Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Atlantic Canada is another factor, it's Canada's "celtic fringe" like Scotland/Wales/Cornwall in the UK. Atlantic Canada isn't strictly "left wing", however. The Liberals out east are quite a bit more right-wing than the LPC, and the their PCs are quite a bit more left-wing than the CPC. On balance, Atlantic Canadians are centrists who prefer the Liberals federally who are more likely to pour money into their struggling communities.

O'Toole seems like a good fit for Atlantic Canada (populist economics, defense of Anglo-Canadian "traditions", military background etc.) but doesn't seem to be catching on. 

True, but Trudeau hasn't given them a reason to stop voting Liberal. Parties get voted out, not in.

Besides, O'Toole hasn't gotten much air time yet, a lot of people still haven't heard of him or know what he stands for. Perhaps he would be a good fit for Atlantic Canada, but Trudeau and the Liberal government are quite popular out there, so it's a tough task.

[King of Kensington]

Yes, they're satisfied with the Liberals.  Besides the 2011 debacle, the last time they turned on the Liberals was in 1997 due to cuts to unemployment insurance (where the PCs made inroads and the NDP had a breakthrough in Nova Scotia).  But Trudeau has not governed like Chretien.

[Estrella]

Forty-one years ago, on 20 May 1980, a referendum took place in Quebec. Most people would tell you that it was a vote on independence; others would perhaps say it was about sovereignty-association - but it wasn't anything so simple. The voters were asked to give a one-word answer to a question of 106 words:

The Government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations; this agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, levy its taxes and establish relations abroad - in other words, sovereignty - and at the same time to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency; any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will only be implemented with popular approval through another referendum; on these terms, do you give the Government of Quebec the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?

OUI / YES
NON / NO

I've watched The Champions where the people involved talked about what actually happened. It was a documentary, but this part felt like heavy-handed satire. The process that led to creation of this question must have been the most absurd thing in history of Canadian politics.

We tried lots of questions when we had private polls made by the PQ, so we knew, for instance, that if we asked the people of Québec "do you want to separate, yes or no?", we would've gotten no more than 22 or 23 percent. So this was the best question.

The day before the question was to be announced, Lévesque was still doodling with the wording. So we had a roundtable, we said it was a lousy question, so Lévesque took the question, threw it out and we came up with a second version. And then everybody, 26 members of cabinet, started to work collectively on the question. It was eerie, everybody was trying to suggest one sentence here or there. And then at one o'clock in the morning, one minister who hadn't said a word stood up and said "Is this a question? What is a question? Do we need a question mark? Can we have a question with two sentences?" Because we had arrived at two sentences, so can that be a question? Lévesque then turned to his Minister of Justice, who obviously hadn't thought about that. I thought Lévesque was gonna fire him right there on the spot at one in the morning.

So obviously everyone went to sleep and it was the staff who got to cope with that problem. We assembled the best legal minds the government could get at two o'clock in the morning, and these lawyers had in my office a three hour discussion as to what is a question - that was the question. It was fascinating, people quoting an episode from 1946, lawyers talking... and finally they didn't arrive at a conclusion and they all went to bed again. So I sat there and talked to Chief of Staff and finally I put a semicolon in the middle of it and gave it to Lévesque - and that was the way it was done.

[Don Vito Corleone]

Fun fact about that referendum: Gilles Duceppe spoiled his ballot. Instead of voting yes or no he wrote about the need for Quebecers to focus on the real enemy: Capitalism.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Fun fact about that referendum: Gilles Duceppe spoiled his ballot. Instead of voting yes or no he wrote about the need for Quebecers to focus on the real enemy: Capitalism.

Yep, he was a Maoist into his 30s. A Maoist.

[Benjamin Frank]

Fun fact about that referendum: Gilles Duceppe spoiled his ballot. Instead of voting yes or no he wrote about the need for Quebecers to focus on the real enemy: Capitalism.

Yep, he was a Maoist into his 30s. A Maoist.

Well, that's really no worse than being a Randian, and that's mainstream in some circles.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Fun fact about that referendum: Gilles Duceppe spoiled his ballot. Instead of voting yes or no he wrote about the need for Quebecers to focus on the real enemy: Capitalism.

Yep, he was a Maoist into his 30s. A Maoist.

Well, that's really no worse than being a Randian, and that's mainstream in some circles.

Sure, but Maoism was never a popular form of communism in developed western countries. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a Trot or a Marxist-Leninist, but Maoism always struck me as a more postcolonial, third-world thing.

