[Discussion] Canadian Politics Catch-All

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A place to discuss Canadian politics and more general political topics through a Canadian lens.

There may not be the appetite for it, heck I might not actually have the appetite for it, but I think I'd like a place to respectfully discuss Canadian politics, so here's a thread. I hope the scope I laid out is adequate.

I've also felt that more general D&D (or P&C predecessor) threads like Climate Change and Minimum Wage tend to be dominated by a US perspective that doesn't always fit the situation in Canada so I hope there's room for that too.

The result of the US election has brought Pierre Trudeau's, "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant." to mind for me. There's a lot to worry about there in terms of the trade, economy, and our general relationship but it's not as if such a thing couldn't happen here.

Of course there's a lot going on domestically as well. The appalling standard of living so many Indigenous people, carbon pricing, the federal Conservative leadership race, federal electoral reform, PEI's electoral reform, Yukon's election, provinces competing for Canada's Worse Government™, and more(!).

Welcome.

Wait, we have politics too?

I have to admit, the fact that I live here and not in the US was one of the few things that got me out of bed Wednesday morning. Even as much as I disliked Harper, he was certainly no trump.

I'm also quite curious how Trudeau & Co. are going to handle the Trump situation. I heard there was a party-wide directive to all MPs to stay off of Twitter and avoid commenting on the election. Makes sense.

In the meantime, I look forward to hearing about the latest controversy about Trudeau's nannies and staff moving expenses.

Unsurprisingly and horrifyingly some of our politicians are already trying to take up Trump's rhettoric here; for example Kellie Leitch (a potential Harper replacement for the conservatives).

Aside from situations like that I'm very fearful for the cultural impacts American stuff inevitably has on us here, even under a liberal government. We've already seen some of the Trump influence here, even in our youth, let us hope we manage to avoid most of the damage and don't delve too deeply into similar civil rights attacks/roll backs.

krev82 wrote:

Unsurprisingly and horrifyingly some of our politicians are already trying to take up Trump's rhettoric here; for example Kellie Leitch (a potential Harper replacement for the conservatives).

Leitch has me very worried. She may not have a style like Trump or Berlusconi but she's leading the pack in fundraising right now in a huge field. And who knows what happens if she wins and the next election comes around, a huge recession could help propel her into power.

I thought I'd never join a political party, my vote tends to float around based mostly on overall policy promises in an election campaign, but after Tuesday I'm actually considering buying a CPC membership to vote early and (hopefully not) often against her. Pretty much following this logic:

It helps that I really like Michael Chong so far. Before it was gutted I thought the Reform Act was a great idea to help with the centralization of power among party leaders and the Prime Minister's office and his policy in the leadership campaign looks good so far.

From what I had understood, the right-wing press was holding Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall up as the "li'l Stephen" champion of ideology-driven neocon firestarting. I guess as he's not (yet?) a federal politician he's kind of off to the sidelines.

I think Canada, unencumbered by a pesky First Amendment, can take steps to ensure the (anti-)intellectual and cultural forces that lead to a Harper-style government being elected get ploughed under and replaced with more positive messages.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

From what I had understood, the right-wing press was holding Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall up as the "li'l Stephen" champion of ideology-driven neocon firestarting. I guess as he's not (yet?) a federal politician he's kind of off to the sidelines.

Outside of Saskatchewan Brad Wall's not all that relevant. He's a long-serving premier and one of the few conservative types in office so he has a bit of a platform, but not speaking French severely limits any greater ambitions since that's makes him a bit of a non-starter federally.

I think Canada, unencumbered by a pesky First Amendment, can take steps to ensure the (anti-)intellectual and cultural forces that lead to a Harper-style government being elected get ploughed under and replaced with more positive messages.

Yeah, that sort of thing would probably not stand up to a Charter challenge.

I also don't understand this portrayal of Stephen Harper as some radical neocon, he didn't act like that in office:
*Military spending remained inadequate (with procurement continuing to be a joke)
*Attempts from the backbenches to change abortion rights or marriage equality were quashed pretty quickly
*The 2004 health accord was maintained and the Liberals are pretty much following through on CPC plans in the new accord.
*The Working Income Tax Benefit was one of the most significant anti-poverty policies to come out of any government in years.

