Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[Estrella]

5. How's the thing with Quebec as of now? Separatism is still strong?

Not Canadian, but I'll try to answer this one. It's something I'm interested in and I'm bored af right now

Separatism isn't nearly as strong in Quebec as it was during it's heyday - see the godawful results for PQ/BQ in recent elections (and while the QS are nominally sovereignist, I doubt most of their voters vote for them because of that). This has been going on for some time - since 2011 at least, when BQ discovered that talking about sovereignity hurt them, and not talking about it hurt them as well, because why vote for a party that's gonna ignore it's raison d'être, even if you agree with it? Young people used to be the most pro-PQ/pro-separation cohort, but PQ of today is increasingly a retirees' club.

That being said, it's not like the Quebecois are in love with Canada either. I guess that today, Quebec and Alberta are actually quite similar with their approach to the federal government, except that Alberta is angry over ecomomic/resource issues and Quebec over cultural issues. Still, I think the feelings run higher in QC, IIRC, Legault went as far as to invoke the notwithstanding clause with his public sector religious symbol ban.

Chantal Hébert (the expert on Quebec-Canada relations) explained it like this: "It's not that the Quebecers don't want sovereignity; it's that they don't want to be asked."

[Estrella]

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/indigenous-woman-who-died-at-joliette-hospital-had-recorded-staffs-racist-comments

Absolutely disgusting and sickening.

And what happened after that was almost as bad.

In its 488-page report, published almost exactly a year ago, the commission concluded that racism and prejudice against Indigenous people on behalf of hospital staff “remain prevalent.”

One professor told the commission the situation is so dire many Indigenous people will avoid going to the hospital over fears of being discriminated against. For those who have to go, they mentally prepare themselves first for the treatment they’ll be subjected to.

According to Echaquan’s cousin, Karine Echaquan, she was often hospitalized because of her heart condition and had experienced similar discrimination as recently as last month.

Well, duh. Canada's relationship with her indigenous people is a lot like that of Europe with Roma: criticize racism in America and then in same breath mutter about how Those People are useless leeches, thieves, alcoholics etc. Though, to be fair, Canada's government is at least trying (pretending?) to fix the problem.

Anyway, cue the wonderful Premier:

During a news conference Tuesday, Premier François Legault called what transpired in the video “totally unacceptable.”

But asked whether he believes the incident speaks to systemic racism in Quebec, Legault said he did not.

“I really don’t think we have this kind of way of dealing with First Nations people in our hospitals in Quebec,” he said.

I wonder what Legault's reaction would be had he been told by an Anglophone a hundred years ago that there's no discrimination against Francophones in Canada.

[Estrella]

Half a century ago today.

For those who are interested in more, there's Robin Spry's great though somewhat insomnia-curing documentary and a followup about the Anglo-Quebecer reaction.

Side note: NFB has many amazing films on its website, most accessible for free. For politics people, there's stuff like The Champions about the Trudeau the Elder/Lévesque rivalry, or History on the Run.

[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.

[Estrella]

Just putting this out here.

vimeo.com/88107752

[Estrella]

That guy is really good tho.

[Estrella]

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.

[Estrella]

I would imagine that Canada's Indigenous population (and maybe the Métis too) have the same split that exists to some extent among Natives/American Indians in the US: those few who claim to publicly speak and advocate for the native community and get the fawning attention of non-native do-gooders often have views that many or even most of the vast majority of "regular" Natives would not endorse or even contemplate.

There is certainly a divide between - for the want of better terms - the elite and the rest, but it's not so one-sided. Just look at the hot-button issue right now: there are many anti-pipeline chiefs, but also many pro-pipeline ones (the latter are like half of Jason Kenney's Twitter feed). It's very likely that there are a fair few chiefs whose opinions run against the prevailing mood within their community, one way or another. But we can't know that for sure because the position is often hereditary, which is the main problem here.

I'm tempted to say that the federal government should do something about this lack of democratic accountability, but considering what the last big attempt at Indian Act reform (Trudeau the Elder's White Paper) was like... maybe not. Though this Trudeau will most likely just continue what he's doing now and harm Indigenous people by incompetence and laziness, rather than outright malice.

