Canada 2011 Official Thread

[Foucaulf]

Three of the new NDP MP's are enrolled students at McGill.

Very creative way to cut down their student debt.

Do you think the NDP will make a "MP bail", where they ask their filler MPs to resign and replace them with more qualified candidates in by-elections? If that happens, they'll have to do it quick - I fear Quebecois are shocked at the wave's size and will scrutinize the NDP immediately.

[Foucaulf]

Do you think the NDP will make a "MP bail", where they ask their filler MPs to resign and replace them with more qualified candidates in by-elections?

This isn't serious, is it? Of course they won't.

There are certainly more absurd ideas being floated around - like Liberals thinking Justin Trudeau would be a great party leader.
But a quick look at the Bloc's 1993 statistic shows a number of ex-professor and ex-business MPs. Quite a bit resigned by '97, so historical precedent works against that proposal.

I'm trying to predict which aspects of the NDP could be used against them, and the Quebec caucus is certainly ripe for scrutiny. What is their greatest weakness: their inexperience? Their spontaneity? Their being "full of communists and separatists"? I certainly don't want the Quebec caucus to become a Conservative talking point, which only further alienates the party where Tory strength is weakest.

[Foucaulf]

In other NDP news.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/05/04/pol-mulcair-osama.html

Mulcair makes regular appearances on Power & Politics, the show in question. Before the NDP surge he had some colourful debates on there: one was with journalist Andrew Coyne on whether Quebec is the most corrupt province (topic for an article Coyne wrote).

He's very nationalistic in the Quebec sense; I'm sure he parroted the Quebec politicians in saying Sikhs must not bring their Kirpans into their Legislative Assembly. Maybe he's trying to sell his rationality with remarks like this, and being the godfather of a majority of the caucus means the party won't stop him. NDP supporters out in the West will bawk at this, but we bawked at a Tory majority too.

[Foucaulf]

Robert Silver, ex-Liberal strategist turned columnist, has two more posts up. One is on think tanks and another is on interim leadership.

The first one reeks of entitlement. The title is "Can Preston Manning Save the Liberals," which evoked Rovian character assaults, i.e. "Preston Manning will privatize everything". But that has clearly failed. Then he mentions:

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I think he's referring to grassroots squadrons like Media Matters and MoveOn. But he actually means a think tank. What a massive waste of money!

I still remember the Liberals' Canada at 150 conference, where they invited a bunch of academics to talk about potential national issues in 2017. It was not a success, but it expounded on issues that lied below the radar. If the party put in its platform only the ideas proposed on the welfare state, people might have cared about their policy. The Liberals could have talked about establishing Canada's palliative care as one of the world's best, or starting a mandatory "low-interest pension account". They didn't.

The Liberals assembled intellectuals who exude knowledge for a living to reverse the stereotype of the clueless politician. When election time came, they disregarded everything, as if consulting for a dying party were a privilege. Now they want to establish an in-house think tank to gather the smart people forever and ever?

If they are to be respectable, think tanks have to produce quality research. The Manning Centre does not do that, and nobody knows. Britain's Fabian Society chugs along, but they do not seek fame. BC's Fraser Institute is not respectable, but famous because they provide services such as their annual ranking of the province's schools. The latter is obviously the construct Silver wants:

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"Pick and choose from." The Liberals are not the Democrats - nobody will let them "pick and choose". At a time when the C. D. Howe Institute should walk the party like a dog, strategists think their party is always entitled to slim pickings; no one else will feed these starving academics.

Now that the Conservatives have four years, politically active academics will try to influence them. Certainly none will waste time for the Liberals. Party bigwigs must collectively read Locke, Burke and Rawls：they can make an appeal after.

[Foucaulf]

Worth noting that at least part of the great victory won by Conservatives has been their apparently successful outreach to the immigrant community -wonder if Republicans here will be able to replicate that:
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How courting the immigrant vote paid off for the Tories

The Tories used two methods in this election: Surgical strikes and cluster bombing.

