[Discussion] Canadian Politics Catch-All

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

Malor wrote:
Constituencies are diverse and hold a plurality of opinions

So, representative democracy is not possible?

Idealistically, yes. In reality, no probably not. That doesnt mean we shouldnt try, it's still the best we have, but we lie to ourselves about what it's really like.

The systems we have are attempts and approximations, some are better at addressing different ideals of representation than others. I think the idea that an MP can speak for their riding/consultants and claim they are doing their will is antiquated. If they listen to anyone it's an interest group, knitting circle, church group, or their pet lobbyist. They cannot do that and then claim they represent their constituents.

In some ways there is something more "honest" about MPs following the party line openly, and dissenting when something is clearly against their own conscience, rather than claiming they are doing the will of their constituents and then following the party line anyway.

I think the idea that an MP can speak for their riding/consultants and claim they are doing their will is antiquated.

That is just ludicrous. Remember the thing about majorities? What you're saying might be true if opinions were deeply split and irreconcilable, but that's not that common. You can usually work out a compromise that will be pleasing to a majority of your constituency.

It's not like most solutions are binary only, where you can please one group 100%, and all other groups 0%. That's just not how it works. Those situations may happen, but they're quite rare.

I mean, consider an MP that crafts three possible solutions to a given problem, and puts out a poll of his constituency. According to his poll, he's got about 65% support for Option B, with A and C both getting much less interest. How could you argue that he wasn't able to determine that Option B was acceptable, and how could you argue that pushing Option B in the legislature isn't doing the will of his district?

rather than claiming they are doing the will of their constituents and then following the party line anyway.

If his polling is telling her that her constituents don't like the party line, then she's definitely not representing them. But if they support it, she's doing their will. If it's the most popular option in her district, she's literally doing the best she can.

I find this idea of putting the party ahead of the desires of your voters to be a little bit terrifying. Why on earth does the party rate your allegiance, rather than the people who put you into office to serve their needs?

edit: they're both just groups of people. You're asserting on the one hand that you can't determine what a group of voters wants, but in the same breath you're asserting that you can determine the opinion of a group of politicians.

I'm not too clear on how you can have both those ideas at the same time.

Kevin O'Leary is seriously gearing up to announce his run for the CPC leadership.

“2019 is not an election, it is an exorcism,” O’Leary told approximately 30 Tory MPs who gathered to hear his thoughts at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier.
“He is a fine surfer dude. And this is an excellent adventure for him, but he is killing our country,” O’Leary said.
“It’s going to be war, it’s going to be ugly, you’re going to hear a lot of bad things,” O’Leary promised. “I have to know you have my back if we’re going to start this. That is what I’m asking for.”

I find it hard to believe that he has a chance to beat Trudeau in 2019 let alone win the CPC leadership race, but I was thinking the same thing about Trump last year.

Apparently if O'Leary's spent any money on staff or expensed meals and the like as far as Elections Canada is concerned he's in the race. Looking at the timeline if he does enter I'm guessing he'll do it after the French debate so he avoids making an ass out of himself there. Not sure that will help in Quebec anyway but he seems bent on punting it anyway.

Unfortunately, the success of Trump has brought out some of the more odious portions of the Conservative Party of Canada. This is the party that, in the last election, felt that it was appropriate to float the idea of a tip line to report un-Canadian cultural practices. I am not looking forward at all to the tone of the next election (as well as the pot shots at all non-conservatives) should O'Leary or the other ultra-conservative contender (Leach?) should either of them win the leadership.

I hope that Trump will have done enough damage by the next election (no offence, Yanks, but it seems ineluctable), combined with the strong Canadian value of being "not American", that emulating him will be anathema to any serious federal party.

Roke wrote:

Apparently if O'Leary's spent any money on staff or expensed meals and the like as far as Elections Canada is concerned he's in the race. Looking at the timeline if he does enter I'm guessing he'll do it after the French debate so he avoids making an ass out of himself there. Not sure that will help in Quebec anyway but he seems bent on punting it anyway.

I have no idea if he actually speaks French, but he did grow up in Montreal. Hard to imagine that he's not at least competent in French.

