Canadian Politics Thread

Potato-farming fucks.

i think i'm going to take the time tomorrow to make a graphic of all of the islands in Canada that are bigger than PEI, but are not their own province.
i will probably change my mind once i realize there are literally hundreds of them.

Real-time byelection results: http://enr.elections.ca/ElectoralDistricts_e.aspx

It's looking like it could be a Green upset in Victoria, which is kind of amazing!

(Also perhaps a sign that the NDP needs to tighten its game a little.)

Dude seems pretty cool: http://donaldgalloway.ca/about-donald

reading more about Idle No More and just ugh this fucking government and its manipulative bs

Was a mistake to try to make this so much about Harper I think. Spence is a gift to Sun News who has done way more harm than good. Sad how this is turning out.

So we have one candidate running for leadership of the country who first has to beat another candidate in his own party who once had a child with his father? That's most unusual.

Anyone watching the Liberal debate? Thoughts?

Don't think I've watched a Canadian convention, federal or provincial, since the Trudeau-Clark-Mulroney years. I haven't been watching the Ontario Liberals today, either, but I think I'll watch from this point forward. After two ballots:

Pupatello - 817
Wynne - 750
Kennedy - 281
Sousa - 203 (has moved over to Wynne)
Takhar - 18

Of course, as a teacher, whoever wins is my enemy.

i know nothing about Pupatello and Wynne other than that Wynne is gay and Pupatello looks like a dude in a wig.

I don't know anything about any of them, other than that Kennedy was the one candidate who wanted to make peace with teachers; the rest, I believe, are planning to carry on as is. I should be at the rally today, but, wouldn't you know it, I've got to finish report cards by Monday.

Kennedy's gone over too, so looks like Wynne. Would Ontario Premier be the highest-ranking elected post ever for someone openly gay? (Anywhere, I mean.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lesbian,_gay,_bisexual,_or_transgender_firsts_by_year

so, beat to the punch by at least a decade.

i, for one, support our new lesbian overlords.

Wynne was a decent education minister iirc? Puppatello was my MPP when I lived in Windsor. I know she was well-respected and held a number of cabinet posts but don't know that much otherwise tbh. It is interesting that the Liberals are so strong provincially in Windsor, considering that the NDP owned both seats federally and that it's such a union town.

I mean, post-secondary education in ON is an absolute clusterfuck; I'm not necessarily saying any education minister has worked wonders there.

(Lol at a thread where everyone's all "I don't know much about her.")

"Highest-ranking" isn't what I meant, so let me rephrase: most powerful. The Premier of Ontario, by virtue of Ontario's importance to Canada as a whole, surely wields more clout/influence outside of Ontario than the Premier of Iceland (first person pictured in Thermo's Wikipedia link...to 71% of Americans, Canada and Iceland are one and the same) wields outside of Iceland.

The Premier of Ontario, by virtue of Ontario's importance to Canada as a whole, surely wields more clout/influence outside of Ontario than the [Prime Minister] of Iceland ... wields outside of Iceland.

I would question this. The PM of Iceland sends representatives to e.g. the UN, EU, OECD, and NATO, for starters. When Iceland's financial sector collapsed, following policies initiated by its PM at the time, that certainly had an impact on the UK for one.

This is like saying that Rob Ford wields more clout/influence than Brad Wall. Sure, he governs a larger constituency, but it is Wall who has a seat at first ministers' conferences, who would be consulted about any proposed constitutional change, who has a say in things like health and education policy.

in regards to GDP and population, though, Ontario has Iceland, Norway and Belgium beat. (individually, not collectively)

Yeah, I was recognizing that: similarly, the GTA has about 6 times the population of Saskatchewan and roughly four times the GDP. I still wouldn't say that Rob Ford wields more clout and influence than Brad Wall.

please stop mentioning that man.

I guess I was thinking in terms of power = economic clout. in 2011, Ontario totalled 261 billion in trade with the USA; Icelandic/USA trade totalled 842 million. We did 29 billion with China, compared to 5.7 million between China and Iceland. (I actually looked this stuff up, although that last one required a conversion that I may have flubbed.) But I'm sure there are lots of other factors like those you mention that play a part in what constitutes power. (If Ontario's financial sector collapsed, wouldn't the ripple effects around the world be large and immediate?)

I'm no economist but from a layman's perspective, I find it unlikely that that could happen as a result of decisions made at the provincial level, while I could easily see how something like that could happen as a result of federal/national decisions (as it did in Iceland). Foreign policy, including the major decisions concerning international trade, is under federal jurisdiction. The provincial government certainly plays a role but I'm really sceptical that those ON-China trade figures are influenced as heavily by provincial policies as by federal policies.

