Open for Business: Canadian Politics 2019

Could you post here if you're messaging my ilx mail bc I don't check that email as often?

Just sent!

NDP (correctly imo) opposes Trudeau/Liberal policy on Venezuela: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/singh-ndp-liberals-venezuela-1.4991913

Good move.

Maduro has blood on his hands and I refuse to support a dictatorship simply because it aligns with my own political ideals, but there's no question that Canada shouldn't back the US's nth attempt at manipulation and destabilization in the region, especially when it involves Bolsonaro.

Yes

open for business indeed

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/01/31/leaked-document-privatization-health-care/

sigh

is there wide support in Ontario for privatized health care?

This one's up there with the most frightening dystopian scenarios, as far as I'm concerned.

AFAIK that's not a popular proposal anywhere in the country

Apparently the only less popular idea is killing all day kindergarten - since that idea was reversed the day after it first came out!

Sad lol re OSAP changes fact-checking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=132&v=0VywtVQ3hPU

goddamn fucking ONDP can't do anything right

https://ipolitics.ca/2019/02/06/ontario-ndps-improper-redaction-led-ford-government-to-leaker-sources/

RIP Paul Dewar :(

Just saw that on the news. I always liked him.

At the trivia contest I go to every year (47 tables tonight; we finished second, one point behind the winner), a variation on a standard American question: how many living Prime Ministers right now?

Extremely drunk 2:30 am answer: Turner, Clark, Mulroney, Chretien, Martin, Campbell, Harper, Trudeau Jr?

8 was also my guess but I'd be lying if I said I could name all of 'em

You've got it. The thing that jumped out at me is that there's probably never been eight living presidents (currently five, about normal), even though it's us that doesn't have term limits. That list includes Chretien, who was if office for 10 years, and Harper, who was just shy of 10. What really skews our list is Clark, Turner, and Campbell. I'm not sure if totaled a year between them.

"if they totaled"

Public healthcare for the win?! (Maybe our PMs are just younger?)

Definitely Clark--elected one day shy of 40, out of office within a year. Overall, I think ours are younger: Trudeau, Campbell, and Harper were all in their mid-40s when elected, so that's four out of the eight.

him, Martin and Campbell also did not last long at all, so that's probably making up for the longer term guys.

Yeah, US Presidents have term limits but also have minimum 4-year term guarantees, barring impeachment. (It still boggles my mind a little that when the President effectively 'loses the confidence of Congress', the government can just stay shut down for over a month without any change in leadership.) We would only have four living PMs if you excluded anyone who served for less than four years, as you guys are getting at.

Government-sponsored leftist logic:

❌ Wearing clothes from another ethnic group
❌ White with dreadlocks
❌ Blackface
❌ Men building pipelines
= cultural appropriation, racism, toxic masculinity

✅ Men wearing female dress and makeup
= diversity 🌈 https://t.co/xINlGwZnQe

— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) February 12, 2019

That's one way to come out as pro-blackface.

It's a fairly common position in Quebec (and Europe), based on the notion that its symbolism varies from country to country.

It's worth nothing that, from what I understand, taking that position in Quebec is wrong. As you might expect, there was significant crossover between Canadian and American minstrel show performers.

https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-blackface-97987
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/quebec-mps-motion-only-scrapes-the-surface-of-o-canadas-dodgy-origins/article28457416/

Justin Trudeau has never shown any reluctance to wearing clothes from another ethnic group tbf. Tweet = fake news.

He is nothing if not consistent: https://goo.gl/images/fdf8Yi

There's something funny about edgelording on Twitter and having to do it in both official languages.

There's an obvious distinction to be made between imitation as respectful homage and imitation as violent mockery. Blackface has always been about the latter, even when it isn't performed on US territory. There are other ways of demarcating oneself from anglophone culture (which is a vague construct to begin with), for fuck's sake.

And yeah, bilingual edgelording is kind of hilarious.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/02/trudeau-asks-wilson-raybauld-if-she-could-take-blame-for-a-few-other-scandals-on-way-out-the-door/

We're going to end up with the Tories aren't we

"Butts adds in the statement that the allegations distract from the 'vital work' Trudeau and the PMO are doing."

Why do politicians continue to trot this formulation out as part of damage control? In poker, it's called a tell. You may as well stamp "Nixon" on your forehead.

I haven't really been following the whole debacle. Is Trudeau likely fucked?

Nothing about this makes me more angry than the TMX fiasco and I have no idea what the NDP is up to at this point so personally, I don’t think so.

Scheer continuing to pal around with Faith Goldy is pretty fucking concerning.

Ugh, that's fucking awful.

Is Trudeau likely fucked?

As far as whether it's likely to impact the election, so far it seems a little too complicated and ambiguous to really catch on with voters. But who knows? I feel like this kind of conflict of interest scandal would hardly register as a blip in the US.

Scratch out 'conflict of interest' - that's not exactly what this is

I feel like this kind of conflict of interest scandal would hardly register as a blip in the US.

