Camp Justin

With the Canadian federal election now less than a month away -- polling day is October 21 -- the main parties are wheeling out a variety of expensive policy proposals that have one thing in common: the parties are very tight-lipped about how they plan to pay for all this largesse. The Conservatives are, predictably enough, promising to cut taxes; the NDP promises to roll out a national pharma-care programme; and the Green Party wants to beef up Canada's efforts to combat climate change.

And the Liberals?  Well, for the most part, they're promising to carry on with what they've been doing for the past four years, running fiscal deficits in order to offer a little of everything.  There are targeted tax cuts (for the amorphous "middle class", of course); a patchwork fill-in-the-gaps pharma-care programme; and a piecemeal approach to climate change centred on a carbon tax that is fiercely opposed by some Provinces.

But there's also this: Justin Trudeau took a ride in a canoe in Northern Ontario this week and then announced his government, if re-elected, would spend $150 million to create "bursaries" to allow 75,000 families to spend a few days camping in a national or provincial park.  This is an idea that nobody can love, so it would be no surprise if it gets very little mention for the rest of the campaign.  Trudeau already has a reputation among a wide swathe of the electorate as a spendthrift, and this scheme surely serves as proof of that, And even for those (like me) who think the fiscal situation is perfectly manageable, it calls into question Trudeau's sense of priorities.  If you want to spend an extra 150 mil' to benefit young people, there are better uses for it: education, medical research, clean water for indigenous communities....

Out on the Campaign trail, Trudeau is behaving as though the whole blackface scandal never happened, and there are signs that he may get away with it.  If his aim now is to reset his image as a serious leader of the country, this wacky bursary scheme is a thoroughly weird way to go about it.