Party leaders clash over COVID response, rights

Liberals and the NDP paint Tory leader as offside on abortion rights

OTTAWA—It may be a pandemic election, but for the first time the brutal toll of COVID-19 took centre stage on the hustings.

After five days where campaigns jostled and struggled to put forward a compelling message to engage Canadians, Liberals and NDP zeroed in on health care and staffing shortages that failed health workers, seniors and Canadian families.

A familiar political play was made to paint the Conservative leader as offside on abortion rights and medical assistance in dying.

And as election polls tightened, the latest tracking of public opinion polls by Vox Pop Labs and the Toronto Star showed no party or leader capturing the enthusiasm of voters.

The Liberals unveiled a plan to spend up to $9 billion over five years to hire 50,000 more personal support workers in longterm care and raise their wages to a $25 per hour minimum.

That would be in addition to $3 billion the Liberals have said they would spend to improve the standards and quality in long-term-care facilities, a promise they renewed. It would also require premiers to agree to take money with strings attached, on condition it be put toward the Liberals’ desired goals, because long-term care falls within provincial jurisdiction.

Justin Trudeau pointed to his record of working with provinces during the pandemic and said he would negotiate with premiers to further increase health transfers but specified no amount.

Provinces want the federal share of health spending to be ramped up to 35 per cent from 22 per cent — or an extra $28 billion a year immediately, with a six per cent yearly increase after that.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said “yes, absolutely” he would grant the provinces’ demands. But he did not specifically pledge to hand over the money unconditionally, as provinces and the Bloc Québécois have demanded.

The NDP has health priorities it wants to advance too, and Singh — who slammed Trudeau and Alberta’s conservative Premier Jason Kenney for health cuts — pledged he’d put $250 million toward a fund to hire 2,000 nurses — a clear step onto provincial turf, as is the NDP pledge to enact a universal, publicly delivered pharmacare program.

“If a province wants to invest in health care, we will be there. If a province wants to invest more for frontline health-care workers, we will be partners and work together with provinces and territories to deliver that,” Singh said outside an Edmonton hospital.

The Conservatives kept their focus on the affordable housing crisis, claiming their economic recovery plan would lead to the construction of a million homes in the next three years.

Leader Erin O’Toole would turn over federal property for housing development, tie money for urban transit to increased housing density, ban foreign investors from buying and being absentee homeowners, and relax mortgage stress tests.

O’Toole pointed to the Conservative platform pledge to increase the annual health transfer by six-per-cent — double the current yearly increase that was originally capped by Stephen Harper’s government.

But their rivals — particularly Liberals — took a page out of old political playbooks to claim important differences between the Erin O’Toole Conservative party and the others.

Liberals pointed to O’Toole’s promise to respect “conscience rights” of doctors and nurses who don’t want to participate in medically assisted dying, saying such a stand also threatens abortion rights.

But O’Toole, standing in a quiet suburban Ottawa neighbourhood, shot back that this time is different.

“What’s interesting about this election is all federal leaders are pro-choice. I’ve been crystal clear throughout my political career. I will be crystal clear as prime minister. I’m here to defend the rights of all Canadians,” O’Toole said.