Then again many 60s era Quebec nationalists would consider themselves victims of colonialism and reasonably comparable to enslaved African-Americans, so what do I know

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

[Benjamin Frank]

Fun fact about that referendum: Gilles Duceppe spoiled his ballot. Instead of voting yes or no he wrote about the need for Quebecers to focus on the real enemy: Capitalism.

Yep, he was a Maoist into his 30s. A Maoist.

Well, that's really no worse than being a Randian, and that's mainstream in some circles.

Sure, but Maoism was never a popular form of communism in developed western countries. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a Trot or a Marxist-Leninist, but Maoism always struck me as a more postcolonial, third-world thing.

Then again many 60s era Quebec nationalists would consider themselves victims of colonialism and reasonably comparable to enslaved African-Americans, so what do I know

This may be because Maoism, especially at that time, had as much to do with Mao and China as 'socialism' did to the Nazis.  

This is from a book published in 1973 called 'A Dictionary of Modern Revolution' by Edward Hyams.  

"The purest of the New Leftists are to be found among the Maoists.  First, as to its name, Maoism is not simply an imitation of the communism of the People's Republic of China: inspired by certain of the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung, European Maoism is, in its purest manifestation, very much more radical, more guacheiste, than Chinese communism, despite the fact that Chinese communist practice since the Cultural Revolution is apparently less bureaucratic than Russian communism.  The Maoists are Marxist-Lenninist, and claim that there is continuity from Marx and Lenin to Mao; but they utterly repudiate the Communist Party practices of going to the people with a readymade program, arrogating to the Party militant leadership of the proletariat.  The dictatorship of the proletariat must really come from the Proletarians themselves.  The Maoist intellectual becomes one of the people - here there are echoes of the populist movement in the late 19th Century Russia, and of the intellectual communism of Britain in the 1930s.  The Maoist does not teach and lead the people, he is taught and led by them, though he should act as a spark to fire the mass.  He should give weight to pushing the spontaneous revolutionary movement in his factory or office or university towards the Left, away from moderation and negotiation towards revolutionary action.

Reproached by the institutionalized Old Left with having no clear political line, no programme based on theory, the Maoist does not deny it: he answers to the masses, the people, are constantly pushing in a direction and sense favorable to their class; that the fundamental immorality from which stems all social evil is the exploitation of man by man and of this basic sin the masses alone are not guilty; and that it follows that the revolutionary movement of the people themselves cannot be but moral. Out of this it will emerge, helped to birth by the Maoists, a revolutionary socialist and wholly democratic programme of the people, not of a small elitist and avant-gardist group such as those formed by the Trotskyites, or of a bureaucracy such as that of the Communist Party or the trade unions."

Page 11, Introduction.

Of course, this is just what the author claims the Maoists thought of themselves, I have no idea if others on the 'New Left' of the early 1970s agree with that assessment, but the only thing of significance here is that this is likely what Gilles Duceppe was thinking of when he referred to himself as a Maoist.

[Benjamin Frank]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

We'll see if there is a large desire to still remove French from cereal boxes, but even more, we'll see if the federal Liberals and the other national parties show a double standard in the treatment of Quebec and the English speaking provinces.

One other possibility is a new English rights federal party starting up in Quebec.  That could threaten at least 5 to maybe 10 Liberal seats in Montreal.

[King of Kensington]

I think Burnaby North-Seymour might be a better choice.  Still an uphill battle, but at least might have a fighting chance never mind Conservatives were unusually low there as candidate disqualified last time so since that is not likely to happen again, I expect Conservatives to get higher than 19% and probably more likely to come at expense of Liberals than NDP.

The NDP already has a candidate there - North Vancouver councillor Jim Hanson.  He seems like a good pick for them since they need to improve their showing in the Seymour part of the riding.

[Benjamin Frank]

I think Burnaby North-Seymour might be a better choice.  Still an uphill battle, but at least might have a fighting chance never mind Conservatives were unusually low there as candidate disqualified last time so since that is not likely to happen again, I expect Conservatives to get higher than 19% and probably more likely to come at expense of Liberals than NDP.

The NDP has already has a candidate there - North Vancouver councillor Jim Hanson.  He seems like a good pick for them since they need to improve their showing in the Seymour part of the riding.

To be completist: this is North Vancouver District, not the city of North Vancouver (as is the Federal riding.)  Jim Hanson ran for the NDP provincially in 2013 and did relatively well there, possibly presaging the NDP winning the riding in 2021.  He is also a prominent lawyer in the Greater Vancouver area.

