Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://thehub.ca/2021-06-24/royce-koop-beware-the-tory-syndrome/

Very interesting take on Tory infighting and how they hold themselves back. Lot of parallels with the British Labour Party as well.

By all accounts, the Liberals are a declining party over the course of Canadian history. Long gone are the days of inevitable Liberal majorities and sweeping the entirety of Quebec, the LPC has an increasingly narrow path to victory these days. The provincial Liberal brand has all but collapsed in the prairies, their future in Ontario and Quebec looks uncertain, and the BC Liberals are effectively successors of the Social Credit movement. And yet, their principal opponents at the federal level consistently struggle to capitalize on it.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

The media isn't listening to these people, and it's almost as if indigenous people are worth listening to only if they validate pre-existing beliefs

Yep, reminiscent of the classic "all first nations are environmentalist stalwarts against the big bad white man's big bad fossil fuels" on the left vs "first nations akhchually love pipelines and oil because it creates jobs and the left keeps them down while pretending to care" on the right.

In Canada, this will probably result in the probable next Liberal leader, who herself is a practicing Catholic, quietly shifting the party away from Trudeau's wokeness.

Trudeau also identifies as a practicing Catholic, and Freeland's pretty "woke" herself, even if a little less obnoxiously so than Trudeau can sometimes be. Is Freeland more vocal about her Catholic beliefs? I haven't really noticed it tbh, then again Canadian politicians very rarely speak about religious beliefs openly so it goes under the radar sometimes

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Strong parallels between the British Tories and Canadian Liberals in all that, too.

Yep, as is often the case too. It's fascinating how many parallels one can draw between CPC and Labour/LPC and Tories, even though ideologically the LPC is more like Labour and the Tories are more like, well, Tories.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Doesn't Trudeau also claim to be a practicing Catholic ?

He does, yes, but the extent to which he actually practices Catholicism is hard to say. Pierre was very open about his faith and we know he attended mass weekly, but with Justin it's a little more vague. It's not surprising that he doesn't talk about his faith that much though, it's not considered a good look for a Canadian politician to be overtly religious, especially in Quebec where by now, the openly religious pre-quiet revolution generation like P.E. Trudeau and Chretien are mostly dead and now almost every Francophone Quebecer under 80 is at most a "Christmas and Easter Mass Catholic"

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://globalnews.ca/news/7991602/ipsos-poll-election-liberals-tories-june/ more bad news for Tories.  Yes good news for Liberals although 38% while higher than last election, is hardly high for Liberals by historical standards.  And idea pandemic bad for opposition is not case with NDP and BQ, only Tories and Greens.  And even Greens with trouble don't seem to be doing too bad but often polls put them higher than they get on election day.  By contrast Tories are on track for worst showing.  I guess question is could different leader and different policies give different results or do Canadians just dislike conservatism in general and want a more progressive direction?  I think a bit of both.

By historic standards 38% for the LPC isn't that great, but it's worth keeping in mind that The NDP, the Greens, and the Bloc on the left, as well as the CPC on the right, are all primarily trying to win over Liberal supporters. With that in mind, it's downright impressive that the Liberals are still dominating CanPoli instead of crumbling.

I think the Tories' problem is that they lack a real raison d'être right now. The NDP's is the same as always - criticize the Liberals from the left and advocate social democratic policies. This was a little tricky pre-pandemic, but since the pandemic struck they have a very clear message to go for. The Bloc struggled with raison d'être in the final years of Duceppe and most of Trudeau's first term, but Blanchet has reinvented them as kind of a CAQ-adjacent Quebec populist party that advocates Quebec interests in Ottawa.

What is the CPC's raison d'être? Fiscal conservatism and austerity? Yeah, that's not what people want at this juncture at all. Middle class interests? The Liberals have that on lock. Business interests? Ditto, other than some sectors of the corporate world like oil and gas, but environmentalism is a bigger vote winner than o&g interests nowadays. Social conservatism? Yeah, not in a country like Canada. Populism/nativism/anti-immigration? There's probably more votes to be won with this approach than some may think, but it also rallies support behind the Liberals. Anti-corruption? This is usually the Liberals' biggest weak spot after all, but the shady practices of Tory premiers like Ford and Kenney hurt the CPC's credibility here.

