I've been wondering about the political health of QS, aka the only current Quebec sovereigntists group of any influence I consider in any way progressive. (And actually quite like in absolure terms, from what I've seen of them.) Maybe I can surmise that Boulercie senses they have a better future than the federal NDP.
It may be more prosaic-- he might have just tired of the regular road trip to Ottawa and back. There is much to be said for hanging around Montréal. I have Liberal and BQ friends in his riding, and they have all broken party ranks to vote for him as a good député.
It may be more prosaic-- he might have just tired of the regular road trip to Ottawa and back. There is much to be said for hanging around Montréal. I have Liberal and BQ friends in his riding, and they have all broken party ranks to vote for him as a good député.
All true, I'm sure. And since it's Gabriel Nadeau Dubois' riding, I'll go out on a limb and say Boulerice's chances there are at least as good as in his federal riding.
Oh dear, Carney wants to start a federal Sovereign Wealth Fund.
1) Provincial governments have a terrible record of squandering natural resource wealth and despise contributing to provincial funds of thus type as it would mean higher taxes. I'm looking at you, Alberta.
2) These funds only work if you have a rent source like a natural resource surplus. They do not work when you have a significant* national debt return on investment from simply retiring debt is less risky and higher.
* Going into debt is not bad itself and governments, like businesses usually refinance debt rather than pay it off. Both thus have perpetual debts on their books.
Only if you keep it under control. Interest payments are made from funds that cannot be used for other things.
And our government has no control over the debt, and is not concerned about it.
I think that they are concerned about it, but only in the way in which most of us are concerned about the roof; we may be well aware that it needs constant maintenance but, until it begins to leak, do not have it on the agenda for today. Over the years, I have been at meetings where (relatively small) financial matters were discussed and the debt was raised. Eyes would look around, wondering how this would ever work out. Was it Hemingway who wrote about bankruptcy that it happens very slowly, then all of a sudden?
Only if you keep it under control. Interest payments are made from funds that cannot be used for other things.
And our government has no control over the debt, and is not concerned about it.
I think that they are concerned about it, but only in the way in which most of us are concerned about the roof; we may be well aware that it needs constant maintenance but, until it begins to leak, do not have it on the agenda for today. Over the years, I have been at meetings where (relatively small) financial matters were discussed and the debt was raised. Eyes would look around, wondering how this would ever work out. Was it Hemingway who wrote about bankruptcy that it happens very slowly, then all of a sudden?
Apparently that and the end of supply management, according to the Globe…
The end of supply management has long been a significant part of the fantasy lives of a) the business section of the Globe and Mail, and b) the overpaid government affairs consultant industry.
The PQ has responded to Louise Arbour's ascension by denouncing the GG-ship as "the worst waste of public funds we can imagine" and saying "the king of England" should have no influence over Canadian governance.
All well and good, but it's pretty much the standard republican line, of no particular relevance to this one appointment. The spokesperson did say he admired Arbour personally.
Overall, strikes me as kind of a celebrity appointment, for whatever imited circles in which Arbour is a celebrity.
A friend has speculated on how Ambassador Hoekstra will brief President Trump on the appointment. After all, Mme Arbour is perhaps the first person to see a sitting president go to prison for war crimes.
Former colleagues of mine worked with her on refugee issues some decades ago and were pleased as punch that a personable and expert person has the job--- admittedly, they have little understanding of the job itself. While possessing degrees in political science, history, and public administration, they are kind of unclear on it. As was remarked in my presence some years ago, so many of our scholars and specialists had their training in US or US-dominated fields that their basic assumptions were unconsciously republican.
An Australian friend suggested that prime ministers should stay clear of seeing judges go to the viceregal office, noting that Gough Whitlam perhaps came to regret the appointment of Sir John Kerr. However Mme Arbour dealt with the political realities of law as much as she did with the letter and is much less likely to fall into the same trap.
A legal acquaintance pointed out that Arbour may be the only new GG appointed with previous GG experience, given that SCC judges can stand in for the GG when the latter is unavailable - for the purpose of things like giving Royal Assent and the like.
