As an aside, I thought it was interesting that Ivison says theres some talk that Bill Morneau wont seek re-election because he isnt enjoying politics.
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Canadian PoliGAF - 42nd Parliament: Sunny Ways in Trudeaupia
- Thread starter matthewwhatever
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As someone who watched his performance in question period, I can wholeheartedly say... no, Mulcair did not perform well. At all.
And political discussion in the news media centres ENTIRELY around what happens in question period when it's in session and what is reported gives Canadians a glimpse into where things stand with the national parties. There's ways of turning that around, but they aren't easy, and I don't believe Scheer and his one-note song are really capable of doing that.
I think your earlier post about Scheer's lack of response to Beyak and the "Climate Barbie" comment are going to be just the beginning of something that will hugely alienate the wing of the party that doesn't stand for social conservative politics, since silencing the non-progressive wing of the party is what got the CPC the win in several elections, and a large number of the progressive wing voted for Bernier over Scheer. Alienate them by regressing the party to pre-Harper era behaviour, and they're going to end up with pre-Harper level support. And they wouldn't survive being the Reform Party again, even if it has a blue tint on it. If Scheer isn't careful, he could cause yet another splintering of the conservative vote by having a chunk of their support walk off to fund another party.
And wouldn't 2 different right wing national parties and 3 left wing national parties be something... might mean that we could return to voting on our principles without cries about "splitting the vote" coming from the left only.
Why would he control regressive elements of the party when he is the CPC regressive's elected champion?
Not even surprised she's bailing on the CPC, especially when there's a provincial vacancy.
And Scheer being unprepared isn't so wild of a story that it needed to be behind a paywall, it's on display for the world to see.
Silent Chief
Member
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister declared
"There is no room here for class warfare. The communications department in Ottawa have chosen to use language like 'loopholes, tax evasion' recriminatory and accusation language that has no place in this discussion," Pallister said.
"These proposed changes will take millions of dollars out of the hands of Manitobans and deliver them straight to Ottawa."
Actually, I'm pretty sure they have chosen not to use that type of language.
The message has been about fairness and equity.
Also, I doubt it's affecting Manitobans more than others.
Let's just face it, every dollars spent on federal taxes goes straight to Ottawa before it's spent back in the provinces. Hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on a centralized pay system, a lot of it going to foreign consortium, seems like a bigger issue to me.
I have a cousin who is a dentist. He just bought a 6th car and now he's conflicted about where he should park it since his garage can only hold 3. The last thing he needs is to pay more taxes.
"There is no room here for class warfare. The communications department in Ottawa have chosen to use language like 'loopholes, tax evasion' recriminatory and accusation language that has no place in this discussion," Pallister said.
"These proposed changes will take millions of dollars out of the hands of Manitobans and deliver them straight to Ottawa."
Actually, I'm pretty sure they have chosen not to use that type of language.
The message has been about fairness and equity.
Also, I doubt it's affecting Manitobans more than others.
Let's just face it, every dollars spent on federal taxes goes straight to Ottawa before it's spent back in the provinces. Hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on a centralized pay system, a lot of it going to foreign consortium, seems like a bigger issue to me.
I have a cousin who is a dentist. He just bought a 6th car and now he's conflicted about where he should park it since his garage can only hold 3. The last thing he needs is to pay more taxes.
dragonfart28
Banned
It's National Post.
They'll take an uncertainty and turn it into a Conservative talking point.
Ivison isnt a shill, and the article in question argues that the policy ground on this ultimately favours the Liberals.
matthewwhatever
Member
I know a few Conservatives who claim that the reason Poilievre was chosen as Finance Critic was entirely because they think he can get under Morneau's skin enough to make him sick of politics. They're all fairly junior people, so it's probably -- hopefully -- not the actual reason, but the idea that Morneau isn't enjoying himself is definitely already taken as gospel by a good number of CPCers.
1) If you're going to claim that Mulcair performed badly in QP, you're going to need to back that up with evidence. The universal consensus, at least when he was Leader of the Opposition, is that he excelled at the job. Here's an article from CBC raving about him in QP. Here's an article calling him Canada's "Prosecutor-in-Chief. Here's another one talking about how great he was in QP. Here's an op-ed that describes his work in QP as "spellbinding. Here's Brian Mulroney calling him Canada's best Opposition Leader in 50 years. I loathed Mulcair even more than I did Harper, but even I know that he was pretty stellar in QP. There's a reason why he was able to claim on multiple occasions that he was going to wipe the floor with Trudeau in the election debates, and no one batted an eye. If you're going to argue otherwise, I want some proof.
2) I'm well aware of how Question Period works, thanks. Are you aware that just because the media covers it extensively (in no small part because it fits in perfectly with their preferred brand of horse-race coverage), it doesn't mean the broader population cares that much about what goes on there? The number of people who actively pay attention to the daily activities is tiny, and the broader narratives that emerge do so because of what happens in the broader world, not just for what goes on for those 45 minutes between 2:15 and 3 pm (11:15 to noon on Fridays) in the House.
