Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[CumbrianLefty]

Let's not forget that the draconian emergency laws passed then had massive public support - most of the NDP parliamentarians formed a lonely opposition to them, and got public abuse for doing so.

[StateBoiler]

RIP https://twitter.com/DuaneBratt/status/1307375189601050624

I don't mean for this to sound at all callous, but it's really amazing that Canada hadn't seen a former PM pass away since 2000: 20 years ago! With the recent news of Chretien's wife passing away too, it feels like the near future will see Canada lose quite a few historic policy-makers, & that's really unfortunate.

RIP, Prime Minister.

And before that, it had been 21 years since Diefenbaker died. So, just 2 deaths in 41 years.

We had the same thing down south. Lyndon Johnson died in 1973 which meant then-president Richard Nixon was the only living one with all his predecessors deceased. We had no presidential deaths then from 1973 until Nixon's death in 1994. Nixon due to Watergate didn't do the pomp and circumstance, so that didn't occur until Reagan's death in 2004. We had 2 deaths in 31 years, but you guys tend to have more Prime Ministers than we do presidents.

Carter is in his 90s so his death can come any day and wouldn't be a surprise. Then you have 3 presidents that were all born in 1946 (Clinton, G.W. Bush, and Trump), so should in theory die all around the same time.

[RogueBeaver]

Lawyer Paul St-Pierre Plamondon (PSPP) is the new PQ leader.

[warandwar]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/mi-kmaw-lobster-fishery-1.5761468

Lynch mobs of lobstermen in Nova Scotia attacking Micmak fishermen.

[DC Al Fine]

Update on the Nova Scotia Liberal leadership race.

Three candidates:

Randy Delorey, MLA for Antigonish and Minister of Health
Labi Kousoulis: MLA for Halifax Citadel-Sable Island and Minister of Labour and Advanced Education
Iain Rankin, MLA for Timberlea-Prospect and Minister for Lands and Forests.

So one urban Halifax candidate, one suburban Halifax candidate, and one rural candidate.

Delorey has six caucus endorsements plus one federal MP, Rankin has five plus one federal MP, Kousoulis has none, but I notice a lot of notables in the Halifax business community endorsed him, which could mean something.

Not counting outgoing Premier McNeil, eleven MLA's have yet to endorse, plus eight MP's.

[Samof94]

RIP https://twitter.com/DuaneBratt/status/1307375189601050624

I don't mean for this to sound at all callous, but it's really amazing that Canada hadn't seen a former PM pass away since 2000: 20 years ago! With the recent news of Chretien's wife passing away too, it feels like the near future will see Canada lose quite a few historic policy-makers, & that's really unfortunate.

RIP, Prime Minister.

And before that, it had been 21 years since Diefenbaker died. So, just 2 deaths in 41 years.

We had the same thing down south. Lyndon Johnson died in 1973 which meant then-president Richard Nixon was the only living one with all his predecessors deceased. We had no presidential deaths then from 1973 until Nixon's death in 1994. Nixon due to Watergate didn't do the pomp and circumstance, so that didn't occur until Reagan's death in 2004. We had 2 deaths in 31 years, but you guys tend to have more Prime Ministers than we do presidents.

Carter is in his 90s so his death can come any day and wouldn't be a surprise. Then you have 3 presidents that were all born in 1946 (Clinton, G.W. Bush, and Trump), so should in theory die all around the same time.

Germany is more like America(but even more extreme) in how it generally has long serving Chancellors. Merkel’s predecessor is the only living ex chancellor.

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/natnewswatch/status/1318324614750232576

[PSOL]

Is the Indigenous anti-pipeline protests happening again? Weren’t they on the road to a deal or what?

[Estrella]

Is the Indigenous anti-pipeline protests happening again? Weren’t they on the road to a deal or what?

I don't even know anymore, the whole thing is just a clusterf***. There are many disputes: between provincial and federal governments, between governments and First Nations, between tribes themselves and within them. Many tribal leaders ignore what their people want, if we can even say that there's such a thing as "what people want" - Indigenous people aren't a monolith and have many different opinions. To top it all off, the federal Liberals' approach is somewhere between "pretend we're going to stuff their mouths with money until they shut up", "pretend to listen and then completely ignore what they say", "ride roughsod over whatever was agreed on previously" and "run around with hair on fire". But then, it's not like the alternative would be any better. Scheer's reaction to the Wet’suwet’en protests was one long Just watch me.

So Crown-Indigenous relations (as the official term goes) continue to suck under Lil' Justin despite all the cute apologies and whatnot. Though, to his credit, he isn't trying to legislate First Nations out of existence like his father.

By the way, it's not just oil. White Nova Scotia fishermen are currently pretending it's 1860 and trying to, ehm, manifest their destiny over Mi'kmaq fishermen. This is one hell of a headline: Mobs are attacking Indigenous fisheries in Nova Scotia. Here’s what’s going on.

[PSOL]

Is the Indigenous anti-pipeline protests happening again? Weren’t they on the road to a deal or what?