Edit after a quick Google. How do you grow up in Montreal and not become at least competent in French?

Quite easily. Montreal has a huge unilingual english population, much to the chagrin of separatists.

mudbunny wrote:

Quite easily. Montreal has a huge unilingual english population, much to the chagrin of separatists.

Especially if you are wealthy, which always feeds the populist narrative of the separatist movement.

mudbunny wrote:

Unfortunately, the success of Trump has brought out some of the more odious portions of the Conservative Party of Canada.

It's actually both disconcerting and extremely telling that a lot of the people who constantly maintained that they were moderate conservatives suddenly dropped the façade as soon as they felt that it wasn't political suicide to do so. Like the day after Trump got in, the Toronto Sun changed from being skeptical of him to praising his win, promoting Kellie Leitch, and whining about the media "elites", and The Rebel started copying tactics straight from Breitbart.

So I guess OI'Leary is actually running, he spent money on a website and everything (and Bell's removed him from their BNN and CTV shows). How naive am I in thinking he probably wouldn't run?

The Liberals seem to have lost control of their fundraising apparatus with third-parties organizing events for the Liberal ministers are asking for contributions well over the contribution limit. I'm impressed at how little time in office it's taken the Liberals to go back to being the Liberals.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...

But I guess the government's exceeded my expectations so far. I had not expected much more than the child benefit and the census but the pipeline decisions and national carbon pricing (even though that looks like a quagmire involving the provinces) are good policy too. It's too bad they have been shamefully slow in other stuff like fixing Bill C-51.

So I guess O'Leary is running and I was completely wrong about that. One of his Dragon's Den colleagues had a pretty devestating interview about his candidacy.:

I'm still much, much more worried about Kellie Leitch. She has support within the party, a very good campaign manager (who doesn't have any scruples), has been one of the front runners in the campaign and has been in the race for a while. Leadership races in Canada are generally about getting as many people as you can to buy party memberships and I think she has the campaign staff and fundraising to drive that.

Other than that and the Alberta carbon tax not bringing about the apocalypse (other than bad businesses using it to defraud customers) things seem pretty quiet. Oh, there was that cabinet shuffle too.

Roke wrote:

I'm still much, much more worried about Kellie Leitch. She has support within the party, a very good campaign manager (who doesn't have any scruples), has been one of the front runners in the campaign and has been in the race for a while. Leadership races in Canada are generally about getting as many people as you can to buy party memberships and I think she has the campaign staff and fundraising to drive that.

I heard her on The House a couple of weekends ago, and she was really good at not answering questions, but instead saying what she wanted to say. That part of politics... just... INFURIATES me. Answer the goddamn question. When a host asks you, "If generosity is a 'Canadian Value,' how do you screen for that?" and you just go back to talking about how every candidate should have a face to face interview with an immigration officer, over and over and over again, you just sound like you're unprepared. Unfortunately, it seems like I'm in the minority over that mindset, since literally every high-profile politician I've seen interviewed in the past five years does exactly the same thing.

I hope that I'm right in thinking that large urban centres won't vote for a Leitch-led Tory party, but I fear that I am not.

I think we all know that almost anything is on the plate now! It is a scary, scary time

Politics, eh?

Tagging in.

Canadian Values™ brought to you by the CBC:

There's so much about the CBC I dislike. "Telling both sides" in much of their science journalism, giving prime airtime to Rogers in exchange for absolutely nothing, the completely unfunny CBC Comedy. There's just so much nonsense going on there.

Worst of all, they created and coddled Don Cherry, Jian Ghomeshi, and Kevin O'Leary as media figures.

I like the idea of the CBC but at present it's incredibly frustrating to me. This isn't a matter of it being underfunded, it's the organization lacking in principles or direction.

All that said, Rosemary Barton should be a national treasure. Next election I want her sitting down for live one-on-one interviews with each of the party leaders Paxman style (but without the utter contempt).

