Canadian Election 2019

[Walmart_shopper]

I actually think, all things considered, that Trudeau and the Liberals are doing a remarkable job keeping their heads above water. A scandal like this, so close to an election, for an only marginally popular ruling party, would often be pretty much lethal.

[Walmart_shopper]

He's done.

Maybe if somebody other than Doug Ford was the latest Tory wonderkind people would take Conservative outrage here more seriously. Nobody actually believes that Trudeau is a racist. And nobody actually believes that Tories are outraged by this. Outraged by Liberal hypocrisy? Maybe. "Outraged" so to pick themselves off the electoral floor in the minority-filled Toronto area? Yeah. But this is nothing more than a lot of people who oppose Trudeau simply opposing Trudeau, and at most opposing their inability to get away with the things Trudeau gets away with. But in terms of actual electoral impact? None.

[Walmart_shopper]

I'm really proud of Jagmeet's response.  It definitely has the ability to turn around the campaign. It's unfortunate that this has to be reason for it.

Actually, I found the statement rather overwrought. Canada is, without question, the most tolerant, welcoming, and integrating place on earth. Canadians take a lot of pride in that fact, and a single truly stupid and insensitive photo cannot undo it. To pretend that a photo like this somehow makes Canada less tolerant is just absurd. And to pretend that Trudeau is like people who go around beating minorities up is even more absurd.

[Walmart_shopper]

I'm really proud of Jagmeet's response.  It definitely has the ability to turn around the campaign. It's unfortunate that this has to be reason for it.

Actually, I found the statement rather overwrought. Canada is, without question, the most tolerant, welcoming, and integrating place on earth. Canadians take a lot of pride in that fact, and a single truly stupid and insensitive photo cannot undo it. To pretend that a photo like this somehow makes Canada less tolerant is just absurd. And to pretend that Trudeau is like people who go around beating minorities up is even more absurd.

If that's what you got out of his response, there is something wrong with your comprehension skills.

And no, Canada is not "the most tolerant, welcoming and integrating place on earth". What a ridiculous thing to say.

No, what I got out of Singh's response is that he really hopes to capitalize on this politically. And what I get out of your response is that you really hope that Singh capitalizes on it politically.

But I would love to hear which countrirs are more tolerant, better integrated, more welcoming of migrants, and have more politically correct cultural norms. Just because Singh (and you, apparently) know a racist dude doesn't make Canada any less liberal and open.

[Walmart_shopper]

I'm really proud of Jagmeet's response.  It definitely has the ability to turn around the campaign. It's unfortunate that this has to be reason for it.

Actually, I found the statement rather overwrought. Canada is, without question, the most tolerant, welcoming, and integrating place on earth. Canadians take a lot of pride in that fact, and a single truly stupid and insensitive photo cannot undo it. To pretend that a photo like this somehow makes Canada less tolerant is just absurd. And to pretend that Trudeau is like people who go around beating minorities up is even more absurd.

If that's what you got out of his response, there is something wrong with your comprehension skills.

And no, Canada is not "the most tolerant, welcoming and integrating place on earth". What a ridiculous thing to say.

No, what I got out of Singh's response is that he really hopes to capitalize on this politically. And what I get out of your response is that you really hope that Singh capitalizes on it politically.

But I would love to hear which countrirs are more tolerant, better integrated, more welcoming of migrants, and have more politically correct cultural norms. Just because Singh (and you, apparently) know a racist dude doesn't make Canada any less liberal and open.

Uhh, I don't "know a racist dude". I'm a professional pollster who has done tonnes of polling on this subject. We have a lot of racism in this country. I'm not going to name "less racist" countries and I explained why in an earlier post. I'm not so arrogant to believe I can pontificate on how racist other countries are.

