Shall we start taking bets on the timing of the federal election? I doubt that it will be very soon, although it has occurred to me that the timing of the release of Jody Wilson-Raybould's book some time this autumn might be a factor (among many) in the PMO's collective thinking, which I suspect is to go very soon or very late.
Completely superficially, but not irrelevant to the discussion, I prefer the shaggy, bearded Trudeau. He has a slightly Iberian vibe in that mode.
Also impinging on this is the sideshow of the Green Party, and Annamie Paul's travails. I'm not a Green, but voted for her in the by-election in Toronto Centre. My theory (well, one possible scenario) is that there is a group that so loathes her that they are willing to burn down their own house to ensure that her leadership becomes untenable, and a disastrous election result will ensure Paul's departure.
I expect the NDP to put up the long-time sock puppet they've had since Linda McQuaig lost interest in this riding. (I think that she ran in Trinity-St Paul's last time out.) The Liberals have held this riding federally since 1993 (Bill Graham, Bob Rae, Bill Morneau). The riding is currently held by Marci Ien, who defeated Annamie Paul by about 2,000 votes, which for this riding is pretty close. Ien, while a television personality, has been pretty invisible here, and this might be the first time that the Liberals have been vulnerable here in about a generation. The NDP might be threat if the NDP were to put up a reasonable candidate (the NDP hold the riding provincially) and can capitalise on the new riding configuration (wealthy enclave Rosedale is no longer part of Toronto Centre, now part of University-Rosedale, represented by Chrystia Freeland).
I think we should eventually get another election thread going in Purg, though now seems premature. I have not really had my ear to the ground on election matters (or really anything much, lately) but the Globe seems to be suggesting we’re heading for Fall. Realistically, I don’t think anything is going to happen until the pandemic is known to be somewhat under control.
The NDP has been competitive in our downtown-ish riding in the past though lately they don’t seem to be into the concept of crossover appeal in their nominations - which may help the Liberals. But we shall see.
Does anyone know anything about our new GG? Not a familiar name to me, but she seems to be a good choice.
Out East seats will be two way contests. The exception in NB may be Fredericton where the Greens one last time. NS may get some NDP bump but I doubt it. It might have been interesting to see if the Greens could get a federal toehold in PEI after the Greens became the official opposition provincially. Unfortunately, the federal Greens seem hellbent on imploding. Singh seems unable to locate Atlantic Canada. The Cons will continue to waste votes in the West and Trudeau will emerge with a majority.
This parliament is toast. The gravy train announcement; the 19 MP's making farewell addresses, the suing the Speaker to keep the PHAC documents tied up for a few months. It all points to a fall election.
I doubt our wait will extend into the fall as the Federal Libs will want to hire the same consultants and staffers as the Ontario Liberals and those will be locked up after November.
Because the alternative to a Liberal gov't is a Conservative gov't, I'll vote or not- it doesn't matter here when >60% of the vote goes Con- and hope for no-Conservative.
My favourite clip from the last few days was a reporter asking Justin Trudeau about Alberta premier Jason Kenney's remarks that fed- provincial transfer payment were unfair, and Trudeau's response that the Liberals hadn't changed it from when Jason Kenny was involved in setting the formula when he was in Harper's Conservative gov't. Kenney doesn't like his younger self apparently.
My favourite clip from the last few days was a reporter asking Justin Trudeau about Alberta premier Jason Kenney's remarks that fed- provincial transfer payment were unfair, and Trudeau's response that the Liberals hadn't changed it from when Jason Kenny was involved in setting the formula when he was in Harper's Conservative gov't. Kenney doesn't like his younger self apparently.
Prior to Jim Prentice, who was not in power long, Alberta had never imported a premier from federal politics(though a few had gone federal AFTER serving provincially). So Kenney was bound to bring an interesting dynamic to things, especially given that his version of conservativism is especially hostile to Ottawa.
I have been considering starting a political party. Ever since Hugh Arscott's dog was almost a Saskatoon candidate. Possible names include The Birthday Party- main policy is we give you your birthday off, paid.
My friends at Elections Canada have firm lips and are not making travel plans, But perhaps this might have to do with their digestive systems.
