Federal Election 2021
Why Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives should be looking over their shoulders at Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada
When Maxime Bernier left the federal Conservative party after losing a tight leadership race against Andrew Scheer, he called party leaders “morally and intellectually corrupt” and he started the People’s Party of Canada in time to run in the 2019 Federal Election. The results were not very good. The PPC captured just 1.6% of the vote and Bernier lost his own seat.
Despite losing his own seat, Bernier actually managed to make a significant impact in the 2019 election. Here’s how.
Although Justin Trudeau’s government lost its majority, the distribution of seats meant all three of the main opposition parties would have to join together in order to overcome the Liberals with a vote in Parliament. The Liberals won 157 seats. Together the Conservatives (121 seats) and the BQ (32 seats) had just 153 seats. That meant the NDP with 24 seats actually held the balance of power in Canada’s 43rd Parliament.
By splitting the Conservative vote ever so slightly, the PPC did manage to stop the Conservatives from winning 3 more seats from the Liberals. In two Ontario ridings, Kitchener-Constoga, and Richmond Hill, as well as the northern riding of Yukon, the total Conservative and PPC votes would have been enough to defeat the Liberals who won those seats. That means the outcome of the minority government would have been Liberals 154 seats against 156 seats between the Conservatives and the BQ. That just might have made a huge difference in the way the Liberals governed Canada for the last two years.
Fast forward to 2021 and Bernier’s PPC still isn’t much of a threat at first glance. Take a deeper look though and you can see the potential of a much larger problem for the Conservatives. Half way through the campaign, Justin Trudeau is struggling mightily. The Conservatives look to be in position to win a minority government and Erin O’Toole is currently trending toward majority territory. A difference of 4% or 5% in the popular vote could make all the difference between a minority Liberal government, a minority Conservative government, or even a Conservative majority. Well, 4% or 5% is just where the PPC is sitting in the polls right now.
The PPC is emerging as an option for Conservatives looking for a different approach to major issues. Maxime Bernier stands alone as the only party leader strongly opposed to vaccine passports. When it comes to climate change the PPC is the only party against the Carbon Tax approach to battling what Bernier calls “Climate Alarmism”. Standing alone may not have meant much in 2019, but just two years later it seems the PPC is catching on at least in a small way.
Bernier’s campaign seems to be gaining momentum as the PPC overtakes the federal Green Part in the polls and Bernier is filling rooms on campaign stops throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC.
Sights like this must be a tad disturbing to Conservatives concerned about splitting votes on the right side of the spectrum. Conservative supporters have been urging voters considering the PPC to rally around Erin O’Toole who is far and away the front-runner 0n the right. As for Bernier supporters, their best case scenario is to win a few seats and stop the Conservatives just short of a majority government. That might give their fledgling party an undue amount of influence. But it’s also a gamble that ‘might’ result in a significant split of the vote on the right which would be a gift to the Liberals.
As is usually the case when it comes to upstart parties splitting the vote, PPC supporters don’t mind the risk. They’re circulating campaign videos like this and thinking an alternative voice is critically important right now. Judging by the excitement Bernier’s managing to create on the campaign trail, it’s starting to look like the PPC might punch well above its weight on Election Day.
espionage
China bragged it meddled in 41 candidates’ campaigns in Canada’s 2019 election: report
From LifeSiteNews
Toronto area ridings, including one in the city of Markham which saw Trudeau personally campaign in, are now under investigation by the ongoing Commission on Foreign Interference.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) boasted it successfully managed to get no less than eight of some 41 preferred candidates elected in Canada’s 2019 federal election, an investigative reporter’s findings have revealed.
Investigative journalist Sam Cooper, who works for The Bureau, recently made known that he was able to obtain an analysis published in February 2021 by a CCP-run group called All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC), which included the shocking revelations.
The 2019 federal election saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government re-elected to a second term. In that election, there were no less than 41 “distinguished Chinese candidates” who were officially endorsed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in Toronto-area ridings that saw Trudeau personally campaign.
According to the ACFROC report, which is the main agency of the CCP’s United Front, a political group that connects mainland China to Chinese in other nations, “Trudeau Jr. personally went to seek votes at a Chinese supermarket in Markham, an area of Toronto where Chinese people live, demonstrating that Chinese votes play an important role in the general election.”
As it stands now, the Toronto area ridings, including one in the city of Markham which saw Trudeau personally campaign in, are now under investigation by the ongoing Commission on Foreign Interference. A report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has shown that there are no less than 11 candidates known to have been directly influenced by China.