I look at his time in office and what I come away with is there isn't much of a legacy there. There's the cut in the GST I guess (not great policy, but no party is willing to reverse it), the WITB I mentioned, and the hole in the census (which sure, what the hell?). Other than that it seems like he was basically just there, not doing much.

We're only a year in, but other than tone there's a lot of similarity with the Liberals. The Child Benefit is a huge anti-poverty measure; the "middle" class tax-cut, like the GST, isn't great (if you make the median income or below you get no benefit from it); military procurement is still a joke and spending probably inadequate.

Roke wrote:

I look at his time in office and what I come away with is there isn't much of a legacy there. There's the cut in the GST I guess (not great policy, but no party is willing to reverse it), the WITB I mentioned, and the hole in the census (which sure, what the hell?). Other than that it seems like he was basically just there, not doing much.

This was basically the brunt of it. Harper's vision of a government seemed to be one that accomplished as little as possible, which is obviously a huge turn-off for a lot of people. Rumors that he had some autocratic tendencies behind the scenes didn't help. In some ways, he actually became less right-wing over time (at one point pre-2008, he tried to push deregulating the real estate market in the same way as the US, which would have been a disaster).

Government inaction - aside from cutting taxes - can itself be turned into evil machinations, however, and that was the distressing part. Eliminating the census, censoring scientists - even on banal stuff, avoiding the press at all costs, severe cuts to government data collection across the board; these things created an environment where it became difficult to even register if anything the government was doing was good or bad because there was no way to track it. Remember when their official budget used kijiji as a dataset?

While I didn't vote for Trudeau's Liberals, I am happy that at least there is a government that believes it should be doing something again. I don't feel like they are doing a great job, either, however. As you say, they seem to be putting on a more media-friendly face but not really changing as much underneath as I would like.

I would like some electoral reform please, proportional representation would be my pick over preferential ballots.

With our first past the post system still in place, and three viable parties at the national level we are more vulnerable (not less) to a reactionary populist minority.

Yeah, speaking of being disappointed in the current government, it is disappointing but not surprising that they have started shifting their feet on this. It seems like every government that promises electoral reform changes their mind once that broken system gives them all the power.

On electoral reform I'm surprised the Liberals didn't just ignore that promise, but I think they've really bungled. It seems like they don't know what they want out of it and I haven't been impressed with Monsef's stewardship of the file.

I'm not sure that PR is better at keeping out populists. I don't think UKIP would have as much influence in the UK as do if they weren't legitimized by their seats in the European Parliament. and under a PR system I think it's more likely you'll see a further right party play kingmaker in potential coalition governments.

That said I'm not sure I have a strong preference for any system, they all have benefits and drawbacks. What's more important to me is that any system change has the greatest amount of legitimacy behind it so future governments don't feel like they can change the electoral system like they can change tariff rates. Whether that's through all-party support in parliament, a referendum, a citizens' assembly, or some other means.

My sense is that the majority of people actually really don't want electoral reform. A few years back it was on the ballot in Ontario (For a mixed member proportional representation system, much like Germany's). I voted it up, but it got trashed soundly. I actually went to the Candidates debate where this was discussed, and the consensus (In my very liberal riding) was that A) people didn't want any change that would by necessity involve electing MORE MPPs, B) what's wrong with the way we're doing things now, and C) I don't understand what the hell you're proposing anyways.

I always shake my head whenever anyone promises electoral reform because it takes a lot of effort and political capital to try to push it through, with no clear constituency that you're actually helping that will want to get you re-elected next time because you did this thing. It's essentially lose-lose from a political perspective, unlike stuff like gerrymandering.

Roke wrote:

I also don't understand this portrayal of Stephen Harper as some radical neocon, he didn't act like that in office:

I was pointing more toward the stuff kuddles mentioned. The whole destroying knowledge thing. I have a thing about governments that want to destroy knowledge.

We could get into his relations with the First Nations, but I think you see where I'm coming from when I say he's a neocon. You don't like his military procurement spending; to me, the fact he was willing to blindly buy whatever the newest shiny thing on America's lot was speaks volumes.

so a Rabi in Ottawa finds a swastika and slur spray painted on their door...

and via Toronto acquaintances on Facebook a sign on a post on York st reads;

HEY,
WHITE PERSON

-Tired of Political correctness
-Wondering why only white countries have to become ‘multicultural’?
-Figured out that diversity only means ‘less white people’?
-Sick of being blamed for all the world’s problems?
-Tired of being told you’re a ‘racist’ for celebrating your heritage?
-Disgusted by the garbage on television?
-Don’t see a future for yourself or your family?
-Questioning when immigration will stop?