As I am in Ottawa Centre, I am given to understand that our former provincial attorney general (Yasir Naqvi) is interested but the journalists are excitec about the possibility of having Mark Carney as the LIberal candidate. I am focussing on cottage rental being arranged shortly. I agree with @Pangolin Guerre about Mr Trudeau's beard-- he didn't have the beard in The Sea Hawk, but he does in Captain Blood, which is more his sort of film.
The Green Party fiasco is astonishing. If not for this, I would have given them 5 seats at the next election, but now the question is to which other party their vote will be flowing.
@Sober Preacher's Kid when do you think we are looking at an election in Ontario? Wikipedia tells me probably not for a good year which makes sense to me math-wise. The Ontario election may well be more interesting than the federal election - I think we are probably looking at another Liberal government federally, one way or another - whereas provincial politics are somewhat more up for grabs. I wouldn’t put a lot of money against another Conservative government - Ford hasn’t been an absolute disaster, and therefore he has managed to exceed expectations - but it will be interesting to see what the other two parties manage to pull off.
@Sober Preacher's Kid when do you think we are looking at an election in Ontario? Wikipedia tells me probably not for a good year which makes sense to me math-wise. The Ontario election may well be more interesting than the federal election - I think we are probably looking at another Liberal government federally, one way or another - whereas provincial politics are somewhat more up for grabs. I wouldn’t put a lot of money against another Conservative government - Ford hasn’t been an absolute disaster, and therefore he has managed to exceed expectations - but it will be interesting to see what the other two parties manage to pull off.
The onlly way in which Mr Ford has not been an absolute disaster is in that he resisted the temptation to go down the right-wing slimy rabbit hole into which many in North America have flung themselves. His record on finagling the electoral process (ad hoc city council restructuring, campaign financing, municipal electoral systems) does honour to the State of Texas, and we'll not go into his attempts to stack the Toronto police leadership. That having been said and I think there's little arguing to it, he has weakish leaders opposing him (organic popsicles to those who can name the Liberal leader within 60 seconds reflection)- if he were up against Jagmeet Singh, he's be blubber on toast. Still, should he be lively in the debates, he would have a decent chance of skating through.
But does not the Fixed Elections legislation keep him from the polls until October 2022? The federal fixed elections law was built by Mr Harper to have a gateway of date flexibility adequate for a Mack truck flanked by elephants (section 54.1) but my knowledge of the provincial law is less detailed.
I actually remember Steven del Duca’s name, but that’s about all I could tell you about him.
Re the fixed elections day act, Wikipedia tells me it requires a June election, but I don’t know how the details.
I’ll leave it others to debate whether Ford is an absolute disaster or merely a relative disaster, but I do think he has managed to avoid the flame-out that some of us predicted. So he has inertia still on his side.
Andrea Horwath as a weak leader? Oh please. I've met both NDP leaders and they are cut from the same cloth, which should be unsurprising as Jagmeet Singh was Andrea Horwath's deputy leader.
Del Ducca is a dud, but given that the Ontario Liberals are not an official party and he doesn't get the QP spots for media attention that is to ge expected.
The election date for Ontario is June 22nd, 2022. We wont be going early as the Ontario NDP has more money on hand than the Ontario Conservatives do. I must say Doug Ford is the Ontario NDP's best friend; every time he says something, people send us money.
I am eager for the Federsl Election to be called as the Ontario pre-campsign starts in in October.
I have to say, that I was initially not terribly pleased when Horwath became leader, but neither was I terribly disappointed. On the whole, I think she's done fairly well. Perhaps her most difficult task has been to be critical of the government's handling of specific pandemic-related issues without appearing to being playing politics with pandemic, and on that she has been, I think, successful. I was a little surprised when a conservative friend (not given to partisan blindness) felt the opposite, that she has been overly negative. Ford's greatest asset was that he didn't come off as badly as feared. Horwath's task will be to quietly, yet forcefully, remind the electorate that that does not constitute policy success.
Different direction: Do we have any Nova Scotian mates? I know that we have Caisssa in New Brunswick, Trudy in Newfoundland. It occurs to me that NS is probably up for a dog and pony show.
Not really sure what to make of Horwath. From an outsider's perspective, I would hardly say she's been a memorable leader, but the only NDP leader I'd qualify with that distinction within the last few decades is Bob Rae.
