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Canadian PoliGAF - 42nd Parliament: Sunny Ways in Trudeaupia

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Walpurgis

Banned
The problem is that Atlantic Canada doesn't have much in the way of natural resources and, even prior to industry declining everywhere, was not considered an advantageous place to situate manufacturing.

Is shipping and fishing not enough? I usually expect coastal cities to do well because of that.
 
Is shipping and fishing not enough? I usually expect coastal cities to do well because of that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I remember reading that the Atlantic Provinces are not allowed to fish as much as they would like to because past generations nearly wiped out the fish populations and they are still recovering
 

Walpurgis

Banned
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I remember reading that the Atlantic Provinces are not allowed to fish as much as they would like to because past generations nearly wiped out the fish populations and they are still recovering

They might have mentioned something like that in school, yeah. I suppose the fish are taking their revenge.
 

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Are the Ontario Liberals really backing away from corporate donations? I thought that Wynne just committed to getting around to fixing it eventually, hopefully, at some point in the fall. She's not exactly turning it into a pressing issue. That may have changed in the last few days, though.
Wynne announced this week that they were pushing it up to this spring.

Wynne responded by saying the promise she made last week to introduce changes to the fundraising rules this fall will be moved up to the spring.

She told the legislature that Ontario will follow the federal lead and ban corporate and union donations to political parties.

Wynne also agreed to meet this week with the two opposition party leaders to talk about the proposed changes to fundraising rules.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...political-fundraising-legislation-this-spring
 
Is shipping and fishing not enough? I usually expect coastal cities to do well because of that.

What shipping? What fishing?

Shipping was moved out to Montreal ages ago with the creation of the St. Lawrence seaway. Most of the rail-lines into the maritimes aren't even remotely profitable, to the point where the rail hub at Moncton was shut down 30 years ago.

Fishing was pretty much shut down 30 years ago as well. It was to prevent over-fishing so I think it's actually worth it but what little is left isn't enough to sustain the small towns that depended on it. They have gotten by for the most part by abusing EI, which while it probably saved those towns in the near term, in the mid-to-long they never built anything else up to take their place. Oh and Harper fucked them over by overhauling EI.

There could be more farming for rural areas & small towns, but farming doesn't need anywhere near the amount of labour that it used to, and young people really aren't interested in farming. A smart business might be to focus on more eco-ethical labour intensive farming and sell for a high profit, but uh the people that like that kind of thing like to buy local and you're not going to find much of a market in NS for that.
 

Tiktaalik

Member
Are the Ontario Liberals really backing away from corporate donations? I thought that Wynne just committed to getting around to fixing it eventually, hopefully, at some point in the fall. She's not exactly turning it into a pressing issue. That may have changed in the last few days, though.

Yeah that's about right. The Ontario Liberals have said they're going to ban it in the Fall. That's a remarkably better stance than the BC Liberals however, who have essentially just brushed off the criticism and have stated that they have no intention of eliminating or even scaling back corporate and union donations.

Wynne vows to hasten campaign finance reforms

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is promising legislation this spring to outlaw corporate and union political donations as she scrambles to contain a furor over her party’s cash-for-access fundraisers.

The Premier surprised the legislature on Monday by announcing she will speed up campaign finance reforms promised for the fall, and took a harder line on corporate and union contributions than ever before.

“We have moved up our intention to introduce legislation from the fall to the spring,” she said. “It’s pretty clear to me that we need to move to ban corporate and union donations. That, to me, is not a question at this point.”

....
 

Tiktaalik

Member
Wynne announced this week that they were pushing it up to this spring.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...political-fundraising-legislation-this-spring

Whoa didn't see this. Crazy.

Christ I don't know if the NDP are a terrible opposition or if our reporters out here in BC are lazy, but it seems like no criticism of the BC Liberals ever sticks or has any affect out here. The latest thing out here is that the Liberals are closing a bunch of schools, in some cases the only high school in town, because the Liberals are underfunding everything, but I've seen almost no reporting about it.
 

