To the hustings we go Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. Justin Trudeau made his way to Rideau Hall to call a federal election on Sunday, betting everything on winning a majority on Sept. 20, when Canadians vote. Philippe J. Fournier thinks he has a pretty good shot of doing that. While "any party’s fortune may turn on a dime if a campaign goes off the track, the data currently available suggests it is not an unreasonable bet." Fournier, Maclean's resident astrophysicist/poll decipherer will be keeping an eye on Jagmeet Singh. Trudeau’s path to a majority could get hindered from his left flank. With the NDP nearing the 20 per cent mark nationally, the party could realistically increase its deputation by at least a dozen seats, and many of those would come from Ontario and British Columbia. With such levels of support, many urban seats currently held by Liberals MPs should be targeted by Jagmeet Singh’s candidates. Should the NDP be successful in translating this support into votes, the 170-seat threshold could become out of reach for the Liberals, and we would potentially find ourselves in a near-identical Parliament five weeks from now. If that is the result, it will all seem like a lot of bother for nothing, during a pandemic, so Trudeau was pressed to say why he thinks the election is necessary. He declined repeatedly to say whether he will resign if he fails to get the majority he's looking for. Paul Wells, writing in Maclean's, points out that the Prime Minister has changed his tune, quite recently, on the election question. “This pandemic is not over,” Justin Trudeau, who said in May that “nobody wants an election before the end of this pandemic,” told reporters on Sunday outside Rideau Hall. So today he was calling an election. It only hurts if you try to make it make sense. The Liberal leader hopes the electoral system he promised to end in 2015 will work its distorting magic and give him a majority in the House of Commons with a plurality of votes. A vaccine mandate that wasn’t federal government policy before Friday and won’t be implemented before Halloween had already, he said, become the measure of any party’s seriousness. Meanwhile his government stands ready to protect Afghans whose plight it ignored in 2017; they need only apply to a Canadian embassy that had closed a few hours earlier until further notice. Wells notes that the government has been unusually energetic recently, what with the election on the horizon, and has has a modest proposal: more frequent elections! I’m for more more more egg breaking, which is why I here call for the fixed-election date law to be amended so that henceforth, a federal election will be required by law every three months. Think of the benefit. If the prospect of a hanging concentrates the mind, let’s have more hangings. If the looming September election forced this government to name a vaccine-credential lead and post an online culture-and-conduct progress tracker, a mandatory December election might at last be what it takes to make Justin Trudeau come up with a China policy. Also in Maclean's, Justin Ling itemizes some of the things that Trudeau has said he is working but has not yet got around to completing, and finds a record of unfinished business. Whether it is the policy priorities he himself has identified, or a growing pile of crises facing the country, this government’s progress has often been piecemeal, slow or altogether abandoned. And Scott Gilmore, also in Maclean's, urges voters to consider all the unfinished work that needs to get done and asks that we vote for candidates who want to get at it. These people are more obvious than you think. They are often less polished, often more angry, always more naïve, and possibly running for a party you wouldn’t normally support. But they are the people we need in Ottawa. Don Martin, writing memorably for CTV, thinks Trudeau "a plastic parrot breathlessly spewing scripted and sugary platitudes which have more and more voters doing eye rolls," and points out that campaigns matter. Robin Sears makes the same point in Policy Magazine, and so does Jamie Watt in the Star. Also in the Star, Susan Delacourt writes that this election could change things forever, offering a chance to "rethink how politics and government work for a post-pandemic era." In the Globe, John Ibbitson points out that there may actually be a shift (of some size) underway, with a federal government in Ottawa that is "bigger, bolder, more controlling" than earlier governments, and alternatives for Canadians to choose from. Also on Sunday, a coalition of media outlets announced the federal leaders' debates will take place en Français on Sept. 8 and in English the next night. CBC reports: The commission already has announced the criteria for the leaders' participation in the events. Parties must meet at least two of three of the following requirements: They must be represented in the House of Commons by at least one MP initially elected under the party banner. They must have won at least four per cent of the national vote in the 2019 election. They must show they draw at least four per cent of the national vote five days after the election is called, as demonstrated by public polling. The Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc and Greens all meet at least two of those requirements. Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada will need to show it is receiving at least four per cent of public support in polling if it wants to be represented in the two September events. Fall of Kabul: All the election news was happening against a horrible backdrop. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled his country as Kabul falls. “The Taliban have won … and are now responsible for the honour, property and self-preservation of their countrymen,” he said on Facebook. Canada has closed its embassy there, CP reports. Bluenose vote: In Nova Scotia, where two elections will briefly overlap this week, Iain Rankin could be in trouble. — Stephen Maher | 