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Author Topic: Canada General Discussion (2019-)  (Read 181303 times)
beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« on: April 13, 2019, 11:46:49 AM »

Andrew Scheer is texting people in the Atlantic provinces saying that gas prices are going up and to fill their tanks lolol

Why are the Tories sending texts out in the Maritimes? I was under the impression that it's mostly a Liberal region. Are the Tories that confident?

To add some example, the Conservatives have 6 seats in NB (Saint John, Fredericton, Miramichi, South West, Fundy Royal and Tobique-Mactaquac), 5 seats in NS (Cen Nova, West Nova, Cumberland-Colchester, Kings-Hants, South Shore) and 1 in PEI (Egmont), that they could win. Admittedly some of these are further out of reach than others, but if they are getting a majority, and the chance of that is higher, then they should get most of these.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2019, 06:41:30 AM »

MMP might be cancelled here in Quebec. While Legault is publicly committing to introducing legislation by October, his strategists are planning a PEI-style simultaneous referendum in 2022 and his justice minister wants a slower approach. Elections Quebec wants to know soon because they believe implementation will take 30-42 months.

Good news! This is one of the few issues I believe should be decided by referendum. I suspect support for yes would be somehow correlated with QS support.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2019, 08:56:26 AM »

The Liberal party since the days of Alexander Mackenzie in the 1870's, have always alternated between a French Canadian leader and a English leader. Is that some bizarre coincidence, or do the Liberals do this intentionally?

Good news for Chrystia Freeland.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #3 on: May 24, 2019, 09:29:30 AM »

Quite intentional through Trudeau the Elder, less so afterward. Turner/Chretien/Martin won on "my turn" not language. That said Dion was a fluke like Clark and it took a strong push from Pearson and his innermost circle to choose Pierre Trudeau, since party establishment on its own would've chosen Hellyer or Winters. Nowadays there are no obvious Francophone choices if a vacancy arises.

I'm guessing the next leader is in cabinet at the moment, because I doubt any of the high-profile provincial Liberals would win, so the current Francophone Ministers are:
Jean-Yves Duclos
Marc Garneau
Dominic Leblanc
Marie-Claude Bibeau
Francois-Philippe Champagne
Pablo Rodriguez
Melanie Joly
Ginette Petitpas Taylor
Diane Lebouthillier
Someone else I missed

There's also David Lametti who's English-Canadian but represents Paul Martin's old riding.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #4 on: May 30, 2019, 03:20:55 AM »

I'm guessing the next leader is in cabinet at the moment,

Some Liberals are trying to recruit Mark Carney if they have to find a new leader.

So I heard - I mean that would be well received here in Britain...

Don't know what he's like as a person to be honest.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2019, 10:29:36 AM »



Mark was a great MP, and I mean it when I say that he will be very much missed. He cared very much about protecting the vulnerable, especially seniors and victims of crime.

I was going to say some things about Doug Ford's reshuffle, but they were largely negative and I didn't want to mix the two topics together really, so I'll just leave this link.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-cabinet-shuffle-live-polling-1.5182720
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2019, 01:18:18 AM »

Explain it to Illiniwek: Apparently twitter is lighting up about how Trudeau was trolling trump today by coughing in front of him. Why? I don’t see it man...

It's because Trump sent CoS Mulvaney out of the Oval Office for coughing during an interview.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #7 on: June 26, 2019, 06:22:42 AM »

Seeing as I meant to discuss this earlier, Doug Ford's reshuffle was a failure in my view.

Highlights include:
Demoting Vic Fedeli after the unpopular budget, despite the fact he was simply doing what Ford asked and is still seen as a safe pair of hands.
Shuffling out the positively awful Lisa Macleod into Tourism, Culture and Sport, the token position for disastrous Cabinet members.
Shuffling out Lisa Thompson who despite being a pretty awful communicator spent the last few months communicating Ford's message.
Moving Caroline Mulroney across to transport as a result of cuts to legal aid that were Ford's decision. This one isn't really a promotion or a demotion.
Moving average ministers around for no real reason (Laurie Scott, Monte McNaughton, Bill Walker etc.) and randomly adding associate ministers.

Full disclaimer that I would've voted PC if I lived in Ontario. I'm not unhappy seeing Lisa Macleod and Merrilee Fullerton out of their positions. But Doug Ford has shown that he doesn't understand the problems facing him at all. I was in full agreement with Rob Silver during his piece with Vassy Kapelos on CBC.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #8 on: July 01, 2019, 03:49:31 PM »

Former NDP MP for Thunder Bay-Tainy River John Rafferty has died aged 65. He was a very dedicated MP for the area and only lost out in 2015 because of the Liberal surge. He will be missed.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #9 on: August 08, 2019, 02:46:02 AM »

As a person recently interested in Canadian politics I will be having few questions to Canadians in this thread. First ones like this:


3. What are the major flaws or fails of Trudeau govt?


Arguably easier question to answer than their accomplishments, but it is of course subjective.