3) There's no more "progressive" wing of the Conservative Party. If the CPC rank and file abandon Scheer it'll be because they realize he has no chance of winning the next election, not because of his social conservatism. The fantasy of the the CPC splitting in two is just that: fantasy. The nature of conservatism has changed from where it was 15 years ago, and it's become a much more monolithic bloc. This is the case in the US, and it's the case here as well. Party supporters have shown they'll stick with the party no matter what, which is how the CPC could only lose something like 70k votes between 2011 and 2015. Their supporters are going to come out for them almost no matter what, and they'll only lose as long as non-Conservative voters keep turning out in larger numbers. Stories like those about Beyak and Ritz look terrible to those of us who aren't CPC supporters, but to those voters, those stories are just examples of "fake news."
Yeah, this is definitely the case, driven in no small part by the shrinking of the overall conservative base. The merger of the PCs and the Canadian Alliance led to a not-significant portion of the former PC base moving more toward the Liberals (the effect of this is most pronounced in Atlantic Canada, a formerly very PC-friendly region that didn't overwhelmingly embrace the new party even at the apex of Harper's electoral success in 2011).
Trudeau's Popularity Dropping As Conservatives Surge In Poll
The last thing we need is another conservative government in charge.
The last thing we need is another conservative government in charge.
Impeccable
Member
What a shitty fucking source.
https://globalnews.ca/news/3765696/...d-of-trudeaus-liberals-but-can-we-believe-it/
Plenty of news sources are reporting this.
Impeccable
Member
Thanks for the link.
Earthstrike
Member
I can't make heads or tails of canadian politics. In america, the relationships can often be quite clear. Tape drops of trump saying grab em by the pussy, repubs fall. Comey reopens investigation, libs fall. Trump fails to pass healthcare reform, repubs get hit, yadda yadda yadda.
What is the origin of this conservative resurgence. My only guess would be people upset that the legalization of weed isn't what they thought it would be?
Forum is probably wrong about this. The liberals are likely still leading by 7+ points.
The only way the Conservatives can win in 2019 is if they weaken the liberals significantly in Ontario and/or they win all of the seats in the western provinces which is impossible. The liberals are guaranteed to win at least 150 seats right now looking at where they are polling in Quebec, Atlantic Canada and Ontario right now.
The only way the Conservatives can win in 2019 is if they weaken the liberals significantly in Ontario and/or they win all of the seats in the western provinces which is impossible. The liberals are guaranteed to win at least 150 seats right now looking at where they are polling in Quebec, Atlantic Canada and Ontario right now.
KernelPanic
Member
Wonder if all the negative troll shitposting about Trudeau is having any effect.
I follow JT on Twitter and looking at any of his replies it's basically all Trump suppporters posting Omar Khadr memes etc.
I follow JT on Twitter and looking at any of his replies it's basically all Trump suppporters posting Omar Khadr memes etc.
I see the ableg hashtag on twitter also being constantly flooded by anti-trudeau twitter posters crying about his immigration stance and other things.
matthewwhatever
Member
Well...
So either Forum has overcome their long, loooong track record of being terrible, or every other pollster in the country is somehow missing out on a massive surge to the Conservatives.
The fact that this poll a) has the CPC leading among 18-34 year olds and b) only down by 7 among women voters should be a hint that it's probably garbage.
And if it's not? I'll point you to the first link from the previous paragraph, where Forum were predicting an NDP majority a month and a half our from the election. It's two years until the next election. That's a very long time.
So I don't really pop into this thread so i don't know if it's been posted or if theparty is a topic of conversation right now but this is a link to an interview with Guy Caron which has bumped him up to 1st on my ballot. There are links to interviews with Niki Ashton and Peter Julien as well. Jagmeet Singh and Charlie Angus haven't done ones yet.
Just thought this was incredibly enlightening:
http://www.socialist.ca/node/3419
Just thought this was incredibly enlightening:
http://www.socialist.ca/node/3419
They announced/shuffled a few parliamentary secretaries the other week (rather belatedly, since Ginette Petitpas Taylor being promoted to cabinet left the Finance Minister without one for almost a month), and Bill Blair is now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health in addition to being the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. Quite the workload.
matthewwhatever
Member
1) Is anyone else following the Status of Women Committee mess?
On the one hand, I'm a little sympathetic to the argument that, as a opposition-controlled committee, the government shouldn't be trying to dictate who chairs it, even if she is an anti-choice nut. But on the other, I see CPC shills trying to spin it as a "You should be tolerant of our intolerance!" situation, and I quickly lose patience for whatever larger point there is to be made there.
2) It's probably unintentional, but iPolitics didn't put their latest Mainstreet Poll of the NDP leadership race behind a paywall, even though it drills down into 2nd choice ballots and demographic breakdowns. Singh is still ahead (33-26 over Angus, with Ashton at 15.5 and Caron at 12), and even more ahead among decided/leaning members (38-29), but his 2nd choice support is still pretty bad (Angus leads Singh 24-16 among all voters, and Singh falls to last when you only count decided voters). If you just count decideds, then I think Singh is most likely to squeak over the finish line before Angus does, but it's going to be close - and it can't be good for him that even though he's still winning when it comes to fundraising, his momentum has slowed with his max donors all tapped out.
They're clearly expecting pot to dominate this session, so it makes sense from that perspective -- one PS to answer all the questions, rather than trying to figure out where the line goes -- but like you said, it's a pretty heavy workload.
On the one hand, I'm a little sympathetic to the argument that, as a opposition-controlled committee, the government shouldn't be trying to dictate who chairs it, even if she is an anti-choice nut. But on the other, I see CPC shills trying to spin it as a "You should be tolerant of our intolerance!" situation, and I quickly lose patience for whatever larger point there is to be made there.
