Canadian Politics

Because, hey, Canada needs some love as well.

Now, then, as a Yank to the Canadians, what has Stephen Harper done as Prime Minister, what were the top parties and how did the general election turn out this year?

Stephen Harper

• Is going to take down the long gun registry (It's a gun registry for rifles, hunting rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns etc). Funny joke about that registry, it also includes the LRW .50 cal sniper rifle used by the Canadian Forces.

• They're taking down the Wheat Board, which is a government-run corporation (crown corp) that collects the wheat from all the small time and independent farmers and sells it as one entity. This is the way small-time farmers compete with large agricultural megacorps. Tories stacked a committee with corporate lackeys of monsanto and so on and they decided that the Wheat Board "hurt farmers". Farmers voted 80% to keep the board.

• One of the cabinet ministers (Tony Clement) was smiling like a dickhead while talking about how he didn't do any of the paperwork necessary for basically stealing 50 million dollars from border security spending to blow on his own riding (electoral district)

The major parties are:

• Tories (Conservative Party of Canada) right-leaning
• NDP (New Democratic Party of Canada) left-leaning
• Liberals/Grits (Liberal Party of Canada) centrist
• Bloc (Bloc Quebecois) all over the place, but generally left on many of the more prominent issues
• Greens (Green Party of Canada) left-socially, right-fiscally

Sounds like Canadian Conservatives (with Harper and Clement in paticular) are trying to emulate American Conservatives. Not a good sign.

One must note that our Canadian conservatives are politically about the same as the US democrats. The US would probably call our NDP and Greens commies.

edited 30th Nov '11 10:34:23 AM by nightwyrm_zero

So, even your Conservatives are to the left of American Democrats?

Sledge, most of the world is left of the US Democracts

Yeah, although the definition isn't as clean. Democrats tend to be backed by unions and are protectionist, whereas the Tories are known for being spineless sell-outs to foreigners (by their detractors that is) and anti-union/worker rights. Then again, Tories are rather split personality on foreign affair issues. Either they suck some country's dick (like the USA) or they go crazy offensive against them for no reason (like cutting all trade ties with UAE because they wouldn't give us a free military base).

edited 30th Nov '11 11:12:51 AM by breadloaf

Your Tories really are a split personality. What's Harper done in regards to business?

Is anyone to the right of American Republicans?

He's put in some fairly significant business tax cuts, he's introduced HST in conjunction with some provincial premiers (which is harmonised sales tax, basically it's that you follow one set of rules for sales tax and pay the combo rate of the federal sales tax and the provincial sales tax), he's increased pension plan contribution amount and unemployment insurance rates.

A while ago he introduced a tax on income trusts, these are financial devices where investors earn money via tax-free dividends. Thus if a corporation defined itself as an income trust, people earn money based on their shares and pay zero tax. He broke a campaign promise (not that I particular care in this case) to introduce a tax on the income trusts due to falling corporate tax income.

Recently, small businesses asked that he introduce a government-run registered retirement savings plan. So Harper introduced an implementation of it that works basically like this: The government will register a financial institute to run the pooled retirement fund. Small businesses and self-employed can opt into the plan and thus pay far less overhead but get the services of a major investment firm.

Oh, and for a non-business one that is making the headlines. A private member's bill (as in a backbencher, read as "unimportant", MP) was to make wearing a mask during a riot to be a crime. However, I, like other pro-civil rights people, feel that might be overcriminalising the simple act of wearing a mask. For instance, what about anon troll protesters who wear guy fawkes masks? Are they suddenly to be arrested and jailed for up to 5 years just for wearing a mask?

Harper is also big trouble when it comes down to medicare. He's not actively working against it, that's a way to ensure major issues, but he's certainly not enforcing any major laws. He lets provincial governments ignore what are openly illegal private clinics.

Basically, as a support of the free market he supports two-tier medicare (no thank you sir!). He's not actually saying that's what we should do though, instead he's arguing that the provinces deal with it independently. While this isn't all bad (the Maritimes have started relying too much on federal funding, some inter-regional cooperation would be much better) over all it's a horrible thing.

Someone's already mentioned the Wheat Bored, but yes, Harper shows a distinct...let's call it preference for Alberta's big corporations. He is a graduate of the Alberta School of Business, after all.

Basically, while Harper is not who I (or most of my province, who still touts the unofficial ABC policy) would vote for, under any circumstance, he's not completely evil. His focus is mostly on Alberta, frankly, which has a lot of big corporations, and he likes that those businesses like him.

And also, breadloaf is correct, Tories are known for somewhat...sporadic approaches to foreign nations. It's been known to backfire.

@Sledge - in general or in Canada? If general then you've got your authoritarians, fascists etc. I suspect you mean Canada though so...maybe the Canadian Libertarian party...but they're not really in the running...and I don't think they are, really. So probably not.

edited 30th Nov '11 11:49:24 AM by AwayLaughing

So, Harper's basically a Composite Character of Bush and Obama, sans the militarism?

edited 30th Nov '11 11:51:28 AM by Sledgesaul

He's more militaristic than I'm comfortable, but he was part of the negotiations on when to pull out of Afghanistan, and he's held to that agreement.

...So yes, I suppose. A little more nuanced than that, though.

Except for all the soldiers still there.

I shall visit this thread often.

Just a question: Canadians, which party do you support if any?

...the fuck?

What world is this where the Green Party is fiscally conservative? 0_o

Canada, bitch. Where they actually won a seat.

Politics of Canada Last election results

If I was Canadian, I'd vote List here:

• LPofC
• MPofC
• FPofC (unregistered)

@ USAF

Canada fuck yeah.

@ Erock

I generally vote between Libs, NDP and Greens. I tend not to be a party supporter though because I hate everybody.

The Liberterian Party is more of a joke then the Marxist—Leninists.

I see. I'm registered with the Liberal website and might join properly. I have faith in the party.

edited 30th Nov '11 1:43:50 PM by Erock

I'm pretty sure someone registered my email with them as a joke because I randomly started getting their newsletter.

And yeah, the Libertarian Party of Canada is looked upon very unfavourably. Erock has it right, it's reputation is substantially worse than the two commie parties. All their socially liberal policies are already implemented by the mainstream parties making that part of their platform completely pointless. All of their fiscally right-wing policies are asking Canadians to gut all the government programs that work really well and differentiate us from the shittiness that is clouding American economics (such as the subprime mortgage fiasco).

edited 30th Nov '11 1:48:53 PM by breadloaf

Not repuation-wise, but vote-wise. The Marxist-Lenists got more vote in my riding then the Liberterians did.

I can't stand the fact that I live ina "conservative" riding when they only won because more people voted farther left. It's dumb. And the attack ads C Onservatives ran on Iggy.

edited 30th Nov '11 1:50:48 PM by Erock

There was a vote of no confidence which led to a general election. What were the results?

Conservative majority. NDP, social democrats, earned opposition status. Liberals reduced to 38 out of 300 seats. Bloc Quebecois routed, and lost official party status. Greens win a seat.

Hooray.

edited 30th Nov '11 2:00:50 PM by Erock

That vote of no confidence was a Hoist by His Own Petard moment, huh?

x4 Which is why FPTP sucks. I'd be happy when they finally implement a proportional representation system.

edited 30th Nov '11 2:04:54 PM by nightwyrm_zero