Historically I think the NDP's greatest obstacle in terms of forming a government is something they can't do very much about directly, namely, the Liberal Party. They're competing for too much of the same electoral real estate, and the Liberals have inertia on their side. But of course right now, the Liberals are at a weak moment, and the question is how much Horwath is going to be able to make of this between now and the next election. The Liberals may well recover, for reasons beyond Horwath's control. But if it looks like the Liberals are continuing to struggle and the NDP isn't seeing the benefit of this then I would guess Horwath's days may be numbered.
Doug Ford may be one of the few political leaders whose long-term legacy may be improved by the fact that the pandemic distracted him from implementing his political agenda. I think he also benefits from the fact that there's a lot of muddy water around the distinction between bad things that happened because of the pandemic and bad things that happened because of Ford's mishandling of the pandemic. There are lots of things that Ford can be criticized for, especially with the benefit of hindsight. But there are a lot of other government leaders in the same boat and trying to get particular things to stick particularly to Ford may be a challenge, at least for that part of the electorate who hasn't already decided they're not voting for him.
john holdingEcclesiantics Host, Mystery Worshipper Host
I'm afraid that the unseemly activities in the federal Green Party's headquarters and governing bodies will ensure that no reasonable person -- regardless of how supportive of a Green platform -- is going to vote for them this time round. Whether or not one likes Ms Paul, one cannot be dismayed by the way she is being treated by the party's "insiders" and power-brokers. I'm moderately supportive of the Green program, and was a fan of Ms May as leader, but this display of animosity and hatred has turned me at least away from the party, probably for good. This group could, proverbially, not organize a farting contest at a bean festival.
I have seen extraordinarily vicious organizing and backstabbing at Anglican parish council level, but the Green Party apparatchiki have transcended this. The Greens had always been in my backquiver for when progressive major party candidates did not rate my vote (in my opinion, which is what counts) but unless there is some magnificent resolution to this mess, I cannot see reasonable people supporting them next time round. The CBC gives them 6% with a likely result of two seats. I would not bet on that being equalled in a week's time.
Politics in NB are very local. The prov Green Party leader's riding is part of Atwin's riding. O'Byrne is well-known. The Greens have a chance to hold the seat despite the national shenanigans.
We're going to lose our one NDP member in NL, with Jack Harris's retirement. The Liberals have already declared their candidate for that seat, and unless the NDP puts up someone very impressive we may be looking at 7/7 Liberal seats here again, as we've had before.
But we'll always be the only province to elect an MP with the Christian name Churence, so they can't take that away from us. Maybe one of our local MHAs, like Pleaman or Loyola, will make a federal run and add to the number of outstanding NL names in the House.
I just found out that Mary Shortall, a very well-known union leader, is going to seek the NDP nomination in that riding, so we may have a chance of holding onto it.
I say "we" but I live on the wrong side of the street that divides St. John's East from the other St. John's riding, so we'll be sending Seamus O'Regan ("You couldn't be more Irish if your name was Potato O'Famine," as comedian Mark Critch said to him) to Parliament until I die, or he does. Still, I'd like the NDP to hold St John's East even though I can't vote there.
I may not bother voting. The Cons have fed people on Trudeau is a commie. Everything is just channelled down that chute such that the real nutters are courted by the Conservatives. I mean anti-maskers, Covid hoaxers, racists, anti-abortionists. Lots of hate.
I may not bother voting. The Cons have fed people on Trudeau is a commie. Everything is just channelled down that chute such that the real nutters are courted by the Conservatives. I mean anti-maskers, Covid hoaxers, racists, anti-abortionists. Lots of hate.
While you didn't ask for advice, might I offer some? I live in a seat where the main parties' offerings have been.....vile, scabrous, etc., and their candidates even worse. A neighbour who had come to Canada in 1956 after the failed Hungarian rebellion said I had two very good choices, one of which is to look for an interesting fringe candidate, and the other was to elegantly-or-not write accross the ballat that itwas spoiled. His rationale for the first was that it showed party bosses that even the Flying Monkey Liver Party is deemed to be by voters an improvement over their offering, and for the second was a clear rejection. As a DRO I had encountered clearly spoiled ballots (a certain 4-letter word showed the voter's intent).
In a few elections, I have followed his advice. It does not swing an election, but it is a comfort, and one need not take out one's wrath on small animals.
(PS- In Ontario at provincial elections, one is able to formally reject the ballot which makes it clear that the ballot had not been spoiled by accident.)
I hope your not being too hard some if those MP's ans MPP's, as I have met them and they do try.