I think that the Globe's favour was due to: 1) Erskine-Little's eduction (Oxon BCL) and his articulate if (to the Globe) undesirably progressive position, against: 2) the uneven quality of Ahsanul Hafiz, whose youthful online presence suggested that he was not particularly thoughtful (e.g., posing with firearms, etc).
The Globe continues to prefer Conservative candidates, but finds the current Tory leadership too immature and performative for its own culture. It reminds me a bit of the US Republican faction which finds Mr Trump too distasteful, but the prospect of the other party so very much more unpleasant.
I have long railed against party nomination campaigns in Canada (since 1984, and I have criticized six parties for their rules, much good it did me)-- they are the source of most "untidiness" and at times corruption in Canadian politics. My suggestion that contributions to nomination campaigns be eligible for tax credits in exchange for regulation and accountability at least now gets respectful nods, allied with a determination to do nothing.
I’ve never got the sense that the Globe speaks with a consistent voice about candidates, at least not if you get past their unsigned editorials which can be drearily predictable on many issues.
Scarborough southwest is just next door to Erskine-Smith’s current riding (Beaches East York) and both have reliably been going back and forth between the Liberals and NDP in recent memory. But culturally very different places and quite apart from all untidiness I wonder if this is SSW expressing their displeasure at having a candidate who they don’t regard as one of their own foisted on them.
My impression was that Erskine Smith was seen as the Liberals’ most credible candidate to zag left after zigging too far right in the last election to distinguish themselves meaningfully from the Conservatives. Maybe they need to find a way to zag left that doesn’t involve a candidate from old Toronto. Beaches East York being basically the eastern part of the old City of Toronto with parts of old East York that reasonably similar.
I gather there are rumours that Yasir Naqvi is interested in the job - not someone I know much about though Ottawa shipmates will presumably know much more than I do.
I think that the Globe's favour was due to: 1) Erskine-Little's eduction (Oxon BCL) and his articulate if (to the Globe) undesirably progressive position, against: 2) the uneven quality of Ahsanul Hafiz, whose youthful online presence suggested that he was not particularly thoughtful (e.g., posing with firearms, etc).
The Globe continues to prefer Conservative candidates, but finds the current Tory leadership too immature and performative for its own culture. It reminds me a bit of the US Republican faction which finds Mr Trump too distasteful, but the prospect of the other party so very much more unpleasant.
I have long railed against party nomination campaigns in Canada (since 1984, and I have criticized six parties for their rules, much good it did me)-- they are the source of most "untidiness" and at times corruption in Canadian politics. My suggestion that contributions to nomination campaigns be eligible for tax credits in exchange for regulation and accountability at least now gets respectful nods, allied with a determination to do nothing.
???
Nomination contributions are subject to the same rules as regular Candidate and Party Contributions, namely you must be a Canadian citizen, the limit is the same, no cash contributions over $20 and donations over $200 must be published on Elections Canada"s website.
Legally, all they do is confer thd endorsement of a political party, nothing more. All candidates must have the signatures of 200 eligible voters from their riding on their registration papers with Elections Canada but that is entirely separate.
There is no regulation of party membership and voting under the Elections Act. Non-citizens and minors can and do become party members and vote in nomination and leadership contests. This is legal.
I know from personal conversations that Elections Canada dearly wants to gets its hands on nomination races; if given its druthers it would turn them into a form of Primary Election. Parties have resisted this in preference to internal control.
I have mixed feelings about the nomination process. There’s a side of me that thinks this is really an internal party process about selecting the candidate who can put their best foot forward on behalf of the party. Judging from American commentary I’ve read, their formal primary election process extending to all registered voters can favour candidates on the extremes who appeal to party faithful over candidates with crossover appeal. (Doug Saunders I think made similar observations about the UK, though if memory serves it was more about the leadership selection process.) Which is particularly a problem in races where one or the other party is heavily favoured to win and winning the primary is pretty much within the election.
