Canadian Politics 2017: I've Got a Pipeline Straight to the Heart of You

A belatedly new thread for the new year

i just really dislike fptp because i don't really believe that a party that gets a <40% share of the electorate that bothered to vote has the legitimacy to have complete control of the legislative and executive functions of the government.
I agree but I think this could also be dealt with if there was less pressure for MPs to vote along party lines.

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Thursday, 2 February 2017 19:18 (one month ago) Permalink

i don't see how that sort of situation can be arrived at tho? is that a thing that has been introduced in other places/by what methods?

― Islamic State of Mind (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 2 February 2017 19:50 (one month ago) Permalink

So in reading about Michael Chong, it turns out that I was unaware that the original version of his Reform Act would have done most of what I was suggesting:
http://michaelchong.ca/2014/09/11/reform-act-2014-backgrounder/
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=6520019&File=30#2

The version that got passed by Parliament in 2015 was pretty toned-down, though, but at least a step in the right direction:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=8058690&File=30#2

Also, is this the silliest controversy in a while?:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/03/16/ndp-leadership-candidate-apologizes-for-beyonc-quote.html

Hm, looks like Chong is polling worse in the race than I thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_of_Canada_leadership_election,_2017#Opinion_polling

Articles like this one seem to be referring to polls of which candidate appeals most to Canadians, more generally, not ones who can vote for the CPC leadership.

His economic policy seems pretty regressive, although he's probably not worse than the other options:

A Conservative Party led by Michael Chong will:

Reduce personal income taxes by $14.9 billion a year. This would be an absolute reduction in personal income taxes of 10%
Flatten the personal income tax system from five rates to two rates, keeping the current 15% and 29% rates and the current thresholds

People who make under $142K would pay only 15% on their taxable income.

seriously? the guy who spews sociopathic bile on TV and doesn't even live here is leading the race? the hell?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/world/canada/syrian-refugees.html

seriously? the guy who spews sociopathic bile on TV and doesn't even live here is leading the race? the hell?

― Mad Piratical (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Saturday, March 18, 2017 10:02 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would not be particularly surprised if kevin o'leary is the next prime minister

http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=7554

had no idea he was running for tory leadership

I like how the Post takes the opportunity to list some previous G&M scandals at the end of this:

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/globe-spikes-leah-mclarens-column-on-trying-to-breastfeed-mp-michael-chongs-baby-to-see-what-it-felt-like

The original column is here and it is one strange piece of, uh, journalism?

really bizarre story.

also funny how it sort of reflects badly on chong - ive heard more about this than anything else related to his campaign - even though he's completely blameless

Speaking of Michael Chong, who else has registered for a CPC membership to vote for him?

I couldn't do it after reading his economic platform. He doesn't look like a strong contender anyway.

Wow: http://m.torontosun.com/2017/03/31/liberals-would-lose-official-party-status-if-election-held-today-poll?token=274b7b591a7c900f182252c7dc0bad0b&utm_source=addThis&utm_medium=addthis_button_facebook&utm_campaign=Liberals+would+lose+official+party+status+if+election+held+today%3A+Poll+%7C+Ontario

When do we know for the conservative results?

Oh ok, it's only in May. For some reasons I believe it was coming during this week.

I think I'm ready to rejoin the NDP: https://www.ndp.ca/news/ndp-statement-us-air-strikes-syria

It is not clear what the impact of these missile strikes will be on the conflict. They are not part of a United Nations-sanctioned effort, and it is not clear if they form part of a larger plan to end this crisis.

New Democrats continue to believe that any successful response to this crisis in Syria must be multilateral and compatible with international law.

Now, more than ever, it is important that Canada work with our international partners to secure a lasting political solution to this crisis. Canada must also step up efforts on the humanitarian front, particularly in the face of drastic cuts to United Nations programs planned by the Trump administration.

Trudeau's response is disappointingly Liberal ("fully supportive" of the airstrikes but "working towards a diplomatic solution).

yeah that is a legit response

That's platitudes.

I'll take platitudes over active warmongering tbh

I'm sure the people of Syria thanks you for that.

Oh, fuck off. I'm parsing the official responses of our two leftmost (viable) parties and nothing more.

if it wasn't clear when I was referring to the NDP response, not the Liberal one.

Fred can you leave your unwanted dribblings to the American politics threads?

Just a shame that the average Canadian voter will be turned off by this correct stance by the NDP. If they even come to hear about it at all.

such a novel feeling to be Danesplained on a Friday night

#WellActually it's Saturday morning GMT.

And I'll get out of here. But if you're going to choose your party based on their response to what happens in other parts of the world, don't be mad if people from still other parts of the world calls you an idiot.

all canadians make all voting decisions based on the wording of foreign policy press releases, that's just how we do things. you wouldn't understand.

Fred, I'm all for more non-Canadians posting here, but if you're going to call me an idiot, you can at least back up your comment. How are those just platitudes, assuming you're talking about the NDP statement? It is a marked contrast to the Liberals' ("fully support[ive]") or Conservatives' ("strongly support[ive]") positions. (I'm guessing you prefer Trudeau and the Libs?) The NDP are raising imo valid concerns about the airstrikes: neither their impact nor the larger plan are clear, and, more to the point, they are not UN-sanctioned; if any action is to be taken against a sovereign state, it should be multilateral and legal, which unilateral airstrikes are not. The latter point should be a platitude but hardly anyone else is saying it now. And if we're going to start bombing places, we should have a sense of where it is going. Moreover, they stress that Canada should place its emphasis on addressing the humanitarian problem, another thing that no one seems to be focusing on, despite concern for "beautiful babies".

OK, reading the "controversial opinion" thread, I have a sense of where you're coming from:

Looking at the development the last five years, it's getting clearer and clearer that the West should have bombed Syria in 2013.

― Frederik B, Saturday, 8 April 2017 04:11 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm saying it was worth the risk of regime change, of regional war, of whatever, because we did the opposite and it has failed disastrously, and whatever would have happened it would have been handled by Obama instead of Trump.

― Frederik B, Saturday, 8 April 2017 05:39 (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe you prefer the Tories?

I have no idea whether or not you're an idiot, but if you're joining a political party because they manage to respond to the gassing of civilians with the right words, then you're acting like an idiot. They're raising 'valid concerns', but what are they going to do about it? Great if they have actual policies for helping refugees, but what are they going to do with Assad and Syria? What is their larger plan?

And I don't have one either, I'm just so fucking frustrated that we've gotten to this point, where Trump is doing what Obama should have been doing in 2013. Assad gassed his own people again. What was Trump supposed to do? And now Rubio is out there saying that perhaps Assad could use his wmd's on America as well, and boy, that will obviously turn out well.

The 'don't do stupid shit' of the Obama doctrine just kicked the can down the road, until a moron took over. Sometimes you need to do the shitty thing to ensure it won't be done less moronic.

I'm not sure what thread would be right to ask this question, but what would it take for people to consider that Obama might not have made the right choice in 2013? How much worse would it have to get?

Oh, and it's supposed to say it 'will' be done less moronic, of course.

Well, first, no, that wouldn't be my only reason for joining the party. I was a member in 2011 and have voted for them in every federal election except 1997. They had lost me over the last few years but I had already been considering whether to rejoin since a leadership convention is coming up (one of the few times when it makes a difference whether you join a party or not). People who read these threads semi-regularly instead of driving by to post snark probably have some context for this. The leadership convention is where you get to vote for a leader who hopefully has detailed policies and a plan. Joining a party doesn't even mean that you're necessarily voting for the party; it just means that, for a small fee, you get to be involved in deciding these thing.

Secondly, frankly, I think people who want to drop bombs on another country have more of a responsibility to show a larger plan. "OK, this is fucked up. We don't have all the answers yet so let's make sure that we're following international law and try to achieve some kind of multilateral consensus on how to deal with it, especially because we know the West has fucked up this kind of thing before" seems to me like a perfectly reasonable stance to take right now, especially for a Canadian opposition party.

"+ Right now, what we can do is try to help the people who are being hurt in a direct way."

Fred, the NDP are essentially leaderless at the moment. Words are pretty much all they have.

can we not call people idiots here please. this is the Canadian politics thread, we shouldn't be escalating things beyond "hoser".

Fred, do you even know who Don Cherry is?

The math has been overdone at this point, we have decades and decades of evidence than western military action in the middle east are doomed to catastrophe for everyone involved. It seems evident to me, like climate change and free health care. If it is a platitude to state a desire to increase the amount of refugees and not use bombs then vive les platitudes and vive le NDP.

Anyone here knows Peter Julian well? Alexandre Boulerice (perhaps one of the biggest NDP figure in Quebec) announced his support for him.

