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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?

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#3601: May 4th 2017 at 9:54:02 AM

Probably because we can't get Canadians to do said work.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
phantom1 Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#3602: May 4th 2017 at 5:35:07 PM

Our elections in B.C. will be this Saturday and this Tuesday. As far as actually physically there will be voting booths I think the other methods you could do it earlier.

FireCrawler2002 Since: Apr, 2017
#3603: May 7th 2017 at 12:03:53 PM

So, with France's victory against the Alt-Right, are you Canadians feeling proud that they were the ones who made your legacy instead of completely the British?

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#3604: May 7th 2017 at 12:09:01 PM

Canada's colonial legacy and culture is overwhelmingly British, outside of Quebec, New Brunswick and isolated Francophone communities elsewhere. And more Canadians with British ancestry trace their roots back to Scotland and Ireland than they do England, and those areas are considered holdouts.

I'm not going to feel comfortable about populism until the Conservative leadership race is over later this month.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#3605: May 7th 2017 at 12:20:03 PM

I'm happy that Canadian Trump has dropped out of the race. Him being in the lead seriously worried me.

It will probably be Bernier now. I don't know enough about him to be sure how I feel about that. I disagree with most of his policies, but that's a given since he's a Conservative.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#3606: May 7th 2017 at 12:21:18 PM

One of the Canadian Trumps dropped out. Leitch is still in. Swear to God, if she should somehow win, Trudeau should use "American Woman" as his next campaign theme.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#3607: May 7th 2017 at 12:25:14 PM

Leitch is far worse than Kevin O was, he at least stayed away from racism. She's making it the cornerstone of her campaign.

[up]Honestly, Trudeau might want to consider that song even if it isn't her, at least during foreign policy speeches. If Trump actually hurts the Canadian economy, then dealing in some light, Canadian style anti-Americanism is good politics for the Liberals and NDP.

edited 7th May '17 12:31:17 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#3608: May 7th 2017 at 12:27:05 PM

Bernier is kind of iffy...but he'll have a really weird effect. The really dangerous part of the Conservative Party, the part that Leitch was trying to appeal to, tend to loathe Quebec.

And Leitch, well, she's been sliding in the polls a lot. Turns out that her "Trump-lite" platform doesn't appeal too well across the whole country. Also her bizarre campaign ads have started making her a joke. Not because of content, but because they're so oddly made.

And yeah, O'Leary would have been bad, but he isn't the complete disaster Trump is. But on the flip side, O'Leary completely failed to gain a cult of personality. No one was projecting their hopes and dreams onto him, he was mostly getting the "a successful businessman might not be awful" reaction, and I think he realized it. There was no way O'Leary was going to arrive on a wave of populism because he was most known as "that sort of rude guy on Shark Tank who never invested in charities." That's won't inspire passion either way.

edited 7th May '17 12:30:31 PM by Zendervai

Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#3609: May 7th 2017 at 12:29:52 PM

Leitch is polling at, like, 10% max among conservatives. And the way their leadership voting system is set up means that the votes of party members from Quebec and Atlantic Canada have vastly more weight than those in the West.

Looking at Bernier's proposals - I'm strongly opposed to two-tier health care, and to lowering taxes for the rich by getting rid of the upper tax brackets, but I sypport his idea of getting rid of the dozens of tiny tax credits and raising the amount of tax-exempt income from 11k to 15k instead. I've been working with the tax code a lot lately, and it's vastly more complicated than it needs to be. I agree with getting rid of corporate welfare, but vehemently disagree with eliminating dropping thr corporate tax rate to 10% - for the last 35 years, all the increases in income have gone to corporations and to the super-rich, and we need higher corporate and capital gains taxes to get them paying their fair share. I'm horrified by his desire to end development aid, which is still intensely needed to support health and education in many developing countries, particularly in Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

I don't hate the idea of allowing foreign ownership of Canadian airlines. It's not as if the high prices and poor service of our current two-airline (okay, plus Porter) oligopoly is doing Canadians any favours.

edited 7th May '17 12:35:22 PM by Galadriel

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#3610: May 7th 2017 at 12:32:57 PM

A two tier system of some sort might be needed in the future, I think some European countries have used it to some good effect but I'm not expert there.

And Bernier wants to get rid of supply management, but he'll have to take that from the provinces' cold, dead hands.

And yes, its funny that the least Conservative ridings/those who more moderate members, have the most say in the leadership race.

edited 7th May '17 12:33:45 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#3611: May 7th 2017 at 12:42:14 PM

I don't think any of the western European countries have two-tier healthcare.

Each electoral district has an equal weight in the Conservative leadership race, so there's probably about five people in some Maritime riding whose votes have as much influence as all the conservatives in Calgary Centre.

It's not a bad system insofar as it's geared at keeping the party from becoming too regional, but the effects are amusing at a time like this when the party's been decimated everywhere east of Ontario.

