Open for Business: Canadian Politics 2019

It says on the website that it's "a statistical model of electoral projections based on opinion polls, electoral history of Canadian provinces and demographic data".

They have the liberals with a good lead in my riding, but from what I can tell they are getting trounced by the NDP in the lawn sign war.

blaming quebec for the plummeting NDP seems like bad logicking: the whole country has reacted listlessly to their current communication strategy and leadership.
the big difference is that unlike in other parts of the country (where leftists' only other alternative is the greens or the liberals), in Quebec there is another option - albeit one that advocates for a new form of systemic racism.

That site has popular NDP encumbents here in BC losing to neophyte tories. Not likely, My prediction is that the NDP will do fine and end up with close to 50 seats.

How is the Bloc a leftist alternative?

Lucien Bouchard introduced Quebec to austerity.

If you don’t have separatists sentiments, you have no good reason to vote Bloc. Quebec is stuck with the same alternatives.

NDP is losing in Quebec because Quebec progressives are happy with Trudeau and the Liberals and the keynesian policies.

Reading over the BQ platform, they are a little more progressive on some issues than I expected. Still, a lot of their proposals boil down to devolving federal powers to the provincial government of Quebec (anything that effects the environment or land of Quebec, the CRTC; the imo ridiculous demand to be able to withdraw from national programs with full compensation and no conditions) - esp with the current QC government, I see no reason to believe that any of this would result in more progressive/left-leaning policies.

if you don't think the Bloc are left-wing (in a canadian political context) then i don't know what you're thinking

Sund4r - the evidence for that is exactly what you're quoting. Almost everything that doesn't fall into your devolution category (or cultural protectionism/secularism) is... a left-wing policy.

and if you read the CAQ's policy platform you might also be surprised by their progressivism on several issues

on economic and environmental issues, the quebec population is at least 45 degrees (if not 90) to the left of the rest of the country

not that i'll vote for them this time

Sund4r - the evidence for that is exactly what you're quoting. Almost everything that doesn't fall into your devolution category (or cultural protectionism/secularism) is... a left-wing policy.

A lot of the platform falls into those categories, though!

In any case, I do agree that the BQ were generally left of centre when they were more prominent in the House pre-2011; they were practically the Quebec wing of the NDP at times. I found them worryingly xenophobic and nationalistic in the last two elections.

I don’t see how you can square the economics of Charest, and Bouchard, who’ve been elected and re-elected since the late 90s on the promise of cuts, as progressive. But to each their own I suppose.

Sean and VHS made some fair points so I'll apologize for jumping to wondering whether QC's loss of interest in the NDP came from biased motives.

I really want a provincial Quebec NDP.

If I were in QC I would probably vote QS tbh

(speaking in my shit capacity as an ex-Mtler)

I can’t vote for separatism.

I guess I think of QC separatism not as a Concrete Thing Likely To Actually Happen as a (from the left at least) at least semi-rational rejection of the status quo, sort of adjacent to how the UK Labour party has been resistant to taking Brexit entirely off the table. But of course for me it's purely academic.

That's how I view QS as well, with the proviso that I have far more sympathy for that kind of separatism than I do for Brexit.

these days quebec separatism is tugged between Scottish-style progressive nationalism and xenophobic pure-laine uh homegrown québecois nationalism. I think more the latter than the former. but enough of the latter - especially within QS - that I'm still a soft separatist.

I have far more sympathy for that kind of separatism than I do for Brexit.

I definitely feel the opposite. At least we have plenty of pre-EU British history to refer to.

Britain has never been oppressed by the EU.

Btw, in case there was a misunderstanding, by 'that kind of separatism' I meant what sean describes as 'Scottish-style progressive nationalism'.

I would need more convincing wrt the oppression of one of the founding provinces of Confederation, actually (and possibly even wrt Scotland). That would probably be a very long discussion, though, so I think the key points for me are that i) I don't think the province is currently oppressed and ii) the separatist option in this federal election is not QS but the BQ so that's the platform I am more concerned with atm. If I still lived in Quebec, I could see how I might throw a protest vote to QS provincially; the BQ do seem much more intense about laïcité.