There is a lot of racism everywhere. It doesn't mean that Canada isn't a comparably tolerant and less racist place (except for Quebec, of course). It appears that your problem with what I'm saying isn't even that it is false, but that I dare to speak so well of Canada when I'm not even Canadian. Sorry not sorry. Canada is a marvelously accepting place and a few Truseau blackface pictures cannot possibly negate that fact. Singh's lament isn't credible because it runs contrary to the experience of an open and welcoming Canada experienced by Canadians themselves--not SJW pollsters, not opportunistic NDP leaders, but Canadians of all stripes and colors. If Trudeau tumbles from this it won't be because people suddenly feel collective guilt over Trudeau's costume fetish. It won't be because they're moved to self laceration by Singh's childhood pain. It will be because they're tired of Justin's drama and just want to be left alone to enjoy the Canada that perhaps you and Singh cannot.

[Walmart_shopper]

I'm really proud of Jagmeet's response.  It definitely has the ability to turn around the campaign. It's unfortunate that this has to be reason for it.

Actually, I found the statement rather overwrought. Canada is, without question, the most tolerant, welcoming, and integrating place on earth. Canadians take a lot of pride in that fact, and a single truly stupid and insensitive photo cannot undo it. To pretend that a photo like this somehow makes Canada less tolerant is just absurd. And to pretend that Trudeau is like people who go around beating minorities up is even more absurd.

If that's what you got out of his response, there is something wrong with your comprehension skills.

And no, Canada is not "the most tolerant, welcoming and integrating place on earth". What a ridiculous thing to say.

No, what I got out of Singh's response is that he really hopes to capitalize on this politically. And what I get out of your response is that you really hope that Singh capitalizes on it politically.

But I would love to hear which countrirs are more tolerant, better integrated, more welcoming of migrants, and have more politically correct cultural norms. Just because Singh (and you, apparently) know a racist dude doesn't make Canada any less liberal and open.

Uhh, I don't "know a racist dude". I'm a professional pollster who has done tonnes of polling on this subject. We have a lot of racism in this country. I'm not going to name "less racist" countries and I explained why in an earlier post. I'm not so arrogant to believe I can pontificate on how racist other countries are.

There is a lot of racism everywhere. It doesn't mean that Canada isn't a comparably tolerant and less racist place (except for Quebec, of course).It appears that your problem with what I'm saying isn't even that it is false, but that I dare to speak so well of Canada when I'm not even Canadian. Sorry not sorry. Canada is a marvelously accepting place and a few Truseau blackface pictures cannot possibly negate that fact. Singh's lament isn't credible because it runs contrary to the experience of an open and welcoming Canada experienced by Canadians themselves--not SJW pollsters, not opportunistic NDP leaders, but Canadians of all stripes and colors. If Trudeau tumbles from this it won't be because people suddenly feel collective guilt over Trudeau's costume fetish. It won't be because they're moved to self laceration by Singh's childhood pain. It will be because they're tired of Justin's drama and just want to be left alone to enjoy the Canada that perhaps you and Singh cannot.

Please correct more misconceptions we have about our country random foreigner.

There are paved streets in Winnipeg and Scheer's lgbt comment are about as electorally significant as my left toe.

[Walmart_shopper]

I can't wait for the post-Facegate polling.

Rather early, and just a daily tracking poll, but still

Libs: 36.8
Cons: 34.2
NDP: 10.1
Green: 9.8
Bloc: 4.7

Changes from the previous poll were all under 0.5 in every case.

Nanos was virtually unchanged, too. Liberals dropped less than a point and the Greens and NDP gained no more than a point (the Conservatives had a tiny drop in support). Those aren't even obvious enough changes to be anything other than statistical noise.

The problem for the (mostly NDP and Conservative) cheerleaders of the longevity and gravity of the blackface scandal is that nobody has an argument for why it would hurt the Liberals. There are principally two groups digging into this with glee. First, those who resent the Woke King's wokeness and hope this will temper his SJW credibility. These people are Conservative voters, anyway. The other group is the (white, western provincial, progressive) people watching the Singh video with tears rolling down their faces. These people are NDP voters. But none of this actually moves the needle away from the liberals. What Grit voter sees Trudeau acting insensitively on camera suddenly decides that, no, I am so woke that I want to punish Trudeau by voting for or helping elect the people who represent and legislate everything contrary to my political and social values? Where this could hurt the Liberals is among marginal Harper-Trudeau voters who have had enough already. But these are likely Scheer supporters already.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/althiaraj/status/1175941652109811713

It's easy to be SJW Kingh when you can eat into your rival's electorate. It's less easy when it may actually cost you votes in ridings you want to win.

