Canada General Discussion: Trudeau II

[136or142]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/01/12/sex-offenders-sentence-delayed-so-can-finish-college.html

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Shouldn't there be laws covering this?

Covering which part of this? He was sentenced, so by definition there were laws covering this, though it's arguable that they weren't applied stringently enough. For the part of the University, as the article explains, they can't do anything regarding his student status because he was not a student at the time that this occurred.

I can't understand why the university can't act on the basis that he did not disclose any of this.  I think this is a fairly tough issue because there are legitimate competing interests, but I certainly think it's fair to argue that he should be required to serve time and take rehab courses while in jail before a university lets him back on their campus.

[136or142]

Trudeau has slipped into illiberal liberalism by requiring that Canada Summer Jobs grant applicants tick a box attesting to their mandate not interfering with Charter rights, including "the right to access safe and legal abortions"

Of course there is no right to abortion in the Charter, but that does not deter our PM from discriminating against other Charter rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion.

To top it off, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu has insisted that the application does not discriminate against churches, despite its shoddy wording and has suggested that churches violate their consciences and sign it anyway. What a farce.

I agree what the Liberals are doing is heavy handed, but, of course, there is a right to abortion in the Charter.  That was why the Supreme Court struck down the law against abortion in 1987.  The Supreme Court did not say that the government of Canada could not pass any law that would have regulated abortion, but it did declare a basic right to abortion.  To state anything else is completely dishonest.

There was a letter to the editor in the Vancouver Sun today stating the same falsehood.  This seems to be the talking point for social conservative groups.  I think they have a strong argument in terms of whatever the Canadian equivalent of 'due process and equal protection' is, so it's a shame they're trying to use a dishonest argument.

From wiki: The majority of the Court held that "the structure of the system regulating access to therapeutic abortions is manifestly unfair. It contains so many potential barriers to its own operation that the [exception] it creates will in many circumstances be practically unavailable to women who would prima facie qualify." Noted barriers included all-male TACs, doctors who did not wish to refer matters to TACs, and geographical and financial differentials in treatment. As such, the provision was held to violate the principles of fundamental justice and was struck down, leaving Canada with a legislative vacuum to this day.

The majority of the court in Morgentaler did not find that there was a substantive right to abortion under Section 7, as this was only explicitly argued by Wilson. The court found it unnecessary to consider whether the substance of section 7 implies a right to abortion, but instead made its decision on procedural grounds.

So, the court definitely ruled that there is a basic right to abortion in Canada, but it 'found it unnecessary' to state whether the Charter implied a fundamental right.

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In terms of 'due process and equal protection' I think these groups could certainly argue they are being discriminated against in terms of having a broad question like that be asked to apply for a grant when the funding these groups want the grant for has nothing to do with abortion.

I think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pretty much admitted this when he defended the government's new policy here with a ridiculous false binary along the lines of 'we either have legal abortions or we fund these groups.'

I don't normally watch At Issue, but I read on Twitter that Andrew Coyne was outraged that the Liberal government was trying to demonize anti abortion types.  I agree with him that that is the ultimate aim of the Liberal government here.  I disagree with the Liberals methods here, but I can sympathize with the idea of pro choice groups and feminists trying to make those who want to make abortion illegal again in Canada out to be pariahs.  For instance, Andrew Scheer played his usual simple minded politics on this, but I can just imagine how outraged he'd be if the Liberals gave a grant to an organization that as part of its mandate wanted to (re)legalize adults being able to have relationships with minors, even if the grant had nothing to do with that, specifically.  

I don't think that's all that minor either, although it's certainly something most people wouldn't publicly state or advocate for, after all, Roy Moore did get 49% of the vote in Alabama.

[136or142]

Good, mainly because I don't think "Canada Summer Jobs" money should not go to churches.

The churches do a lot of good work that probably can't be easily replaced.  I don't care much for 'but who will think of the children?' arguments, but in this case, they are the ones who would literally be hurt by this heavy handed policy.

[136or142]

Good, mainly because I don't think "Canada Summer Jobs" money should not go to churches.

The churches do a lot of good work that probably can't be easily replaced.  I don't care much for 'but who will think of the children?' arguments, but in this case, they are the ones who would literally be hurt by this heavy handed policy.

Bible Camps are mainly religious indoctrination. Give the money to towns to organise music or science summer camps.

Maybe I'm biased, but when I was a student I had friends who went to Bible Camp and they were decent people.  Religious groups may be anti-abortion but we don't have large numbers of Southern Baptists here in Canada.  Even most of the Baptists in Canada that I know (I live in an urban area, so maybe they're more moderate) aren't Southern Baptists.

As far as I can tell, to the degree that they're 'indoctrinated,' the lessons they learn are to be kind and to help others.

[136or142]

Trudeau has slipped into illiberal liberalism by requiring that Canada Summer Jobs grant applicants tick a box attesting to their mandate not interfering with Charter rights, including "the right to access safe and legal abortions"

Of course there is no right to abortion in the Charter, but that does not deter our PM from discriminating against other Charter rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion.

To top it off, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu has insisted that the application does not discriminate against churches, despite its shoddy wording and has suggested that churches violate their consciences and sign it anyway. What a farce.

Do pro-lifers even have any influence in Canadian politics?  Why would they even need to marginalize them?

I think that's a decent question, but I think that so many, I assume, sincere people, have falsely claimed in response to this story that 'there is no right to an abortion in Canada', shows that anti abortion activists do have a great deal of sympathy in Canada, even among people who are primarily pro choice.

Also, there were many parts of Canada until recently, especially the Atlantic provinces, where getting an abortion used to be difficult.