Really, there doesn't seem to be a winning issue for the CPC at this point, and the party has no idea what to do. Now O'Toole's trying to shore up the vote with soft nationalism/populism on issues like "cancel Canada day" and even there he's overplaying his hand by talking about it to a nauseating extent (plus, Trudeau's savvy enough not to take a full on cancel Canada day position, but a more nuanced "we should celebrate our country but also acknowledge our imperfections" position).

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

And expanding on my previous reply, really the only "lane" left for the CPC is to be the anti-Trudeau party. This did win them the popular vote in 2019 after all, but that election demonstrated that suburban Ontario and most metropolitan areas broadly were fairly content with this government, and anti-Trudeau views in regional Quebec mostly manifested itself as Quebec nationalism, not Canadian conservatism.

They're still the anti-Trudeau party, but Trudeau's a lot more popular now than in 2019. So even that imperfect and electorally difficult message is much weaker now.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://www.quintenews.com/2021/06/30/sloan-to-seek-re-election/

Add Hastings-Lennox & Addington to the Liberal column, I guess.

Former H-L&A Liberal MP Mike Bossio is running for re-election too. He lost the riding to Sloan in 2019 by a 4.3pt/2247 vote margin. The CPC do not yet have a candidate there.

CPC numbers in Ontario are down as is, and Sloan will be splitting the right in that riding. This makes Bossio's path to victory a lot simpler.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

If that's likely, Poilievre losing would be satisfying. Alleslev is surely a goner too? And the Tories would lose nearly half their seats in BC, surely.

Poilievre's a tough one. The Liberals were counting on the crazy population growth there (eligible voters went up by 15k from 2015 to 2019), but the Liberals still lost vote share and on balance Carleton had a 2.5% swing to the CPC. Even though Carleton is within Ottawa city limits, it's still largely exurban and rural and has the "Upper Ottawa valley conservatism" thing going on.

Alleslev is likely a goner, based on recent Ontario-wide polling. Her saving grace was probably the Chinese-Canadian community in the Richmond Hill part of her riding (interestingly, the more WASP areas of York Region like Aurora and Newmarket are voting more Liberal like the Italian and Persian parts, while the Chinese and Jewish areas increasingly make up the bulk of the Tory base there). The Tories heavily targeted the middle-class Chinese vote with tough-on-crime/drugs messaging in 2015 and 2019 to great effect and they may do so again. But Alleslev's riding just needs an ever-so-slight nudge to fall into the Liberal column.

BC is hard to say tbh. Recent polling for the CPC hasn't been so good in BC, but polls always seem to underestimate the Tories west of the Ontario/Manitoba border. I'd assume the interior and the exurban parts of the Fraser Valley (Abbotsford, Langley, Mission) stay Tory, while South Surrey, Port Moody, Cloverdale etc are likely to go Liberal. The Richmond ridings are hard to say because of the aforementioned Chinese vote who don't usually fall neatly into the patterns of national politics, but I'd assume Richmond Centre stays Tory while Richmond-Steveston is a toss up. But with the recent extreme weather events in BC, especially in the interior, you'd assume climate change will be a much bigger issue there this time around, which does not bode well for the CPC.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://www.quintenews.com/2021/06/30/sloan-to-seek-re-election/

Add Hastings-Lennox & Addington to the Liberal column, I guess.

Former H-L&A Liberal MP Mike Bossio is running for re-election too. He lost the riding to Sloan in 2019 by a 4.3pt/2247 vote margin. The CPC do not yet have a candidate there.

CPC numbers in Ontario are down as is, and Sloan will be splitting the right in that riding. This makes Bossio's path to victory a lot simpler.

I suspect Sloan gets under 5% so at end of day I doubt he makes much difference.  But yeah Liberals probably re-take it although normally this riding is pretty solidly Conservative and not even close, but with how bad Tories are doing, Liberals probably gain this along with many others they normally wouldn't.  Heck I think O'Toole and Poilievre are likely to lose their seats and also see a few Liberal pickups in Alberta.  Saskatchewan probably only province they get shut out of, but could see NDP winning a seat or two there.

