Open for Business: Canadian Politics 2019

I think this is the Ford move that has infuriated me most yet: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/pc-government-tuition-fees-1.4981987?cmp=rss&fbclid=IwAR3P0OHq4xPbt91zSrIg7FYqKx16XQA1qGgiuihCPGnZM-KsTyuqcVrUtkM

At the same time that the PCs are cancelling a programme that would have made it possible for low-income students to attend university tuition-free, they are announcing an across-the-board 10% tuition cut, which might be good but afaict there is no plan to increase public funding for the universities.

Colleges and universities will be expected to absorb the loss in revenue, Fullerton said.

"They will make choices in terms of what they need to do," she said. "They will be able to determine what they need to do to change, to adapt and innovate."

"They will be able to determine what they need to do to change, to adapt and innovate."

i.e. make up the shortfall with international student tuition

I would give my life with a smile if I knew it would make Ford and his allies drop dead tomorrow tbh

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/karen-wang-burnaby-byelection-1.4981998

this has been a fun story on the way to the possible collapse of the federal ndp (if jagmeet loses this byelection)

which tbh I'm basically actively rooting for at this point

obviously the tactics being deployed by his opponent are horrible but the NDP need a blaring signal that they're on the wrong track ASAP

Lol @ "merely a statement of fact".

She's officially out, now that Richard T. Lee is the Liberal candidate, right? Or is she still going to try to run as an independent?

her last tweet, a response to the controversy, was pretty egregious:

Every day I’m meeting more people on the doorstep from #BurnabySouth, having conversations with them and hearing their concerns 🗣 Want to be part of Team Karen and help me reach out to more Canadians in our community? Sign up here ➡️ https://t.co/cThQel1YtB pic.twitter.com/pyVRLPX37i

— Karen Wang (@karenxbwang) January 16, 2019

she's threatened to run as an indy but I doubt she will...there's also a horrible anti-trans candidate running with the people's party and polling at like 9%. Not great

i followed the burnaby story but I'm out of touch, what's the wrong track the federal ndp is on, generally?

imo they're much too timid and unprincipled an opposition force in general. they need a total messaging and leadership overhaul a la UK Labour. and nothing less than a pledge to keep the oil in the fucking ground. It's political suicide in....some parts....of the country but it's the right thing to do.

and in the long run I think sticking to key principles across the board would win them the respect and credibility they badly need

yup

I had high-ish hopes for jagmeet and he's been really poor at differentiating himself and the NDP from the government.

yeah. I was disappointed it was basically a coronation, but I was willing to give him a chance. his leadership has been a complete faceplant. we don't need another handsome, amorphous figurehead a la Trudeau heading up the only (currently) viable left force in this country.

thanks, buddy. the number of actual jobs in oil and gas at the moment + future prospects for the industry, you'd think they could afford to take a principled stand, maybe especially after ndp premiers in alberta and bc fumbled their wishy washy attempts at green policy while endorsing pipelines? is this leap manifesto actually good? https://leapmanifesto.org/ i see alanis morissette and arcade fire have both signed on, also judy rebick, naomi klein and the ndp socialist caucus.

i know i know end of the world looming but i'd support a federal ndp that sidelined environmental policy and advocated for aggressive tax reform, pharmacare and dental, canceling student debt, free education, childcare program, investing in social housing, card check, maybe withdraw from nato, even if some of that would be mostly just advocacy and handled by provincial governments (right?). i just mean, i'm skeptical of pushing for good environmental policy without or before setting up alternative economic/social policy. so, i have to hope jagmeet loses this byelection, right?

i'm skeptical of pushing for good environmental policy without or before setting up alternative economic/social policy

why_not_both.gif

building a green economy won't alleviate the inherent contradictions of neoliberal capitalism, though. but yes.

that post seems to be trying to disagree with something you didn't say, i think.

i agree, why not both.

Worth noting that Labour has been one of the two leading governing parties in the UK since WW2 and has actually led successful democratic socialist governments at the national level in the past (and have still yet to win an election under Corbyn). A little harder to feel confident in the NDP's federal prospects if they tacked harder left but, if the point is that they wouldn't do any worse than they're doing now and might at least push the Liberals more to the left, I could see that. I'm still up for giving Singh more of a chance but I agree that he hasn't been exceptionally impressive so far and I'm unconvinced by how he handled the Erin Weir situation.