But tell me more about Jagmeet's unflinching commitment to fighting discrimination and racism.

[Walmart_shopper]

I’m on a discord server with someone who thinks more blackface photos are going to come out. Now normally I’d dismiss this and say the damage was done, but he says he thinks the photo might be more recent, from say 2006 or later. Now, if that happened I honestly don’t know what would happen. As we’ve seen most people really don’t care about all this stuff, but if it’s that recent the dynamic is obviously a little different. I could see it leaving quite a bit of damage but also I could see it not doing anything, with the first photos having done all the damage.

The problem is that people begin to shrug off new photos because they view it as tacky piling on rather than a genuine problem with Trudeau. And then Trudeau goes from victimizer to victim and the whole thing backfires. It looks aa though rather than offering a coherent and popular program for government his opponents are trying to make a campaign out of photographs. The right response is probably Scheer's, which is to use the scandal to make a broader case for Trudeau's incompetence rather than making blackface the whole thing. Naturally, though, the right wing commentariate is less interested in electing Scheer than drooling over liberal hypocrisy and demanding to know why liberal people get away with so much. Hence Scheer's message gets drowned out by his own supporters.

[Walmart_shopper]

And today's Nanos daily tracker has the Libs jumping from 33.1 to 35.1, the Cons falling from 34.3 to 33.5.  So much for the CPC capitalizing on a blackface backlash...

"It's outrageous that SJWs can get away with racism but we cannot" was never a particularly salient argument to win an election with, no matter how true it may be.

[Walmart_shopper]

Two big news stories today:

Liberals: Release platform and big on spending and also taxing the rich more.  Helped them in 2015, but didn't work out so well for Wynne and also still big holes so Tories do have opportunity to portray themselves as fiscally responsible party, but it will mean no big spending promises.

Conservatives: Looks like Andrew Scheer never was an insurance broker.  Worked as an assistant for one, but to be one you need to have a licence which he did not.  I suspect this will be slightly negative for Tories, but probably not fatal although does show he has limited private sector experience.

I would love to meet the guy who wakes up on election day and thinks to himself, you know, I was going to vote for the Tories today, but knowing that Andrew Scheer was only an assistant insurance broker instead of a full-membership insurance broker makes me rethink everything I thought about politics.

[Walmart_shopper]

Its very ironic that the Tories are quick to denounce people as "career politicians" or to say that anyone working in the public sector are all parasites sucking on the public "teat"...but then you see people like Jason Kenney or Stephen Harper or Andrew Scheer who have never had a private sector job in their entire lives and who have been political junkies since they were children. Scheer has either been an assistant to an MP or been an Mp or been speaker since he was in his early 20s. He has no "profession" outside of politics.

Trudeau has also basically been in politics since he was born and never really had much of a career outside politics...just a few stints as a snowboard instructor and teaching drama part-time. in Contrast Jagmeet Singh and Elizabeth May are both lawyers and both had real careers before politics

I do think there's a reason politicians whose only job experience is in being a lawyer tend not to highlight the fact that their only job experience is in being a lawyer, though.

[Walmart_shopper]

I think the important thing in regards to Singh's survival is that you can sort of ignore Quebec? If the NDP caucus holds up in the rest of Canada, even if it's masked by a total blowout in Francophone ridings, that would be a healthy sign.

Agreed. The NDP will need to show some improvement for that to happen though. As things currently stand most projection models are showing then losing a significant portion of their Rest of Canada caucus on top of being nearly wiped out in Quebec.
 

And with the possibility, no matter how diminished, of a Conservative government they'll inevitably bleed strategic votes in non-Francophone ridings to the Grits. Singh failed to make his party competitive enough to avoid lob-sided strategic voting losses. Do no matter how adorable he is on TV it is nevertheless hard to look past that. He's young enough to contend for leadership again, though.

