Open for Business: Canadian Politics 2019

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

I was able to download comprehensive platforms (as a single PDF) from the NDP and Greens (and BQ). Do the Conservatives and Liberals have anything like that? I couldn't find one on either party's website, in English or in French.

Centrist party platforms are pretty ironic right now considering the rhetoric of so many “regular” people has moved into the land where the fringe is conflated with a full half of the middle. I saw a meme on fb today attacking certain current party leaders as false and disloyal to their roots and damn if that wasn’t the most refreshing thing in ages.

(I am glad we have centrist platforms)

Heard a story on the radio about Liberal candidates in diehard blue ridings in AB. Some interesting things: they leave "Team Trudeau" off their signs there and emphasize that voters would be voting for a local candidate who could represent their riding's concerns in the government, not for Trudeau himself. But most startling to me was that it is apparently a somewhat common belief there that the Liberal government spent $4.5B to buy the TransMountain pipeline because they have a hidden agenda to kill the project and ensure that it never gets built.

Would love for that to be true lol

So the election has been officially called and Parliament will be dissolved tomorrow, although we've basically been enduring a campaign already. I hate that we have fixed election dates now.

Oh lol, somehow a tweet from September was at the top of my feed. Fixed election dates still terrible though.

Hm, somehow I missed that we are going ahead with the French university in Ontario after all: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1289247/uof-entente-universite-ontario-francais-francophone

It's still being planned for Toronto?

Ford confirmed closet francophile.

Great news!

Ha, yeah, Ford strategy seems to be to slash and burn and then recant a little wrt the things where people protest the most (which I think means people with disabilities usually get screwed). Like some weird head game with the public on the provincial scale. I gather the feds stepped in to salvage this one? Interesting to me that Cornwall in Eastern Ontario has also bid to host the university; I could see the case for it.

So apparently they did track Adamson down.

Turned into the French debate. I'm actually glad they're discussing seniors and long-term care. Trudeau did pretty well there imo. Scheer vs Singh on the economy and environment now.

If I'm understanding Scheer, the way to reduce global emissions is to promote the Canadian oil industry and build more pipelines bc Canadian oil is cleaner than those of other countries?

Trudeau's strategy seems to be to ideologically contrast his record with Scheer's proposals, emphasizing Scheer's ties to Ford and Kenney; to mostly ignore Singh; and to stress that the BQ won't get anything done in Opposition.

Blanchette is a v good speaker.

Scheer's 'Corridor Énergetique' is somewhat reminiscent of, um, a National Energy Program.

Trudeau's strategy seems to be to ideologically contrast his record with Scheer's proposals, emphasizing Scheer's ties to Ford and Kenney; to mostly ignore Singh; and to stress that the BQ won't get anything done in Opposition.

Blanchette is a v good speaker.

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Wednesday, October 2, 2019 9:04 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Are you talking about the debate or the past 5 years that’s right political joke getting ready for jfl 2020

Ha.

Trudeau vs Blanchet on Quebec's place in Canada was kind of epic.

Was there foreign policy discussion at the debate?

None iirc, though I missed a bit. The topics were immigration and social policy, the environment, the economy, and Quebec/Canada relations iirc. Foreign policy is a scheduled topic for the Oct 7 and Oct 10 debates.

Hm, I never thought about this possible angle before. I do remember we discussed the FIPA when it happened and May was the only leader who brought it up in 2015.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/31/justin-trudeau-kinder-morgan-pipeline-china-did-he-fear-being-sued

Or maybe it’s just good practice to keep promises for foreign companies investing in your country, especially in a context with more authoritarians nations that can claim that the leadership will be the same in the next 10 years so projects don’t carry risk.

I wanted to add that just compensating KM for the lost business opportunity would have been enough for me, in that optic. I am still very mad that they are trying to build an actual pipeline.

French-speakers, this controversy about the BQ leader asking for votes for people who "resemble you" is BS, right?

i think spending billions on a pipeline that both shouldn't and more importantly won't be built was cool as hell personally

xpost

yes

i mean he could have been dog-whistling but linguistically it doesn't look that way to me

I have a hard time buying that they would be unaware of the current political climate in Quebec and what such words would represent and trigger in the public discourse.

Fuck the Bloc, but 'qui vous ressemble(nt)' is pretty banal commercial-speak in French and not necessarily a dog whistle. It can be used for inanimate objects as well as for people, e.g. 'un hôtel qui vous ressemble'.

Yeah, this is just bad translation. There are many actual things on which the Bloc should be called out on instead of this.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-government-moves-to-ban-popular-bilingual-greeting-bonjourhi/

The CAQ's platform boils down to pnwning Montreal, it seems.

In other news, Andrew Scheer is a dual Canadian-American citizen. I kind of assume that to be secretly true for all Conservatives, though?

The bonjour-hi opposition is so infuriatingly dumb. Besides, I've already noticed it being used a lot less after the last resolution. And ime it's often replaced by "allô"...not exactly a resounding victory for the french language lmao

How about just 'lo' as in 'lo and behold!'?

There's restricting free speech and then there's trying to stop people from saying "hi". This seems a bit like trolling tbh. Crazy that the PLQ seem to be more supportive of it than the PQ?

Is it that the PLQ has more to prove in terms of credibility on language issues?

wow your guys' politics are unreal

Can't tell whether that's a good or a bad thing at this point.

*cue indignant but toothless response from RoC*

Nationalists: "Ah, more evidence that our values are incompatible. Sovereignty may be our only option."

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Tbf, Blanchet made a point of his appreciation of Quebec's anglo minority. Interested to see his response to this.

scheer calling out dual US citizens in 2005 is pretty funny: https://web.archive.org/web/20051208133657/http:/andrewscheermp.blogspot.com/

Sund4r otm

"Andrew Scheer: secretly American" is a pretty good twist.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-government-moves-to-ban-popular-bilingual-greeting-bonjourhi/

The CAQ's platform boils down to pnwning Montreal, it seems.

― pomenitul, Saturday, October 5, 2019 3:48 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

they should change it to ‘bonjour, bitch’

Welcome to the QC, bitch

Sounds pretty bad ass tbh.