Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

what do the resident Canucks of this board think of these videos? They just now cropped up in Youtube recommendeds.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

On the Senate, I find it very odd to have a House of Commons and a Senate. The latter just seems so republican...
What Trudeau did seems sensible - much better than Tony Blair's idea of electing the Lords.

What are the NDP pushing for?

"Senate" is a bit of a misnomer for what Canada has, it's basically a less aristocratic House of Lords (no life hereditary peers). The Queen's Representative appoints Senators based on the Prime Minister's advice, who serve until they turn 75. Senate seats are allocated by province, but it's not equal. The Senate apportionment formula is actually ridiculous and horribly outdated.

Historically the Senate was basically used for partisan patronage, but in recent years Prime Ministers have caught on that this is frowned upon, and focused on appointing "esteemed Canadians." Harper actually wanted very substantive senate reforms including senate elections, but the Supreme Court ruled that this could not be done without a constitutional amendment, and that was the end of that. The Senate issue didn't end up looking so good for Harper by the end of his premiership, however...

Trudeau's reforms were smaller than what Harper wanted, but he actually achieved something. For one, there is a "Senate Appointment Committee" (or something to that effect) that advises the PM on who to appoint. Ultimately it's his choice and I'm sure there's some quasi-patronage that goes on, but at least there's an independent process to select candidates, instead of just giving the job to the PM's drinking buddies.

Literally any Canadian citizen can apply to be a Senator now when there's a vacancy, the committee looks at applications and makes a list to recommend to the PM, and he picks who gets to sit in the chamber.

Trudeau also abolished the Senate Liberal Party to make it less partisan and less tied to the House, but this is more of an internal reform within the Liberal Party and the Senate Conservatives still exist.

The NDP wants to abolish the Senate entirely (or at least they did in 2015, it's not a very relevant issue these days). I get where they're coming from considering how useless and scandal-prone our Senators have been, but I prefer Trudeau's approach of making the Senate a more effective and meritocratic institution instead of just abolishing it entirely.

Interesting - the Tories taking a more 'progressive' if you will approach to constitutional issues. This is the sort of area where I could imagine Trudeau - from my admittedly limited understanding - taking quite a 'progressive,' Blairite stance; but what he has done seems like a good solution. (Does the formula favour small provinces like Yukon, Prince Edward Island etc.?)

The Senate is steeped in regional representation. 1/4 of Senators represent Atlantic Canada, 1/4 represent Quebec, 1/4 represent Ontario, and 1/4 represent Western Canada.
So yeah, it does overrepresent small provinces quite a bit.
iirc...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

On the Senate, I find it very odd to have a House of Commons and a Senate. The latter just seems so republican...
What Trudeau did seems sensible - much better than Tony Blair's idea of electing the Lords.

What are the NDP pushing for?

"Senate" is a bit of a misnomer for what Canada has, it's basically a less aristocratic House of Lords (no life hereditary peers). The Queen's Representative appoints Senators based on the Prime Minister's advice, who serve until they turn 75. Senate seats are allocated by province, but it's not equal. The Senate apportionment formula is actually ridiculous and horribly outdated.

Historically the Senate was basically used for partisan patronage, but in recent years Prime Ministers have caught on that this is frowned upon, and focused on appointing "esteemed Canadians." Harper actually wanted very substantive senate reforms including senate elections, but the Supreme Court ruled that this could not be done without a constitutional amendment, and that was the end of that. The Senate issue didn't end up looking so good for Harper by the end of his premiership, however...

Trudeau's reforms were smaller than what Harper wanted, but he actually achieved something. For one, there is a "Senate Appointment Committee" (or something to that effect) that advises the PM on who to appoint. Ultimately it's his choice and I'm sure there's some quasi-patronage that goes on, but at least there's an independent process to select candidates, instead of just giving the job to the PM's drinking buddies.

Literally any Canadian citizen can apply to be a Senator now when there's a vacancy, the committee looks at applications and makes a list to recommend to the PM, and he picks who gets to sit in the chamber.

Trudeau also abolished the Senate Liberal Party to make it less partisan and less tied to the House, but this is more of an internal reform within the Liberal Party and the Senate Conservatives still exist.

The NDP wants to abolish the Senate entirely (or at least they did in 2015, it's not a very relevant issue these days). I get where they're coming from considering how useless and scandal-prone our Senators have been, but I prefer Trudeau's approach of making the Senate a more effective and meritocratic institution instead of just abolishing it entirely.

