Canada General Discussion 1.5: The Countdown Begins

[MaxQue]

Unsurprisingly, Trudeau wins the beer test. Except in Quebec, where Mulcair does.

Trudeau because I want to ask him if it was awkward running against someone his Dad used to bang.

I doubt it was awkward, considering how many ladies PET messed with.

[MaxQue]

G&M on Mulcair's strategy and La Presse on Trudeau's Montreal recruitment. Unsurprisingly, La Presse doesn't note the lack of regional recruitment, which is where the Orange-Red battle will be fought. Because narrative forming.

Liberal regional recruitment should be good, they managed to get a good candidate in my riding last time (through, they seemed to really bother, put up an office and hoped to win on a 4-way race).

[MaxQue]

Bloc new leader will be announced on May 25, except if there is a provincial election this spring.

[MaxQue]

Here's the link. Also, Hebert thinks the BQ could disappear. I won't believe that unless it actually happens.

I personally think than if they fail to improve on their 2011 result at next election, the question will be openly asked, as those heavy defeats are hurting the independance movement.

[MaxQue]

A sad day for moderate Muslims in Quebec, they get bullied because the Liberals need the vote of the extremist ones. Truly disgusting from them (and I'm a Charte opponent, but that lady left her country to flee exactly the one thing which causd her being expelled).

EDIT: To clarify, nothing about Houda-Pépin would have ended in news without the "tchador incident", and I do not believe it was an accident. Fundamentalist Muslims are trying to get rid of her since decades, since she is a "bad example" to Muslim women and they used that to get rid of her. Liberals had no choice but to follow to not lose votes and especially money (Liberal's funraising is quite bad).

It's a victory for (Muslim) fundamentalism. Passage of the current PQ Charte would be a victory for Catholic fundamentalism, too. Everyone would have been better without that silly and disgusting debate.

[MaxQue]

Huh? Couillard got mired in what he himself admitted was a purely hypothetical question. To the point, they should've had a position months ago and once agreed upon, in or out. I don't see where supposed Catholic fundamentalism enters into the picture. Not when Muslim and occasionally Sikh or Hasidic garb has been the focus for eons. We do wholeheartedly agree on the Charte being disgusting and silly.

Catholics (and Christians in general) don't wear "ostensible religious signs". The Charte is obviously targeting the other religions (it's pretty obvious when you see than they want to keep the cross in the Assembly, which is very visible and obvious). The goal is to cater to the people in rural Quebec rambling about "turban people wanting to take over and impose their religion" (those rural nuts sadly exist and are often Catholic fundamentalists).

The Mulism fundamentalists wanted to get rid of Houda-Pepin for so long than I cannot believe they are not behind it, even indirectly.

[MaxQue]

I do not think than government will fall over the budget. Marois wants the election to be about the Charte. I suppose she is planning than CAQ and Liberals will vote against once than it reach the Assembly after the freakshow of the parlimentary committee. She wants the Charte to fail to use it to into an election.

So, March, I suppose? I do not know how the parliamentary schedule is made in Quebec and which speed government will use on Charte progress into the procedure.

[MaxQue]

The current speculation is that she'll dissolve the Assnat in 3 weeks' time.

It's the first time I heard about it, but, who knows? Polls are favorable, now, she may want to go now, especially with Couillard being weak and totally absent from the public debate.

[MaxQue]

Hudak fired his Essex candidate for refusing to recant his anti-RTW Tweets. PLQ should take note of how you deal with public insubordination on party policy. Meanwhile the unions are in a lovely catfight about who's leading the anti-PC fight in Ontario.

No, they shouldn't. We want party leaders, not dictators.

[MaxQue]

Whoa: Dunderdale's resigning, Tom Marshall will be interim premier. Guess she didn't want to go down with what looks like a imploding guv. To think I thought Williams had set them up for dynasty...

Wierd. Usually, they announce they'll resign once they have a replacement, not an interim premier (ad CBC is telling than Marshall already announced he would retire in 2015). Three premiers from the same party in 2014?

[MaxQue]

PLQ has been completely useless and pathetic on the charter, as even their staunchest supporters admit. Now Couillard loses a previously unknown backbencher (Fatima Houda-Pepin) he should've booted eons ago, instead of being pushed around. Even Dion and Iggy didn't get pushed around by random backbenchers.