That would indeed be an all too lengthy discussion, but yeah, QS is adamantly opposed to Bill 21 (they're a '514 party' according to their detractors), whereas I wouldn't be surprised if Bloc supporters were of the opinion that it doesn't go far enough, so aside from the separatism (which comes across as halfhearted in QS's case, as in 'we'll bail if the country as a whole doesn't agree with our progressive aims'), and without accounting for the differences between provincial and federal politics, they don't have all that much in common, although you're right to point out that the Bloc's platform is more left-leaning than you'd think.

right/left as generally understood in ROC and U.S. doesn't really work for the Bloc (or the PQ). They are definitely left-leaning economically and are even progressive on many social issues, but at the same time are anti-immigration and anti-religious-minorities.

Looking at the PQ budgets and the literature around them since Bouchard’s election all the way to Marceau’s 2014 budget, I don’t see a single proposal that isn’t austerity laden. The evidence is clear that when it comes to economics, the PQ has long switched to the right. That’s the raison d’être of the QS.

Hm, this (by HuffPo writer Amy MacPherson) is long and throws a lot of stuff out there but it does raise some curious questions about how the brownface scandal was broken. Does seem strange that it came from a US magazine, naming as source a mysterious businessman who no one can track down and whose connection to the school is unclear. Maybe these things don't matter if the story is true? Still, if foreign interference and campaign regulation are issues that matter, it might be worth considering.

https://freethepresscanada.org/2019/09/23/dirty-tricks-behind-trudeau-brownface-blackface-scandal/?fbclid=IwAR0n_X2k8UMphms3NIfVXsInZuJse5wqRDRH_Xw-fqICEbMumUgS6mr-Z-U

It’s the russians! They never forgot 1972 and Henderson’s goal.

Lol

I love the idea of Russians wanting to interfere with canadian elections and having this dark and elaborate and secret plan and in a bunker somewhere but ~ ‘Master Putin we forgot to take in account Quebec’s abject indifference to Canadians minorities and their issues. Our plans has failed!’

the separatism (which comes across as halfhearted in QS's case, as in 'we'll bail if the country as a whole doesn't agree with our progressive aims')

Going back: I should probably let this go, esp since i don't even live in QC, but I think this actually gets at why I have a hard time with the QS idea of 'progressive Quebec nationalism'. QS has never been more than a third party; they are currently doing especially well by holding 10/125 seats in the National Assembly, six of which are concentrated in one city. There is very little evidence that their province as a whole agrees with their progressive aims, perhaps no more so than significant pockets in BC, which is currently led by a fairly progressive NDP/Green government, or Manitoba, which had 17 continuous years of NDP government recently, or even Ontario, whose 15-year Liberal government tried to spearhead some major labour and environmental reforms in its time. The idea that Quebec sovereignty could be grounded in a civic nationalism built around multicultural, social democratic values that are so distinct from the rest of Canada's as to potentially justify separating the country (without any of the "xenophobic pure-laine ... québecois nationalism" that we all seem to agree is currently more dominant) just seems frankly far-fetched to me. (The idea of fundamentally incompatible values between Quebec and ROC seems particularly dubious when the governing centre-left national party, led by a Quebecer, enjoys majority support in Quebec). At least in the case of Scotland, the 'progressive nationalist' party actually has majority support within Scotland, while a right-wing party governs nationally, allowing them to credibly make the claim that their subnational jurisdiction shares their distinct values.

tl;dr Progressive Quebec nationalists will probably have to choose between progressivism and nationalism imo.

<i>(The idea of fundamentally incompatible values between Quebec and ROC seems particularly dubious when the governing centre-left national party, led by a Quebecer, enjoys majority support in Quebec). </i>

agree - separatism under Harper had a lot more juice to it (and maybe we'll see with Scheer...) In Scotland, the SNP's rise in influence really came about suddenly, after decades of something closer to a BQ identity - and what fed it was Cameron's (then, later, May's, and now Johnson's) Tories.

