Canadian Politics Thread

Hahahahahaha @ the Wildrose Party plus all pollsters and media pundits, right?

except Warren Kinsella, yes.

so congrats, i guess, to Alberta for electing their corrupt right-wing party over their lunatic right-wing party.

yeah I kind of died a little inside when I woke up and checked the results and actually felt relief at seeing another PC government in charge. what a world. it's probably time I just stop caring; it's not like I plan on ever living in Alberta again.

well - with Alberta - what they do can affect all of Canada. from denying climate change to wriggling out of equalization payments; the decisions that province makes can have repercussions nation-wide.

you're right, of course. I couldn't follow through on that threat anyway. my love/hate for Alberta is too strong to stop caring about it.

Harper breaks Godwin's Law:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/26/stephen-harper-shouted-down-for-saying-ndp-didnt-support-fight-against-hitler/

is that breaking Goodwin's law or proving our Parliament isn't above it?

also strange that the National Vote Conservative Post is the one pointing that out!

is that breaking Goodwin's law or proving our Parliament isn't above it?

Oh, fair point, I guess I'd misremembered what exactly Godwin's Law was. I thought it was something along the lines that an argument is lost once a Hitler/Nazi comparison is made instead of just that the probability of someone making such a comparison approaches one as a debate grows in length.

ya - that's what i thought it meant too until i googled it!

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/27/harpers-ndp-didnt-support-war-against-hitler-prompts-twitter-history-lesson/

ugh i'm so sickened by the direction of this government. every fucking day there's something new and rotten. it's an erosion of Canadian democracy.

I feel the opposite. It's a comedy show.

e.g., today there's this - http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1168905--two-tiered-wage-system-announced-by-tories - which bothers me in that it creates a second class of people in the country whose work is literally worth less - obv saving a few bucks is better for business than recognizing equality in being human.

meanwhile, here in Quebec, protests against tuition hikes are being construed by mainstream media and provincial govt (no chiming in as of yet from the feds bc education is a provincial issue) as student-only and even middle-class selfish, whereas everyone i know is protesting in the name of democracy and equality, as in this article http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/27/quebec-student-protests-not-just-about-tuition-but-battle-against-greedy-elites/

reading this article about public opinion of the feds makes me feel only slightly better, bc polls are polls and this one doesn't seem to have taken off as it is, but still, points out that the majority of Canadians didn't want this govt: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/26/pol-ndp-tories-statistically-tied-nanos.html

i find nothing funny about it
xp

I'd refer you to the NDP history lesson and/or the Wildrose party.

distractions from the dismantling of the country in the name of money-making above all else

The Wildrose fail is so hilarious. Canadian pollsters really are the worst.

“CCF, NDP, same difference,” Harper responded curtly.

“I guess we can start talking about Reform Party policies,” Mulcair replied, to the delight of the opposition benches.

lol

Considering that Harper actually was a prominent Reform MP, that would be much more fair and justified than this. Btw, even in 1939, the CCF's party policy was in favour of going to war. It was only J. S. Woodsworth who voted against it because of his personal convictions - arising from his Christian views, something Conservatives might want to note.

big lol. @ rrrobyn, I can't feel "sickened" by this stuff, on a global scale it's such small potatoes. (I'm sickened that the government is giving tax breaks to tar sands companies, but the NDP haven't officially said they'll stop them if elected.) I'm looking forward to the next election.

Isn't that what Layton did promise during the last election campaign?: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110331/ndp-layton-110331/

As far as I know, party policy hasn't changed since then.

The CBC Music online service is being challenged by private broadcasters. It's an exceptional service. People can submit an intervention/comment by May 17:

http://music.cbc.ca/#/blogs/2012/5/Love-CBC-Music-Make-sure-your-voice-is-heard

Also, I might as well be the one to post this precociousness here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iLxtO9u2zs

Feeling angry about this:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/16/pol-nrtee-david-mclaughlin-carbon-tax.html
Not only did John Baird openly state that the RTEE was being shut down because it didn't agree with government policy but apparently he didn't even get right what its recommendations were.

