Canadian Politics

Rae was a long time ago, and all the parties have premiers who aren't remembered fondly. I wouldn't place bets on the NDP getting a majority government, but they had decent support (roughly 20-25% range) even before Brown's departure, and now their competitors are Canada's most unpopular premier and an opposition party that's in disarray. An election where all three parties get votes shares in the 30% range seems like a reasonably likely prospect.

Geographically, in the last election the Liberals were strong in Greater Toronto, the NDP were strong in the other big cities (Hamilton, Niagara, London, Windsor) and Western Ontario, and the Conservatives were strong in rural and small-town areas. A lot will come down to how well each party does in Toronto.

edited 27th Jan '18 12:44:37 PM by Galadriel

Rae hasn't been forgotten, yet somehow the disaster of Mike Harris has.

Doug Ford wants to run to head the Ontario PCs. That's the end of the world right there.

What are his chances? This will get really nutty if Caroline Mulroney throws her hat in.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Ugh, no more dynastic politics. Bad enough it's taken over on the federal level.

Doug Ford is pretty unlikely to win. His entire claim to fame is being Rob Ford’s brother and being the city councilman for one chunk of Toronto. That’s it. He’s also incredibly bad at debates and he would be atrocious for the party.

What’s going to define this upcoming election is which direction the people Wynne has ticked off are going to run in. If the Conservatives get a good (or at least average) candidate, a lot of people will run in that direction. If they get Doug Ford, a ton of people will run to the NDP. Because no matter what you think of Andrea Horwath, she will definitely be a better Premier than Doug Ford. No way around it.

And while the PC leadership race will shed a lot of light on the platform, honestly, it gives Andrea Horwath an advantage. Wynne is just going to flail around at random throwing money at whatever she thinks will win the election, the P Cs will be stuck with a very short time for their new leader to define the party, so all Horwath has to do is look reasonable and intelligent. Which she can do, especially since there doesn’t appear to be any flip-flopping in her political positions.

edited 29th Jan '18 8:31:28 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

Because that's the problem with Doug Ford. That he's part of a dynasty. Not the fact that he's blatantly corrupt, panders to racists, and is essentially out to be Trump, Ontario Version.

From what I'm reading Rob wasn't much better on that front. It technically does count as a dynasty of really garbage people by that metric, I suppose.

I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot

Rob Ford was kind of like a broken clock. He occasionally did something right, and he actually did kind of pay attention to what was going on. Still an atrocious mayor though.

The big problem with Doug Ford is that he was an enabler and would goad Rob Ford into doing things. When Rob Ford had to do something and he didn’t have access to Doug (like when that huge storm flooded part of the city) his reactions weren’t great, but they were okay. It was when Doug was in the picture that Rob would get really bad.

I think the other thing is that Rob Ford didn’t try to become mayor because he thought he deserved it. He thought he’d do a good job. Doug Ford, on the other hand, is most likely running in the leadership race because “he’s Doug Ford”.

Not Three Laws compliant.

You could feel sorry for Rob Ford because he was an addict. He still shouldn't have been anywhere near power, but the man had clear, legitimate problems that he was failing to cope with and which undermined not only his political career, but his entire life.

Doug, on the other hand, is just a terrible human being.

I wasn't referring to Rob Ford with the "dynastic politics" line (though he fits too), I was referring to Carolyn Mulroney. Even in decent people, like the current PM, it's wearying to see how far a name can take someone.

I am thoroughly against the Ontario Conservatives picking Doug Ford. The idea of "we should hope they pick the worst candidate - then they'll lose" should have died in November 2016. We need to keep Trumpism as far away from Canadian politics as possible.

edited 30th Jan '18 5:44:56 PM by Galadriel

While I'm no fan of the Fords, I wouldn't consider them anywhere near Trump. Sure, they were big personalities that played to local populism and (fiscal) conservatism, but that's about it.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

"Dynastic politics" always strikes me as a bizarre thing to get jumpy about. What should matter is whether someone is qualified. Sure, sometimes an unqualified person might be elected on the basis of their name, but lots of unqualified people get elected for other reasons as well, and there's simply no reason in voting against a qualified candidate because another member of their family once held office.