So I think that a push for SOVEREIGNTY here would require a federal government with whom Quebecers disagree more
but the rise/return of the federal NDP or provincial QS in Québec depends in very large part (imho) on the state of the Bloc/Parti Québécois. Those are the natural homes for progressive (separatist-friendly) francophone Quebecers, and they will only consider the alternatives en masse at times when the Bloc or Parti are in tatters (or, as was briefly the case in recent years, oddly right-wing).

are QS running federally now? i don't understand what are you guys talking about, i thought they were a provincial party

Yeah, we got off topic, after I said I wouldn't.

Back on topic, maybe the NDP have also been reading the BQ platform?: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ndp-quebec-platform-1.5284356

Singh's proposals include giving Quebec the final word on environmental evaluations for major infrastructure projects on its territory, such as pipelines.

Why just Quebec tho?

When he pressed, he did seem to suggest that he would extend the veto to every province: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/powerandpolitics/jagmeet-singh-ndp-provincial-veto-pipeline-1.5288365

Idk if that's written in the platform, though. Idk if this means that e.g. a province could also veto the affordable housing development project the NDP is proposing?

The NDP is committed to formalizing the process for appointing Supreme Court judges who represent Quebec and will ensure the selection is made from a list of candidates pre-selected by the Government of Quebec.
The NDP is committed to legislation that prevents Conservative or Liberal governments from signing a unilateral agreement with web giants without consulting with Quebec, as Melanie Joly did with Netflix.
The NDP will formally consult Quebec on any international trade agreement. We also commit ourselves to transparent trade negotiations so that the costs and benefits are known before agreements are signed.

(from https://action.ndp.ca/page/-/2019/Q3/Images/2018-08-30_NPD-QC-Platform-EN-FINAL.pdf)

The first of these is especially a bit O_O to me. I don't think the PM and Cabinet currently consult any provincial governments when it comes to the appointment of Supreme Court judges that represent their regions, let alone allow them to make a list of candidates? (All of Atlantic Canada gets one Supreme Court judge, all of Western Canada gets two.) I don't believe they even consult Parliament. Transparent trade negotiations are always a good idea but what exactly would "formal consultation with Quebec" consist of, as distinct from the role of other provinces?

Weird, even for Bernier: https://www.straight.com/news/1307396/peoples-party-canada-uses-photo-japanese-canadian-internment-ad-against

PM already has to commit 3 of the nine positions to civil law judges, namely Quebec. I think that has uproven to be good enough.

Jagmeet is doing an event with Rupi Kaur in Burnaby this weekend if anyone is looking for a reason not to vote NDP

A poet @rupikaur_

took the world by storm

and

she ain’t stopping any time soon https://t.co/7w5qG09jPy

— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) November 24, 2017

Ha, Kaur's popularity is inexplicable to me but I suppose she's an important cultural figure?

The amount of power Singh is willing to devolve to a provincial government that wouldn't let him work for them is staggering imo.

I think strong environmental policies will have to come from federal power and consensus among provinces and so I doubt it is a good framework. On the other hand, if a province explicitly doesn’t want a pipeline, then federal govt shouldn’t have mechanisms to impose that.

I don’t care for Kaur personally but she can’t possibly be a negative figure on the scale we are facing these days.

Is Western alienation a code word for ‘right wing illiberalism in the west’?

Ha, I hadn't read about this: https://globalnews.ca/news/5952458/preston-manning-alberta-separatism-western-alienation/

The argument is that the government is not pro-pipeline enough, I gather?

Idk, I lived in Regina for two years and. I do get why one would feel alienated out there but not why that alienation seems to take the form that it often does.

I'm starting to feel left out. Is there something Ontario could get alienated about?

i read the platforms and it’s striking how similar they all are, four very cautious centrist parties is an unexpected equilibrium for a parliamentary system. think ill vote for ndp because of the pharmacare proposal. but i would vote for libs if i weren’t in a safe riding, conservatives repealing the carbon tax would be a disaster