1. Ethics. - The Trudeau/Liberal Party term has been dogged with ethics and conflict of interest situations. Trudeau's government has had four completed ethics commissioner investigations and a fifth is coming. Trudeau's free trip to the private island of the Aga Khan, Bill Morneau 'forgetting' that he owned a villa in France which he didn't disclose, several other incidents relating to Morneau, the appointment of a Liberal Party Member of the Ontario Legislature to a non-partisan position. The most notable is the SNC-Lavalin scandal, in which Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould and President of the Treasury Board (a senior cabinet member) Jane Philpott resigned after Wilson-Raybould claimed that Trudeau had improperly pressured her to prevent the prosecution of infrastructure company SNC-Lavalin, who employs workers in Trudeau's home city of Montreal. This also led to the resignation of Trudeau's closest aide Gerald Butts and Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick (the top civil servant) as they had also allegedly put pressure on her. MPs voted against holding a public inquiry. The matter is ongoing but it arguably resonated the most with Canadians as it was at this point the Conservatives took a lead in the polls, although it has faded.

2. Relations with China and ASEAN: This has varied between laughable events like the 'little potato' incident to more serious matters. At the moment two Canadians are being detained by China, and relations have also soured over the Trudeau-backed arrest of Huawei's Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US, and the subsequent blocking of canola imports from Canada by China. Trudeau has been accused of failing to stand up for Canada effectively by the Conservatives. Relations with ASEAN nations have soured after Canada has sent its plastic waste to ASEAN nations, including Cambodia and the Philippines on multiple occasions.

3. Electoral Reform: In 2015, a majority of Canadians voted for parties which backed electoral reform, including the Liberals. A Committee made up of MPs from different parties recommended Mixed Member Proportional Voting to be used. Trudeau however decided to abandon the pledge when he reshuffled his cabinet in 2017, saying it wasn't the right time. This

4. Indigenous Relations: Nothing unique, but Trudeau's hope that indigenous relations would finally improve significantly have not. This will continue to be an ongoing issue.

5. Carbon Tax and Pipelines: The Carbon Tax is supported by many Canadians. From the Conservative viewpoint, it doesn't fight climate change but punishes ordinary Canadians for going to work. This has soured relations with provinces which have fought (and lost) court battles, saying it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (a key constitutional document.) Trudeau has also had to walk a fine line on pipelines, with Alberta blaming him for not getting a government-owned pipeline called TransMountain built. One of Trudeau's own MPs, Wayne Long, has also fought for a pipeline to his province of New Brunswick.

6. Attitude to Defence and Veterans: Trudeau has taken several veterans to court on the basis they were asking for too much. The Conservatives have shown the most outrage over this, linking it to Trudeau's payout of convicted terrorist Omar Khadr. Add in the Trudeau government's alleged mishandling of the trial of Admiral Mark Norman and the false claim by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan that he was the architect of a major military operation, and you can anger a lot of veterans. General Andrew Leslie, who served in a junior Foreign Affairs role in Trudeau's government was willing to testify against his own government too.

7. Relations with Provinces and Territories: During Trudeau's term, several Liberal provincial governments have lost power to less sympathetic parties. The Liberals have lost in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to the Conservatives (or to the right-wing CAQ in Quebec, their parties are slightly different outside the Liberals), while governments at odds with Trudeau on several occasions have been elected in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Add the consensus government in the Northwest Territories, and you have a whole lot of angry provinces. These disputes have included fights over the carbon tax, whether oil tankers should be allowed on the North Coast of BC, and interprovincial trade. Most of them involve Alberta, which is the second worst province for the Liberals in terms of raw number of seats (Saskatchewan is the worst, but that's partly due to being a lot smaller) - they only have 4 seats, 2 apiece in Calgary and Edmonton. Alberta seems to be the province Trudeau angers the most. Trudeau has also failed to heal conflicts between provinces - Alberta vs. BC and Quebec vs. everyone.

Depending on your background or his perspective, these could be his biggest failures. You could also talk about the Canada Summer Jobs Programme, failure to balance the budget, replacing the Phoenix Pay System for public servants...

Full disclosure that I am not a supporter of Trudeau's.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #10 on: August 08, 2019, 05:46:24 AM »


BTW What party you support? Conservatives? NPD?

I would probably align most with the Conservatives, but I wouldn't call myself a supporter. At the moment, I'm not living in Canada, so I escape having to make that choice as I won't be voting.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #11 on: February 22, 2021, 07:51:13 AM »

Truly wonder what is going to happen next.

To all the canadians, who is going to win the next election for now?

