Election Day: Trudeau Wants Vaccination for All; O’Toole Warns About Trudeau’s Track Record

(L-R) Green Party Leader Annamie Paul, Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole, Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, and People's Party Leader Maxime Bernier. (The Canadian Press/ Edited by The Epoch Times)

Hot-topic issues like the pandemic and vaccination, skyrocketing house prices, and indigenous reconciliation have driven the debate these past few weeks in the federal election campaign, and today voters will choose what matters most to them and who they think will actually deliver on their promises.

Party leaders concluded their campaigning on Sept. 19 with the following key messages.

Liberal Party

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau touted his party’s platform on Sept. 19, reaffirming his pledges on the platform’s main issues such as vaccination, climate change, a ban on “assault weapons,” indigenous reconciliation, and housing affordability.

“The only way through this pandemic is with vaccinations,” he said at a campaign stop in Winnipeg on the final day of the campaign. “We need to make sure that everyone gets vaccinated.”

He accused Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole of not having a plan for Canada’s economic recovery.

“Mr. O’Toole can’t pretend he has a plan for the economy and jobs of the future if he doesn’t have a plan to fight climate change,” he said.

Conservative Party

O’Toole held his final rally in Toronto on Sept. 19, where he called on attendees to vote for his party while reiterating the stakes of this election.

He reminded the crowd of Trudeau’s involvement in the WE Charity scandal, the “cover-ups” of sexual misconduct allegations in the military, and calling a $600 million election, which the Liberal leader promised not to do “only a couple of months” ago.

“Justin Trudeau does not learn from his mistakes and if he is rewarded on Monday, he will only continue to politicize the pandemic, but only worse than before,” O’Toole said.

“He will continue to drive up prices, but only worse, and yes he will call another election whenever he thinks he can win more power because he has already threatened to do that.”

NDP

In his final campaign stop in Burnaby, B.C., on Sept. 19, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh once again criticized Trudeau for causing the housing crisis in Canada.

“The average cost to buy a home nationally has gone up by $300,000 since he’s taken office—things have gotten worse,” Singh said.

He urged supporters to vote for his party if they want affordable housing, an end to fossil fuel emissions, and see “indigenous people get justice, clean drinking water, dignity, and respect.”

People’s Party

People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier tweeted on Sept. 19 that voting for his party is the “only way to stop the rise of authoritarianism in Canada.”

“Without a strong vote for the only real opposition tomorrow, governments will feel justified in crushing our freedoms and cracking down even more on dissidents as they do in Australia,” he wrote.

At a rally in Westlock, Ont., he told supporters that he will continue serving as the “real opposition” in Parliament even after the election.

“We know that our way of life is in danger, that we are losing our country at a rapid pace,” he said.

Green Party

Green Party Leader Annamie Paul pledged to end old-growth logging during a campaign stop in Victoria, B.C., on Sept. 18.

She said she would work with provincial jurisdictions on the issue in a co-operative and non-confrontational way.

“This is a collective future. There is no one place or one person or one jurisdiction who should be able to compromise that collective future,” Paul said.