Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[Open Source Intelligence]

Any guesses at seats?

[Flyersfan232]

More generally though I wonder if the broad centre-left in the western world will start moderating on immigration rates because it's proving to be a real vote-loser. Sweden basically used to never have right-wing governments, for most of its postwar history it was governed by Social Democrats. At most you'd have a coalition led by a standard CDU-type conservative party, with its more conservative impulses moderated by centrist partners. This used to be a testament to the supposedly inherent progressivism of Swedes. But right now, Sweden is governed by a distinctly right-wing coalition that includes basically their PPC, which also happens to be the second largest party in parliament. And their rise was almost entirely to do with Sweden's high immigration rates.

Sweden is just one example, but you can take basically any European country and the same pattern emerges. In the states, I would argue that immigration is the #1 vote-winner for Trump, and should he win this November that will be why. Biden's hands are tied, even using the word "illegal" in his SOTU speech pissed off a lot of the Democrats' base. In the UK, of course, immigration was the main reason behind a Brexit vote that has objectively had awful outcomes for Britain. And in Canada, although Poilievre is significantly less anti-immigration compared to European right-wingers or Trump (it really isn't even a part of his pitch), there's no doubt that Liberal immigration policy has turned off a lot of former LPC voters.

So at some point, progressives will get the message, right? This is not a hill worth dying on. You don't have to go racist or full on close the borders like some right-wingers do, it's not one or the other. But why exactly must "high immigration" be such a key part of the modern left, when clearly all it does is give easy wins to the right?

dont compare the swedish democrats to the ppc they swedish democrats arent grifters

[Flyersfan232]

Justin Trudeau needs to resign. Over many things, but especially the student visa/immigration issue. This is unacceptable. It's time for some accountability.

yeah but do the liberals really want their version of liz truss to run the party?

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Justin Trudeau needs to resign. Over many things, but especially the student visa/immigration issue. This is unacceptable. It's time for some accountability.

Who would take over? Every Liberal M.P is ultimately complicit. If the Liberals are going to lose over this (or whatever else) it should be with the guy who in charge the whole time.

Literally anyone who is competent enough to fix the immigration system.



Or we should have an election to elect a new government.

Either way this cannot go on any longer.

I was thinking of what high profile person who is associated with the Liberal Party and likely still a member but quit so has a profile independent from the Justin Trudeau Liberal Party (I'm pretty sure Jody Wilson Raybould is no longer a Liberal and is 'hated' by many in the party and Jane Philpott has a great current job and isn't really all that high profile.) And, this person also seems to be being promoted by the national media, at least a little and given the benefit of some positive revisionist history: Bill Morneau.

For instance (this is not from the CBC but from BNNBloomberg -which is Canadian)
https://twitter.com/cbcwatcher/status/1780652321292144740

[Hatman 🍁]

Once respected journalist Rex Murphy has died. The last decade of his life saw him go off the deep end with his ramblings.

[CumbrianLefty]

Which brand of conspiracy theory in particular?

[Neo-Malthusian Misanthrope]

Which brand of conspiracy theory in particular?

I've heard him called a climate change denier, and while it's true that he's appeared on Jordan Peterson's podcast, at worst I'd call him an oil industry stooge. Not so much a conspiracist as somebody able to colourfully spin the truth. That said, I also believe he was pro-convoy, though I'm not sure under what justification, and if he was rambling about Great Replacement or something, then I would not mind being corrected.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Any guesses at seats?

I mean the next election isn't scheduled for another 17 months, so guessing seat counts right now is pointless.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

It's that time of year again: ‘Summer of discontent’ coming over public service in-office order: unions

I was sympathetic to last year's PSAC strikes (not that PSAC should even exist, but hey), because the Treasury Board put off discussions for two years only to give them a meager raise. If I were a public servant, I'd be pissed too. But this year, the discontent is entirely over the government's order for public servants to return to the office for 3 days a week.