2) It's probably unintentional, but iPolitics didn't put their latest Mainstreet Poll of the NDP leadership race behind a paywall, even though it drills down into 2nd choice ballots and demographic breakdowns. Singh is still ahead (33-26 over Angus, with Ashton at 15.5 and Caron at 12), and even more ahead among decided/leaning members (38-29), but his 2nd choice support is still pretty bad (Angus leads Singh 24-16 among all voters, and Singh falls to last when you only count decided voters). If you just count decideds, then I think Singh is most likely to squeak over the finish line before Angus does, but it's going to be close - and it can't be good for him that even though he's still winning when it comes to fundraising, his momentum has slowed with his max donors all tapped out.
They're clearly expecting pot to dominate this session, so it makes sense from that perspective -- one PS to answer all the questions, rather than trying to figure out where the line goes -- but like you said, it's a pretty heavy workload.
Did they honestly expect an anti-choice candidate to go over well? The committee exists to further the status of women in Canadian society i.e. examining government policy and how it impacts women, investigating violence, abuse of women and identifying factors that contribute to their occurrence, not to reduce their bodily autonomy like Harder plans to. Also, Scheer continues to showcase how much of a weasel he is with his response.
cryptosporidium
Member
Went to lunch yesterday with someone whose an insider on BC provincial politics as well as the conservative party federally.
We talked about how the fuck scheer got in and how ambrose was thing. Essentially he told me was that there are two main lobbies within the cons, both are incredibly powerful and sound and make other lobbies look like chumps. One of these lobbies a christian conservative white men who got scheer in which got me to ask about ambrose.
He told me it didnt matter who she was as a person, they used her as window dressing for the party. He told me that this is not a pro women lobby, they merely use them to achieve their means.
thought it was interesting
We talked about how the fuck scheer got in and how ambrose was thing. Essentially he told me was that there are two main lobbies within the cons, both are incredibly powerful and sound and make other lobbies look like chumps. One of these lobbies a christian conservative white men who got scheer in which got me to ask about ambrose.
He told me it didnt matter who she was as a person, they used her as window dressing for the party. He told me that this is not a pro women lobby, they merely use them to achieve their means.
thought it was interesting
That does not shock me at all.
cryptosporidium
Member
Which makes me sad because Ive seen various conservative women who really look up to ambrose who from what i recall was well educated and had a degree in gender studies. Itll be a shame if they go into the party and tow the line only to find out the PCs are dead.
Conservative women really only have the Greens but the Greens have awful image control since people equate environmentalism with 'leftism'
How about all the times he threw shade at the speaker for not being "neutral" because he wasn't directing a Conservative MP into giving him an answer he wanted, when he should know that it's (unfortunately) not the speaker's job to moderate the quality of responses to questions in QP unless they contain unparliamentary behaviour (which question-dodging CLEARLY doesn't fall into), which prompted Andrew Scheer to issue a statement the next day about the function of his job at length and called for MPs to demand better from each other instead of from him? And then doing so again outside of QP regarding their Parliament Hill mail-out scandal? Or even recently, when he was caught cackling like a goon at the sight of the chaos of "elbowgate"?
I dislike Scheer as much as the next guy, but he had a point. If the Speaker's chair isn't handling things the way Mulcair liked, they'll have to take a vote to amend the Constitution Act or some other parliamentary procedure in the hope of forever altering Standing Orders, but the standard practice if an answer is unsatisfactory is to pursue the matter during adjournment. And he should have known that. But Mulcair is commonly known for whipping up Tory and/or Liberal conspiracy theory, so...
That doesn't really sound like a man who even understands parliamentary procedure, let alone exercise the proper decorum. And it doesn't exactly speak to his ability to work appropriately in the house when he's whining about how the speaker is being such a meanie for not standing up for him.
The time in QP shapes the way that Canadians view politicians. They'll see 30-second QP snippets on the news every day and make a judgment call, and Mulcair wasn't exactly presenting in a stellar way in that regard.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people were paying attention to QP when Harjit Sajjan got raked over the coals over his apology that isn't an apology. That's something that carries with voters.
So where did they go? Progressive conservatives, which have existed for a VERY long time, aren't going to or don't want to vote red, orange or green on principle alone unless they're given no choice. It's not like a large block of voters just vanish. And more to the point: if they don't exist, why did Harper break his back trying to moderate the party message? Why would he do that for conservative voters that apparently don't exist?
Greens definitely need a re-brand. Like, it's fun being part of a technically-global political party, but if it only hurts your message, maybe it's not the right brand for you...?
I like the Greens as a purely fiscal-conservative party, but the image hangs on everything they do, so it's time to give up that ghost.
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With the NDP leadership race closing up its first ballot soon, here's some barely-dogwhistle racism disguised as concern for temporary memberships during leadership races poisoning the vote!!
https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/09/27/Instant-Memberships-Undermining-Leadership/
It's like our own little voter-fraud boogeyman. How dare ethnic people steal the vote from our rightful leader! And it's purely coincidence that he brings this up when a visible minority is running for the leadership of the party he is a part of, surely! /s
I did say its barely-dogwhistle since he stopped just shy of saying the party is ruined because of all the brown people who support it now.
