Canadian Politics Thread

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

i.e., soviet-socialist bias

http://i.imgur.com/TWzTq.jpg

I haven't read this--not sure that I will--but Ignatieff has a long piece in The New Republic:

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/103336/michael-sandel-philosophy-liberalism-democracy-market-economy-morality-income-inequality

the title alone sounds really exciting.

Spurned at home, he's taken all his charisma and magnetic star power back to America.

so where do we talk about this insane person on the news right now?

The foot thing?

Oh, let's not!

i like this take on the quebec protests (of course i do): http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1207910--canadians-owe-a-debt-to-quebec-s-student-strikers

http://i.thestar.com/images/89/30/34f88a974906af04ea82709c209a.jpeg

grrrrrreat article, robyn

We owe them for taking a shot at saving our national honour in the eyes of the world.

didn't bother reading after this line

it gets better!

also look at that tiny jpeg of him, he's old, forgive him one corny line about national honour!

For real? A last name and pretty face can do this?:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/trudeaumania-part-deux-poll-suggests-trudeau-pm-liberal-173335433.html

I meant to post about this last week, when Rae took a pass. There was disbelief/derision when I threw out Justin's name right after the election (you'll find it upthread); the day Rae took himself out, the CBC had a story that one of his main reasons was the prospect that Justin would run. (Also that the New Brunswick premier would run...I think it was the premier.)

Doesn't surprise me at all that JT would poll well.

If he did run, of course, it would get ugly fast. So I'm not saying he'd necessarily survive.

Holy shit: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/22/ndp-out-ahead-of-the-tories-with-38-support-liberals-struggling-poll/

If the NDP can come close to maintaining this support in Ontario (a first?) and Quebec by the time of the next election, a majority government might be conceivable.

Oh, I think they had these kinds of ON numbers in 1990-91 (which did not end well, of course).

about Trudeau - and i'll preface this by saying he may well be too young/inexperienced - i am pretty much impressed everytime he opens his mouth/tweets/whatever. he's bright and articulate (which even i'll admit our PM *can* be) (some of the time) and he can take a stance on an issue without being hyper-partisan or ott frothing at the mouth about things (which no one in our current ruling party seems to be able to do). i mean - the amount of people saying he'd pull them toward voting Lib right now might not be saying it for the same reasons as me (ie - the face and name thing may be the majority reason there) but this kid is no dud and i am growing more and more impressed by him.

he can take a stance on an issue without being hyper-partisan or ott frothing at the mouth about things

I had the opposite impression tbh, thinking of things like this: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20120214/quebec-justin-trudeau-speratist-comments-120214/

but it's possible that I'm being totally unfair.

i'd file that under "dumb" as opposed to hyper-partisan or mouth-frothing. but ya, he should have phrased that differently.
but ASIDE from that one, he's normally pretty bright.

Mea culpa from the Post!: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/07/17/jonathan-kay-the-triumph-of-hard-headed-socialism-is-destroying-canadian-conservatism/

will not read any further after the FIRST paragraph mentions the "boom years" of George W.

god WHY... WHY did i keep reading - they can't even mention Chretien's successful policies with out adding "with some intelligent tweaks, by Stephen Harper"... what FUCKING bullshit. of course they don't mention specifics; because they can't. the stuff that has paid off the most for Canada was fought tooth and nail by the goddamn cons.

alright. i'm calm now.

The voters may be starting to tire of the prime minister's bullying

is this a thing or the economist's usual hedging

The NDP has been steadily polling ahead of the CPC in the past month or two if that's what you're asking: http://www.threehundredeight.com/p/canada.html

Thermo: I get what you're saying but come on, it's a big deal for a Post guy to say this in the first place! And the US economy only really crashed in 08, right? He wasn't giving W credit for any economic boom.

The Post is still a toilet and you're looking at shit.

*smiles!*

wow - check this one out:
http://www.canada.com/news/Rahim+Jaffer+sought+secret+info+about+Canadian+satellite+technology+court+documents+words/6948597/story.html

Well guys, it finally happened -- Elections Canada sent me a letter saying that they're taking away my right to vote because I've been out of the country for a measly five years as of September. Ridiculous and unacceptable. Five years is such a stupidly short and arbitrary amount of time for them to decide that a person isn't invested enough in the country to be allowed to vote... as if they have the right to make that decision in the first place.

:(. You're still a citizen but you can't vote? That sucks.

Yeah! I'm like only a half citizen now.

Salsa, did the news of your status change arrive via robocall?

Seriously, is this policy available online?

yeah that's ridiculous! you still have a passport and are canadian! i guess you don't pay cdn taxes though... eesh

LOL, robocall. The 'policy' is apparently part of the Canadian Elections Act, though I have no idea how it was ever passed since goes against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I think the issue of taxes is problematic, a lot of people see it as being wound up with the right to vote but they forget (or don't realise) that there are Canadians living in Canada who don't pay taxes for various reasons -- but nobody would say they're unworthy of a vote (well that's not true, some people probably do). But it's really a separate issue, imo, paying taxes doesn't make a person a citizen.

More info here, anyway: http://www.letcanadiansvote.com/

It feels esp brutal when you compare it to how other countries allow people to vote. I mean, I'm allowed to vote in UK elections and I'm not even a citizen here (yet), and Britishes living abroad are given 15 yrs to keep voting. France and I think a few other countries have even created extra seats where the elected members are chosen by people living abroad. The weirdest one to me is that apparently American citizens who have never even lived in the US (people with citizenship through parents) can vote in their federal elections, depending on the state their parents are eligible to vote in. And it's not like I plan on staying away forever...

anyone got any good reads on the provincial election? ive been out of town and out of the loop for weeks and need to catch up

Basically everybody I know dislikes all 3 parties. Expect record low voter turnout.

If I had to guess I'd say it's probably going to be a PQ minority government, but it's gonna be close so who knows really.