The main goal of the ACFROC is to “mobilize diaspora networks” that are in line with the will of the CCP, as noted by Alex Joske, author of the 2022 book Spies and Lies.
The report said that popular Chinese app WeChat was used to mobilize voters, going all the way back to the 2015 and 2011 elections.
According to Charles Burton, an expert in the Chinese language who looked at the ACFROC report for The Bureau, the use of the term “distinguished” to refer to the Chinese candidates who were nominated “implies identification of candidates potentially useful to the United Front’s aims.”
“This article clearly aims to guide the agents of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department in their strategic work to gain leverage for China by placing persons of Chinese origin into the Parliament of Canada,” noted Burton.
LifeSiteNews recently reported that Cooper unveiled how four politicians along with one government advisor were named as allegedly being involved in a scheme backed by the CCP to purposely interfere in Canada’s electoral process.
The Foreign Interference Commission was convened to “examine and assess the interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states or non-state actors, including any potential impacts, to confirm the integrity of, and any impacts on, the 43rd and 44th general elections (2019 and 2021 elections) at the national and electoral district levels.”
The commission is headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who had earlier said she and her lawyers will remain “impartial” and will not be influenced by politics. In January, Hogue said that she would “uncover the truth whatever it may be.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, documents from a federal inquiry looking at meddling in Canada’s past two elections by foreign state actors show that agents of the CCP allegedly worked at Elections Canada polling centers during the 2021 campaign.
To date, Trudeau has been coy and has never explicitly stated whether he was ever told by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that CCP agents’ actions were in breach of the nation’s Elections Act.
A few months ago, the head of Canada’s intelligence agency testified under oath that he gave Trudeau multiple warnings that agents of the CCP were going after Conservative MPs, yet the prime minister has denied receiving these warnings.
espionage
Elections Canada agency unable to refute allegations of Chinese operatives posing as poll workers in 2021
From LifeSiteNews
Elections Canada admitted that no background checks were conducted on volunteers, adding that it could not say for sure whether agents of the Chinese Communist Party infiltrated polls in the Aurora-Oak Ridges riding.
After a former MP revealed that agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allegedly worked at the polls during the 2021 federal election, Elections Canada admitted it could not refute the statement made by the former elected official.
As reported by LifeSiteNews earlier this week, documents from a federal inquiry looking at meddling in Canada’s past two elections by foreign state actors show that agents of the CCP allegedly worked at Elections Canada polling centers in the 2021 campaign.
The documents show that former Conservative MP Leona Alleslev noted in a sworn affidavit that she was told by Chinese Canadians they knew foreign operatives were working at polling stations. She also noted that she had received many complaints from Chinese Canadians that they were too scared to vote.
As recently noted by Blacklock’s Reporter, Elections Canada said in a statement that “It would be impossible for us to make any kind of determination with certainty” about Alleslev’s claims. However, it noted that “we should note that there are safeguards present at every stage of the electoral process. Transparency is one of the key pillars of electoral democracy.”
“All poll workers sign a solemn declaration that they will be non-partisan while working at an election and protect the secrecy of the vote,” said Elections Canada, adding that it was their “job” to make it possible for “electors to vote in an orderly fashion.”
Elections Canada went on to admit that no background checks were conducted on volunteers, adding that it could not say for sure whether agents of the CCP infiltrated polls in the Aurora-Oak Ridges riding.
Alleslev lost the election and her seat to Liberal MP Leah Taylor Roy by 1,460 votes. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won the 2021 election by a narrow margin.
According to Alleslev’s affidavit, about “half the Chinese Canadian constituents she canvassed would tell Ms. Alleslev they were afraid to vote for her because they feared repercussions against themselves or their family members both in Canada and in China.”
“Some claimed they took the threat seriously because there were agents of the Chinese Communist Party working in the local Elections Canada office and in the polling stations or monitoring outside of the significantly reduced number of polling stations to watch who voted,” it read.
The Foreign Interference Commission was convened to “examine and assess the interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states or non-state actors, including any potential impacts, to confirm the integrity of, and any impacts on, the 43rd and 44th general elections (2019 and 2021 elections) at the national and electoral district levels.”
The commission is headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who had earlier said she and her lawyers will remain “impartial” and will not be influenced by politics. In January, Hogue said that she would “uncover the truth whatever it may be.”
As for Trudeau, he has praised China for its “basic dictatorship” and has labeled the authoritarian nation his favorite country other than his own.
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