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Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Oct. 16.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press

A federal election could be two years away, but Pierre Poilievre is already in campaign mode, targeting ridings held by the Liberals and the NDP as the Conservatives set their sights on forming government.

Mr. Poilievre will hold two Axe the Tax rallies against carbon pricing in Atlantic Canada this week in Windsor, N.S., on Thursday and St. Johns on Friday. He is also expected to focus on the high cost of living and housing, priority issues for the party this fall.

The Conservatives are going full tilt, said Fred Delorey, a partner at NorthStar Public Affairs who served as national campaign manager for the Conservative Party in 2021.

They have the money; theyre awash in cash, he said. They have the momentum and theyre running a full campaign where Poilievre, his message, is resonating with Canadians. So hes out pushing it hard.

The Conservatives have been leading in a number of recent public-opinion polls. The party also raised nearly $8-million in donations from almost 47,000 contributors between April and June. By comparison, the Liberals raised about $3.2-million from more than 30,000 people in that period.

Scott Reid, who served as director of communications for former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, said the Conservatives are going into ridings they do not hold because they believe that voters in the next election will be interested in change, with the Liberals having been in power since 2015.

Robert Staley, chair of the Conservatives fundraising arm, shed some light on the partys thinking about Mr. Poilievres tour during its policy convention last month.

Our tour is not directed at bringing out the faithful to [the] leaders rallies although we are delighted when the faithful attend and fill a room, Mr. Staley said.

With our leaders tour, we are now trying to reach new voters with Pierres common-sense messages. That means doing more to advertise events and to reach people who otherwise wouldnt have supported the party or havent in the past supported the party.

Spokespeople for Mr. Poilievre and the party did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, Mr. Poilievre held a rally in the Vancouver Centre riding that Liberal Hedy Fry has held since 1993, and where the Conservatives came third in the 2021 election.

Ms. Fry, who is planning to run for an 11th term in the next election, was dismissive of Mr. Poilievres efforts.

I dont think people in a riding like mine and in many of the ridings in Vancouver, which are very progressive ridings, think the Conservatives have anything to offer them, she said in an interview. Vancouver Centre, she said, is very fallow ground for Conservatives of his ilk.

A month before the Oct. 13 rally in Vancouver, Mr. Poilievre held a rally in the North Island-Powell River riding of New Democrat Rachel Blaney. About 1,500 people attended the gathering in the Vancouver Island riding.

In recent months, Mr. Poilievre has also held a series of rallies throughout northern Ontario, on PEI, and in B.C. This month, he has held Bring it Home rallies in Whitehorse, Oliver, B.C., and Vancouver.

Ahead of this weeks St. Johns event, Labour Minister and St. Johns South-Mount Pearl MP Seamus ORegan said in a statement that he stays up nights worrying what Pierre Poilievre would do to Newfoundland and Labradors economy.

Yaroslav Baran, who served as a communications adviser to former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, said rallies allow the leader to engage with voters outside the closed bubble of Ottawa. Mr. Poilievre tends to shake hands and pose for photos with any members of the audience who wants one, he said.

A federal election is not expected until the fall of 2025 because of a current working agreement between the governing Liberals and the New Democrats. However, that agreement could be at risk after the NDP, at its policy convention earlier this month, passed a resolution saying the party will withdraw its support if the government does not commit to a universal, comprehensive and entirely public pharmacare program.

Jamie Ellerton, a founding partner at public relations firm Conaptus and a former senior Conservative staffer, said strategic communications and marketing teaches that you dont get a buyer the first time you offer what youre selling. It is important to build brand equity, trust and a relationship, he said.

As [Poilievre] delivers his message now, its building those relationships on a personal level but also building a relationship with Canadians writ large to rebuild the Conservative Party brand and frankly define Pierres leadership, he said.

Mr. Reid said it is more challenging for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to hold rallies for his own political interests because he bears the weight of voter disappointment and concerns inevitable with being in government.

But Parker Lund, a spokesperson for the Liberal Party, said volunteers in ridings across Canada are connecting with Canadians and that in the coming months and years the party will continue our efforts to grow our movement by engaging more Canadians than ever before.

Mr. Lund said a sign of that political strength could be seen in the partys national convention this year when half the 4,000 delegates attending were at their first-ever such party event.

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Pierre Poilievre in campaign mode, targeting ridings held by ... - The Globe and Mail

Release date: 26/10/23

After more than a decade of mismanagement and sabotage of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan under the Coalition, whereby upstream states were allowed to ignore efficiency deadlines, voluntary buybacks are now the only way South Australia will recover the bulk of the 450 gigalitres promised but not delivered.

The Albanese Governments Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 passed the House Representatives this week despite the Opposition, including Mr Stevens, voting against it.

Speaking against the Bill, Barker MP, Tony Pasin, claimed the Riverland population shrunk by 30 per cent the last time we did this despite official data showing no such reduction.

