Canadian Politics Thread

well that's it. just the weird Alberta hate-on for Quebec bubbling up to the surface in that piece.

and yes, i do think it's an unfair policy that has no place in Canada.

Trudeau's going to run.

http://www.680news.com/news/national/article/405606--justin-trudeau-to-run-for-liberal-leadership-report

so is he too young?

really? i like him but this is a terrible idea

^^ agreed

I still don't know enough about him to gauge the wisdom of this. Do you think it's a terrible idea because he'll lose the nomination, win the nomination but lose the general, or win everything but not be prepared at all to govern?

I'm not a fan of his but I think he's probably the best chance the Liberals have right now.

http://www.680news.com/news/national/article/375444--trudeau-has-most-vote-drawing-power-among-liberal-leadership-hopefuls-poll

Who knows? Maybe he'll even grow on me. If the NDP were to lose me, it would likely be over some of their constitutional ideas ('asymmetrical federalism', reopening the constitution) and their wishy-washiness with stuff like Bill 101. JT does seem to be a strong classic federalist voice and appears to be on the left wing of his party otherwise.

sure, but he's only 40, and his prominence is still mostly because of his name.

i mean, he hasn't had a lot of a chance to show what he can do b/c the libs have been in the wilderness for almost a decade now, but i'm not 100% on board.

he's left for a liberal, which i approve of, but... i'm not sure how a trudeau will play out in quebec. there's a lot of animosity towards PET. out West too. he's young and charismatic and could probably win the liberal nomination. he's smart enough and articulate enough to maybe even manage to win the general - or at least have better chances than the last few professorial stiffs. but the name carries a lot of baggage and youth isn't often rewarded in canadian politics.

plus, if he wins, then what? who's his team? who does the liberal party have on their bench these days who are qualified to fill the ministries.

10 years of harper have gotten us used to centralization but a liberal gov't will only succeed if they have across-the-board competence a la the chretien years. i'm still not convinced the party has recovered from the gutting and infighting and while Trudeau as a leader just might be able to win the House for them and the PMship for himself, I don't know if the party as a whole has rebuilt enough to govern

we'll see i guess.

Well, is there someone else you see as being a more promising potential Liberal leader? I didn't say that a Trudeau-led Liberal Party would be great, just that he seems to be the best chance they have right now, in terms of winning more seats in the next election. (It didn't ever even really occur to me that the Liberals could win the next election, regardless of their leader. Who knows though?) Since I'd still like to see the NDP get a chance to govern, I personally hope he doesn't succeed too much at their expense.

I also thought that the Trudeau name would be a turn-off in QC and the Prairies, which is why his popularity surprises me. Still, he does seem to be popular. Is his popularity mostly concentrated in ON, BC, and Eastern Canada?

Watching Dalton's speech {stepdownstepdownstepdown}

whoa a prorogue!

my housemate works at Queen's Park so this means ~vacation for him~ but otherwise..

Every Monday, teachers across Ontario have been holding off arriving at work until 30 minutes before start time: "McGuinty Mondays." What do we call them now?

Start having Hudak Thursdays, where you don't show up at all?!

I will propose this at the next staff meeting.

Whoa, this is nuts. Has the teacher's union conflict been the main issue? I have been out of touch with things in ON. I voted Liberal twice. It was only last year that I started getting the creeping sense that McGuinty did not in fact have any idea what he was doing. I'm trying (not very hard, admittedly) to think of a precedent for this and coming up blank.

Interesting: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/21/ontario-polls-nanos-forum_n_1903388.html

I'm not sure? I think it was a budget thing and the NDP victory in Kitchener?

i think it must have been alot of things.

Anyway this likely means no sessions 'til the new year, wowie

So this talk about McG running for the federal Liberal leadership: this would be a disastrous move for the federal Grits, right? (Mind you, I said the same thing about Justin T a year ago.)

there was talk about that a few years ago... but now tho?

https://www.google.ca/search?q=dalton%20mcguinty%20federal%20liberals&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&source=hp&channel=np

i didn't mean there wasn't talk about it now - i just meant i can't imagine it happening now nearly as easily as i could have a few years ago.

Ah, yeah, totally, that's what I was thinking too. Kinsella is stanning for him!

Kinsella is/was on his payroll!

can someone explain what just happened

I laughed listening to CFTR's McGuinty coverage this morning. They were interviewing people for their reactions, and there was one guy they identified as "Frank the plumber." Not sure if he'll catch on in a big way.

Just had a kid come to he door dressed as Harper. Told him it was the scariest thing I'd seen all day.

brillant. my mom once saw a kid as two-face who said 'no i'm jean chrétien'.

A little late on this but it looks like there were actually misleading scripts provided by the CPC to its callers during the campaign:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/11/05/pol-robocalls-ridings-election-challenge.html

Coyne re Liberal leadership race:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/11/19/andrew-coyne-how-to-enjoy-third-party-status-in-a-few-easy-steps/

Coyne being his usual smug self i see.

Anybody outside of Québec heard/spoke of this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpDRg7TLY8c

Sorry i don't know how to embed here.

Oh it does automatically. nice.

what the...

argh. I get so tired of people from 'the west' whining about how their wealth goes to pay for programs or benefits in other provinces. Hey, westerners (more particularly Albertans), want social programs? Better daycare? Lower tuition (it's not, as the guy guesses, 8 or 9 thou 'a semester' either, in case anyone's wondering)? Stop voting in conservative governments. Duh.

"We can't get daycare for $7 an hour here in Alberta." Right Chuckles, it's called provincial taxation.

Oh okay, I was trolled. The video was made by three francophones. Separatistes, perhaps?

That is where it gets really depressing yeah. That video trended on Facebook amoung my quebec friends and I fear the worst. I have tried to find what are the motives of the directors, but can't really.

Ah, I thought it might turn out to be something like that. I was suspicious at the idea of Albertans being able to subtitle something into French.

Earlier point abt whiny Albertans still stands, though

What the fuck is that shit? A new movie? Did they just find some random hicks in the Prairies and tape them saying crap, claiming that this proves that there are some deep intractable divisions in the country?

4xpost

my conclusion: no people did not know about it and i should have kept it to myself.

The thing is I honestly think the differences between AB or SK and ON are extremely small, even compared to, say, the differences between New York and West Virginia. In terms of social programmes and the role of government, QC's a little different but I'm not even sure it's a radical difference. Tuition is higher in ON than in any other province, including AB and SK. It's low in QC but it's low in NL and MB as well. And it would have gone up in QC had the recent election gone just a little differently. As I understand it, AB also spends more per person on health care than Ontario. Unionization out West doesn't seem all that different from Ontario, certainly nothing like the situation in the US.

And yeah, Quebec's a little more union-happy than English Canada but not phenomenally so ime.

QC isn't really different indeed, regardless of what separatists tell you. The whole socialist thing is hilarious considering Alberta would be considered a socialist country by Fox standards. I hope the documentary's subject is the Wild Rose party or separatism outside of Quebec and not one of those 'look they hate us! they hate us' terrible films.