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WINDSOR, Ont. — As Kim Campbell, the former short-lived Conservative PM, once famously said, “An election is no time to discuss serious issues”.

This was actually a précis of her slightly longer answer to the late Peter Gzowski, who had asked for details on her plan to reform Canada’s welfare programs and Campbell curtly replied, “This is not the time, I don’t think, to get involved in a debate on very, very serious issues”.

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She was prescient, if galling.

Indeed, as Toronto Liberal MP Adam Vaughan remarked at a Justin Trudeau rally Sunday in Markham, there is no real national campaign any more, rather small local or regional ones.

And the few biggish ideas – the various parties’ child-care or climate change policies, for instance – are not as such debated, but rather presented as quid pro quos: You give me your vote, I with your own money, will return X dollars to your pocket. It all has the greasy transactional feel that is so very Ottawa.