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politics briefing newsletter

Good morning,

This week marks the beginning of the countdown: Less than one year until the next federal election.

Waging a modern, national campaign is a huge enterprise, requiring hundreds of people willing to stand as candidates, thousands of volunteers to knock on voters' doors and millions of dollars in the bank to pay for it all.

Every little bit counts: Nanos Research polls show the Liberals continue to command the most support, but their lead over the Conservatives has gotten considerably smaller in 2018.

With one year to go, we checked in with all the major federal parties to see how ready they are.

Conservatives

The Conservative Party of Canada has selected 148 candidates across the country (out of 338), and 23 nominations are already under way and will be completed before the end of the year, said party spokesman Cory Hann.

The party’s manager for the next campaign is Hamish Marshall, the strategist and pollster who oversaw Andrew Scheer’s successful leadership bid in 2017 and who earlier worked under Stephen Harper.

The Conservative Party had $8.5-million in the bank as of its national convention in August. Elections Canada records show the party raised $18.8-million in 2017 and $12-million in the first half of 2018.

Greens

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is one of more than 30 candidates who are getting ready for their nomination meetings. To this point, three candidates have already been selected: Claude Bertrand (Pontiac), Amita Kuttner (Burnaby North-Seymour) and David Merner (Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke).

Spokesman Rod Leggett said the party has selected its campaign manager and senior campaign adviser, but isn’t ready to announce who they are. Regarding the Green’s bank account, he said the party is on track to surpass its financial goals by the second quarter of 2019. Elections Canada records show the party raised $2.5-million in 2017 and another million in the first six months of this year.

Liberals

The Liberal Party of Canada won’t say exactly how many candidates they have nominated. The party allowed sitting MPs (of which they currently have 182) to be acclaimed as candidates as long as they met certain performance thresholds, and while more than 100 of them are already confirmed, they have yet to all make a public announcement. So far, three other candidates have been nominated in opposition-held ridings: Connie Denesiuk (South Okanagan-West Kootenay), Cindy Derkaz (North Okanagan-Shuswap) and Soraya Martinez Ferrada (Hochelaga).

Liberal spokesman Braeden Caley said “dozens more" announcements are coming in the next month.

The Liberal campaign chair will be Chris MacInnes, a long-term party official and staffer, while Ottawa MP Mona Fortier and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale (who represents a Regina riding) are the co-chairs of the national platform committee.

The party did not say how much money it had in reserve. The Liberals raised $13.9-million in 2017, and another $6.4-million in the first six months of 2018.

New Democrats

Five sitting MPs have already been renominated – Cheryl Hardcastle and Tracey Ramsey in Ontario; Niki Ashton in Manitoba, Sheri Benson in Saskatchewan and Richard Cannings in B.C. – with another 10 nominations set to be sorted out in the next month.

The NDP’s campaign co-chairs are Marie Della Mattia and Alexandre Boulerice. Ms. Della Mattia is a longtime aide with the party, who most recently helped John Horgan become premier in British Columbia. Mr. Boulerice is a Quebec MP and his party’s lieutenant in the province, and was a national campaign co-chair in 2015.

The party did not say how much money it had saved for the election. The New Democrats raised $4.9-million in 2017 and another $2.2-million in the first half of this year.

“As others have reported, our finances don’t have us with a big war chest, but we have a plan to raise the funds we need to elect more NDP MPs in 2019,” NDP national director Melissa Bruno said.

Bloc Québécois

And the Bloc is not currently ready for next year’s election. They have not formally nominated any candidates and they do not even have a leader: Martine Ouellet was ousted in June, and she has not yet been replaced. The leadership turmoil earlier this year resulted in seven of the party’s 10 MPs leaving the BQ caucus. They all came back after Ms. Ouellet left.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Chris Hannay and Daniel Leblanc in Ottawa. It is exclusively available only to our digital subscribers. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

Canada and its major allies continue to note skepticism about Saudi Arabia and its story about what happened to journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who appears to have been killed by Saudi agents at a consulate in Istanbul. Germany has announced it is freezing all arms exports to the country until the situation is cleared up. Canada wouldn’t go that far, but Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the Saudi story that the journalist was accidentally killed in a fistfight did not make sense. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says the Canadian government should cancel the controversial $15-billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia because of the regime’s human rights record. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly called Mr. Khashoggi’s son this morning to express condolences for the death.

Some of the White Helmets, a group of famed humanitarian workers in Syria, are resettling in Canada. Irwin Cotler, an international human-rights lawyer and former Canadian cabinet minister, says he plans to nominate the group for a Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s unofficially municipal elections week in many parts of Canada. B.C. was up first, on Saturday, where former NDP MP Kennedy Stewart won a close race to become Vancouver’s next mayor. Ontario voters head to the polls today, and Manitoba is up next on Wednesday.

If you live in Halifax, Edmonton, Victoria or Windsor, Ont., you might have trouble with your mail today. Canada Post workers have begun rotating strikes, starting in those four cities.

The Canadian government has formally written off a $2.6-billion loan to Chrysler made during the 2009 recession, CBC reports.

Now that cannabis is legalized, the fringe Marijuana Party doesn’t have much to do.

And as the U.S. moves to limit its international student visas, Canada does the opposite. More than 500,000 international students are set to study in Canada this year, a growth of four times how many came just 20 years ago. Many of those international students are choosing to stay in Canada once they’ve completed their studies.

Campbell Clark (The Globe and Mail) on Jagmeet Singh running in a Burnaby by-election: “Most importantly, this by-election is a democratic test. The riding is close to the Burnaby terminal for the controversial Trans-Mountain pipeline project that Mr. Trudeau approved, and Mr. Singh opposes. Both Mr. Singh and Mr. Trudeau should put their TMX positions close to the epicentre of the issue.”

Sheema Khan (The Globe and Mail) on Quebec’s proposed ban on public servants wearing any religious items: “Imagine putting yourself through teacher’s college or a police training program, preparing to dedicate yourself to a profession you hold in high esteem – only to be told to discard an integral part of your identity, or choose a different career path.”

Hassan Yussuff (The Globe and Mail) on federal Conservatives saying they would not fight Quebec’s plan: “This is opportunism and populism rolled up into one and should strike fear in anyone who values our rights and freedoms. Apparently, they’re not as secure as we once thought and could be done away with at the whim of any politician or political party.”

Robyn Urback (CBC) on the legal marijuana industry: “The hot new turncoat this season is the prohibitionist politician-turned pot dealer: Men and women who spent their political careers silently upholding — and in some cases advocating for — the criminal imprisonment of cannabis consumers, who are now spending their private careers making money from them.”

Alex Bozikovic (The Globe and Mail) on municipal elections: “As a country, we don’t pay enough attention to our local governments – nor do we agree, as a country, about what urban places should be or how to deal with their biggest challenges. Those two issues are related, and, for the good of all Canadians, we need to tackle them both.”

David Reevely (Ottawa Citizen) on the importance of voting: “Maybe city politics doesn’t turn your crank, but look at the provincial and federal governments. You know how many of those people got their starts in city halls across the nation? Tons. Think of the future: Kill the worst morons’ dreams of power and influence now, before anybody really gets hurt.”

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