The other side of the same coin is that as @Augustine the Aleut puts it, a purely internal process allows for a lot of untidiness and the concept of the electorate being handed a fait accompli obtained through God knows what machinations in a safe (or safe-ish) seat does not enhance the overall repute of our electoral system. If all the real competition is happening under wraps in a process that has no visibility to the average member of the electorate that’s probably not a good thing.
I suppose part of the problem is that we still operate on the fiction that voters generally elect candidates rather than political parties. (I know some voters still do…) In principle if a party nominates a poor candidate they should lose the seat no matter what the political tendency of the riding is. But for any number of reasons it doesn’t usually work that way.
A Guardian article by a Canadian climate activist...
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney is not the climate guy you thought
You can probably guess the proferred reasons for disillusionment: consumer carbon pricing, methane and electrical regulations, and, of course, pipelines. Overall, I'd say the percentage of Guardian readers who care about any of this is larger, and by a pretty huge margin, than the percentage of potential Liberal voters in Canada who care.
I haven’t done a survey, but I suspect there are quite a few raised eyebrows about this government’s climate policies from people who voted for them in last election. It’s clear enough from his book the Carney is not a climate change denier, but climate policy seems to be very much on the back burner at the moment (and probably a gas-burning back burner at that…).
I will grant Carney that it’s easier to do something about the climate if the government of the world’s largest economy immediately to your south is basically on board, as opposed to trying to destroy our economy any way it can. And likewise when you don’t have an Alberta premier pandering to separatists and the leader of the main opposition party is in the business of doing whatever he can to make the oil lobby happy. Which is all to say that hopefully some of this is situational and the result of trying to keep way too many balls in air.
I haven’t done a survey, but I suspect there are quite a few raised eyebrows about this government’s climate policies from people who voted for them in last election.
Maybe it's just 'cuz I'm from Alberta, but I kinda think that almost anyone who cares enough about the environment to affect their vote is either a member of an official environmental organization, or at least socially adjacent to people who are.
I will grant Carney that it’s easier to do something about the climate if the government of the world’s largest economy immediately to your south is basically on board, as opposed to trying to destroy our economy any way it can. And likewise when you don’t have an Alberta premier pandering to separatists and the leader of the main opposition party is in the business of doing whatever he can to make the oil lobby happy. Which is all to say that hopefully some of this is situational and the result of trying to keep way too many balls in air.
As far as pipelines go, the Liberals have been pro-pipeline since before Trump came down the elevator, and LONG before the latest wave of Alberta separatism got going. David Suzuki has alleged that Justin Trudeau called him a "flaky idealis[t]" before hanging up on him in a phone call on the subject.
Agreed that any policy advances Carney might have been planning to make on the eco front have likely been hampered by the scramble to safeguard the economy from Trump's chaotic attacks.
Gotta say, having only moved to this province in 2022, I think I was unaware of this now re-erupted controversy over the blue license plates.
I gather the original suspicion was that they were deliberately coloured in the tory hue? Just one detail that lends the whole thing a somewhat duplessis-ish quality.
From the headlines, it appears the courts are ruling against the government on release of the relevant documents. But I'm not sure if these docs are from the period when the plates were being planned, or from the period when the cops were first noticing the visibility issues, or both. Guess I could go read some articles on that.
That is the suspicion, though to be fair Ontario licence plates issued pre-1972 alternated each year between blue and white. You didn't get a sticker in those days, you got a new licence plate each year. The sticker system was introduced in 1973.
A land yacht with a blue licence plate is a nostalgia trigger in Ontario.
My American cousins from New York remarked that Ontario's plate design was remarkably stable; American states tend to change the whole design every five to ten years.
The visibility issue though is common sense. Dark lettering on a bright background is known to be more visible.
I remember the old white on blue plates, though as SPK says, it was a long time ago. I think I remember them mostly because my parents kept their old pre-1973 plates hanging on a wall in the garage for some reason.