Interesting - the Tories taking a more 'progressive' if you will approach to constitutional issues. This is the sort of area where I could imagine Trudeau - from my admittedly limited understanding - taking quite a 'progressive,' Blairite stance; but what he has done seems like a good solution. (Does the formula favour small provinces like Yukon, Prince Edward Island etc.?)

The Senate is steeped in regional representation. 1/4 of Senators represent Atlantic Canada, 1/4 represent Quebec, 1/4 represent Ontario, and 1/4 represent Western Canada.
So yeah, it does overrepresent small provinces quite a bit.
iirc...

That's the point though? What power does it really have - the HoL is generally quite deferential: for example, it cannot veto money bills, and under the Salisbury Convention it doesn't oppose the third reading of a bill from the election manifesto.

From my understanding of it, the Canadian Senate is House of Lords-ish (house of review etc) in practice, but with mechanisms that in some ways reflect the US Senate more in more relative terms.
I'm not necessarily an expert on it though.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Canadian electorate is more elastic than a rubber band.

[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?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I don't wanna open a thread up yet since it's way too soon but we all think its better than 50/50 odds for a fall election?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-electoral-urgency-clause-1.6053095This along with the motion to allow for final speeches in mid-June seem to be pointing to an early call.

Oh it's happening. With vaccinations sorted out, there won't be a more opportune time for the Liberals to pull the plug. The Bloc has said they want an election too. The CPC will ring their hands for a few days about Trudeau calling an early election - then again, the man could hardly breathe air without causing a Conservative outrage. The NDP and Greens probably don't want an election though, the latter are in an internal crisis (not that it matters what a caucus of three thinks), and the NDP doesn't have anything to gain from a potential Liberal majority. But the Liberals seem to want an election, so they'll get it. The only real roadblock is the LPC's class of 2015 worrying about their sweet sweet pensions, which won't be an issue in a couple of months.

Does the pensions thing, in your opinion, feel like a concern that is particularly valid?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Although I'm not a Green Party supporter, it is quite disappointing to see that after all the hard work Elizabeth May put in to build the party over the past 15 years, it's being effectively blown apart all in a matter of months since a new leader took over.

Tbf, this is somewhat on May, as she railroaded the leadership candidates in order to hand it to Paul on a silver platter.

I think it goes back further. For the last decade or so, the Green Party has essentially been the Elizabeth May party.

A bit like how the federal Socreds were the Réal Caouette Party, right?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

73-45? Ouch.
Have we a geographic breakdown of who voted how?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

73-45? Ouch.
Have we a geographic breakdown of who voted how?

It was a secret ballot, so we only have MP's public statements

Known O'Toole supporters:
Chris d'Entremont - West Nova
Eric Duncan - Stormant-Dundas-South Glengarry
Michelle Rempel - Calgary Nose Hill
Tim Uppal - Edmonton Mill Woods
Ron Liepert - Calgary Signal Hill
Karen Vecchio - Elgin Middlesex London

Known opponents
Garnett Genuis - Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan (also reportedly started the coup)
Bob Benzen - Calgary Heritage

We can make some educated guesses as well. Socons hated O'Toole, there's no way Poillievre didn't vote to remove him, etc etc.

Fair to assume that Ontario and Atlantic Canada probably were hotbeds of O'Toole support?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I don't support the broader 'truckers', but good on Joel Lightbound.

I find it more than a little odd that many of the same people who are praising Lightbound also criticized Prime Minister Trudeau for exercising his free speech rights in telling it like it is in regards to the Ottawa occupiers/terrorists, and said that if Trudeau had just self censored that these terrorists' feelings wouldn't have been hurt.

Yes, it is quite silly indeed.
PM Trudeau has free speech rights too.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Doug Ford has announced that he will remove the vaccine passport system from Ontario "very soon".

History has taught us that appeasement makes the aggressor only more aggressive. Ford needs to set an example in order to create a credible deterrence to prevent future transgressions.

Are you suggesting that the proper response would be to punish everyone with more lockdowns?

COVID policy ought to not to be controlled by what is or isn't "appeasement". It ought to be premised on what is likely to work if enacted and everyone abided by it, checked by how effective it would most likely be at its goals.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/thomasdaigle/status/1492673131676327937?cxt=HHwWgoCztcCThbcp...