The Royal Commission into the River Murray in SA dispelled the myth voluntary buybacks adversely impact communities.

In his report, Royal Commissioner Brett Walker SC said, there is no proportional relationship between a reduction in the use of water for consumptive use, and farm production.

In a submission to the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023, the Commissioner for the River Murray, Richard Beasley SC, also highlighted the lack of any peer reviewed research on supposed impacts of buybacks.

These assertions are not supported by peer reviewed economic research or papers, or defensible economic reports, Mr Beasley said.

What has been established by such reports, Mr Beasley continued, was:

In the event there were any legitimate impacts on communities, the Albanese Government has set aside $20 million for South Australia.

Federal SA Liberals have been having a bob each way on voluntary buybacks, opposing them in country seats and supporting them in marginal city seats.

However, when it came to the crunch, the hard right, which has taken over the party, got their way and voted against the interests of all South Australians.

Im staggered that people elected to represent South Australias interests on the national stage have instead sided with upstream states that seek to deny our State what was promised to get us to sign up to the Plan.

They are not on Team SA and have abandoned our irrigators and the more than one million South Australians that rely on a healthy working river.

I know there are South Australian irrigators wanting to sell some of their entitlement for the environment because Ive had state Liberal MPs call my office inquiring about how their constituents go about applying.

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SA Federal Liberals vote against Bill to recover 450GL of River ... - Premier of South Australia

As we watched the terrorist attack in Israel on virtually helpless civilians, it is a perfect example of what could happen here.

Israeli civilians are like us, with an abundance of rules that hinder lawful citizens from having firearms, with zero obstacles to those intending harm.

Our past years of essentially weak borders have allowed many unknown individuals to enter our country, and it is extremely likely there are many terrorist cells in the U.S.

In Americas past, every person in our republic was supposed to be armed and capable of defending our country. Every able-bodied person was expected to be capable with arms, essentially citizen soldiers.

We need to return to that purpose; there is the need.

Every family needs to contemplate the Israeli event, and decide whether to have some means of protection.

Liberals need to wake up to the real world and the evil that exists.

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Letter: Liberals need to wake up to world - Albany Democrat-Herald

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Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux prepares to appear before a committee in Ottawa on June 13, 2022.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

The phrase debt wall has always been a bit misleading, conjuring up an image of something that suddenly appears from the mist. But a wall doesnt just materialize; its built brick by brick. And the fiscal crisis of a debt wall doesnt happen instantly; it builds over years.

The building blocks of a debt wall are starting to pile up in federal finances, emerging from the most recent analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, ahead of a budget update from the Liberals expected next month.

The most obvious is the sharp growth in the dollars spent on servicing the federal debt since the onset of the pandemic, and an unprecedented surge in borrowing. In fiscal 2019, debt charges were $23.3-billion; the PBO projects that Ottawa will pay nearly double that, $46.4-billion, in the current fiscal year, rising to $51.1-billion in five years.

That trajectory assumes no new major spending from the Liberals, the very opposite of a safe bet. The government has consistently larded extra billions of dollars in spending into each fiscal update and budget it tables. And this year, the NDP is pushing hard for a national pharmacare program, a key part of the partys parliamentary alliance with the Liberals.

The price tag for such a program would be $11.2-billion in fiscal 2025, rising to $13.4-billion by fiscal 2027, according to the PBO. Ottawa might be able to reduce that cost by convincing the provinces to shoulder some of the burden; good luck with that, when the premiers are already crying poor over health care funding.

The cost of pharmacare alone would be enough to triple the federal deficit in fiscal 2025.

Even without such added expenses, the cost of servicing the debt is headed into the danger zone, as long-term interest rates seem likely to settle at higher levels. Two years ago, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge suggested that Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland adopt a new fiscal anchor that would aim to keep Ottawas debt-servicing costs below 10 per cent of revenue. Above that threshold, he argued, the cost of debt would start to eat up too much fiscal capacity.

The figures in the latest PBO report, although yet to be confirmed by the Finance Department, show debt charges jumping to 10.1 per cent of revenue in this fiscal year, up sharply from 7.9 per cent last year.

Despite the increase, the ratio is well below the red-line levels of the mid-1990s, when debt charges ate up more than a third of Ottawas revenue. But its headed in the wrong direction, and that rise will accelerate if more likely, when the Liberals bend to the NDPs demands for much higher permanent program spending.

The rising cost of the federal debt is cutting into Ottawas fiscal flexibility. So is the rising cost of running the government, which has soared as the Liberals bulk up the bureaucracy year after year. When the Trudeau government took power in 2015, the governments combined operating and capital amortization expenses were projected to be $81.8-billion. Those figures exclude Ottawas transfers to individuals and other levels of government.

This year, Ottawas administrative costs are forecast to hit $133.9-billion, a 64-per-cent jump. Put another way, if the Liberals had simply increased those costs in line with inflation, they would have more than $30-billion to spend or, heaven forfend, to save.

