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WELCOME TO OTTAWA PLAYBOOK. I’m your host, Nick Taylor-Vaisey with POLITICO Canada’s Andy Blatchford. Today, we explain Quebec's debate about the English-language leaders' debate that's simmering under the noses of most Canadians. Plus, we catch up with Catherine McKenna in her hometown of Hamilton. And David Coletto talks up every party's crucial mission to get out the vote.

VIOLENCE ON THE TRAIL — A Liberal candidate in northern Ontario was pinned against a wall by a 56-year-old woman who police say stormed into a Sudbury campaign office — and now faces an assault charge. MARC SERRÉ, the incumbent in Nickel Belt, was later again confronted by the woman when he was in his car.

— It's crazy this needs to be said: Police urged frustrated residents to be respectful. "Political figures are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, just like anyone else."

RALLY CAPS — JUSTIN TRUDEAU rallied last night in Brampton, Ont., a convenient gathering spot near YYZ before the Liberal tour headed to the Maritimes. The sheer size of the indoor rally — reported to be 400, which the party insisted was within the rules — raised some eyebrows.

THE DEBATE DEBATE — The 2021 campaign may go down as the first to see a debate moderator’s question become a ballot-box inflection point.

Poll results suggest Thursday’s English-language debate made an impression on Quebec’s always-important electorate. Even a subtle electoral shift in the second-most populous province could have implications for what looks like a Canada-wide nailbiter. Quebec holds nearly a quarter of the seats in the House of Commons.

— La question: Moderator SHACHI KURL’s opening query to Bloc Québécois Leader YVES-FRANÇOIS BLANCHET challenged him on his party’s support for what she called “discriminatory” provincial legislation in Quebec on secularism and the French language.

Blanchet appeared surprised before he responded: “The question seems to imply the answer you want. Those laws are not about discrimination, they are about the values of Quebec.”

Kurl’s question ignited outrage among Quebec’s political and pundit class. The province has a distinct culture and boasts a large, volatile francophone electorate with a history of throwing its support behind different parties from one election to the next. Remember the “Orange Wave”?

Popular Premier FRANÇOIS LEGAULT, who leads the nationalist Coalition Avenir Québec, called it an assault on his province's autonomy. “The Quebec nation is under attack,” he said Friday, as reported in a front-page story in Le Devoir.

A column Saturday by GUILLAUME ST-PIERRE in Le Journal de Montréal — the province’s most-read daily — called Kurl's questioning a “downright vicious” attack.

ANDRÉ PRATTE, writing in the Montreal Gazette, called Kurl’s question “ill-informed and ill-advised,” and said it had the potential to change the election results.

“Anyone who knows a little bit about Quebec politics would have seen this coming from a hundred miles away,” Queen’s prof STÉPHANIE CHOUINARD said in a Twitter Space last evening hosted by STEPHEN TAYLOR.

On Friday, TRUDEAU called Kurl’s question “really offensive” and ERIN O’TOOLE called it “unfair.” Both pushed back at any suggestion that Quebecers are racist.

Kurl has since explained that the controversial question was vetted beforehand at multiple levels of the debate commission.

— L’impacte potentiel: Trudeau’s effort to recapture the majority mandate he lost in 2019 — or even to keep his job as prime minister — could hinge on his Liberals’ fortunes in Quebec. Nationally, the Liberals have been in a close race with O’Toole’s Conservatives for several weeks.

Quebec is a key part of the bigger picture. A new Leger Marketing poll released Tuesday suggested support for the Bloc rose by three points following Thursday’s debate to move the party a little closer to the Liberals in Quebec.

“It’s almost as if somebody blew on the coals of the BQ fire,” CHRISTIAN BOURQUE, executive vice president of Leger Marketing, told POLITICO.

Bourque said while the difference looks small, the Bloc appeared on track to lose up to seven seats to the Liberals and maybe a couple to the Conservatives.

“Normally, out of 338 ridings, we would not necessarily bat an eyelash,” he said before focusing on the Liberal-Conservative race nationally. “But ... because both major parties are neck and neck — five seats here, two seats there and then the whole scenario changes.”

Les réactions: In an interesting twist, ahead of the debate, Legault strongly suggested Quebecers should support the Conservatives to ensure Ottawa would have a watered-down minority government.

Polls have yet to show any significant Quebec bump for O’Toole.

“Finally, just rumblings right now, but lots of people I talk to suspect Scachi (sic) Kurl moved more votes in Quebec than did François Legault,” GERALD BUTTS, Trudeau’s former principal secretary, wrote Monday at the end of Twitter thread in which he described the election as the closest he’s ever seen in Canada.