Finally, this isn't just about anti abortion, it's also about gay rights.  In the minority Liberal government just before the 2006 election, more than 30 social conservative Liberals voted against protections for the LGBTQ community.   And, of course, the sleazy Jason Kenney in Alberta is still playing whistle dog anti LGBTQ. 

[136or142]

Kind of a loaded question, but who are considered to be the rising stars (a brazen term, sure) in the Liberal Party at the moment? Asking for a Timeline.

A bit premature given that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is barely half way through his first term.  In terms of those who are considered to be the best performers in cabinet, nearly all of them have 'blotted their copybook' at least once, but from my vantage point as an interested observer (I'm no insider), I would look at:

1.Environment Minister Catherine McKenna.  Once the carbon tax (carbon pricing) goes into effect, I think we'll get a better sense of her capabilities.

2.Justice Minister Jody Wilson Raybould.  Obviously has had significant problems with the missing and murdered aboriginal women's inquiry to the degree that she's responsible for it, but seems to be a generally highly capable person.

3.Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott.  Moved recently from the Health Ministry where she was regarded as having performed well.  The Health ministry is sort of a 'sexy role' in that most Canadians I'm pretty sure think that it's one of the top responsible ministries, but the provinces are actually responsible for health services (other than to indigenous Canadians) and the main responsibilities of the ministry are just public health and some of the responsibilities that in the United States are part of the Food and Drug Administration.

4.International Trade Minister Francois Philip Champagne.  I know just a little while ago people were asking "what does he do?" since the Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is still responsible for the U.S trade portfolio.

5.Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland.  I think she is the one undisputed 'star' of this government.

So, there is only one male in this group.  Partly this is because the ones who I'd say are the most capable male cabinet ministers: Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale are in their mid 60s.

Of those not in cabinet, the ones who seem to be getting the best notices on the back bench, from what I've heard, or were getting the best notices are Kim Rudd and Pamela Goldsmith Jones.
 

[136or142]

Trudeau has slipped into illiberal liberalism by requiring that Canada Summer Jobs grant applicants tick a box attesting to their mandate not interfering with Charter rights, including "the right to access safe and legal abortions"

Of course there is no right to abortion in the Charter, but that does not deter our PM from discriminating against other Charter rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion.

To top it off, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu has insisted that the application does not discriminate against churches, despite its shoddy wording and has suggested that churches violate their consciences and sign it anyway. What a farce.

I agree what the Liberals are doing is heavy handed, but, of course, there is a right to abortion in the Charter.  That was why the Supreme Court struck down the law against abortion in 1987.  The Supreme Court did not say that the government of Canada could not pass any law that would have regulated abortion, but it did declare a basic right to abortion.  To state anything else is completely dishonest.

There was a letter to the editor in the Vancouver Sun today stating the same falsehood.  This seems to be the talking point for social conservative groups.  I think they have a strong argument in terms of whatever the Canadian equivalent of 'due process and equal protection' is, so it's a shame they're trying to use a dishonest argument.

From wiki: The majority of the Court held that "the structure of the system regulating access to therapeutic abortions is manifestly unfair. It contains so many potential barriers to its own operation that the [exception] it creates will in many circumstances be practically unavailable to women who would prima facie qualify." Noted barriers included all-male TACs, doctors who did not wish to refer matters to TACs, and geographical and financial differentials in treatment. As such, the provision was held to violate the principles of fundamental justice and was struck down, leaving Canada with a legislative vacuum to this day.

For someone who loves to throw out the words "falsehood" and "dishonest", you have quite the habit of declaring there to be no nuance on an issue when there clearly is.

Even a quick skim of wiki and your own post finds that

a) The decision was made on procedural grounds
b) R v. Mortgentaler precedent isn't even binding
c) Only Justice Wilson found there to be a substantive right to an abortion under section 7 of the Charter

The majority of the court in Morgentaler did not find that there was a substantive right to abortion under Section 7, as this was only explicitly argued by Wilson. The court found it unnecessary to consider whether the substance of section 7 implies a right to abortion, but instead made its decision on procedural grounds.

So, the court definitely ruled that there is a basic right to abortion in Canada, but it 'found it unnecessary' to state whether the Charter implied a fundamental right.

The second paragraph doesn't follow from the first one at all.

Good, mainly because I don't think "Canada Summer Jobs" money should not go to churches.

My understanding is it is not just churches affected but every employer has to more or less sign off saying they support the right to abortion.  Otherwise any employer in any position who opposes abortion personally even if completely unrelated to the job could have it cut off.  I think groups that have opposing abortion as their main mission absolutely should have summer grant jobs cut off, but I don't think you have to ask each employer what they personally think, that is going a bit overboard.

Why though? If other political advocacy groups can get  them, why not pro-life ones?

That is simply not true, the procedural reasoning to strike down the law on abortion was informed by Section 7. 

In the 1980s, Morgentaler was prosecuted again for providing abortions. In 1988, his case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court, which evaluated his actions this time in relation to the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court found that the Criminal Code provision on abortion violated a woman's right to "life, liberty and security of the person" guaranteed under Section 7 of the Charter.

Wrote Chief Justice Brian Dickson: "Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction to carry a foetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus a violation of her security of the person."

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/abortion/

Since then, there have also been court rulings striking down provincial rules against private abortion clinics.

So, it's bullsh**t to say there is no basic right to an abortion in Canada.

[136or142]

Re: abortion: This is just the Liberals dog whistling to their base. Social issues are the great divider, after all. If they can make the debate about social issues, they can deflect from their shortcomings like on electoral reform.

