Canadian Politics

@M84 Electronic voting machines have their own problems, mainly to do with trust. There are a lot of security concerns in voting: protection from tampering, anonymity, verifiability (each voter must be able to verify that their vote was cast correctly). Implementing the last two at the same time is a really tall order.

Electronic voting machines are a terrible idea, as we've seen in the US; they're vulnerable to tampering and there's no way to verify who actually one.

Quebec has passed a law saying you cannot work in the civil service, recieve government services, or ride the bus if you wear a niqab. The PQ wanted to expand it to even more types of religious clothing - to the extent that the leader of the NDP and the federal Minister of Defense would not be allowed to ride a bus in Montreal.

Even as is, this has got to be against the Charter and needs to be stopped. I don't care what you think about niqabs - people who wear them have the same rights as anyone else. And if you do consider the niqab sexist, ostracizing and marginalizing women who wear them is not likely to increase their liberty, is it? It's deliberately doing the reverse.

I'm feeling even more pleased now that we picked Singh. If condoning this kind of bigotry is the cost of winning votes in Quebec, then I don't want their votes.

Funny how everyone stereotypes Alberta as racist when their biggest city just reelected an Islamic mayor and Quebec's doing stuff like this. Odd that the most economically left-wing province in Canada would be the most Trumpist (they've even had several white supremacist demonstrations), but that's the way it is.

edited 19th Oct '17 3:39:04 AM by Galadriel

Quebec's "civic" nationalism...isn't. They are hardcore cultural/ethnic nationalists (at least in the PQ, and the LPC does shit like this to placate them), even if they have rejected open religious influence. That French-Catholic bias (to them you aren't a "true" Quebecer if you have the wrong accent or last name....or skin colour) is alive and well outside of the left-wing nationalists.

And this law does violate the Charter, specifically Section 2 (fundamental freedoms, including conscience, religion and expression) and Section 15 (equality before the law). And it would take a generous view of Section 1 to save the law.

Alberta has spawned some really scary American style militiaesque groups though, while Quebec is importing European white nationalist/far-right ideas and trappings more or less wholesale... And one 4chan troll turned terrorist.

And keep one eye on Alberta's UCP, that party could swing in a variety of directions (conventional conservative, to hard right socially conservative nationalists) but regardless of their end ideology they wil almost certainly knock down Notley.

As for voting machines vs paper ballots...I'll take a longer wait on Election Day over giving Putin's hackers an opening.

edited 18th Oct '17 3:01:25 PM by Rationalinsanity

Did not Singh get the second largest amount of support in Quebec, just behind Caron? And did not Quebec voted out the PQ when they tried the same thing with their "Quebec Value Charter"? Or that every one of those White Supremacists protests had an even bigger counter-protest?

There is a big generational division in Quebec society. A lot of boomers and the older generations still have the heavy conservative Roman Catholic heritage of Duplessis' era, while the younger generations who grew up after the Quiet Revolution are more progressive way. The second group also dislike religious displays, but this dislike applies to all religions, including Christianism. The best example of this division would be Jean "Là-Là" Tremblay, the mayor of Saguenay, a city with a very old population and still heavily religious. He tried to enforce a catholic prayer at the beginning of each city council assembly: while he was struck down by the court and the laughing stock of the rest of the province, he was still popular enough to win 5 consecutive elections.

All pretenses of civic nationalism from the PQ (or the Bloc) died with Parizeau. His sore loser speech chased away all the Left/Civic-Nationalist from the party.

But how this law was proposed is really strange : not only it came from the Liberals (which are generally against this kind of identity politics), but also just after they lost one of their bastion to the CAQ (right-populist party, their leader, François Legault, is an ancient member of the PQ's right wing who thinks that Trump is a good politician.) in a partial election. I would not even be surprised they voted that law just to get back some votes from the CAQ (who are now more popular than the PQ in the polls: I'm not happy with this, I would prefer four more years of corrupt Liberals than having the CAQ).

I think that's exactly what they are doing, moving to the right on social issues to get support back/distract for their endemic corruption.

Get a large swath of Baby Boomer votes along the way?

edited 18th Oct '17 4:19:28 PM by phantom1

Probably dragging federalist voters who lean towards secularism/are just plain tired of LPQ corruption back into the fold.

....Damn, I really wish Quebec had a viable left-of-center federalist party.