FRÉDÉRIC BOILY, a political scientist at the University of Alberta’s Campus Saint-Jean, tells POLITICO Kurl’s question made almost no waves outside of Quebec.

“The questions touch on the Quebecois identity, touch on secularism,” he said in reference to Quebec laws that are far more controversial outside the province. “But will it be able to really move the political needles?

COVID WATCH — As a Delta-driven fourth wave of Covid hits the four biggest provinces and school-aged kids settle into classrooms, the pandemic could preoccupy voters in this last week before election day.

Every day, we'll update the most recent provincial data on Covid patients in critical care in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. The change since the last provincial update is in parentheses.

Ontario: 192 (+3)
Alberta: 212 (+14)
British Columbia: 140 (+1)
Quebec: 78 (+3)

ALL THE VOTES ALREADY CAST — Elections Canada says nearly six million Canadians visited an advance poll — an 18.46 percent increase over 2019. Do you think that's a sign of higher turnout? More interest in avoiding lines? Both? Drop Nick a line with your prediction.

Elections Canada also reports that more than a million Canadians have asked for a special voting kit, and 522,859 have already been returned.

— Top 10 ridings to request mail-in voting: Victoria, Saanich–Gulf Islands, Courtenay–Alberni, Ottawa Centre, North Island–Powell River, Orléans, Nanaimo–Ladysmith, Esquimalt–Saanich–Sooke, Vancouver Centre and North Vancouver.

The most recent census data helps explain why some of these areas rose to the top. Courtenay-Alberni has the oldest median age in Canada, while Saanich-Gulf Islands is third and two other Vancouver Island ridings crack the Top 40.

The ridings with the lowest demand for mail-in kits were also some of the least densely populated in Canada, predominantly in the North: Nunavut, Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, Labrador, Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou, and Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River. Three P.E.I. ridings, where people love to vote in-person, also crack the top 10.

The mail-in ballots will be counted Sept. 21 — that’s E-day +1.

Each day throughout the campaign, DAVID COLETTO from Abacus Data is sharing a data point on the 2021 federal election with Playbook readers.

Today: Getting out the vote matters even more this time

In the final days of a campaign, party operations on the campaign shift from persuasion to mobilization as staff are assigned to key ridings across the country to help pull the vote.

Elections Canada yesterday reported preliminary figures on turnout at advance polls: 5.78 million voters cast ballots over four days.

In our most recent survey, we find the usual patterns in expected turnout. When we ask people how likely it is they will vote, 66 percent told us they will definitely be voting, a good proxy for likely turnout in a survey (which is notoriously difficult to measure).

Our data tell us younger electors are less likely to say they will vote than older voters (18 to 29: 51 percent vs. 60+: 77 percent). Conservative and Bloc Québécois supporters are more likely to say they will vote than Liberals or New Democrats. The Tory number is 80 percent vs. 70 percent for Liberals). Those paying close attention to the election are more likely than those not paying much attention (81 percent vs. 55 percent).

Here are a few scenarios, based on current data, for Monday's vote breakdown:

High turnout election: LPC 33, CPC 31, NDP 22

Moderate turnout election: CPC 32, LPC 32, NDP 21

Low turnout election: CPC 35, LPC 31, NDP 20

Each would have major consequences for the seat count in the House of Commons.

Pollsters have difficulty measuring the strength of party machines. A so-called "GOTV" advantage could be amplified in a low attention, low engagement environment.

For more information about this data, follow this link.

Where the leaders are today (and why):

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau starts his day in Atlantic Canada, where he'll make a 10 AT announcement in Halifax. The region only offers 32 seats, but a Liberal sweep in 2015 was an early sign of a majority. ANDREW SCHEER's Conservatives made a few inroads in 2019, and the NDP's JACK HARRIS secured a final term — but the fortress mostly stood.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole is at a Royal Canadian legion hall in Jonquiere, Que., for a 10:30 announcement. Jonquière is Bloc Québécois-held riding, but Premier Legault's O'Toole endorsement could tip the scales.

The Tory leader will head to Hôtel Chéribourg in Orford for a rally with supporters at 6:30. That's tucked into Brome-Missisquoi, a Liberal riding where businessman VINCENT DUHAMEL would score an upset if he won.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is swinging back through southern Ontario. He'll make a stop outside a long-term care home in Essex, where former MP TRACEY RAMSEY hopes to return to Parliament; outside a bistro in London West, where Liberal MP KATE YOUNG isn't seeking another term; outside a union hall in Niagara Centre, a seat the NDP held until 2015; behind the steelworkers' hall in Hamilton Centre (more on the Hammer below); and outside GAIL BANNISTER-CLARKE's campaign office in Brampton East.

Singh finishes the night by gaming with Twitch streamer RYAN LETOURNEAU, better known as Northern Lion, at 8 ET.

