Below are a few updates on recent issues
Trump wants to buy Greenland
Historically, buying large tracts of land from another country was common practice, be it the Louisiana purchase in 1804 from the French and Alaska purchase in 1867 from the Russians. However, that was during the era of colonialism and whatever benefits or down sides of US buying Greenland, it is not Trump’s to decide. In a liberal democracy, people get to decide who governs them so the only way Greenland ever joins US is if the majority of its people vote in favour of joining the US, which I think there is almost zero chance of happening. So while good laughs, it is a dumb idea and I seriously doubt it will ever happen. Also suggests Trump thinks money comes ahead of popular will which it does not.
Ford gas stickers
Ford is mandating all gas stations at every gas pump have stickers showing the federal hike in carbon tax or face a $10,000 fine a day. Whatever one thinks of the carbon tax, this is a clear abuse of power and waste of taxpayer’s money. This likely violates the charter on free speech and it is not the job of gas stations to do Ford’s bidding on the carbon tax. Even Alberta and Saskatchewan premiers who oppose carbon tax will not go this far. Hopefully a court challenge succeeds and hopefully Ford accepts the ruling and doesn’t use the notwithstanding clause. What is also troubling is why no one in caucus is speaking out. Lets remember that had Patrick Brown not had his downfall, Ontario would have a carbon tax and the vast majority of candidates signed up to run when Patrick Brown was still leader, so did their views really change on carbon tax or are they just afraid to stand up to the bully. Likewise Ford is hurting Scheer federally and I think this just keeps him in the news. Trudeau deserves to lose, but I fear he is favoured to be re-elected for the simple reason; Ontario is the largest province and people really don’t like Ford there and everytime he is in the news, he reminds many of the risks of voting Conservative despite the fact Scheer is different than Ford.
Lavscam
Early polls suggest the damning ruling from the ethics commissioner is having zero impact on public opinion. While it is early and often bombshells take time before the full impact is seen; I would not be surprised if this has no impact. For those who already dislike Trudeau, this just further re-enforces their viewpoint, but for those who support him, it would have to be something a lot worse to shake them loose. Never mind elections aren’t about voting for the ideal candidate; its about voting for the best or least bad and a lot of people are still weary the Conservatives are too far to the right. I don’t think Scheer will be a right wing extremist, but the party is going to have to deal with this perception if they want any chance at forming government this fall.
Citizenship revocation on Jihadi John
UK has revoked the citizenship of Jihadi John who is a dual British/Canadian despite being born in UK and living his whole life there. I believe we should protest this as this is a supposed ally dumping their problems on us which is not fair. Some say Trudeau should have left in place Harper’s law to revoke such citizenship, but I believe the reverse could have happened. My view is terrorist should have dual citizenship revoked, but only if they were not born in the country revoking it and are not a present resident of that country. If either of those two, it just creates problems. A better solution would be to do away with dual citizenship altogether. Many people get dual citizenship due to different citizenship rules as most of the Old World does citizenship based on parent’s nationality while most of the New World based on place of birth. While it may be difficult and I am not sure if workable, I do think the idea should be explored. Requiring one to renounce their citizenship upon becoming Canadian or revoking one’s Canadian if as an adult they take out another are possibilities. Likewise for those born with dual, one possibility is by age 21, one must decide which one they want. Admittedly this is a difficult issue and I am on the fence here, but perhaps a committee should look at this and maybe getting rid of dual citizenship is a good idea as a committee recommended back in 1993 or maybe it is not. I don’t know, but this is a good time to have a review of it.
afiscalconservativepointofview 
I think the fact that it’s still summer and politics isn’t at the forefront of people’s minds might have something to do with the lack of interest in SNC II Electric Boogaloo. Issue fatigue as well; it does have a very “but his emails” tinge to it at this point and people are sick of it. They want to talk about bread-and-butter issues as the election gets closer. Neither Scheer nor Singh have any plan other than slagging Trudeau, while the media just makes themselves the story with more hot takes about his “brand.” The more Scheer keeps thumping the “lock him up” drum and calling the cops on Trudeau, the more he sounds like Trump. A CPC spokesperson told Vassy Kapelos for one of the CBC Election newsletters that the Tories weren’t going to overplay their hand. That aged well. Now Scheer comes across as pulling the same kind of political interference in the justice system that he’s accusing Trudeau of committing.