Probably true but that's not the model I would want to emulate. I'm still waiting to hear more from Wilson-Raybould herself. It's all still p vague at this point. If it's true, I'm furious that Trudeau would think a fucking construction company was worth it.

i honestly can't even tell when the liberals have done something seriously egregious, or if it's just more noise from the facebook/sun media outrage factory.

The scandal itself seems too opaque to mean much right now. I was more disturbed to learn that the Liberals introduced deferred prosecution agreements in a budget bill last June.

If it's true that Trudeau pressured the AG to go easy on a QC construction giant that was facing fraud and corruption charges, that's p easy to understand and p gross (in addition to demonstrating the hollowness of his commitment to diversity within his cabinet). Hopefully, that's not what happened.

I'm really curious what kind of penalty SNC would have had to pay under the deferred prosecution agreement. Not enough to bankrupt the company and threaten jobs, presumably. Would corporations just treat it as a cost of doing business?

If it's true that Trudeau pressured the AG to go easy on a QC construction giant that was facing fraud and corruption charges, that's p easy to understand and p gross (in addition to demonstrating the hollowness of his commitment to diversity within his cabinet)

Undoubtedly so. I didn't quite catch that last part, though (like I said, I'm out of the loop).

If it's true that Trudeau pressured the AG to go easy on a QC construction giant that was facing fraud and corruption charges, that's p easy to understand and p gross (in addition to demonstrating the hollowness of his commitment to diversity within his cabinet). Hopefully, that's not what happened.

― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Wednesday, February 20, 2019 7:39 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seems like it was? and not just "pressured the AG to go easy" but both pressured and then later demoted

Guess he's gonna run for President instead

I'm cool with that.

I haven't been following Conservative party discourse, has this been brewing for some time or is this some excuse they just pulled out of a hat?

BREAKING: Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is resigning after sources tell Global News he used Conservative Party money to pay for the private-school education of his children #cdnpoli https://t.co/OOWQDsVy4y

— Amanda Connolly (@amandacconn) December 12, 2019

Global News has learned that Scheer is resigning after it was revealed he had been using Conservative Party money to pay for his children's private school education. #cdnpoli #CPC

— Mercedes Stephenson (@MercedesGlobal) December 12, 2019

if he'd become PM, would this have been a genuine scandal for more than a week? I can't tell anymore.

Probably not. It comes across as a lame pretext to me.

I'm trying to think of something interesting to say, but I don't really know enough about the conservative party and have no idea in which direction they are heading. I feel like it could go either way (either doubling down on populism or trying to distance themselves from it). I'm guessing the main objective of the party for the next election is gaining votes in Ontario but I don't know what the best approach is for that.

I can't imagine them going less populist from here unless they're total morons (I know, I know)

Buck a beer for the whole country, simple as that.

in their last leadership election 141,000 members voted, scheer got 62,593, bernier got 55,544. think it was a ranked ballot situation. so the appetite for a far-right populist was fairly high (they also don't do one member one vote, they do it on a riding basis, with each riding worth the same number of points, regardless of population, this probably benefits rural votes - which i assume means it leans further right).

i would be unsurprised if they go for more of a bernier type next time - though maybe one who speaks english well

jason kenney probably wishing he wasn't premier of alberta rn

Bernier, who was at least 100% upfront about what he was after, was a total flop on his own, though. Seems more likely to me that they'll get a Ford-a-like who will be completely vague. (I haven't even noticed a difference in the price of beer!)

Is O'Leary free?

bernier was a flop but i would think that the idea of going third party and clearly damaging the chance of a conservative government by vote-splitting must play on voters' minds?

Is O'Leary free?

unfortunately, he remains unjailed

bernier ran a really different campaign for the cons leadership than he did with the people's party

one of those great libertarian goes alt right conversion stories

"I am putting my party first and my family first" - Scheer's resignation statement

you were definitely putting your family first you little rat lol

everyone ties for first in Justin's canada

Former SNC-Lavalin exec found guilty on five counts of corruption, fraud, and money laundering in Libya:

#BREAKING Former SNC-Lavalin executive found guilty on Libya corruption charges

Sami Bebawi, 73, convicted on all 5 counts including fraud, corruption of foreign officials and laundering proceeds of crime #cdnpoli https://t.co/dXtSw6l0eg pic.twitter.com/4zM82420bK

— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) December 15, 2019

Former resident Kabul head of Canada's aid program in Afghanistan on the failure of the mission: https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/banerjee-why-we-still-need-a-review-of-canadas-role-in-afghanistan

In the light of the Afghanistan Papers, btw, I'm reminded of 'Taliban Jack' Layton's statement in 2006:

That mission is the wrong mission for Canada. There is no plan for victory. There is no exit strategy. There is no sign that it is making the Taliban weaker or the world safer. And there is no hope of changing the realities on the ground in Afghanistan--with the forces we have or can commit.

New thread: We Still Have a Government, Right?: Canadian Politics 2020