Green Leader Annamie Paul is in Kitchener Centre this morning, where she'll hold a 9:30 ET presser with the very same MIKE MORRICE profiled in yesterday's Playbook. They'll be joined by MIKE SCHREINER, the provincial party leader who reps nearby Guelph. The trio will then set off for two rounds of mainstreeting, first in Kitchener and then in Toronto Centre.

HAMILTON MOUNTAIN, Ont. — With less than a week to go before election day, CATHERINE MCKENNA describes herself as a "one-woman team" — no staff, no agenda. The outgoing infrastructure minister is criss-crossing southern Ontario to knock doors with Liberal candidates.

— A whirlwind: In the last 10 days, McKenna has canvased with JULIE DZEROWICZ in Toronto, YASIR NAQVI in downtown Ottawa and JENNA SUDDS in suburban Kanata, LEAH TAYLOR ROY in the 905, ALISON LESTER south of Peterborough, NEIL ELLIS in Bay of Quinte and MIKE BOSSIO in neighboring Hastings-Lennox and Addington.

The soon-to-be private citizen yesterday joined Playbook at a vegan restaurant in Hamilton. She was fighting a sinus infection. On a day in which she woke up in Toronto and would end up in Kitchener-Waterloo, she’d stopped to rest in her parents’ place, in the same bedroom as her teenage years.

— SPOTTED: Procurement Minister ANITA ANAND, the candidate in nearby Oakville, wandered into the same restaurant by chance. Liberals attract Liberals, apparently.

— The Hammer: McKenna's hometown is a city that "still has its edge," she says, despite gentrification, shifting demographics and a shrinking number of traditional steeltown jobs. People are still proud of the place — and practical, too.

JEAN CHRÉTIEN — who was stumping for Trudeau last night in Brampton, along with a 100-year-old HAZEL MCCALLION — once counseled McKenna to "be reasonable" in politics, but she recasts that advice in Hamilton's image: "Never be fancy." (The minister repeated that mantra as she filled her used iced tea bottle with tap water from the table.)

— At the door: The party's candidate in Hamilton Mountain is LISA HEPFNER, a journalist who worked at CHCH-TV for two decades, and built up the kind of name recognition that breaks the ice with pandemic-weary residents who are wary of a strange face. The mountain has voted NDP since 2006, but races have tightened since 2015.

Playbook followed along as McKenna bolstered Hepfner's star power with her own, snapped photos and recorded a quick video — another "Never be fancy" moment — before getting back into her rental car and moving on to her next whistle stop in downtown Hamilton.

THE SPEED OF BUREAUCRACY — At the campaign's outset, McKenna spoke to POLITICO's ZI-ANN LUM about the hard work of substantially reducing carbon emissions — her biggest priority by far as she enters, for now, a post-political career.

Many observers theorized McKenna was frustrated by government life, a hypothesis she insists is false. But the parliamentary budget officer YVES GIROUX did scratch his head at federal infrastructure spending.

Earlier this year, Giroux noted the Canada Infrastructure Bank was falling far short of its spending objectives. Last year, he found "limited evidence that increased federal money has resulted in increased provincial infrastructure spending." Clearly, something went awry. What lessons did McKenna learn about getting things done?

"We do need to modernize decisions. It's very arcane. It seems like at the beginning of a mandate, the public servants figure out all the memorandums to cabinet (MC). In COVID, I think we were much more nimble, but [standard processes] don't leave a lot of time for big issues that come up in the world that aren't part of an MC process that came out of mandate letters that came out of a campaign.

"If you're going to be nimble, and decision-making is really focused, my view is you should focus on three things: jobs, and climate, and inclusivity. That doesn't mean other things aren't important, but I just think focus is really, really important to get really good outcomes. I don't care about anything except for outcomes. So if bureaucracy serves outcomes, great. If it doesn't, then it's an issue."

WHAT'S NEXT — McKenna is off to New York and California, where she'll plot her next move. She revealed little about the people on the other side of a series of meetings, only reiterating what she's already said: She's thinking globally. Stay tuned.

We're been collaborating with The Herle Burly on 2021 campaign coverage. DAVID HERLE, SCOTT REID and JENNI BYRNE tackle a key question each day. Find out more about them here.

What's the last week like on a local campaign that's on the verge of flipping a seat — and getting more resources to make it happen?

BYRNE: No campaign manager looks a gift horse in the mouth when it comes to volunteers for the last week of the campaign. With tight races like the ones we are seeing, volunteers can literally be the difference between a win and a loss.

Conversations with local campaign managers at this stage can be tough. There are those who are happy, and there are those who realize the dream is probably dead. In the case of 2015, some campaigns were shocked I was sending resources their way — because they thought they were in the win column, and that turned out not to be the case.

