Canadian Politics

Here's my two cents on the major parties.

Conservatives... enough said.

The Bloc need to stop being the "separatist" party and start focusing more on other policies, particularly the ones on their own platform.

The Liberals.... well, Rational Wiki said it best. While in power, they steal other peoples' ideas and take the credit. When they stumble as the governing party, they bend over to the demands of third parties. In short, principles sacrificed for political expediency. Sometimes, it's pragmatic (the healthcare thing) and at other times, it gives voters an excuse to say "Oh, wait, this policy sucks and we're happy to throw your asses out." While in opposition to Harper, they made a habit of voting for Harperite policies they claimed to oppose. I may like Justin Trudeau, but I don't like his party. At least they're still to the left of American Democrats, who pretty much play Good Cop to the Republicans' Bad Cop and enables nearly everything the GOP advocates.

The New Democrats... I think they're the closest to me in terms of ideological leanings, and I definitely would like them to be in government just to stick it to Harper and the "natural governing party," but I really don't like Mulcair's commitment to Israel (more specifically, Netanyahu). Dump Mulcair and get a more charismatic leader, then we'll talk.

Not difficult, since the American Democrats would be Conservatives in most in other countries...

I have to ask - since Australia, America, and Britannia all have interchangeable parties, will Canada suffer the same thing?

After Harper gets thrown out, will Canada end up with a political spectrum of parties that largely agree with most things?

edited 27th Apr '14 11:57:07 AM by Sledgesaul

Nah, the Tories and the Opposition still disagree on a lot of things. I doubt Harper has moved Canadian politics as a whole to the right; which he tried to do by destroying the Liberal party.

The Democrats and Republicans disagree on many things, yet they still end up implementing those policies anyway. I need to see another party in power before declaring that they won't do the same.

Wait, destroying the Liberal Party? Third party status with a Trudeau as their leader is considered "destruction" to the Liberals?

edited 27th Apr '14 12:14:43 PM by Sledgesaul

Probably talking about the last election cycle. Ignatieff went down hard; time will tell if they'll be able to hit Trudeau the same way.

edited 27th Apr '14 12:16:34 PM by Blueeyedrat

They seem more and more likely to, if not win a government, then replace the NDP as the opposition, or at least, significantly curb the NDP's gains.

It may be a bit of a pipe dream, but... what are the chances of a Liberal-New Democrat Coalition government? I would hope Trudeau learns from the failures of Ignatieff and Dion, and turns the Liberals to the left.

edited 27th Apr '14 12:31:13 PM by Sledgesaul

Turning left isn't the main issue; its not allowing Harper to assassinate your character years before the election. Dion and Iggy didn't fight back hard enough and suffered for it, Trudeau is fighting back and his numbers are above Harper's.

A coalition probably isn't going to happen; the Liberals primary target next election is going to be the NDP because that's where they can regain their lost ground.

edited 27th Apr '14 1:08:10 PM by Rationalinsanity

Won't that split the vote again in favor of Harper?

As Rationalinsanity said they'll be trying to gain ground. The last election saw the rise of the NDP and caused otherwise Liberal voters to be split on whether to ride the Orange Crush by supporting the NDP or try and stem its flow by shoring up with the Conservatives. So vote splitting in favour of the Conservative Party will happen if the Liberals don't go after the NDP. A strong Liberal party can attract voters from both sides, except for a few areas, Canadian voters aren't tied to voting on party lines for generations or even on subsequent elections.

edited 27th Apr '14 3:04:33 PM by latenight

"Strong" Liberal Party? Hardly. Dion and Ignatieff were as much part of the problem as Harper, since they enabled much of his policies. Voters should do best to remember that. Trudeau needs to be scrutinized heavily on that front, otherwise he'll end up as Ignatieff or Dion with a more famous name.

I was just answering your question on how in the future elections Liberals fighting the NDP would not mean vote splitting in favour of the Conservatives. What happens in reality we'll see since it's still a year away.

Though I'm curious where you think Dion and Ignatieff were part of the problem?

As I recall, Ignatieff and Dion voted in favor of several of Harper's economic policies.