I don't even know anymore, the whole thing is just a clusterf***. There are many disputes: between provincial and federal governments, between governments and First Nations, between tribes themselves and within them. Many tribal leaders ignore what their people want, if we can even say that there's such a thing as "what people want" - Indigenous people aren't a monolith and have many different opinions. To top it all off, the federal Liberals' approach is somewhere between "pretend we're going to stuff their mouths with money until they shut up", "pretend to listen and then completely ignore what they say", "ride roughsod over whatever was agreed on previously" and "run around with hair on fire". But then, it's not like the alternative would be any better. Scheer's reaction to the Wet’suwet’en protests was one long Just watch me.

So Crown-Indigenous relations (as the official term goes) continue to suck under Lil' Justin despite all the cute apologies and whatnot. Though, to his credit, he isn't trying to legislate First Nations out of existence like his father.

By the way, it's not just oil. White Nova Scotia fishermen are currently pretending it's 1860 and trying to, ehm, manifest their destiny over Mi'kmaq fishermen. This is one hell of a headline: Mobs are attacking Indigenous fisheries in Nova Scotia. Here’s what’s going on.

Settler Colonial states always behave like this. It truly sucks that there’s no political movement that actually cares about indigenous rights, looks like there issues are cast to the fringe unlike the French.

[StateBoiler]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

[DC Al Fine]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Hmm, I could've sworn I grumbled about this on the thread... anyway to answer your question:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias

[Benjamin Frank]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Hmm, I could've sworn I grumbled about this on the thread... anyway to answer your question:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias

Ridiculous. Virtually all of the Canadian media leans to the right, so, if there is any bias it would be against the Liberals.

[StateBoiler]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Hmm, I could've sworn I grumbled about this on the thread... anyway to answer your question:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias

Ridiculous. Virtually all of the Canadian media leans to the right, so, if there is any bias it would be against the Liberals.

Everyone in this Canada general political discussion thread is a right-leaning Canadian media member?

Go back through the thread. There's a few posts about Bill Morneau resigning, WE Charity shutting down operations in Canada, and nothing else.

[Benjamin Frank]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Hmm, I could've sworn I grumbled about this on the thread... anyway to answer your question:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias

Ridiculous. Virtually all of the Canadian media leans to the right, so, if there is any bias it would be against the Liberals.

Everyone in this Canada general political discussion thread is a right-leaning Canadian media member?

There's a few posts about Bill Morneau resigning and then nothing.

I don't know why it wasn't mentioned here.  But, I'd hardly call the Canadians here as reflective of all Canadians or the Canadian media.

[MaxQue]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Harper move cancelled three months of Parliament sitting.
Trudeau move postponed the end of summer recess by a week.

[Benjamin Frank]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Harper move cancelled three months of Parliament sitting.
Trudeau move postponed the end of summer recess by a week.

Harper also prorogued Parliament to prevent an imminent defeat of his government with the other parties poised to take power, that wasn't the case with this prorogation.

It was still wrong, because the purpose of the Liberals was clearly to shut down the investigation into the WE charity scandal, but the anti-Democratic nature is much less serious.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Harper move cancelled three months of Parliament sitting.
Trudeau move postponed the end of summer recess by a week.

Harper also prorogued Parliament to prevent an imminent defeat of his government with the other parties poised to take power, that wasn't the case with this prorogation.

It was still wrong, because the purpose of the Liberals was clearly to shut down the investigation into the WE charity scandal, but the anti-Democratic nature is much less serious.

Yeah, I've heard this complaint a lot, and I don't know why, considering the answer to the question is very obvious. Of course a prorogation to prevent an imminent fall of the Government is going to cause more controversy, what did you expect? Did you really think the media and posters on Atlas are going to treat the two situations the same when the situations are not even remotely the same? Or, am I meant to believe that Trudeau could do what Harper did and not get flak for it (LOL)?

[cp]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Hmm, I could've sworn I grumbled about this on the thread... anyway to answer your question:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias

Ridiculous. Virtually all of the Canadian media leans to the right, so, if there is any bias it would be against the Liberals.

Everyone in this Canada general political discussion thread is a right-leaning Canadian media member?

There's a few posts about Bill Morneau resigning and then nothing.

I don't know why it wasn't mentioned here.  But, I'd hardly call the Canadians here as reflective of all Canadians or the Canadian media.

Atlas is representative of Atlas. There is nowhere else like this, and certainly not a whole country of us (thankfully!).

On media bias, I'm unconvinced by the arguments about media bias on ideological grounds. The broadcast media might lean a little left, the print media definitely right, but the bigger difference is between the corporate/conglomerate outlets and the local/independent ones.

Something of note: Harper gave an interview at some right wing conclave a few years back where he moaned about how the Canadian media was all stacked against him and that's why he lost in 2015. It was typical self-pitying whining, but I found it interesting how he made his point: he brought up the right wing trope of the supposed left wing bias of the BBC. He offered the riposte that had BBC reporting been disseminated in Canada it would have been the furthest right outlet 'by a country mile'.

[StateBoiler]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Harper move cancelled three months of Parliament sitting.
Trudeau move postponed the end of summer recess by a week.