Easily Trudeau, likely with a majority.  The conservatives have a serious geography problem.  They will win by huge margins in the Prairies and rural southern Ontario, but they will still lose in the GTA suburbs where it counts.

It also seems like a lot depends on what Quebec does. I think one of the most disappointing aspects of the 2019 election was the return of the Bloc. I watched some of the 2011 elections returns and the general thinking was "good riddance" to the Bloc. That may be true in terms of vote total for separatism, but certainly not true in terms of seats in the Commons.

Is it fair to assume Trudeau would've had a Majority Government had the Bloc not spiked so much?

I don't think so. It would probably have been just a stronger minority. The Liberals were more or less flat in their Quebec popular vote and only lost five seats.  If you look at the Bloc resurgence, it was primarily at the expense of the the NDP (compared to the 2015 election) or the Tories (compared to polling earlier in 2019), i.e. they picked up the sort of soft nationalist voters who aren't inclined to vote Liberal either provincially and federally. Even with a more favourable vote split, the Liberals almost certainly wouldn't have won the ~ 60/78 seats needed in Quebec to get a working majority on 35% of the vote.

In seat terms they would've still lost some anyway even without a huge resurgence, as Avignon-LM-M-M and Saint Jean were that far gone for them.

O'Toole seems like a decent fit for Atlantic Canada.

He does have links to Nova Scotia. He went out there as recently as 2017 to campaign for the local PCs.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #12 on: February 24, 2021, 11:41:59 AM »

Iain Rankin was sworn in as Premier of Nova Scotia yesterday, which makes Justin Trudeau the longest serving head of government in the country now.

It's inevitable given the size of the legislature, and of Nova Scotia generally, but I'm not a fan of having 2/3 of the government caucus be in the cabinet, and of the very high levels of caucus unity in Canada generally. I don't see why being placed in the cabinet is always considered a huge benefit to that constituency's representation. As important as it is to have a regionally and demographically balanced cabinet I'd argue it has a minimal representation boost for the ridings themselves distinct from the province as a whole.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #13 on: February 27, 2021, 04:56:00 AM »

The NDP vote will surely be cannibalized in Toronto Centre  next election. Best to focus efforts on Davenport and PHP.

And Danforth, no?

Just regaining the traditional strongholds will be a victory of sorts.  The challenge gets imminently harder than that in the next tier seats of University-Rosedale (esp with Chrystia Freeland there), Toronto Centre and Beaches-East York.

There's a reason why Rosario Marchese etc. all lost, no. It's not just the NDP didn't perform well in 2019, the area is becoming more Liberal. I'd be surprised if they won any of them federally at current polling, though provincially I think the PHP, Danforth and Davenport are still fairly safe given the Liberal numbers there.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2021, 03:30:31 AM »

Should also add that unlike Vancouver, which has a stronger CCF-NDP history and less complex socioeconomic geography (east vs. west), Toronto lacks a such thing as a safe federal NDP seat.  Certainly nothing like Van East and Kingsway. 

What's the main reason poor ridings like Humber River-Black Creek are so consistently Liberal (bar 2018 provincially)? Italian Canadians?
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #15 on: March 01, 2021, 10:20:20 AM »

Something I have just found out that sounds absolutely ridiculous, like something Kafka would come up with, but it's actually true: throughout history, Canada has had 55 Superintendents-General of Indian Affairs/Ministers of Indian Affairs/Ministers of Crown-Indigenous Relations or some variations thereof. Of these fifty-five ministers, a grand total of zero (0) were actually Indigenous.

I've often wondered why this is too; it seems so absurd to not be intentional. My best guess is that no government has wanted to seem like it was favouring one Indigenous group over another.

I know that Jody Wilson-Raybould was offered Minister of Indigenous Services (I know that's different from Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations) but declined because she didn't want to enforce provisions of the Indian Act. Obviously the bit about favouring different Indigenous groups doesn't apply to the same degree with the Indigenous Services role.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #16 on: March 01, 2021, 04:29:01 PM »

20% is about what you'd expect the Tories to get in a good year, although their floor is significantly lower. There's also a distinction to be made between black Caribbean and black African ancestry voters - anecdotally, the Tories seem to have a much higher ceiling amongst the latter than the former, though it's difficult to be certain because they're both relatively small groups and there's very little in the way of detailed polling on this. There's also a significant difference between black voters in areas with a large black population (usually working class and very strong Labour) and black voters in 90%+ white areas (more likely to be middle class and more likely to vote like their neighbours.) Most black Tory MPs are good examples of this - they tend to be from a black African background (often second generation), they mostly grew up in overwhelmingly white areas and a significant proportion of them went to expensive private schools.

Black Canadians and Black Brits both represent 3-4% of the national population, both have a fairly even split between Caribbean and roots..  Interestingly though it's the Caribbean population that's more concentrated in Canada (Toronto/Montreal - mostly Jamaican in the former, Haitian in the latter) and the African population more dispersed, while in England the opposite is the case (London is more African, other cities more Caribbean).