I think Sloan does a bit better than that, maybe in the 5-10% range, but the Tories will try to shore up most of the right-wing vote with a "vote Sloan, elect Bossio" message, which isn't such an unthinkable idea considering Bossio did win it in 2015.

although normally this riding is pretty solidly Conservative and not even close, but with how bad Tories are doing, Liberals probably gain this along with many others they normally wouldn't.

Not sure about this statement. The Liberals won this riding in 2015, and lost quite narrowly in 2019. Even if Liberal numbers stay the same as in 2019, Sloan would only have to take around 5% of the CPC vote to give it to the Liberals. With current numbers this is a toss-up, Sloan or no Sloan. With him running, I think we can safely call it "Lean Liberal"

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://www.quintenews.com/2021/06/30/sloan-to-seek-re-election/

Add Hastings-Lennox & Addington to the Liberal column, I guess.

Former H-L&A Liberal MP Mike Bossio is running for re-election too. He lost the riding to Sloan in 2019 by a 4.3pt/2247 vote margin. The CPC do not yet have a candidate there.

CPC numbers in Ontario are down as is, and Sloan will be splitting the right in that riding. This makes Bossio's path to victory a lot simpler.

I suspect Sloan gets under 5% so at end of day I doubt he makes much difference.  But yeah Liberals probably re-take it although normally this riding is pretty solidly Conservative and not even close, but with how bad Tories are doing, Liberals probably gain this along with many others they normally wouldn't.  Heck I think O'Toole and Poilievre are likely to lose their seats and also see a few Liberal pickups in Alberta.  Saskatchewan probably only province they get shut out of, but could see NDP winning a seat or two there.

I think Sloan does a bit better than that, maybe in the 5-10% range, but the Tories will try to shore up most of the right-wing vote with a "vote Sloan, elect Bossio" message, which isn't such an unthinkable idea considering Bossio did win it in 2015.

although normally this riding is pretty solidly Conservative and not even close, but with how bad Tories are doing, Liberals probably gain this along with many others they normally wouldn't.

Not sure about this statement. The Liberals won this riding in 2015, and lost quite narrowly in 2019. Even if Liberal numbers stay the same as in 2019, Sloan would only have to take around 5% of the CPC vote to give it to the Liberals. With current numbers this is a toss-up, Sloan or no Sloan. With him running, I think we can safely call it "Lean Liberal"

I guess more saying pretty rural and most of rural Ontario usually goes Conservative, but with how bad things are in Ontario now, I suspect some rural will flip not just this riding but a number of others too.  I've heard rumours internals on seats are absolutely devastating and worse than many in public realize.  Thus why my suggestion Tories don't form government in next decade is something I feel more and more confident about as each day goes by.  SoCon wing will take over if they lose bad enough so its why I don't see party coming back anytime soon.

That part of rural Ontario does have a slightly different vibe, I must say. There's a pretty big Mohawk reserve there (a common stop for any Toronto-Montreal/Ottawa traveler looking for cheap gas and/or smokes), and that clearly does not help the tories. But even the mostly white towns there like Napanee and Loyalist vote Liberal, and they feel more liberal, if that makes sense. That part of rural Ontario has a more "New England" vibe, as opposed to the small towns in southwestern Ontario which feel more "midwestern". There are also a lot of retirees living in the Bay of Quinte-Kingston corridor, and this Liberal government has proven fairly popular with the elderly.

Of course a lot of it might come down to local candidates. Bossio in H-L&A was a local businessperson, community activist, and briefly a councillor before running federally, and Neil Ellis in Bay of Quinte was the mayor of Belleville, the main community in that riding. Bay of Quinte also has a huge retiree population and some touristy areas in Prince Edward County

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I'm from Windsor so it's all Northern Ontario to me. I thought Western Ontario denoted Northwestern Ontario the same way Eastern Ontario is really Northeastern Ontario but apparently not.