Re: Catherine McKenna being a possible rising star.   🤢🤢🤢 ok, well I'm still mad at her beating Paul Dewar and her being a strong MP/cabinet minister will cement Ottawa Centre into a safe Liberal seat like it is provincially.

Yes, I think this is more about the Liberals under Justin Trudeau and their repeated use of symbolic acts than about anything of real substance.  Not that this isn't important for a fair number of people.

[136or142]

Re: abortion: This is just the Liberals dog whistling to their base. Social issues are the great divider, after all. If they can make the debate about social issues, they can deflect from their shortcomings like on electoral reform.

Re: Catherine McKenna being a possible rising star.   🤢🤢🤢 ok, well I'm still mad at her beating Paul Dewar and her being a strong MP/cabinet minister will cement Ottawa Centre into a safe Liberal seat like it is provincially.

She is quite polarizing.  Progressives like her, but amongst conservatives she is probably the most hated cabinet minister.  Actually as silly as it sounds the NDP's best chance in Ottawa Centre might be to convince Conservatives (who have zero chance at winning there) to strategically vote NDP as most Conservatives despise Catherine McKenna and would love to defeat her.  I also think being called Climate Barbie and being hated by the Rebel media is probably a plus for her as most Canadians find the Rebel media quite extreme, while some might have some sympathy for her being called Climate Barbie especially amongst women who see this as just another example of misogyny.

I don't think she's all that polarizing for most Canadians.  Just for the remaining dimwitted climate change/global warming deniers.  I.E idiots like Gerry Ritz.

[136or142]

Trudeau has slipped into illiberal liberalism by requiring that Canada Summer Jobs grant applicants tick a box attesting to their mandate not interfering with Charter rights, including "the right to access safe and legal abortions"

Of course there is no right to abortion in the Charter, but that does not deter our PM from discriminating against other Charter rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion.

To top it off, Labour Minister Patty Hajdu has insisted that the application does not discriminate against churches, despite its shoddy wording and has suggested that churches violate their consciences and sign it anyway. What a farce.

I agree what the Liberals are doing is heavy handed, but, of course, there is a right to abortion in the Charter.  That was why the Supreme Court struck down the law against abortion in 1987.  The Supreme Court did not say that the government of Canada could not pass any law that would have regulated abortion, but it did declare a basic right to abortion.  To state anything else is completely dishonest.

There was a letter to the editor in the Vancouver Sun today stating the same falsehood.  This seems to be the talking point for social conservative groups.  I think they have a strong argument in terms of whatever the Canadian equivalent of 'due process and equal protection' is, so it's a shame they're trying to use a dishonest argument.

From wiki: The majority of the Court held that "the structure of the system regulating access to therapeutic abortions is manifestly unfair. It contains so many potential barriers to its own operation that the [exception] it creates will in many circumstances be practically unavailable to women who would prima facie qualify." Noted barriers included all-male TACs, doctors who did not wish to refer matters to TACs, and geographical and financial differentials in treatment. As such, the provision was held to violate the principles of fundamental justice and was struck down, leaving Canada with a legislative vacuum to this day.

For someone who loves to throw out the words "falsehood" and "dishonest", you have quite the habit of declaring there to be no nuance on an issue when there clearly is.

Even a quick skim of wiki and your own post finds that

a) The decision was made on procedural grounds
b) R v. Mortgentaler precedent isn't even binding
c) Only Justice Wilson found there to be a substantive right to an abortion under section 7 of the Charter

The majority of the court in Morgentaler did not find that there was a substantive right to abortion under Section 7, as this was only explicitly argued by Wilson. The court found it unnecessary to consider whether the substance of section 7 implies a right to abortion, but instead made its decision on procedural grounds.

So, the court definitely ruled that there is a basic right to abortion in Canada, but it 'found it unnecessary' to state whether the Charter implied a fundamental right.

The second paragraph doesn't follow from the first one at all.

Good, mainly because I don't think "Canada Summer Jobs" money should not go to churches.

My understanding is it is not just churches affected but every employer has to more or less sign off saying they support the right to abortion.  Otherwise any employer in any position who opposes abortion personally even if completely unrelated to the job could have it cut off.  I think groups that have opposing abortion as their main mission absolutely should have summer grant jobs cut off, but I don't think you have to ask each employer what they personally think, that is going a bit overboard.

Why though? If other political advocacy groups can get  them, why not pro-life ones?

That is simply not true, the procedural reasoning to strike down the law on abortion was informed by Section 7.  

In the 1980s, Morgentaler was prosecuted again for providing abortions. In 1988, his case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court, which evaluated his actions this time in relation to the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court found that the Criminal Code provision on abortion violated a woman's right to "life, liberty and security of the person" guaranteed under Section 7 of the Charter.

Wrote Chief Justice Brian Dickson: "Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction to carry a foetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus a violation of her security of the person."

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/abortion/

Since then, there have also been court rulings striking down provincial rules against private abortion clinics.

So, it's bullsh**t to say there is no basic right to an abortion in Canada.

Again such strong words from someone who pays so little attention to nuance.

As I noted above, the wiki article for R v Mortgentaler notes that the decision was not binding precedent. Furthermore even the Canadian Encyclopedia article you cited notes there is no inherent right to an abortion.

I'm less familiar with ether provincial cases. Could you point me to their reasoning and where they imply there is a right to an abortion?

Nope, you are wrong.  

From the wiki article it states 'there is no binding precedent' because the reasons for the majority opinions differed with 3 different opinions being written.  So, essentially, the lack of binding precedent says nothing about whether there is a basic right to an abortion and is a meaningless point.