I don't know if this exactly counts as politics but it does concern an investigation currently being handled by the OPP and reopened by the Chief Coroner and it is one gruesome story, about a 30yo man with serious mental health issues who died in prison for 'unascertained' reasons, according to the original coroner's report, with over 50 signs of 'blunt impact trauma'. A forensic pathologist says asphyxiation can't be ruled out. A fellow inmate says he watched four guards beat the man to death, after he had already been restrained. CBC's Fifth Estate has been investigating for a year and will broadcast a report in an hour and change, although reading this longform story seems pretty heavy in itself.

i.e. make up the shortfall with international student tuition

Btw, I'm not sure most universities will be able to make up the whole shortfall this way. The reality will likely be more painful. I'm anticipating more closures of 'less practical' programs, increased casualization of the faculty workforce (which was beginning to change at the end of the Liberals' tenure), and cuts to student financial aid. This thread, by a U of T English prof and former dept head, seems like a p good start:

A quick thread: why a 10 percent cut to ON tuition fees is disastrous news.

— Holger Syme (@literasyme) January 16, 2019

Are you still in town, Sund4r? Do you feel like sharing contact info? My ILX mail goes to a dead address, but I could mail yours.

I'm sure you're right about the additional funding repercussions. I'm wondering about my old department. A prof there commented on this as well: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-changes-to-ontario-tuition-are-unfair-and-short-sighted/

I am. I think my ilx mail should work.

Ending the six-month post-graduation grace period before students need to pay back loans just seems mean for the sake of it tbh.

Could you post here if you're messaging my ilx mail bc I don't check that email as often?

Just sent!

NDP (correctly imo) opposes Trudeau/Liberal policy on Venezuela: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/singh-ndp-liberals-venezuela-1.4991913

Good move.

Maduro has blood on his hands and I refuse to support a dictatorship simply because it aligns with my own political ideals, but there's no question that Canada shouldn't back the US's nth attempt at manipulation and destabilization in the region, especially when it involves Bolsonaro.

Yes

open for business indeed

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/01/31/leaked-document-privatization-health-care/

sigh

is there wide support in Ontario for privatized health care?

This one's up there with the most frightening dystopian scenarios, as far as I'm concerned.

AFAIK that's not a popular proposal anywhere in the country

Apparently the only less popular idea is killing all day kindergarten - since that idea was reversed the day after it first came out!

Sad lol re OSAP changes fact-checking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=132&v=0VywtVQ3hPU

goddamn fucking ONDP can't do anything right

https://ipolitics.ca/2019/02/06/ontario-ndps-improper-redaction-led-ford-government-to-leaker-sources/

RIP Paul Dewar :(

Just saw that on the news. I always liked him.

At the trivia contest I go to every year (47 tables tonight; we finished second, one point behind the winner), a variation on a standard American question: how many living Prime Ministers right now?

Extremely drunk 2:30 am answer: Turner, Clark, Mulroney, Chretien, Martin, Campbell, Harper, Trudeau Jr?

8 was also my guess but I'd be lying if I said I could name all of 'em

You've got it. The thing that jumped out at me is that there's probably never been eight living presidents (currently five, about normal), even though it's us that doesn't have term limits. That list includes Chretien, who was if office for 10 years, and Harper, who was just shy of 10. What really skews our list is Clark, Turner, and Campbell. I'm not sure if totaled a year between them.

"if they totaled"

Public healthcare for the win?! (Maybe our PMs are just younger?)

Definitely Clark--elected one day shy of 40, out of office within a year. Overall, I think ours are younger: Trudeau, Campbell, and Harper were all in their mid-40s when elected, so that's four out of the eight.

him, Martin and Campbell also did not last long at all, so that's probably making up for the longer term guys.

Yeah, US Presidents have term limits but also have minimum 4-year term guarantees, barring impeachment. (It still boggles my mind a little that when the President effectively 'loses the confidence of Congress', the government can just stay shut down for over a month without any change in leadership.) We would only have four living PMs if you excluded anyone who served for less than four years, as you guys are getting at.

Government-sponsored leftist logic:

❌ Wearing clothes from another ethnic group
❌ White with dreadlocks
❌ Blackface
❌ Men building pipelines
= cultural appropriation, racism, toxic masculinity

✅ Men wearing female dress and makeup
= diversity 🌈 https://t.co/xINlGwZnQe

— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) February 12, 2019

That's one way to come out as pro-blackface.

It's a fairly common position in Quebec (and Europe), based on the notion that its symbolism varies from country to country.

It's worth nothing that, from what I understand, taking that position in Quebec is wrong. As you might expect, there was significant crossover between Canadian and American minstrel show performers.

https://theconversation.com/the-problem-with-blackface-97987
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/quebec-mps-motion-only-scrapes-the-surface-of-o-canadas-dodgy-origins/article28457416/

Justin Trudeau has never shown any reluctance to wearing clothes from another ethnic group tbf. Tweet = fake news.

