Canada General Discussion (2019-)

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Can Canadians explain to me why when Harper prorogued parliament when he held a minority it was this travesty of democracy that made international news, and when Trudeau did it to stop investigation of the WE Charity scandal from hurting the Liberal Party further in a minority parliament (as well as going back on a campaign promise) it's not even discussed here on this thread or board I believe, or makes larger news?

Harper was about to lose the government, he was about to be defeated in a confidence vote in the parliament and the other parties had an agreement to form a coalition and send him to the opposition benches. He literally prorogued the parliament to keep his grip on power. Something that is fundamentally undemocratic in a minority government.

Trudeau was in no danger of losing a confidence vote. Prorogation isn't inherently evil, it is done often and without controversy. In Trudeau's case it was an attempt to change the channel on a bad new cycle, which while not great still falls within the usual parameters of political gamesmanship (and parliament can go ahead and investigate WE charity stuff all they want now). As opposed to trying to cling to power when the democratically elected majority in the parliament is about to kick you to the curb as was the case with Harper.

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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.

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https://twitter.com/CNoelSRC/status/1318956056907862022
 No election.

Chantal Hebert saying that government is laying groundwork to ask the Governer General to dissolve the parliament and call an election if the opposition tries to obstruct with the WE charity issue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYJkKwI6u7w

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^^ Liberals all things considered do want an election to try to get a majority while the CERB checks are going out. If it hadn't been for the WE Charity scandal this summer that softened their support a bit I think they would have been way more aggressive trying to force a fall election (esp now that several provincial governments and governments abroad held covid elections and did not pay a price for calling them).

Now, they are in a position where if they could wave a magic wand (i.e have the opposition take the blame for bringing down the govt) they'd love an election but feel they don't have enough cushion to withstand backlash if they are seen as being opportunistic. The polls esp the regional numbers have them in majority territory but not as comfortably as they were in the spring so I think they feel a bit gun shy about potential backlash if they are seen as trying to engineer the fall of the current parliament.

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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.

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This really shows how difficult the path to victory is for the CPC, even if O'Toole is a much more capable leader than his predecessor.  The Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa suburbs are increasingly out of reach, and O'Toole is going to have to really do spectacularly well outside the "big six" (1 million+) metros or really find a way to break into ethnocultural and immigrant communities.

To O'Toole's credit, he's been trying out new ways to break or neutralize the Liberal 'red wall'. His focus on organized labour combined with culture war stuff, while fully ingenuine, could help make gains among blue collar voters. Many of these folks are politically homeless because the NDP's organizational capacity ain't what it used to be, and like in the US and the UK, this leaves room for the right wing to speak to their cultural sensibilities.

Another group O'Toole has changed the CPC's tune on is Quebecers. They're leaning heavily into Quebec nationalism now, and considering there are a lot of politically promiscuous working-class small-town Quebecers who fit both of these profiles, O'Toole's game might be to start winning more than a dozen seats in Quebec.

Do I think this will work? Maybe not immediately, I expect a snap election sometime in 2021 and that's not enough time to make relevant inroads in two communities that have historically hated your guts. But I must admit that as a Liberal, O'Toole worries me a bit more than Scheer. Scheer was just a party hack who only knew how to speak to the most hardcore Harper fans, didn't really do much for broadening the Conservative coalition. O'Toole is throwing things at the wall hoping they stick, but that's not necessarily a bad strategy for an opposition party that's basically locked out from the traditional way of winning.

Trying to get support of rural small town Quebec is not a a winning strategy for the Conservatives. The gap between where these voters are ideologically and where the Conservatives are as a caucus and a party is way too large to be reconciled anytime soon. Even if they managed to win a few seats in these areas they almost certainly won't have an easy time holding them considering so much of their policy agenda is going to be diametrically opposed to the voters allegiances in these seats. Additionally these voters are extremely fickle and hard to count on as a base of your support- they deserted the Bloc and the NDP in back to back election cycles even when those parties were essentially representing their ideology in the parliament. They would be even more likelier to flip on the CPC (even if CPC managed to get their votes in one election cycle) as there is clearly ideological tension between these voters and the party,

The Harper/Kenney strategy of winning the "ethnic/immigrant" vote and using that to win seats in suburban Toronto and suburban Vancouver is still the path of least resistance for the CPC. It is also a more stable coalition for the CPC as they are not going to be on the offside with every single one of their key issues (tax cuts etc) with these voters as they would be with more ideologically left leaning small town Quebec. I don't know why people are counting the Conservatives out from contention for the ethnic vote consider Harper won it in 2011 and so did the Ford brothers. Harper laid out the blueprint of how the CPC can win, they'd be wise trying to replicate that strategy rather than galaxy brain ideas.

In US election terms winning back the ethnic/immigrant vote in the GTA is CPC version of Democrats flipping WI/MI/PA whereas trying to expand in Quebec while not doing better in the GTA is like the Democrat ideas about flipping Texas while losing WI/MI/PA.

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Legault is pretty much a straight up authoritarian at this point who seems to be obsessed with dictating the personal business of his citizens, first firing that lady for wearing a hijab and then all these draconian restrictions. How do people of Quebec put up with this guy? I'd even take a separatist PQ government winning if that's what it takes to get this guy out of power.

Disappointed in Ford for bring in new restrictions when at this stage they are gonna do nothing. I think this is going to cost him votes. There are many moderate voters who would have voted PC just to make sure businesses are kept open and restrictions are kept to a minimum but if he is going to bring in these restrictions, then not much incentive for those voters to vote for him.

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I agree it's disappointing, but there isn't much incentive for them to vote for the OLP or ONDP either, though.

Considering Ford needs Ford-Trudeau voters in the GTA to win I am not sure I agree with this take. These people are perfectly comfortable voting for the Liberals (as evidenced by the recent federal election where the Liberals basically swept the region). If PCs are going introduce restrictions and be the same as OLP/ONDP then these voters may decide their vote based on other issues which may not be great for the PCs.

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This is truly embarrassing for the polling industry.
https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1484217461088129030
NDP between 22-36%
Liberals between 19-36%

Only P.Cs relatively consistent between 31-37%

Edit to add: if the Angus Reid survey is removed as a rogue poll, the NDP are fairly consistent in these polls at between 22-27%.

The P.C's are still between 31-37%

But, the Liberals are still fairly over the map at between 26-36%

This is not embarrassing, it is infact good that the pollsters are not herding.