In regards to the opinions, Dickson joined by Lamar's opinion was informed by Section 7 even if he did not base his ruling on section 7.  That is, that if Dickson had felt that the only problem with the abortion law was procedural, he could have struck down only those administrative sections, instead he struck down the entire law.  It is clear that the reason for that is that he and Lamar felt that a basic right to an abortion does exist (I write 'basic' in this case, because the courts would likely uphold any law that placed greater restrictions on abortion the later into the pregnancy, which is essentially the ruling of Roe V. Wade.)

Wilson based her rulings on Section 251, 7 and 2.


Of course, that likely means that since that 4 of the justices (2 justices did not take part in the hearing) ruled on narrower grounds, that, at that time, there was no 'inherent' right to an abortion.


However, since then there have been several additional rulings that have touched on abortion rights, and all of them have been in favor:

1.1991: The Supreme Court rules in the Sullivan/Lemay case that two midwives were not negligent in the death of a fetus, because it is not a person with legal rights until born alive.

2.1999: The Supreme Court rules in Dobson v. Dobson that children cannot sue their mother for injuries suffered in the womb while pregnant.

3.The two rulings in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that struck down laws against abortion clinics in those provinces.  I actually can't find any information on those rulings at this time, however:

Prince Edward Island expects to be providing abortions by the end of the year, as the country's last holdout gave up its opposition in the face of a legal challenge from a women's advocacy group. The last elective abortion on the island was in 1982.

Liberal Premier Wade MacLauchlan, who also serves as Justice Minister, said the government is announcing its historic about-face on abortion now because a 90-day period to respond to a notice of a legal challenge ends Monday.

"I think the character of all places changes and evolves," he told The Globe and Mail on Thursday. "It's one of those things that comes at its time."

Mr. MacLauchlan, a former law dean at the University of New Brunswick who grew up in PEI, cited women's right to equality in health care as a key reason for the change – accepting that the challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, begun in January by Abortion Access Now PEI Inc., was correct in law.

"I believe it's true that government has the right to decide what health-care services are available under the Canada Health Act. That wasn't the basis on which we formed the view that a change was in order. Rather, it was that we are currently funding the service in Moncton and Halifax. The question becomes whether on equality grounds, it could be justified not to provide the service in the province."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/pei-to-allow-abortions/article29474278/

Also, what has been written by some in the National Post, and I believe by you, that only rights explicitly stated in the charter exist, was also shot down by the R v Morgentaler:

"A dissent was written by McIntyre J, with La Forest J concurring. McIntyre found that there was no right to an abortion under section 7 nor under other laws. His argument was based on the role of judicial review and how the courts must not go about creating rights not explicitly found in the Charter nor interpret Charter rights to protect interests that the rights were not initially intending to protect. He said that nowhere in any constitutional texts, history or philosophies is there support for any such rights. Furthermore, there is no societal consensus that these interests should be protected either."

Only 2 of the 7 judges agreed with that.

[136or142]

And again, while I believe it's more than clear that there is a right to an abortion in Canada, even if it's not 'inherently' an absolute right, I oppose this heavy handed regulation.

Even on first blush, NDP M.P Nathan Cullen opposed it:

OTTAWA — New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen has apologized for criticizing the Trudeau government's decision to force groups applying for summer-job grants to affirm their respect for a woman's right to have an abortion.

The apology came hours after Cullen criticized the way the Liberals added the new requirement to the Canada Summer Jobs program, which helps employers subsidize the cost of hiring students for summer work.

The requirement stipulates that an applicant must affirm that both the job description and the group's core mandate respect human rights, including reproductive rights.

Cullen initially called the new requirement "offensive" during a news conference on Wednesday, and compared it to the Harper government's decision to cut funding for foreign aid groups that supported abortion.

But he took to Twitter a few hours later to say he was sorry "for the harm from my comments," and asserted that he and the federal NDP are "fiercely pro-choice."

"I reacted to concerns raised by groups in my riding on the government's first statement on the policy," Cullen wrote.

A subsequent clarification earlier this week from the department responsible for the program "put those fears to rest," he added.

Since the clarification changed nothing, obviously Cullen was just looking for a way to get back onside. 

[136or142]

Kent Hehr has been accused on Twitter of creeping female staffers in elevators while an MLA.

Kent Hehr is finally out of cabinet.  I've thought there was something off about that guy for about a year now.

I think the three most obvious to replace him in cabinet are:
1.Randy Boissonnault, the other Liberal M.P from Alberta (but from Edmonton.) Boissonnault is presently the Parliamentary Secretary (or something like that) to the Prime Minister with responsibilities for LBGTQ issues. So, he is sort of already a junior minister.

2.Dan Vandal as Manitoba has been down a representative in Cabinet since Mary Ann Mihychuk was dropped.  Dan Vandal is also a former professional boxer who has a degree in social work.

3.Stephen Fuhr, the Liberal M.P from Kelowna.  Kelowna is probably geographically closest to Calgary of all non cabinet ministers (except for Boissonnault.)  Fuhr is presently the Chair of the Defense Committee.  

However I don't know that I see much of a fit for Fuhr to become Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities. As I've written before, I'd like to see a wider shuffle with Finance Minister Morneau also dropped (hopefully after the next budget) and Vandal, Fuhr and Celina Caesar Chavennes or Kim Rudd all added in.

[136or142]

Here are some more numbers:

BC
NDP: 39
Liberals: 34
Greens: 28 (another big number for the Greens)

With PR coming it, it's a shame they didn't ask about the Conservatives...