Except for past budgets, I can't find anything on where they supported his economic policies.

A few things to keep in mind, Sledge:

• The NDP and the Liberals attempted to form a coalition government. Harper got Michaelle Jean to prorogue Parliament to prevent that. He got away with it because a bunch of voters didn't understand how a parliamentary system worked. Voter apathy is the problem: Canada is getting the government she deserves right now.
• Dion supported a lot of environmentalist policies in direct opposition to the Tories. The Liberal kingmakers decided for some reason that an environmentalist politician with a French last name wasn't going to be a winner and he got thrown under the bus after the prorogation bullshit. They then threw their weight behind the much more Third Way candidate Ignatieff and were surprised when the Liberals got annihilated in the next election since no Liberal voter wanted to vote for somebody who spoke publicly in support of Dubya's torture practices.

Then... I was wrong about Dion. I saw him scream at the top of his lungs at Harper over the "Liberal-NDP-Block" coalition issue years ago, so he was harder on Harper than Ignatieff, at least.

It also shows how broken the government happens to be. The Governor-General should only prorogue parliament at the consent of parliament, not by the PM. Hell, I'd say the Governor-General post should be abolished; let the Speaker take over the parliamentary duties instead.

edited 28th Apr '14 5:31:50 PM by Sledgesaul

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that Canada is "smarter" than the United States because it is developing its energy resources despite climate change concerns.

Goddamn it.

edited 29th Apr '14 3:22:28 PM by Rationalinsanity

Dayum, that's embarrassing for our trans-Atlantic cousins. Ouch.

Luckily, the American right's hatred of...er...olde Scotia is well-founded.

Although the Tories won't be graciously accepting GOP praise in public; they know the Rs scare the shit out of the general public and don't go out of their way to be connected with them. There was an article, can't find it now, pointing out that the Tories have difficulty publicly working with Republican White Houses (due to domestic backlash) while the Liberals have more flexibility because no one links them to the crazies in the States.

A new video allegedly showing embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack is what prompted him to announce he is taking a break from his mayoral campaign to "get help," according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.

So the story as I've been able to piece together:

Globe and mail was contacted by a dealer purporting to have three videos of the mayor smoking crack. All three were filmed on the same night (last saturday). The videos clearly showed him and his sister smoking from a metal pipe and a third figure who looks a lot like his enforcer/driver who's name I can't recall. The dealer wanted a hilariously high sum for the video but the globe was able to purchase stills clearly showing the mayor with a pipe in his hand and a time stamp.

The toronto Sun also has audio of the mayor recorded at a bar ranting about Karen Stintz stating at one point:

"I’d like to f——-g jam her (Stintz), but she doesn’t want ... I can’t talk like this...I’m so sorry,” Ford is heard saying on the recording. “I forgot there’s a woman in the house."

The Toronto star has witness reports that back march/april that the mayor was doing lines of coke in a night club while ranting about his family life.

So for those counting at home that's three scandals in three papers released within hours of each other. Friday's papers are going to be fucking insane.

When Jon Stewart catches wind of this...

By the way, how was Brian Mulroney?

Brian Mulroney is an interesting Conservative.

He was one of the first world leaders to get sanctions put against South Africa because of its apartheid policy.

Good friends with Ronald Reagan. It was said that White House staff feared calls from two people because of their influence with Reagan. One who was Margaret Thatcher and the other Mulroney.

The last time all the provinces got together to amend the constitution was during his time as Prime Minister. It was mainly to get Quebec to sign onto it and while Quebec was happy with the alterations, the rest of Canada was not so it failed. Its failure resulted in conservative members of parliament from Quebec splitting with the party to form the Bloc Quebecois and the first time there was a referendum on sovereignty in the province.

Under his government the 100 year old National Program envisioned by Sir John A. Macdonald was dismantled and the country joined in on NAFTA. It also instated a federal tax called the GST which was so unpopular with voters that it decimated the Progressive Conservative Party. When election time rolled around only 2 seats were given to the PC.

My personal opinion is I'd rather have Mulroney as leader of the Conservatives than Stephen Harper.

edited 2nd May '14 12:18:21 AM by latenight