The reality is that members of a family often hold similar political views, and if they have the same sort of drive they may one day choose to run for office. Voting against a candidate because they aren't the first member of their family to run for office is just silly.

I am not, for instance, against Doug Ford because he happens to be Rob Ford's brother. I am against Doug Ford because he has a personal track record of corruption, abuse, and bigotry. Now sure, lots of that corruption took place during Rob's time as mayor, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't hold Doug responsible for some of what Rob did but that's because Doug was Rob's main source of support during his mayoral term, and from everything we know, enabled both his substance abuse and his corruption.

I want to see people elected for their qualifications and their policies, not for their name.

If Justin Trudeau were not a Trudeau - if he was just a guy who did a BA, taught for a while, and then went back to school - there would have been no reason for the Liberal Party to court him to become an MP. If he had happened to become a backbench MP, there would have been no reason for him to be regarded as a prospective leader. He became Liberal leader almost solely on the basis of his name (and the Liberals running out of other candidates). I think it's unhealthy for that to be a trend in Canadian politics. It further entrenches the power of the already rich and powerful. It encourages us to give the children credit for their parents' achivements.

The thing about Canada though? There aren't actually that many really big names in politics where the name is instantly recognizable. Pierre Trudeau is one, and so is Brian Mulroney, but otherwise? Not really. If rock star politics was actually a thing in Canada, beyond the one exception that is Justin Trudeau, Kevin O'Leary would be head of the Conservative party right now.

Although, now that I think about it, Canada barely has a celebrity culture. There's people everyone knows, because they're in a popular TV show or something or they're a very major politician, but otherwise there's no real emphasis on it. Hell, one of the most famous people in Canada (to Canadians) is Don Cherry. And lots of people mostly know him for his bizarre taste in fashion. But mostly we kind of glom onto American celebrity culture and get surprised when someone turns out to be Canadian.

edited 31st Jan '18 5:15:28 PM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

Catching up on the last few pages and oh the irony of "I think the provincial leadership is pretty secure" being followed shortly thereafter by Patrick Brown's harassment coming to light.

(At least that made me laugh a little - I've got a relative going "well, what really is sexual misconduct?" and implying it's a plot to keep the Cons out of power, so I'm mostly just highly disgusted right now).

Hell, I was ten years old when Harris left office and I'm bitter about his premiership. Still, I'm not surprised there's wide swathes of people that think balancing a budget and lowering taxes are everything. Although, I guess they did turn around and blame Walkerton on Rae, so I guess people bought that one?

Regarding political dynasties in Canada, depending on how you look at them, they really are nothing new. John A Macdonald's son served as a federal cabinet minister and Premier of Manitoba. Rachel Notley's father led the Alberta NDP for 16 years. Quebec had three premiers (a father and two brothers) from the same immediate family. And the list goes on, the Mac Kays and Savages (Nova Scotia), Mannings (Alberta), Mc Gunitys (Ontario), Crosbies (Newfoundland, though they've been out of politics for the last few generations IIRC).

Hell, the NDP have quite a history of this despite being a left of center party with populist/socialist roots. A father and son ran the federal and Ontario NDP at the same time, and Nikki Ashton is the daughter of a major political figure in Manitoba. The late Jack Layton was the son and grandson of cabinet ministers (from the right though), and his own son is a city councilor.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/political-dynasty-canada-leadership-1.4505959

Politics can be a family tradition like any other profession.

edited 31st Jan '18 5:41:31 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Huh that's actually quite a history.

People are amazingly blind to the damage Harris did and the way that it lingers. When you slash and burn the way he did and on the scale he did you make it virtually impossible for the next party to plug the holes. Fixing the institutions that Harris broke requires money, but since Harris gutted the government's income there's no way to easily gain the money you need to do the repairs, and in the meantime, the institutions keep on decaying. Even once you've raised taxes, you can't immediately stem the bleeding because you're understaffed from all the downsizing, and you've got nobody left who knows where the problems are and what needs to be done to fix them. And of course, while you're trying to hire people back or find new people who can identify the issue, the institutions continue to rot away. It becomes a vicious cycle, where what repairs you can make simply aren't able to keep pace with the rate of institutional decay.