[King of Kensington]

As for West Van-Sunshine Coast, it's divided between Liberal/Tory West Van and the rest which is very anti-Conservative and has a green bent.  There's obviously a "promiscuous progressive" constituency in the riding: in the last election the Conservatives stayed flat at 27% while the Liberals lost a lot of votes to the Greens and to a lesser extent the NDP.

The main impact of Avi Lewis is he will almost certainly set the Greens back there.  The Leap Manifesto is a sort of "radical chic" cause that appeals to a lot of upscale environmentalists.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

As for West Van-Sunshine Coast, it's divided between Liberal/Tory West Van and the rest which is very anti-Conservative and has a green bent.  There's obviously a "promiscuous progressive" constituency in the riding: in the last election the Conservatives stayed flat at 27% while the Liberals lost a lot of votes to the Greens and to a lesser extent the NDP.

The main impact of Avi Lewis is he will almost certainly set the Greens back there.  The Leap Manifesto is a sort of "radical chic" cause that appeals to a lot of upscale environmentalists.

What is the % of the vote of the riding in each of those segments, %-wise?

[King of Kensington]

Roughly 35% in West Van, 25% in the Sunshine Coast and 40% in the rest.

[MaxQue]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

We'll see if there is a large desire to still remove French from cereal boxes, but even more, we'll see if the federal Liberals and the other national parties show a double standard in the treatment of Quebec and the English speaking provinces.

One other possibility is a new English rights federal party starting up in Quebec.  That could threaten at least 5 to maybe 10 Liberal seats in Montreal.

Anglophones in Quebec are actually not up in arms about Legault new laws (it's full of symbolism, but doesn't change much in the day to day lifes) and Quebec legal scholars seem to think that using unilateral amendment (which is totally legal) instead of the province-Commons-Senate one used for the deconfessionalization of Quebec and Newfoundland school systems (in the 90's) would make that change have very limited judicial effects.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

We'll see if there is a large desire to still remove French from cereal boxes, but even more, we'll see if the federal Liberals and the other national parties show a double standard in the treatment of Quebec and the English speaking provinces.

One other possibility is a new English rights federal party starting up in Quebec.  That could threaten at least 5 to maybe 10 Liberal seats in Montreal.

Well Alberta and all provinces but Quebec and NB don't have French as official languages already so they wouldn't need to use this precedent to do anything.

There isn't a consensus among legal scholars though, even if Quebec's move is legitimate it's unprecedented. If nothing, this move creates ambiguity and that's the thing I worry about most because the last few years have made me lose faith in premiers, who too often play with the mechanisms of confederation to get their way on petty political wins.

[King of Kensington]

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MP Bob Bratina is retiring and has broken with the federal government on LRT construction.

https://www.thespec.com/opinion/editorials/2021/05/19/liberal-mp-bob-bratina-sticks-to-his-guns-on-lrt.html

There are three open seats in Hamilton with Bratina, Scott Duvall (NDP, Hamilton-Mountain) and David Sweet (Conservative, Flamborough-Glanbrook) retiring.

[mileslunn]

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MP Bob Bratina is retiring and has broken with the federal government on LRT construction.

https://www.thespec.com/opinion/editorials/2021/05/19/liberal-mp-bob-bratina-sticks-to-his-guns-on-lrt.html

There are three open seats in Hamilton with Bratina, Scott Duvall (NDP, Hamilton-Mountain) and David Sweet (Conservative, Flamborough-Glanbrook) retiring.

Hamilton East-Stoney Creek and Hamilton Mountain interesting to see if they stay with current parties or flip to NDP/Liberal (opposite of what held now).  In theory if Tories were at 40% in Ontario and perfect three way split, could win both, but almost zero chance of that happening.  Flamborough-Glanbrook is becoming more suburban so I expect Liberals will flip it, but suburban parts go Liberal, rural parts go Tory.  Tories could hold it if they did better in Ontario, but based on how things are going now, I think Liberals are clearly the favourites to win it.

[mileslunn]

I had earlier suggested Liberals being in power past 2030 and I actually think its more likely than many think for simple reason for Tories it is now majority or bust.  There is no way the NDP will in a minority ever prop up Tories even if they win more seats than Liberals.  They are well aware what has happened to similar parties like SPD in Germany, Dutch Labour, Irish Labour, and PASOK in Greece who all propped up right of centre governments and each party took a big hit after.  They even now have a term for that, called PASOK'd and NDP knows if they propped up Tories it would obliterate party.   In past we were much less polarized so a left wing party supporting a right wing as long as they made concessions was more acceptable than today.