But the issue of membership surges that arent sustained comes along whenever theres a leadership race, and we had 2 this year. I only posted about it because of how particular this individual was in how he framed it as being a weapon for minorities to wield against the party faithful.
matthewwhatever
Member
While I think there are certainly questionable elements to what he's saying, his overall point isn't wrong.
It's a statement of fact that leadership contests (and nomination contests, for that matter) are lacking in outside oversight. Personally, I don't think this is a big problem, since I think parties should be allowed to operate however they see fit within our financing rules, but I understand where people are coming from on the other side.
It's a statement of fact that people are allowed to donate to political parties without being Canadian citizens, since permanent residents are allowed to donate. It's entirely within bounds to be asked why, if we restrict the right to vote to citizens, are non-citizens are allowed to donate. (Admittedly, seeing as permanent residents are allowed to access social benefits, you could probably just as easily question why they can't vote, but that's enother matter entirely.)
It's a statement of fact that Singh's donations are highly concentrated in the Toronto suburbs. Whether that means he's getting money from non-Canadian sources is another matter entirely -- though, to be clear, even if he is, it's perfectly legal and above-board.
It's a statement of fact that there's also a long history in Canada of mobilizing ethnic groups as leadership voting blocs. I'm reading a book right now about political conventions in this country, and both the 1983 PC and 1984 LPC conventions featured allegations of busloads of ethnic members being used to sway certain ridings. It's not even a thing of the distant past, either: there was an LPC leadership candidate in the race to replace Martin who was accused of buying up memberships in the Italian community (I want to say it was Joe Volpe, but I could be wrong), and I know that a CPC candidate in the 2015 election won his nomination over the party's preferred candidate by mobilizing the members of his Chinese Christian church. It's not exclusively an ethnic thing (Mulroney won back in the '80s by going to a mission and signing up a busload of homeless people), but it's more obvious when you're talking about ethnic voting blocs. Again, though, Singh would be stupid *not* to take advantage of the fact he's got an in with Canada's Sikh political network. I think the only reason it's more noticeable in the NDP race than it was is in other leadership races is that it's entirely plausible that Singh could win the race primarily because he was able to mobilize a single ethnic bloc.
Of course, if NDPers are upset about that, they only have themselves to blame. They picked a leadership contest system that rewarded whoever could sign up the most members, and that didn't incentivize candidates to go beyond their comfort zones. If they wanted candidates who would organize across Canada, they should've come up with a system that did that, rather than going with one member-one vote.
RE: Mulcair, this sounds like a bunch of post-hoc rationalization to me. If you're going to argue that Mulcair was a terrible Leader of the Opposition, go right ahead, but recognize that this wasn't the general belief at the time. I shared a bunch of links showing that people thought he was a strong House performer; you're welcome to show evidence to the contrary, but I don't think it exists. I mean, I loathed the man, and even I can admit that his skills were well-suited to QP.
(As a sidenote, it's interesting to note that if Singh wins, the NDP will have traded in one snarky, thin-skinned lawyer with a penchant for dismissing Trudeau in interviews with another snarky, thin-skinned lawyer with a penchant for dismissing Trudeau in interviews . It's a weird type to get stuck on, but, hey, I'm not an NDP voter.)
RE: Conservative voters, you're looking at things through an outdated point of view. Like Sean said, a fair number Red Tories (mainly in the Maritimes) went to the Liberals. The rest just swallowed their moderation and went along with the shift to the right -- not in the same sort of extreme way that we've seen in the US, where the median right-wing voter is much, much more right-wing than they were 15 or 20 years, but they're still more right-wing than they used to be. If you look at the elections between 2006 and 2015, the number of CPC votes didn't move around that much -- all their totals were withiin a 600k band, and their percentages only changed because of voter turnout.
It's a statement of fact that leadership contests (and nomination contests, for that matter) are lacking in outside oversight. Personally, I don't think this is a big problem, since I think parties should be allowed to operate however they see fit within our financing rules, but I understand where people are coming from on the other side.
It's a statement of fact that people are allowed to donate to political parties without being Canadian citizens, since permanent residents are allowed to donate. It's entirely within bounds to be asked why, if we restrict the right to vote to citizens, are non-citizens are allowed to donate. (Admittedly, seeing as permanent residents are allowed to access social benefits, you could probably just as easily question why they can't vote, but that's enother matter entirely.)
It's a statement of fact that Singh's donations are highly concentrated in the Toronto suburbs. Whether that means he's getting money from non-Canadian sources is another matter entirely -- though, to be clear, even if he is, it's perfectly legal and above-board.
It's a statement of fact that there's also a long history in Canada of mobilizing ethnic groups as leadership voting blocs. I'm reading a book right now about political conventions in this country, and both the 1983 PC and 1984 LPC conventions featured allegations of busloads of ethnic members being used to sway certain ridings. It's not even a thing of the distant past, either: there was an LPC leadership candidate in the race to replace Martin who was accused of buying up memberships in the Italian community (I want to say it was Joe Volpe, but I could be wrong), and I know that a CPC candidate in the 2015 election won his nomination over the party's preferred candidate by mobilizing the members of his Chinese Christian church. It's not exclusively an ethnic thing (Mulroney won back in the '80s by going to a mission and signing up a busload of homeless people), but it's more obvious when you're talking about ethnic voting blocs. Again, though, Singh would be stupid *not* to take advantage of the fact he's got an in with Canada's Sikh political network. I think the only reason it's more noticeable in the NDP race than it was is in other leadership races is that it's entirely plausible that Singh could win the race primarily because he was able to mobilize a single ethnic bloc.