Harper also prorogued Parliament to prevent an imminent defeat of his government with the other parties poised to take power, that wasn't the case with this prorogation.

It was still wrong, because the purpose of the Liberals was clearly to shut down the investigation into the WE charity scandal, but the anti-Democratic nature is much less serious.

I find that explanation disingenuous. The Prime Minister's family are involved in a corruption scandal, the Finance Minister falls on a knife never admitting blame, and we're going to whisk that away? It was clearly a move to stop the Trudeau government from falling when they only hold a minority to start with. They couldn't do what they did with SNC Lavelin and just vote to not investigate because they didn't have a majority.

The Boys in Short Pants podcast Twitter had a funny line when Morneau was fined $300 post-fact for violating the Canada Elections Act. "I got a $280 ticket for jaywalking once. It was -20C I was wearing a T-shirt and trying to catch a cab. Don't judge my life choices."

[cp]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Harper move cancelled three months of Parliament sitting.
Trudeau move postponed the end of summer recess by a week.

Harper also prorogued Parliament to prevent an imminent defeat of his government with the other parties poised to take power, that wasn't the case with this prorogation.

It was still wrong, because the purpose of the Liberals was clearly to shut down the investigation into the WE charity scandal, but the anti-Democratic nature is much less serious.

I find that explanation disingenuous. The Prime Minister's family are involved in a corruption scandal, the Finance Minister falls on a knife never admitting blame, and we're going to whisk that away? It was clearly a move to stop the Trudeau government from falling when they only hold a minority to start with. They couldn't do what they did with SNC Lavelin and just vote to not investigate because they didn't have a majority.

The Boys in Short Pants podcast Twitter had a funny line when Morneau was fined $300 post-fact for violating the Canada Elections Act. "I got a $280 ticket for jaywalking once. It was -20C I was wearing a T-shirt and trying to catch a cab. Don't judge my life choices."

What threat was there of the government falling? The NDP never made a serious move to suggest that, and without them there'd be no chance of Trudeau losing a vote of no confidence.

Not sure that line about Morneau is funny. Maybe you had to be there?

[TopShelfGoal]

Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Harper was about to lose the government, he was about to be defeated in a confidence vote in the parliament and the other parties had an agreement to form a coalition and send him to the opposition benches. He literally prorogued the parliament to keep his grip on power. Something that is fundamentally undemocratic in a minority government.

Trudeau was in no danger of losing a confidence vote. Prorogation isn't inherently evil, it is done often and without controversy. In Trudeau's case it was an attempt to change the channel on a bad new cycle, which while not great still falls within the usual parameters of political gamesmanship (and parliament can go ahead and investigate WE charity stuff all they want now). As opposed to trying to cling to power when the democratically elected majority in the parliament is about to kick you to the curb as was the case with Harper.

[TopShelfGoal]

I find that explanation disingenuous. The Prime Minister's family are involved in a corruption scandal, the Finance Minister falls on a knife never admitting blame, and we're going to whisk that away? It was clearly a move to stop the Trudeau government from falling when they only hold a minority to start with. They couldn't do what they did with SNC Lavelin and just vote to not investigate because they didn't have a majority.

The government was in no danger of falling- CPC was still in the middle of its leadership race and the NDP was broke, with bad poll numbers to boot and had no intention to go into an election.

On the other hand in case of Harper there was a full blown confidence and supply agreement between the opposition parties and he was about to lose a confidence vote within days had he not prorogued.

The two situations are no remotely comparable.

[CumbrianLefty]

Something of note: Harper gave an interview at some right wing conclave a few years back where he moaned about how the Canadian media was all stacked against him and that's why he lost in 2015. It was typical self-pitying whining, but I found it interesting how he made his point: he brought up the right wing trope of the supposed left wing bias of the BBC. He offered the riposte that had BBC reporting been disseminated in Canada it would have been the furthest right outlet 'by a country mile'.

Its probably easier to notice the BBC's *real* political positioning from outside.

[StateBoiler]

I find that explanation disingenuous. The Prime Minister's family are involved in a corruption scandal, the Finance Minister falls on a knife never admitting blame, and we're going to whisk that away? It was clearly a move to stop the Trudeau government from falling when they only hold a minority to start with. They couldn't do what they did with SNC Lavelin and just vote to not investigate because they didn't have a majority.

The government was in no danger of falling- CPC was still in the middle of its leadership race and the NDP was broke, with bad poll numbers to boot and had no intention to go into an election.

On the other hand in case of Harper there was a full blown confidence and supply agreement between the opposition parties and he was about to lose a confidence vote within days had he not prorogued.

The two situations are no remotely comparable.

The end result is the exact same. I agree "government falling" is too strong but the prorogation was to preserve the government's place and standing by quashing an investigation into its actions. If anything it's worse because no one was accusing Harper of political corruption when he prorogued, they were just upset by a political manuever. Harper didn't break any laws in the lead up to it. What Trudeau did was a political manuever to stop an investigation from shining light on the actions of MP's that hit close to home. How is that possibly fine to anyone with a neutral state of mind not colored by their political leanings?