The full text is you need to unveil your face for the full length where you recieve a service from the state. The law does permit exceptions and "Accomodations" to be made.

So yeah, ashamed of my province.

Speaking of things to make me ashamed, #Me Too! is making waves in Quebec. La Presse revealled Wednesday morning that Eric Salvail, one of the biggest TV Star in the province has been routinely sexually assaulting and general sexual misconducts around his male underlings ever since he made it big, so for about 17 years. During the day all his numerous radio and tv shows have basically been cancelled and the swiftness of the reaction and the gestures described (I will spare you the details), make it clear that everyone in the industry knew about it, but everyone shut up so long as no one complained publicly (See Harvey Weinstein).

The same day, 9 women, including some pretty big name of the Quebec TV Scene, accused Gilbert Rozon, the founder of the Just For Laugh / Juste Pour Rire festival and organization, of sexual misconduct spanning 3 decades. Rozon in the evening resigned from all the positions he led heading Just for Laugh, co-head of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce and Commissioner for Montreal's 375th Anniversary. Goes without saying that even if you've not heard his name, Rozon is/was a huge name of the both the Quebec and Canadian artistic scene and I dread to imagine how many people he might've abused in his long career and how many must've covered up.

The perceived inaction of the Liberals in applying any of the recommendations of the Bouchard - Taylor commission has always been a big weakness of them on the French electorate, where they are rather weak. With the PQ crumbling faster than a sand castle made out of powdered sugar in the rain, the CAQ has been able to capitalize on identity politics. With the CAQ also not being explicitly sovereignists, they do not carry the same ball and chain that's pulling the PQ under and drowning it. This, along with the Liberal's general lack of any real achievements, consistently weak ethics if not outright corruption, has allowed them finally pull in ahead that the Liberals majority for the next election is threatened (And that Election is coming soon), and the scenario where they lose to the CAQ is not impossible, especially after their terrible performance at the By-election in a traditional liberal fortress. This law is an attempt by the Liberals to seemingly shore up this perceived weakness on accommodations and identity questions in the hopes of pulling the carpet from under the CAQ - doing something so they no longer seem to willfully ignore some of the genuine issues, while at the same thing doing less than the opposition would, so they still appear as the most favorable option to their non-francophone voters. I suspect the liberals HOPE their law is struct down by Tribunals, as their version was far more lenient than what the CAQ would do, and it'll be hard for the CAQ to advocate a stricter law when a lenient one was sunk by the tribunals.

The Liberals tenure has become outright atrocious. And the lack of actual options to replace them it despite 3 major opposition party is fucking depressing.

edited 18th Oct '17 9:55:40 PM by Ghilz

Airbus takes majority stake in Bombardier jet project

Boeing of course is upset.

Man, if this plan gets those planes sold and still results in Boeing losing their extensive contracts with Ottawa....glorious.

Now, we just need to bite the fucking bullet, tank the compatibility costs, and buy a European jet. CF-18s are not going to be viable for much longer.

@ Calgary election: Mayor Nenshi is very polarizing. People either love him or hate him, that's a part of why the turnout was so high.

(not because he's a Muslim [I hope, anyways], but because he's consistently raised taxes during his term)

@Quebec religious apparel ban: Quebec runs along similar lines to France with banning obvious religious symbols in public institutions. Except Christian ones because of the conservative older population.

edited 19th Oct '17 6:28:58 PM by CenturyEye

There is a test that the courts use, based off a drug case (R v. Oakes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_1_of_the_Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms#Oakes_test

Essentially, for a violation to stand it must be:

1) There must be a pressing and substantial objective

2) The means must be proportional

a) The means must be rationally connected to the objective

b) There must be minimal impairment of rights

c) There must be proportionality between the infringement and objective

The rest of that article has more info. While "free and democratic society" has never been fully defined, what is and isn't acceptable does have a framework established in case law.

edited 19th Oct '17 6:43:01 PM by Rationalinsanity

After initially declining, Trudeau is now open to the possiblity that the Federal government might contest the Quebec religious neutrality law in court.

His exact words were that the federal government will study the law so that it might take its responsibilities and defend Canadians. He added that he understand that people expect him to defend the charter.

Honestly, its not really Ottawa's job to address this. It will be challenged as a violation in Quebec, go up through the court system and most likely get struck down (possibly going up to the SC and setting a precedent).