Of course, if NDPers are upset about that, they only have themselves to blame. They picked a leadership contest system that rewarded whoever could sign up the most members, and that didn't incentivize candidates to go beyond their comfort zones. If they wanted candidates who would organize across Canada, they should've come up with a system that did that, rather than going with one member-one vote.
RE: Mulcair, this sounds like a bunch of post-hoc rationalization to me. If you're going to argue that Mulcair was a terrible Leader of the Opposition, go right ahead, but recognize that this wasn't the general belief at the time. I shared a bunch of links showing that people thought he was a strong House performer; you're welcome to show evidence to the contrary, but I don't think it exists. I mean, I loathed the man, and even I can admit that his skills were well-suited to QP.
(As a sidenote, it's interesting to note that if Singh wins, the NDP will have traded in one snarky, thin-skinned lawyer with a penchant for dismissing Trudeau in interviews with another snarky, thin-skinned lawyer with a penchant for dismissing Trudeau in interviews . It's a weird type to get stuck on, but, hey, I'm not an NDP voter.)
RE: Conservative voters, you're looking at things through an outdated point of view. Like Sean said, a fair number Red Tories (mainly in the Maritimes) went to the Liberals. The rest just swallowed their moderation and went along with the shift to the right -- not in the same sort of extreme way that we've seen in the US, where the median right-wing voter is much, much more right-wing than they were 15 or 20 years, but they're still more right-wing than they used to be. If you look at the elections between 2006 and 2015, the number of CPC votes didn't move around that much -- all their totals were withiin a 600k band, and their percentages only changed because of voter turnout.
It damn well wasn't for his own party if he was even half as intelligent as he always claimed to be. It's not like all PC cons are so died in the wool blue voters they wouldn't look elsewhere for a vote. Any moderating was to appeal to disaffected Liberals and undecideds. Others, clearly didn't care enough to leave and went with it, like MacKay. If you're in power, who cares if the crazies are getting louder, at least it's not The Other
Terrell I think you're a bit of an outlier in believing that Mulcair underperformed in parliament. There has been a media consensus for a long time now that Mulcair has been one of the best opposition leaders perhaps ever. The latest article on him states:
I think it's fair to say that during his time as official opposition Mulcair excelled and did a great deal of the heavy lifting in gradually moving Canadian opinion toward the notion that it was time for a change in government, but unfortunately for him he failed becoming the agent of that change due to a middling election campaign.
Arguably Mulcair's problem was that he was too good in parliament and spent too much time there. I noticed in Nathan Cullen's comments about endorsing Singh, he said that he felt that a mistake of the last election was that the party MPs had spent too much time in parliament and not enough time talking with Canadians. It could be advantageous to Singh to wait until 2019 and spend all that time out of parliament, talking to Canadians.
Regarding Singh's membership signups I think it's an error to assume his support is tied to specific ethnic groups. This idea ignores for example the fact that Singh also has a large amount of endorsements from sitting NDP MPs. Singh has done well in getting memberships from the GTA, but he's also leading in Quebec.
I think it's fair to say that during his time as official opposition Mulcair excelled and did a great deal of the heavy lifting in gradually moving Canadian opinion toward the notion that it was time for a change in government, but unfortunately for him he failed becoming the agent of that change due to a middling election campaign.
Arguably Mulcair's problem was that he was too good in parliament and spent too much time there. I noticed in Nathan Cullen's comments about endorsing Singh, he said that he felt that a mistake of the last election was that the party MPs had spent too much time in parliament and not enough time talking with Canadians. It could be advantageous to Singh to wait until 2019 and spend all that time out of parliament, talking to Canadians.
Regarding Singh's membership signups I think it's an error to assume his support is tied to specific ethnic groups. This idea ignores for example the fact that Singh also has a large amount of endorsements from sitting NDP MPs. Singh has done well in getting memberships from the GTA, but he's also leading in Quebec.
It's also a statement of fact that this isn't just an ethnic problem by a long shot or that they're the solitary group that can be incentivized to try and alter a party's choice of leader. There's been talk of Americans in Canada without citizenship bolstering the CPC fundraising, especially the rich ones who feel they can bring Canada more in line with American political values through the CPC, but not a lot of ink gets put to page about it. You can see that in action, though, with how the candidate that best mimicked the American style of politics, Kellie Lietch, was 2nd in fundraising in the party. (Source: http://regina.ctvnews.ca/sask-mp-an...g-among-tory-leadership-candidiates-1.3264829 )
Despite that, the CPC tried to curb this problem themselves by limiting membership payments to credit card or personal cheque only and increasing the membership fee by $10. (source: http://nationalpost.com/news/politi...-with-100000-entrance-fee-and-5m-spending-cap )
In the end, though, fundraising wasn't everything; Scheer won by being able to scoop up a lot of 2nd-choice votes from the candidates that were eliminated.