Also, very unhappy both about this and the government's reaction:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/16/pol-un-canada-food-security.html

I have to admit that I also have some doubts about Mulcair's 'Dutch disease' thesis, that the success of the resource sector is driving up the dollar and collapsing the manufacturing sector in Central Canada. It makes sense in general terms but there seem to be other factors involved: the manufacturing sector has been declining for a long time and is also very tied to US industry. Like, even if oil profits went down, I'm not sure that manufacturing would be revived.

Not that I think the oilsands are being handled really well now or anything.

Ha, it does appear that government-funded research can back Mulcair up: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-government-funded-study-arguing-canada-suffers-from-dutch-disease/article2437617/

Holy Shit Quebec!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8AHzJzcFT-0/T7zsMRaNuEI/AAAAAAAAAdI/UuDqmfGwt7E/s320/may22

Yeah, we go hard.

Seriously. What next? I'm sensing a lot of unease in the media reporting of this. Like they have no idea what's going to happen next.

maybe they will freeze quebec tuition fees ¯\(º o)/¯

yeah it's pretty awesome and crazy and who knows when it's going to end - what next is a good question - we shall see!
http://montreal.mediacoop.ca/story/ten-points-everyone-should-know-about-quebec-student-movement/10896
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/23-5

pretty obv which side i fall on

tonight it would appear that every neighbourhood in the city is having solidarity marches - people banging pots and pans, whooping, cars honking along - it's been going on for over 2 hours! it's wild and good out there

I love casseroles and I think it's a great idea, but I'm not sure how effective it is since the everyone-can-play aspect of it lends itself to lower and lower levels of commitment, particularly in the face of increasingly heavy-handed police tactics.

There is virtually no manif news on La Presse or CBC this morning. A hell of a lot of noise last night, but no news. That tells you something.

truth bomb

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/05/24/john-moore-its-the-older-generation-thats-entitled-not-students/

Quebec has had low tuition rates for a half century. That means almost every living adult in the province, having already been afforded a plum goodie, is now wagging his finger at the first generation that will be asked to pay the tab. So who really is entitled here?

most of the griping i've heard directed towards the protesters is based on provincial boundaries, not generational. basically saying Quebecers are spoiled because they have had the lowest education costs in Canada for a long time and here in Ontario yadda yadda...

we also have the highest taxes!

this is actually quite interesting re: taxes - http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/larry-rousseau/quebec-protest_b_1541432.html

english media in quebec play up the generational aspect

the lack of manif news isn't from lack of manifs I think - the cops have been staging the arrests and interventions later and later so as to avoid making the morning papers, iirc.

the one thing i do like about the casseroles is that it's giving space for people with lower levels of commitment to start to enter the movement. notably, up in mile end/outremont i've seen a shocking amount of hasidic jews participating.

as much as the movement was never as exclusively anglo/franco divided as barbara kay's bullshit article in the national post would have us believe, i think one major strength of these protests and their growth have been the ways in which (while often tied to old school quebec nat'lism and sovereignty concerns, especially for the francophone population) they transcend those traditional divisions that break the province into Liberal / PQ lines in elections and have allowed people of all leftist (and even centre-leftist) stripes to start to envision the ways in which they are aligned with one another and reconceptualize solidarity. even compared to the earlier days of the protests, which featured some uncomfortable blackface and xenophobic incidents (which is not entirely shocking cf. reasonable accomodation debates, pierre valieres, etc.) there's been a broadening of scope. i marched with the anti-racist/pro-immigrant contingent on the 22nd and they turned it out. that crowd isn't just students any more. it's every age/race/gender/religion/etc. and the more we can build on that we might finally have a transformative politic in quebec that isn't exclusively tied to ethno-linguistic identity.

granted, that could become trickier once we move beyond montreal, but we shall see.

It's old by now but I really liked this piece: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/news/6501275/story.html

Makes the sometimes overlooked point that education is not just a commodity that can be bought and sold: it actually needs to be worked for.

Full text of Bill 78 btw: http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=5&file=2012C12A.PDF

this video really captures what happened last night with the neighbourhood marches - http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/25/montreal-pots-and-pans-video-bill-78_n_1546694.html

english media in quebec play up the generational aspect

― flopson, Friday, May 25, 2012 6:51 PM (Yesterday)

http://translatingtheprintempserable.tumblr.com/

oh wow thanks, that's great

interesting to see Russia Today reporting on Montreal!
http://youtu.be/kQwUc79VGmM