Whether you think Scheer is akin to Ford or not, he did tell the National Post that they “share the same goals,” a quote that will haunt him for the rest of his career, since Ford has irreparably damaged the Conservative name in Ontario. Campaigning with the infamous tag team didn’t help Harper in 2015 either. Oddly enough, one of the things that Ford did was to appoint cronies to the OPP and turn it into his own personal Praetorian Guard — then fired the cop who tried to stop him from doing it. *THAT* is interference in the justice system point blank, and something that regular people can understand. Nobody cares about the Shawcross doctrine and even Americans didn’t care about the anticlimactic Mueller report. This isn’t Watergate North as much as the opposition wishes it were so. At the end of the day it amounts to a technical foul.
Most people’s initial outrage about this matter had more to do with populist resentment over protecting corporations (cf. “too big to fail”), and bad-faith, simplistic identity-politics takes accusing Trudeau of being a bad feminist who fired a female whistleblower (and a precedent-setting Indigenous woman at that). But hyperbolic insinuations from sensationalist pundits and the Internet chatterati likening him to other bad men whose names were also in the headlines — Brett Kavanaugh and Keith Rainere in particular (and Trump) — were so ludicrous as to be offensive. Andrew Coyne even quoted from the Manchurian Candidate (“Justin Trudeau is the kindest, warmest…” etc.) to imply that the Liberal Party was a cult. Rachel Curran questioned whether he slept with half the cabinet. When people start comparing this academic exercise in legalese to *rape* (“he pressured her and she said no”) is when women get angry and tune out. The Conservatives and the pundit class did this to themselves by making a volcano out of a mole hill. Or a Lifetime movie out of a Judge Judy (Judge Jody?) episode. This isn’t Law & Order SVU. They wanted so desperately for this to be Trudeau’s blue dress moment and came up wanting. They went full tabloid. You never go full tabloid.
Trudeau got a very harsh lesson in how the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and I doubt he’ll opt for another “because it’s 2019” identity-focused cabinet should he win in October. (If he does, he’d be foolish, and I say that even as a female myself.) But Scheer has demonstrated a spectacular ineptitude and inability to respond proportionately to issues and crises that come across his desk. Like I said I like Trudeau on balance and think he’s the better of a poor lot, but it’d be nice if he had a worthwhile opposition. Pierre got to match wits with Stanfield and Lewis. Justin gets a Keystone Cop and his AWOL sidekick. I miss the PCs.
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I agree so far the ethics commissioner report isn’t having an impact, but probably for three reasons
1. Much of the opinion on this is baked in
2. Scheer is more well known and I’ve noticed a lot of Liberals are less fans of Trudeau and more don’t want Scheer, mind you in general I think most Tory and Liberal voters are more about keeping out the other and less about voting for their chosen party.
3. It’s summer and people are not paying attention.
I doubt it will be fatal, that being said an RCMP investigation could change things, but don’t think that will happen.
As for opposition reaction, that is typical of any scandal and so while some may find it over the top, you would have seen that had roles been reversed. Usually the outrage anyways is more aimed at the rabid partisans not swing voters who have a low trust of politicians in general. In terms of campaign, I suspect much like Harper in 2006, I don’t think this will be the main attacking point of the Tories. Their focus will be on affordability. Now whether it will succeed or not is a different story. Scheer is not exactly the most impressive leader and there are lingering doubts he is a little too right wing so he will need to deal with those if he wants any chance.
As for Ford, he has definitely hurt the party, but the exact degree depends on how prominently he plays in the campaign. In 2004, McGuinty brought in the unpopular employer’s health tax and that initially really hurt federal Liberal brand in Ontario, but Paul Martin was able to turn that around by running hard hitting attack ads against Harper so it is possible to change the channel although Ford’s unpopularity is probably going to have some impact, just a question of degree.
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