Well, here's the incident I discussed, where Scheer as Speaker castigated Mulcair for bordering on breach of privilege, as well as the incidents themselves: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/spe...mulcair-and-others-over-bias-claims-1.2776864
http://ottawacitizen.com/storyline/...-then-gets-cut-off-from-asking-more-questions
Here's an incident where he got himself involved in a disagreement with the NDP house leader, resulting in a story with 2 sides where both were unparliamentary: http://nationalpost.com/news/canada...air-mps-nearly-come-to-blows-over-budget-bill
Make no mistake, by comparison to some of his contemporaries, he is a stellar performer, but being good by comparison doesn't make something objectively good, just less terrible. The list of MPs that I would laud for their performance in QP is exceptionally short, but when you're the leader of a party, it makes your performance all the more disappointing.
The fact is that Mulcair talks big about decorum up, down, left and right to appeal to Canadians when it's time to vote but can't practice what he preaches, calling the current PM someone that could be replaced by a cardboard cutout and that his MPs wouldn't notice the difference, on top of other examples. The House had become more partisan than at any other time in the nation's history under Mulcair's time as opposition and leader of the NDP, and that's saying something. So all the political pundits saying he does a good job doesn't do much when Canadians are looking on and see someone who promises better behaviour engaging in the same-old-same-old. None of the party leaders truly benefit from that, but Mulcair especially had a lot to prove.
To note, I would happily sign off on changing the Standing Orders to permit arbitration of relevance to answers in QP like we have seen in other countries, but Mulcair decided against pushing for the change he wanted, thereby deciding against working to hold the government to account like his mandate as opposition leader suggested in the hope that he could later question-dodge when he formed government, which he saw as something possible at the time. I guess he was more concerned about putting points up on the non-existent scoreboard.
To quote Janelle Monae (since I don't know the source she quoted from): a question lives forever until it gets the answer it deserves. Perhaps political engagement wouldn't be declining in Canada if we had a House that believed that.
Since you like citations, I'm gonna need some on this. Especially when the leadership race showed him taking the least amount of potshots at the government than any of the other candidates. I'd also like to know how he's "thin-skinned" exactly.
If you live in Saskatchewan, it's not an outdated model at all, and a lot of Conservative MPs come from this province. Conservative ridings were won by the skin of their teeth in many areas of the province during the last election and that's because, when Harper started banging on about social conservative talking points, he was less desirable here. And that's little league compared to what Andrew Scheer is going to bring to the table.
Liberal ridings don't exist here outside of Ralph Goodale thanks to some history on the provincial level and a dislike of the Liberals since Pierre Trudeau and the famous (albeit questionable) story of skipping a campaign stop due to protests in the province and giving protesters the finger as his train rolled through the province. So federally, we operate as a 2-party system here. When fiscal conservatives see people bang on about social conservative blather, then and only then do they begin to exit the party. This was partly the reason that the Saskatchewan Party was not elected provincially until Brad Wall took the leadership and steered that party to a more progressive position, as Elwin Hermanson, being a former Reform MP, was not seen kindly by progressives in that regard.
When the CPC is seen as progressive, they sweep the province without question. When they're not, their security in the province is in question. What kind of voter would make that kind of a difference? I wonder...
Losing their footing in this province would be disastrous for them, as they've had it in the bag so many times. But pushing the party in a social conservative direction is playing with fire, in that regard.
matthewwhatever
Member
Caron raised the most money in Quebec, but seeing as there are only 4,000 NDP members in the province, I don't think anyone can really trumpet how well they've done there.
As for being in Parliament vs. not being in Parliament...in Mulcair's specific case, I don't think the problem was that he spent too much time in Ottawa and not enough talking to Canadians, it was that the image he built up in Ottawa ran totally contrary to the way he presented himself on the campaign trail. I know he didn't want to come off as Angry Tom, but that would've at least seemed natural compared to the horrific smiling, friendly version that they went with on the campaign trail.
More broadly, though, I think it's probably better to have a seat than to not have a seat, since so much of the political media is in Ottawa, and they'll naturally give more attention to politicians here vs. politicians roaming the country. It's not impossible to get media attention elsewhere -- you can get some really good uncritical earned media by taking your message to local community newspapers, for example, which is a tactic the CPC have used successfully for years -- but it definitely makes it more challenging.
I remember when Joe Clark won the PC leadership the second time, he resisted getting a seat in Parliament, and said he wanted to tour the country and meet Canadians instead. The PC seat count went down the next election, from 15 to 12.
Jack Layton tried the same thing, waiting until the 2004 election to run for a seat rather than going for one right away, and saying he was going to crisscross Canada in the meantime. He increased the NDP seat count from 14 to 19.
By contrast, Trudeau was already in Parliament when he won the leadership, even though he...I'll be charitable, and say that it's not a venue that highlights his particular strengths. Obviously, there are lots of other factors at play, but he's proof that you don't even need to perform well once you're in, so much as you need to be here. The LPC did lots of party-building outside of Parliament, to be sure, but I don't think you can discount the benefit you get from having a leader in Ottawa, leading the caucus from inside the House.
I certainly hope that I didn't convey the bolded. It's obviously not unique to Canada's Sikh community that they try to inflence politics. Like I said, in nearly every leadership contest (in every riding nomination contest, for that matter) there are allegations that some groups hold greater sway. It's been that way since the parties moved to member-based voting. I think it's just more pronounced in this case, because 1M1V systems give voting blocs more sway. (And, obviously, there's a racial angle to it too -- NDP conventions used to reserve a percentage of votes for unions, and nobody thought anything of it then, even though that rewarded a pretty ethnically homogenous group.)
