In this Federal Election, the Butter Has Now Hit the Side of the Churn.

With the debates all in and the election just ten days away, what kind of Canada do we want into the future, and which party leader is best able to lead us there?

The thunder of Donald Trump continues to hang over our heads, questioning the sovereignty of our country.

Today, the Against the Flow blog is setting out the main things we value about our country and why our leadership should help us to further advance them.

It may be a surprise to some but at the top of our blog’s list is something that has not been talked about sufficiently in the current election campaign – our arts and cultural sector. This blog is picking just a few parts of the cultural sector. This is not a definitive list. We hope, though, it is enough to give us another reason to be patriotic.

Think back to our terrific contributions to the world, beginning with music. People of a “certain age” will remember Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah; Gordon Lightfoot’s In the Early Morning Rain; Ian & Sylvia’s Four Strong Winds; Edith Butler’s Paquetville;  William Prince’s, That’s All I’ll Ever Become; Great Big Sea’s Ordinary Day, Rose Cousins’  The Benefits of Being Alone, Gilles Vigneault’s Mon Pays; The BareNaked Ladies’, If I Had a Million Dollars; and finally,  and perhaps most memorably, Joni Mitchell, and her quintessential cold nation song, River: “I Wish I Had a River I Could Skate Away On.”  What a rich musical history we have!!

Then, in the visual arts, consider the deep contribution of Atlantic area artists such as Molly Lamb & Bruno Bobak, Millar Brittain, Fred Ross, Alex Colville, Mary & Christopher Pratt, Ivan Gallant, Hermenegilde Chiasson, Mario Doucette, to name a few.

Beyond the arts and culture theme, a key feature of Canada is the country’s bilingual and bicultural heritage, which is enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for both the country as a whole and New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual and bicultural province. 
The diversity of the country is also vital, welcoming newcomers into the mosaic of our nation, not the “melting pot” of the nation to the South.

Also contributing hugely to the nation’s cultural strength is the public broadcaster, CBC/Radio Canada, which is the backbone of the country’s Free Press. This institution is not perfect, but we must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. U.S. President Donald Trump makes an unforgivable error in dismissing a free press as mere “Fake News.” We need to toughen competition legislation, so Canada’s media are sheltered from control by U.S. based tech giants. 

A key pillar of our country’s reputation as a caring and compassionate society is our universal Medicare system. Always in need of greater funding, Medicare nonetheless provides a guarantee that personal wealth is not a requirement for Canadian citizens who are unwell to receive medical care, particularly in cases of life-threatening illness. Preventative health care is always a challenge, but during the COVID pandemic our Public Health system proved that it far surpasses what is available South of the border. 

Our business and private enterprise economy is highly vulnerable to Trump’s assault. We need stronger world markets for our products and stand up against the U.S. President’s erratically imposed challenges to our sovereignty. We also need to deepen free trade across our own country and increase at a much faster rate our defence spending in line with the NATO stipulation of two per cent of GDP. We do not want to become warmongers, but the U.S. has a great hold over us because we are so dependent on its miliary shield. 

The protection of our environment and the fight against climate change also have not received adequate attention during the campaign; in fact, both Trump and Pierre Poilievre have never recognized the threat to our planet from climate change. Young voters, who hope to inherent a healthy planet, are especially sensitive to the climate issue, and any party that ignores this issue will, before long, suffer from a lack of support at the polls.
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Now, the various political leaders and how their parties measure up on policy areas:

Ironically, the leader who has had the most to say on arts and culture is Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, the one who wants to break Canada in two. Along with Acadiens, Quebecois, being a French-speaking minority in North America, have always held uppermost in their hearts their language and culture. 

From Gilles Vigneault to Felix LeClerc to Robert Charlebois, the Quebecois have enjoyed their singers. Blanchet tapped into the deep cultural importance of hockey to Quebecois and their “Habs” when he persuaded the powers-that-be to advance the time of the election’s French language debate to accommodate television viewing of the NHL team’s successful bid to make the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2021. Liberal Leader Mark Carney has also played a hockey card, noting he was a hockey goalie, and is a fan of the Edmonton Oilers.