[Walmart_shopper]

Singh looks great. Such a shame that the NDP never polls well enough pre-election for NDP supporters to feel like actually voting NDP at the ballot box isn't a waste of a vote in many of the ridings.

Yeah tactical voting looks like it'll squeeze the NDP again. It's tragic how they lost in 2015, I wish Mulcair had won that election and the NDP was the major party of the left.

My riding is strictly red or blue most of the time, but in that 2015 election it was really looking like the NDP had a shot. I will sadly be tactical voting myself this time, against Scheer's Conservatives. In my riding the best way to.do so is to vote Liberal. The stakes are too high with the climate crisis for me to spend my vote virtue signalling that I support the NDP in a riding where they will not win (this time).

If the polls start massively shifting away from Trudeau and towards Singh, I will vote NDP. It looks like that won't be happening though.

You do realize, your vote isn't going to be the deciding vote in this election, right?

Tactical voting on the level of the individual makes no logical sense.

This x1000

Vote your conscience. Imperfect politicians don't deserve your non-decisive vote just because of how they're polling.

My conscience says that a Conservative government making Canadian climate change policy is unacceptable, and not doing my small small part to try to prevent that is a moral duty that I cannot neglect.

Right. Doing what you can to prevent a Tory government, even if it means tactically supporting a less-preferred party, is not only how politics works, it also Is "voting your conscience." 

[Walmart_shopper]

Singh looks great. Such a shame that the NDP never polls well enough pre-election for NDP supporters to feel like actually voting NDP at the ballot box isn't a waste of a vote in many of the ridings.

Yeah tactical voting looks like it'll squeeze the NDP again. It's tragic how they lost in 2015, I wish Mulcair had won that election and the NDP was the major party of the left.

My riding is strictly red or blue most of the time, but in that 2015 election it was really looking like the NDP had a shot. I will sadly be tactical voting myself this time, against Scheer's Conservatives. In my riding the best way to.do so is to vote Liberal. The stakes are too high with the climate crisis for me to spend my vote virtue signalling that I support the NDP in a riding where they will not win (this time).

If the polls start massively shifting away from Trudeau and towards Singh, I will vote NDP. It looks like that won't be happening though.

You do realize, your vote isn't going to be the deciding vote in this election, right?

Tactical voting on the level of the individual makes no logical sense.

This x1000

Vote your conscience. Imperfect politicians don't deserve your non-decisive vote just because of how they're polling.

My conscience says that a Conservative government making Canadian climate change policy is unacceptable, and not doing my small small part to try to prevent that is a moral duty that I cannot neglect.

Right. Doing what you can to prevent a Tory government, even if it means tactically supporting a less-preferred party, is not only how politics works, it also Is "voting your conscience." 

Weren't you talking about being open to and volunteering for Joint List? And you're advocating tactical voting to keep Bibi Scheer out? Ok you do you.

Israeli politics work very differently than Canada's non-proportional system. Supporting left wing parties in Israel actually helped beat the right wing, but in Canada it will only hurt. In Anglo-FPTP  systems you don't have the convenience of being dogmatic like yoi do in Israel.

[Walmart_shopper]

So people... what do you think the odds are on these outcomes happening?

Scenario A
LIB + NDP + GRN = greater than 50%

Scenario B
CON + B-Q = greater than 50%

And how about this:

Scenario C
LIB + NDP = almost 50% but not quite
LIB + NDP + GRN = greater than 50%
Scheer becomes Prime Minister anyway

Scenario D
CON + B-Q = greater than 50%
Trudeau becomes Prime Minister anyway

Scenario A: 80%
Scenario B: 5%
Scenario C: 25%
Scenario D: 20%

[Walmart_shopper]

So people... what do you think the odds are on these outcomes happening?