I’m going to guess from the fact the government went with blue on white for the permanent plates that they were probably more easily read than their white on blue counterparts. But as I recall being told, it was a cost savings issue rather than an issue with the other plates per se.
Ontario plates have used blue for decades so personally I’m a bit doubtful there’s anything nefarious going on politically. The Canadian government websites did become noticeably bluer with the Harper government which I always assumed was political to some extent - though IIRC they were previously very red so perhaps the change was understandable.
...
My American cousins from New York remarked that Ontario's plate design was remarkably stable; American states tend to change the whole design every five to ten years.
...
American states have multiple plate colour combinations. Pretty sure Arizona has a dozen or more.
The old blue Ontsrio plates had stamped lettering which helped increase contrast.
The new blue plates were laser printed as are the current white ones which decreased contrast on the blue plates. The blue looks like it bleeds into the white at s distance.
Danielle Smith's basic facsimile of how the fall referendum question will read...
OPTION A: Alberta should remain a province in Canada.
OPTION B: The Government of Alberta should commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada.
Parizeau predicted that if Quebec didn't get independence in '95, the continuing constitutional arguments would be like "one never-ending trip to the dentist".
Maybe it's just 'cuz I'm from Alberta, but I kinda think that almost anyone who cares enough about the environment to affect their vote is either a member of an official environmental organization, or at least socially adjacent to people who are.
And now the most high-profile representative of this demographic(outside of the arts) is quitting the Liberal caucus. Guilbeault cites the MOU with Alberta and the general climate rollbacks as his objections.
Gotta say, having spent a brief coupla evenings in the second-hand company of Greenpeacers(friend was a summer canvasser late 80s), and chatting with a few at rallies, plus their general media image, I'm surprised anyone with Greenpeace is able to get anywhere in politics. I know there's always a tension between idealism and pragmatics in any political career, especially one that bridges between activist and partisan groups, but those Greenpeace guys never seemed like the type who'd be able to make a graceful and competent segue between the realms.
That said, Jan Reimer managed to win two terms as mayor in Edmonton circa 1990, and Jack Layton needs no introduction. Not sure if either of them were with Greenpeace per se.
(And my friend is now a pretty pragmatic businessperson. Back in the day, he and I once attended a speech by Paul Watson, the anti-whaling vigilante. Among other things, Watson did the old whine "Entire species are going extinct and Canadians are arguing about the language on street signs." I don't know if that was his usual go-to example of a trivial issue, or if someone had told him it would be a real crowd-pleaser in Alberta, but anyway he got a medium-spirited round of applause for that. Quebec's language laws were at high-visibility in the media at that point.)
Comments
I've been wondering about the political health of QS, aka the only current Quebec sovereigntists group of any influence I consider in any way progressive. (And actually quite like in absolure terms, from what I've seen of them.) Maybe I can surmise that Boulercie senses they have a better future than the federal NDP.
All true, I'm sure. And since it's Gabriel Nadeau Dubois' riding, I'll go out on a limb and say Boulerice's chances there are at least as good as in his federal riding.
1) Provincial governments have a terrible record of squandering natural resource wealth and despise contributing to provincial funds of thus type as it would mean higher taxes. I'm looking at you, Alberta.
2) These funds only work if you have a rent source like a natural resource surplus. They do not work when you have a significant* national debt return on investment from simply retiring debt is less risky and higher.
* Going into debt is not bad itself and governments, like businesses usually refinance debt rather than pay it off. Both thus have perpetual debts on their books.
And our government has no control over the debt, and is not concerned about it.
I think that they are concerned about it, but only in the way in which most of us are concerned about the roof; we may be well aware that it needs constant maintenance but, until it begins to leak, do not have it on the agenda for today. Over the years, I have been at meetings where (relatively small) financial matters were discussed and the debt was raised. Eyes would look around, wondering how this would ever work out. Was it Hemingway who wrote about bankruptcy that it happens very slowly, then all of a sudden?
Apparently that and the end of supply management, according to the Globe…
All well and good, but it's pretty much the standard republican line, of no particular relevance to this one appointment. The spokesperson did say he admired Arbour personally.