I'm not sure what leverage they think they have. This was Singh's response:

Aylward and other union leaders sent a letter to the New Democrats urging the party to reconsider its “stance” over the NDP’s agreement with the Liberals.

The New Democrats are propping up the federal government through a supply and confidence deal. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh would not answer whether he’s prepared to back out of the agreement, which would effectively trigger an election.

“We have lots of tools [at] our disposal with the agreement we have, which allows us to put a lot of pressure on the Liberals. We’re going to use that pressure. We’re going to use those tools to stand up for working people,” said Singh.

Yeah, based on that I'd say the likelihood of NDP revoking confidence over this is basically 0%. The threat of a non-confidence vote is the only real leverage the NDP has over Liberals, and it would be stupid to waste that power on this. I also doubt the public will be on their side. Whatever the merits of their argument, or the potentially misguided reasons behind this back-to-work order, there won't be much public sympathy if they strike. From a layman's perspective, this is a generally underworked and overpaid class of people crying foul at the horror of...having to go to the office...three days a week. Lmao.

[lfromnj]

Regarding immigration, I'm having doubts the extent to which the Trudeau government is actually trying to reduce immigration numbers, as they have claimed.

According to the federal government, student visas for this year have been capped to 350,000 and they want to reduce the temporary resident population from 6.2% to 5% - the temporary resident population is expected to fall by 600,000 by 2027.

Some of these measures are already in effect - student visas for this year are capped, and starting May 1st, the percentage of temporary foreign workers in several industries is expected to fall. However, if you look at Canada's population clock, Canada's current population (as of May 6, 2024) is 41,159,406. According to StatsCan, our population on January 1, 2024 was 40,769,890. If you subtract the January 1st figure from the May 6th figure, you get 389,516. If you subtract natural population growth, which is about 2% of our growth, you get a population increase of about 380,000 during the last 4 months. This means that our population growth for this year, with only the current measures in place should be about 1,140,000.

1.1 million people? With some restrictions on student visas and TFWs already in effect? That was the same the population growth in 2022 and 2023 without any restrictions! I know these are not all the measures and more will be coming up in the fall, but do the current restrictions have no effect at all? With that level of population growth, how is the federal government expecting to bring it down to 5 percent of the total population in 3 years? Moreover, if you look at how our daily population growth since midnight (so in the last nearly 24 hours, as I'm posting this at 11 PM), we have had a population increase of 3,776. 3,776 people in one day? At that rate the total population growth for this year will be over 1.3 million people! Obviously, one day could be an outlier, so I'll take it with a grain of salt...but still, that's not a good sign!

The targets for temporary resident reduction is expected to be finalized by the feds and the provinces in the fall, but until then, our population will seem to continue growing at this rate, so how will the government reduce it to 5% of the population by 2027 when they will have added close to another million people by the end of the year? Will all these people lose their temporary resident status and be deported, or gain permanent residency? (If all these people end up getting PR that would be beyond absurd)

I'm really dumbfounded at what the government is trying to do. The current restrictions don't seem to have reduced population growth to any significant degree so far. I've seen various sources claim that population growth is expected to fall to below 1% in the coming years, but how is this going to happen if the current government is still adding people at record numbers? What will they do with all these 3+million temporary residents? Why isn't population growth falling if they expect to reduce the number of temporary residents in such a short time frame?

Something is very fishy here. Either the Liberals lied about their targets, planned them poorly and incompetently, are planning to give them PR when no one notices, or are planning a mass deportation of at least one million people once the provincial targets are finalized in the fall. But we need more information.

https://www.cp24.com/news/one-way-to-decrease-temporary-residents-is-to-make-them-permanent-ministers-suggest-1.6881294
Looks like it’s give everyone PR

[Hatman 🍁]

It's kinda dumb to force people back into the office just to support downtown businesses. If productivity was an issue, I would be more sympathetic of the plan.