I mean, I'm not even sure what it means to talk about "Ontario's financial sector" when all the major banks are chartered and regulated on a national basis and operate nationwide.

More shenanigans:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2013/02/05/pol-conservatives-admit-robocalls-saskatchewan.html

And really, what are they saying about "Saskatchewan values"? Why do urban voters not represent them? Going by Wiki numbers, 43% of the province lives in Regina or Saskatoon.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/professors-defend-tom-flanagans-right-to-express-views-on-child-porn/article9238213/?cmpid=rss1

How controversial is it that I think the reaction to Tom Flanagan's comments has been a bit absurd? It seems like a defensible position to me to question whether someone deserves go to jail for looking at child porn and even to question whether that act in itself victimizes someone. (Creating a demand for someone else to victimize a child is definitely bad but it's not the exact same thing. Perhaps it should be a crime but I think it's fair to raise the question.) In any case, I don't see why expressing this idea should lead to the shunning he's experienced. While I often disagreed with him, I always enjoyed hearing his views on Power and Politics.

I agree with you. Although apparently he was also on the NAMBLA mailing list too. Kinda asking for it, wasn't he?

And U of Calgary has announced his retirement now?? I hope it's not just for expressing an idea.

xpost

considering that this guy enjoyed academic freedom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton

I am guessing he got the NAMBLA letter because a detractor signed him up for it as a prank.

my opinion: the idea that it victimizes a former victim by looking at the crime perpetrated on them is quite dubious to me. it reminds me of those peoples that believed taking a picture of them would steal their soul. it would be better to justify laws against child pornography on the basis of the economic support of their production.

So should it not be a crime to look at child porn if you didn't pay for it then? For the sake of argument, should we also prosecute people who purchase e.g. clothes that were stitched by children in the developing world, which also provides economic support for the exploitation of children? For all I know, the Macbook Pro I'm typing this on may have been made by exploited Chinese workers. Does jailing someone for looking at child porn instead of giving them treatment and support actually help anyone? I don't have a really firm opinion on these questions but there are certainly many questions that could be raised, which should not lead to ostracism imo.

Should people who purchase regular pornography be treated like johns?

There might also a moral support of the production by watching it even if you don't pay. comparable to people who upload torrents just for the recognition (eztv etc). not sure if it should be illegal on these terms though.

I would be fine with punishing people who knowingly bought slave labor goods. not that this will ever happen.

I had considered this line of thinking re: listening to music containing uncleared samples (like, say, on just about any hip hop mixtape); like, if you wanted to do the slippery slope argument, could someone be guilty of copyright violation in such a case? Child porn obviously a whole different thing of course, and I'm still not sure how I feel about this whole controversy. Punishing academics for making academic inquiries is never advisable in my mind, but occasionally tricky (see the aforementioned Rushton link).

Aargh, this government's constant disregard for academic freedom :
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/15/library-and-archives-canada/

So nice to see Harper branching out from only silencing his own people.

Give the man credit: he's been silencing scientists for a while.

Ha! My bf piped up with this exact point just as I submitted post.

I thought this was a fair point btw: I had considered this line of thinking re: listening to music containing uncleared samples (like, say, on just about any hip hop mixtape); like, if you wanted to do the slippery slope argument, could someone be guilty of copyright violation in such a case?

Thanks!

If you think about the context of PT's "Just watch me"--the actual lives impacted--Justin's use of it falls somewhere between questionable and tasteless. But it does show he has his father's gift for getting under people's skin.

http://storage.canoe.ca/v1/dynamic_resize/sws_path/suns-prod-images/1297391842494_LARGE_BOX.jpg?quality=80&size=210x&stmp=1363804950181

I was at a film and missed everything this afternoon. Sorry, but here's something I wrote almost a year ago here, the day after the last federal election:

If he fulfills a need, I don't think his qualifications will matter. (I wouldn't, but someone else might say the same of Obama.) The second Justin Trudeau entered politics, the logical endpoint was that he'd one day become Prime Minister and rekindle whatever it was that his father shared with the country. (At both ends of the spectrum--I'm sure he'd also be as hated as his father was by some percentage of the electorate.)

The reaction fell somewhere between skepticism and disbelief.

I'm not saying "I told you so." Not yet--I'm saving that for if he wins the next election (i.e., if he runs a disastrous campaign and loses, the contention that making him leader would be a dumb move will have been proven to be right).

35% support at this moment makes me skeptical that he can win an election

Is that support or approval? If it's support, where do the other two parties stand right now?--could he squeeze out a minority? (If that's approval nationwide, no, that's not good.)

I'm less sceptical of his chance of success than I used to be, though I personally still see little reason to be inspired by him. We'll have to see how he performs.