Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[CumbrianLefty]

Forgive my Brit ignorance, but why has "3 seats" Campbell become a thing again?

[CumbrianLefty]

A classic case of "expect" actually meaning "hope" there

[CumbrianLefty]

A classic case of "expect" actually meaning "hope" there

No, that's what you and other communists are hoping. I don't  see any last minute liberal surge happening

Lolwut

I'm hoping for an NDP surge btw.

[CumbrianLefty]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is "People's"?

[CumbrianLefty]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is "People's"?

Far right/libertarian vehicle of failed Tory leadership candidate Maxime Bernier.

Ah right, maybe not doing as well as he hoped then?

[CumbrianLefty]

Lockdowns are probably coming in Ontario. Toronto has closed bars and banned seating in restaurants (take out is OK) and Ontario is "urging" all of Ontario bars and restaurants to do the same (no official order, it's an unenforceable request). Border closed today except to Canadians and Americans.

Insurance companies calling the shots there too?

[CumbrianLefty]

Good for him.

[CumbrianLefty]

Ha, very good. Wouldn't mind seeing the UK version.

[CumbrianLefty]

At times like this, anti-vaxxers are the Darwin Awards in action.

[CumbrianLefty]

I mean, Canada has the precedent of the War Measures Act 50 years ago during the October Crisis.

Not everybody agreed with what was done there, then or now, but the real point is maybe that most of those "emergency" powers were rescinded when things returned to normal.

Similar vigilance is required with the present situation, across all democracies.

[CumbrianLefty]

Trudeau was asked about Trump's clearing of protestors with tear gas and threats to use the military against the protestors, and he stood silently figuring out which words he could use to not trigger Trump for literally 20 to 21 seconds. Translated from Canadian that roughly means something like "Trump is a piece of s___".

Being criticised for his "cowardice" by some, though your reasoning behind it is likely correct.

[CumbrianLefty]

Still zero virus cases in Nunavut?

[CumbrianLefty]

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

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

RIP, Prime Minister.

In the UK we had two former PMs pass away in close succession in 1995 (Wilson and Douglas Home) and then nothing for a decade until Callaghan and Heath left us in short order come 2005. Since then just Thatcher in 2013.

[CumbrianLefty]

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

[CumbrianLefty]

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

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

[CumbrianLefty]

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

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

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

The two situations are no remotely comparable.

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

You - over here.

The point - over there

[CumbrianLefty]

Horrible expectations management by O'Toole and his team with pushing the "CaNadiAnS WoN'T gET the vACCInE till SePtEMbER 2021 At ThE EaRlIeSt AnD iT's tHE liBerALS faulT" narrative. Now that it was announced that Canada is getting atleast 250k doses by the end of the month vaccinating 125k people, Trudeau easily clears the ridiculously low expectations set by O'Toole. Complete incompetence by the Conservatives.

Hmmm, that does seem somewhat amateurish tbh.

[CumbrianLefty]

In almost all cases, people shouldn't care about deficits either.

The "you run a national economy the same way as a household" mindset genuinely needs to die.

[CumbrianLefty]

As I said a bit ago, Saskatchewan is the new Alberta (and vice versa)

[CumbrianLefty]

As I said a bit ago, Saskatchewan is the new Alberta (and vice versa)

Agreed Saskatchewan is now most conservative province.  Not sure Alberta will see NDP dominance like once saw in Saskatchewan, but I think Alberta is now maybe new BC where centre-right option wins majority of time but not always, but its fairly competitive not a landslide.

Though that is of course complicated by the main right-leaning party in BC being the Liberals.

[CumbrianLefty]

If one read nothing but National Post coverage of the pandemic, you'd think Canada was a unitary state with no provincial governments.

Let me guess, this is a right wing publication?

[CumbrianLefty]

I'n not a Canadian, but Trudeau's Liberals clearly have the edge at present.

[CumbrianLefty]

Weeks after the Conservatives dumped Derek Sloan, a long-time wingnut Cheryl Gallant has been exposed for some online musings about the Great Reset, cultural Marxism, that the (((Liberals))) are pedophiles, that the Liberals are in cahoots with big tech to control the media, and that Trudeau himself spread the coronavirus.

https://twitter.com/MarkGerretsen/status/1363096044343558147

https://twitter.com/JenOConnell_/status/1362824739891392519

https://twitter.com/WaytowichNeil/status/1362929233782259712

Anything happened yet?

[CumbrianLefty]

Having voted for the NDP before, it might now be easier to do it again.

[CumbrianLefty]

All of these rules are completely arbitrary and therefore dumb. Unless you can devise a convoluted point system that will always choose a leader who is most likely to win the next election, you might as well go one member, one vote.

TIL that the Canadian Tories *don't* use that to elect their leader. Which slightly amazes me tbh.