People should be working from home if they can. It's better for the environment, and it's better for traffic. Also, if downtown businesses shutter, then that space can be used for residential purposes. Plus, if people were working downtown more, wouldn't that hurt the local businesses in their neighbourhoods? I know during the pandemic my local Shawarma joint got my business instead of the one near where I work.

[Flyersfan232]

what are the odds singh carpetbags somewhere else?

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

what are the odds singh carpetbags somewhere else?

If he does, it won't be a transparent carpetbag. One important factor is redistricting, the next election will be fought under a new map, which actually axes his current Burnaby South riding. That said, he's not getting gerrymandered out of his seat, because the new Burnaby Centre riding is nominally NDP and won't have another incumbent, so it's almost guaranteed that he'll run there.

Moving halfway across the country for a safe seat is just not something sitting MPs in Canada do, at least in modern times. It would look (and be) incredibly cynical and self-serving, which is not something Singh wants to be portrayed as. That said, if one of the three safe Vancouver-area NDP MPs decides to retire, then I could see him maybe switching. Moving from Burnaby South to, say, Vancouver East, wouldn't really be that big of a deal, and it would all but guarantee his re-election.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Actually, after the last redistribution, Poilievre pulled a similar "soft carpetbag". He used to represent a rural-suburban hybrid seat called Nepean-Carleton, which was split into the ridings of Nepean and Carleton (duh). Carleton is the more rural and Conservative one, but Poilievre lived in Barrhaven, which is in the Nepean riding. So he moved to a small township on the outskirts of Ottawa called Greely, and ran for the more rural Carleton riding. Had he chose to stay in the Nepean riding, he almost certainly wouldn't be an MP today.

That being said, Barrhaven to Greely is like a 20 minute drive, and Greely used to be part of his old Nepean-Carleton riding, so it really wasn't much of a carpetbag. It's still part of the same city, and he had already represented that community for 11 years, so despite the transparent political calculation it wasn't a big deal. That's the kind of move I could see Singh pulling, but nothing more than that.

[Hatman 🍁]

Actually, after the last redistribution, Poilievre pulled a similar "soft carpetbag". He used to represent a rural-suburban hybrid seat called Nepean-Carleton, which was split into the ridings of Nepean and Carleton (duh). Carleton is the more rural and Conservative one, but Poilievre lived in Barrhaven, which is in the Nepean riding. So he moved to a small township on the outskirts of Ottawa called Greely, and ran for the more rural Carleton riding. Had he chose to stay in the Nepean riding, he almost certainly wouldn't be an MP today.

That being said, Barrhaven to Greely is like a 20 minute drive, and Greely used to be part of his old Nepean-Carleton riding, so it really wasn't much of a carpetbag. It's still part of the same city, and he had already represented that community for 11 years, so despite the transparent political calculation it wasn't a big deal. That's the kind of move I could see Singh pulling, but nothing more than that.

Greely is not and never has been a "township". It is an exurb, which used to be a rural (unincorporated) village before its recent exurbanization.

Anyway, you're right that it wasn't really carpetbagging. Carleton's primary successor riding was Nepean-Carleton (though, more of Nepean-Carleton went to Nepean). Can't begrudge him from running in the safer of the two ridings.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Actually, after the last redistribution, Poilievre pulled a similar "soft carpetbag". He used to represent a rural-suburban hybrid seat called Nepean-Carleton, which was split into the ridings of Nepean and Carleton (duh). Carleton is the more rural and Conservative one, but Poilievre lived in Barrhaven, which is in the Nepean riding. So he moved to a small township on the outskirts of Ottawa called Greely, and ran for the more rural Carleton riding. Had he chose to stay in the Nepean riding, he almost certainly wouldn't be an MP today.

That being said, Barrhaven to Greely is like a 20 minute drive, and Greely used to be part of his old Nepean-Carleton riding, so it really wasn't much of a carpetbag. It's still part of the same city, and he had already represented that community for 11 years, so despite the transparent political calculation it wasn't a big deal. That's the kind of move I could see Singh pulling, but nothing more than that.

