Defenestrate Them All: Canadian Politics 2021

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal-election/2021/08/14/conservatives-launch-attack-ad-called-dumb-by-their-own-party-members.html

"The only reason for an election is because Trudeau wants a majority."

Is that supposed to be shocking?

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/08/conservative-party-bitterly-derides-upcoming-election-as-big-popularity-contest/

cory doctorow on how canada is on its way to becoming a police state if it passes the worst internet laws in the world:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/11/the-canada-variant/#no-canada

C10 iisthankfully dead now that parliament has been dissolved. Of course it may return in some other form.

Canada accepting 20k refugees from Afghanistan seems like an OTM start, although tbh it should have probably been the focus the whole time. Marvelling a bit that even Harper had the foresight to see the pointlessness of the mission and pull out seven years ago.

interesting strategy...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-party-election-platform-1.6142319

Wow

they announced another interesting idea a couple weeks ago:

"Helping newcomers maximize their success by allowing them to work in their field of knowledge will be good for Canada, good for the economy and, most importantly, good for these workers and their families," said O'Toole in a media release.

Canada already has programs that allow skilled workers to speed up their immigration applications if they meet certain requirements, but critics say it's still difficult for many of those workers to immigrate and find work in their fields.

A Conservative government would create a new credential recognition task force to improve that process, the party said today.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservatives-human-rights-agenda-1.6132728

wonder how much of an improvement it would actually be in practice of course.

seems like they are trying very hard not to repeat scheer's mistakes (no platform, shifty anti-gay rhetoric...) still doubt urban voters are going to be receptive to voting for them. Trudeau is trying to wedge them on requiring vaccines to travel by plane/train, which is probably a more urgent issue.

Not sure what to make of this left turn tbh. It is good that those international human rights and labour issues are being talked about at the least.

there are a lot of current CPC stances that would be a lot more credible if they were coupled with explicit repudiations of Harper's record, such as his free trade deals with China and his anti-immigrant dog whistling

Or O'Toole's own stances from a year ago? Wonder if he still plans to find a dollar in savings for every dollar of new spending he's proposing now.
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/conservative-leadership-race-candidates-platforms_ca_5f3fd2cdc5b697824f97d994

It’s gonna take a couple of election cycles (if ever) for the CPC to decouple itself from the neo-con/Alt-right turn it took in lockstep with global conservatism. Seems like they’re hearing the ground-level chatter that people miss the Red Tory option, but when the LPC basically occupies that neoliberal/centrist/technocrat ground anyhow, where TF can they go? Weird strategy (“We’re just like the LPC, but Taxes Bad!”)

Weird turn for the Tories. Not sure what I expect from the election. Liberals in power most likely buy unsure of majority or minority

wow OToole privatizing the CBC seems like the perfect angle for the Libs to rile up some boomers

The CBC is out of control and in need of reform. I’ll slash funding for English TV and CBC News Network, and end funding for digital news. Focus should be on CBC Radio and Radio Canada.

Add your name: https://t.co/HA2lG4G59d pic.twitter.com/N3gTtP12fA

— Erin O'Toole (@erinotoole) February 14, 2020

promising to defund in February 2020, he's a visionary

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canadian-campaign-for-afghan-peace-afghanistan-federal-election-humanitarian-crisis-1.6148969

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid19-vaccine-update-bc-1.6149947

serious business (or just a copy of quebec's policy, really)

Tory support rising: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

I'm actually leaning Liberal atm. Yasir Naqvi is replacing McKenna here; he's a former provincial Attorney General with some legitimate accomplishments - restrictions on police street checks and amendments to the Human Rights Code to include immigration status and social condition as prohibited grounds for discrimination happened during his tenure. The NDP picked an economist who struck me as fairly milquetoast and vague during the nomination race.

who usually wins your riding?

are the NDP going to be wiped out by strategic lib voting for the umpteenth time

There was a Beaverton article that said something like “Poll reveals that 100% of Liberal voters would vote NDP if they had a hope in hell of winning”

Sounds about right.

The CPC’s red tory turn has got a lot of people pivoting … which is, like, “have you ever actually lived under a conservative government?! Because it ALWAYS SUCKS.” I can’t believe how dumb we are. We deserve what we get.

It has been Catherine McKenna's (Liberal) riding for the last two terms, was an NDP seat for four terms before that between Paul Dewar and Ed Broadbent, and Mac Harb's Liberal seat for four terms before that. I've voted NDP in every federal election since 97 and am not that big on strategic voting. I actually like the Liberal candidate is the point (although I voted for the NDP's Joel Harden over him provincially in 2018 and have been glad for it.) The NDP can still win me back!

The NDP in our riding always use the selling point, "you don't have to vote for the Liberals to keep the PCs out, they will always come in third place here." It's safe enough that I usually vote Green.

am not that big on strategic voting

didn't mean to imply that you were. I was just complaining about strategic voters on fb who live in urban ridings where the tories have no chance anyway. a lot of canadians don't really understand how our system works.

This is interesting and a definite shift, considering how partisan Ford used to be: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-dont-campaign-for-erin-o-toole-doug-fords-office-tells-ministers/

starting to get a little nervous, polling is shifting to the Cons

ignore the polls, how have we not learned this by now

Yeah, they're m/l statistically tied now. The Tory strategy might have actually been correct: perhaps people are resentful of being asked to come out for an unnecessary early election when we're not fully out of the pandemic woods yet but are still happy with Liberal policy.