I gotta say, you have a veeery "Windsor" perspective of Ontario geography lol. I'm originally from the GTA (and therefore always right, bow down to me you provincial heathens and peasants), I'd divide it as:

- The GTA: Just the GTA, no geographic orientation required
- Hamilton/Niagara: Kind of a weird one geographically, I'd just call it Hamilton/Niagara
- Guelph westwards: Southwestern Ontario
- Between Guelph and Peterborough, south of Muskoka, excluding GTA: Central Ontario
- East of Peterborough, south of Pembroke: Eastern Ontario
- Muskoka, Kawartha Lakes, Algonquin Park: Cottage country, no man's land
- North of that: Northern Ontario

When most people say "Northeastern" and "Northwestern" Ontario, they're usually talking about the Timmins/Sudbury/North Bay etc area and the Thunder Bay area respectively. Ottawa/Eastern Ontario is definitely a weird one, because it's definitely not the same vibe as Northern Ontario, but it's not exactly Southern either.

Another is that, at least until very recently, the Liberals (and even the NDP) were entirely capable of winning rural ridings.

They both still are. The Liberals dominate the mostly rural Atlantic provinces, have a few rural Quebec seats (and could win a lot more when the Bloc is weak), and do decently well in rural Northern Ontario and the territories. The NDP also wins rural seats, mostly in indigenous-heavy areas.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

To the eastern Ontario thing, the voting patterns there tell the story of European migration patterns, even if those patterns aren't the reason for how they vote.

Ottawa is obviously the exception here. Historically, the more Anglo/Protestant part of the city was more Tory, with the Anglos there traditionally being Scottish and Irish protestants, while the French part was (and is) ancestrally Liberal. But these days I don't think this history plays into Ottawa politics at all. It's a big, diverse, public-sector-dominated city and predictably votes Liberal.

In the far east of Ontario, you have Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, the only majority-Francophone riding in Ontario. No prizes for guessing why that riding votes Liberal (although it has all the other characteristics of a Tory riding - rural and exurban, agricultural, no major settlement - the French factor gives the Liberals a major leg up).

The other areas surrounding Ottawa were mostly settled by highland Scots and Irish protestants, and unsurprisingly has a long Tory history. It's probably the most orthodox right-wing part of the province, barring maybe rural southwestern Ontario (Haldimand-Norfolk, Elgin, Middlesex etc). This was the only part of the province where the Reform Party/Canadian Alliance ever won seats.

The Kingston-Belleville corridor was more loyalist-heavy and while this originally meant Toryism (John A himself was from Kingston after all), this moderate tradition has made the area more swingy in recent years - it's more than "moderate tradition" though, like I said previously there's a large retiree population which bizarrely makes it more difficult for the right-wing party in Canada. It should be said that Kingston itself is detached from this Tory temperament at this point, it's a pretty left-wing student-heavy city.

Renfrew County was the odd one out for many years, voting Liberal in an otherwise Conservative neighbourhood. Renfrew was and is predominantly Catholic, but as sectarianism has vanished from Ontario politics, so has Renfrew's Liberal tendency and it is now one of the most rock-ribbed right wing parts of Ontario (same reason why rural Southwestern Ontario used to be a Liberal fortress and is now anything but - non-Anglican/Presbytarian denominations quit the Liberals and now find themselves much more at home with the Tories).

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

This ancestral voting pattern thing gets pretty interesting when you look across Canada. In Saskatchewan, the Ukrainian/Eastern-Central European areas were more pro-CCF/NDP, while the WASP areas were more PC-friendly (and provincial Liberal from 1930s-70s, when the SK PCs were relegated to a rump party). But since the advent of the Sask Party, the end of agrarian socialist politics, and the assimilation of Saskatchewan's Slavs into mainstream Anglo culture, this pattern has vanished. Today, if you're a non-indigenous resident of rural Saskatchewan, you most likely vote CPC/SKP, whether you're a McDonald or a Melnykowski.

Toronto used to be called "Tory Toronto", because the old city of Toronto was a fortress for the Frost-Robarts-Davis Tory dynasty in Ontario. Even an urban riding like Toronto-St. Paul's was a federal bellwether until 2006. Unsurprisingly, Toronto was also the historic heartland of loyalist Toryism, as well as a strong Orange Order presence. But with each subsequent wave of immigration, Toronto moved away from the Conservative brand.

The Maritimes are an excellent example because of how sectarian politics played the role there much longer than in the more urban parts of Canada. Catholics, including but not limited to Acadians were solid grits while protestants voted Tory.