An actually critical article about Trudeau in the international press: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/17/stop-swooning-justin-trudeau-man-disaster-planet?CMP=share_btn_fb

(I don't know enough about any of the NDP candidates yet tbh, probably the least about Julian.)

it's not guardian's first

i recall reading another one criticizing him but forget for what

how are we feeling about the BC election? I am not permitting myself to feel hope that Christy will get turfed

I didn't know there was one tbh. Being out of the country does this to you, apparently. So the NDP have been leading the polls for a while - this has happened before, hasn't it?

they were leading the polls last time around by a decent margin and not only did the liberals win, but in fact extended their majority.

I'm just back from vacation but i think i better start volunteering with my local ndp mla's campaign as our riding was fairly close last time

i am not confident, but will be bummed if the liberals win again

NDP in with a decent chance. Their platform rollouts have been good and generally well received. Fears about Horgan's electability seem to be dissipating. I was at the media thing where he announced the housing platform last week and was really quite impressed. He was really on point with media questions, talked about Site C dam, LNG and housing with intelligence and energy. Only needed a couple of small slams at the Liberals to totally win me over. Here in the city we maybe forget that this election has to be won in the interior and up north. He's a big guy, a logger's son who may end up being more appealing in the sticks than any of their leaders since Harcourt.

There is the usual narrative that the Greens will spoil the NDP's chances but we get that every time and it never really pans out. They are polling quite high at 18% supposedly, but maybe few people are actually aware of Andrew Weaver and what a spluttering mansplaining twat he is. Highest they ever got was 12% of the vote and that was with an excellent leader (Adriane Carr) and the NDP at their lowest point.

I'm hopeful (but usually wrong.) If the Liberals get back in then this town is truly fucked.

andrew weaver is awful, he gets into nasty arguments with citizens on facebook all day

I voted for John Horgan in the last NDP primary before the 2013 election, he was really charismatic and articulate in the debate I attended (Mr. Dix was somewhat less so)

You're right about the interior, all the attainable lower mainland and island seats won't be enough. I guess that's why i'm still pessimistic that the map will flip in our favour. I do feel better about the NDP messaging than in the last 2-3 elections, it's much more focussed on why the Liberal corruption screws voters over

andrew weaver is pretty hilarious on social media. he started a long argument with a green candidate on the timeline of a friend who is a union exec and an ndp member and was seemingly unaware or indifferent to how much he was airing dirty laundry on a political opponent's profile

Last weekend he tweeted to two NDP candidates, one gay & one trans, trying to nail them on some fake LGBT issue. When they politely told him to check his facts he accused them of getting "in a tizzy" about it.

did you see that the greens accidentally outed one of their own trans candidates? The candidate is playing it off but it's pretty gross

The Greens are largely total amateurs politically so being not embarrassing is very difficult for them.

it's all that patchouli

Patchouli, and money. Weaver's riding, Oak Bay, is an intense concentration of crystal stores, homeopaths, golf courses and marinas. The Greens want to build more "affordable" housing but you can bet your ass it won't be in Oak Bay.

Canadian greens seem like they are painting a noble ecofriendly sheen on the most entitled of NIMBYism

Was legit impressed by May in 2015 (although I voted for Paul Dewar) and voted for Ontario Greens instead of any of the miserable major party options in the 2013 Ontario election. Idk anything about the BC party, though.

i am a green at heart, voted green when i lived in scotland. when i got to bc i took an interest in the greens and was put off almost immediately by almost everything i heard about them. very much in the anti-gm foods, pro-chiropractic wing of the green movement and quite at odds form the eco-socialism id expected, being used to european greens

Anyone have any thoughts on this, which will apparently be tested in Ontario soon?: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/04/18/ontario-embraces-no-strings-attached-basic-income-experiment.html

I don't really know what to make of the idea. These are the questions that come to mind for me too:

“But if a basic income is going to be good for everyone, how do we make sure it is not subsidizing a cheap labour strategy?” adds Frache. If it is to support people who are unable to work or who cannot work due to care-giving or other reasons, a basic income that brings them within 75 per cent of the poverty line still leaves them in poverty, she adds.
...
Anything that is universal and beneficial would be tremendously expensive, Frache adds.

“If we fund basic income, what is the risk of something else being squeezed out? What social programs will be lost? Housing subsidies? Daycare subsidies?” she asks. “There is no way we will have a basic income program that will be in addition to all the existing social programs.”

so happy o'leary's out

Yeah baby

im ambivalent. could see arguments that he would've been a disaster for the cpc but equally wouldn't be totally surprised if he was a populist canadian trump success.

xp- this guy is my favourite writer on Canadian public finance and he has collected his writings here:

http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/kmilligan/research/basic-income.htm

Maxime will lose imo

Yeah I was having nightmares about O'Leary's potential popularity

i still get nightmares from my econ class at ubc

O'Leary was the only potential Conservative leader that I imagined beating Trudeau's Libs in an election so this is relieving.

That said, Leitch is by far the scarier candidate in terms of policy and rhetoric.

yeah if she gets to be leader it will be so toxic for the country regardless of whether she ever were to lead the tories to electoral success.

well she's got some competition, and they're not as extreme as her? putting aside my fantasies of dismantling the cbc that she has proposed

o'toole wants to give tax credit for student debt

bernier, whose now endorsed by o'leary, is a more complex case -- good and bad there

but most canadians are against allowing entry to more asylum seekers, so pretty sure that's a given for most cpc candidates, so you still have to tread carefully with the tories

god, glad he is gone. and for theses reasons too.

Good riddance.

In other news, looks like a rewrite of NAFTA is no longer in order. Our new neighbours would rather withdraw from it completely: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/nafta-executive-order-trump.html

While I have my concerns about NAFTA (ones that hardly anyone brings up), my current status in the US is "NAFTA Professional" so idk what would happen if the agreement was scrapped. (I mean, the university would probably just have to sponsor me for a visa.) I'm a little ... bemused by the idea that Canada has been consistently exploiting the US through unfair trade practices. Also, my admittedly superficial impression is that Notley is fighting this as much as anyone in Canada, perhaps more than Trudeau?

i haven't read the article but my understanding is that trump wants to leave nafta because he wants to exclude mexico from a lot of the benefits that it would receive by being in a trade agreement with the us that includes canada

in part, this is why the gov't of canada was supposed to push for keeping nafta or at least keeping all countries in the agreement

trump got his way though (which was likely). pundits are saying canada will probably benefit from a trade agreement that is only canada-us, and could renegotiate for a fairer agreement. trump has said that he has no problems with the way things are with canada, but that he is concerned with how things are going with mexico -- obviously in all of this, it's mexico that will get royally screwed, and canada, as usually, had to play along with the us

trump has said that he has no problems with the way things are with canada

This is NOT what he has been saying over the past week.

Presumably, Trump realized that he did not have enough enemies and brainstormed ways to antagonize one of the US's closest allies.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-25/trudeau-s-reward-for-courting-trump-is-a-trade-war-over-lumber
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/nafta-what-do-trump-and-canada-want/article33715250/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/04/24/rachel-notley-donald-trum_n_16209596.html

damn

sorry sund4r

i actually read latimes' softwood lumber article a couple days ago and just totally forgot about it

i remember g&m's softwood lumber article from a couple days ago was "unlimited" and i couldn't read it so i read the latimes one

so weird for them to put that article behind a paywall

https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2017/04/25/president-trumps-tariff-on-canadian-softwood-lumber-imports-will-hurt-america-most/#5f728ddf2232

But Trump’s trade team doesn’t have even a basic grasp of international trade economics. Peter Navarro has a Ph.D in economics from Harvard, but that doesn’t make him an expert on trade: his doctoral thesis was on why corporations donate to charity. And Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s background is in business, not economics. Both are protectionist to the core, as is Trump himself. All three are practising voodoo economics of the worst kind, to the detriment of the people they claim to serve.

...

Canada could end up having to tolerate a level of tariff that it considers unfair, because the alternative is a highly damaging trade war. Sometimes it is better to put up with bullying.

But sometimes it is better to dig your heels in. This policy promises to be extremely costly for Americans – as Canada was quick to point out:

"This decision will negatively affect workers on both sides of the border, and will ultimately increase costs for American families who want to build or renovate homes. The U.S. National Association of Home Builders has calculated that a $1,000 increase in the cost of a new house would put home ownership beyond the reach of more than 150,000 American families, and jeopardize thousands of jobs in the American home construction industry."

Lumber, of course, is a global commodity: it is as yet unclear exactly how global prices will respond to the tariff. But these estimates are similar to those produced by the Cato Institute in 2000 (I told you this was a long-running dispute):

"We calculate that trade restrictions add an estimated $50 to $80 per thousand board feet to the price of lumber, which drives up costs and shrinks profits for lumber users. The resulting addition of $800 to $1,300 to the cost of a new home prices some 300,000 families out of the housing market, denying them the dream of home ownership."