They "surgically struck" the more integrated immigrant groups, like the Italian immigrants in Toronto (with Julian Fantino and Harper playing bocce).

They "cluster bombed" Asian immigrants, making sure all their candidates targeting Chinese voters are Chinese and that government officials interact with the immigrants when the candidates are white as bread. For the latter, apathetic immigrants and those who didn't know for whom they were voting saw the Conservative strike and decided to support them. Quite a few immigrant ridings taken by the Tories in this election and the last had Liberals elected in 1993, but they have survived not because of support, but because they were the only ethnically similar candidate. Not anymore.

It's really weird, and hypocritical, but they are anti-immigration.

That is a bit of a generalization. From anecdotal experience, immigrants of a certain ethnicity support more of them in Canada, and less of everyone else. European immigrants have assimilated enough into the Canadian ethos and therefore are not special cases. But talk to the Asians, and you'll see they are casually racist about most other ethnicities. Talk to a rich, non-Tamil immigrant and they'll unilaterally support Harper cracking down on that Tamil refugee boat. To them, their struggle into Canada is unique, and they've suffered the most hardship. Other ethnicities aren't even close.

It's not like the States, where the immigrants seem to vote en bloc. That is a byproduct of your "melting pot" policy.

The only immigration policy new immigrants would agree on is expanding family reunification efforts, but Harper has no inclination to deal with that.

Something I've heard. I thought this came up when Rob Ford was elected?

Not sure if this is it, but...

[Foucaulf]

Just read an interesting analysis of the recent election -to summarize, it is stating that because of westward population shifts, growth of suburban riders, and the changes in the economy from one based on manufacturing to the service sector, the Conservative Party is set to become the natural governing party of Canada in the 21st century -just as the Liberals were the natural governing party of the 20th century.

But that's not the thesis. This is:

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I think Coyne is a bit premature, because if Ontario is known for one political thing it's that it swings wildly between parties. I don't see Ontario this time as anything more than it was when it elected Mike Harris, and again. Ontario is not "joining" the West as it is "collaborating with" them. In the West Ontario sees the future of the Canadian economy - driven by resources and foreign investment. Ontario has no opinions on whether that is a good thing, but for now it wants a piece of the action.

Coyne implies that, having forged this alliance, Harper has reached maximum power. But Harper is equally tied between the demands of these two regions. The Conservative majority does not represent an Atlantic Charter as it does a Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Harper will have his hands full tugging Calgary and Toronto together. It's up to the opposition to stab him in the chest (metaphorically speaking).

[Foucaulf]

Immigration is much higher under Harper than before.

The policy platform of the Conservatives seems somewhat vague on it, but from what it does say, it seems in favor of reducing immigration overall. Are there stats out there that contradict what the Tories claim?

A quick look at Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website yields some statistics.

Comparing trends from 2006 (beginning of Harper mandate) to 2009 (last year with available info)

-Gross number of permanent residents (not yet citizens, but eligible for government benefits) took a dip at the beginning of Harper's mandate, but has passed 2006 figures by 2009. That said, the number began declining in 2005, but recovered recovery from 2007 onwards.

-With the Canadian population obviously growing faster than the growth of permanent residents, permanent residents as a percentage of Canada's population dropped from 0.8% to 0.7%.

-The number of "economic immigrants" - meaning anything from immigrants beginning to work in Canada to rich immigrants that classify as "investors" - has fully recovered. That number as a percentage of all PRs has risen from 55% to 61%.

-The percentage of "Family class" immigrants - those reuniting with their families - has dropped from 28% to 26%. Refugees as a percentage fell from 12.9% to 9.1%.

-The number of "temporary residents", though, has gone nowhere but up: up 24% from 2006. There was a lull for "humanitarian cases" in 2007, but that is overshadowed by the great influx of foreign workers.


Of course, both of you are right - more foreigners are coming to Canada, but less of them are staying.