He is nothing if not consistent: https://goo.gl/images/fdf8Yi

There's something funny about edgelording on Twitter and having to do it in both official languages.

There's an obvious distinction to be made between imitation as respectful homage and imitation as violent mockery. Blackface has always been about the latter, even when it isn't performed on US territory. There are other ways of demarcating oneself from anglophone culture (which is a vague construct to begin with), for fuck's sake.

And yeah, bilingual edgelording is kind of hilarious.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/02/trudeau-asks-wilson-raybauld-if-she-could-take-blame-for-a-few-other-scandals-on-way-out-the-door/

We're going to end up with the Tories aren't we

"Butts adds in the statement that the allegations distract from the 'vital work' Trudeau and the PMO are doing."

Why do politicians continue to trot this formulation out as part of damage control? In poker, it's called a tell. You may as well stamp "Nixon" on your forehead.

I haven't really been following the whole debacle. Is Trudeau likely fucked?

Nothing about this makes me more angry than the TMX fiasco and I have no idea what the NDP is up to at this point so personally, I don’t think so.

Scheer continuing to pal around with Faith Goldy is pretty fucking concerning.

Ugh, that's fucking awful.

Is Trudeau likely fucked?

As far as whether it's likely to impact the election, so far it seems a little too complicated and ambiguous to really catch on with voters. But who knows? I feel like this kind of conflict of interest scandal would hardly register as a blip in the US.

Scratch out 'conflict of interest' - that's not exactly what this is

I feel like this kind of conflict of interest scandal would hardly register as a blip in the US.

Probably true but that's not the model I would want to emulate. I'm still waiting to hear more from Wilson-Raybould herself. It's all still p vague at this point. If it's true, I'm furious that Trudeau would think a fucking construction company was worth it.

i honestly can't even tell when the liberals have done something seriously egregious, or if it's just more noise from the facebook/sun media outrage factory.

The scandal itself seems too opaque to mean much right now. I was more disturbed to learn that the Liberals introduced deferred prosecution agreements in a budget bill last June.

If it's true that Trudeau pressured the AG to go easy on a QC construction giant that was facing fraud and corruption charges, that's p easy to understand and p gross (in addition to demonstrating the hollowness of his commitment to diversity within his cabinet). Hopefully, that's not what happened.

I'm really curious what kind of penalty SNC would have had to pay under the deferred prosecution agreement. Not enough to bankrupt the company and threaten jobs, presumably. Would corporations just treat it as a cost of doing business?

If it's true that Trudeau pressured the AG to go easy on a QC construction giant that was facing fraud and corruption charges, that's p easy to understand and p gross (in addition to demonstrating the hollowness of his commitment to diversity within his cabinet)

Undoubtedly so. I didn't quite catch that last part, though (like I said, I'm out of the loop).

If it's true that Trudeau pressured the AG to go easy on a QC construction giant that was facing fraud and corruption charges, that's p easy to understand and p gross (in addition to demonstrating the hollowness of his commitment to diversity within his cabinet). Hopefully, that's not what happened.

― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Wednesday, February 20, 2019 7:39 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seems like it was? and not just "pressured the AG to go easy" but both pressured and then later demoted

Everything I've read so far has been in the language of "alleged" and "sources claim", with no direct comment from Wilson-Raybould, but, yeah, doesn't look good so far.

facepalm:

Wernick disputed the allegations reported in the Globe and sought to reframe them, saying that while it's likely Wilson-Raybould could have felt pressured, it's a question of whether that constitutes as "inappropriate pressure," or pressure that comes with being part of the inner circle that makes key decisions with national implications. In his view, the pressure was "lawful and appropriate," and had to do with the broader “context” like the economic and job consequences should SNC-Lavalin be found guilty and not allowed to bid on government contracts for a decade.

^^^ sounds like classic Liberal Party logic

love that lawful and appropriate pressure

go jagmeet!

"When I was growing up I could have never imagined someone like me running for prime minister, but guess what we just told a lot of kids out there that yes, you can," Singh said in a victory speech, flanked by supporters.

sikhs are overrepresented in canadian politics by population, including currently liberal minister of national defence, minister of natural resources, minister of innovation, represented in all parties, provincial legislatures, a former premier, sikh religious leaders kingmakers in certain ridings... maybe he means in the '80s? i'm younger than jagmeet but a wealthy woke sikh lawyer from ontario with political connections running for pm i don't think would have struck me as particularly improbable, even a decade earlier. that kind of thing strikes me as, like... i guess, maybe, it works? even if it seems fucking lame to me, knowing his background.

who cares, though. hope he surprises me and starts fucking shit up.

there really haven't been a lot of minorities in executive positions of provinces or parties...ujjal dosanjh was a bit of an accidental leader.

jagmeet is a big cheeseball however

yeah, i get it, it's a good thing probably, and i realize he's talking not just to wealthy sikh lawyers but plenty of other folks that don't see themselves represented in canadian politics.
i've so completely checked out of canadian politics that i shouldn't try to make any points.

