Liberals appear to be increasing their lead but scandal may hurt them

In the last couple of days, polls show the Liberals extending their lead marginally over the Conservatives. The NDP decline appears to have halted and it has a marginal increase in support over the same period while Conservative support has dropped.

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The averages as reported by Eric Grenier's CBC poll tracker show the Liberals leading with 35.6 percent of the vote, an increase of 0.5 points from the last polls. The NDP had 23.8 percent support, up the same amount, 0.5. The Conservatives lost ground declining by 0.6 percent but still at 30.4 percent, well ahead of the NDP. The Liberals are also gaining in average seat projections with 140. The Conservatives are at 110 and the NDP trail with 86. During the last few days, there are at least two events that may help the NDP.

Mulcair has differentiated himself from both Harper and Trudeau by going on the attack against the giant Trans Pacific Partnership(TPP) trade deal during the later stages of his campaign. He has emphasized that the TPP may hurt the auto industry and dairy farming, the latter quite important in Quebec. He has also insisted the Canadian people should know what is in the text before the election. This is not to be. There is no final text as yet and will not be until after the election. However, the text could have been released with the parts that may change highlighted. International Trade Minister Ed Fast said the Conservatives would release the text before the election: International Trade Minister Ed Fast says the Conservative government will release the full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement before the election, so Canadians can have all the information they'll need to cast their ballot on Oct. 19.Instead the Privy Council Office agreed to hold a briefing on the TPP but those who attended had to swear to keep the information secret. Mulcair immediately rejected the offer since he could not reveal details as to what was in the deal:

"Every Canadian has the right to know what is in that trade deal before Monday. And I call on Stephen Harper to release the full text of the TPP so Canadians can vote accordingly."Kory Teneycke, spokesperson for the Conservative campaign said that at first the Liberals agreed to attend the briefing to be held on Friday but the NDP turned the offer down. The Liberals deny this and refer to a letter sent by Liberal candidate John McCallum, quite critical of Harper's lack of transparency and of Fast breaking his promise. The NDP's firm stance lately on the TPP coupled with the Conservative's continuing lack of transparency may help the NDP cause.

Another very recent event that could help the NDP is the resignation of Daniel Gagnier, who was co-chair of Trudeau's election campaign until he resigned to try and deflect attention from recent allegations:“The Canadian Press is reporting that Mr. Gagnier e-mailed TransCanada Corporation with privileged information about the size of the presumptive Liberal cabinet, the key people lobbyists should target in order to ensure the timely construction of the Energy East Pipeline.”

While Gagnier is not currently a registered lobbyist, he has been as recently as last year when he lobbied for the Calgary-based Energy Policy Institute(EPIC). The Conservatives are not likely to make too much fuss about Gagnier and his connections to the oil industry. Here is why:One of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s top advisors sat on the board of an energy industry-funded think tank while Bruce Carson allegedly illegally lobbied for the same organization, according to a court document filed by the RCMP. Daniel Gagnier, the Liberal party’s 2015 campaign co-chair, is currently president of the Energy Policy Institute of Canada (EPIC) which the RCMP alleges benefited from illegal lobbying by Carson, who was once acting chief of staff in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office. Gagnier was a vice chair of the organization during a portion of time that became the focus of the RCMP’s investigation into Carson’s activities. Emails obtained by the RCMP show that Gagnier even pushed EPIC’s agenda with Jean Charest who was premier of Quebec at the time.There is much more sordid detail here and here.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives like to cozy up to Big Energy. Perhaps in the last few days of the campaign many voters may decide that the NDP' s stand against this and Mulcair's defence of dairy farmers and the auto industry from the TPP is more significant than his support for a woman's right to wear a niqab while taking the citizenship oath. Note in the appended video how Justin Trudeau rails against Harper for his choice of people for key positions and to be around him.

New TPP regulations could hurt Canada Post and CBC

A new document leaked on Wikileaks indicates that State-owned enterprises (SOEs) would be severely restricted under the Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP) regulations.

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The rules would force SOE's to be run on the basis of "commercial considerations" and this could force them to give up public service mandates if these needed to be subsidized. Sujat Dey, of the Council of Canadians said; "The TPP will hinder our state-owned enterprises from acting in the public interest. The very mission of the CBC -- telling the bilingual and multicultural story of Canada -- will be reduced to simple profit-making. Likewise, Canada Post will no longer function as a nation builder, but as a private company. The essence and mandate of our Crown corporations are being traded away in favour of private corporate profit."

Both the CBC and Canada Post have been evolving in this direction over the last decades. The new rules will simply hasten the process. Garry Neil, also of the Council and a cultural policy expert said of the CBC:"Forbidding it from giving preference to Canadian producers undermines the Canadian content rules that ensure it remains an essentially Canadian service. All of this sets the stage for the privatization of the CBC, which has been the goal of the Harper government since it was first elected."The TPP will be the largest economic trade agreement in the world. The GDP of the 12 countries involved comprise more than 40 percent of global GDP.

Many have spoken out against the dangers of the TPP including Noam Chomsky who claims that it is "designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity." Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has also spoken out against the TPP as has liberal economist Paul Krugman. Economist Robert Reich said that the TPP is a "Trojan horse in a global race to the bottom, giving big corporations and Wall Street banks a way to eliminate any and all laws and regulations that get in the way of their profits."

Wikileaks released a letter that was to guide negotiators on how SOEs should be treated under the deal. SOEs would include public utilities, telecommunications providers, state-run investment companies, or even mining or energy companies that are state-owned. These SOEs are to operate "on the basis of commercial considerations." Jane Kelsey, a New Zealand law professor said:“SOEs are almost always state-owned because they have functions other than those that are merely commercial...such as guaranteed access to important services, or because social, cultural, development and commercial functions are inextricably intertwined.”Many developed nations have SOE's and in developing nations SOE's are important since they do not follow market or commercial principles that might disadvantage poorer citizens. Kelsey has a detailed analysis of the letter that can be found here.

The letter suggests that countries could be sued if an SOE is adversely affecting its interests: "... it suggests that a postal service, public telecommunications provider or state-owned bank that receives financial support from the government to deliver services into poor areas for social reasons could be challenged by a courier firm, satellite operator or internet bank from another country that says the support is adversely affecting it and hence its country’s interests."Kelsey suggests that the restriction of SOE's to operations on commercial principles results in structuring SOE's so that they could be easily privatized. As the appended video shows, once functions are privatized they cannot be taken back into public ownership. Those already in public ownership can no longer play a role outside commercial concerns. Of course all of this is very controversial since many countries may find it politically necessary to defend a wider role for their own SOE's. Powerful players will probably be able to negotiate exceptions for some of their own SOE's while the less powerful will be forced to yield. Fortunately. a recent meeting to finish the TPP broke up with no agreement.