Weirdly though, Newfoundland was the opposite of this and still is to some extent. The Avalon peninsula is predominantly Irish and Catholic, while the rest of Newfoundland is predominantly English and Protestant. Anywhere else in Canada this would mean Liberals win the Avalon and the Tories win the rest of the island, but the opposite is the case (federal tories stopped winning in the Avalon after Danny Williams' 2008 ABC campaign, and now all Newfoundlanders are united in their hatred of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party). But provincially, this division still hasn't fully disappeared.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Ottawa was a majority-Catholic city for most of its history (though probably not anymore), due to large French and Irish-Catholic populations.  But obviously "old" Ottawa barely exists, few have particularly long-time roots in the area and it votes like a national capital and fairly diverse city.

Catholicism is still the largest denomination at 38%, and when you exclude non-religious people it's about half. But you're right, Ottawa's modern voting patterns have almost nothing to do with its Catholic roots. The more Catholic parts are more Liberal, but this probably has more to do with Catholics also more likely to be French.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

On another note, the Carney hype train went full steam when Catherine McKenna vacated her Ottawa Centre seat. The hype train then came to an abrupt stop when former Ontario AG Yasir Naqvi announced his candidacy there. Even if the rumors are true and Trudeau wants to parachute his boy Mark into Canpoli, he won't step in the way of a respected Ottawa Liberal like Naqvi.

Interestingly though, there is a safe Ottawa-area seat where a candidate is yet to be nominated - Pontiac, just north of Gatineau, is currently represented by Will Amos who hasn't been re-nominated yet. If that name sounds familiar, let's just say he's the Liberal MP who is very liberal when it comes to nudity at work.

Maybe the Carney thing is just not going to happen, but if it is, Pontiac doesn't sound too bad. Trudeau probably won't mind telling Amos to piss off (okay I'll stop) if it means Carney gets to run in a safe seat close to Ottawa. Not sure how good his French is but I assume he speaks it well enough considering people are tipping him for finance and possibly the PMO, and Pontiac's pretty Anglo for a Quebec riding.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I think a lot of people would enjoy seeing a Carney-Poilievre race.

Interesting, yes, but not the kind of race you throw a political rookie into if your intention is to get him into a cabinet role asap

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

This is apropos of nothing being discussed here at the present, but I was thinking of it, and it's a reason why I'm so skeptical of politicians who make absolutist principled arguments.

I doubt I can find a newspaper article on this, but I remember this quite clearly.

In 1993, the Reform Party elected 52 M.Ps including 24 in British Columbia and 22 in Alberta.  The Reform Party was a generally right wing populist party that argued for 'common sense conservatism' and against things like what is now referred to as 'wokeism' and affirmative action.

At the time the Reform Party was nominating candidates in British Columbia the party brass clearly didn't pay a lot of attention and they nominated people like Herb Grubel, an intelligent but fairly extreme reactionary economics professor, Ted White, a generally likeable but fairly flaky engineer who occasionally got a little too close to extremist groups like white nationalists.  (His problem seemed to be that he believed that EVERYBODY deserved to have their views represented) and Randy White an intelligent but volatile management accountant whose outburst before the 2004 election of "to heck with the courts" may have cost the Conservatives the election.

The only two of these M.Ps from British Columbia to make Stephen Harper's cabinet were John Duncan a professional forester (a person who maps out forests for cutting) who seemed to be reasonably capable and Jay Hill, who is now the leader of the pro-Alberta independence Maverick Party.

In contrast, in addition to Preston Manning and Deborah Grey, the only Reform M.P with federal Parliamentary experience as she was elected in a byelection shortly after the 1988 federal election were other capable people like Diane Ablonczy, a lawyer and farmer, Stephen Harper, Ian McClelland, the owner of a successful chain of photo processing outlets, Ray Speaker, a provincial Social Credit cabinet minister, Monte Solberg, a smart radio station manager and John Williams, an accountant.

All of these Alberta M.Ps were probably more capable than any Reform M.P from British Columbia. So, not surprisingly, as a believer in the principle of 'the best person for the job' Preston Manning initial shadow cabinet was dominated by Albertans who received most of the senior critic positions.