SRG01

Member
Last post of the day from me: this time from a Calgary CPC MP sharply criticizing his own party: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/deepak-obhrai-conservative-party-white-only-1.3528072

The figure is not modest, Obhrai said, and will stop "hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Canadians from joining the party."

"Established conservatives with established families who have very strong conservative principles will remain as members and are willing to cough up the big money," he said.
 

Boogie

Member
What shipping? What fishing?

t.

I know we shouldn't be super hard on Walpurgis, because it is obvious he is just a young kid, from, well, Winnipeg....but it still amazes me that for someone who is obviously super interested in Canadian politics that he is, well, still completely ignorant about just about everything about Canadian politics.
 
Well yeah, it's not a problem now, but it's a potential problem in the same way that Harper's name being so big *is* a problem now. A party defined entirely by a person is open to a lot of risks, which the Liberals should be all too aware of.

Honestly surprised Layton isn't bigger in the NDP's. But then "SOCIALIST" is really crowding out the rest of the field in a way that no keywords are for the Liberals or CPC, so it's hard to judge scale well.

I wonder if the socialist attachment is a good thing or a bad thing. A lot of it is almost certainly conservatives using it as a negative, but it also implies that the "NDP are right-wing now!" attack only had so much effect on people's perception of them in the long run.

I don't disagree with you about any of this, and I totally get your point that turning any party into a cult of personality is bound to end badly. There's also something to be said for not letting the leader become the be-all and end-all of a party's image.

But at the same time...we're less than six months removed from a three-month, $20 million ad campaign in which the NDP tried to sell the country on the idea of Thomas Mulcair as PM. Pretty much all their ads were about him, they more or less removed every non-Mulcair aspect of their website, and people saw him on the news literally every day as "NDP leader Thomas/Tom Mulcair." (The Liberals and Conservatives, obviously, did the same with their leaders.) I'd argue that, after all that, for Mulcair to not be synonymous with NDP is shocking. For him to be on almost equal footing with Layton shows -- notwithstanding the fact Layton evidently built the party up in the public's mind to a very impressive degree -- that the NDP campaign really dropped the ball. I mean, the election results showed that too. But I feel like something like this helps reaffirm why they lost the way they did.

Wynne announced this week that they were pushing it up to this spring.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...political-fundraising-legislation-this-spring

Thanks, didn't see this. With such a huge majority, there was no reason why they should've had to wait so long. I'm glad she reversed course, because the initial response was pretty tone-deaf.

Last post of the day from me: this time from a Calgary CPC MP sharply criticizing his own party: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/deepak-obhrai-conservative-party-white-only-1.3528072

He's entirely right, especially when the Liberals are talking about lowering the barrier to entry for their party. Making it more difficult to join the CPC at a time when it should be trying to grow and renew itself doesn't make sense.

Though between the increased membership fee, the $100k entrance cost, the fact all leadership contestant donations have to go through the central party, and the $5m spending cap, it seems like they're less interested in opening up the party, and more interested in just raising a tonne of money.

Semi-related, but I was telling you my wife did BPAPM at Carleton - one of her friends while she was there is one of the guys who founded Abacus. I'm telling you, Carleton students have invaded every level of politics.

Nice. I was sure I was done with the school after getting my BA from there in political science back in 2003. The MPM program just looked like too much fun to pass up, though!
 
I honestly think that legal marijuana grow ups can really put Atlantic Canada back at work.

It would be their own version of the oilsands

The only hazard is that wildlife can get baked from eating the crops, like Steve French the Cougar from Trailer Park Boys
 

Apathy

Member
Margertte Thatcher loving Thomas Mulcair resurfacing today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/0...utm_hp_ref=canada-politics&ir=Canada+Politics

In these videos, Mulcair is stating that Lefty governments in Europe have failed and only economic liberalism have worked

this same Mulcair, trying to sucker the NDP that he is the right guy for bringing the NDP back to the Left after their October defeat

NDP people, get serious, dump this guy

The guy that tried taking them to the center to appeal to more people is now claiming he can bring t hem back to the left? Wow.
 

