Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[CumbrianLefty]

Vancouver man, Paul Stanley Schmidt, 37, stabbed to death outside Starbucks in Vancouver.

Some moron posted a video of himself on TikTok at the crime scene, with the man's body in the background.  Other people were just filming it on their cameras. I swear to God people are losing touch with reality more and more by the day.  Canada, the "friendly" country.  What a f**king joke.  SMH.

Tbf, rubbernecking existed long before social media or even the internet.

[CumbrianLefty]

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

[CumbrianLefty]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is happening in NWT?

[CumbrianLefty]

Ah, that does not sound too great.

[CumbrianLefty]

Why have the polls got noticeably worse for the Liberals just recently?

[CumbrianLefty]

Ugh. Singh needs to go. He inspires no confidence outside hardcore Dippers and no one believes he could ever be a prime minister.

It’s a huge shame, because the combination of voter fatigue and the affordability crisis has made it so that the Liberals just aren’t going to win next time. With a different NDP leader, we could have been looking at a CPC–NDP race, kind of like what we saw during Doug Ford’s first provincial election. Instead, we’re almost certainly going to have a proto-fascist demagogue as the leader of our country, and there isn’t anything we can do.

The NDP has a responsibility to put forward a potential Prime Minister. I hate the game they are playing instead.

Singh should have been removed from Leadership after the 2019 election and I have no idea why he was not.

I find it almost staggering he has survived not one but two electoral flops, quite frankly.

Do the NDP *really* have nobody better?

[CumbrianLefty]

Notley bleeds orange. No way she runs as a Liberal.

Nowhere mentioned in the article is if she speaks French though.

Anyway, she probably would do very well in a general election, though one wonders if the NDP would actually pick her. She may be too right wing for the base. FTR though, I would support her in a heartbeat despite me being quite a bit to her left.

Problem for her is NDP see her as too centrist.  They tried that with Mulcair and general view is that is not way to go. 

Though back then the NDP was blindsided by Trudeau outflanking them to the left - opportunistic but also very effective. Its a trick rather more difficult to pull off after a decade in power, though.

[CumbrianLefty]

Something a Tory government nationally might tackle?

[CumbrianLefty]

Surely that statement implies the result would have been much the same?

Indeed, if the Liberals still had some credit in the electoral bank then they might have made his past "extremist" positions resonate with the electorate more.

[CumbrianLefty]

Honestly, the world would be a better place if immigrants just left behind whatever their native countries' issues were once they go to another country. Be it middle eastern muslims trying to bring their religious cultures or indian sikhs trying to bring their seperatist movements and the like. You came to a new country for a better future, just keep the other stuff for when you go back home. I know that this goes against Canada's idea of a "salad bowl" or whatever their concept of multiculturalism is, but I'm sure some canadians would agree. 

But in the real world, this is pie in the sky and disregards human nature. I mean, we Brits also had it with "Irish Americans" (whose ancestors sometimes emigrated ages ago) ignorantly boosting the IRA.

[CumbrianLefty]

Self-selecting unofficial "referendums" are pretty meaningless tbh.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

[CumbrianLefty]

There was a question in another section recently - who was better out of Kissinger and J E Hoover?

And, despite how much he is a living meme of villainy to so many of us, the answer to this simply has to be old Heinz - because he did *some* good things along with all the evil (and yes, he also had that terrific and entirely correct one liner on the Iran-Iraq war)

And in the same vein, J V Dzughashvili *was* better than Herr Schicklgruber - just as he was if he is compared to the likes of Saloth Sar or Macias Nguema. Ultimately, even if unwittingly - and indeed contrary to his initial positioning - he helped save the civilised world.

[CumbrianLefty]

Do you think Stalin was better than Hitler?

Yes, actually. In the real world it is very often necessary to choose a lesser evil.

Do you think that people in Ukraine or then eastern Poland or the Balkans or Belarussia or Finland during World War II would have regarded Stalin as better than Hitler?

I'm aware that Hitler was also brutal to especially people in Ukraine and Poland, but I don't think for people in Ukraine that all that many people would have believed that Hitler was worse than Stalin.

There are some significant communities that used to exist in Ukraine and eastern Poland which no longer do because of Hitler. I think they might have had an opinion.

Yes, and there were up to 5 million Ukrainians murdered by Stalin.

Yes, we know.