Scenario A
LIB + NDP + GRN = greater than 50%

Scenario B
CON + B-Q = greater than 50%

And how about this:

Scenario C
LIB + NDP = almost 50% but not quite
LIB + NDP + GRN = greater than 50%
Scheer becomes Prime Minister anyway

Scenario D
CON + B-Q = greater than 50%
Trudeau becomes Prime Minister anyway

Scenario A: 80%
Scenario B: 5%
Scenario C: 25%
Scenario D: 20%

Should not A and B add up to nearly 100%  Unless you think PPC will win a bunch of seats more than the 1 it might win. 

It isn't seats but rather voting percentage. In any case I think the likelihood of Libs/NDP/Greens getting over 50% is 80%, of Cons/BQ getting over 50% only 5%,, and 15% chance of I have no clue.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1184528998669389824

If only Justin can get Trump to endorse Scheer the Liberal majority will be cemented.

[Walmart_shopper]

The Libs won Manitoba in 1997, Quito.

But, seriously. I think he's right. Ontario probably will save the Grits' majority.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1184528998669389824

Is this not a sign that Trudeau is in trouble ?  Meaning if he is running away with it then Obama would not be doing this (or perhaps asked to do this).

Of course not. There is virtually no downside to Obama's endorsement. He is quite popular in Canada and so there is no risk to it. It may not do much, but if it moves a few NDP voters to the Grits in marginal ridings then it works. Most likely the Obama tweet isn't a sign of anything. Obama wanted to voice his support and the Liberal campaign welcomed it as something that couldn't hurt.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1184528998669389824

Honestly, this is such bullish-t to me. What the hell does Barack Obama know about Indigenous issues and the horrendous way Trudeau has used these communities as props? There are other progressive options in the race.

He doesn't. But he probably likes Justin and had a personal friendship. And that's sometimes all it takes.

I guess I just hoped Obama was above being a brash sycophant.

It's almost as though global political leadership is about relationships and sometimes pragmatic cooperation in the pursuit of shared goals.

[Walmart_shopper]

In 1997 the Liberals just barely eked out a majority by five seats...but they didn’t just win Ontario that year. They won 101 out of 103 seats in Ontario due to the conservative vote being split down the middle between the PCs and the Reform Party.. I expect the Liberals to get a plurality off seats in Ontario and to likely end up with more seats than the Tories in a minority parliament, but if anyone tunings the Liberals will win all but one or two seats in Ontario like they did in 1997, all I can say is, you’ve gotta be nuts

But they don't have to. The Libs will do significantly better in Quebec than they did in '97, making a clean sweep of Ontario unnecessary to hold a majoriry.

[Walmart_shopper]

https://twitter.com/quito_maggi/status/1184924872251772931

I actually believe this might very well happen.  Devastating result for Tories and almost certainly will force Scheer's resignation and big changes in the party, but I think a combination of things are happening to cause this.  Tories are strong in Prairies but weak elsewhere.  Atlantic Canada is a Progressive Conservative and Scheer still seems too Reform like to win there.  Scheer's French is very weak so losses in Quebec, although BQ gains will temper Liberal support there.  Ontario hates Ford and so desire to not have a second Conservative government will mean a very poor showing there.  In BC, environment is a huge issue and while any are fiscally conservative, Tories weak stance on the environment hurts them there.  Still with strong splits will probably gain in the last one.

I fear though national divisions will get worse as Alberta and Saskatchewan will feel even more alienated from the rest of Canada and that will be a challenge Trudeau will have to deal with which won't be easy.

I agree, but what else could the Conservatives possibly do? They picked the most generic and unoffensive candidate possible--someone youmg amd upbeat and right wing enough to avoid Tory defections while not setting off serious alarm bells among swing voters.

[Walmart_shopper]

   Conservatives are kind of in a box because I would think most soft NDP or Green voters who are wavering, are wavering between voting for their first choice, and if not for the Liberals. Not a big universe of potential CPC voters out there, outside of the already small PPC electorate. Don't see how they get too close to a majority.

The eternal quagmire of the right in Canada.

[Walmart_shopper]

Will there be turnout updates throughout the day at the national or provincial level?