To an extent, although the bulk of the Caribbean population is in London and only a handful of other cities have significant communities. The difference is generally because the Caribbean communities were establish a generation or two earlier and were predominantly made up of public sector workers, whereas African communities have a spread of employment more representative of other predominantly working-class immigrant communities which were established around the same time.

Also, whilst there are Caribbean communities in more cities, I suspect that the African population in small towns and villages is higher than the Caribbean population, because the former is more middle-class.

At the 2011 census (the latest data) there were 44 constituencies with greater than 10% black population, 38 in London, 3 in Birmingham and only 3 outside of either. If you take that down to 5% there are 104 including the 44 I already mentioned. 60 of the 104 are in London, which is notable since there are only 72 constituencies in London (I think). The others are all in England and tend to be in other cities or large towns within 100 miles of London (e.g. Bedford). There are 384 seats with fewer than 1% black population and 22 with fewer than 0.1%, which were mostly in the rural North of England. The highest proportion overall was in Camberwell and Peckham, followed by Croydon North and Lewisham Deptford, with Birmingham Ladywood the highest outside of London. Out of interest, the lowest was West Tyrone followed by Antrim North and Blyth Valley. Twickenham was the lowest in London but still above the UK average.

Only 5 of the top seats have black MPs but you'll never get a majority black seat in the UK. My guess at the lowest %black seat with a black MP was Saffron Walden, though the MP is from London.

As you say the Caribbean population is likely concentrated into those London seats but the large numbers in places like Bedford and Reading suggest higher African populations (though not without Caribbean population, I know there are a few in Reading.) For what it's worth I went to school in a very middle class area, there were only 3 black people in the school and I think they were all of African background.

Apologies as it's not relevant to Canada but I just thought to mention it since I have the data.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #17 on: March 02, 2021, 12:38:02 PM »


I'd be curious to see a poll by poll breakdown of the riding but while the NDP probably dominates most reserves I'm pretty confident that the ones that they don't (again, west of Manitoba) are far more likely to go Conservative than Liberal.

http://www.election-atlas.ca/fed/
http://www.election-atlas.ca/bc/
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #18 on: March 06, 2021, 01:29:04 PM »


Interestingly Atlin used to be a comically overrepresented provincial riding. While I haven't been able to find the exact boundaries of the riding or demographic data Wikipedia claims the riding was "dominated" by FN voters. This is backed up by the fact that the NDP Nisga'a MLA switching over to the SoCreds caused the vote to go from 41% NDP 15% SoCred to a 55% SoCred 28% NDP over a single election. I doubt you could get a swing like that without a majority (or at least a plurality) of FN voters

Is there any demographic data on the town of Atlin? The closest I found was a regional health report but unfortunately it didn't mention the proportion of whites to natives.

What a charming place. Would love to go there now I've seen it, but the riding which it is in must be hard to represent.

A quick search leads me to find that Atlin is the largest settlement in the Stikine census region - here is the data for the whole region. No town-level data is published. Quite a substantial aboriginal population, but hard to tell whether it's in Atlin or elsewhere - though I believe a lot of it is.

https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/Page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=5957022&Geo2=PR&Code2=59&SearchText=Atlin&SearchType=Contains&SearchPR=01&B1=All&type=0#map-popup
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #19 on: March 07, 2021, 07:42:05 AM »

Scott Duvall, NDP MP for Hamilton Mountain, will retire. A shame as he was for sure one of the better MPs in Parliament.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #20 on: March 09, 2021, 09:33:11 AM »

Good news for boring people like me, a redistricting (or redistribution, as you call it) application is in the works:

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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #21 on: March 10, 2021, 06:34:25 AM »

Some new polls from Narrative Research:







So Dennis King is doing very well, Rankin seems to have carried over McNeil's ratings, at least for now, and Higgs' majority honeymoon is over.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #22 on: March 12, 2021, 05:14:36 PM »

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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #23 on: March 18, 2021, 08:54:37 AM »

Ahh yes, the infamous poll with subsamples for Regina, Saskatoon and Halifax, but nothing for the country's capital which has more people than all three cities combined.

I'm not a big analyser of polls, but what would bother me more is the treatment of the GTA as a single subsample. Toronto itself and all the other regions of the GTA are much more unique than that would suggest.
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beesley
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,140
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.52, S: 2.61

« Reply #24 on: March 18, 2021, 01:33:58 PM »

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/new-brunswick-public-health-investigating-cluster-of-unknown-neurological-disease-1.5352204

Not sure if this fits here, but there's a novel disease outbreak in New Brunswick. This could be a pandemic incoming.

Strange. It's not transmissible through airborne or blood contact, thankfully.
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