LordAmused

Member
Dear god I can't stop laughing. I'm literally crying of laughter watching Angry Tom's speech at the NPD congress on Radio-Canada.

He is so creepy I can't believe it! But the worst is deifnitely the french translater. She sounds like she's singing spells/chants or something it is absolutely hilarious.

Go Ahead Tom!
 
I'm really wondering what percentage Mulcair is going to get. Twitter generally seemed really down on his speech (I only read it, since I couldn't get CPAC's stream to work), but presumably anyone who went to the convention went with a pretty solid idea of whether they were going to support him or not. I know 70% has been the supposed magic number, but that's an extraordinarily low number for a leadership review. You generally want at least 85%+ (if not 90%+) to ensure the party is united.
 

Tiktaalik

Member
I didn't watch the speech but the politicos in my twitter feed, largely CBC/Macleans reporters, seemed to think it was not good, and were retweeting negative comments from NDP delegates/supporters. Sounds like a good chance that it'll go lower than my 70-75% prediction. 60%-65% maybe?
 
is there a feed without translators?


*edit

http://www.cpac.ca/en/ndp-convention/

found one, click watch floor if you dont want translators


wow Yvon Godin is fired up
--------------
NDP dels voted at 52% For a Leadership Convention

so Thomas only got 48% approval rating.

IMO, I think that the current Bernie Sanders affect down south has proably caused the NDP delegates to embrace the Left instead of being wishy washy about it
 
52% for a leadership review?! That's embarrassing.

So...Megan Leslie coming back? Niki Ashton or Nathan Cullen throwing their hats in the ring again? Someone totally new?

It's too bad for them he lost so decisively. If he'd even won a bare majority, he could argue to stay on until after the new CPC leader is chosen, so that they can pick a leader knowing the contours of the next election. That's probably not possible now.
 
Bernie Sanders affect.

Thomas was Center-Right economically as a Provincial MNA and tried to pull a Left wing Federal Party to the Center to erase the other Centrist party

Bernie Sanders man, Bernie Sanders. NDP members want their Canadian Bernie Sanders

NDP delegates clearly want the party to be Left wing
 

SRG01

Member
Also voted to maintain discussions on the Leap manifesto for the next two years... not sure if that's a good idea or not.
 

Kifimbo

Member
Bernie Sanders affect.

Thomas was Center-Right economically as a Provincial MNA and tried to pull a Left wing Federal Party to the Center to erase the other Centrist party

Bernie Sanders man, Bernie Sanders

Sanders hasn't won anything, so I'm not sure where they are going with this rationale. Not to mention Notley actually won something, and they basically also rejected her vision.
 

SRG01

Member
Sanders hasn't won anything, so I'm not sure where they are going with this rationale. Not to mention Notley actually won something, and they basically also rejected her vision.

The quote from Gil McGowan (http://ipolitics.ca/2016/04/10/ndp-convention-ndp-vote-to-continue-discussions-on-leap-manifesto/) -- though mainly pertaining to the Leap Manifesto -- says it best: that political symbols are generally more powerful than actual policy. Bernie Sanders, despite not winning anything, is most definitely the strongest symbol on the left.
 

Kifimbo

Member
watching CPAC.
Thomas is going on the mic.

Cry, tears, cry Tom cry!

The NDP can continue their time in political irrelevancy then, and Bernie Sanders can join them after June 7.

as a Hillary supporter myself, I don't deny that the younger generation wanting to lean more Leftward. Not to be ignored

Justin Trudeau was a visionary and moved the Liberals back to Laurier and Pearson levels of Center-Left.

Mulcair is Thatcherite anyway so, NDP will be better off with a real NDP leader than a fake one.
 

SRG01

Member
In Canada, outside the NPD circle, he'll be forgotten after the Democratic National Convention.

I'm not so sure about that. Most of my left-leaning Liberal friends are definitely enamored with Sanders.

as a Hillary supporter myself, I don't deny that the younger generation want to lean more Leftward. Not to be ignored

Justin Trudeau was a visionary and moved the Liberals back to Laurier and Pearson levels of Center-Left.

