Canadian Politics Thread

I also wonder how much of this orange wave is not so much reactive (ie. doing it to kick the bums out) so much as suddenly realizing that people COULD elect NDP candidates, and didn't have to park their vote with a so-called safer choice that according to traditional wisdom has "a better chance of getting elected"?

I think the scale of the change in Quebec is more the former, but in other parts of the country it may be more the latter: look at Davenport, where Ianno had been there for a while, and Andrew Cash (who almost no one thought would win) nearly DOUBLED Ianno's vote this time out. And Parkdale-High Park, which probably had a whole pile swing Liberal last time out because it seemed safer? And then Peggy Nash trounced Kennedy, who was actually in consideration for the Liberal leadership.

Er, Mario Silva, not Ianno of course.

We're nowhere close to a red/blue state two party fight to the death mentality. The NDP doesn't have a power base anywhere in the country (unless you somehow believe that Quebecers are NDP 4 life), which means they're vulnerable. Ontario voters can be swayed from election to election. So it would be really dumb for the Liberals to give up the centre when pretty much all of Quebec and Ontario will be up for grabs in the next election.

This makes some sense.

This is OTM and unbelievably honest, coming from a Liberal member:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/silver-powers/the-liberal-party-what-went-wrong-and-where-to-next/article2008011/

It also features: a good explanation of why the Liberals deserved what they got, confirmation of why I was right not to vote for them ("You can't fake sincerity), and, coming straight from a prominent Liberal, a clear statement of why what I see as the premise for 'vote-splitting' arguments are so flawed:

The Liberal Party of Canada is not a “left-wing party”. Not when we are at our best. The Liberals and NDP have radically different cultures and visions for the country

Btw, if Justin Trudeau becomes leader because of his last name, that will thoroughly confirm what people hate about today's LPC. (And I have plenty of admiration for his Dad.) Bob Rae is likely a poor choice as well, considering that neither Liberals nor New Democrats want to associate themselves with his former premiership.

"is so flawed"

I'm not saying that Justin Trudeau would be a rational choice. I do believe that with many people my age it would be an irrationally powerful one. I just don't know enough about him to say much more. But if a reasonable amount of his father's charisma and intelligence found its way to him, I think he could navigate his way through a lot. If he's George W. Bush (which is not to equate H.W. and Pierre), then yes, people would recoil.

i ate breakfast at the table next to him once. that's all i can report.

(Btw, fwiw, even outside QC, the NDP won 44 seats, which is still one more than their previous national record under 44. I agree that they're still a ways away from holding a strong power base in any given region.)

"...record under Broadbent."

When I was talking about the election with my grade 6 class this morning, the girl who's probably my brightest asked if this meant that "everything would be privatized now." Sounds precocious, I know--she'd brought the word up last week, and actually she's not like that at all (annoyingly precocious, I mean). Anyway, true to my obligation not to wade into things like politics or religion, I said that there would probably be an effort to move in that direction, but hopefully the rest of the country would push back. There was no knock on the door, so I carried on and tried to explain how 40% of the votes = 55% of the seats, using a very simple analogy (you win this riding by 100 votes, this one by 100, and you lose that one by 800). That didn't take at all:

"Okay, how many seats did you win?"
"20?"
"No--out of these three seats, how many did you win?"
"All of them?"
"No..."

This went on for another 90 seconds.

cuet: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/984949--dusseault-becomes-canada-s-youngest-ever-mp-at-19?bn=1

i can see how one could be cynical about this but i honestly think it's pretty awesome: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/young+five+McGill+students+elected/4721668/story.html

those are both good stories. at that age you're bound to make mistakes tho and i hope things go well for them.

I'll take all the backwards, racist French-language militants in the world over Stephen Harper. Thank God for Quebec. Really. Thank fucking God.

Bloc, NDP, PDQ, FSA, whatever the fuck.

Anyone hear the candidates who won being interviewed on CBC last night? I caught the ~12:30AM broadcast.. I guess one was smoking, she sounded maybe a little tipsy too.. the CBC guy goes 'oh, you're just going to flick that butt onto the street eh?' ..it was pretty funny. /useless post

to what Barry said about Quebec: they certainly can be schizophrenic at the polls from time to time. but i don't see alot wrong with this. i'd rather have a schizo electorate than one so firmly entrenched in party lines that change becomes impossible.

I don't see anything wrong with it either, but Quebec's mood swings are fairly extreme, e.g. the rise and fall and rise and fall of the ADQ. At least that's how it appears to an outsider. And think of it this way: I can't imagine Ontarians voting en masse for a bunch of anonymous U of T or York U undergrad students, no matter how much they disliked the other parties. That just doesn't compute in Ontario.