[Estrella]

Ancedotally, the poll with the highest NDP % in the country (might have been in 2015, I don't remember) was a rez on Vancouver Island.

[Estrella]

Inspired by/crossposted from another thread: I decided to go hunting for the most Conservative poll at the last federal election. Here are some good guesses, in no particular order.

Nota bene that from cursory googling, it seems that most, albeit not all of these are Mennonite settlements. Of course, these days it only means that they vote 90% Tory instead of 80%, but it's interesting that you can still see it.

Cypress Hills—Grasslands, poll #118 (Rural Municipality of Reno No. 51): Conservative 209, others 14.

Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, poll #185 (County of Forty Mile No. 8​): Conservative 116, others 6.

Brandon—Souris, poll #138 (Lena): Conservative 100, others 14.

Battle River—Crowfoot, poll #149 (Provost): Conservative 174, 1 PPC.

Peace River—Westlock, poll #14 (La Crête): Conservative 129, 3 Greens, 1 PPC.

Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, poll #88 (Crooked Creek): Conservative 108, others 6.

Battlefords—Lloydminster, poll #2 (Frenchman Butte)†: Conservative 172, others 6.

Souris—Moose Mountain, poll #149 (Carievale): Conservative 201, others 10.

Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, poll #14 (Prespatou): Conservative 218, 3 PPC, 2 Greens, 1 Liberals.

Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, poll #17 (Okno): Conservative 77, others 3.

I believe that BR-C #149 is the winner here, unless there is another poll with only 1 non-Tory vote, but more votes cast. I remember reading somewhere that polls that go 100% for one candidate are merged with a neighbouring one to protect vote secrecy, so I don't think there are any of those in official data.

† Just a couple kilometres away is poll #1 (Onion Lake/Seekaskootch Indian Reserve 119), which went 70% NDP, 20% Liberal. Fittingly enough, it was here that an important battle of the North-West Rebellion took place.

[Estrella]

Inspired by/crossposted from another thread: I decided to go hunting for the most Conservative poll at the last federal election. Here are some good guesses, in no particular order.

Nota bene that from cursory googling, it seems that most, albeit not all of these are Mennonite settlements. Of course, these days it only means that they vote 90% Tory instead of 80%, but it's interesting that you can still see it.
...
I believe that BR-C #149 is the winner here, unless there is another poll with only 1 non-Tory vote, but less votes cast. I remember reading somewhere that polls that go 100% for one candidate are merged with a neighbouring one to protect vote secrecy, so I don't think there are any of those in official data.

Because I have too much time, I decided to take a look at this. Provost has a Mennonite history, but this particular poll doesn't cover the town itself, but a large swath of area along Highway 18 between town limits and Hansman Lake. The few houses that can be seen from the road look quite... German, so I guess it's Mennonites again, except this time they're on isolated homesteads rather than a settlement. It's basically every sociological and geographical factor that would make someone vote Conservative turned up to 11.

[Estrella]

IMO the points system is a good thing for the party to prevent the crazies from taking over (based on popular vote, the final round of last leadership election would've been O'Toole vs Lewis, ugh), but a system where a riding with 50 votes has the same weight as one with 1,500 had to be changed.

https://mobile.twitter.com/btaplatt/status/1372946774835494920

[Estrella]

This is also interesting:

Delegates also rejected a modification to the policy book that would have changed the party's stance on medical assistance in dying — swapping the statement that the party would not support any legislation that would "legalize euthanasia or assisted suicide" for one that says it would oppose "the extension of euthanasia and assisted suicide" to minors and people living with "psychological suffering."

By a 55-45 vote, delegates voted to keep the status quo.

That's a surprisingly narrow margin.

[Estrella]

Stumbled upon this great Reddit thread with detailed answers about politics of Saskatchewan during the era of CCF/NDP dominance and what led to its end.

The whole thing is worth a read, but this is the most interesting part, written by the amazingly named /u/tuttifruttidurutti (who?)

