Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I would be interested in seeing that comparison at some point, if you have the time.

Me as well.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I've been a bit out of the loop - do we think the most likely scenario is the next election is around two years from now in 2025? Or could we see one sooner - and if so, when?

I know the Grits are very unlikely to pull the plug right now given their unpopularity...would Jagmeet be able to break the confidence and supply agreement if he wanted to? Would the NDP want to anytime soon (to vote with the Tories, Bloc and Greens to dissolve Parliament?)

I'm bored, I want an election to follow lol. Not knowing if the wait will be 2 years or only a few months is agonizing when you're an election geek!

The late 70s called, they wanted their long-stretches-without-jazzy-elections back!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I've heard that it's possible they might ban remittances from Canada to India over this. Not sure how much stock to put into that, though.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I do wonder if the Indian media picks up on this. The line would be that Canada honors radicals from around the globe such as Khalistanis and Ukrainian Nazis. Pretty easy propaganda to use .(OTOH India likes Bose a lot )

Fun fact: the Indian army still uses Qadam Qadam Badhaye Ja as one of two primary marches, which was first used by Bose's Indian National Army which fought alongside the Imperial Japanese.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Speaker takes the blame

"Accept full responsibility"? Well how about this for a thought experiment, if a conservative member of parliament was caught honoring a domestic Nazi would Mr. Rota consider a token apology enough?

The Cons were honoring him as well. The description of fighting against the Russians in WW2 should have been enough for anyone to take a pause.

At least since all parties have their hands dirty in this fiasco, none of them can make much hay about it against others.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Is Trudeau really going to contest the next election if he's facing a loss? Like Jacinda Ardern or his own father, he can leave with his head held high and let someone else face the electorate.

He seems the type who still thinks he can turn things around.

With JA it was IMO being genuinely exhausted and burnt out, rather than fearing electoral defeat.

Trudeau Sr. held on until he lost office in 1979, was willing to retract a political retirement, and remain in office for an additional four years after retaking power...
Perhaps the apple does not fall too far from the tree there...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Harper Conservatives made big inroads among Orthodox Jews, who previously had a low voter turnout. An interesting pattern in the GTA is that the Jewish community was clustered along Bathurst Street, and the more this community became upwardly mobile, the more it migrated northwards along Bathurst Street. These turned a few seats in North York and the York Region into play. The Jewish community in Montreal (anecdotally) became smaller but more Orthodox with the rise of Quebec nationalism. You can spot where they are clustered based on poll-by-poll maps, but they are too small to affect any seats.

Most non-Orthodox Jewish Canadians behave as one would expect: middle to upper middle class, with a somewhat socially liberal bent. They would be "naturally" Liberal-leaning voters, but could turn Conservative if the conditions are there.

But, anyway, I think the mood has shifted enough that Trudeau can be compared to the famous lettuce.

If Rota resigns what are the odds it flips in a by election? Seems like a fairly swingy liberal leaning seat.

If he resigns, he may still keep his seat in Parliament. But, the riding is somewhat safe Liberal seat, though the Tories barely eked out a win in 2011 (though, it was so close, after redistribution the Liberals still would've won it on the new boundaries). However, provincially it's a safe PC seat right now, but that's more to do with the MPP being the former mayor of North Bay.

In 2021 this is one of those seats where Conservatives + PPC were greater than the winning liberals. Obviously there's more going on, but given what's going on in national polls (and not just most -CPC ones) it would be a flip, especially given the circumstances of a hypothetical resignation, unless the remaining Libs and NDP voters consolidate thanks to unique by-election circumstances and attention.

The best thing for the Liberals would be Rota resigning as Speaker, taking the fall, but not resigning as MP.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anyway, who might get elected as Speaker in Rota's place?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1707346630305865746?t=6tLyc-KO2hItyDC8Ag...
So this poll came out. I find it fairly informative,  cause it's going to be perhaps the only federal poll of the province for a long time, perhaps until the GE if even. So there is data here with a respectable MOE rather than the usual absurdly small sample size of the N&L subsample in Altantic Canada polls.

I would put the numbers here as only a bit worse that 2011 for the liberals, just with the Conservatives pulling the voters rather than the NDP.  However,  the Tories having a more efficient vote distribution means the liberals probably only hold St. John's South and Avalon,  compared to the 4 seats held in 2011.

I do not know much about Canadian politics, but why are Liberal voters flocking to the Tories, rather than the NDP?

So that was a poll of only Newfoundland and Labrador, interestingly. In most of Canada, it's not at all unheard of for Liberals to switch to Conservatives rather than the NDP. This group basically decides every federal election. There's plenty of political polarization, and I certainly don't think the average base Liberal voter would prefer Poilievre to Singh. But the Liberals aren't quite losing their base yet, so they're not shedding too many "orange Liberals". The Liberal Party's base is primarily motivated by stopping Conservatives, and the Liberals remain the choice more likely to do so. However, many Liberal voters are closer to Tories than the NDP. They don't make up much of the Liberal activist base, and are basically a dead (or at least very quiet) breed among Liberal MPs under Trudeau, but they do rely on the support of these swing voters. These voters aren't really Liberals or Conservatives, they can really be either depending on the mood of the nation. Then there are some people who want change above anything else. And I would strongly argue that the NDP's parliamentary partnership with the Liberals greatly hurts their case. The Conservatives have basically been given a monopoly over the "change uber alles" vote, because the NDP is the lifeblood of this no good very bad government that Canadians want to get rid of.

But as fickle as voters in my home province of Ontario are, it seems like Newfoundland is going through an actual realignment. Historically, it's basically a Liberal fiefdom, at least federally. It was the last province to join Canada, before which point it was basically a rural, underdeveloped British fishing colony that the British didn't really care about. Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949 under a Liberal government, and the provincial Liberal government of Joey Smallwood really heralded a strong liberal-populist legacy. It remained very impoverished for decades, at least by Canadian standards, so the party of more generous social spending obviously caught on. Even when they had a PC government, they were so at odds with the federal Conservatives that their Conservative premier started an "ABC" (Anybody but Conservative) movement, go figure. In 2015, Trudeau's Liberals received 65% of the vote in NL. 82% in one district. Sadam Hussein margins.

But let's take a closer look at Newfoundland and Labrador. It's predominantly rural, Christian, white, and they're older than median. They have a massive oil industry, and close ties to the Conservative heartland of Alberta, due to the now-famous phenomenon of young men from Newfoundland moving to Alberta to work in the oil sands. Many of those latter-day albertans come back to the rock with loads of oil money, as well as Albertan conservatism, traditionally unheard of in Newfoundland and Labrador. Then you have a federal government that hasn't endeared itself to people in and around the oil industry, to put it mildly. In particular, their taxes on fossil fuels have become very unpopular, even the Liberal Premier is opposed to the Liberal Prime Minister's measures. While he's not going full on Danny Williams and launching an "ABL" campaign, his vocal disagreement with his own party's federal cousins is telling of the mood out there.

Basically, Newfoundland and Labrador is Canada's RGV. An underdeveloped part of the country nowhere near the places people care about, totally detached from the national mainstream. Liberal populism rules the roost throughout the 20th century. But in the 21st century, it finds itself a much more naturally conservative place, both due to its very conservative culture and close ties to the oil industry. Their traditional liberal party is increasingly dominated by urban people, and the cultural gap is widening.

Sorry, I'm not the best with acronyms. What does 'RGV' stand for?

Rio Grande Valley

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Historical question: say you were Liberal campaign manager in 1957. How would you have run that campaign?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Why is Trudeau so unpopular among Sikhs?