So, how did the British Columbia contingent take this?  Did they agree with Preston Manning that these Alberta M.Ps were the most capable and that they needed at least a couple years in Parliament before moving up in the ranks?  No! They demanded affirmative action arguing that British Columbia needed to be equally represented in the shadow cabinet especially since there were more Reform M.Ps from British Columbia than Alberta.  Not only that, they asked Reform Party supporters in British Columbia to flood Preston Manning with mail demanding that British Columbia receive affirmative action shadow cabinet representation.

So much for these Reform Party M.Ps belief in absolutist principles when it was they who were the ones who felt unfairly treated.

Interesting, though not surprising. Most people are only interested in principles as far as it advances their interests. Like how a lot of American conservatives talk about free speech and expression as one of their guiding principles, but get upset when black athletes kneel during the national anthem. I'm with you on not trusting "principled ideologues" because they very rarely are as principled as advertised (and those who are rarely get anywhere in the world of politics, because politics is ultimately about getting things done and not grandstanding about ideological purity).

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I think a lot of people would enjoy seeing a Carney-Poilievre race.

Interesting, yes, but not the kind of race you throw a political rookie into if your intention is to get him into a cabinet role asap

OTOH, they can't make Ignatieff's mistake and just gift him a safe seat.

It's not really the same situation though, is it? Iggy never got cabinet experience, but if Carney runs and wins in a possibly imminent 2021 election, he almost certainly will because the chance of a non-Liberal government is so low at this point. Besides I dont think the safe seat was what made Ignatieff a bad politician, he was just a bad politician to begin with. Who knows if Carney would make a good one but a cabinet position would be a good test.

I'd hate to see Carney run in Carleton though. Imagine all this hype, all this potential, the chance of adding real credibility to this government on the economy file, the chance of creating a competitive race for the direction of a post-Trudeau LPC...all gone to waste because of Pierre Poilievre. Carleton is still a tough seat for the Liberals

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Another is that, at least until very recently, the Liberals (and even the NDP) were entirely capable of winning rural ridings.

They both still are. The Liberals dominate the mostly rural Atlantic provinces, have a few rural Quebec seats (and could win a lot more when the Bloc is weak), and do decently well in rural Northern Ontario and the territories. The NDP also wins rural seats, mostly in indigenous-heavy areas.

Even in Southwestern Ontario, though, the Liberals used to be able to win rural seats as recently as 2004, when Paul Martin won everything from Huron-Bruce to Leamington (but ironically not his actual hometown of Windsor or Essex), seats that even in the last election went Tory by over 50%.

You're right that "rural" means completely different things in the North, Quebec and the Atlantic but SWO has seen a Michigan-like rural shift.

True, that ancestral Liberal vote stayed strong into the 2000s, and vanished almost immediately. It's worth noting that many of those rural SWO Liberals during the Chretien-Martin years were social conservatives, and their political views would not be welcome in the Liberal Party these days. As the socially conservative Liberal disappeared, so did (rural) southwestern Ontario from the Liberal column.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Also more recently you have your affluent educated ridings like Burlington, Kanata-Carleton, and two North Shore in BC which used to be reliably conservative, but now seem like safe Liberal, although I do think Tories if they ditched the cultural and social conservatism might still have a chance in those, but may not (hard to know for sure).  Could a Michael Chong or Peter MacKay led Tory party win those or are they gone?

I can't speak for the north shore ridings in BC (other than to say that West Van-Sea to Sky has a really weird distribution), but the Ontario ones have changed a lot. Kanata is something of an economic hub in its own right with the huge tech industry there, going from Ottawa proper to Kanata feels almost like driving out of the city. Burlington also has a similar vibe these days. Generally, as metropolitan areas grow, once-suburban areas turn into mini-urban cores in their own right and this changes the political complexion, namely adding an NDP element and generally weakening the Tories. FWIW both Burlington and Kanata are PC-held provincially, but with all things being equal (which they most certainly were not in Onpoli 2018), they're still competitive ridings - whereas in the past, Burlington and Kanata would have been lean Tory.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Also more recently you have your affluent educated ridings like Burlington, Kanata-Carleton, and two North Shore in BC which used to be reliably conservative, but now seem like safe Liberal, although I do think Tories if they ditched the cultural and social conservatism might still have a chance in those, but may not (hard to know for sure).  Could a Michael Chong or Peter MacKay led Tory party win those or are they gone?