When poked by the opposition Conservatives on overspending, the Liberals habitually taunt their rivals with the question of what programs the Tories would cut.

Here is their answer: stop padding the cost of government, institute a hiring freeze and start to claw back some of the $52-billion thats been added to the cost of government under the Liberals.

The government has made a small step in this direction with its effort to refocus $4.6-billion a year in permanent spending. But that exercise avoids pruning the size of the federal civil service, the biggest source of potential savings.

There is one fiscal guardrail that is relatively intact: the size of the federal debt relative to the economy. Give or take a decimal point, that ratio is largely in line with the governments pledge to keep it on a downward trajectory. But that is true largely because the inflationary surge of the past two years has pushed up the nominal size of the economy.

Even that modest success will be at risk if the Liberals accede to the NDPs demands for major new outlays one more brick in the debt wall that is rapidly assuming shape.

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Globe editorial: For the federal Liberals, it's just one more brick in the ... - The Globe and Mail

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to a question during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 4. Four major developers said they plan to build more than 10,000 rental units between them because of the federal governments September move to remove the GST on purpose-built rental housing.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Dont look now, but the Liberals are starting to win some policy debates on the housing crisis. It just might be too late for the politics.

Justin Trudeaus Liberals spent much of 2023 getting hammered about the high price of houses, skyrocketing rents and mortgage spikes. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was making hay, and gaining ground, lambasting Mr. Trudeau by channelling the resentment about 30-year-olds living in their parents homes and families struggling to afford one.

For most of the year, the Liberals hemmed and hawed and declared that all the things they had already done were the greatest ever as if they couldnt see the problem nearly everyone was feeling.

But if you tuned into Question Period on Monday, there was Housing Minister Sean Fraser knocking back Conservative attacks with shots of his own, claiming, albeit apocryphally, that the Tories plan to raise taxes on rental units.

Liberals could, and did, claim that private-sector actors have endorsed some of their new housing measures. Four major developers said they plan to build more than 10,000 rental units between them because of the federal governments September move to remove the GST on purpose-built rental housing. Mortgage lenders have said the expansion of the Canada Mortgage Bond Program by 50 per cent will make a significant difference for builders.

Where the Tories were landing blows at will a few months ago, now Mr. Fraser was jousting gamely, responding to a Peterborough Conservative MPs arguments that Liberal inflationary spending forced interest rates higher by pointing to a multimillion-dollar housing announcement in her riding. Though the Tories kept picking the fight, the Liberals were starting to win some of the rounds.

But if the Liberals are starting to get a grip on the issue in Question Period, it comes at a time when no one is watching. Not many people watch Commons debates, and this week, the public attention paid to Parliament was devoted almost entirely to speeches about events in the Middle East.

Its not clear, anyway, if the Liberals can still rebuild credibility after letting the housing debate get away from them.

Their late-summer epiphany came when the public outcry was rising high and Liberal poll numbers were falling low. Their biggest new measure that GST break was something the Liberals promised to do in 2015 but didnt.

Even so, the Liberals suddenly boosted housing policy on a bigger scale, with real potential. The deals Mr. Fraser is signing with cities and towns for money from Ottawas Housing Accelerator Fund could move the dials, too, if municipalities make rule changes that, for example, allow more triplexes to be built.

Mr. Fraser now likes to point out that the Liberal bill provides more extensive housing tax breaks than a bill Mr. Poilievre tabled in September hence the ministers disingenuous claim that the Conservatives would raise taxes on housing.

The Liberals now have better policy that will make a difference. But it might not change the politics for Mr. Trudeaus government.

For starters, Mr. Poilievres Conservatives have had some success in making people believe that government deficit spending and big Liberal spending, during the pandemics peak and now is the cause of inflation, and therefore the cause of high interest rates.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland can argue that inflation is global and declining, and Canadas deficits and debt are lower than most industrialized countries. And while the Liberals have been profligate spenders who showed little regard for controlling costs, theres no reason to believe a Conservative government would take office and bring in spending cuts that would make interest rates rapidly tumble.

But those are arguments. People feel inflation. And they keep feeling it even when the pace of price increases starts to slow. Many felt the struggle of paying a high cost of housing exacerbated by a shortage of supply, and now are feeling the pinch of higher interest rates through mortgage bills or higher rents. The Bank of Canadas rate increases seemed to park declines in Liberal poll numbers.

The new Liberal measures to increase building and alleviate the shortage, meanwhile, arent likely to have a palpable impact on the supply of housing for years and not before the scheduled 2025 election.

So now the Liberals have regained their footing in the fight over who can address the housing crisis but it is still a government eight years into power hoping to win a political argument over who has the best solutions for years in the future. Mr. Fraser is starting to win debates in the Commons on housing policy, but it might be too late to make Canadians feel things will change.

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The Liberals win points on housing policy, but it might not change ... - The Globe and Mail