I have devoted a considerable part of the last 10 years of my life to riding politics and campaigning for the NDP. In that time I have learned that there is a reason politics is compared to sausage-making. Endless negotiation, compromise, coalition-building, volunteer engagement and fundraising. That is just to get someone elected. It's not easy. It has rather less to do with policy than people think and more to do with personality. And yet I wouldn't trade it for anything
Second, I have learnd that most people dont actually like democracy that much. By that I mean people conflate democracy with 'everyone will naturally agree with me because I'm correct...' Ask anyone if they think it's ok to be outvoted and that it's still correct and watch smiles turn into frowns.
Democracy is a wonderful idea but a curiously thin and frail one.
Comments
Completely superficially, but not irrelevant to the discussion, I prefer the shaggy, bearded Trudeau. He has a slightly Iberian vibe in that mode.
Also impinging on this is the sideshow of the Green Party, and Annamie Paul's travails. I'm not a Green, but voted for her in the by-election in Toronto Centre. My theory (well, one possible scenario) is that there is a group that so loathes her that they are willing to burn down their own house to ensure that her leadership becomes untenable, and a disastrous election result will ensure Paul's departure.
I expect the NDP to put up the long-time sock puppet they've had since Linda McQuaig lost interest in this riding. (I think that she ran in Trinity-St Paul's last time out.) The Liberals have held this riding federally since 1993 (Bill Graham, Bob Rae, Bill Morneau). The riding is currently held by Marci Ien, who defeated Annamie Paul by about 2,000 votes, which for this riding is pretty close. Ien, while a television personality, has been pretty invisible here, and this might be the first time that the Liberals have been vulnerable here in about a generation. The NDP might be threat if the NDP were to put up a reasonable candidate (the NDP hold the riding provincially) and can capitalise on the new riding configuration (wealthy enclave Rosedale is no longer part of Toronto Centre, now part of University-Rosedale, represented by Chrystia Freeland).
The NDP has been competitive in our downtown-ish riding in the past though lately they don’t seem to be into the concept of crossover appeal in their nominations - which may help the Liberals. But we shall see.
Does anyone know anything about our new GG? Not a familiar name to me, but she seems to be a good choice.
I doubt our wait will extend into the fall as the Federal Libs will want to hire the same consultants and staffers as the Ontario Liberals and those will be locked up after November.
My favourite clip from the last few days was a reporter asking Justin Trudeau about Alberta premier Jason Kenney's remarks that fed- provincial transfer payment were unfair, and Trudeau's response that the Liberals hadn't changed it from when Jason Kenny was involved in setting the formula when he was in Harper's Conservative gov't. Kenney doesn't like his younger self apparently.
Prior to Jim Prentice, who was not in power long, Alberta had never imported a premier from federal politics(though a few had gone federal AFTER serving provincially). So Kenney was bound to bring an interesting dynamic to things, especially given that his version of conservativism is especially hostile to Ottawa.
I hope the rlevtoln comes soon as the Onrario NDP wants to take centre stage after October-ish.
As I am in Ottawa Centre, I am given to understand that our former provincial attorney general (Yasir Naqvi) is interested but the journalists are excitec about the possibility of having Mark Carney as the LIberal candidate. I am focussing on cottage rental being arranged shortly. I agree with @Pangolin Guerre about Mr Trudeau's beard-- he didn't have the beard in The Sea Hawk, but he does in Captain Blood, which is more his sort of film.
The Green Party fiasco is astonishing. If not for this, I would have given them 5 seats at the next election, but now the question is to which other party their vote will be flowing.
The onlly way in which Mr Ford has not been an absolute disaster is in that he resisted the temptation to go down the right-wing slimy rabbit hole into which many in North America have flung themselves. His record on finagling the electoral process (ad hoc city council restructuring, campaign financing, municipal electoral systems) does honour to the State of Texas, and we'll not go into his attempts to stack the Toronto police leadership. That having been said and I think there's little arguing to it, he has weakish leaders opposing him (organic popsicles to those who can name the Liberal leader within 60 seconds reflection)- if he were up against Jagmeet Singh, he's be blubber on toast. Still, should he be lively in the debates, he would have a decent chance of skating through.
But does not the Fixed Elections legislation keep him from the polls until October 2022? The federal fixed elections law was built by Mr Harper to have a gateway of date flexibility adequate for a Mack truck flanked by elephants (section 54.1) but my knowledge of the provincial law is less detailed.