Manitoba
PC: 40
NDP: 37(fairly good result at this stage!)
Liberals: 13
Greens: 10

Saskatchewan
Sask Party: 51
NDP: 34
Liberals: 9
Greens: 6

Not such good numbers there

Alberta
UCP: 56
NDP: 27
Alta Party: 7
Liberals: 7
Greens: 3

Newfoundland
Liberals: 44
PCs: 41
NDP: 15

Quebec
CAQ: 32
PLQ: 31
PQ: 18
QS: 15

Did the Green Party pay for most of these polls?

[136or142]

P e o p l e k i n d

That was a very silly clip.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/wine-boycott-alberta-british-columbia-trans-mountain-1.4523473

Crazy Alberta Premier bans British Columbia wines.

Hopefully federal NDP wakes up and kick out that oil industry puppet out of the party, with every MLA that refuses to vote her out.

Puppet? Good grief. Might I suggest Notley takes the stances she does because she wants to be re-elected and the Albertan public is generally pro-oil? If the NDP wants to lose elections on a principal that's their business, but let's stop this silly nonsense about someone who started their career in what was then a permanently minor party being a careerist puppet of industry.

Indeed. The cynic in me believes that she only way she can get re-elected is by attacking her own party. (and maybe Horgan is in on this too, and is a scheme to siphon off votes from the Greens)

It's unfortunate that this party is experiencing a civil war of sorts, but I must admit it is pretty damn amusing.

This may be the first time it's happened in the NDP, but it isn't the first time it's happened between two governments of the same party.  In the early 1980s, after the imposition of the National Energy Program, then Progressive Conservative Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed got into a civil war with then Progressive Conservative Ontario Premier Bill Davis who was a staunch supporter of the National Energy Program.

Lougheed's comment of "let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark" was largely directed at Premier Bill Davis.

At that time, the two provincial and federal Progressive Conservative Parties were much more linked.  Davis' Big Blue (campaign) machine assisted the federal party as did the Alberta Progressive Conservatives and both Peter Lougheed and Bill Davis were considered as potential candidates in the 1983 federal Progressive Conservative leadership race.

I've written this a number of times before here: the reason this is considered a 'family fight' is because in order to join a New Democratic Party at any level (Federal, Provincial and, where existing municipal), you have to join at all levels.  If I recall correctly, Rachel Notley had previously threatened to try to split the Alberta NDP from the Federal NDP during the debate over the LEAP Manifesto.  I don't know if this civil war over a pipeline is a good reason to separate the parties, but overall I think it's by far a net negative to have all the NDP parties combined. 

I recently read Brad Levigne's book on the 'Orange Crush' and he also was unhappy with it, though for completely different reasons which I believe he said he successfully resolved.

[136or142]

P e o p l e k i n d

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized for this, calling it a 'dumb joke.'  Watching the clip, it was clear most of the audience thought it was a joke.

However, people don't like it because they don't like the implications, but there are likely sound reasons for gender neutral language.  

I've been reading the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahenman and he mentions a phenomenon called the anchoring effect.  Unfortunately, in the book it only mentions this effect with numbers, but I don't see why it wouldn't apply to any language, including use of the term 'man' for people.

The example given in the book is a (statistically significant) group of people are asked 'Was Gandhi older than 141 years old when he died.  If not, how old was he when he died?"

I believe another (statistically significant) group of people are asked "was Gandhi younger than 10 when he died.  If not, how old was he when he died?"

(I realize Gandhi didn't just die, but was assassinated, but I presume the intention was to not provide any other information.)

Even though the people in both groups knew the '141 years of age' and 'the 10 years of age' were obviously not true and was, therefore, irrelevant information,  the people who were asked was he older than 141? gave a much longer life span than the people who were asked was he younger than 10?  The separation of the answers was greater than 50% (the 'older' group gave an answer of around 80 and the 'younger' group gave an answer of around 50.)

Kahneman then showed that this 'anchoring effect' occurs all the time with people (at least when numbers are involved)  and explains the two likely reasons for it that comport with 'fast thinking' and 'slow thinking.'  He ends with "people don't believe that obviously irrelevant information affects them personally. They are wrong."

Kahenman gives a couple reasons for that as well, mainly that it suggests that people don't fully have free will.  I think the explanation is even simpler than that: to realize you (and me) are influenced by irrelevant information means we're no where near as smart as we all like to think we are.

https://newrepublic.com/article/100050/reason-thinking-fast-slow-kahneman

[136or142]

Ten years ago, the idea of a gender-neutral anthem would have also been thought of as a dumb joke but yet here we are.

20 years ago the idea that people would fall for 'anchoring' would have been thought of as a dumb joke, but yet here we are.

[136or142]

Trudeau's been a failure of a PM. I have a hard time buying that the "peoplekind" thing was a joke – he seemed to be taking it pretty seriously. Shows even more he likes to focus on non-issues.

Eh, I very much dislike the guy and disapprove of (most) of his politics, but he's not a failure thus far. There has been a trickle of incidents where he and his government have come off as arrogant or self-interested (being only in favour of electoral reform so long as it benefits his party comes to mind) that he needs to get under control, but it's certainly not a disaster yet.

"Disappointment" is the best word to use, I think.

Canadian conservatives are in a bubble every bit as much as U.S conservatives are.  They continue to believe that 'once Canadians comes to realize as we do that Trudeau is a dunce, support for the Liberals will decline."

The problem for them on that is, outside of their bubble, Canadians don't believe that.

What Canadians of all partisan stripes are increasingly believing is that Trudeau and this Liberal government advocate symbolism over substance.  If either the NDP or the Conservatives want to defeat the Liberals in 2019, I think that is the criticism of the Liberals they should adopt.

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Actually, I'd like to get the rooms opinion on this.

