CNN or NPR commentatorthat piously pronounced phrase our democracy to connote all that the January 6 rioters and Trump purportedly threaten. The phrase feigns a reverence to American constitutional practices, which is why Democrats are so enamored of it. But almost invariably it is coupled with transformative action agenda that is the very opposite of constitutional regard: ending the filibuster, packing the Supreme Court, the replacement of an Election Day where self-governing citizens go to the polls and vote by a rolling election period dominated by mail-in ballots and vote harvesting by activists. Such proposals are self-evidently designed to precisely subvert the mechanisms the Founding Fathers intended to encourage: gradualism and the need for decisive majorities to enact major changes into our democracyin other words, to undermine precisely the institutions which have made the United States arguably the most successful long-standing democracy in the world.

Writing for Unherd, Simon Cottee makes some comparisons between the way neoconservatives deployed September 11 as a lever for their long term agendas of war in the Middle East and the way contemporary Democrats are trying to use January 6. But if the goals of the neoconservatives were fairly tightly focused on the invasion of Iraq (and perhaps later Iran), those of todays liberal establishment are diffuse: for some they involve jettison of the checks and balances built into the American system, for others simply a means for the relegation of every aspect of Trumpismincluding the policy aspirations which remain broadly popular permanently into a realm of deplorable moral oblivion. In actuality, January 6 was a riot involving a few hundred mostly unarmed people whose breach of the Capitol was made possible by almost unfathomably poor preparation by riot control police (a critical factor about which we would surely be hearing much more if Trump and his administration bore responsibility for it). The Democrats seek to turn it into world historical insurrection whose nefarious meaning must be contemplated every day, as the New York Times somberly admonishes.

For the Democrats, every day that we talk about January 6 is a day where we are not talking about soaring rates of crime brought about by the progressives war on cops, or inflation accelerating to 1970s levels, or the months of rioting, egged on by prominent Democrats, including then candidates Biden and Kamala Harris, that followed the George Floyd killingrioting far more deadly and destructive than January 6. And every day of January 6 is a way to keep Trump in the spotlight, and in a way keep his persona central to the Republican Party. Its a goal which corresponds perfectly with Trumps own insatiable quest for the limelight; He seems to believe, perhaps correctly, that if he had (as he should have) conceded that he lost the election, albeit one held under unusual covid circumstances, his role as a future party leader would be diminished.

This reinforcing mutual self-interest of two campsthe Democratic establishment and Trump himselfnow constitute a real force in American politics, and possibly a barrier to any kind of enlightened leadership emerging from Republicans for the 2024 presidential race. The easiest way out one doesnt want to say out loud, but it does involve actuarial tables and the fickle finger of health.

Scott McConnell is founding editor of theAmerican Conservativeand author ofEx-Neocon: Dispatches from the Post-9/11 Ideological Wars.

Read the original:
Why Liberals Secretly Love Donald Trump - The National Interest