Carney and Blanchet also teamed up to support CBC-Radio Canada. Carney has promised to increase annual funding to the public broadcaster by $150 million. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre reiterated in the English language debate his intention to “defund” the CBC, while increasing funding to Radio-Canada. As noted previously in this blog, Poilievre’s “suggestion backfired on both sides of the Canadian linguistic divide.” He clearly mistrusts our country’s traditional media and has drastically curtailed reporters’ access to him during the campaign.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been the strongest defender of our Canadian Medicare. The New Democrat Leader has noted the origin of the system with the government of former CCF (forerunner of the NDP) Premier Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan. Singh has cited repeatedly his party’s role in “pushing” the former Trudeau government on universal daycare, the system of dentalcare for the young and seniors, and the partial pharmacare program.

The area where Liberal Leader, and current Prime Minister Mark Carney has excelled has been in Canada’s strong stance against Donald Trump’s tariffs and his assault on Canadian sovereignty. Carney refused to speak with Trump until the American president ceased threatening to make Canada the 51st state and referring to our Prime Minister as “Governor.”  Carney’s forthright handling of the Trump threats won him a commitment to engage in diplomatic talks to renew the current trade arrangements between the two counties, and potentially Mexico as well. 

Carney make a clear statement in his first week as Prime Minister in going to see the leaders of France and Great Britain about his intention to open trade relations with Britain and Europe, and bring down our overwhelming reliance on trade with the United States. Carney’s response to the Trump threat has given many voters the sense that he has a steady hand at the tiller.

By contrast, through much of the campaign Poilievre continued with his “Axe the Tax” rhetoric and was on his back foot about how to deal with his ideological compatriot Trump. Late in the campaign, Poilievre began to sound more like a Prime Minister-in-waiting, moderating the harsh tone which proved popular when Justin Trudeau was leading the country. At first, Poilievre appeared to gasp for political air when Trudeau left the scene.

 Carney has also seen the value in other areas, such as in treating the whole of the country as “one economy,” that would benefit from achieving free trade among the provinces.

In recent years, the need for action on climate change has become clear, with forest fires even destroying part of Jasper, one of our finest National Parks, and storms and flooding damaging other parts of the country. Environment and Climate Change have clearly not received as much attention as necessary. Carney’s first decision in government was the elimination of the consumer tax on carbon. Although this is somewhat of a defeat for climate change policy, it was a deft move, stealing the thunder of Poilievre, who now even proposes to axe the corporate tax on carbon, as well. 

The Green Party would be a natural one for young voters to find a home, but the influence of this party has been drastically reduced as shown by its failure to qualify for the campaign debates.

Summary

Barring unforeseen developments in the final days of the campaign, Mark Carney and the Liberals appear to have made a stunning comeback, now enjoying a lead of close to six percentage points over Poilievre’s Conservatives. Carney appears to have overcome the impression he does not appear to be fighting to keep his job. After the two debates he went right out on the campaign trail, including a major rally planned for Monday in New Brunswick. The rise of the Liberals has taken support away from the NDP, which is only drawing about eight per cent in the polls, not enough for the party to keep official status. As result, despite a strong campaign, the future of Jagmeet Singh as leader could be in doubt. The Conservatives have been divided through the campaign, and Poilievre’s angry, attack-dog approach still rankles with many voters.

 However, the Conservative vote share has picked up slightly very recently, and in the Prairie provinces and in English-speaking pockets of Atlantic Canada, Poilievre still has a firm base. This is over-ridden by the collapse of the NDP vote, and the fact the Liberals have surged back in Quebec, taking away support from the Bloc and the Conservatives. 

Romeo LeBlanc, the late Governor-General of Canada, previously a Cabinet Minister and a former Radio Canada journalist, said it is possible to tell when “The butter has hit the side of the churn” in an election campaign. In 2025, as the butter begins hitting the churn, Mark Carney and his Liberals appear to be headed for victory and a majority government.