What issues/strategies should Scheer and Singh be pushing from now until the writ drops?

Symbolism over substance seems to be the biggest thing the public has concerns about.

As I wrote previously though, Canadian conservatives are in every bit as much of a bubble as American ones and they want red meat.

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While I never want to make any firm predictions considering how often the unexpected has happened, I see a Conservative majority is extremely unlikely.  Minority perhaps (but I suspect the NDP and Liberals would gang up them to keep them out).  The best case scenario for the Tories, albeit not most likely, is around 150 seats, otherwise 7 in Atlantic Canada, hold what they have in Quebec, 60 seats in Ontario, 20 seats in Saskatchewan/Manitoba, 32 seats in Alberta, and 20 seats in British Columbia.  Obviously they will likely do worse, but if the Liberals continue to mess up and the Tories have a strong platform and campaign, I see this as their best case scenario. 

There's still time for a major scandal or the economy to take a downturn, but assuming neither of those happen, the trickle of unforced Liberal errors won't be good for anymore than a Tory minority and probably not even that. Eyeballing the polls, it looks like the Tories will take back a decent number of seats from the Liberals in Anglo Canada, but the Liberals will more or less break even by swallowing the NDP and Bloc Quebecois in Quebec.

Someone needs to emerge as a clear runner up in Quebec to force a minority (assuming the Tories don't pick up the pace in the ROC). The Liberals will run the table in Quebec if the polls hold and the result is something like 45-15-15-15

With Andrew Scheer Stupidity as Conservative Party leader.  I actually wouldn't be surprised to see the Conservatives lose another 20-30 seats in the next election.

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While I never want to make any firm predictions considering how often the unexpected has happened, I see a Conservative majority is extremely unlikely.  Minority perhaps (but I suspect the NDP and Liberals would gang up them to keep them out).  The best case scenario for the Tories, albeit not most likely, is around 150 seats, otherwise 7 in Atlantic Canada, hold what they have in Quebec, 60 seats in Ontario, 20 seats in Saskatchewan/Manitoba, 32 seats in Alberta, and 20 seats in British Columbia.  Obviously they will likely do worse, but if the Liberals continue to mess up and the Tories have a strong platform and campaign, I see this as their best case scenario. 

There's still time for a major scandal or the economy to take a downturn, but assuming neither of those happen, the trickle of unforced Liberal errors won't be good for anymore than a Tory minority and probably not even that. Eyeballing the polls, it looks like the Tories will take back a decent number of seats from the Liberals in Anglo Canada, but the Liberals will more or less break even by swallowing the NDP and Bloc Quebecois in Quebec.

Someone needs to emerge as a clear runner up in Quebec to force a minority (assuming the Tories don't pick up the pace in the ROC). The Liberals will run the table in Quebec if the polls hold and the result is something like 45-15-15-15

With Andrew Scheer Stupidity as Conservative Party leader.  I actually wouldn't be surprised to see the Conservatives lose another 20-30 seats in the next election.

Possible but the Tories are more or less down to their core now so I still think modest gains are more likely than losses.  While harping on the scandal may seem silly and most may not care, generally that is what opposition parties do, their job is not to be nice to the government but to go after their weaknesses.  Governments never lose on single issues, its when enough baggage develops.  At the moment the Liberals need a lot more baggage to lose, but as an opposition your goal is to speed that up.  The real problem the Tories face is with the NDP weakness it will likely be a two way race so even if they won 130 seats (not saying they will not just saying what if) they would still remain in opposition and the Liberals even at that could still get a majority.

About half of the Conservatives 33 seats are in the 905 (I think four) and 12 or so are in South West Ontario (as I describe them, the London to Windsor region and the Kitchener to Niagara region.)  Of course the Conservatives have support in South West Ontario, but the are usually very competitive ridings, except for the most rural ridings.  Pierre Polievre's riding in Ottawa I think is winnable as well.

I think the NDP could knock of Brad Trost in Saskatchewan.

In British Columbia, the Conservative held ridings of Richmond, Cariboo-Prince George, Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola, Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo and maybe Langley-Aldergrove are all possible pick up opportunities for the Liberals.

I'm less knowledgeable about opportunities for the other parties in Alberta or Quebec.

Of course, this isn't to say that the Conservatives will lose any riding, but after the 2006 election, the Liberals continued to lose seats for a couple elections and I don't think by any means the Conservatives are down to just their core ridings.

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Miles touches on the point I was trying to make. This board and many analysts seems to have two biases when assessing Scheer's performance (and Singh and Trudeau's but it seems to come up most often with Scheer); progressive bias, and political junkie bias.

The progressive bias is not understanding that the Tories face a different calculus from the Liberals and therefore will behave in a puzzling manner to many progressives. A party with a low ceiling that needs to turn out a large base alienated from the other parties is very different from being a centrist party with a smaller base but a much higher ceiling. To apply this to the Aga Khan case: so what if there is no smoking gun? It keeps the base motivated and has the added benefit of not being prone to "bozo eruptions" like say an immigration gaffe would be.

The other side of progressive (or conservative in many cases) bias is saying things are bad politics because one doesn't like them. Take the Khadr settlement for example. I read many columns in the media and posts on Atlas discussing how the Tories were discussing non issues or risking backlash by attacking the settlement despite the bulk of Canadians opposing the decision, including a majority of Liberal and NDP supporters. This language seemed based on opposition to the Tories position rather than a rational evaluation of the Tories political strategy.

The Omar Khadr payout was almost exactly like the niqab issue in 2015: perhaps the majority of Canadians agreed with the Conservatives, but they didn't like the attitude exhibited. As a result, Scheer received virtually no post-election leadership bump.

