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This is more than the pandemic election. It is about Afghanistan too.  

On the very the day Kabul fell to the Taliban – 15 August – the Prime Minister called an unnecessary election, two years early. 

Not perfect timing.

It is unusual for a foreign policy issue to intrude so dramatically into an election campaign but how can it not? 

Sanctuary for 20,000 Afghans

The Prime Minister’s promise to help 20,000 Afghans come to Canada never got off the ground, quite literally. The Americans told the Canadian military they needed the runway at Kabul airport to get their people out by 31 August so evacuations to Canada stopped. 

The promise that no Canadian would be left behind turned out to be hollow.

Now the Americans have gone, after 20 years and trillions of dollars and countless lives lost. It was a failed experiment in nation building in a country riven by tribal loyalties, feuding warlords and Islamic fundamentalists.

Imposing Western values

The West should never have gone into Afghanistan or, for that matter, Iraq. It is not our job to police or educate the world in our own likeness, impose our values or to save people from themselves.

If it were, we should be sending troops to Yemen or Somalia or any number of failed states around the globe. And if it didn’t work out as expected then the interventionist West would take in the casualties of the conflict.

On Sunday there was a thought-provoking opinion piece in the Toronto Star where Haroon Siddiqui called on Canada to take in 100,000 Afghans - should the Taliban allow them to leave. He says Canada took in 37,000 Hungarians after the 1956 uprising; 120,000 boat people post-Vietnam and about 50,000 Syrian refugees since 2015.

The displaced millions

In 2015 Germany - with a population more than twice that of Canada’s - allowed one million Syrians to settle if they were bona fide refugees. Incredibly, they had trekked from the Middle East through Turkey and across much of Europe to get there.

It was an astonishingly generous act to give sanctuary to so many. But what was the alternative? Turn them away?

In truth, the West’s nation-building interventions around the globe, often well-meaning and with a noble purpose, have proved disastrous, displacing millions of people who are now knocking on our door.

We may get the debate that Haroon Siddiqui wants.

But I rather doubt it.

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Update on 1 September 2021: from the Toronto Star: Hundreds still seek passage to Canada. And From the Globe and Mail: Left Behind.

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This is the pandemic election no-one wants and, if the pundits are correct, we could see a huge increase in the number of people voting by mail, determined to steer clear of Polling Stations.

Yesterday, Ontario’s chief medical officer, Dr Kieran Moore, told us the vaccination rate in the Province has stalled at around 75% and, as a result, we could be seeing 1,200 new daily covid cases by mid-September. To be safe he wants to see 90% vaccinated. 

It is hardly surprising then that Elections Canada is planning for up to 5 million people voting by mail – out of a pool of 27 million potential voters.

Mail-in voting

Here in Newmarket-Aurora in 2019 only 3.3% of voters cast a so-called “special ballot” which can be used by people who are away from their home riding or who are at home but prefer to vote by mail.  This was up from 2.5% in the Federal Election in 2015.

The Greens saw their mail-in ballot vote increase four fold. The NDP saw a 60% increase.

People who want to vote by mail in this election will be able to apply to Elections Canada by 6pm on Tuesday 14 September.

The numbers voting at Newmarket-Aurora’s four Advance Polling Stations soared from 10,675 in 2015 to 15,352 in 2019 – from 18.8% of the total votes cast to almost a quarter, 24.8%. In this election voting in advance starts on 10 September.

Practical Consequences

These changes in voting behaviour have practical consequences. For a big chunk of the Newmarket-Aurora electorate, the election campaign is effectively over on the day they vote. 

The political parties have to front-end their campaigns – identifying their likely supporters and getting their key messages across sooner rather than later.

The Conservatives and the NDP have already published their election programs but, mysteriously, the Liberals hold back, saying they will do this closer to the Party Leaders Debates on 8 and 9 September. 

Preparing the ground

I can see why the Liberals believe there is no rush - but they are dead wrong. Team Trudeau has spent months preparing the ground, releasing new (or re-packaged) policy proposals, but most people only sit up and take notice once the campaign is under way.