I can't speak for the north shore ridings in BC (other than to say that West Van-Sea to Sky has a really weird distribution), but the Ontario ones have changed a lot. Kanata is something of an economic hub in its own right with the huge tech industry there, going from Ottawa proper to Kanata feels almost like driving out of the city. Burlington also has a similar vibe these days. Generally, as metropolitan areas grow, once-suburban areas turn into mini-urban cores in their own right and this changes the political complexion, namely adding an NDP element and generally weakening the Tories. FWIW both Burlington and Kanata are PC-held provincially, but with all things being equal (which they most certainly were not in Onpoli 2018), they're still competitive ridings - whereas in the past, Burlington and Kanata would have been lean Tory.

Not that long ago, going to Kanata was driving out of the city of Ottawa.

It still somewhat feels like that, even though Kanata is fully within Ottawa now. Then again the only part of Ottawa I've lived in is Centretown (and Sandy Hill during my student days), so what do I know, I'm just a city slicker.

You can't tell me Greely or Carp are part of Ottawa though, I refuse to believe that, city limits be damned. Even Barrhaven is pushing it.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Prince George and Kamloops maybe urban but small cities, sort of akin to Barrie and Brantford which still vote Tory although could lose both, but tend to perform better than they do overall and only lose in these cities if they have a really bad election.  In Canada, about half the country live in metro areas over 500,000 so even if Tories or parties on right elsewhere just dominate all those under 100,000, not nearly enough to win.

For Burlington and Kanata-Carleton, relative to province as a whole they were a decade clearly to right of it while now more or less in line thus go whichever way Ontario goes whereas a decade ago generally voted to right of province.

Barrie and Brantford aren't as big-C Conservative as PG though (Kamloops may be comparable). Brantford's Liberal/NDP strength gets drowned out by the conservative Brant County surrounding it, and Barrie is split awkwardly between two rural areas. On its own, both cities would be swing LPC-CPC ridings, while Prince George on its own would still vote Conservative

Might be worth adding that Brantford voted NDP in the 2018 ontario election, but the surrounding Brant County voted Conservative enough to give the riding to the PCs. Barrie though seems to have voted PC that year, because it's slightly more conservative and the left was split three way there, whereas in Brantford it rallied around the NDP.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Do you think Anglo-Canada should change its alcohol sale system?

The United States only has private liquor stores, while Quebec (and I'm sure much of the rest of the world) goes farther and allows it to be sold in Grocery Stores and at Gas Stations.

Would you support doing the America approach of privatizing liquor stores, or the Quebec approach of allowing it to be sold in any store?

English Canada is way too puritanical about alcohol law (except alberta, they have private liquor stores and I think gas station beers there - I was too young to drink when I lived in alberta, but I remember there was a variety of liquor stores there, no LCBO-type monopoly or anything). Here in Ontario it's a bit nuts, the Wynne government brought in the awful "Beer Store" monopoly, although they did liberalize beer and wine sales by allowing it at select grocery stores like loblaws. Still, Ontario's alcohol laws punish small craft brewers and limiting beer/wine sales to a small handful of stores makes no sense. Quebec sells beer at corner stores and the sky hasn't fallen over Quebec just yet.

I actually like the Ford government's moves on alcohol liberalization (on Marijuana though, holy hell did they mess that up). It makes sense to keep hard liquor limited to the LCBO, corner and grocery stores are probably not well equipped to store and manage hard liquor. For beer and wine though it's high time we implement a Quebec-like system.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://www.hilltimes.com/2021/07/05/they-havent-got-a-competitor-whos-even-remotely-close-liberals-on-track-to-win-majority-in-expected-september-election-but-still-a-few-wild-cards/304638

Unbeatable electoral titan, the Rt. Hon. Justin Pierre James Trudeau, Baron Teflonshire? Or the Theresa May of the loyal North American colony? That's gonna be the main question of this election because lord knows the Tories are a mess.