And it's not my idle punditry. The strategy employed by the Conservatives has, materially, not worked: they have lost not one but two long-held seats to the government. They should have held these seats to at least stay in the game, and instead bizarrely spun these losses as wins. This indicates their strategy of merely motivating their base isn't working, especially when it also depends on a simultaneous Liberal slump and NDP surge (entirely outside their control).

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The Conservatives aren't the only party that can and will use that tactic. "Scheer's campaign was/is run by a neo-nazi propagandist" or "Harper is slinking around as the Conservative Party fundraising director" are also easy to digest to a target demographic.

If you look at the 12 by-elections since the last election, the Tories have seen their share of the popular vote go up in 9 down in 3 so while certainly not enough to win a general election hardly a disaster.  Yes agree those losses look bad although also both were won in 2015 largely due to local candidates and the Liberals attracted star candidates (admittedly if they do this across the country they could pick up several).  

I think the problem with many on both sides is those on the right think Trudeau is hated as much as they hate him which is false thus why he would almost certainly win an election if held today.  But I think many progressives wrongly assume support for conservative ideas is much smaller than it is.  Conservatives aren't the majority far from it, but they aren't a tiny minority, there is still a solid 30% who sit on the right side of the political spectrum.  Also calling the party extreme right works with some but I find most people make their own judgement of where they think a party lies not what those from other parties say it is.

I don't consider myself a 'progressive' but I don't know of Canadians who believe that Conservatives (and conservatives) are a 'tiny minority' (unless you are referring to mostly New Democrats who like to claim 'they represent the powerful, we represent the people') to which I always say should be added, 'even though the people actually vote for the parties who we say represent the powerful.'

I have always written here that the base Conservative voter support is between 30-33%.  

However, as we know at times a small swing in the total vote can lead to fairly large swing in seat totals.

The 2015 election result was 39.5% Liberal, 31.9% (32%) Conservative.  If the 2019 election was instead 41.5% Liberal, 30.0% Conservative, I could see the Conservatives losing somewhere around 20 seats. And if the Liberals could gain some votes at the expense of the NDP in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, and end up at around 43% support, I could see the Conservatives losing 25-30 seats.

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In British Columbia, don't assume that the Liberals asserting national authority to push through the pipeline would hurt the Liberals, the reality is outside of the most affected ridings, there seems to be little indication that beyond the hardcore environmental and the hard core 'resource development' types, that very many British Columbians care all that much about this.

According to this site: there is an up to 87% chance of an oil spill in the Burrard Inlet occurring in the next 50 years.  (This is from an anti pipeline website, so I suspect that's an 87% chance in the next 50 years with no mitigation effort.)

Indeed: https://tinyurl.com/y7otffhc (I swear I did not know this was the result directly below the first google link.)
Mitigation makes probability of oil spill very low, according to risk analysis done for Kinder Morgan

So, if the reality is the odds of a spill in the Burrard Inlet is, say, 25% over the next 50 years, that's the exact same odds of a major earthquake occurring in British Columbia over the next 50 years.
http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/earthquake-facts.aspx

Now, of course, people are generally very poor at assessing risk, and even though the odds may be roughly equal that doesn't mean people think the outcomes would be equally bad "I'm willing to take my chances because I like living in British Columbia but there's nothing in that pipeline for me."

But, all in all, I think a lot of people overlook that British Columbians have learned to accept a high degree of risk, even if they don't think about it every day.

I think Terry Beech will likely lose to the NDP in Burnaby North-Seymour, but I don't think the pipeline would  effect any other incumbent Liberal riding. I also don't think the Liberals sticking up for the pipeline would benefit the Federal Liberals in the Interior, but the Liberals could swing the other Kelowna riding, the Kamloops riding and the Prince George-Cariboo riding on the basis of taking a small amount of Conservative votes.
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Of course, I could also see a Conservative minority government being the result of the 2019 election, but Andrew Scheer Stupidity is going to have to grab a brain.

The Khadr situation is actually a great example of conservatives (and Conservatives) being in a bubble.  Yes, most Canadians of all political stripes were unhappy with the payout, but the responses to many of the other questions showed the fairly frequent 2/3 to 1/3 split, with about 2/3 of Canadians responding to the other questions with a great deal of nuance while conservative Canadians largely saw the situation in stark terms.

So, if that becomes an issue in the next election, I would expect Conservatives would play the issue to their base rather than find a way to nuance the issue so that most Canadians would support them on it.

Of course, it's always possible that Andrew Scheer Stupidity is in reality Andrew Scheer Genius and he's just playing rope-a-dope (which is actually largely what Justin Trudeau and the Federal Liberals did in 2015.)

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The Khadr situation is actually a great example of conservatives (and Conservatives) being in a bubble.  Yes, most Canadians of all political stripes were unhappy with the payout, but the responses to many of the other questions showed the fairly frequent 2/3 to 1/3 split, with about 2/3 of Canadians responding to the other questions with a great deal of nuance while conservative Canadians largely saw the situation in stark terms.

So, if that becomes an issue in the next election, I would expect Conservatives would play the issue to their base rather than find a way to nuance the issue so that most Canadians would support them on it.

Of course, it's always possible that Andrew Scheer Stupidity is in reality Andrew Scheer Genius and he's just playing rope-a-dope (which is actually largely what Justin Trudeau and the Federal Liberals did in 2015.)

That's some CBC commenter level of silly. Do you call the parties CONservatives and LIEbrals too?

1.As opposed to "Justin over his head"?
Or even Stephane Dion "not a leader."