Join the Alt-Right

(followed by 9 radical right websites)

=======
So, as feared and expected, moving here may not help you much, seems it'll just delay when you have to face living under a totalitarian fascist.

That's what worries me. I live in a weirdly segregated town and my wife is one of the few Asians (let alone one of the single digits of Japanese). The Trump thing scares me just because I don't want my bi-racial daughter to grow up in that atmosphere. I encountered a lot of closed-minded idiots in this town before.

The cities, in Canada, have had a pretty good record of stamping down intolerance and accepting immigrants and people of colour. Really hope that this can continue and even be strengthened in opposition to Trump's influence.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

I was pointing more toward the stuff kuddles mentioned. The whole destroying knowledge thing. I have a thing about governments that want to destroy knowledge.

This. When the Harper administration made policy decisions that weren't supported by facts, science, etc it was sometimes very difficult to argue against the policy decisions because they seemed to be going to great lengths to make sure there would be no facts or science available.

As for electoral reform, the more I think about it the more complicated it seems. While I'm not sure that our current system is serving us perfectly, change is difficult and complicated, and I think it's pretty hard to make sure that you're not just making it worse. I suppose maybe it leaves us more vulnerable to a reactionary populist minority government, but given the current makeup of our multi-party system a system based on proportional representation is almost always going to result in minority/coalition governments. This may or may not be desirable, but either way it's a big change and it's worth thinking carefully about.

As it stands our current system already has some qualities that redistribute voting power through the country (not entirely unlike the electoral college in the US). Growing up on the prairies I witnessed a lot of unhappiness at the perceived disenfranchisement of prairie populations. Even if the region overwhelmingly votes for a particular party, if that party doesn't do well in the densely populated areas of Ontario and Québec, they won't form a government. I can't say that I don't sympathize. However, generally speaking, voters in rural areas actually get more bang for their buck, in that rural ridings tend to have far smaller populations than urban ridings, and thus a greater voting power per person. The population difference is susbstantial, with the smallest (generally northern and rural) ridings having less than 80,000 people (and as few as 30,000) and the largest (urban Ontario) ridings having 120,000 or more. Proportional representation would remove some of that power redistribution, which is great if you live in one of the big cities but doesn't do much of anything for national unity and already somewhat disenfranchised regional voters.

That said, the bulk of Canada's recent immigrants and voters from visible minorities live in the largest cities, so our current system is likely failing to give them sufficient voice, since their votes are worth less than people in rural areas. Even this is a double-edged sword, however, as I suspect the majority of aboriginal people (certainly those on reserves) tend to be in rural ridings. That said, one could argue that, despite decreasing the individual voting power of the average aboriginal person, proportional representation would remove the problem that arises from the fact that they are a minority of voters in almost every single riding. I guess what I'm saying is, that even if you're not concerned with how it changes the balance of power between political parties, electoral reform is really, really complicated and there are a lot of different factors to consider that neither you nor I have likely thought of. If it was really just about the party in power staying in power I'd think that the Liberals would want to ram through some sort of instant run-off ranked choice system, as that would likely strongly favour them, at least with things as they are now.

krev82 wrote:

so a Rabi in Ottawa finds a swastika and slur spray painted on their door...

and via Toronto acquaintances on Facebook a sign on a post on York st reads;

HEY,
WHITE PERSON

-Tired of Political correctness
-Wondering why only white countries have to become ‘multicultural’?
-Figured out that diversity only means ‘less white people’?
-Sick of being blamed for all the world’s problems?
-Tired of being told you’re a ‘racist’ for celebrating your heritage?
-Disgusted by the garbage on television?
-Don’t see a future for yourself or your family?
-Questioning when immigration will stop?

Join the Alt-Right

(followed by 9 radical right websites)

=======
So, as feared and expected, moving here may not help you much, seems it'll just delay when you have to face living under a totalitarian fascist.

I grew up on that street in Ottawa

I just assume 'Nah, not in Canada' but depending how the economy blows in the next several years you could see how unemployed/underemployed people could latch onto this as their scapegoat.