Mulcair is Thatcherite anyway so, NDP will be better off with a real NDP leader than a fake one.

I'm not so sure that the NDP would do much better with a leftward leader. I've always thought of the NDP going through a transformation similar to Labour/New Labour in the UK -- starting with Layton then Mulcair.
 
I'm not so sure about that. Most of my left-leaning Liberal friends are definitely enamored with Sanders.



I'm not so sure that the NDP would do much better with a leftward leader. I've always thought of the NDP going through a transformation similar to Labour/New Labour in the UK -- starting with Layton then Mulcair.


We already have one Liberal Party of Canada, we dont need another.

** Ashton answering questions in French, she's got that box checked

**I hope Mulcair quits as MP so that Outremont returns to Liberals
 

maharg

idspispopd
52% for a leadership review?! That's embarrassing.

So...Megan Leslie coming back? Niki Ashton or Nathan Cullen throwing their hats in the ring again? Someone totally new?

It's too bad for them he lost so decisively. If he'd even won a bare majority, he could argue to stay on until after the new CPC leader is chosen, so that they can pick a leader knowing the contours of the next election. That's probably not possible now.

I don't think the CPC leader matters that much for who the NDP pick (they need to win back Liberal switchers before they even think about fighting the CPC), but I do think picking after we find out what (if any) electoral reform gets chosen would have been better. I think the latter will have a much more significant effect on the next election.
 

Tiktaalik

Member
Judging from twitter it sounds like Tom is staying on as interm leader, which is good because he's a great in opposition parliament.
 

Walpurgis

Banned
I'm looking forward to a new leader. I hope Mulcair remains in the party for a long time. He's not the best leader but he is the best at laying smackdowns.
Sanders hasn't won anything, so I'm not sure where they are going with this rationale. Not to mention Notley actually won something, and they basically also rejected her vision.
Sanders is inspiring. He gets people excited and optimistic for a better future. And he's legit (generally on the right side of history). I want a leader like that.
 

Walpurgis

Banned
We already have one Liberal Party of Canada, we dont need another.

** Ashton answering questions in French, she's got that box checked

**I hope Mulcair quits as MP so that Outremont returns to Liberals

i would stay on as an MP too if I had to remortgage my home 11 times in the last 30 years
He's stepping down as leader and you still aren't satisfied. I have to ask gutter, did Mulcair sleep with your wife? :p
 

Sean C

Member
So...Megan Leslie coming back? Niki Ashton or Nathan Cullen throwing their hats in the ring again? Someone totally new?
Leslie is a very good politician and well-liked, but I'm dubious that it makes sense for the NDP to elect as leader somebody who lacks a seat in Parliament. They'd have to have one of their incumbents step aside and hold a by-election somewhere else in the country (since Leslie's an Anglophone, probably in one of their southern Ontario seats, or Vancouver Island), and, well, I'm not sure that's something the NDP would really want to do at this point. They don't really have much in the way of safe seats at this point that could take a parachute candidate of that nature.

This is another milestone for the NDP. They've never voted out a leader over a disappointing election result before -- largely, I guess, because until this election they never had much in the way of expectations in a given election. But like I said, if a majority of the delegates want to do things like endorsing the Leap Manifesto, Mulcair is blatantly not the right guy to sell that sort of vision. Who is, I'm not sure.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Mulcair should have quit right after the election. Staying on was just idiotic.

That said the NDP are still dead and will never be relevant again, so whatever.

I'm not so sure about that. Most of my left-leaning Liberal friends are definitely enamored with Sanders.