Expectations are set pretty high for the LPC right now. Anything short of a majority will feel like a Theresa May-esque faceplant, where an election held categorically to win a majority leads to a minority. According to 338Canada, there's about a 50% chance of this happening (their latest projection puts the Liberals at exactly 169 seats, one off a majority). Maybe their internals are looking better, as seemed to be the case in 2019 when the Liberals were acting pretty bullish while the rest of us were thinking they wouldn't cross 140. But based on the public polls, I wonder if Trudeau is being too bullish about getting ready to call an election to gain a majority.

It's easy to look at the CPC's disarray and think the Liberal path to a majority is easy-peasy, but I'm not so sure. If nobody thinks the Tories can win, strategic voting will soften and the NDP will make gains. Being held to a minority in 2019 wasn't so bad, but if that happens in 2021, it signals a serious vulnerability in the Liberal Party. Put simply, if they can't win a majority now, I struggle to see how they can do so in 2025, or whenever the 45th Canadian election gets held.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

https://www.hilltimes.com/2021/07/05/they-havent-got-a-competitor-whos-even-remotely-close-liberals-on-track-to-win-majority-in-expected-september-election-but-still-a-few-wild-cards/304638

Unbeatable electoral titan, the Rt. Hon. Justin Pierre James Trudeau, Baron Teflonshire? Or the Theresa May of the loyal North American colony? That's gonna be the main question of this election because lord knows the Tories are a mess.

Expectations are set pretty high for the LPC right now. Anything short of a majority will feel like a Theresa May-esque faceplant, where an election held categorically to win a majority leads to a minority. According to 338Canada, there's about a 50% chance of this happening (their latest projection puts the Liberals at exactly 169 seats, one off a majority). Maybe their internals are looking better, as seemed to be the case in 2019 when the Liberals were acting pretty bullish while the rest of us were thinking they wouldn't cross 140. But based on the public polls, I wonder if Trudeau is being too bullish about getting ready to call an election to gain a majority.

It's easy to look at the CPC's disarray and think the Liberal path to a majority is easy-peasy, but I'm not so sure. If nobody thinks the Tories can win, strategic voting will soften and the NDP will make gains. Being held to a minority in 2019 wasn't so bad, but if that happens in 2021, it signals a serious vulnerability in the Liberal Party. Put simply, if they can't win a majority now, I struggle to see how they can do so in 2025, or whenever the 45th Canadian election gets held.

I have felt for a while that Trudeau calling an election right now would be a mistake, mainly because a dominant Liberals and directionless Conservatives is a recipe for certain types of urban voters to feel safe defecting from the Liberals to their natural NDP home. Which in an instant would likely nullify any net gains made at the expense of the Tories.

Exactly, this is the risk with the Liberal Party moving to the left too rapidly. It's not so much alienating centrists (as long as they avoid big tax hikes or politically-difficult policies like drug decrim, I think most centrist suburbanites are okay with a more left wing Liberal government), it's actually alienating the left. Sounds paradoxical, but this is how it works - you make big promises and lean into NDP rhetoric. You might excite voters in a situation like 2015 where Trudeau is a shiny new toy, but six years into a mandate, you're the status quo. Now there are high expectations, only heightened because the Liberals keep going for NDP-esque rhetoric. But the NDP will always find things to hammer you on. The indigenous child welfare court case is one they're leaning into, in 2019 it was "you bought a pipeline!", recently there have been talks about how the COVID benefits largely went to the wealthy, and so on. Their strongest argument is "elect more New Democrats, get more progressive policies"

This is the risk the LPC is taking, and it somewhat bears out in the polls. The Liberals' mid-30s polling is more or less the same as it was in fall 2020, it's the NDP that's now pushing 20% and the CPC falling below 30. It's the NDP that is going up, and like I said, 338 still only has the LPC at 50/50 chance at a majority despite so many things going their way.

So yeah, I don't really buy the "Grits will rule past 2030" theory. The Liberal tent isn't what it used to be, they rely heavily on left-wing voters who in their hearts prefer another party. They'll either have to find a way to kill the NDP's momentum first, or stake out a genuinely centrist position that can steal moderate conservatives. With the current cultural polarization of western politics, this is a hard task.