To any Americans reading this: -12C is like 10F.
So yes, quite cold.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Honestly, it's a stretch to even consider SNC Lavalin a "scandal" to begin with.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/trudeau-plans-record-number-of-immigrants-to-canada-through-2024-1.1723412

Trudeau plans to increase immigration to record levels through 2024.

I'm not Canadian and I of course do not know all the details on this, but I can't imagine this will be good in terms of the already horrific housing affordability crisis up north.

There are three points I'd like to make here (bear in mind, I'm a supporter of the Canadian Liberals on a wide range of issues and I'd easily vote for them if I was Canadian, so I'm hardly impartial).
1. Canada is a wealthy country with a standard of living that drives a lot of immigrants to want to come there. Its points-based system also results in tons of professionals from other countries coming.
2. As Canada grows, these numbers growing alongside is far from illogical. Raw number benchmarks don't mean as much as percentages do.
3. Though attracting immigrants and immigration itself is far from inherently costless in the long-run, the country is setting itself up to have a larger working-age population by soliciting immigration like this, and this is important for the long-term future of its social services.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Thoughts on this video, y'all?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Latest episode of The Backbench with Mattea Roach.

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/49-guns-and-wild-roses/

What is going on in the Wild Rose Country? Mattea Roach is joined by experts Catherine Griwkowksy, Emilie Nicolas, and David Moscrop. Together they unpack the implications of Alberta’s new premier's calls for more sovereignty and the possible unravelling of our beloved Canadian federalism. This week we also get into Canada’s complicated diplomatic response to the Iranian protests.

Thanks for the link.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The 1990s called. They want their Western alienation back!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Latest podcast of The Backbench:

BC NDP leadership candidate Anjali Appadurai had the rug pulled out from under her. This week Mattea Roach is joined with Stuart Thomson, Jaskaran Sandhu, and Arno Kopecky to talk about how and why the BC-NDP ended up disqualifying Appadurai, leaving David Eby to be sworn in as Premier of British Columbia. Also, this week the backbenchers talk about the Federal handgun freeze that is supposedly the strongest action in a generation. We’ll see about that…

https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/50-whos-afraid-of-a-contested-election/

Thanks for the link.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

RIP

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So, Doug Ford isn't ruling out the possibility of amalgamating the Peel region together.

What would the arguments for and against this?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It's really weird to me that Al of all people is cherry-picking poll results to create some sort of narrative that doesn't exist (and that some here are lapping it up), but here are the cross-tabs:



As you can see, Quebecers have a more negative view of Christianity than Judaism.

Quebec seems to be the most anti-religion in general. It seems rather disingenous to conflate that with anti-Semitism.
Do you have favorable view numbers?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Genuine question - how is Singh still there?

The NDP's result last time was underwhelming on any reasonably objective criteria.

The simple answer is that he has never stopped successfully doing what he was selected to do, which is to make NDP members feel good about themselves for having a leader like him.

Exactly.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What kind of leader would make BC United competitive?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Blaine Higgs seems to be surviving as Premier by a thread. Couldn't happen to a more deserving horrible person.

Another N.B. cabinet minister resigns from Blaine Higgs government
https://globalnews.ca/news/9788527/nb-trevor-holder-resigns-higgs-cabinet/

and with slightly different information
https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/brunswick-premier-loses-second-cabinet-161335475.html

On Wednesday, 26 out of 49 current riding presidents signed letters asking for Higgs to step down, claiming his leadership has divided the party.

What is the cause of his problems?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Blaine Higgs seems to be surviving as Premier by a thread. Couldn't happen to a more deserving horrible person.

Another N.B. cabinet minister resigns from Blaine Higgs government
https://globalnews.ca/news/9788527/nb-trevor-holder-resigns-higgs-cabinet/

and with slightly different information
https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/brunswick-premier-loses-second-cabinet-161335475.html

On Wednesday, 26 out of 49 current riding presidents signed letters asking for Higgs to step down, claiming his leadership has divided the party.

What is the cause of his problems?

Officially, the repeal of Policy 713, which allows teens to be called by the pronoun of their choice in schools without parental approval, among other things.

Officiously, Higgs is trying to run the province and his party without listening to anybody (but his pastor), which has transformed the caucus, the Cabinet and party meetings into echo chambers where Higgs get upset if you don't agree with him.

How much more time would you give him?