The way Trudeau called the election, I would say by the looks of it, he pulled a Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper did that. He brought in legislation in 2007 that established a fixed election date and then called a snap election in 2008 and won.

There is a lot of talk about Justin Trudeau doing better. He is not doing any better at all, especially when he is doing the same thing that Harper did. I do not think any Canadian wants this election now. I am sure that the only reason he has done this is because he is seeing polling numbers that we are not seeing. Parties pay big money to private companies to build polling systems.

He did not lose the confidence of the House now, did he? There was no reason for him to go to see the Governor General to call this election. There is also the fact that not long ago all members in Parliament voted that government should not hold an election during the pandemic. That really brings into question the integrity of Trudeau. This election is not needed and, in my opinion, Trudeau does not have a mandate to call it. The fact that the Governor General has allowed this also calls into question the integrity of the (position of) Governor General. Also what does it mean to have fixed election dates, if any government can call a snap election?

Personally, I am not convinced that his gamble is going to pay off, that he is going to win a majority or even a minority at this point. The only thing that he has going for him here in New Brunswick is the fact that people do not like or trust O’Toole, even in his own party.

The election has been called now, and workers have to raise issues that are important for them. Many workers cannot afford day care and are kept out of the workforce. Rent controls and housing are a huge issue. In New Brunswick, migration of the work force out of the province and going west to find employment and a better living is a serious problem. The environment is a huge issue now — one only has to look at climate change, the heat waves and the wild fires that we have going on in this country. I do not think that we are going to be able to reverse this climate change but we need to stop it from getting worse. We have to get better and smarter. We also have to get union members involved. We need to have a conversation with our membership. We spend a lot of time organizing the unorganized but we forget to organize the organized.

We need the voice of workers in this election.