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Canadian Politics: Revenge of the small minds


maarsen

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I'm voting NDP in my riding, because I'm really pissed at the Liberals about their two faced Indigenous dealings, but as I said, in my riding it doesn't matter who I vote for, our MP will definitely be a Conservative.

What I'm interested now in is Quebec's seats. I don't think anyone a month or two ago would've predicted the Bloc as second strongest there, so while probabilities still put Liberals with most seats country wide it's likely not enough for a majority government. Which, to be clear, is still five million steps in my seven league boots better than a Conservative federal government, but where will that put our country?

Can Singh's NDP play the game? Maybe. His lack of understanding about Federal and Provincial jurisdiction is and may be annoying. May's Green's certainly can't game. They talk big on climate and pharmacare but their platform is weak on realistic policy and is otherwise more or less Conservative, so May's out. If the Bloc gets 20 seats in Quebec, they'd probably support a Trudeau minority if he in turn promised to stay out of Quebec politics-- which he may not be willing to do unless there's no other choices. It's all just, ugh.

I got a couple friends who are convinced the Liberals will have a stronger majority than they previously enjoyed. I could be wrong, but I really don't see that. I can hardly wait for the election to be over, but I'm not convinced we won't have a massive mess of a government shortly after Oct 21st. 

Le sigh.

 

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I really have no idea - is Fancy Sock Trudeau at any risk of not winning his own riding? Papineau is historically Liberal except that one time...

Could there be enough vote-splitting/ rise in votes between NDP and Bloc to unseat him? He did get 52% of the vote in 2015 but it was far narrower the previous two elections. 

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Projected polling for Papineau has the Liberals at like 52% +/- 7%. The Bloc is coming second with 15% +/- 5%, NDP third at around 14%. I guess it depends on polling method, voluntary online, landline, etc etc... but it looks pretty safe for Trudeau on the surface.

 

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Canadians don't throw sitting PMs out of their seats, even when they throw the party out. The only PM it ever happened to was Arthur Meighen, in 1921, and sunuvagun, it happened to him again in 1926. I think he is considered one of Canada's worst PMs. His first term was 1 year and 172 days, and his second term was 88 days long. That second term is one of the most famous in Canadian history, because he became PM when the Governor General refused Mackenzie King's request to call an election (after a procurement scandal hit his government shortly after winning a minority government) and the GG asked Meighen to form a government instead. That was the constitutional crisis cloud hanging over Michelle Jean when opposition parties tried to form a government when Harper was screwing around during one of his minority governments.

The GG was Byng, of hockey trophy fame.

eta: I actually learned that in high school, where we had two years of Canadian History. The Harper turmoil refreshed my memory years later, but I did have to look up the dates.

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Now for something totally different. 

I have a friend named Richard who went down to the Bahamas years ago to work as a civil engineer for the government, after hurricanes hit the Bahamas in the early 2000s. He stayed for six years, then came back to work for road companies in Ontario and Alberta and then back again in Ontario.

A while after Hurricane Dorian hit he decided to send a message to his old boss asking if they needed anyone. He was asked to send his resume and was pretty well immediately hired back. He left for the Bahamas yesterday. He'll be in the capital for a week and then for the next two years he'll be based in Marsh Harbour, Abaco. They have a trailer for him. He'll be, as he says, 'fixing things'. If you watched any of the hurricane coverage, Marsh Harbour was the town they kept showing, a town that was pretty well wiped off the face of the earth. It's going to be a tough two years.

I suggested he start a blog about his work (he didn't know what a blog is, engineers!) but we decided that he probably shouldn't, since he is a government employee. He will be, however, posting pictures to Instagram. I asked him if he wanted followers, and he said yes, he'd like people to see what happened there and how people were rebuilding.

If you are interested, his Instagram account is called Abaco engineer. There's not a lot there yet, but I expect Richard will post regularly because, well, he's an engineer.

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On 10/6/2019 at 1:12 PM, Aemon Stark said:

As near as I can tell, they're appealing the ruling. Insofar as who "they" are, it's the current government/cabinet. We do not have "caretaker" governments as only Parliament is dissolved during an election - the government carries on.

I've read a bunch of stories about this appeal now, including interviews with Trudeau. He says the government is committed to making the payments, but the deadline is Dec 10, which gives 6 weeks to finish getting everything in place after the election. They want more time to consult with bands across the country. One issue is identifying children without re-traumatizing them. Appealing the decision will change the deadline. I have not seen any stories about how far along discussions were so I cannot judge how much bs is involved. Since the appeal was filed 3 days before the deadline, I assume the government struggled with the decision, but maybe I'm not cynical enough.

And actually we basically have a caretaker government during a writ period. While the usual and routine business of government continues, civil servants do their work, I don't think consultations with bands across the country is considered routine government work, I think that has stopped. "Technically" speaking, members of parliament are not considered MPs during the writ period and special regulations were passed to continue to pay them. They don't become MPs again until sworn in after the election. The rules allow cabinet meetings in the event a crisis occurs during an election, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary is allowed, no announcements, no appointments etc.

That was one of the reasons the 2015 election call was controversial - it was the longest writ period in Canadian history, Aug. 4 to Oct. 19, 76 days. 76 days during which no government business was conducted except for routine matters. Compare it with this election and it's 40 day writ period.

