Canadian Politics

God, I hate First Past The Post...

What's that exactly?

It means whoever gets the most votes wins, even if their share of their vote isn't a majority.

At this point all I can do is inform my friends who did not vote—and there were many—to keep their mouths shut for the next four years. You didn't vote? You don't get to complain about health care, or education, or anything else that Ford now has a say in.

Well, between living/moving costs and Ford, I think I'm choosing Halifax over Ottawa for the foreseeable future.

I see that the Liberals did better than expected (10 seats), which may have drained the NDP.

Just don't see this as a sign that populism is overrunning Canada; Ford won because he was handed the Conservative leadership due to a questionable (at best) selection process and because he was the main Opposition to a disliked incumbent. The Conservative equivalent parties in the other provinces and federally are, for the most part, within the mainstream of Canada's right/center-right; UCP in Alberta notwithstanding but I wouldn't call them populist.

edited 7th Jun '18 10:22:23 PM by Rationalinsanity

Damn. I knew I forgot to do something. But I was never notified to make any direct vote in this competition outside of this topic.

When a Trump-style populist can win in Canada's largest country, yes, it does means there's a problem with right-wing populism in Canada.

The NDP should of won this if people were decent. And what is anyone who calls themself a leftist doing staying when the NDP has a shot at governing?

I feel ill, like when Trump won. This isn't as big, but it's a lot closer to home.

The Toronto suburbs swung this one. Rural south and east Ontario always go Conservative, and the NDP won all the cities (with a few Liberals seats in parts of Toronto and Ottawa).

I agree that FPTP needs to go. (On a federal level, the combination of breaking that promise and giving away vast sums of public money to an oil company so the government can assume its liabilities, makes me done with Trudeau. At first I thought he was pretty decent, albeit very inexperienced, but not now.)

My preference is choosing a new voting system by ranked ballot - rank a few different options (FPTP, ranked ballot, mixed member proportional), and whichever one wins becomes the new system for the next election. I'd be fine with ranked ballot as the new system - it removes the issue of "strategic voting", keeps local representation, keeps you voting for people rather than just parties, and is simpler to understand than the MMP and STV options.

edited 8th Jun '18 5:00:20 AM by Galadriel

Suburbs are what helped swing the vote to Trump in the USA too. There's a reason I hated living in suburbs in my youth.

Toronto suburbs don't have the same demographics as Trump voters, though. Mississauga and Markham (along with some others) are majority-minority, and they went for Ford. Though 3 of 5 Brampton seats went to the NDP.

Noble feeling, but I don't agree. For one thing, you can make excuses for anyone's victory. Even valid excuses. Here, lemme try.

"Don't take Trump as a sign that populism is overrunning the USA. He only won coz the Russians meddled in the Election, coz of the stupid electoral college system, and only won the primaries coz the opposition was so weak."

Putting that aside, those who embrace Ford and Trump's rhetoric won't see the victory as a fluke. They'll be emboldened by it. And while it's true most conservative parties are not as bad, they'll have a way more vocal fringe that is embracing this. The populist leaning will be attractive to any conservative leader (or wannabe leader) who is looking for a possible surge in points.

edited 8th Jun '18 5:24:17 AM by Ghilz

I think the Brexit vote helped open the floodgates.

I should note that while Trump did indeed win and more people in the USA have been adopting his rhetoric in response...most of them haven't actually been able to win elections.

edited 8th Jun '18 5:26:30 AM by M84

And the political discourse is not impoverished when one side's falling to that populist rhetoric? Even if they don't win.

We'll see how sustainable Ford's spending and cutting promises will be (hint: they aren't); he'll either break with his campaign BS on a large scale or running things into the ground, or both. His scandals won't vanish either. And while he took the province, the party is still in the hands of the Establishment, the MP Ps are old school Tories.

We'll see how much endurance Ford has. The majority of Ontarians (let alone Canadians) still have negative views of him.