Re the fixed elections day act, Wikipedia tells me it requires a June election, but I don’t know how the details.
I’ll leave it others to debate whether Ford is an absolute disaster or merely a relative disaster, but I do think he has managed to avoid the flame-out that some of us predicted. So he has inertia still on his side.
Del Ducca is a dud, but given that the Ontario Liberals are not an official party and he doesn't get the QP spots for media attention that is to ge expected.
The election date for Ontario is June 22nd, 2022. We wont be going early as the Ontario NDP has more money on hand than the Ontario Conservatives do. I must say Doug Ford is the Ontario NDP's best friend; every time he says something, people send us money.
I am eager for the Federsl Election to be called as the Ontario pre-campsign starts in in October.
Different direction: Do we have any Nova Scotian mates? I know that we have Caisssa in New Brunswick, Trudy in Newfoundland. It occurs to me that NS is probably up for a dog and pony show.
Historically I think the NDP's greatest obstacle in terms of forming a government is something they can't do very much about directly, namely, the Liberal Party. They're competing for too much of the same electoral real estate, and the Liberals have inertia on their side. But of course right now, the Liberals are at a weak moment, and the question is how much Horwath is going to be able to make of this between now and the next election. The Liberals may well recover, for reasons beyond Horwath's control. But if it looks like the Liberals are continuing to struggle and the NDP isn't seeing the benefit of this then I would guess Horwath's days may be numbered.
Doug Ford may be one of the few political leaders whose long-term legacy may be improved by the fact that the pandemic distracted him from implementing his political agenda. I think he also benefits from the fact that there's a lot of muddy water around the distinction between bad things that happened because of the pandemic and bad things that happened because of Ford's mishandling of the pandemic. There are lots of things that Ford can be criticized for, especially with the benefit of hindsight. But there are a lot of other government leaders in the same boat and trying to get particular things to stick particularly to Ford may be a challenge, at least for that part of the electorate who hasn't already decided they're not voting for him.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/green-party-paul-funding-riding-election-1.6100459
https://inroadsjournal.ca/is-there-a-future-for-the-ndp-in-new-brunswick/ She was a member of NB NDP exec as late as 2011. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/ndp-facing-fissures-over-cardy-s-leadership-1.1071678
But we'll always be the only province to elect an MP with the Christian name Churence, so they can't take that away from us. Maybe one of our local MHAs, like Pleaman or Loyola, will make a federal run and add to the number of outstanding NL names in the House.
I say "we" but I live on the wrong side of the street that divides St. John's East from the other St. John's riding, so we'll be sending Seamus O'Regan ("You couldn't be more Irish if your name was Potato O'Famine," as comedian Mark Critch said to him) to Parliament until I die, or he does. Still, I'd like the NDP to hold St John's East even though I can't vote there.
While you didn't ask for advice, might I offer some? I live in a seat where the main parties' offerings have been.....vile, scabrous, etc., and their candidates even worse. A neighbour who had come to Canada in 1956 after the failed Hungarian rebellion said I had two very good choices, one of which is to look for an interesting fringe candidate, and the other was to elegantly-or-not write accross the ballat that itwas spoiled. His rationale for the first was that it showed party bosses that even the Flying Monkey Liver Party is deemed to be by voters an improvement over their offering, and for the second was a clear rejection. As a DRO I had encountered clearly spoiled ballots (a certain 4-letter word showed the voter's intent).
In a few elections, I have followed his advice. It does not swing an election, but it is a comfort, and one need not take out one's wrath on small animals.
(PS- In Ontario at provincial elections, one is able to formally reject the ballot which makes it clear that the ballot had not been spoiled by accident.)
I have devoted a considerable part of the last 10 years of my life to riding politics and campaigning for the NDP. In that time I have learned that there is a reason politics is compared to sausage-making. Endless negotiation, compromise, coalition-building, volunteer engagement and fundraising. That is just to get someone elected. It's not easy. It has rather less to do with policy than people think and more to do with personality. And yet I wouldn't trade it for anything
Second, I have learnd that most people dont actually like democracy that much. By that I mean people conflate democracy with 'everyone will naturally agree with me because I'm correct...' Ask anyone if they think it's ok to be outvoted and that it's still correct and watch smiles turn into frowns.
Democracy is a wonderful idea but a curiously thin and frail one.