It is not just homebuyers who suffer from trade restrictions, either:

"Protectionist trade barriers in the softwood lumber industry impose great costs on businesses and consumers here in the United States in order to enrich a few lumber producers. To put employment figures in perspective, it is noteworthy that workers in the major lumber-using sectors outnumber logging and sawmill workers by better than 25 to 1."

The “major lumber-using sectors” include home construction and repair, industries which together employ thousands of Americans.

Nor is the impact limited to lumber-using industries. The Canadian dollar has already dropped sharply versus the US dollar: the weakness of the loonie, if sustained, will mitigate the impact of the tariff on Canadian producers, while the dollar’s strength will make all imports from Canada – apart from softwood lumber – cheaper. The tariff will therefore raise input costs for lumber users, and make it harder for other American businesses to compete with imports from Canada. This is bound to raise both consumer prices and unemployment.

Effectively, this policy subsidises one industry while imposing higher costs on others. It is obviously intended to hurt Canada, and it will of course have some impact there: but the principal pain will be felt by American citizens. The Cato Industry dubbed it a “beggar-my-consumer policy”. But it is also a "beggar-my-industry" policy - and that is much more harmful. Subsidising one small industry at the expense of other industries that employ far more people and contribute much more to American GDP makes no economic sense at all.

Protectionism always most hurts the people it aims to protect. Please, Mr. Trump, buy yourself some sensible trade advice – before you wreck the lives of the people who elected you. You promised them a better future. They are not likely to forgive you if you let them down.

man i always try to have a balanced few on things but this is quite possibly the dumbest thing trump has done so far

A very few things in life are zero-sum games. The entire philosophy of Trump is that everything is always a zero-sum battle.

But yeah, the death of NAFTA plus a burst of the real estate bubble (once causing another) would be devastating to our economy :(

And if Le Pen gets elected we can kiss CETA goodbye.

So everyone's completely on board with free trade these days? I admit my relative naivete about economics and don't have a 100% decided opinion all these trade deals (CETA does seem worthwhile and, like I said, my current status in the US depends on NAFTA). However, I'm just old enough to remember when the entire centre and left were opposed even to free trade with the US in 1988. (Even the Liberals were an anti-free trade party.) I'm sort of interested in how the shift came about. Does it just seem to work for most people? The way that investors can sue our government over environmental laws under NAFTA is what concerns me most, and I remember that it's what the centre/left warned about in the 80s and 90s.

the bc leadership debate on tv last night was about the worst thing I've ever seen

Was it worse than the GOP primary debates in the US?

didn't actually watch those!

it was just extremely poorly moderated. as in there would be 30-40 second stretches of two of the leaders talking over each other.

no-one came across well. clark came across most like a politician, most composed, and least agitated. but was completely glib and her party is a joke.

andrew weaver the green leader is a pompous ass with only two gestures, he ended up with a ted cruz-like globule of spit (saw a clip of this from the repub primary debate) on his lip at one stage too.

horgan comes across angry, agitated and inarticulate.

immediately after the debate i was ranting to my wife about the quality of it when the local ndp mla george hayman knocked on our door, which felt quite surreal

xxxp

according to your article, gov't of canada is being sued for $6 billion (CAD too!)

canada exported USD$295 billion to the US in 2015:

U.S. goods imports from Canada totaled $295 billion in 2015, down 15% ($53 billion) from 2014, but up 1.7% from 2005. U.S. imports from Canada are up 165% from 1993 (pre-NAFTA).

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/canada

trade deficit was USD$15 billion

i haven't studied free trade, so from my understanding and a supply chain perspective, free trades are good because, theoretically, it pressures companies to adhere to global standards ("standards of the world marketplace") that, at least in theory, are supposed to promote fairness and be held to higher scrutiny, like environmentally friendly operations and greener technology

yes, canada has done "poorly" in this regard, because it was supposed to promote more greener tech/solutions, and it is still pretty high on the list of environmentally friendly countries but it went down a few spots in the rankings because of the pipelines and ft mcmurray

it's a weird situation of give and take but it doesn't help that the us's way of negotiating is by bullying smaller countries, but again, theoretically, it's supposed to allow for lower-priced items at a consumer level. canadians don't always see this (e.g., american mfg'd books are more expensive in canada) because the gov't of canada imposes higher taxes and because quantity imported into canada is less (due to canada's low population or low demand), plus the greater the distance travelled to import a good the higher the cost (e.g., fruits from mexico), but even this has exceptions due to surplus and established trade chains/routes (basically less man hours spent, and how efficient they run their chain), which canada does benefit from (you'll sometimes see cheaper fruit from chile than mexico in bc eg)

having said that, there are so many opinions/books on free trade and when there is trade, there's always a winner and a loser

xpost. Missed the debate but I hung around outside the CBC building to get some photos of the leaders when they arrived. There was about 200 NDP supporters and about 200 Liberal supporters and I haven't seen that kind of tribal spear-shaking since I was last at a Kilmanock/Ayr United match. Got close enough to smell Christy's perfume. She smelled really good.

thankfully it didn't devolve into auchinleck talbot vs cumnock juniors level of frenzy

Well it's still mid-season, wait till the end of season relegation battles. Afterwards I milled around with the orange massive, scammed my way onto Horgan's bus after he'd gone into the CBC and got driven back to the West End while they all chanted and waved scarfs. It was fun.

I'm going to volunteer this weekend in my neighborhood (mount pleasant), i bloody hate going door to door so hopefully i can leaflet or something.

Standing on a corner with a big sign and cheering anytime someone honks is fun.

They were doing that last night and I joined in for about 5 mins which is how I earned their trust to let me on the bus.

haha

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/trump-nafta-us-canada-mexico/article34818889/

Instead, sources suggested the move was effectively a negotiating tactic designed to rattle Ottawa and Mexico City, put pressure on the U.S. Congress and throw red meat to the President’s base. Saturday is the 100-day mark in Mr. Trump’s presidency, a symbolic milestone when he will want to show his supporters he is acting on his agenda.

Mr. Trump, however, would have faced challenges in Congress, the courts and from businesses if he tried to issue the notice, and even greater hurdles if he actually tried to pull out of NAFTA unilaterally.

...

Canada’s NAFTA strategy – which has mostly consisted of trying to charm Mr. Trump and convince the United States that keeping markets open is in the country’s best interest – would not change as a result, the source said.

After Mr. Trudeau’s conversation with Mr. Trump, this strategy appeared to have borne fruit.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark, however, urged Mr. Trudeau to hit back at Mr. Trump by banning exports of U.S. thermal coal from her province’s ports.

At a campaign event in Surrey, B.C., on Wednesday, less than two weeks before election day in the province, Ms. Clark said the United States had become “hostile” on the trade front and Canada should “ban filthy thermal coal,” an industry particularly close to Mr. Trump’s heart.

...

Last week, he labelled Canada’s system of dairy price-fixing “very unfair” to U.S. producers and this week, he accused Ottawa of being “very rough” with the United States on softwood after his country levied tariffs averaging 20 per cent on Canadian lumber.

And he threatened to “get rid of NAFTA for once and for all” if Canada and Mexico don’t agree to “very big changes” in the deal.

The Trump administration is expected to formally notify Congress of its intent to renegotiate NAFTA within the next two weeks. That notification would trigger a 90-day countdown to the start of formal talks.

The process reported Wednesday would have been separate from that. Under Article 2205 of NAFTA, any country can withdraw after providing six months’ notice to the other two countries. If the United States pulled out, NAFTA would remain in force between Canada and Mexico.

ultimately and importantly:

For one, it is unclear whether the President has the authority to take the country out of a deal without the consent of the U.S. Senate, said Andrea Bjorklund, a trade-law expert at McGill University. Any order to that effect could face a court challenge, she said. And Mr. Trump would face pressure from both Congress and businesses affected by the move.

Wtf?

Guy isn't even pretending to have a clue what he's doing at this point, is he?

I suppose that's better than pretending.

ya he really isn't even being advised by people who are knowledgeable

he took the old school business hardman act too serious and holds "attitude" and "appearance" in higher esteem

This #iamlinda video reminds me of Gordon Brown

Is that actually a huge thing? I can't tell.