Overall, strikes me as kind of a celebrity appointment, for whatever imited circles in which Arbour is a celebrity.
I see what you did there!
Former colleagues of mine worked with her on refugee issues some decades ago and were pleased as punch that a personable and expert person has the job--- admittedly, they have little understanding of the job itself. While possessing degrees in political science, history, and public administration, they are kind of unclear on it. As was remarked in my presence some years ago, so many of our scholars and specialists had their training in US or US-dominated fields that their basic assumptions were unconsciously republican.
An Australian friend suggested that prime ministers should stay clear of seeing judges go to the viceregal office, noting that Gough Whitlam perhaps came to regret the appointment of Sir John Kerr. However Mme Arbour dealt with the political realities of law as much as she did with the letter and is much less likely to fall into the same trap.
I am rolling on the floor laughing.
What did the Globe like about him?
According to wikipedia, he lost to a Domino's franchisee.
The Globe continues to prefer Conservative candidates, but finds the current Tory leadership too immature and performative for its own culture. It reminds me a bit of the US Republican faction which finds Mr Trump too distasteful, but the prospect of the other party so very much more unpleasant.
I have long railed against party nomination campaigns in Canada (since 1984, and I have criticized six parties for their rules, much good it did me)-- they are the source of most "untidiness" and at times corruption in Canadian politics. My suggestion that contributions to nomination campaigns be eligible for tax credits in exchange for regulation and accountability at least now gets respectful nods, allied with a determination to do nothing.
Scarborough southwest is just next door to Erskine-Smith’s current riding (Beaches East York) and both have reliably been going back and forth between the Liberals and NDP in recent memory. But culturally very different places and quite apart from all untidiness I wonder if this is SSW expressing their displeasure at having a candidate who they don’t regard as one of their own foisted on them.
My impression was that Erskine Smith was seen as the Liberals’ most credible candidate to zag left after zigging too far right in the last election to distinguish themselves meaningfully from the Conservatives. Maybe they need to find a way to zag left that doesn’t involve a candidate from old Toronto. Beaches East York being basically the eastern part of the old City of Toronto with parts of old East York that reasonably similar.
I gather there are rumours that Yasir Naqvi is interested in the job - not someone I know much about though Ottawa shipmates will presumably know much more than I do.
???
Nomination contributions are subject to the same rules as regular Candidate and Party Contributions, namely you must be a Canadian citizen, the limit is the same, no cash contributions over $20 and donations over $200 must be published on Elections Canada"s website.
They are not eligible for the tax credit.
See Elections Canada's webiste
My first thought was something like surely the Rae government wasn’t that bad. Then I realized it was Rae talking about the Trump Administration…
Legally, all they do is confer thd endorsement of a political party, nothing more. All candidates must have the signatures of 200 eligible voters from their riding on their registration papers with Elections Canada but that is entirely separate.
There is no regulation of party membership and voting under the Elections Act. Non-citizens and minors can and do become party members and vote in nomination and leadership contests. This is legal.
I know from personal conversations that Elections Canada dearly wants to gets its hands on nomination races; if given its druthers it would turn them into a form of Primary Election. Parties have resisted this in preference to internal control.
The other side of the same coin is that as @Augustine the Aleut puts it, a purely internal process allows for a lot of untidiness and the concept of the electorate being handed a fait accompli obtained through God knows what machinations in a safe (or safe-ish) seat does not enhance the overall repute of our electoral system. If all the real competition is happening under wraps in a process that has no visibility to the average member of the electorate that’s probably not a good thing.
I suppose part of the problem is that we still operate on the fiction that voters generally elect candidates rather than political parties. (I know some voters still do…) In principle if a party nominates a poor candidate they should lose the seat no matter what the political tendency of the riding is. But for any number of reasons it doesn’t usually work that way.