As for your comment about Americans bolstering CPC fundraising...what? There were always rumours that Harper's leadership run was funded in part by Republicans, and I don't think there's any doubt that the CPC shares techniques with their US counterparts, but I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that Americans were directly funding CPC candidates. Sure, Leitch had a US-style message, but she was speaking to Canadian nativism. In general, the CPC -- and the Reform/Alliance and PC Parties before it -- have done an amazing job of raising money, and their advantage only increased after Chretien put in stricter fundraising rules.
From what I've seen of the debates -- which, I'll admit, I haven't watched that closely -- he's gotten pretty defensive when pushed on his OAS position. He (and more frequently, his surrogates) get very prickly when you mention his Ontario sex-ed weaseling. The "I will win" exchange from a few debates ago reminded me of an exchange that Ignatieff and Layton had, where Iggy tried sounding confident but instead came off as arrogant. And the interview that Singh gave where he got all macho and started bragging about being "something hotter than fire" was very...Mulcair-ish, I thought.
This is...an interesting read of Saskatchewan politics. I mean, you live there, so I don't want to suggest you don't know what you're talking about, but...
Cypress HillsGrasslands: CPC won by 55 points
Moose JawLake CentreLanigan: CPC +32
ReginaLewvan: CPC lost here by less than 150 votes, but it was a new riding created from NDP-leaning areas
ReginaQu'Appelle: CPC +14
ReginaWascana: CPC lost by 25 points, but they're never getting this seat as long as Ralph is around
SourisMoose Mountain: CPC +57
YorktonMelville: CPC +39
BattlefordsLloydminster: CPC +34
Carlton TrailEagle Creek: CPC +38
DesnethéMissinippiChurchill River: CPC lost by 1,000 votes, but this has always been a swing riding
Prince Albert: CPC +21
SaskatoonGrasswood: CPC +11
SaskatoonUniversity: CPC +10 (even though it's Brad Trost!)
Saskatoon West: CPC lost by a 7 points, but this was a new riding from NDP-leaning areas)
So...where did they win by the skin of their teeth? Their average margin of victory in their 10 ridings was 24 points. Saskatchewan sent Andrew Scheer, Brad Trost, Gerry RItz, and a whole bunch of other ultra-conservative wingnuts to Ottawa. If there's an example of CPC moderation here, I'm really struggling to see it.
I swear I heard somewhere not that long ago that Singh had raised the most in Quebec. That article is from not that long ago. Maybe Caron just recently pulled ahead.
In any case I think the point is made that Singh has broad support and is not just a GTA candidate. If Caron is supposed to be the Quebec candidate that can pull the broad Quebec electorate to the NDP then he should be dominating. He's not.
With regards to Leitch and her "Canadian nativism" message: Much as it is with the alt-right, you still have to play the music that the local crowd would care to listen to.
As for the rest, it's pretty clear that heavily-partisan US-style politics heavily benefit corporate interests the long term, and aside from the Liberals, the CPC is the only other party one could claim has members whose principles are easily bought (the NDP being beholden to labour unions is similar but different). Americans also have a history of manipulating foreign governments, both by corporate interests and their own government.
So, CPC being a party that could easily transform into something that would make Canadian politics more closely resemble those in the US would sound very enticing to an American corporation benefiting from its existence in the US. And that's without discussing right-wing organizations looking for a foothold in Canada that they only just barely have by comparison to the US.
Granted, the restrictions on political fundraising and donations make it impossible to influence our politics like we see in the US, but no matter how smaller in scale, I can guarantee it's happening.
I can't really comment on your personal feelings about who he is, but I can say that it's probably best you weren't following the debates if that's the impression you have of Singh, cuz WHOA NELLY do the rest of the candidates come off looking worse, with the possible exception of Charlie Angus, but his Trudeau hate-boner may be stronger than all of the candidates combined.
That margin was a hell of a lot larger in 2011. Here's the popular vote standings by province in the last few elections:
2008:
2011:
2015:
This is the weakest that the CPC has been since the Reform Party days, and that can't just be attributed to redrawn ridings when the popular vote across the province sank overall. And that's with CPC MPs campaigning in their ridings harder than I've ever seen them.
And all this happened over a relatively tame set of social conservative topics came up during the campaign. At least in Saskatchewan, you can see a direct correlation between CPC gaining immense strength in their moderated years and losing it when the veneer started to fade.
Sadly, Saskatchewan people aren't up to speed on how disgusting their MPs are, more often than not, and usually vote based on party leaders, moreso than any other region of the country. So when the party message wanders, so do progressives who would vote for them. Even their strongest riding of Souris-Moose Mountain saw a decrease in votes for the CPC for the first time in close to a decade.
And if the last election spooked them off the CPC, they haven't seen anything yet. Scheer has the potential to embarrass us so badly here that the province might go back to becoming an NDP/Liberal swing vote federally for the first time since 1988.
That's certainly true, but they still won most of the seats by comfortable margins. Indeed, many of those ridings are among the highest vote percentages for an MP anywhere in the country.
Buba Big Guns
Banned
So can someone explain if this tax plan will legitimately hurt small businesses or is it just wild misinformation that are causing people to be angry as usual?