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I have a feeling my riding will switch back to NDP.

I wasn't sure of the history of the riding, other than it was NDP for a long time, so I looked it up. It was NDP from 1997-2015, which makes sense, because both Alexa McDonough and Megan Leslie were quite popular here. It went Liberal in 2015, but I think most voted for them because they had the strongest chance of beating Harper (I did, even though I preferred Leslie). No Conservatives have held it since 1988.

Fun fact: Sable Island is part of my riding. I mean it's population is made up of several hundred wild horses with only two or three scientists living there at any given time, but I thought it was neat!

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On 10/8/2019 at 5:08 PM, Fragile Bird said:

Canadians don't throw sitting PMs out of their seats, even when they throw the party out. The only PM it ever happened to was Arthur Meighen, in 1921, and sunuvagun, it happened to him again in 1926. I think he is considered one of Canada's worst PMs. His first term was 1 year and 172 days, and his second term was 88 days long. That second term is one of the most famous in Canadian history, because he became PM when the Governor General refused Mackenzie King's request to call an election (after a procurement scandal hit his government shortly after winning a minority government) and the GG asked Meighen to form a government instead. That was the constitutional crisis cloud hanging over Michelle Jean when opposition parties tried to form a government when Harper was screwing around during one of his minority governments.

Actually King lost his seat in 1945 despite otherwise winning the election. I don't know if Meighen is among the worst or more that he was hardly there long enough to do much. 

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Kind of proud, got my first block on Twitter by pointing out that you can't look at total spending to determine if specifics have been cut. Then again a bunch of conservatives have apparently decided they are, in fact, not against reducing deficits by cutting spending so. :dunno:

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Agreed. Though I can't help but wonder if being this involved in following the process is warping my view a bit. Should talk to my family back home and see what they think. I imagine their position might enlighten me a bit more to the more common views.

ETA: I don't know how Americans handle months or more than a year of campaigning. I think it may explain why their country is so messed up.

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19 hours ago, Aemon Stark said:

Actually King lost his seat in 1945 despite otherwise winning the election. I don't know if Meighen is among the worst or more that he was hardly there long enough to do much. 

Ah, I stand corrected. I should have said Meighen was the first sitting PM to lose his seat and the election and the only one to do it twice. As I did research I saw someone claimed King was the only PM to lose his seat (the guy must be a Conservative, right? Lol!) and that he did it twice.

This post is getting edited, because I'm getting screwed up on the concept of sitting PM and winning elections.

I'll work backwards to my original answer. Canadians rarely turf sitting PMs even when they change governents. Meighen was PM in 1921 and lost both the 21 election and his seat. He had to run in a by-election to continue as leader of the Conservatives.

King was the sitting PM in the 1925 election, and he lost both his seat and the general election, just like Meighen. Meighen won the most seats but could not form the government, and King put together a coalition and became PM, running in a by-election to sit in Parliament. Meighen then became sitting PM after Byng allowed him to form a government, and then lost both his seat and the election in 1926.

King was PM in 1945 when he lost his seat but won the election. In all three previous occasions the sitting PM lost both his seat and the election, in the fourth King won the election but lost his seat. All 4 are rare, but the 4th has only happened once. 

Neither Turner nor Campbell are considered to have sat in Parliament while PM, so are not "sitting PMs defeated in an election".

 

That was a total re-write of this post, I wanted it to be correct.

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2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ah, I stand corrected. I should have said Meighen was the first sitting PM to lose his seat and the election and the only one to do it twice. As I did research I saw someone claimed King was the only PM to lose his seat (the guy must be a Conservative, right? Lol!) and that he did it twice.

This post is getting edited, because I'm getting screwed up on the concept of sitting PM and winning elections.

I'll work backwards to my original answer. Canadians rarely turf sitting PMs even when they change governents. Meighen was PM in 1921 and lost both the 21 election and his seat. He had to run in a by-election to continue as leader of the Conservatives.

King was the sitting PM in the 1925 election, and he lost both his seat and the general election, just like Meighen. Meighen won the most seats but could not form the government, and King put together a coalition and became PM, running in a by-election to sit in Parliament. Meighen then became sitting PM after Byng allowed him to form a government, and then lost both his seat and the election in 1926.

King was PM in 1945 when he lost his seat but won the election. In all three previous occasions the sitting PM lost both his seat and the election, in the fourth King won the election but lost his seat. All 4 are rare, but the 4th has only happened once. 

Neither Turner nor Campbell are considered to have sat in Parliament while PM, so are not "sitting PMs defeated in an election".

 

That was a total re-write of this post, I wanted it to be correct.

I am listening to Kim Campbell on CBC now. I wondered if you would bring her up. 

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So the NDP is now spreading conservative style lies RE: military health spending cuts that don't actually exist and lies about liberal donors getting tax cuts even though their talking about donors from before Trudeau was party leader. I'd like to say I'm not mad, just disappointed. But I am mad.

I've already voted, so for my mental well being I may need to just step away from politics until the election is over.

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10 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

I don't know how Americans handle months or more than a year of campaigning. I think it may explain why their country is so messed up.

 

While I'm happy to be voting in my first American election the cycle NEVER really stops. It's been exhausting to watch all these years I've been here. And it's not just presidential elections. There's always some level of government in contention. 

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