Canada PoliticsToronto centre byelection is becoming a spirited affair
There's actually another incredible political battle brewing in Toronto.
This one doesn't include drugs, booze and prostitutes but it has been linked to Sarah Palin, Hugo Chavez, Margaret Thatcher and the much-maligned practice of outsourcing jobs to Asia.
This battle is the federal byelection campaign in Toronto centre which wraps up on November 25th.
While early opinion polls had given the Liberal's Chrystia Freeland a comfortable lead, it's clear that the NDP believe in their candidate, Linda McQuaig.
Thomas Mulcair's party has come out 'with guns blazing.'
On Wednesday, the NDP released this statement accusing Freeland of being responsible for sending 22 Canadian jobs to Asia as a senior manager with Reuters.
When Justin Trudeau introduced Chrystia Freeland as an economic advisor on September 17th, he described her as a “tremendous source of strength and expertise for us” He added: “This is about building the kind of solutions and platform that we need to offer Canadians in 2015”.
What Trudeau didn’t tell you about was Freeland’s extensive experience at shipping middle class jobs out of Canada. Ten days before Christmas 2011, Reuters management announced that 22 jobs at its online desk, in the riding of Toronto Centre, were going to Bangalore.
The Liberals can’t be trusted when it comes to the middle class. Through their records in the 90s where they cut the social services that Canadians rely on, through the last ten years where they advocated for reckless corporate tax cuts, the Liberals have made their well-connected friends their priority.
The Liberal Party takes Canadians for granted.
They then followed up with this statement about Freeland and former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Speaking on CBC, Freeland outlined how Margaret Thatcher’s policies mean no outsourcing of jobs, but shipping good middle class jobs overseas now is just what smart managers do.
When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, you couldn't have workers in India and China do the jobs that people in the UK were doing. Now… that’s what smart business people have to do.
– Chrystia Freeland, Lang and O’Leary Exchange, April 8, 2013Freeland went even further and declared what the Liberal Party of Canada really needs is another Margaret Thatcher.
Liberals need their own Margaret Thatcher, and they haven't found her yet.
– Chrystia Freeland, Globe and Mail, Apr 11 2013
The New Democrats were also gleefully tweeting a link of an old Freeland article titled 'Sarah Palin is a true feminist role model.'
And, also on Wednesday evening, during an all-candidates debate, McQuaig chided her opponent for living in the United States.
“You’ve been there in Manhattan, you know, hanging out with the rich," the NDP candidate said, according to iPolitics.
"Meanwhile, here in Toronto Centre — in Regent Park and St. James Town — people are feeling the real impacts of income inequality."
[ Related: Is Justin Trudeau being muzzled? ]
The Liberals haven't been angels either and have been taking advantage of the fact that McQuaig was a former journalist as well.
They've been tweeting a 2004 photo of McQuaig with former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
Oh, wow. #torcen pic.twitter.com/mDUpIpd09T
— Adam Goldenberg (@adamgoldenberg) November 10, 2013
Some of the tweets pointed to a recent article where McQuaig describes the controversial socialist figure — who many in the west considered a tyrant — as a "feisty mix of Robin Hood, Che Guevara and Michael Bublé straddling the world stage."
This week, a Liberal MP also tweeted a link to another McQuaig article where the NDP candidate derides the Ontario government's 2010 decision to condemn Israeli Apartheid Week at Ontario university campuses.
And then there's this:
Well, um, this is awkward. #TorCen pic.twitter.com/68MqPj19Er — Adam Goldenberg (@adamgoldenberg) November 10, 2013
It might not be as entertaining as the daily revelations of the mayor's alleged wrongdoing and his potty-mouthed apologies but — in its own right — the Toronto centre byelection has become a nasty fight.
[ Related: Sun News gives Toronto Mayor Rob Ford his own TV show ]
It's become nasty because it's an important battle for both the Liberals and the NDP. The riding has been a Liberal stronghold since 1993 — if Trudeau loses it, it could be an embarrassing blow to both him and the party.
For their part, the NDP have remained in third position in recent opinion polls — Mulcair needs a big win heading into the 2015 election campaign.
The question is — with all the Rob Ford drama — how many people in Toronto are paying attention and will actually go out to vote?
(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)
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