So, there were a pair of byelections held yesterday. One was in a Conservative stronghold in Alberta (Rona Ambrose's old riding) and is only remarkable in that the winner is sort of an asshole (uses the term Feminazis unironically, wants to bring the NRA up here, among other shit).

The other riding, in Quebec, was considered in play by all four major parties. It was narrowly taken by the Tories (NDP trailing 2nd) in 2015, and the Liberals won it yesterday despite it being their worst result in the province last time (they haven't won in the area since 1980). The NDP meanwhile, fell back to fourth place. While some might find fault in the new Opposition party leaders, I think it mostly has to do with general party popularity trends, and the Liberals scoring a star local canditate (mayor of the riding's primary population center).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-federal-byelections-1.4367543

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/byelectionis-alberta-quebec-ambrose-lebel-1.4368311

And in breaking news, that Ontario election bribery case (which I don't know much about TBH) just got tossed due to insufficient evidence.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/sudbury-byelection-bribery-trial-day-12-1.4367185

Paradise Papers leak reveals secrets of the world elite's hidden wealth

Posting it here because of this:

CBC link

www.cbc.ca/news/business/stephen-bronfman-trudeau-paradise-papers-1.4382511

I suspect that the Liberals will drop him like a sack of meat for this, even if various laws weren't broken (iffy) its still an ethical issue. If its just this (and he truly didn't have any control over policy or party mechanisms), then it doesn't trigger conflict of interest issues. If it expands, than there might be issues.

edited 5th Nov '17 5:57:31 PM by Rationalinsanity

An Aside: Fentanyl: A new deadly drug spreads across North America

Mayoral Elections in Quebec for all cities Sunday

In Montreal, Valerie Plante defeats incumbent Denis Coderre 51% to 46% as of this writing. She becomes the first woman mayor of the city.

In Quebec City, Regis Labaume (Often styled the King of Quebec City) maintains his hold, winning a 4th mandate easily crushing his 5 opponents Though he wins by a mere 55%, a 20% decrease from his 2013 results.

Josée Néron Won Jonquiere, where the incumbent mayor, Jean Tremblay, known to be... colorful (He was the guy who went to court for his desire to recite prayer before city hall meetings and wouldn't stop till the Supreme Court made a unanimous judgement against him) retired after 20 years running the city (Previously Chicoutimi, before it was merged with its suburbs and neighboring city).

Participation in both major city have been rather low.

Speaking as a Montrealer, I wasn't thrilled by either options. Coderre's done some good work and some terrible work. His banning of pitbulls is a sore spot, as is his manner he ran the Formula E events clusterfuck. At the same time, I think Plante ran on a platform that wasn't really realistic and really benefitted from the Media's unwillingness to really call her on her more sketchy promise. He main one is a new Metro line, called the pink line, with stations named after great women of Quebec's history and culture. And that's cool, but she's provided no real data on how much traffic will that line see for the immense cost it's gonna have to be built. And the timeline he's given herself would be... impressive to say the least.

edited 5th Nov '17 11:19:32 PM by Ghilz

Fentanyl is not new, it is very popular with drug dealers because it is easy to smuggle because it is several orders of magnitude more potent per gram in undiluted form, so A very small amount can keep the drug addict population of an entire city high as a kite for months.

Heck, the pharmaceutical industry version is even very safe - wide therapeutic index means doctors hardly ever have problems with using it.

Problem being, of course that your average drug dealer is not a chemist, and very frequently, fuck up the "Dilute it x 1000" step so some poor sod ends up with a gram that is fifty percent pure, because the dealer thought "Drop one gram in a kilo bag of filler, shake for five minutes" would work. Then the buyer takes fivehundred times the intended dose, and dies.

So nasty that drug dealers have even been charged with manslaughter for selling it...

I actually witnessed part of what I later learned was a (non-lethal) Fentanyl overdose while waiting for a bus. Guy was already getting help from security/the police and I tried not to look, but it was not pleasant.

edited 6th Nov '17 10:49:16 AM by Rationalinsanity

So it's safe but patients get addicted and can't afford it and move to dealers who sell crappy deadly versions?

https://ph.news.yahoo.com/canadas-trudeau-charms-manila-while-ordering-fried-chicken-122809773--finance.html

Our PM's making a good impression with the Filipinos.

At least one World Leader (TM) knows how to act like one. Seriously, can Canada just take over full World Leading duties right now? Because God knows we're not up to it.

edited 12th Nov '17 6:27:09 PM by kkhohoho