And that's assuming the people trying to make the repairs are competent and Dalton McGuinty wasn't. He was a smiling face overtop of rank stupidity, something I learned first hand when he came to my school and was left incompetently dodging a question I'd asked him, as opposed to something one of the actual reporters had. McGuinty had no idea how to even begin going about righting the ship, and his paralysis prevented the more competent people under him from having a chance to try anything that might have worked. Which meant the problems only worsened, and the bleeding continued, and that's how we got to the place we are now.

I'm probably going to vote for Wynne in the election. She's made a lot of missteps, but honestly, I'm not sure I can blame her for a lot of them. She's not only trying to make up for all the time McGuinty wasted, but is still coping with the lingering nightmare of Harris, because many of the departments and institutions he ruined still haven't been put to rights. I don't trust Howarth to do a better job than she has, and as for the Conservatives? Harris was a madman, Hudak was an even worse madman, Brown's a sexual predator, and the new field of candidates that just opened up includes such luminaries as Doug Ford.

The Senate has voted to make (the English version of) O Canada gender neutral (again).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anthem-bill-passes-senate-1.4513317

Now it goes to the Governor General for royal assent. Pity it couldn't get done before the man who wrote it died though.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Wynne has no plan. At all. Ontario’s big problem right now is a lack of income, but her “solution” was to privatize a big chunk of the hydro system, thus creating a one-time infusion of cash that would result in an even smaller income in the future. It doesn’t help that she’s apparently hellbent on implementing all the policies of both the NDP and the Conservatives at the same time, thus costing a ton of money she doesn’t have to work with.

She dropped the ball hard when it came to the college teachers strike (costing even more money), the minimum wage increase was designed to come into place way too fast and whenever she does come up with something that’ll bring in money, she usually backs off since it tends to be a terrible idea. (Making lanes on the QEW toll-based is basically tailor-made to increase congestion and the current owners of the 407 are probably nuts enough to challenge any competition). There’s also that reimbursement system for people who put solar panels on their houses which was just...badly designed from the start. (The program itself is fine, but they probably should have gone with “you have solar panels hooked up to the grid? You get 40% off your electricity” instead of the current “have a bunch of money that will quite possibly be more than what you pay for electricity, thus ensuring that the province loses money on you.”

Yes, she got handed a really bad hand to play with, but she’s flailing around almost at random, trying to do something, anything, that sticks, cribbing from both of her competitors in the hopes that she can draw voters from both sides.

I’m probably going to vote NDP, but I live in a city that always votes NDP (combination factory and college/university town) so my vote probably wouldn’t change much either way.

Horwath might not be ideal, but she leads the only party out of the three that A) has a leader right now and B) has a coherent, consistent platform.

edited 1st Feb '18 6:55:26 AM by Zendervai

Not Three Laws compliant.

Nova Scotia Court of Appeal orders new trial for cab driver acquitted of sexual assault

Not sure if anyone remembers this but I'm glad it'll go back to trial. There was some pretty damning evidence against this guy and the judge was clearly letting personal feelings influence his judgement.

Oissu!

Good news to hear that they'll get another shot at convicting this creep. If nothing else, we need a ruling that expunges the "drunk can consent" BS from precedent ASAP.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Good. It's abonimable how blatantly sexist our legal system is; I hadn't realized it until the last few years when all the cases like this were reported.

This case should have been pretty much the easiest guilty verdict in the world (victim passed-out drunk, in a cab taking her in the opposite direction from her house, her naked from the waist down and the cabbie with his pants unzipped) - obvious to anyone who isn't a blithering idiot that there was no consent or capacity for it. The only reason for any judge to acquit the guy is complete misogyny.

edited 1st Feb '18 8:01:22 PM by Galadriel

While I am glad to hear there's a new trial, I am kinda annoyed how the Appeal court sort of dismiss the judge's awful comments as not particularly relevant.

Admittedly the appeal court's job isn't to discipline judges, but the fact they didn't go "This is obviously wrong" is saddening.

edited 2nd Feb '18 8:18:15 AM by Ghilz