I'm not so sure that the NDP would do much better with a leftward leader. I've always thought of the NDP going through a transformation similar to Labour/New Labour in the UK -- starting with Layton then Mulcair.
As they found, you can't out Conservative a Conservative.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Dude, don't be so hyperbolic. The NDP aren't exactly in a great place right now, but they've been in far, far worse positions (e.g., 1993).
Hyperbolic was my meltdown on election night when I said I would never vote again (I still don't know if I'd ever bother voting since my choice is a Liberal or no one). lol

They blew their one chance, and short of actual electoral reform, well never be as close to power. The only consolation is that they didn't fuck up as badly as the LibDems, who will go down in history as the most ineffective leftist party in parliamentary politics.
 

Sean C

Member
They blew their one chance, and short of actual electoral reform, well never be as close to power.
For most of its history, the NDP has been more about moving the Overton Window of Canadian politics leftward than contending for power, and has done that with a fair degree of success. It can still do that.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
For most of its history, the NDP has been more about moving the Overton Window of Canadian politics leftward than contending for power, and has done that with a fair degree of success. It can still do that.
Sure, and for a long time I was happy with them being the pointless protest vote that was more effective than voting Green or the MJ party. But seeing them get so close and falling flat on their faces is the most heartbreaking thing I've gone through and I'm never getting that invested in a political party or politician ever again.

The sad thing is that right after Layton's victory, I knew that the NDP would probably have problems keeping Quebec and that it was mostly a dream anyway, but I still wanted to believe. It was a harsh, harsh fall back down to reality.
 

Vibranium

Banned
Mulcair's fine as a point-man MP for the NDP, he's just not a leader they needed. Hopefully they can rebound from here on out, I want to support them next election and maybe they can unseat May from my riding.
 
Sure, and for a long time I was happy with them being the pointless protest vote that was more effective than voting Green or the MJ party. But seeing them get so close and falling flat on their faces is the most heartbreaking thing I've gone through and I'm never getting that invested in a political party or politician ever again.

The sad thing is that right after Layton's victory, I knew that the NDP would probably have problems keeping Quebec and that it was mostly a dream anyway, but I still wanted to believe. It was a harsh, harsh fall back down to reality.

NDP's chances died with Layton and were buried with the rise of Justin Trudeau.

If they go back to being the conscience of Canada and play balance of power in minority govs I'm fine with that.

See unlike in the States where Sanders is useless without a House and Senate and the Democratic party our parliamentary system means they can actually occasionally get stuff done.
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
NDP's chances died with Layton and were buried with the rise of Justin Trudeau.

If they go back to being the conscience of Canada and play balance of power in minority govs I'm fine with that.

See unlike in the States where Sanders is useless without a House and Senate and the Democratic party our parliamentary system means they can actually occasionally get stuff done.

The flip side is that living in Ontario, a vote for the NDP is pretty much wasted unless you live in Hamilton or one of the other more labour-based towns where unions are still important. Assuming I'm in Toronto for the next election, eating my ballot is as effective as voting for the NDP. :p
 

Sean C

Member
Sure, and for a long time I was happy with them being the pointless protest vote that was more effective than voting Green or the MJ party.
A meaningful third party in a parliamentary system isn't really pointless. They have been able to help set the terms for public debate on policy.
 

Tiktaalik

Member
Sure, and for a long time I was happy with them being the pointless protest vote that was more effective than voting Green or the MJ party. But seeing them get so close and falling flat on their faces is the most heartbreaking thing I've gone through and I'm never getting that invested in a political party or politician ever again.

The sad thing is that right after Layton's victory, I knew that the NDP would probably have problems keeping Quebec and that it was mostly a dream anyway, but I still wanted to believe. It was a harsh, harsh fall back down to reality.

I saw this video with Nathan Cullen today where he addresses the topic of getting really close, but failing. It might not cheer you up, but I liked his optimistic tone.

https://www.facebook.com/AlthiaRaj/videos/1295626483785329/

Essentially Cullen compares the loss to getting to the Stanley Cup finals and losing. Continuing this analogy the significant thing for the NDP is that in previous elections they got to the first round and lost, and never dreamed of or really planned on getting to the finals let alone winning. Now the NDP know that they can potentially win. They also know that, from the success of the Liberals this last election, that a large majority of Canadians share progressive values that the NDP have always supported.
 
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