Dynasty, s3: Canadian Politics 2018

thanks VHS, booming post. Quebec politics are hard to get my head around

thanks Sym, ILX might be my outlet for these things up until October 1st.

For anyone interested, there will be an english debate for the Quebec provincial elections (for the first time ever).

If anyone feel like I've hijacked the thread I'll make a specific one for the prov. elections.

this thread is pretty hijackable imo

well quebec is part of canada and this thread is hardly so busy as to require splintering threads to keep it on topic or something so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yeah keep it here so we don't feel bad using this thread to bitch about bc and vancouver politix

lol sounds good

co-sign on keeping it all in here

a separate thread for quebec?

http://104.236.16.159/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/Referendum.jpg

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-government-says-it-will-discipline-teachers-who-dont-follow/

What's extra good about this is he's making it anonymous. Because it's not like a grade 7 or 8 student who's angry at a teacher for some reason would ever abuse it.

Ugh and wow

Heh, for a second I thought you were referring to this unsurprising piece of 'breaking' news, Sund4r (maybe you secretly were):

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-maxime-bernier-to-make-announcement-ahead-of-conservative-convention/

fits both! justin's going to be PM for the next 50 years

i'm ambivalent.

on the one hand: vote splitting on the right, potentially nullifies them as a political force under first past the post.

on the other hand: there is a good chance this results in a mainstream far-right federal political party with parliamentary representation

Former Harper policy director:

I hope Justin Trudeau and his cabinet colleagues are breaking out the champagne in Nanaimo this morning. Congratulations to @gmbutts & co. who have secured an easy win in 2019 despite a mostly terrible summer.

— Rachel Curran (@reicurran) August 23, 2018

Hey Maxime ..remember how I challenged you in an email? Remember how you blamed it all on people around you and how you apologized profusely? How you said you were committed to our team? Wow. You are such a 🐔💩.

— Todd Doherty (@ToddDohertyMP) August 23, 2018

Took me a while to understand he meant chicken shit.

We should probably set up a separate thread for Ford:

http://www.blogto.com/city/2018/08/doug-ford-climate-change/

no pipeline! there probably wasn't anything better for trudeau to have spent $4.5 billion on

Does it spell the end of it for sure?

no? but I don't think there's a clear path to getting it built anymore

I'm delighted. eat my shit, trudeau!

Can this affect whether the sale goes through?

Hopefully every time this govt talks about reconciliation someone will be wise enough to remind them they tried to pass a pipeline without consulting the FN people.

God bless the National Observer

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/08/08/analysis/kinder-morgan-just-told-its-shareholders-how-it-persuaded-trudeau-government-pay

As predicted by everyone the CAQ was ramped the xenophobic rhetoric: yesterday it was Legault claiming that 'our grandchildren won't speak french' if immigration continues the way it does. Today, he announces a program in which immigrants would have 3 years to learn french or else they would have the leave. But he doesn't want to call it deportation juuuust yet. The first has no data or evidence at all, as always with the white genocide argument. The second might never be possible because Quebec is part of Canada, still it's vile, just completely vile. I am stunned.

All of which would be whatever if Legault was a marginal candidate, but he is still comfortably leading the polls despite blunders (those blunders are not related to his xenophobia remarks). All of which would be whatever too if I saw a passionate response to this from Quebec media, or heck even Canadian, but it seems like it only gathers a collective shrug.

Also the young Montreal anglo who happens to not give two damns about Quebec politics but can name every chair of the SCOTUS is my new pet peeve (unless said young Montreal anglo is american).

thought i just had while inventing the stupid word "ilxit" for my dn--

brexit is not that clever, but quebexit would have been. did anyone use this phrase in either of the referendum years?

Nope

So Doug Ford just decided to suspend the charter.

how is this shit legal

I started a Ford thread a couple of weeks ago--I should have put a link here:

Dean Wormer's Revenge: The Doug Ford Thread

This province is dumb as fuck.