Saw someone post a video of Pierre fucking Poilievre on FB during question period as an example of why people are so pissed.
Saw someone post a video of Pierre fucking Poilievre on FB during question period as an example of why people are so pissed.
It's wild misinformation. Any incorporated body can still disperse income as salaries, full stop. What the loophole covers is the dispersion as dividends, which has a much lower tax rate.
Sakura
Member
You mean to say that the margin in 2011, the election where the Conservatives got the largest percentage of the popular vote they've had in over 20 years, was larger than it was in the 2015 election?
Not exactly surprising. Nor does the data suggest they only won by the skin of their teeth. The majority of the leads were pretty comfortable.
matthewwhatever
Member
I just came across the best description of Andrew Scheer, via a Postmedia freelancer: "Andrew Scheer is trying to be a Dollarama knock-off Ann Coulter/Milo Yiannopoulos provocateur."
If you're going to claim that there's illicit US money coming into our political system, there should at least be some proof. Are you saying that the CPC are cooking their books to hide these donations? Because those books need to be audited by an outside accounting firm, and then they're reviewed by Elections Canada, so if that's what you're saying, then it's a pretty far-reaching conspiracy. Or are you suggesting that these US corporations are secretly funding anti-Liberal/pro-CPC ads? Because third-party political advertising is pretty heavily restricted, so again, you're essentially claiming that Elections Canada -- a non-partisan political agency, under a Liberal-led government -- is ignoring dark money flooding into Canada, to fund ads that I can't say I've ever seen.
Maybe I'm being naive, but I just find it easier to believe that the simplest explanation for the CPC's fundraising prowess -- that Conservatives are just more willing and more conditioned to give money to the party, and have been for decades -- is more likely than a vast array of shadowy donors giving money that doesn't show up anywhere. They certainly share tactics and ideas, but I think that's as far as it goes.
Those are percentages, which are a function of larger voter turnout. If you compare 2011 and 2015, the CPC only lost 10,000 votes in all of Saskatchewan. Which goes back to my point, which is that the CPC base is pretty solidified by this point. I'm not saying no one will ever switch their votes to or from the party, but Harper designed things so that while their pool of accessible voters was smaller than that of the other parties, their baseline of committed voters is probably a lot bigger.
It only impacts the top 1-2% of all income earners in the country. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or hugely misinformed. Vice has a pretty great explainer.
If you're going to claim that there's illicit US money coming into our political system, there should at least be some proof. Are you saying that the CPC are cooking their books to hide these donations? Because those books need to be audited by an outside accounting firm, and then they're reviewed by Elections Canada, so if that's what you're saying, then it's a pretty far-reaching conspiracy. Or are you suggesting that these US corporations are secretly funding anti-Liberal/pro-CPC ads? Because third-party political advertising is pretty heavily restricted, so again, you're essentially claiming that Elections Canada -- a non-partisan political agency, under a Liberal-led government -- is ignoring dark money flooding into Canada, to fund ads that I can't say I've ever seen.
Maybe I'm being naive, but I just find it easier to believe that the simplest explanation for the CPC's fundraising prowess -- that Conservatives are just more willing and more conditioned to give money to the party, and have been for decades -- is more likely than a vast array of shadowy donors giving money that doesn't show up anywhere. They certainly share tactics and ideas, but I think that's as far as it goes.
Those are percentages, which are a function of larger voter turnout. If you compare 2011 and 2015, the CPC only lost 10,000 votes in all of Saskatchewan. Which goes back to my point, which is that the CPC base is pretty solidified by this point. I'm not saying no one will ever switch their votes to or from the party, but Harper designed things so that while their pool of accessible voters was smaller than that of the other parties, their baseline of committed voters is probably a lot bigger.
It only impacts the top 1-2% of all income earners in the country. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or hugely misinformed. Vice has a pretty great explainer.
matthewwhatever
Member
Apologies for the double-post, but if anyone wants to watch the first-round NDP results come in, it's on their Facebook page, and supposed to start any second now (as of 2:30 PM EST).
EDIT #1: Total NDP turnout: 52.8%, which is roughly what they had last time.
EDIT #2: Singh wins on the 1st ballot:
Singh: 35k+ votes
Angus: 12,705 votes
Ashton: 11, 374 votes
Caron: 6,174 votes
EDIT #1: Total NDP turnout: 52.8%, which is roughly what they had last time.
EDIT #2: Singh wins on the 1st ballot:
Singh: 35k+ votes
Angus: 12,705 votes
Ashton: 11, 374 votes
Caron: 6,174 votes
killer rin
Member
So I guess Jagmeet Singh won on this first ballot
matthewwhatever
Member
Vote totals:
Singh got well above his fundraising totals, which is actually historically surprising - usually it's within 1.5 points of their fundraising, and he was at 44% of the overall haul.
Singh got well above his fundraising totals, which is actually historically surprising - usually it's within 1.5 points of their fundraising, and he was at 44% of the overall haul.
Damn, I guess Singh really did sign up and turn out all those new members. Good for him.
Singh is probably the most high-risk, high-reward candidate in the pack, so his winning will keep things interesting. And we'll shortly see whether the fears about Quebec prove founded or not.
Singh is probably the most high-risk, high-reward candidate in the pack, so his winning will keep things interesting. And we'll shortly see whether the fears about Quebec prove founded or not.
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