Yeah I wonder...it's a very popular hashtag, so that's gotta count for something

it does very conveniently reinforce the ndp message that Christy doesn't care about anyone who isn't giving her a big cheque, and a funny video of a politician exhibiting contempt towards constituents is just never a good look. it also seems galvanizing for the opposition, ndp candidates will probably beat it into the ground. on the other hand the media doesn't seem to be running with it much, and it all might blow over in a couple days.

spending the day making up lies about a civilian was probably the exact wrong way for the Libs to handle this, they turned it into a much bigger story, that BC media actually has to cover. not a great news cycle for them with not much time left. and I think when the election campaign has been so short of incident, stuff like this tends to stick

http://theprovince.com/news/bc-politics/mike-smyth-chance-encounter-on-campaign-trail-blows-up-on-clark

Yeah, tbh, I was sort of on board with Clark's original response in the grocery store, but if they wanted to screw it up, this seems like a way to do it.

I'm catching up on the BC debate. "Why haven't you brought up softwood lumber in Question Period in three years" is a damn weird line of questioning.

I actually kind of like Weaver so far in this.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/genymoney/geny-millennial-employment-jobs-canada/article34867183/

Sounds about right.

These bc election results are a real nail biter

libs: 42
ndp: 42
greens: 3

now 43/41/3 for the libs aaah :(

this is just crazy

Whoa.

Could there be any chance of an NDP-Green coalition, similar to the Lib-NDP Accord in Ontario in 85-87?

if these results hold, there'a s good chance of that...i'm not sure if I understand the process correctly, but in two weeks (May 22-24) electionsBC will count the absentee ballots, which last election were about 10% of the total. that means that any of the close seats could still flip, and a lib majority could easily happen while an ndp majority is still not completely impossible. the 1% popular vote margin could also still shift.

so 50,000 absentee ballots last time

ha the election that will last for another 2 weeks, shiiiiiiit

find the absentee ballots being counted much later thing really strange/dumb. everything else about voting in bc seems pretty decent - especially the extensive time period for early voting, and being able to vote at any polling place

this would be kind of cool

though it's a nightmarish process (libs/ndp coalition trauma)

we'll see if any proroguing happens

Weaver has said that the one issue anyone would have to agree to would the abolition of corporate and union donations.

Is it likely that either of the big parties would agree to this?

the ndp ran on it

using large union donations of course, haha. but the greens were taking such donations until about 6 months ago

the liberals would probably agree to that too. they are not exactly a party of firm principles.

it will hurt the libs much more than the ndp:https://www.desmog.ca/bc-political-donations

Donor Breakdown for Each Major Political Party in 2015

In 2015, the B.C. Liberal Party declared $9.9 million in political donations]. Of that total:

$5.2 million (52 per cent) came from corporations
$3.35 million (33 per cent ) from individuals
$728,795 (7 per cent) from unincorporated businesses and organizations, and
$24,075 (>1 per cent) from trade unions
In 2015, the B.C. NDP declared $3.05 million in political donations. Of that total:

$143,820 (4 per cent) came from corporations
$2.49 million (81 per cent) from individuals
$35,290 (1 per cent) from non-profit organizations, and
$376,336 (12 per cent) from trade unions
In 2015, the B.C. Green Party declared $394,310 in political donations. Of that total:

$383,720 (97 per cent) came from individuals
$10,549 came from corporations

(on top of that the ndp just has way more of a pool of volunteers with unions and activists for political campaigning that the liberals can't match, so if the corporate donations disappear they would be disadvantaged in an electoral campaign vs the ndp in the future)

but if the situation sits with the greens as kingmakers then what other choice would they have?

tbh if we have to have another clark gov if we have one that stops big donations and, one can hope, pushes for electoral reform, i'll be, well not happy, but not totally pissed off i guess?

Ah, interesting, thanks.

one controversy in the campaign was that premier clark actually has her premier salary topped up directly from donations (this was true and they stopped it iirc) and lives in a donor's large, expensive house in vancouver, which it is alleged by opponents, she does not pay rent for.

and donors get lots of gov contracts obv

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/b-c-has-a-best-government-money-can-buy-political-donations-system

not that the ndp does not act for its donors, e.g. john horgan has said that they should sell weed, when it's legalized, in bc liquor stores (because the workers are BCGEU)

There's no way that a Clark or any Liberal government would stop corporate influence. That is basically their raison d'etre. It's likely the Greens and NDP will form some kind of coalition, specifically to address this. And possibly an attempt at looking at proportional representation too. Which would probably require a referendum, which would probably fail due to corporate influence.

for some reason I'm p pessimistic and expect a liberal/green deal but without much good coming of it (weaver has voted with the libs on some bullshit frequently tbh)

it's a pretty huge controversy

housing seems to be on a lot of bc'ers mind

and a lot of the middle class is blaming chinese foreign money

bring into the mix that liberals actively sought out foreign donations and received ~$2 million from teck resources + affiliates, which from what i read, the chinese gov't owns 17% of, and there are lots of people fed up with that entire party

2016 article: http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-b-c-politicians-almost-alone-in-seeking-foreign-donations

The "Weaver is a secret Liberal" thing was largely about vote-splitting rather than ideology (though he has voted with them I guess - don't know much about exactly what.) Other than the corporate cash/influence issue and electoral reform, there's the Site C dam, which most people, including the Greens and NDP want cancelled and the Liberals (ie. their donors) insist go ahead. I can't see either party offering him a cabinet position - they are too keen on their own Environment guys. All the NDP people I know are pretty stoked today. The only bad thing is that recounts or absentee votes hand the liberals a majority. Then we're fucked again.

wonder if horgan will stay as leader. david eby is obv waiting in the wings

This is a pretty good primer on the situation now. The jist: Liberals have not won a minority, it's a hung parliament and up to the Legislature to determine who forms government. This seems obvious but it does demonstrate that many news reports are mis-reporting this as a small win for Liberals.

Yeah, no one can 'win a minority government' in an election. Canadians so often seem depressingly ignorant of our own political system.

So what does half the province like about Clark and the Libs if they are borderline crooks?

their enthusiasm for low taxes, low government spending, and love of pipelines and energy projects

Also, only about 23% of the population voted for them. ie. 40% of the 57% that voted.

the idea behind favouring pipelines/energy projects is that it'll bring in more jobs and economic growth it should be said

Christy speaking now. Amazing that she doesn't own a place in her own riding and didn't even vote there.

Okay, that was a really boring response from her. Maybe she realises it's over unless they can win another seat on the recounts.

176,000 uncounted absentee votes.

That riding in Comox with only 9 votes separating the NDP from Liberals had 1,800 absentee votes last election.

I envy BC's political scene, in Quebec we have the same kind of liberals: austerity and corruption (although it is mostly the previous Charest administration), but at least BC have the NPD as an alternative. The alternative in Quebec is xenophobic deficit hawks. Our choice is between xenophobia/sovereignty and corruption. Make it count!

That riding in Comox with only 9 votes separating the NDP from Liberals had 1,800 absentee votes last election.

― everything, Wednesday, May 10, 2017 1:17 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

giving me the fear!

extra fear

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/absentee-voting-explained-1.4108548

And given that Courtenay-Comox is home to CFB Comox, where many will be voting by absentee ballot and where Benninger was the former base commander, the results could change significantly between now and May 22.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/6ae5mr/we_are_two_ubc_political_scientists_ama_about_the/

Green leader Andrew Weaver @AJWVictoriaBC says deal breaker to working with parties is getting big money out of politics. #bcelxn17 pic.twitter.com/XJW3m4UHNQ

— Gordon Hoekstra (@Gordon_Hoekstra) May 10, 2017

And Horgan hammered that same point today.

And for me, that is probably the #1 thing I'd like to see addressed

I don't mind Horgan staying on, he ran the first semi-successful ndp election in 20 years. it gives us a strong bench for the future. could spencer herbert lead one day or is that crazy?

with 176,000 absentee ballots nobody who won by less than like 700 votes should feel safe. this election will never end.

Spencer's too nice to be party leader. Seen him speak lots of times and he's so well-liked that it's more like a "great to see you all, thanks for comin'" vibe. Just can't see him smiling while sticking a knife between his opponents ribs.His strength is being an available and active community member, and truly representing his constituents.

Wildrose and PCs plan to merge in AB: http://globalnews.ca/news/3461146/alberta-wildrose-and-pc-parties-to-make-announcement-thursday-morning/

Will the NDP be a one-term phenomenon? Honestly, not that I've paid extremely close attention to AB, but my sense is that they have been doing a pretty reasonable and not-at-all-extreme job with the hand they were dealt.

can't imagine they can compete with the united right. only caveat i suppose would be if a lot of wildrose voters are disillusioned with the party teaming up with the PCs.

Is there somewhere else they could go (other than not voting)?

I was wondering the opposite: if moderate PCs shift left instead of backing what will probably be a further-right party. If what they care most about is lower taxes, though, probably not.