Now, now, don't overestimate your neighbours.

the notwithstanding clause is wild

Yeah, I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Wondering if this will make a difference (from G&M):

Is there any way to challenge the Ontario government’s use of the notwithstanding clause?

Yes. It could be challenged in court. University of Toronto law professor Lorraine Weinrib says this use of it appears not to be legally valid, because it is retrospective – that is, it applies to events that have already occurred. The use of the override section needs to be “prospective," to affect future events, the Supreme Court said in a 1988 case.

I guess because the campaigns have already started, it's now a retrospective application?

I mean, I strongly dislike Quebec's language laws but I can at least understand why they were important enough to francophone Quebec nationalists to warrant invoking the notwithstanding clause. Has Ford even given any explanation of why the number of Toronto city councillors is such a life-and-death issue for him? (Maybe he has; it's an honest question. I've been really occupied.)

smaller more effective government! lol

Not to go on a tangent here, but assuming you think protecting the French language in Quebec is important (I do), what alternative is there to the Loi 101? I loathe the xenophobic discourse it occasionally engenders, but I haven't quite figured out another effective solution to the problem.

Pomenitul, I'm pretty unconvinced that e.g. the regulations on commerce and signage (which were the basis for the Charter challenge iirc) are necessary for, or are doing much for, the protection of the French language in Quebec.

Eh, suit yourself. It has led to risible excesses on occasion, no doubt about that, but given that more than half of Québécois are functionally illiterate in their own language, a much higher percentage than the rest of Canadians, I think French needs all the help it can get. I know too many anglo Montrealers who don't speak a lick of French but who would never dare remain monolingual if they moved to France. Passivity is no solution unless, once again, you think language is just a matter of communication in the strict sense.

More than half of Quebecers are functionally illiterate in any language, right? And that's the case after decades of Bill 101? That's an education issue (and probably also a poverty issue - and there's plenty out there on the economic impacts of Bill 101). I don't see how regulating the colour, size, and position of English lettering on signs and business cards is helping that issue.

Focusing on signage is missing the point, imho – that's merely one, overexposed aspect of the Charter, which ignores all the other provisions (French as official language of Quebec, the right to be served in French, French as language of instruction, including for first generation immigrants such as myself, etc.). Quebec's poverty rate is also lower than that of most provinces, including Ontario, so I'm not convinced that's a key factor, especially when you consider that Quebec's economy has been performing quite well over the past few years.

French as official language of Quebec, the right to be served in French,

I have no issue with these provisions and I don't think these things were challenged on the basis of the Charter of Rights, or protected with the notwithstanding clause. (Feel free to correct me.) Will admit that I don't fully understand the afaict fairly complex provisions concerning the language of instruction and don't really have the time right at this moment to review them.

So maybe "strongly dislike Quebec's language laws" was an overstatement.

I'm hardly an expert when it comes to this, but as far as I can tell the Charter of Rights was only invoked once in relation to Bill 101, in 1984, to allow children receiving English instruction elsewhere in Canada to be exempt from French school in Quebec should their family choose to settle there. Otherwise, unless you were born to anglophone parents who have been established in Quebec for generations, you're meant to study in French until CEGEP/college (some immigrants circumvent this, which I personally think is a shame).

Tbf I get the sense that anglo-franco relations are way more peaceful nowadays than they used to be. Outside of Montreal anglos are still looked upon with some suspicion, but in the city interactions are generally quite chill between the so-called two solitudes as far as I can tell. For what it's worth, I remember witnessing an idiotic row a while back between two gentlemen at the gym, each in their own language, and not once did either of them resort to racist (in the broad sense) slurs. It was weirdly heartwarming.

The 1988 SCC ruling concerning the signage rules, followed by Bill 178 (an amendment of Bill 101 that explicitly invoked the notwithstanding clause) was what I was thinking of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_178

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bill-178

Quebec also inserted the notwithstanding clause into all legislation from 82-87 aiui!
xp

Heh, so it was actually used against Bill 101, as it were. Interesting.