This is the Prime Minister at his best. Bloody hell:

I've been kind of cynical about this tour and he's said a few dumb things during it but going out and answering questions from people who are happy and other people who are upset seems like a good thing to me. It would be nice if this became an annual thing in January for all Prime Ministers.

Roke wrote:

This is the Prime Minister at his best. Bloody hell:

I've been kind of cynical about this tour and he's said a few dumb things during it but going out and answering questions from people who are happy and other people who are upset seems like a good thing to me. It would be nice if this became an annual thing in January for all Prime Ministers.

It certainly is a stark contrast to our last Prime Minister, who hid from all questions that might be even slightly uncomfortable. Unfortunately for Prime Minister Trudeau, controlling the message is a very powerful political tactic, and not controlling the message is... not.

Given the questions and response from people in the audience he is getting, it is a really good idea of what he is doing.

One of the traditional attacks of opposition parties against the ruling party is how they are in Ottawa, not listening to the people out in "real Canada". This series of town halls really, really cuts this out from the opposition playbook and, in fact, provides an opportunity of attack for the liberals. "We sent our leader out across Canada. What did your leader do?"

Attn: nearest other national leader. You can build a strong economy and protect the environment at the same time.

Not sure if this is the right thread for it, but has anyone come across a good list of organizations to donate to and support in the wake of the mosque attack?

You can also contribute directly through the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec:

https://www.canadahelps.org/dn/8609

Edit: The emergency debate in Parliament on the US travel ban is going on right now. Jenny Kwan with a good speech to kick things off.

The Liberal's benches look empty and the Parliamentary Secretary responding to the speech is basically "we're governing by hashtag."

Edit2: This "debate" was a trainwreck. Generally just a bunch of people making individual speeches most of which have absolutely nothing to do with refugee travel, or even the US travel ban. Other than a few NDP MPs (Jenny Kwan, Mulcair, and Rachel Blaney) and one younger CPC backbencher staying on point it was a bunch of meandering bullsh*t.

Michelle Rempel's speech was particularly bad and meandering, completely undermining the few good points she had.

I can't take anymore of this. What a waste of time.

I'd like to know, for one, whether our domestic security agencies and police forces are spending as much time investigating white nationalist hate groups and extremists as they do Muslim extremists. I doubt this is the case, and at this point such a shift is entirely justified.

The Liberals are abandoning their electoral reform promise, which means there won't be another cabinet minister hung out to dry on that by Trudeau

Dysplastic wrote:

I'd like to know, for one, whether our domestic security agencies and police forces are spending as much time investigating white nationalist hate groups and extremists as they do Muslim extremists. I doubt this is the case, and at this point such a shift is entirely justified.

They don't.

Roke wrote:

The Liberals are abandoning their electoral reform promise, which means there won't be another cabinet minister hung out to dry on that by Trudeau.

Wish I could say this is surprising. The writing was on the wall. It was clear that liberals wanted the ranked ballot. No one else did... so they scrapped it.

Roke wrote:

They don't.

Thanks for the link. Not surprised at all. I get what Fadden is saying, but I think it's pretty clear that that mentality has to change. In the Trump era, I think we have to at least consider the likelyhood that these far-right groups are going to be more prone to violence than had been previously considered. Good intelligence analysis means revisiting your assumptions from time to time.

If you spend 90% of your time investigating Muslim extremists, 90% of the reporting will say that Muslim extremists are scary and do scary things, so you get blinded into a mentality that makes you think that they're obviously the biggest threat - because that's all you're hearing about - because that's what you've tasked your staff to look at. It's a vicious cycle that needs to be checked from time to time, ideally before these events happen, not necessarily after.

I'm also not convinced that lone wolf attacks are impossible to stop. They're tough sure, and resources are limited in terms of investigating every person. But the Facebook groups are there, and warrants are available to investigate some of these people - or infiltrate the groups themselves.

There's a CPC leadership debate in Halifax tonight at 6pm EST. I'm curious to see how O'Leary does tonight.

Trudeau and Trump to meet Monday in Washington

Well this could be interesting. Trudeau internationally is being cast as the anti-trump. I'm not so good on the physics of that interaction though... I think they either negate eachother or there is an explosion?