A fringe party but ugh: https://www.facebook.com/Parti.Independantiste.du.Quebec/photos/a.580290878652647.144921.522503504431385/1891635784184810/?type=3&theater

If you can't see that, it's a sign for Parti indépendantiste candidate Alexandre Cormier-Denis, competing in the upcoming provincial byelection in Gouin with a picture of two women, one a white brunette in a blue toque with a fleur-de-lys, and one in a niqab. The text says, roughly "Choose your Quebec. Canadian multiculturalism: no thanks!"

http://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2017/05/18/une-pancarte-electorale-provoque-lindignation-de-citoyens

That's my hood, between the austerity party, the dude who turned the student strike into utter chaos, the right winger whose party promises me '1000$ in my pocket!!' and these islamophobic bullies, I'm really wondering if it is too much to ask for a Quebec NDP? (made a similar comment not too long ago, I realize).

NDP will be one-term, and would have been even if they had single-handedly caused a full recovery in global oil prices, slashed taxes to zero, and built a new pipeline for every conceivable market. They've done a decent job, but it was a protest vote against the corrupt, ineffectual PCs, and hatred of the Dips (fuelled by misogyny and the rise of the alt-right as well as an unshakeable perception of them as hardline Marxists and SJWs) runs deep & is daily, casually expressed in coffee-room chatter.

thank you courtenay comox!

anyone think the Greens will go Liberal?

Me

a small sick part of me wants it to happen so we can watch green voters freak out

So a social conservative wins his party's leadership race. Is Trumpism on its way here?

is Scheer a bigger social con than Harper?

I always felt that Harper was a politician first and then whatever else second, at least in that Harper made an occasional point of silencing this element of his party if he felt it threatened his brand. Not saying Scheer isn't the same (he's already made "I don't agree with it, but same-sex marriage and abortion are done deals" type statements), but in the bit I've read about him, he sure likes to tout his social conservatism.

I thought Bernier might have been able to make inroads in Quebec but there is basically zero chance of Scheer doing this, right?

If Harper did then anyone can.

Scheer seems like a politician created in a lab to lose to Trudeau lol

If Harper did then anyone can.

At their best, Harper's CPC won 10-12 seats in QC compared to 45-50 for the BQ or NDP, right? Afaict, the CPC were able to win power because the Liberals were unable to win QC for a while, not because the Tories could. Now that Quebec has returned to the Liberal flock under Trudeau, it is hard for me to see a path to victory for the Tories unless this changes somehow.

More like 45-60, ha.

Oh there is a section if Quebec that hates the liberal more than anything, and BQ is in major disaray. Scheer could play a bunch of specific cards and win 5-8 seats, that would be a very realistic scenario (and kinda what i was implying). But obviously it would'nt be enough. Which, thank god.

Greens going NDP.

ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

We'll likely end up going back to the polls soon, which is cool with me. Voting is fun.

anyone got a question for niki ashton

Are you interviewing her? This is where I admit that I bought an NDP membership but haven't really done my research yet.

No, she's going to be present at a recruiting event with the theme of pushing the NDP to the left on Sunday in TO. I assume there's going to be some kind of question period.

:)

Monumental

Things are going to get veeeerry interesting

are we referring to BC?

Think so. I'll be interested to see how they manage to elect a Speaker and keep the government going. If they can do the latter, will we see a BC NDP vs AB NDP showdown on pipelines?

If NB can do it I don't see why we can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55th_New_Brunswick_Legislature

definitely going to be interesting times i feel. i am a little worried about the coalition staying united, but as long as we do not have a bc liberal government say, this time in 2 years i will be delighted.

God bless the protestors who erected the teepee on Parliament Hill. All the hipsters joining the bandwagon on that outrage while gentrifying Parc-Extension and Parkdale can go to hell.

Appointing Geoff Meggs as Chief of Staff (in BC) is the beginning of the expected softening of the NDP's election stance and possibly signals how it will fail. Like they had to appoint another old-fart goateed pink baldy union dude instead of someone a bit more lively and efficient without the baggage of the previous failed NDP governments. For nine years he's been #pretendingtocare about housing, transit, etc. on city council. In fact #pretendingtocare could've been created just for this guy. Very, very disappointing. Fuck off Geoff Meggs!

Niki Ashton's tax platform looks interesting. Unlike anything the federal NDP have put out in a decade or two, she's taking a left line on the issue with increased rates for everyone who makes over $120K and a top rate of 38%, taxing capital gains at the same rate as employment income, an estate tax, a financial transaction tax, reduced limits for TFSAs and RRSPs, a wealth tax, doubled GST/HST rebates, increased disability credits and GISs. I had so far been leaning towards Charlie Angus but she might persuade me.

it's not quite fully automated luxury communism but yeah I'll take it

Ha, yeah. And before Fred comes by to point out that "left" and "right" just refer to relative seating positions in Parliament, what is significant is that Ashton is proposing making appreciable changes to the tax code to actively redistribute wealth, which seems like a break from NDP tax policy for the last decade or two.

might join the ndp and vote for ashton

have til august 24th to do so apparently

have joined the ndp. first time being a member of a political party at 32 years old.

will likely do the same. a recent poll put Angus at 22 and Ashton at 20 with Singh trailing back in the single digits, a third or so undecided iirc

u got my support Jim

i was a member about a decade ago, might be time to join up again.

i joined up after layton passed away to vote for several non-mulcairs in the leadership race. guess its time to come back!

I'm comforted that high-level international diplomacy can sometimes feel like a house party where you don't really know anyone. #G20 pic.twitter.com/kRrCG3wBzL

— Glen McGregor (@glen_mcgregor) July 11, 2017

aw :)

Don't know if this got posted on another thread:

http://img.wennermedia.com/480-width/rolling-stone-justin-trudeau-cover-2017-3d7aab17-2daa-494f-ae91-9e1852456ba6.jpg

As is usually the case, I haven't followed Trudeau closely enough since taking office--too busy following the other guy. Anyway, that aside, I love that this will nauseate at least one FB friend who nauseates me.

He sucks, but sadly the only thing Canadians are pissed at him about seems to be the Omar Khadr issue (where he's actually in the right for once).

Before reading, I'm guessing that the Justin Trudeau accomplishment that RS is primarily celebrating is not being Trump?

Maybe 25% in, yep. Lol @ "Canada Day, the country's Fourth of July".

yeah there's absolutely no way in hell I'm reading that lol

His wife, Sophie, grabbed his arm, looked him in the eyes and said, "Be humble."

Followed by "hol' up, lil bitch, sit down."

don't care for Trudeau, but as a canadian we're inundated with Trump and U.S. so fair game I say. Probably know more about your political system than my own to my own dismay

Maybe 25% in, yep. Lol @ "Canada Day, the country's Fourth of July".

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, July 27, 2017 5:10 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha

i was never crazy about the guy, but breaking their promise on electoral reform is the only thing i'd say i'm legit pissed at him for.

has anyone been keeping up with NDP debates? Even if Ashton doesn't win (still way too early to say what the likelihood of anyone winning is) she's done a lot to push the debates left, I think.

been keeping up a little bit.

i find that jagmeet singh remains a bit of an enigma for me because of his fondness for politician speak

I find the discrepancy btwn his polling performance and the amount of establishment support he has pretty amusing

seems like the press is pushing a bit of a sort of "we want a photogenic centrist* to take on trudeau for the media narrative" line on singh.

*don't even know if he is a centrist

We watched the last debate. Angus had the best zings but his French pronunciation is pretty unfortunate. I'm in Ashton's camp right now but am still flexible. It's interesting and good to see that she has been pushing the conversation left, even towards something resembling socialism. Also interesting that the party seems to be shifting back to their roots in a way, with two rural candidates in the lead, one from Manitoba and one from Northern Ontario.

Yeah, I have no idea id any of them will be able to galvanize the left nationally but it seems increasingly unlikely we're going to end up with a mushy centrist NDP again, which is A Good Thing.

At the risk of never working at McGill, it occurred to me recently that there is a simple explanation for the NDP's unprecedented and unrepeated success in Quebec in 2011, which I could never really understand: Layton spoke far better French than Harper or Ignatieff and was the only one of the three who was born and raised in Quebec (cf. Mulroney in the 80s). (I do think Quebecers were fatigued of separatism and moving away from the BQ.) The province's federal voting patterns, which can seem erratic and unpredictable, mostly seem to me to make sense if you look at them from the pov of identity politics. If this is the case, Caron might actually be the strategic choice. That said, I'm still with her for now.

(Just a guess, could be way off)

So not exceptionally surprising that the Saudis are likely using Canadian arms against their own citizens but still frustrating. Tbh, I've never thought v highly of the LPC's human rights record.

In sunnier news, the BBC is calling us an education superpower based on the most recent PISA results.