I agree with Robert Silver's article in the G&M that Sund4r linked to, except for the assertion that the same thing would have happened with any other leader. The timing of the election was horrible and the Liberals were dumb to force it. CPC poll numbers had been mostly steady since the last election, and LPC poll numbers weren't setting the world on fire. If you're going to make up ten points in five weeks then your leader needs to be a certain type of outgoing, outspoken personality who's going to nail the PM's ass to the wall over all his failures, and it's been obvious for a long time that Iggy wasn't that guy. The lack of transparency over the fighter jet purchase -- which according to the Liberals, was so horrible that parliament couldn't function another day because of it -- was barely an issue during the campaign.

And yeah, fast tracking Justin Trudeau to the leadership of the party would be stupid. The Liberals have four years to get their shit together and they need to lay (relatively) low for about a year, figure out who they are and elect a leader (which is what they did when they elected Dion ... they just need to get it right next time). It wouldn't be a bad idea to do what the NDP did with Layton -- elect someone who isn't nationally known but has a strong local following, who might not even be a sitting MP, and leave plenty of time for that person to make a name for themselves before the next election.

ha ha ffm - that was a good post. who was it they were interviewing?!

And yeah, fast tracking Justin Trudeau to the leadership of the party would be stupid.

For what it's worth, a lot of people said the same about Obama four years ago. You may be right, though; I just don't know how much Justin would have going for him beyond his name--which is worth more to me than you--and a couple of terms as a backbencher.

TT - I wish I could remember! I was listening in that half-dreamy state so I'm not sure exactly. It was a young female candidate with a strong French accent, I think she said she was about to go do her Master's but was 'clearly going to be delaying that for a gew years'! She also mentioned that she'd never been to Ottawa.

xpost

Obama was new and didn't have any baggage though. Trudeau as Liberal leader would be more like Hilary Clinton's presidential run. The Clintons had plenty of supporters but an equal number of haters, and there was this sense that she parachuted into her position and had a sense of entitlement in running for POTUS, which plenty of people resented. The Liberals don't need a divisive leader right now. Iggy wasn't elected leader in '06 for exactly that reason.

Also, where's the rush? The Dems didn't throw their weight behind Obama the day after Kerry lost.

The point about Hillary's baggage is a good one...although she was much more directly implicated in that baggage than Justin would or ever could be (i.e., she was front and center during Bill's time in office, not a young kid). As for the second point, I'm willing to bet there were already many Democrats thinking of Obama the day after Kerry lost; his speech at the '04 convention is what put him on the map. There was no need to rush to him, because the primaries were still three years away.

Sorry. I'm advocating for somebody I know very little about, you clearly think he'd be divisive and a bad idea, and you could well be right. Shows you how much some of us liked his father.

There's no need to rush Justin either (or whoever the next Lib leader will be), for the same reasons. Maybe he'd be a good leader, but the strategy of "let's make Justin Trudeau our leader so we can get everyone's attention again" would be just about the dumbest thing they could do right now. If they want the attention and want to capitalize on his father's name, then the PET comparisons/hatefest will be completely justified, they can't have it both ways. If they want to groom him for the role, let him make a name for himself over the next few years, so that it doesn't look like he was handed the leadership as some sort of birthright.

I didn't want to bring this up, but did you know that Justin had an adjusted OPS of 1.279 with runners in scoring position last year? I'm going to make a believer out of you yet.

i didn't want to bring this up either, but did you know that george w bush was the son of george bush?

;p

The ultimate example of nepotism + baseball + politics = uh-oh...The best parallel for Justin may well end up being Andrew Cuomo or one of the Kennedy kids who never moved beyond congress. We'll see. (Actually, as Governor of New York, Cuomo may keep climbing.)

For what it's worth, a lot of people said the same about Obama four years ago.

what an astute analogy

I'm not sure if you're kidding or not...On the American Politics thread, "What an astute analogy" = "Man, you're an idiot." My faith in Canadians tells me to take you at your word.

i think he might be implying Trudeau is a secret muslim?

I like Justin and I still think he has no business near the Liberal leadership (yet, or possibly ever). Much as I like PET, he's intensely divisive in ways that the good ol' Liberal base doesn't appreciate, especially in Quebec, which is absolutely necessary to control for ANY Liberal majority/government. Plus, the continued focus on new leaders as a quick fix lets the party ignore the need for deeper reflection on what they stand for and how to connect with Canadians.

The Silver article is pretty OTM with regard to where the party finds itself, but I don't see many in the party realizing this.

was justin trudeau even born in canada?