I'm not sure if a stronger social safety net even helps curb people falling into that logic. You can assume the more dire the situation the more boogiemen people invent in their minds. You might also assume the more spare time to sit around and research your boogiemen can lead you down some dark paths.

I appreciate your concerns about electoral change but we absolutely need to move to a system where the results of the 2011 and 2008 (and yes 2015 too) are not possible. You cannot given an absolute majority to a government that represent 37%-39% of the voting public.

The '11 and '08 elections are especially egregious because a parliamentary majority was secured by a right-wing party with < 40% of the vote where the remaining 60% of the electorate had voted for centre-left and left-wing parties (Liberals, NDP, Greens, Bloc are all on the progressive side of the spectrum) . It is ridiculous. I don't have the numbers to back it up but based on the shift between liberal and NDP votes, the main reason we had a change in government was wide-scale strategic voting. That always feels bad. You/We need a system that more readily supports voting for your values/conscience.

BushPilot wrote:

As it stands our current system already has some qualities that redistribute voting power through the country (not entirely unlike the electoral college in the US). Growing up on the prairies I witnessed a lot of unhappiness at the perceived disenfranchisement of prairie populations. Even if the region overwhelmingly votes for a particular party, if that party doesn't do well in the densely populated areas of Ontario and Québec, they won't form a government. I can't say that I don't sympathize. However, generally speaking, voters in rural areas actually get more bang for their buck, in that rural ridings tend to have far smaller populations than urban ridings, and thus a greater voting power per person. The population difference is susbstantial, with the smallest (generally northern and rural) ridings having less than 80,000 people (and as few as 30,000) and the largest (urban Ontario) ridings having 120,000 or more. Proportional representation would remove some of that power redistribution, which is great if you live in one of the big cities but doesn't do much of anything for national unity and already somewhat disenfranchised regional voters.

This is an underrated problem I haven't seen any party talk about. there are some regions that get it a lot worse than even the big urban centres (Parts of Southwestern Ontario in particular), The average MP in Ontario, BC, and Alberta represents three times the people that one from PEI or the territories.

Obviously the territories can't have fewer than one MP, and the senatorial clause means the maritime provinces can't have their number of MPs cut, but doing something incremental like doubling the number of MPs would go a long way to reducing that representation imbalance. I'd like to think having more MPs would make them a bit more independent from the party leader (more competition for cabinet seats would make them less likely a reward), which is my big concern about how Parliament operates.

I have to say I'm really disappointed PEI seems to be weaseling out of the results of their electoral reform plebiscite. If you hold a referendum/plebiscite you should be prepared to follow through on the change result and if turnout's important you should have set a minimum turnout at the outset. I haven't really followed things but it looks a lot like the UK government holding the Brexit referendum whose only reason was to placate a base, not to actually change things.

Tyops wrote:

I appreciate your concerns about electoral change but we absolutely need to move to a system where the results of the 2011 and 2008 (and yes 2015 too) are not possible. You cannot given an absolute majority to a government that represent 37%-39% of the voting public.

Yes, I hate our current system. It's what has led to parties getting a majority government where they can do whatever they want, completely unchecked and without compromise, based on less than 40% of the vote. It's what has also sometimes led to parties being ruling minority governments despite actually getting fewer votes than the official opposition. It's what leads to discussion about "strategic voting" every single election, rather than voting with your heart. It's what leads to people being told that because of a FPTP system, the vote for the party they believe in is a "wasted" vote in their constituency, and being encouraged to vote for their second-to-last choice instead of their first, again and again.

And for all the talk about how complicated a new system is, people clearly don't fully understand the one we have, either, especially with all the strategic voting talk. I can't tell me how many times I got into an argument with someone the most recent election who would say "I'm voting Liberal to keep Harper out" and no matter how many times I point out that the NDP and Conservatives are neck-and-neck in their riding, they never grasped it.

krev82 wrote:

so a Rabi in Ottawa finds a swastika and slur spray painted on their door...

and via Toronto acquaintances on Facebook a sign on a post on York st reads;

HEY,
WHITE PERSON

-Tired of Political correctness
-Wondering why only white countries have to become ‘multicultural’?
-Figured out that diversity only means ‘less white people’?
-Sick of being blamed for all the world’s problems?
-Tired of being told you’re a ‘racist’ for celebrating your heritage?
-Disgusted by the garbage on television?
-Don’t see a future for yourself or your family?
-Questioning when immigration will stop?