When the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation became the New Party (later the NDP) in 1960, this process represented an affiliation of the CCF with the Canadian Labour Congress (which had itself formed recently out of the merger of the two earlier labour federations, the Trades and Labour Congress and the CIO-inspired Canadian Congress of Labour.)

The technical details are a bit dry (the New Party affiliated with the national CLC, and set up a protocol for CLC locals to affiliate, which few did.) But the relevant thing to this question is that the CCF had a significant base of supportive in the cooperative movements on the prairies. For reasons that are partially obscure to history, the co-op movement parted ways with the CCF over its decision to affiliate with the Canadian Labour Congress.

The CCF was always quite self conscious about being a movement as well as a party. It was an important part of their self conception. The party had a social basis in organizations external to it, and a clear political program that it was willing to lose elections rather than compromise. The New Party initiative was explicitly aimed at adding 'urban liberals' to their potential voter base. This is usually characterized as being partly because the USSR's example had 'discredited' central planning, the CCF's previous proposal, as well as heightening cold war tensions making socialism unpalatable.

All of this is just to say that on the one hand, the creation of the New Party caused a parting of ways between the co-op movement, previously a major source of support for the CCF, and the new NDP. And on the other hand, the rising tensions of the cold war made socialism less popular in general.

Also, as an aside, the NDP was never able to get the kind of mobilization from its new labour partners that it had hoped for. It mostly got money, in the form of donations from the national CLC, primarily. Federal campaign finance reform made such donations illegal in 2007, further weakening the ties between the two groups. In any case, union density was never particularly high in western Canada, and it's been falling for decades nationally, especially in the private sector.

[Estrella]

Last week there was some very, er, spirited debate on the bill to ban conversion therapy:

https://twitter.com/Justin_Ling/status/1385276056760950798

On the bright side, she represents a suburban Lower Mainland riding and won with 37.7% against 35.2% for the Liberal, so bye bye next election, hopefully.

[Estrella]

Newfoundland and Labrador is, guess what, on the brink of bankruptcy yet again.

'Big reset' called for debt-ridden N.L. with release of ground-shaking economic report

In order to rein in a soaring public debt and end the long pattern of deficit spending, Greene recommended a five per cent reduction in core government spending, and that operating grants for Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic be slashed by 30 per cent, at a rate of five per cent annually.

Some of her sharpest points were directed at the health system, which accounts for 37 per cent of public spending. The province also spends 24 per cent more per capita on heath than the Canadian average.

She also recommended the abolishment of Nalcor, the province's energy corporation and the entity that oversees the controversial Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project.

"Our predicament is the result of years of overspending; [government] spending about 25 per cent more than it takes in every year," she said, noting that expenditures soared by 80 per cent over a 15-year period "regardless of changes downward in our revenues."

She said privatization and sell-offs should not be ruled out, noting that "the public sector does not have to do everything. Times have changes and ways of doing things should also change."

Greene said the current governance culture — one that views budgets as "notional" and deficits as something that don't matter — has to end. She said the overall debt sits at more than $47 billion in a province of just over 500,000 residents.

The bolded works out to about 146% of GDP - an independent NL would be the third most indebted country in the world after Japan and Greece.

[Estrella]

Somebody better put Jason Kenney on suicide watch.

Michigan orders closure of pipeline in escalating dispute with Canada

The state of Michigan has told a Canadian energy company it must shut down a controversial oil and gas pipeline by Wednesday amid growing fears that a spill would be catastrophic to the region, in a feud which threatens to strain relations between Canada and the United States.

“These oil pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac are a ticking timebomb, and their continued presence violates the public trust and poses a grave threat to Michigan’s environment and economy,” Whitmer’s office said in a statement.

Whitmer, who campaigned on shutting down the pipeline, has received support from Democratic attorneys general as well environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities on both sides of the border.

Behold Justin Trudeau, the great environmentalist (or rather his minister):

Canada asks U.S. court to prevent Michigan from shutting down Line 5 pipeline

The federal government is asking a U.S. court to stop the state of Michigan from shutting down a pipeline that supplies fuel to much of Ontario and Quebec.