Now, Fatima Houda-Pépin is in news and is saying than Couillard offered her a Cabinet job in the next Liberal government if she endorsed the Liberal position on religion. Liberal Party is denying.

[MaxQue]

Not only absurd, but a stone faced lie.

Oops, I hadn't heard the news- didn't realize he was doing this now.

It is kind of absurd, it's hard to keep the institution apolitical, especially if there are still Conservatives there. The Senate's not the Supreme Court, after all. In Canada though, it's possible to make the Senate somewhat apolitical, because the Supreme Court is appointed in a similar matter, and it is fairly apolitical. Canada is not the U.S. But what's to stop either institution from becoming political in the future, though?

The fact they are nominated for life makes them more apolitical, senators can oppose the will of their party without having to fear to lose next election.

On a unrelated subject, the longest-serving Quebec MNA and vice-Premier, was rushed to the hospital and hospitalized for chest pains, this morning.

[MaxQue]

Most likely it will be repealed in 2015, too.

[MaxQue]

Poilievre confirmed on The House that he'll table the Fair Elections Act next week. That's probably our only non-budgetary bill of consequence this sitting.

News are talking of the new prostitution bill (must be passed before December). Logically, it's for this sitting or the fall one?

[MaxQue]

PQ expects a spring election, not a winter one. Depends what happens with the budget. As I've said since the last election, fully expect Marois to win a second term. Question is majority or minority. I'm also tempted to believe that Couillard will lose his "leadership" (one Peq even compared him to Iggy in Le Devoir!) either through a PQ majority or like John Tory, losing his chosen seat.
 

They can't find him a safe seat in Montreal?

Worse, he currently have one (he got elected in a by-election in Outremont), but he is insisting on running in the seat of Roberval, where he has his chalet. It would only his 4th riding in 6 years being an MNA. Mont-Royal (Montreal safe seat) 2003-2007. In 2007, he decided in run in Jean-Talon (Quebec City), but resigned within a year. And, new, he came back in Outremont and wants to run in Roberval (rural Lac-St-Jean).

[MaxQue]

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/tangle-of-rules-and-procedures-strangles-federal-government-tweets-1.1667110

Conservative "small government" ideology at work, surely.

[MaxQue]

Finally a real Ontario poll, from Nanos: Liberals lead 36/28/27. The Tories are at their lowest point since they were last in government. Though Greens are polling at 8, which probably wouldn't hold up in an election. Still, this is all MOE movement since last Nanos in November was 36/31/26.

Wierd. I expected PC to win the next election, but this is looking terrible for them. I suppose than Hudak will never be Ontario Premier, then. Ontarians don't seem to like him.

[MaxQue]

I can confirm than Irwin Cotler was very popular and respected by the local NDPers, too. His and his deep expertise on international law and human rights will be missed, as his well-known debating skills.

[MaxQue]

Quebec will raise the minimum wage from 10.15$ to 10.35$, on May 1st. Nothing really special, it happens on May 1st every year or other year.

[MaxQue]

ONDP still playing small ball, and CPC planning to make mischief at the LPC convention.

Nothing about the conservative election bill, Rogue? Or you are too ashamed to mention it?

[MaxQue]

My budget reaction is the same as last year: meh.

Well, there is nothing new at all in that budget, expect a tobacco tax. Nothing new, which has pros and cons.

And I very much suspect we don't want the same things at all.

And I really don't how someone sane (which is what you are) can endorse a law forbidding Elections Canada to do sensibilisation in schools and banning them from doing turnout campaigns. It's a deliberate choice to lower turnout.

[MaxQue]

Poilievre said he'd look at excising that part, which was my objection to the bill.

I'll believe him if he does it.

[MaxQue]

If the Conservative MVP is a tape recorder, it's not going well for them.

[MaxQue]

How come Windsor West isn't NDP-held?

[MaxQue]

Jobs Grant has now been secured. On another note, I find it pathetic that the Laurentians who crapped all over Preston Manning when he was in politics are now selectively quoting him against Poilievre.

Why? Like everybody, sometimes he is wrong, sometimes, he is right. And he is right about the lack of transparency and the evilness of the voter suppression strategy.

But, true, like ecologists, Manning is anti-patriotic, now?