Join the Alt-Right

(followed by 9 radical right websites)

=======
So, as feared and expected, moving here may not help you much, seems it'll just delay when you have to face living under a totalitarian fascist.

This was in my neighborhood and there's been a great swell of people loudly and publicly saying how completely unacceptable this sh*t is. The councilor had city workers circulate to tear down the posters, and in the wake, we've seen a rise in community dialogues about about diversity, and some pro-diversity leafleting/postering.

So, I'm not Pollyanna about the whole thing (and as a dual US citizen, I'm still really really worried about the situation there), but I was heartened by the community response, both from officials and from the actual people in our neighborhood.

krev82 wrote:

So, as feared and expected, moving here may not help you much, seems it'll just delay when you have to face living under a totalitarian fascist.

It seems you guys are just lagging behind us by one administration. Harper was basically your version of W. The new guy is your Obama. So, your next PM will be...

iaintgotnopants wrote:
krev82 wrote:

So, as feared and expected, moving here may not help you much, seems it'll just delay when you have to face living under a totalitarian fascist.

It seems you guys are just lagging behind us by one administration. Harper was basically your version of W. The new guy is your Obama. So, your next PM will be...

Ugh, don't remind me. Kevin O'Leary (yes, the one from Shark Tank) keeps musing about running for leadership of the Conservative Party, so it is absolutely feasible that we end up with him as PM at the next election.

I already have coworkers eager to vote for O'Leary -_-

I don't think it makes sense to worry about a hypothetical Kevin O'Leary leadership run while Kellie Leitch is currently leading the race in fundraising with her only policy being "try to ape Trump." And her campaign chief is defending his involvement in it by saying his only job is to "run the trains on time." That appealing to a certain set of people is probably more of a feature than a bug.

I did end up buying a CPC membership to vote against her in the race. I wouldn't have done it if the US election hadn't went the way it did last week.

Roke wrote:

I don't think it makes sense to worry about a hypothetical Kevin O'Leary leadership run while Kellie Leitch is currently leading the race in fundraising with her only policy being "try to ape Trump." And her campaign chief is defending his involvement in it by saying his only job is to "run the trains on time." That appealing to a certain set of people is probably more of a feature than a bug.

I did end up buying a CPC membership to vote against her in the race. I wouldn't have done it if the US election hadn't went the way it did last week.

No, I agree, Leitch is a much more likely outcome than O'Leary, and probably just as destructive.

I mostly only mentioned it because the parallels between O'Leary and Trump are pretty numerous - a billionaire political outsider, talking about bringing business acumen to Parliament Hill, famous for his straight-talk that offends a lot of people.

He really is a kind of Canadian Trump: he's a little less inflammatory in his rhetoric - I've never heard bigotry or racism from him - and not as widely known.

Feegle wrote:
Roke wrote:

I don't think it makes sense to worry about a hypothetical Kevin O'Leary leadership run while Kellie Leitch is currently leading the race in fundraising with her only policy being "try to ape Trump." And her campaign chief is defending his involvement in it by saying his only job is to "run the trains on time." That appealing to a certain set of people is probably more of a feature than a bug.

I did end up buying a CPC membership to vote against her in the race. I wouldn't have done it if the US election hadn't went the way it did last week.

No, I agree, Leitch is a much more likely outcome than O'Leary, and probably just as destructive.

I mostly only mentioned it because the parallels between O'Leary and Trump are pretty numerous - a billionaire political outsider, talking about bringing business acumen to Parliament Hill, famous for his straight-talk that offends a lot of people.

He really is a kind of Canadian Trump: he's a little less inflammatory in his rhetoric - I've never heard bigotry or racism from him - and not as widely known.

That's kind of a big deal.

So--Don Cherry, then?

Feegle wrote:

I've never heard bigotry or racism from him

Well there was that time he called black women something rather nasty, and he also said 3.5 billion people living in poverty is 'fantastic news', among others.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

So--Don Cherry, then?

Don Cherry is a different kind of a-hole.

bah, the racist graffiti continues to appear in Ottawa :/
TW: contains racist slur and imagery: article

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