Speaking of which, the NDP love themselves a good conspiracy theory.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/985972--conspiracy-theory-ndp-deputy-leader-mulcair-doubts-u-s-has-bin-laden-photos?bn=1

Not sure if you're joking, dblake? JT was born in Ottawa during PET's first term in 24 Sussex. Besides, you don't need to be born in Canada to be a party leader or PM. John Turner was born in the UK (not to mention Sir John A. MacDonald!).

Mulcair's comment was unwise, yes, and surprising coming from him, but it's not the NDP position per se, as the article makes clear. I watched the interview with Mulcair and tbh, it's still slightly unclear to me exactly what he was trying to say or how well he understood the situation.

OK, I just realized you were making a 'birther' reference. Just woke up, my bad.

lol

:P

:)

that is not a good look by mulcair, gotta say

your leader needs to be a certain type of outgoing, outspoken personality who's going to nail the PM's ass to the wall over all his failures, and it's been obvious for a long time that Iggy wasn't that guy. The lack of transparency over the fighter jet purchase -- which according to the Liberals, was so horrible that parliament couldn't function another day because of it -- was barely an issue during the campaign.

I don't even know that it's a personality issue as much as that there has just been no sense for the last half-decade that the Liberal Party stands for much other than believing that they deserve to be in power because of their past glories. One of their prouder moments from the past decade was refusing to enter combat in the Iraq War - and then they picked as their leader one of Canada's most prominent supporters of that war. In the Commons, the Ignatieff-led party was an Official Opposition that rarely opposed the government - and then they brought down that government at a time when, as you say, there seemed to be little popular will to change to a Liberal government. Out of nowhere, they put together an NDP-esque platform - and then they refused to co-operate with the NDP, not only by swearing off a coalition but also by strongly contesting NDP-held ridings like Outremont and generally ridiculing the NDP for having no chance at forming government, as though the Liberals had been anywhere close in years. They brought down the government over contempt for Parliament - which is a fundamental issue - but during the campaign, they always brought this issue up alongside relatively trivial things like Bruce Carson's 22-year-old girlfriend or the CPC kicking students out of a private party rally or the funding of Kairos, as though the LPC themselves had no sense of how serious an issue contempt for Parliament is. (The first time they released an ad showing Michelle McPherson in her underwear was the point where I started giving up on the LPC altogether.) If you're going to fight an election on Parliamentary procedure, you need to impress on people how seriously you take procedure. This is especially the case since, as you note, there wasn't that much sense that the Liberals even cared that much about some of the issues beyond procedure itself: Not only did the lack of transparency over fighter jet purchases not come up all that much but the Liberals didn't even seem to have that much of an alternative defence strategy (which the NDP did, however dumb you might think it is). They never really seemed that opposed to the principle behind buying the jets in the first place. If we need attack aircraft, then we probably need it regardless of the price, honestly. We could perhaps have more of a competitive bidding process but I don't know how many firms even manufacture these jets in any case.

I'd sooner take my chances with a bunch of McGill students, frankly.

booming post

I wish I could edit the writing but thanks.:P

the Liberals have *always* been the party about staying in power. (well except for the last four years obv)

that IS their core belief!

a friend of mine got elected as an mp im pretty jealous apparently u make 130 g/year

the Liberals have *always* been the party about staying in power.

I wasn't around for it but I do think e.g. the PET-era Liberals at least stood for something that went beyond sheer expediency - centralized federalism, bilingualism, multiculturalism, a mixed economy... Even things like abolishing the death penalty or adopting the metric system do seem to reflect some principles other than just maintaining power. They continued trying to emulate European social democracy even in the early 80s, after the tide had turned in the US and UK.

ok. i'll give you the Trudeau years. even my old man who hated Trudeau told me that he at least had a vision for Canada. but he was sort of the exception to the rule imho.

Saw this on Power and Politics last night. I think it might support Barry's reading of some things:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/986517--voters-not-swept-up-by-ndp-wave-they-wanted-stability-focus?bn=1

The NDP does have an opportunity to prove themselves now though. If they can refrain from doing anything too stupid and if they can make it clear that their priorities are in line with Quebecers' (and extend their base outside Quebec), I see no reason why they should not be able to retain or expand their strength.

i can see a few of those pylons getting turfed. a few aren't exactly "ready for prime time" apparently!

Quite possible but there could also be gains elsewhere. Harper's and Harris's early caucuses had soem characters too. Besides, we'd need to see how the new caucus actually performs in the Commons before judging.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/in-the-commons-the-kids-are-alright/article2011610/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/why-voters-elected-the-ndps-vegas-girl-anyway/article2010885/