A pot full of promises, with holes in the polls
Comedian Steve Patterson looks at promises made during an infinitely long election campaign
As we enter what feels like week 107 of this election, it's important to note three things:
- Mercifully, there are only two weeks left.
- From here on in, the promises are only going to get more ridiculous.
- Political polls are as reliable as a Volkswagen emissions test.
On the first point, credit where credit is due, all three major party leaders have campaigned relentlessly, appearing from coast to coast to coast at such a pace it appears they have harnessed Star Trek transporter technology. Which is especially impressive for Tom Mulcair and Justin Trudeau, since the Conservatives were expected to be the only ones who could afford such technology going in.
- Steve Patterson: French leaders' debate: Lost in translation, or just lost?
- Mark Critch: If eyes are windows to the soul, what's the big deal with the niqab?
As for the promises, well, there are too many to mention involving amounts that are too unrealistic to be fact-checked. I haven't heard anyone say "ka-zillion" yet. But it wouldn't surprise me.
Still, one of them made this past week by Trudeau stood out. Because it didn't promise a pot of gold. Just the pot.
Trudeau vowed that if elected he would immediately set to work on a policy for legalizing marijuana. He believes this would make Canadian marijuana smokers and young people alike safer via a regulated market (with the added bonus of tax coffers getting higher than the new legal marijuana coughers contributing into it).
Has he done the research on this? I'm not sure. But he has admitted to smoking marijuana after he became an MP. Which might be the most honest thing said by any of the leaders on the campaign trail yet.
And if this tactic works, who knows? He may have mobilized Canada's avid marijuana smokers to vote Liberal on Oct. 19 — if they remember to vote that day.
The promise was met with harsh words by Stephen Harper, who said marijuana is "infinitely worse" than cigarette smoking. A statement that is of course "infinitely subjective" and thus "infinitely useless." But Harper claimed to have "overwhelming and growing scientific and medical evidence about the bad long-term effects of marijuana." Which would be pretty ironic given that his treatment of Canadian scientists has left us without overwhelming scientific evidence of anything.
Meanwhile, Mulcair is all for "decriminalizing" pot. Which is different from legalizing it, for reasons I don't quite understand, other than that the NDP and the Liberals have to prove they are "different" at every opportunity.
This latest promise by Trudeau comes on the heels of his continued pledge to run "modest $10-billion deficits" for the first few years he is prime minister. Which sort of makes sense. A $10-billion deficit is only "modest" to those who are smoking more than modest amounts of marijuana.
A city of infinite jobs!
Still, Trudeau's pot promise isn't much more hallucinogenic than Harper's promise to create "1.3 million more Canadian jobs by the year 2020." At least he's not throwing around the "infinite" word again here, but given current economic conditions it's an infinitely bold claim. That's the size of a major Canadian city!
Is Harper planning on starting his own city if re-elected? Where everybody is a business owner who pays minimal taxes, supports military action as long as it buys Canadian equipment and treats the environment as a business obstacle that must be overcome? Because if that is what he is banking on, the province that may have supported that for the last four decades has recently switched teams and realized it was time for change.
Meanwhile, Mulcair continues to make "unpopular promises," such as fighting Harper on the niqab issue in Quebec (unpopular, for some reason, with many Quebec voters), saying he will raise corporate taxes by two percentage points (unpopular, not surprisingly, with many corporations) and continuing to promise to "abolish the Senate" (unpopular with Canadian senators and those counting on being named senators in the future). He has also promised $15-a-day child care to provinces that want it (unpopular with provinces that enjoy paying more for daycare).
Which brings us to the polls. When this election began (an infinite time ago) it was described as a "three-way race," with many polls putting the NDP in the lead, the Conservatives a close second and Liberals a close third. As of Oct. 1, however, three different polls had three different results.
The Angus Reid Institute (my favourite polling organization name because it reminds me of gourmet meat) had Conservatives with 34 per cent of decided voters and the Liberals and NDP's deadlocked at 27 per cent with a 2.5 per cent margin of error. Meanwhile Nanos Research (apparently founded by Robin Williams's "Mork" character) had the Liberals with 33.5 per cent, the Conservatives with 31.9 per cent and the NDP with 25.9 per cent, with a 2.8 per cent margin of error. Then there was Innovative Research (it's like other research companies, but innovative) had the Liberals at 31 per cent and the Conservatives and NDP deadlocked at 29 per cent with their margin of error listed as "n/a." So either this last group's innovation in research is that they are absolutely perfect, or they have no idea how wrong they are.
All of this is to say, these polls are wrong. Not just because the very necessity of a "margin of error" is an admission by the companies themselves they are wrong, but also because anyone who shares their opinion on how they are going to vote to a random pollster is quite likely lying. Open-minded Canadians are still weighing their options. Close-minded Canadians are not representative of the majority of voters. As well, during the last long-form census (R.I.P.), when asked to list their religion, 21,000 Canadians listed "Jedi." True story. (May the force be with every one of them.)
So to all the party leaders, keep on partying, keep on promising and pay no attention to those polls. It's still anyone's election to win (or lose).
As long as every Canadian who can (pot smoker or not) remembers to vote on Oct. 19.
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