Natural Resources Minister Seamus O'Regan filed court documents today opposing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's attempt to shut down the pipeline. Whitmer has given Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. until Wednesday to shut down Line 5 — a demand the company says it has no plans to obey.

A court-ordered negotiation is underway; the two sides are scheduled to meet again May 18, several days after Whitmer's self-imposed deadline.

tl;dr with support from environmental and Indigenous activists, US shuts down a 67 years old privately operated underwater pipeline while Canada's Liberal government - along with a multinational corporation - fights tooth and nail to keep it operating.

What alternate universe is this?

[Estrella]

There is a market for some cultural conservatism in Canada. Most immigrants come from social environments that are deeply, deeply conservative by western standards. It's the kind that Jason "Curry in a Hurry" Kenney pandered to a decade ago. The Fords also won big. Harper destroyed Kenney's work in 2015, and Doug Ford is just a failure.

My local constituency both has Canada's highest average house price and the highest proportion of Muslims. The Liberal MP is openly gay, and he likes to say that what protects his freedom to live his lifestyle also protects Muslims' freedom to live theirs. The subtext, of course, is that cultural conservatism is wedded to xenophobia, and that damages attempts to build a multiracial conservative coalition.

Agreed. It's what allowed Rob Ford to become mayor, and to a certain extent his brother to become Premier. Not to mention the Harper majority. There is still a path for Conservatives to win, and it involved winning over a large chunk of minorities and winning over blue Liberals. It might mean a strengthened NDP, but current polling suggests a strengthened NDP isn't hurting the Liberals one bit (though I suppose if they were to start polling in the mid-20s, it would).

How much of this was a result of "imported" cultural conservatism, as opposed to standard resentment against muh downtown elites or an unpopular Liberal government?

[Estrella]

This is slightly off topic, but are the BC Liberals the centre right party there? And do they get Tory support?

(On a side note, what is the name of the ultra-safe Liberal riding in west Vancouver? It looks like it went NDP in the recent provincial election.)

BC Liberals are more like Tories than federal Liberals.  Up until 2020, it was a mix, but more of their supporters Conservatives than Liberals although by 2020 most federal Liberal support had swung over to NDP.  West Vancouver-Capilano is the ultra safe one you are talking about and it stayed BC Liberal.  NDP did win the two North Vancouver ones and there North Vancouver-Lonsdale is a swing while North Vancouver-Seymour normally a safe BC Liberal one, but not as lopsided as West Vancouver-Capilano.

I was thinking ultra-Liberal federally (it might be Vancouver Quadra?).

Vancouver Quadra has a pretty interesting history. It was won by PCs in 1980 when Liberals won a majority nationally but got absolutely pasted in Western Canada (two seats and something like 25% of the vote west of Ontario). In 1984, the Liberal candidate was, of all people, the incumbent PM John Turner and his prestige carried him to victory by quite a margin, despite Liberals' landslide defeat nationally and even worse results in the West (only 16% of the vote in BC!).

[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.

[Estrella]

For all of Miles's postings about how Canada has moved to the left, what has really changed?

Not much.

Though it is interesting to see such a persistent case of delusions about the unstoppable march of history towards [insert ideology] where the ideology is the opposite of what the person in question supports. I'd love (hate?) to see what Freud would have made of it.

[Estrella]

I made a thing.



No cookies for guessing why I used the colour blue.

[Estrella]

182 unmarked graves discovered near residential school in B.C.'s Interior, First Nation says

Three schools, 1148 graves. The residential school system operated a total of 130 institutions.

[Estrella]

It is a mostly rural riding yes, but the Kingston to Belleville corridor, basically the United Empire Loyalist heartland has trended Liberal big time in recent elections. I'm not 100% sure why; I suspect there's been a demographic shift - maybe upper middle class retirees moving into the area?

ETA: a cursory google search confirms that it is indeed an area that is experiencing a growth in the number of retirees moving there.

Is this why rural eastern Ontario is and has always been Tory, as opposed to formerly Liberal rural western Ontario?

[Estrella]

Nothing especially important, but I'm sure regulars in this thread know this guy.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ksituan/status/1412480864597032971