Canada General Discussion 1.5: The Countdown Begins

[RogueBeaver]

Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the new thread! I found this year's Bye-Bye about as amusing as last year's, which is to say 6/10. Room for improvement.

[RogueBeaver]

Toronto votes in October. New boundaries take effect May 1. Grits will be picking their candidates this year. If the federal election's next spring - Harper has said as much due to the provincial votes scheduled next fall - then this summer kicks off the pre-writ period. Insofar as it still exists in the Permanent Campaign.  This will also be the last deficit budget, hopefully.

[RogueBeaver]

14 PMBs to watch.

[RogueBeaver]

EKOS year-end poll is out. Greatest Canadian of 2013 is Hatfield by a wide margin, Ford Biggest Villain, Trudeau Preferred Drinking Companion, most Canadians expect either the Tories or Grits to win next year.

[RogueBeaver]

Jim Coutts has died after a long battle with cancer. RIP.

[RogueBeaver]

There's a long dynastic tradition in federal politics and certain provinces (BC, Ontario, Quebec in particular) too, but that's faded over the years. Federally, this is the first time a party leader's son led that party. In the '70s David and Stephen Lewis led the federal and Ontario NDP concurrently for a few years. Mulcair's descended from legendary PLQ premier Honoré Mercier, BTW.

[RogueBeaver]

9 questions on Ontarian politics.

TF: Since you asked.

[RogueBeaver]

Ford has filed for reelection "Ford More Years." Chow and Tory won't declare for another month or 2, if they do.

[RogueBeaver]

Solid Paul Adams piece on class.

[RogueBeaver]

Grits narrowly won Q4, $2.2 to $1.7 million. Anyone know the Dipper numbers?

[RogueBeaver]

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

[RogueBeaver]

Wrong thread now, but they're his hardcore tribalists.

[RogueBeaver]

Far more depressing news: *at least* 4000 kids died in the residential school system. Not till '96 were the last of them shuttered.

[RogueBeaver]

Thank God: Sea Kings will be retired starting next year.

[RogueBeaver]

Coutts obituary.

[RogueBeaver]

OPCs should focus on the economy, since White Papers can only take flight with a majority. Almost like some moderates there forget what happened 2 years ago when they backflipped and ran as McGuinty-lite.

[RogueBeaver]

Staunchly oppose. My hope is that Harper and Poilievre kill it with a smile, have a debate but then send it off to committee oblivion.

[RogueBeaver]

Dippers raised 800k last Q. Is there something I'm missing? On QP Flaherty insisted, without prompting, that he's running in 2015 and so will Harper. Though for obvious reasons Flaherty could hardly say otherwise about his own prospects. Needless to say Clement would be his replacement were he to leave. Mulcair talked as usual about hiking corporate taxes and energy policy, Trudeau was Jell-O but did talk about the usual infrastructure/health/education Grit stuff to do with the surplus. Scoop from Ivison: apparently Kenney threatened to quit Cabinet over his new portfolio (which he doesn't like) because he feels he's been set up to fail without more money allocated in the budget. Probably an underlying cause of his feud with Flaherty.

[RogueBeaver]

Increasing doubts among Tory insiders about whether Flaherty's health will let him hang on till the election. Unless there's a fairly sharp deterioration my guess is that he does, and I won't believe he retires unless it happens. His feud with Kenney started in '09, when Kenney interfered in Ontarian politics by endorsing Hudak for OPC leader alongside the other high-profile Ontarians like Baird, Clement and Poilievre. Flaherty was supposed to corral his caucus colleagues for his wife.

[RogueBeaver]

There was a security breach at Harper's Vancouver speech today. Also, Michaud (long time no hear!) thinks the BQ should disappear. For once I agree with him. Meanwhile there's the perennial Red challenge to Anders which will flop as usual.

[RogueBeaver]

Agreed, but I'd prefer a bleu there. Won't restate my views on non-Edmontonian rouges. So I'd abstain from voting were I a resident in that riding.

[RogueBeaver]

Buckley Rule for me. A degree of turnover is healthy IMO.

[RogueBeaver]

Maybe by orange and red avatars.

[RogueBeaver]

Our new ambassador to Israel will be announced today.

[RogueBeaver]

Looks like Kenney may get a Jobs Grant deal after all.