And I'll believe populism is spreading when it actually occurs on a federal scale (so, not happening unless Schneer randomly gets overthrown by a nutbar who wins, or Schneer totally reinvents himself), or it wins in provinces where conditions are far less than ideal. Anyone could have led the Conservatives to victory against Wynne, Ford was the one because social conservatives screwed the center and exploited the Conservative Party's awful leadership race format to have outsized influence.

I wouldn't call the Conservative party analogues in any other province truly populist; the one in Alberta puts on a good show is is basically Jason Kenny's personal political machine, and he's establishment as they come.

Political discourse in the US has been suffering before Trump, it goes back to the Reagan years. Trump's win just brought things into the open, and may have opened the way for a counter attack (come back in November to see if that works).

edited 8th Jun '18 9:00:39 AM by Rationalinsanity

Thing is, the public is going to take a long, long time to notice how bad Ford is. Because with the Toronto Sun, CTV, and numerous other outlets all insisting he's the greatest thing that could ever happen to the province, there are going to be a lot of people who never find out about his scandals, or are handed a ready made way to dismiss them.

Mike Harris did not have a ready made propaganda network when he was in power. He still burned the province down, doing damage we've never recovered from. Ford is now in a position to do the same, but with a newspaper and television channel that will lie for him until doomsday at his beck and call—and that's not getting into online alt-right outlets like "Rebel Media".

This is going to be even uglier than it should be.

A lot of conservatives themselves hate Ford, there was just no other alternative to vote for in Ontario (No, conservatives are not going to vote NDP).

edited 8th Jun '18 9:26:25 AM by PhiSat

There was no alternative to homophobia, sexism, racism, and corruption, huh?

Don't give us this "no alternative" nonsense. The Ontario PCs demonstrated yesterday that they are every bit the bigots that the American Republicans are. That's something I've known for a long time, but that the province as a whole has always been in denial about.

There's no excuse for electing Ford. And while there's not much I can do about it, I will hold everyone who voted for him as accountable as I can. Even if that just means reminding them of the choice they made and what it means every time they try to dodge it.

Well he did say he was talking about Conservatives. so obviously there wasn't. Otherwise they'd not be conservatives.

The alternative would have been to not have elected him in the first place, which they were obviously too incompetent to do. Or racist or homophobic or sexist, that probably did make up a section of the puzzle pieces coming together. But don't act as if a lot of people don't vote for their party of choice no matter who's at the head of it.

edited 8th Jun '18 11:36:36 AM by PhiSat

Nobody is denying that they do it, they’re just having trouble with your suggestion that they shouldn’t take responsability for their choices. Because they had a choice, their desire to vote the party line just overpowered any anti-bigotry feelings they might have had.

Of course, there are a lot of low-information voters who votes simply based on party without even bothering to find out who their local candidate (or even who the party leader) even is.

edited 8th Jun '18 2:50:36 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Which absolves them of responsibility for voting in a bigoted Trump impersonator...how?

So how much if this is the fault of the FPTP system/the split between the Liberals/NDP and how much of this is the fault of abstaining voters (since Ambar seems to have quite the axe to grind with thise friends of his)

FPTP is responsible for most majority governments in Canada, there are usually at least 3 parties in play in every province. In that regard, the Ontarian results were normal; a weak plurality gets you a win.

The Tories had a better riding by riding split, so they came out on top. I'm not sure if turnout was the issue (we'd need to see the numbers, and where the abstainers were), but the Liberal base didn't turn NDP at high enough levels to put them over the top.

That said, Ambar is right in that anyone who thought that Ford had no chance was delusional. He was well ahead the entire time.

edited 9th Jun '18 12:20:06 AM by Rationalinsanity

Did people really think Ford had no chance?? How can people even think that after seeing Trump elected? Those people are really just too lazy to vote.

Trump nothing, Ford was well ahead the entire race, the NDP barely came within striking distance of giving him a Minority before the Liberals hit their floor. He made it harder for the Conservatives, but it was still his race to lose.