Greely is not and never has been a "township". It is an exurb, which used to be a rural (unincorporated) village before its recent exurbanization.

Anyway, you're right that it wasn't really carpetbagging. Carleton's primary successor riding was Nepean-Carleton (though, more of Nepean-Carleton went to Nepean). Can't begrudge him from running in the safer of the two ridings.

I sometimes forget that Ottawa's boundaries are comically large and places that feel like typical "townships" are actually part of the city. I can imagine how frustrating that must make municipal politics for you lol.

Regardless, yeah that's really the level of "carpetbagging" we see in Canadian politics. I've also noticed this often happens within the same metropolitan area, like in the GTA you'll sometimes see Tory sacrificial lamb candidates "graduate" from running in a no-hope urban seat to a more suburban one. But I certainly can't think of any examples of sitting MPs actually moving provinces. I guess there's Bernier switching from Beauce to Portage-Lisgar, but that was in a byelection after losing Beauce twice.

[Hatman 🍁]

Actually, after the last redistribution, Poilievre pulled a similar "soft carpetbag". He used to represent a rural-suburban hybrid seat called Nepean-Carleton, which was split into the ridings of Nepean and Carleton (duh). Carleton is the more rural and Conservative one, but Poilievre lived in Barrhaven, which is in the Nepean riding. So he moved to a small township on the outskirts of Ottawa called Greely, and ran for the more rural Carleton riding. Had he chose to stay in the Nepean riding, he almost certainly wouldn't be an MP today.

That being said, Barrhaven to Greely is like a 20 minute drive, and Greely used to be part of his old Nepean-Carleton riding, so it really wasn't much of a carpetbag. It's still part of the same city, and he had already represented that community for 11 years, so despite the transparent political calculation it wasn't a big deal. That's the kind of move I could see Singh pulling, but nothing more than that.

Greely is not and never has been a "township". It is an exurb, which used to be a rural (unincorporated) village before its recent exurbanization.

Anyway, you're right that it wasn't really carpetbagging. Carleton's primary successor riding was Nepean-Carleton (though, more of Nepean-Carleton went to Nepean). Can't begrudge him from running in the safer of the two ridings.

I sometimes forget that Ottawa's boundaries are comically large and places that feel like typical "townships" are actually part of the city. I can imagine how frustrating that must make municipal politics for you lol.

When it comes to local politics, nothing has frustrated me more than amalgamation.

Regardless, yeah that's really the level of "carpetbagging" we see in Canadian politics. I've also noticed this often happens within the same metropolitan area, like in the GTA you'll sometimes see Tory sacrificial lamb candidates "graduate" from running in a no-hope urban seat to a more suburban one. But I certainly can't think of any examples of sitting MPs actually moving provinces. I guess there's Bernier switching from Beauce to Portage-Lisgar, but that was in a byelection after losing Beauce twice.

I should make a map of where Toronto MPs live (which can be discovered from looking at their donation history), because very few live in their ridings.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Now this is an actual interesting poll. It gets a little boring seeing every poll confirming what we already know about the horserace, but this offers something new. Now there's not much history of religion polling in Canadian politics, and some of these sample sizes are probably too small, but it's interesting nonetheless.

The Christian denominations aren't surprising at all. Evangelical Christians are the most likely to vote CPC, yeah that's pretty obvious. It's weird seeing 73% support for any party, but considering the CPC is above 40% with the general public, not surprising that evangelicals are in the 70s. Mainline protestants are significantly more Conservative than Catholics too, but this seems to mostly come down to the fact that self-identified Catholics are disproportionately from Quebec. 16% of Catholics polled said they'd vote Bloc, which certainly validates that theory.

The non-Christians are more interesting. Atheists being quite left-wing is no surprise, while "no religious identity" is closer to the general population. It doesn't surprise me to see CPC support among Muslims in the teens, but NDP 41% LPC 31% is a little surprising considering how solidly Liberal the Muslim vote has been. I figured the Israel/Palestine issue would hurt the big two and help the NDP among Muslims, but not by this much.