I think hardcore tory voters hate JT so much they don't care what OToole is promising, they just want to see the Libs fail. And if OToole can keep the open bigotry to an acceptable level that might be enough to win our beloved Ontario suburbs.

Really hoping for the 135 lib seats, 40 NDP seats outcome, so they'll actually need the NDP to govern. Dreading the 145 Tory seats, 27 BQ seats outcome. And those two results are both pretty conceivable now.

Ugh Tories pulling slightly ahead of Grits (statistically tied) on CBC poll tracker.

This election is grim, but the likeliest outcome - a reduced Liberal minority - is exactly what Trudeau and his team deserve. The increasing chances of a Tory/BQ alliance government is very depressing though.

why do you think so? pandemic response was pretty good

It was a questionable decision to have this election in the first place. A gamble. They look reckless. Then, it gives massive exposure to his opponents. Jagmeet and O'Toole, who so far is successfully playing his cards close to his chest, are now becoming much more familiar to voters - in both cases in a positive way. Trudeau himself is not a convincing spokesman (in my opinion anyway) and he is easily portrayed as weak, patronizing, etc. Both the right and left have immediate issues that are giving their bases tons of energy. Climate change, vaccines, Afghanistan. It has been a shitshow for the Liberals so far.

So Topham Guerin, the NZ-based PR firm that our Tories hired for this election (https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/05/22/want-to-win-stoke-voters-anger-excitement-pride-and-fear-say-the-conservatives-social-media-strategists.html), apparently specializes in creating intentionally low-quality memes that go viral in part bc of hate-sharing: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/23/tories-hire-facebook-propaganda-pair-to-run-online-election-campaign . They've worked on winning campaigns for right-wing parties in Australia and the UK.

As per the 2019 Guardian piece on the UK Tories' successful campaign:

The pair’s arrival comes after their success helping Australia’s rightwing coalition unexpectedly win the country’s general election, where they were praised by local media for their understanding of how to fight online campaigns. Purposefully low-quality memes based around popular shows such as Game of Thrones were used in a bid to drive interactions – good or bad – at any cost, on the basis that this would boost the reach of future Facebook posts.

“We’d make them really basic and deliberately lame because they’d get shares and lift our reach; that made our reach for the harder political messages higher,” an anonymous individual told the Sydney Morning Herald, dubbing the strategy “boomer memes” as the content appealed to older audiences.

In recent days, the [ British ] Conservatives have begun purposefully posting badly-designed social media material, at one point urging MPs to back a Brexit deal using the often-derided Comic Sans font. The Tories’ political opponents lined up to mock the image, inadvertently sending it viral and ensuring it was seen by a wider audience.

Certainly explains the Wonka ad

Your (BC) Liberals:

https://www.citynews1130.com/2021/08/30/vancouver-liberal-taleeb-noormohamed-real-estate/

Last week, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pledged to impose heavy taxation on those who flipped homes within a year of buying them.

Of the 42 home sales made by Noormohamed since 2005 reviewed by NEWS 1130, 21 would have qualified for the Liberal anti-flipping tax had it been in place.

That riding is probably going to go Conservative now. Great job, Liberals.

100% into a heavy tax for home flipping.

Your (BC) Liberals

is he actually a BC Liberal? The Liberal candidate in my riding was an aide to Christy Clark, so no thank you!

seeing bus stop ads for the PPC in downtown Vancouver today was disturbing

Might normally hesitate before sharing something like this but it's too believable in this case:

hey @ottawacity it sure seems like councilman @RickChiarelli is trying to take me on a vaguely sexual trip to Europe using state funds ??? pic.twitter.com/vjKXwsAfpP

— cass city (@HeavenlyGrandpa) September 2, 2021

So at least three women received similar messages. Chiarelli, who's already under investigation for sexual harassment, is saying his account was hacked:
https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-councillor-denies-sending-inappropriate-messages-on-twitter-1.5571829

Maybe not impossible that his account was hacked while his staff were also sending out official business? Not really sure how that works.

Weird. It is possible though - my own Twitter account always began posting strange links in between my real postings. Despite changing passwords. Only thing that made it stop was to make the account not public. But if you’re going to hack and set someone up, that convo is kind of.. weak?

Yeah, don't know what to make of it. It seems weird that someone would hack an account to have that conversation but also seems weird that someone who wasn't hacked would do so - why this random comedienne in Chicago? Why just bring up the sexual harassment investigation in the conversation? Would a suburban city councillor even have the power to hire someone like that for a trip to Europe (on what business grounds?) and bill the city?

New Liberal attack ad - turning around O'Toole's "take Canada back" slogan seems like a good move, as is recalling how right-wing his ideas were before this election campaign.

We can’t let Erin O’Toole take Canada backward.

Now is the time to move forward. For everyone. pic.twitter.com/LkV3VzNQiM

— Liberal Party (@liberal_party) September 4, 2021

Wtf: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-protestors-gravel-1.6166378

Suspicious death in Truro NS being treated as homicide; possible hate crime
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/we-feel-very-unsafe-indian-canadians-in-shock-over-truro-killing-1.6166038