The Newmarket Chamber of Commerce tell me they plan to host a candidates debate on the core issues affecting the business community and, more broadly, the economy and it will be virtual. I applaud the Chamber for taking the initiative and how I wish other groups would organise their own debates, as the climate change watchdog, Drawdown, did in 2019. 

Debates are important

Election debates are important – though I believe the virtual format, while necessary at the moment, is very much second best. They tell us if candidates can think on their feet. They tell us if candidates are familiar with current issues and have a grasp of policy detail without having to leaf through huge ring binders on the table in front of them. But the questions they are asked by the moderators are important too. 

No patsy questions please! And allow the candidates to quiz each other.

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The Elections Canada office for Newmarket-Aurora is at 16655 Yonge Street, Suite 4, Newmarket L3X 1V6. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update 25 August 2021: The authoritative polling aggregator 338canada.com has now moved Newmarket-Aurora out of the likely Liberal win category to a toss-up between the Liberals and the Conservatives.

Update on 29 August 2021: from the Globe and Mail: Mail-in ballots are changing how parties run their campaigns

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The Liberal Candidate for Newmarket-Aurora, Tony Van Bynen, touts himself as someone deeply concerned about health issues. 

He was on Southlake’s Board for nine years. 

So why is he refusing to comment on the dire situation in Southlake Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit which has been described as “a travesty of modern health care” by the hospital’s medical director of critical care services, Dr Barry Nathanson?

Excited

Van Bynen says he was excited to be appointed to the Commons Standing Committee on Health “as health is an important issue in Newmarket-Aurora”.  

He trills he is

“honoured to represent Newmarket-Aurora’s health priorities…”

His flyer tells us:

“This will be a great opportunity to think back on my days as a board member for Southlake Regional Health Centre and voice our community’s health priorities and concerns.”

It is clear from the reporting that the crisis has been many years in the making so what did Van Bynen do about it? If anything.

Crisis in Intensive Care

When was he first made aware of the crisis in intensive care? Was he concerned? What representations did he make? And to whom? And to what effect?

If we can't get answers to these simple straightforward questions in an election campaign - where Van Bynen is running as the voice of Newmarket-Aurora on health issues - then we never will.

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Update on 1 September 2021 from Newmarket Today: nurses demonstrate outside office of Christine Elliott

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This is the election no-one seems to want except the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. He believes a short, sharp election campaign will deliver the result he craves. A Liberal majority in Parliament. 

The campaign is designed to be a mad dash to the finishing line. 

Polling day is, of course, 20 September 2021 with advance polling on Friday 10 – Monday 13 September. Elections Canada won’t even be publishing the list of confirmed candidates until 1 September 2021.

That said, we know at least some of the people who will be running for election here in Newmarket-Aurora.

Tony Van Bynen, the sitting MP, was out of the trap first, opening his new Campaign Office opposite Southlake Hospital, just a heartbeat after the writ was dropped. Perfect timing. Perfect location. Perfect planning. Or is it?

Van Bynen and the nurses

Van Bynen is a member of the Commons Health Committee but he hasn’t told us if he believes Southlake’s team-based nursing model in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit is potentially dangerous – as the nurses allege. Now is the opportune time for the nurses to drop in on the great man and get his views.

Van Bynen, the old banker, has secrecy in his DNA. He tells us only what he thinks we should know.

Astonishingly, in 2019 Van Bynen was the only candidate to throw his hat into the ring to fill the vacancy created when the sitting Liberal MP, Kyle Peterson, announced he would not be standing again after only one term in Parliament. Van Bynen saw an opening and immediately joined the Liberal Party and went on to defeat the riding’s former Conservative MP, Lois Brown by 3,236 votes. 

Fresh Face for the Conservatives

The Conservatives are fielding Harold Kim, their new standard-bearer who takes over from the veteran Lois Brown who bravely sought the Conservative nomination again but was defeated by Kim, the Deputy Mayor of Aurora. 

The NDP candidate is Yvonne Kelly who has been round the track before. She was the Party’s candidate in 2015 and again in 2019. Clearly, she hopes it will be third time lucky.