And on that topic, I would have guessed the Jewish vote would be a little more Conservative at the NDP's expense, but maybe I'm overestimating the conservatism of Canadian Jews because ridings like Thornhill. More conservative Jews (typically Soviet-era or Israeli immigrants) tend to be more concentrated in ethnic enclaves while more liberal, secular, pre-WWII Jews tend to be more spread out, so it's easy to overestimate just how Conservative the Jewish vote is. Still, I'd imagine the Gaza War is helping the Tories a few points with the Jewish vote.

Now Hindu and Sikh, I haven't the faintest clue what's going on. Maybe someone more clued into the Indian diaspora can explain this. If there really is a big rightward swing among non-Muslim South Asians, we could see the Conservatives doing much better than projected in South Asian ethnoburbs, and this is a very large diaspora that is relevant in tons of key ridings. A lot of universal swing projections show pretty bizarre results like Spadina-Fort York and Vancouver Centre going Tory while ridings in Scarborough and Surrey remain Liberal, but if there's something to this poll and Tories really are above 50% with Hindus and Sikhs, we would likely see the opposite.

[Oryxslayer]

Actually, after the last redistribution, Poilievre pulled a similar "soft carpetbag". He used to represent a rural-suburban hybrid seat called Nepean-Carleton, which was split into the ridings of Nepean and Carleton (duh). Carleton is the more rural and Conservative one, but Poilievre lived in Barrhaven, which is in the Nepean riding. So he moved to a small township on the outskirts of Ottawa called Greely, and ran for the more rural Carleton riding. Had he chose to stay in the Nepean riding, he almost certainly wouldn't be an MP today.

That being said, Barrhaven to Greely is like a 20 minute drive, and Greely used to be part of his old Nepean-Carleton riding, so it really wasn't much of a carpetbag. It's still part of the same city, and he had already represented that community for 11 years, so despite the transparent political calculation it wasn't a big deal. That's the kind of move I could see Singh pulling, but nothing more than that.

Greely is not and never has been a "township". It is an exurb, which used to be a rural (unincorporated) village before its recent exurbanization.

Anyway, you're right that it wasn't really carpetbagging. Carleton's primary successor riding was Nepean-Carleton (though, more of Nepean-Carleton went to Nepean). Can't begrudge him from running in the safer of the two ridings.

I sometimes forget that Ottawa's boundaries are comically large and places that feel like typical "townships" are actually part of the city. I can imagine how frustrating that must make municipal politics for you lol.

Regardless, yeah that's really the level of "carpetbagging" we see in Canadian politics. I've also noticed this often happens within the same metropolitan area, like in the GTA you'll sometimes see Tory sacrificial lamb candidates "graduate" from running in a no-hope urban seat to a more suburban one. But I certainly can't think of any examples of sitting MPs actually moving provinces. I guess there's Bernier switching from Beauce to Portage-Lisgar, but that was in a byelection after losing Beauce twice.

I mean MPs sometimes have carpetbagged from their home turf to somewhere more electorally viable or immediately accessible if they are running for the first time. Singh running in Burnaby and Elizabeth May in Saanich are just two very prominent examples that are in a similar boat to the Bernier example. You have it right though for after someone gets elected.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Btw, that poll is also an example of why I don't buy the fantasy that some conservatives have that just because immigrant groups aren't "woke", they're natural Conservatives. Frankly I just don't think most first-generation immigrants know or care much about North American culture war dynamics, and it doesn't seem to affect how they vote. This poll suggests that Muslims are the most left-wing religious demographic in Canada, even more so than atheists. Yeah, somehow I don't think the 72% LPC/NDP support among Muslims boils down to Islam being such a woke religion that is famously pro-LGBT or whatever. The issues that seem to concern immigrant voters are often different than native-born Canadians.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Actually, after the last redistribution, Poilievre pulled a similar "soft carpetbag". He used to represent a rural-suburban hybrid seat called Nepean-Carleton, which was split into the ridings of Nepean and Carleton (duh). Carleton is the more rural and Conservative one, but Poilievre lived in Barrhaven, which is in the Nepean riding. So he moved to a small township on the outskirts of Ottawa called Greely, and ran for the more rural Carleton riding. Had he chose to stay in the Nepean riding, he almost certainly wouldn't be an MP today.