You can probably guess the proferred reasons for disillusionment: consumer carbon pricing, methane and electrical regulations, and, of course, pipelines. Overall, I'd say the percentage of Guardian readers who care about any of this is larger, and by a pretty huge margin, than the percentage of potential Liberal voters in Canada who care.
I will grant Carney that it’s easier to do something about the climate if the government of the world’s largest economy immediately to your south is basically on board, as opposed to trying to destroy our economy any way it can. And likewise when you don’t have an Alberta premier pandering to separatists and the leader of the main opposition party is in the business of doing whatever he can to make the oil lobby happy. Which is all to say that hopefully some of this is situational and the result of trying to keep way too many balls in air.
Maybe it's just 'cuz I'm from Alberta, but I kinda think that almost anyone who cares enough about the environment to affect their vote is either a member of an official environmental organization, or at least socially adjacent to people who are.
As far as pipelines go, the Liberals have been pro-pipeline since before Trump came down the elevator, and LONG before the latest wave of Alberta separatism got going. David Suzuki has alleged that Justin Trudeau called him a "flaky idealis[t]" before hanging up on him in a phone call on the subject.
Agreed that any policy advances Carney might have been planning to make on the eco front have likely been hampered by the scramble to safeguard the economy from Trump's chaotic attacks.
I gather the original suspicion was that they were deliberately coloured in the tory hue? Just one detail that lends the whole thing a somewhat duplessis-ish quality.
From the headlines, it appears the courts are ruling against the government on release of the relevant documents. But I'm not sure if these docs are from the period when the plates were being planned, or from the period when the cops were first noticing the visibility issues, or both. Guess I could go read some articles on that.
A land yacht with a blue licence plate is a nostalgia trigger in Ontario.
My American cousins from New York remarked that Ontario's plate design was remarkably stable; American states tend to change the whole design every five to ten years.
The visibility issue though is common sense. Dark lettering on a bright background is known to be more visible.
So did the pre-1972 blue plates have visibility issues as well?
I’m going to guess from the fact the government went with blue on white for the permanent plates that they were probably more easily read than their white on blue counterparts. But as I recall being told, it was a cost savings issue rather than an issue with the other plates per se.
Ontario plates have used blue for decades so personally I’m a bit doubtful there’s anything nefarious going on politically. The Canadian government websites did become noticeably bluer with the Harper government which I always assumed was political to some extent - though IIRC they were previously very red so perhaps the change was understandable.
The new blue plates were laser printed as are the current white ones which decreased contrast on the blue plates. The blue looks like it bleeds into the white at s distance.
You'd think it wouldn't matter but it does.
Discussion on the Alberta Separatism thread.
You know, of course, the history of dental metaphors for this situation.
Parizeau predicted that if Quebec didn't get independence in '95, the continuing constitutional arguments would be like "one never-ending trip to the dentist".
And now the most high-profile representative of this demographic(outside of the arts) is quitting the Liberal caucus. Guilbeault cites the MOU with Alberta and the general climate rollbacks as his objections.
Gotta say, having spent a brief coupla evenings in the second-hand company of Greenpeacers(friend was a summer canvasser late 80s), and chatting with a few at rallies, plus their general media image, I'm surprised anyone with Greenpeace is able to get anywhere in politics. I know there's always a tension between idealism and pragmatics in any political career, especially one that bridges between activist and partisan groups, but those Greenpeace guys never seemed like the type who'd be able to make a graceful and competent segue between the realms.
That said, Jan Reimer managed to win two terms as mayor in Edmonton circa 1990, and Jack Layton needs no introduction. Not sure if either of them were with Greenpeace per se.
(And my friend is now a pretty pragmatic businessperson. Back in the day, he and I once attended a speech by Paul Watson, the anti-whaling vigilante. Among other things, Watson did the old whine "Entire species are going extinct and Canadians are arguing about the language on street signs." I don't know if that was his usual go-to example of a trivial issue, or if someone had told him it would be a real crowd-pleaser in Alberta, but anyway he got a medium-spirited round of applause for that. Quebec's language laws were at high-visibility in the media at that point.)