The phrase "lesser of two evils" has frequently been employed in this discussion for a reason.

[CumbrianLefty]

I genuinely do not believe Trudeau or any other member of Cabinet was at fault for this, unless there's any evidence to the contrary it feels like an extremely cut-and-dry situation of Rota and/or Rota's staff being extremely incompetent, inviting a constituent without doing any due diligence.

You don't think Freeland emerges worse out of this?

[CumbrianLefty]

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

Differently?

[CumbrianLefty]

I note that a recent poll had Bieber miles behind the Tory leader in the "best PM" ratings - and maybe even worse, was nearly caught by the useless Singh

Is it now a real possibility he doesn't even stay around until the next GE?

[CumbrianLefty]

If anybody cares, I've been having all sorts of computer problems.

I said a couple months or so ago that Trudeau should apologize for not focusing on issues the public considered of primary importance and should do three things:

1.Promise to suspend planned increases in the carbon tax until inflation had returned to normal levels.

2.Promise to reduce the deficit to 'small' levels.

3.Reduce immigration and such to population increases that are sustainable.

I think they've acted on all three of these but without the apology the public hasn't really paid attention, especially on the $15 billion reduction in spending. I'm not sure what they've done with reducing the population increases, but I think they've made a couple moves in that direction, and they've made a complete hash of the carbon tax changes.

Agreed but he strikes me as very stubborn and not willing to admit he is wrong.  A big reason Ford despite all his mess ups and being very buffoonish has done as well as he has is he willing to admit he was wrong.  People like politicians who admit mistakes but Trudeau just doesn't strike me as that type.  Maybe biased but he comes across as someone who thinks he is smartest person in room and I have heard even others who know him say same thing.

He is the sort of politician who is very good when things are going well for him (think BoJo) but lacks the ability to change his mindset to deal with adversity, so his assets become liabilities.

[CumbrianLefty]

why is singh caving alot when he has a lot of leverage right now?

Because its Singh?

[CumbrianLefty]

Random thought of the day. I'm by no means the biggest advocate for electoral reform (yes, FPTP is a deeply flawed system at best, I just don't think switching to PR would make politics all that much better when it comes to the most important issues).

The idea isn't to "make politics better", but rather more fair and representative.

And that is a totally legitimate and worthy aim, one which might indeed make things "better" if only at the margins. The problem comes with those who portray PR as some magical cure-all - or even worse offer snake oil statements like "it will lock the right out of power forever".

[CumbrianLefty]

Abacus: 37-27-19

https://abacusdata.ca/conservative-lead-drops-to-10-over-liberals/

Still very good for the Tories, but there do seem to be fewer government disasters in recent weeks?

[CumbrianLefty]

I think it is quite illustrative that a major part of the Tory poll surge has been housing - not these days what is generally considered a "right wing" issue. This may indicate that whilst voters are thinking of a change, they want the Tories to manage things better rather than surge massively to the right.

Of course, this is a generalisation. But I do think that if the Tories see a win next time as a reason to go full Milei/Truss, they will be making quite a big mistake.

[CumbrianLefty]

No reason for this not to be in the wider Canada thread, mods please merge

[CumbrianLefty]

Their leader in 1939 was a pacifist.

He had a massive stroke the next year, after which the CCF mostly strongly supported the war effort.

[CumbrianLefty]

What's the reason for the most recent Conservative surge? I checked in on the Wikipedia polls page for the first time since January and boom after stalling for like six months the Conservatives are going up again.

Looking back it seems like many were suggesting a tightening of polling/Liberals regaining momentum, but they are tanking again.

Until we see some actual data, it's anyone's guess. I can't think of anything that has significantly changed during the time of this polling surge. Conservatives haven't really changed anything since summer 2023 when they overhauled the leader's image and narrowed down their messaging. There hasn't been a major snafu from LPC these past few months either. Anecdotally, it feels like there's an increasing sense that the Liberals are a lame duck government, and when that happens, a significant % of Canadian voters decide to tepidly cast their lot with whoever the strongest opposition is. And in the minds of many Canadians right now, CPC is not the strongest opposition, it's the only opposition.

Right now there is only one poll that shows the Conservatives higher than 40% low 40%s.

This is 'Peak Atlas' to make a big deal of one poll.

What, this whole flurry of discussion is based on one single solitary poll?

Genuine lol.