That being said, Barrhaven to Greely is like a 20 minute drive, and Greely used to be part of his old Nepean-Carleton riding, so it really wasn't much of a carpetbag. It's still part of the same city, and he had already represented that community for 11 years, so despite the transparent political calculation it wasn't a big deal. That's the kind of move I could see Singh pulling, but nothing more than that.

Greely is not and never has been a "township". It is an exurb, which used to be a rural (unincorporated) village before its recent exurbanization.

Anyway, you're right that it wasn't really carpetbagging. Carleton's primary successor riding was Nepean-Carleton (though, more of Nepean-Carleton went to Nepean). Can't begrudge him from running in the safer of the two ridings.

I sometimes forget that Ottawa's boundaries are comically large and places that feel like typical "townships" are actually part of the city. I can imagine how frustrating that must make municipal politics for you lol.

Regardless, yeah that's really the level of "carpetbagging" we see in Canadian politics. I've also noticed this often happens within the same metropolitan area, like in the GTA you'll sometimes see Tory sacrificial lamb candidates "graduate" from running in a no-hope urban seat to a more suburban one. But I certainly can't think of any examples of sitting MPs actually moving provinces. I guess there's Bernier switching from Beauce to Portage-Lisgar, but that was in a byelection after losing Beauce twice.

I mean MPs sometimes have carpetbagged from their home turf to somewhere more electorally viable or immediately accessible if they are running for the first time. Singh running in Burnaby and Elizabeth May in Saanich are just two very prominent examples that are in a similar boat to the Bernier example. You have it right though for after someone gets elected.

Right, on second thought Singh is probably the best high-profile example of this. Elizabeth May at least hadn't been elected to anything, she ran in Central Nova, lost, then moved to Vancouver Island. Singh actually has been an elected official in two separate provinces.

[Hatman 🍁]

I'd imagine those Muslim numbers are a bit off (they are usually the most solidly Liberal group), but if true, then we know the Israel-Palestine conflict is going to make things difficult for the Liberals in heavily Muslim ridings. I wonder if they're even at risk of losing my home riding of Ottawa South? :-o 

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I'd imagine those Muslim numbers are a bit off (they are usually the most solidly Liberal group), but if true, then we know the Israel-Palestine conflict is going to make things difficult for the Liberals in heavily Muslim ridings. I wonder if they're even at risk of losing my home riding of Ottawa South? :-o 

For what it's worth, I think the fundamentals still look decent for the Liberals with Muslim voters. ARI also published leadership favourability by religious group:



Singh is easily the most favourable party leader according to Muslim voters, but we've seen in the past that Singh's favourability doesn't always translate to NDP votes. Perhaps more importantly, Poilievre is wildly unpopular with Muslims, and Trudeau is...well he's not exactly popular with anyone, but his net favourability is higher among Muslims than any other category in that poll. Add on top of that the fact that Muslim voters have been quite reliably Liberal, and the ridings with the largest Muslim concentrations usually don't have much history of voting NDP, and I think the Libs still come out on top with this group.

[Hatman 🍁]

The fact that Singh is in the negatives with Sikhs is a disaster. I mean, I've heard anecdotally he was, but to actually see the numbers...

I mean, I guess it's nice to see political diversity across each religion. It's not like in the US where you have 80%+ of certain groups backing one party.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The fact that Singh is in the negatives with Sikhs is a disaster. I mean, I've heard anecdotally he was

Interesting, any particular reasons/theories as to why?