On a different topic, the Census results should be a wake-up call to the other parties. The Prairies are the fastest-growing region of the country by a long shot, and any party that can't compete there is going to have a hard time getting a majority after the next time boundaries are redrawn.

edited 7th May '17 12:43:52 PM by Galadriel

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#3612: May 7th 2017 at 12:44:39 PM

The Prairies are the fastest-growing region of the country by a long shot
Why do I always have the sense that people keep moving to places with unreliable water supplies (like Arizona, Nevada and Texas) in North America?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#3613: May 7th 2017 at 12:50:58 PM

There's several major rivers running right through the prairies, not to mention aquifers. And about one-quarter of Manitoba is lakes, so its water supply is in no way unreliable. Lots of lakes in Saskatchewan as well (especially, but not exclusively, in the northern half. It's yet to be seen whether climate change will give us another dust bowl, but there are no issues in that direction at present.

People have bern moving there (less so the last two years, with the drop in oil prices) because the economy was booming and there were plenty of jobs, and it's a lot less expensive than living in Toronto or Vancouver. And the last ten years or so have seen all the prairie provinces make stronger efforts to attract immigrants, with considerable success (whereas immigrants used to settle mostly in Toronto and Vancouver). Winnipeg has a substantial and growing Filipino population, and Calgary and Edmonton are both more diverse than Montreal.

edited 7th May '17 12:57:37 PM by Galadriel

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#3614: May 7th 2017 at 12:56:39 PM

Because people didn't want to move there before now, but with the economy and housing market the way it is, they're making do.

TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#3615: May 7th 2017 at 12:59:54 PM

Manitoba has a lot of lakes? That sounds good. Is there a good rowing and kayaking community?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Galadriel Since: Feb, 2015
#3616: May 7th 2017 at 1:03:29 PM

I think it's mainly canoeing, but there may be some kayaking as well.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#3617: May 7th 2017 at 1:03:47 PM

If you want rowing and kayaking, just come down to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. We don't call it the "City of Lakes" for nothing.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Pseudopartition Screaming Into The Void from The Cretaeceous Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
Screaming Into The Void
#3618: May 7th 2017 at 2:52:07 PM

Why do I always have the sense that people keep moving to places with unreliable water supplies (like Arizona, Nevada and Texas) in North America?
It's a little dry east of the Rockies, sure, but not exactly "hey let's pick up and move to the middle of a goddamn desert and build up populations of millions of people there" territory. Biome maps vary, but it looks to me like the Prairies are much more temperate grassland than savannah/desert/shrubland, so they have higher precipitation. I can't speak to what kind of stress climate change, and the increasing development - especially oil sands extraction - will have on the area in the future, though.

Man, I haven't even been to any other province, I should get on that.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#3619: May 7th 2017 at 3:00:35 PM

The impression I get from climate maps is that it's sort of comparable with or less than Texas (California has some very wet and some very dry parts, so it's not so easy to compare).

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#3620: May 7th 2017 at 3:09:36 PM

It's comparable, I think. Each prairie province is slightly smaller than Texas, and there are few variations between them. Alberta has more mountains and badlands (mostly in the south and west), Manitoba has more lakes and wetland (mostly in the east and north), and while they all have a lot of flat, open fields, driving east-west through Saskatchewan (at least in the south) you could easily make it across the whole province and see nothing else. I'm generalizing, but that's the basic gist.

PhiSat Planeswalker from Everywhere and Nowhere Since: Jan, 2011
Planeswalker
#3621: May 8th 2017 at 9:58:25 AM

Oilsands development is mostly in the north of Alberta, where there's tundra and quite a few forests (making reclamation and cleanup efforts on old sites very important) and the climate is horribly cold in the winter and uncomfortably hot in the summer. Apart from Fort McMurray there aren't a lot of densely populated regions up there for good reason.

From what I hear Saskatchewan is generally alright, apart from how cold their winters are, and Manitoba is similar except there's more water and much worse summers in terms of huge heat waves and bug explosions. But yeah, we don't have so much deserts as just flat grasslands, the closest to actual deserts are the badlands and very few people live there.

edited 8th May '17 9:58:37 AM by PhiSat

Oissu!
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#3622: May 8th 2017 at 10:21:53 AM

And which areas are producing a lot of solar and or wind power, and or have a good shipyard, automobile, or railway industry (specifically, with electric engines)?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
PhiSat Planeswalker from Everywhere and Nowhere Since: Jan, 2011
Planeswalker
#3623: May 8th 2017 at 10:28:52 AM

Shipyards are in the East primarily, with some work done in BC. We have wind farms in the east of Alberta because we get both stupidly powerful wind from over the mountains and such strange wind patterns we have our own names for some of them. I don't know enough about solar to comment on it.

Automobiles used to be an Ontario thing but the industry is all but dead now because of moving plants to Mexico.

Railways are a crapshoot everywhere in Canada. CP is struggling hardcore and Bombardier seem to have made their business projections based on getting government bailouts every few years.

edited 8th May '17 10:29:22 AM by PhiSat

Oissu!
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#3624: May 8th 2017 at 11:15:37 AM

The heyday of the cross Canada railways is long since past, sadly. Too much to maintain them, and the focus is on highways. If the upkeep wasn't so rough, we could use some bullet train routes...

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#3625: May 8th 2017 at 11:37:53 AM

Highways are bullshit. Expensive, land consuming, inefficient, polluting. Rail road is best road.

Bombardier are a really cool brand that builds really cool shit. I'm a big fan of their trains.

edited 8th May '17 11:39:56 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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