REID: In the final week of the 1988 campaign, workers flooded into Kingston and the Islands, reassigned to help our candidate PETER MILLIKEN because the feeling was that we might — just might— have a shot at ousting the living Tory legend FLORA MACDONALD. It was my first campaign, and I was too inexperienced to understand how privileged a position that was in which to find myself. But I knew how it felt when that surge of workers helped us defeat MacDonald and take the riding. It was exhilarating. And it was close. We won by only a couple thousand votes. Those workers made a big difference. Someone back at HQ knew what they were doing.

Related reading: Catch Scott Reid in The Walrus: The Manly Makeover of a Conservative Leader: Is Erin O’Toole trying to beat Justin Trudeau at his own image game?

For subscribers, here’s Pro Canada PM: USMCA priorities for a post-Covid world.

Other Pro headlines:
— Biden Covid team sees vaccine efficacy waning in unpublished data from Israel.
— OECD boss: Digital tax deal can inspire global deal on carbon pricing.
— U.S. plans to end export credits for 'unabated' coal.
— Biden to pick Californian to be chief agriculture negotiator.
— South Africa presses Biden to bridge gaps in Covid-19 vaccine waiver debate.

— The Tyee’s DAVID BEERS talks to CHRIS TENOVE about candidate abuse, online extremism and election culture.

— “The polling consensus is a shrug emoji,” MARIE-DANIELLE SMITH writes in Maclean’s. “The running assumption, as neck-and-neck frontrunners lay out their final arguments, is still that this election could go any which way.”

— LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., spoke to RYAN HEATH in the days following the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul. On Health’s new podcast, Global Insider, they talked about where she stands with Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.N. and what’s next for U.S. relations with the Taliban.

—The Star’s CHANTAL HEBERT: “By all indications, Canada is about to sign up for another round of minority rule,”

— “The pandemic has not been good for much, except, perhaps, Mr. Bernier’s political fortunes,” GARY MASON writes in the Globe.

— PAM PALMATER joins THE BACKBENCH podcast in a conversation about what didn’t get talked about on the campaign trail. And here’s Palmater in The Lawyer’s Daily on the party platforms.

Condolences: Social media is a highlight reel of NORM MACDONALD’s work. The comedian was 61 when he died Tuesday after living with leukemia for more than a decade. "He kept it quiet because he didn't want it to affect his comedy,” his brother, journalist NEIL MACDONALD, told the CBC. “He wanted to carry on.”

Here is one moment you might not have seen: Macdonald on CTV’s Question Period in 2018 — interviewed by his sister-in-law, CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief JOYCE NAPIER.

Deepest condolences to his family and friends.

In memoriam: A virtual memorial service was held Tuesday for 19 former parliamentarians who have passed away since October 2020: Thomas Berger, David Braley, Claude Castonguay, Peter Dobell (honorary member), Marisa Ferretti Barth, Claude Girven Fretz, Alfonso Gagliano, Ron Irwin, Georges C. Lachance, Carole Lavallée, Don Mazankowski, Elaine McCoy, Howie Meeker, John Mullally, Robert Peterson, Allan Pietz, Stanley Schumacher, Nicholas Taylor, Marcel R. Tremblay, Ian Waddell. Watch this link today for a recording of the service.

Movers and shakers: The Narwhal just revealed a powerhouse, three-person environmental journalism bureau: DENISE BALKISSOON, FATIMA SYED and EMMA MCINTOSH.

What is happening? Questions about the campaign? Send them our way.

Tuesday’s answer: CHARLES TUPPER was prime minister for the shortest amount of time: 69 days.

— Props to MICHAEL MACDONALD, MURRAY BEVAN, FRED SAGEL, ERIC MILLER, ALAN KAN and ANNE TAYLOR-VAISEY!

— GREG MACEACHERN also sent the correct answer, noting: “As someone born in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, how could I get this wrong?” He added: “Playbook readers may be interested that you can visit Tupper’s summer home, Ottawa House By-The-Sea in Parrsboro.”

— JOANNA HARRINGTON was right in her reply and included a very kind note. (Hint, hint.)

— Finally, ART WHITAKER nailed the answer with a nod to the late ROY BROCK, his Grade 7 history teacher.

Wednesday’s question: Golly gee willikers. Name the MP who passed the puck — in overtime — to Bill Barilko in 1951, winning the Leafs the Stanley Cup.

Send your answers to [email protected]

Have a petition you want signed? A cause you’re promoting? Seeking to increase brand awareness amongst this key audience? Share your message with our influential readers to foster engagement and drive action. Contact Alejandra Waase to find out how: [email protected]

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