The embattled Greens have a new candidate, Tim Flemming, who takes over from the excellent Walter Bauer. We shall soon see if the Greens, engulfed in Party infighting, can get through to the voters on their core message, what's happening to our planet.

The People’s Party of Canada has a new candidate, Lana Morgan, who replaces the engagingly innocent Andrew McCaughtrie. In 2019 he told us it was really difficult being on a public platform, trying to give replies to questions which he didn’t always understand.

In the run up to the 2019 Federal Election members of Newmarket-Aurora’s Liberal Party signed his nomination papers to help him reach the required number of supporters to get on the ballot paper. Votes going to the PPC might otherwise have gone to the Conservatives and the Liberals wanted to do everything they could to syphon votes away from Lois Brown. In that, they succeeded.

Liberals not guaranteed a majority

At the moment, the CBC’s poll tracker puts the Liberal Party’s chances of winning a majority of seats in the House of Commons at 51%. (There are no polls specific to the Newmarket-Aurora riding so we must extrapolate from data collected elsewhere.)

The probability of the Liberals winning most seats but not a majority is put at 43%.  And the probability of the Conservatives winning the most seats is put at 6%.

But these are early days and public opinion is notoriously fickle.

Focus on the Leader

Elections these days are focussed on the Party leader. Local candidates can make a difference but only at the margins.

If the tide is going out for a political party it will take their candidates, good, bad and indifferent, with it.

In the Ontario Provincial election in 2018, voters had made their minds up they wanted to get rid of Kathleen Wynne even though they weren’t really sold on the PC leader, Doug “Buck-a-Beer" Ford. 

The sitting Liberal MPP for Newmarket-Aurora, Chris Ballard, widely regarded as competent and a safe pair of hands, was swept out to sea with all the rest, coming in third behind the NDP.

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Updated on 21 August 2021 with candidates' profiles from Newmarket Today. Also... Conservatives open Campaign Office on Main Street.

Updated on 25 August 2021 with profile of Tim Flemming from Newmarket Today.

Updated on 31 August 2021: From Newmarket Today: On the Campaign Trail

Updated on 3 September 2021: Party Support in Newmarket-Aurora

Updated on 21 September 2021: The Election Result in Newmarket-Aurora

Updated on 23 September 2021: Will the mail-in ballots change the provisional result of the Federal Election in Newmarket-Aurora?

 

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The big news of the day is not the Federal Election, now confirmed for 20 September, but the fall of Kabul and the implosion of the Afghan Government.  

Only on Friday Canada promised sanctuary to 20,000 Afghan refugees but, with the collapse of the Government in Kabul, how do they get out?

More than 40,000 members of Canada’s military served in Afghanistan from 2001-2014 – and 158 tragically lost their lives there. Canada’s combat role ended in 2011. The Canadians initially served alongside the British in Kandahar, scene of some of the bloodiest fighting. Britain lost 453 service personnel before it too ended its combat mission in October 2014, three years after Canada. (Britain has now fought four wars in Afghanistan; the first three as an imperial power.)

Shocking but not surprising

The speed of the collapse of the Afghan Army was shocking but not surprising. Two years ago, the Washington Post published a treasure trove of information and interviews which described attempts to create an Afghan Army as a “long-running calamity”. The Afghan security forces were described by those with first-hand knowledge as 

incompetent, unmotivated, poorly trained, corrupt and riddled with deserters and infiltrators.

Illiteracy in the Afghan Army - even amongst the officers - was a huge issue. 

The Americans have spent billions on reconstruction but much of it is money down the drain.

Afghanistan is, at every level, deeply corrupt.

"Nation building" by the West was never going to work.

Many years ago, I recall an Afghanistan MP, a medical doctor, telling me over dinner of the big pipe from Kabul to Dubai with US dollars being shovelled in at one end and cascading out at the other, making corrupt Afghan politicians millionaires overnight. 

The image stayed with me.

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In Afghanistan today 45% of men and 70% of women are illiterate.

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