Had to look up what PISA measures--15-year-olds. Nice to hear, but honestly, my immediate reaction to your post was, "Please, no outside validation of the stuff the board dumps on us, it's crazy enough as is." But looks like I'm at a safe remove.

There's a nationalist rally planned for 09/14 at U of T and I can tell you right now that if it goes ahead, it's going to get really fucking ugly.

Moved from 2016 thread:

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vbbvqj/conservatives-finally-ditching-the-rebel-have-a-lot-to-answer-for

rats leaving the sinking ship over at the rebel.

legit concerned by the preponderance of MAGA chud types on canadian social media and below the line contributions at newspapers. these "mainstream" conservative voices only now deciding to distance themselves from such a vile and extreme publication shows the current state of canadian conservatism, the real depths it will sink to, and the almost imperceptibly infinitesimal distance between tories and the alt-right

― -_- (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 16 August 2017 17:04 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd rather they distance themselves a little too late than outright embrace it like south of the border.

― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 16 August 2017 18:44 (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that being said, i remain extremely pessimistic as to how Quebec nationalist parties will distance themselves from the increasingly racist and xenophobic sections of the population.

― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 16 August 2017 18:46 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it might surprise you to learn some of the most important figures in quebec nationalism are pretty fuckin outspoken on this issue:
http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/e9020f7c-0021-4659-a972-e2908ac6db6b%7C_0.html

― sean gramophone, Wednesday, 16 August 2017 18:59 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/jean-francois-lisee-racism-immigration-burqas-1.3785382

― sean gramophone, Wednesday, 16 August 2017 19:01 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

though "systemic racism" aside, of course lisée's still on his party's fuckin anti-burqa tip

― sean gramophone, Wednesday, 16 August 2017 19:02 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i still think there is a large degree of separation between PQ/Lisée/Drainville and organisations like Atalante Québec and lol La Fédération des Québécois de Souche (Federation of pure-bred Québécois, kid you not). i don't think the PQ are as openly xenophobic as those proper french alt-right organisations, nor do they live in the same sphere of politics. the same way John McCain and the american alt-right are not exactly the same battle. the question now is how influent one will try to be on the other in the coming elections, because yeah, PQ will use the white nationalism card for sure.

― Van Horn Street, Wednesday, 16 August 2017 20:23 (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's definitely a form of pure-laine nationalism in québec but my (non particularly popular in anglo circles) opinion is that it's been waning since parizeau. the battle over the Charter - and the PQ's subsequent loss, remember - seemed like a playing-out of those shifts.

the number of people who care about nationalism have def. waned, yes. however, i have the feeling the intensity of the remainder who care about that kind of stuff, mostly outside of montreal, is growing towards the radical version of nationalism (white ethnocentrism etc).

are you familiar with Mathieu Bock-Coté, Sean?

no, i don't know him at all!

His blog on Journal de Montreal is worth reading if you want to dive into how the psyche of quebec nationalism post-1995 functions, and if you can stomach the racism/xenophobia/mra. Not surprisingly, dude is both very popular and extremely influential in nationalist circles.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/08/24/ndp-leadership-hopefuls-split-on-religious-rights-in-battleground-quebec_a_23177599/

this seems dumb from Caron.

I mean I was never going to vote for him, so now I guess I will be not voting for him even more avidly.

I loudly cursed after reading that. If the NDP adopts that policy, that will pretty much guarantee that I will vote Green or even Liberal.

From the 2016 thread:

My union joins in:

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-elementary-teachers-union-calls-for-renaming-john-a-macdonald-schools

I used to supply at one of the (what I take to be many) Sir John A.s occasionally.

I am a little befuddled by this, honestly. Yes, there is a history of colonialism and oppression but the guy was the first PM and a father of Confederation. I don't think this is at all comparable to taking down statues of Confederate generals, who led a (failed) secessionist insurgency against the US in defence of slavery, in the American South.

Thanks--forgot there was a new thread.

I guess I'll have to form an opinion on this by September 5. I do think the timing is less than heroic. The board I work for does this too: always follow, never lead.

I'm not particularly attached to having his name on schools, but I'd rather hear some indigenous people's takes on the idea.

i don't understand ashton's position in that article at all

Very disappointing but also bizarre. It honestly seems like she's twisting herself into a pretzel to pander to Quebec voters who care so little about this that they mostly voted for the Liberals federally. I guess I'm back to Angus.

I still like Ashton overall but that is weird and disappointing

After finally watching the Montreal and Vancouver debates, Singh has risen to the top of our lists (after starting out at the bottom of mine, at least). He just seems the most committed and principled, most willing to stand up for basic human rights in Quebec especially. Oddest thing is that he said he'd want a referendum on the monarchy but hopefully he won't push too hard with that. When she is pressed on things, Ashton sometimes just seems to me like someone who hasn't always thought things through.

Jagmeet wins in the first round - unsurprising but fairly disheartening to me, though I look forward to xenophobes' discomfort

were you an angus guy? i did not get why the ndp socialists liked him at all. what were his lefty policies? he was waffling on building kinder morgan the whole campaign.

I've known Angus for almost 30 years - his band and mine used to have the same agent and played shows together - and I'm disappointed he didn't win. I suspect Singh is going to lean on him heavily in the HOC.

I voted for Ashton, I didn't think she'd win but I was hoping she'd at least survive the first ballot

I thought the Socialist Caucus picked Ashton? Singh got my vote, though.

I think so, she was also endorsed (well, they call it "critical support" lol) by the Marxist group I roll with.

I shouldn't be so down, he's still a leftward step for the NDP, I just can't shake the opportunist vibe.

Aargh (and again, this issue ended up deciding my NDP leadership vote): http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/bill-62-stephanie-vallee-muslim-niqab-1.4356263

"This is a bill about le vivre ensemble [living together in harmony], it's a bill about guidelines and clearly establishes neutrality of the state."

The legislation, she said, is necessary for "communication reasons, identification reasons and security reasons."

I'm looking at the bill and it lists these same reasons. It's a bill on religious neutrality. Shouldn't the requirement be to demonstrate that the state isn't religiously neutral where someone offering or receiving public services is wearing a face covering? Communication, identification, and security are different issues.

Yeah, I'm a strong believer in the religious neutrality of the state but I don't see how that is compromised by a private citizen wearing a face covering on a city bus (or receiving another public service). The stuff about communication, security, and identification only seems to come up as grounds for refusing a request for accommodation, not as a justification for the policy itself, if I'm reading this right:

...In addition, persons receiving services from such
personnel members must have their face uncovered. An accommodation
is possible but must be refused if the refusal is warranted in the context
for security or identification reasons or because of the level of
communication required

And then there's this doozy, that puts the lie to any 'Quiet Revolution'/'haunted by the memory of the church' justification:

It specifies that the measures it introduces must not be interpreted
as affecting the emblematic and toponymic elements of Québec’s
cultural heritage, in particular its religious cultural heritage, that
testify to its history.

If you look at the August amendments, they're listed within the purpose section.

A further purpose of this Act is to recognize the importance of having one's face uncovered when public services are provided and received so as to ensure quality communication between persons and allow their identity to be verified, and for security purposes.

Ah, thanks.

what if you want to cover your face bcz it's really fucking cold

laicite is such bullshit

Bill 62 passed. What bullshit. The Quebec Liberals can't even admit that the obvious purpose is to target niqab-wearers.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-niqab-burka-bill-62-1.4360121

JFC I hate Quebec so much sometimes

really a travesty.

at least Quebec Solidaire came out against the "face-covering" part

This part sounds like Monty Python:

The Liberals, who hold a majority in provincial parliament, voted in favour of the bill, while all the other parties voted against.

The two main opposition parties, the Parti Québécois and Coalition Avenir Québec, have argued the legislation doesn't go far enough

Yep. I mean, we knew that the PQ wanted to go further. What is depressing for me is that it is the Liberals, led by Couillard, who seemed like the most federalist Liberal leader in decades, who are doing this.

yeah, this is really depressing. I thought by voting the PQ out in the last election we were past this. Weirdly this is not getting a huge amount of coverage in the French-language press.

Premier Philippe Couillard said he expects some people to challenge the law, but he defended the legislation as necessary for reasons related to communication, identification and security.

“The principle to which I think a vast majority of Canadians by the way, not only Quebecers, would agree upon is that public services should be given and received with an open face,” he said.

“I speak to you, you speak to me. I see your face. You see mine. As simple as that.”

He's just a huge fan of good old-fashioned face-to-face contact. I suppose he's getting set to ban all government service over the phone, right?

stephen harper: still a douchebag

Controversial opinion (on ilx): the burqa is a backward, openly patriarchal abomination that shouldn't exist. Less controversial opinion: banning it is counterproductive and does more harm than good.