You oppose the use of nuance but you don't think slogans like that can work?  I suspect you're unhappy with it because you're afraid it might be picked up and used regularly. (If you check the hashtag or something similar you'll find a whole lot of people using it already.  I like to think I originated it, but I doubt it.) https://twitter.com/hashtag/ScheerStupidity?src=hash

2.Even if I'm wrong that you're afraid of it and genuinely think it's silly (though I think that contradicts your 'no nuance' stance)  what are you picking on the CBC for?

Have you checked out the global news or yahoo news discussions?  They sometimes make the CBC discussions look like university seminars.

The problem with all those message boards is similar to Akerlof's 'market for lemons' problem (used cars):  the bad commenters chase away the good commenters until all that's left is the bad.

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The Khadr situation is actually a great example of conservatives (and Conservatives) being in a bubble.  Yes, most Canadians of all political stripes were unhappy with the payout, but the responses to many of the other questions showed the fairly frequent 2/3 to 1/3 split, with about 2/3 of Canadians responding to the other questions with a great deal of nuance while conservative Canadians largely saw the situation in stark terms.

So, if that becomes an issue in the next election, I would expect Conservatives would play the issue to their base rather than find a way to nuance the issue so that most Canadians would support them on it.

Of course, it's always possible that Andrew Scheer Stupidity is in reality Andrew Scheer Genius and he's just playing rope-a-dope (which is actually largely what Justin Trudeau and the Federal Liberals did in 2015.)

That's some CBC commenter level of silly. Do you call the parties CONservatives and LIEbrals too?

1.As opposed to "Justin over his head"?
Or even Stephane Dion "not a leader."

You oppose the use of nuance but you don't think slogans like that can work?  I suspect you're unhappy with it because you're afraid it might be picked up and used regularly. (If you check the hashtag or something similar you'll find a whole lot of people using it already.  I like to think I originated it, but I doubt it.) https://twitter.com/hashtag/ScheerStupidity?src=hash

2.Even if I'm wrong that you're afraid of it and genuinely think it's silly (though I think that contradicts your 'no nuance' stance)  

I want to have intelligent, nuanced discussions on Atlas. I recognize that simplistic, unnuanced messaging can be very effective for political parties. Those two sentences are not contradictory.

Oh I see, that's a fair point.  I don't think it's contradictory to engage in intelligent nuanced discussion while sometimes using simplistic messaging.  I don't think that is contradictory either and simplistic messaging sometimes gets a point across very well.

One example of that is the line attributed to a number of people of "If I had more time to write this letter, it would be shorter."

Another is something like "if you can't fit an argument on a bumper sticker, you probably don't understand it."

I don't always agree with second maxim, but I generally agree that relatively simple ideas should build on relatively simple ideas to become complex.

In this case, from what I've seen I genuinely believe that Andrew Scheer isn't an intelligent person.  I don't know if he's actually stupid, but he often speaks only in conservative platititudes (not that different from Justin Trudeau who often speaks in liberal platititudes)  but, unlike Justin Trudeau who  does seem to be knowledgeable of public policy (far more than Conservatives seem to appreciate, but it seems clear most Canadians recognize Trudeau's not out to lunch) and usually makes nuanced comments (this is why Conservatives have resorted to making false claims about what Trudeau said, like on the small business tax issue)  Scheer doesn't seem to consider the consequences of what he says before making relatively specific comments on actual policy.

I refer to his initial absolute position to free speech on campuses which he had to walk back, and his position on safe consumption sites where he got basic facts wrong.

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Trudeau is doing everything to hand the next election to Conservatives. I hope he comes in 3rd place in the next election, where the Neo-Liberals deserve to be.

This isn't really the right place for this discussion, but if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are 'Neo-Liberals' then the NDP are communists who, if they ever got into power, would turn Canada into the next Venezuela.

This idea that everybody who is to the right of Bernie Sanders have all the same economic views, is no different than the garbage the right wing in the 1970s and the 1980s pulled that there is no difference between a liberal and a communist.

So, if I'm a 'neo-liberal', you're a communist.

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Trudeau is doing everything to hand the next election to Conservatives. I hope he comes in 3rd place in the next election, where the Neo-Liberals deserve to be.

This isn't really the right place for this discussion, but if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are 'Neo-Liberals' then the NDP are communists who, if they ever got into power, would turn Canada into the next Venezuela.

This idea that everybody who is to the right of Bernie Sanders have all the same economic views, is no different than the garbage the right wing in the 1970s and the 1980s pulled that there is no difference between a liberal and a communist.

So, if I'm a 'neo-liberal', you're a communist.

What a load of garbage. I'm not a fan of the 'neoliberal' slur myself for a variety of reasons (neoliberalism is a systemic trend following the collapse of the post-war consensus, not a meaningful ideological descriptor), but surely labelling a party whose budget is prepared by the likes of Bill Morneau as such is more reasonable than describing a very moderate party of labour as EVIL COMMIES?

Despite Bill Morneau's association with the CD Howe Institute, his budget's have been in the red liberal tradition.  The government has spent billions on a greatly expanded children's benefit and the government is in the process of implementing carbon taxes.  Compare that to genuine 'neo-liberal' policies of the likes in the U.S of Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell along with the Trump Administration.

The 'neo-Liberal' agenda is largely defined by the so-called 'Washington Consensus', especially, as we see in the United States, cuts to social spending and regulations.

If the Canadian Liberal Party's economic policies, of which it seems you know practically nothing, are going to be placed into some idiotic binary of which it is on the right along with the U.S government of Randian extremists, then the NDP is equally part of this binary and is no different than Chavez in Venezuela or, presumably, Stalin in the old Soviet Union.