So the issue becomes how do Tories win a majority.  Tories winning most seats is likely to happen before 2030, but winning majority becomes a real challenge.  Quebec outside of their strongholds in the Chaudiere-Appalaches and Quebec City region rarely elects many Tory MPs.  I guess if they have a native son like say Gerald Detell, maybe they breakthrough like Brian Mulroney did, but I doubt their Prairie base would ever tolerate a Quebec leader unless it was a crazy one like Maxime Bernier who wouldn't do well in Quebec.  So with Quebec, out of the picture, that means 2/3 of seats in rest of Canada and that is extremely difficult to do.  Not impossible, but only been done three times in last century (1958, 1984, and 2011) and first two involved big breakthroughs in Quebec.  1917 and 2011 only times Tories got a majority totally sidestepping Quebec.  1917 was over conscription crisis where Quebec and rest of Canada stood on opposite ends, but don't see anything on horizon likely to create similar divide. 

Yes I guess perhaps, if Tories win a plurality and NDP decides to prop up Liberals, public swings en masse next time to Tories to get change, but point being Tories face basically an insurmountable hill to win a majority much like Labour in UK.  Difference is Labour in UK at least is preferred by most smaller parties over Tories so they can form government by just reducing Tories to a plurality, total opposite of Canada.

[Hatman 🍁]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

What is this, the early 1990s? Anti-French sentiment hasn't been that much of a thing lately.

[DC Al Fine]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

What is this, the early 1990s? Anti-French sentiment hasn't been that much of a thing lately.

This. If Kenney were to pull a stunt like this (I doubt it), it would be about pipelines or carbon taxes, not language.

[mileslunn]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

What is this, the early 1990s? Anti-French sentiment hasn't been that much of a thing lately.

This. If Kenney were to pull a stunt like this (I doubt it), it would be about pipelines or carbon taxes, not language.

I think Kenney still has federal ambitions and while yes with way things are going in Alberta, chances of him every becoming PM are pretty close to zero, but he knows something like this would end that.  Also he says Legault as an ally since despite differences, both want Ottawa to stay out of provincial affairs.

More likely you get a municipality somewhere doing this.  In addition unlike 90s, we have a much larger immigration population so an English only policy would come across as not just anti-French, but anti-immigrant too thus why less likely. 

[MaxQue]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

What is this, the early 1990s? Anti-French sentiment hasn't been that much of a thing lately.

This. If Kenney were to pull a stunt like this (I doubt it), it would be about pipelines or carbon taxes, not language.

I think Kenney still has federal ambitions and while yes with way things are going in Alberta, chances of him every becoming PM are pretty close to zero, but he knows something like this would end that.  Also he says Legault as an ally since despite differences, both want Ottawa to stay out of provincial affairs.

More likely you get a municipality somewhere doing this.  In addition unlike 90s, we have a much larger immigration population so an English only policy would come across as not just anti-French, but anti-immigrant too thus why less likely. 

Municipalities don't have a Constitution that's part of the federal Constitution.

[mileslunn]

Surprised nobody's brought up Quebec's unilateral amendment of the constitution.

I'm not surprised Trudeau supported this decision, he needs Legault voters in the next election. But he may just have opened up a can of worms.

I could see a right wing party, especially Jason Kenney in Alberta, seeking to declare their province with English as the only official language and getting a unilateral amendment to the constitution to get it declared as such.  

What is this, the early 1990s? Anti-French sentiment hasn't been that much of a thing lately.

This. If Kenney were to pull a stunt like this (I doubt it), it would be about pipelines or carbon taxes, not language.

I think Kenney still has federal ambitions and while yes with way things are going in Alberta, chances of him every becoming PM are pretty close to zero, but he knows something like this would end that.  Also he says Legault as an ally since despite differences, both want Ottawa to stay out of provincial affairs.

More likely you get a municipality somewhere doing this.  In addition unlike 90s, we have a much larger immigration population so an English only policy would come across as not just anti-French, but anti-immigrant too thus why less likely. 

Municipalities don't have a Constitution that's part of the federal Constitution.

True, but could make municipal bylaw as that is what Sault Ste. Marie did in 1990.  But at same time I think backlash to that would be much stronger as many would see it as anti-immigrant too.