And the barely contained Quebec bashing in this thread can go fuck itself. As a side note, 68% of Canadians agree with this bill: https://globalnews.ca/news/3828752/quebec-face-covering-ban-support-canada-poll/, so the whole 'Quebec is racist because they're not like us' narrative really needs to stop.

I've seen this Arundhati Roy quote a few times in various pieces recently and I like it.

“When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems.”

Of course, coercion and free choice are not simple distinctions where religion is concerned.

I once saw it framed like this and, mutatis mutandis, it makes sense: anglos want to protect religion from the state, francos want to protect the state from religion.

To be clear, my opposition to this policy is not rooted in any love for the burqa. I'm not entirely opposed to your first opinion but I still think that it is more oppressive for a government to restrict this clothing, outside of situations where an uncovered face is obviously necessary (e.g. passport photos, which are not under provincial jurisdiction anyway). I'm not sure who you're referring to but I don't think anything I've written is 'Quebec bashing' either; it's an empirically provable fact that the two largest provincial parties are both in favour of restricting civil liberties in the name of (what seems to me to be a very biased interpretation of) 'religious neutrality'. I am strongly opposed to Quebec nationalism as an ideology, which isn't the same thing as Quebec-bashing imo.

2xp

Arundhati Roy OTM

anglos want to protect religion from the state, francos want to protect the state from religion

I'm an atheist and social democrat and am eager to protect the state from religion but restricting private citizens' religious expression (and only the expression of certain religions) does not do this.

And, again, we're talking about a province with a giant cross in its National Assembly.

xp

I wasn't referring to you, sund4r, but to symsymsym ('laïcité is such bullshit') and to Simon H. ('JFC I fucking hate Quebec sometimes'). I mostly agree with everything you said. I think I'm just fed up with the two solitudes. When discussing this topic with a card-carrying PQ member I'll generally adopt a more radically liberal position; when it's brought up by anglophones who refuse to acknowledge Quebec's history and its culturally specific stance on religious phenomena in general, I'll go down the opposite route. For what it's worth, balance is my aim.

And I also agree that the cross at the National Assembly is a massive joke, a hypocrisy of sidereal proportions.

Anyhow, to reiterate, banning the burqa accomplishes absolutely nothing. I just don't think the logic behind it is exclusively racist and/or imperialist. It's more complicated than that.

I lived in QC (well, OK, Montreal) almost half my life, I get to cuss it out from time to time. and certainly the rest of the country is far from lily-white when it comes to xenophobia but it's folly to deny it's not of a particularly opportunistic and hypocritical vein in quebec politics.

yeah the rest of canada is also super fucking racist and islamophobic. that doesn't make laicite a good idea tho

i personally think children at public schools and public sector employees should be allowed to wear kippahs or turbans

I come from a country (Romania) that is slowly but surely setting itself up for a Byzantium-style religious dictatorship (see the Christian Orthodox-wrought, 'Socialist' Party-backed motion aimed at amending the constitution in order to redefine marriage more strictly as a contract between man and woman, in an already homophobic nation that will probably never legalize gay marriage to begin with). Refusing to acknowledge that certain religious strands can be a threat to equality – and let's not forget that there are quite a few muslims who take issue with the burqa – is as extremist as arguing that the right to free speech would flounder without neo-nazis. How we go about quarantining this risk is a different matter, however.

Nothing wrong with kippas/turbans/hijabs as far as I can tell. Like I said, it's complicated. For instance, how do we visually distinguish between a scientologist and a non-scientologist? In some ways, I think scientology is more harmful than, say, Salafism.

I've never been to Romania, but my grandparents were Jews from Transylvania, which is one of the reasons why I am skeptical of state regulation of religious minorities. I guess I don't see the laicite policies as sincere or even effective attempts to block the extremes of religious illiberalism. Instead, they are a way to enshrine the majority culture in law by discriminating against minorities, much as Romania is doing, and as countries with Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian majority populations do. France was one of the latest and the most resistant of the Western countries to legalize gay marriage, despite its policy of official secularism. I believe the Quebec contempt for the church is real, and its version of secularism is less extreme than France's, but all the proposed laicite laws only target religious minorities - none of them would materially affect the lives of devout Catholics.

Sadly there is a ton of Islamophobia in particular in all parts of Canada, which is very apparent if you ever make the mistake of reading the comments on a national news story that mentions the M-word. Kellie Leitch isn't from Quebec. There's a very strong impulse in all societies to demonize minorities, and we need to fight against this very dangerous impulse instead of using it as a basis for laws.

The discriminatory, murderous policies enacted by the Iron Guard during WW2 were religious in nature, not only because they targeted Jews but because they were aimed at preserving Romania's specifically Christian Orthodox 'essence' – after all, the Iron Guard was also called the Legion of the Archangel Michael. Of course, this didn't prevent them from exterminating Christian Orthodox Romani as well and the ostensibly atheist Romanian communist party was all too happy to see Romanian Jews emigrate to Israel.

In theory, French laïcité means that the state is above any and all forms of religious authority, including Christian ones (and Catholics routinely complain about it as well – here's a recent example among many: http://www.lemonde.fr/religions/article/2017/10/28/montretacroix-des-internautes-lancent-un-hashtag-pour-protester-contre-le-retrait-d-une-croix-en-bretagne_5207376_1653130.html). It's a laudable goal in my opinion, but problematic insofar as the state cannot be said to be altogether drained of religious elements, even in our secular age. This leads to all manner of paradoxes and contradictions, perhaps because, as Marcel Gauchet put it, Christianity is 'the religion whereby religion is left behind' ('la religion de la sortie de la religion').

yeah I don't think it's a workable goal...when the state is deciding which crosses and religious symbols and hair/face coverings are acceptable the state becomes the religious authority. and I think while taking down crosses (even the hypocritical National Assembly cross) is kind of silly, it's not the same as stopping Muslim women from riding buses or working in hospitals or as teachers.

Just to play devil's advocate for a second (once again, I don't agree with these bans, not on ideological grounds but because I don't believe them to be effective – quite the opposite), we are talking about a very specific, almost nonexistent subset (100 tops?) of muslim women living in Quebec, not Quebec muslim women as a whole. Besides, face-coverings are hardly integral to Islam: 'dress modestly' is a flexible rule if ever there was one.

So it's targeting a very small minority, so small in fact that they pose no real threat to the political order or social norms of Quebec or Canada? Doesn't seem like much of a defence.

If the only point was that the majority of Muslims might not be affected by the ban on face coverings, I do agree.

This particular ban only affects those hundred women, but the PQ wants to keep anyone wearing a hijab out of various jobs. It isn't the case that most Muslim women have nothing to worry about from laïcité.

So it's targeting a very small minority, so small in fact that they pose no real threat to the political order or social norms of Quebec or Canada? Doesn't seem like much of a defence.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, October 28, 2017 5:21 PM

If the only point was that the majority of Muslims might not be affected by the ban on face coverings, I do agree.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, October 28, 2017 5:21 PM

The latter point was what I was getting at with my devil's advocate hat on. The former is what I actually think.

This particular ban only affects those hundred women, but the PQ wants to keep anyone wearing a hijab out of various jobs. It isn't the case that most Muslim women have nothing to worry about from laïcité.

― jmm, Saturday, October 28, 2017 5:24 PM

Yes, but I believe this to be a different issue. Targeting the hijab per se is indefensible as far as I'm concerned.

As far as I can tell this is not ignorant Quebec-bashing. The PQ and Quebec nationalists have a long history of playing this game, going back to Lionel Groulx's abject antisemitism to today's decidedly anti-anglo sentimentality of passing motions that restricts the use of 'bonjour hi' to just 'bonjour'. Racism and xenophobia are some of the fondations of quebec nationalism, and now it is stronger than ever, perhaps influenced by the new conservatism in France. The wink wink of 'we lost because of the jews and Italians' on the referendum night in 1995 is now a building block of the PQ's values, the Chartre is just an extension of that. Some of the important sub-groups of quebec nationalism (Société St-Jean Baptiste, Mouvement Montréal Français) use Montreal has some sort of battleground on language and keep insisting that Montreal is a french metropolis only, erasing the memory of non-pure laine quebecois which includes these groups: working class anglos (usually Italians and Irish), poc and first nations people. Where's the freaking statue for Oscar Peterson? In Ottawa.

I think anyone in Canada has a right to object to these nationalist values, and criticizing these values is not 'quebec bashing', not at all. It does not represent what Quebec is. These values are not representative of the whole of Quebec the same way Quebec is not some sort of pure-laine fantasy with only Tremblays, Roys and Gagnons the nationalist are trying to sell. If you use a venn diagram you'll see a bunch of these anti-quebec racism from the 'ROC' were also horrified at Harper's use of 'old stock Canadians' and wish for a quicker resolution of the first nation crisis.

The thing is that the economy in Quebec is doing great thanks to Couillard, like him or not. Unemployment and the debt are at an all-time low, growth is reasonable and the government managed to do so without slashing too much in social programs, which continue to be the model for the rest of the entire north american continent (they just announced 35 millions for public psychologists program). The only thing Lisée (and to a lesser extent Legault) have to fight on now is the 'the quebec identity' and it will only get worse throughout the year as elections approach.

any politician in any part of canada advocating for something like the chartre can suck the shit out of my butt

managed to miss both the english and french spellings of charter/charte there lol

At least they're tackling the really important things: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/11/30/quebec-lawmakers-pass-motion-calling-on-store-clerks-to-use-bonjour-greeting.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-government-gag-order-mk-ultra-1.4448933

ugh

Ugh *2

how big a deal do we think this Trudeau vacation business really is? I've lost my ability to measure such things

I'm skimming the report and don't see anywhere where the reasoning seems obviously wrong. It's not very clear on the purported family friendship between the Trudeaus and the Aga Khan's family. It doesn't say anything about the relationship between Pierre Trudeau and the Aga Khan from 1984 to 2000 (when Pierre died); and then Justin and the Aga Khan didn't meet between 2000 and 2013. How contingent is this family friendship on a Trudeau being in power?

Based on the CBC and Star news stories, before reading the actual report, my suspicion is that JT was genuinely oblivious to the potential conflict of interest, as a result having grown up in such privilege. Idk if this will turn out to be a big deal politically: there doesn't seem to be an allegation that the Aga Khan Foundation received favourable treatment as a result of this gift + the Aga Khan Foundation isn't exactly a nefarious organization or one that afaik enriches the Aga Khan himself. (Maybe I'm wrong?)

Props from me for the person itt who predicted Singh's nomination for the NDP to be a mistake.

"Racism and xenophobia are some of the fondations of quebec nationalism"

i will keep that in mind, that a lot of anglos think that of us, and act accordingly. how about this: québécois have different values than canadians and would like to run their society in a way that reflect those values. for those who don't know when it comes at social issues of the day, any day, it seems québécois usually are more socially conscious and reason-oriented , canadians more egocentric and profit-oriented. one would prefer to wait for studies before fracking willy nilly the other goes drill baby drill, one prefer to invest in rehabilitation of criminals because studies shows it work and the other rather build more prisons and be tough on crime etc etc etc

I am a francophone living in Quebec, that indictment is not only coming from anglos. The rest of your 'how about this' is pure quebec self-mythologising that has nothing to with reality: lots of 'ROC' canadians oppose fracking. Remind me how many times Jean Charest, great crusader fracking, was re-elected? Quebec does not have the monopoly of reason in Canada.

Remember this?

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/805067/quebec-canada-difference-ouvrage-racisme

what did jagmeet do now?

I was wondering the same thing.

Pomenitul, that's an interesting link. Without passing judgment on Quebecers or ROC Canadians, though, I'm not sure that asking people whether they would describe themselves as "a little racist" or "very racist" is the best way to measure levels of racism in a society. Also, wtf @ statistical measurements of <<joie de vivre>>.

What do British Columbians think of this Site C dam business?

(I mean, tbc, I'm sure there were options for "not at all racist" etc too. Just that I'm unconvinced that self-description is the best metric.)

i hope there was an "I'm the least racist person you've ever met" option

Site C seems to me like a boondoggle, and I am confused as to why our local right-wing wants to spend 10 billion dollars of public funds on a makework project. the more I read about its impact on local farmland and its contempt for indigenous treaties, the less I like it. That said, I can see why the NDP made the call to keep it, and I think they are avoiding short-term pain in exchange for long-term economic and environmental damage to our province.

I think the BC NDP is on a political tightrope and needs enthusiastic support from workers and environmentalists, and can't afford to lose any part of their base. even some flagging of enthusiasm will hurt their chances of ever forming majority govt.

Without passing judgment on Quebecers or ROC Canadians, though, I'm not sure that asking people whether they would describe themselves as "a little racist" or "very racist" is the best way to measure levels of racism in a society. Also, wtf @ statistical measurements of <<joie de vivre>>.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Saturday, December 23, 2017

Belated reply: methodologically, it's doomed from the start, yet I found it weirdly accurate in light of results across the border (51% admit to holding a negative opinion of African-Americans) and in France (35% consider themselves at least 'a little bit' racist).

What it comes down to, imho, at least these days, is that laïcité is used by some in Quebec as an excuse for all-out xenophobia, while others are aware of its risks yet knowingly cling to it in spite of its bad rep in the anglophone world because they believe that religion represents a dormant threat to modern societies. Quebec's relative outspokenness in the latter department is sometimes an awful thing (re: that superfluous burqa ban), sometimes a great one (I say this as someone who would never consider moving back to my home country, Romania, in no small part due to its increasingly theocratic, i.e. openly homophobic, sexist and racist, ideology).

i hope there was an "I'm the least racist person you've ever met" option

Lol.

I gather that BC NDP is basically siding with unions over environmentalists and FN groups on this?

(this = Site C)

Yeah, and I guess going along with what the mainstream media wants. This will cost them much of their activist base, but cancelling site C would have lost them a different part of their base. A political lose-lose decision that the Liberals left Horgan with.

good post pomenitul

OTM

lol:

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/columnists/peter-menzies-blame-quebec-when-your-netflix-bill-goes-up-1.23130188

that's an interesting op-ed niche...

The whole Netflix thing is so weird. I subscribe to Netflix so I don't really mind it not being taxed but it seems ridiculously unfair that Canadian companies that offer streaming services have to be taxed but any foreign companies offering the same service are not required to be taxed. Just seems like an obvious loophole that should be closed (either by taxing everyone or no one) and I don't even get why anybody is debating this.

What it comes down to, imho, at least these days, is that laïcité is used by some in Quebec as an excuse for all-out xenophobia, while others are aware of its risks yet knowingly cling to it in spite of its bad rep in the anglophone world because they believe that religion represents a dormant threat to modern societies. Quebec's relative outspokenness in the latter department is sometimes an awful thing (re: that superfluous burqa ban), sometimes a great one (I say this as someone who would never consider moving back to my home country, Romania, in no small part due to its increasingly theocratic, i.e. openly homophobic, sexist and racist, ideology).

― pomenitul, Tuesday, December 26, 2017 11:32 AM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would agree it is sometimes a great one if the catholic religion was making a big comeback but it isn't. After all, the cross in the national assembly is here to stay. Really the only target is different very small religious minorities.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-opposition-parties-balk-at-marking-mosque-shooting-with-day-of-action/article37538523/?cmpid=rss&click=sf_globefb

But this week, the province's two main opposition parties made it clear that, while they support a commemoration, they believe Islamophobia is a loaded term.

The Parti Quebecois says the term is too controversial, while the Coalition Avenir Quebec deems the word inappropriate because Quebecers "are not Islamophobic."

Ihsaan Gardee, director of the Muslim council, attributed the parties' position to identity politics in an election year in Quebec.

"In our view, when arguing semantics, it draws attention away from the core issues of hate and Islamophobia and anti-Muslim discrimination that are being discussed and how to effectively address them," Gardee said Tuesday.

The whole Netflix thing is so weird. I subscribe to Netflix so I don't really mind it not being taxed but it seems ridiculously unfair that Canadian companies that offer streaming services have to be taxed but any foreign companies offering the same service are not required to be taxed. Just seems like an obvious loophole that should be closed (either by taxing everyone or no one) and I don't even get why anybody is debating this.

― silverfish, Wednesday, December 27, 2017 12:23 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The alternative would be a special Netflix tax that would go to help funding Canadian cinema and television series. A bunch of european countries went this route, Germany and France notably. As you know I am certain, instead of that tax, Joly basically bargained with Netflix that they invest 500 millions here in Canada. I really do believe that Melanie Joly is making sure the 500 millions investment is managed by Netflix because 1. Telefilm has been absolutely incompetent at building up a lucrative film industry in Canada whereas Netflix has the strong incentive of building a more efficient and larger infrastructure, retaining talent, etc 2. Netflix is already a much better international distributor than anything Can-Con has ever had access to, 3. Ubisoft (a foreign company) and Cirque du Soleil (a Canadian one) have been successful content creating companies that got shit tons of subsidies (much more than Netflix is getting at the moment), 4. there was a danger that that big three telecoms was going to gobble up the entire private film/tv series content creation market, now there is not only one but two different alternative paths.

I am still not under 100% sure this is best idea. But I am certain that doing nothing would have been way worse.

I copied and pasted the recent posts to the 2018 thread: Dynasty, s3: Canadian Politics 2018