Acc to a quick Wikipedia search, Herb Dhaliwal was the first Indo-Canadian appointed to the federal cabinet - in 1997, when Singh and I were both 18. Check out how white Chretien's (not even Mulroney's) Cabinets were otherwise: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/26th_Canadian_Ministry. Singh's comment isn't that hard to understand for me. (I did *imagine* it tbf.)

I mostly just listen on this thread, but that's a bizarre post imo (dylannn's not Sund4r's).

He's evoking Obama at the end, so I don't think he's making a point beyond: Canada has never had a prime minister who wasn't white (and Christian afaik). I have no idea how many potential PMs have deviated from that norm, but I very much doubt Sikhs or Asian Canadians or people of colour are overrepresented in that category. Also, I question framing Singh's identity as narrowly Sikh rather than the broader racial and cultural categories he's undoubtedly been put in throughout his life. And I genuinely don't understand what "woke" is meant to signify in the phrase "wealthy woke sikh lawyer"--it'd been more surprising if he wasn't "woke"? What does woke even mean as a description of the leader of the NDP? And a genuine question: is he wealthy? If so, how did he become so?

Anyway, sitting here in Quebec, it's grimly laughable to me to suggest that Singh being elected PM wouldn't be significant for people of colour.

Yeah, consider that there were reports of Singh's turban being an issue for some voters even in the Outremont byelection: https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/outremont-byelection-singh-s-public-displays-of-faith-on-voters-minds-1.4310187 . (Lol @ "heavily secular province")

To expand on when Singh was growing up, recall that Mulroney offered his condolences to (India's PM at the time) Rajiv Gandhi after 288 Canadian citizens, mostly of Indian ancestry, were killed in the 1985 Air India disaster. South Asians were commonly othered. The P-word was probably more common than the n-word in the 80s and early 90s ime. It was absolutely easier to imagine a white man from a working-class family (like Mulroney) as PM.

i hear you ilx friends, maybe i'm too young / from the wrong part of the country to connect much with the idea of sikh guy running for pm being unexpected, i really can't gauge how much guys like terry milewski speak for the suspicions of white canadians and how much he's a fringe crank, for example. and yes, of course, i understand, when he was a child, an indo-canadian man that wore a turban running for pm would have been hard to conceive of, and yes, i understand it's meant to speak to non white canadians (and perhaps young people in general) that feel it improbable that someone from their community could run for office.

of course, some of that post comes from my own prejudices about sikhs! but honestly i do find it a bit tone deaf i guess (or just to use internet language "cringe") because he DOES come from relative privilege and a community/family/background that does have elite political and business connections, so someone from say a first nation in northern manitoba or the children of burmese refugees in moose jaw or plenty of other communities could never, no matter how inspired they are, tap into. but yes, it would be significant for people of color. i understand that.

yes, rob, he's rich. i mean woke as in, ratio of progressive talking points to fiery leftist rhetoric but surveying the canadian political landscape from afar, i can live with that, as long as it's good strategy and i'm not 100% convinced he is.

and also i express these thoughts knowing i'm talking here to probably 5 ilx canadians who lean left, probably like me will vote for their ndp candidate, and will hopefully point out where i'm wrong.

*im not convinced it is, among other typos

he DOES come from relative privilege and a community/family/background that does have elite political and business connections, so someone from say a first nation in northern manitoba or the children of burmese refugees in moose jaw or plenty of other communities could never, no matter how inspired they are, tap into

Idk what you're looking for, dylannn. Singh didn't imply that he had broken down every barrier. It's still hard for me to imagine a Filipino lesbian in a wheelchair as President of the US; that doesn't mean that Obama's becoming President wasn't significant. It is remarkably honest and self-aware that you recognize that you have prejudices about Sikhs but please try to consider that these might be the very factors Singh is pushing against! If you were arguing that e.g. this should matter less than the ideas he brings to the table, I could understand, and might well agree, but that doesn't seem to be your point.

(Fwiw, btw, someone from a First Nation in Northern Manitoba was a key player in one of the first major political crises I remember: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Harper. Not a candidate for PM, of course, just what came to mind.)

sund4r, rob, everyone i do appreciate the time/tone you took to address me on this. the original point ("jagmeet singh is rich and privileged and yes we can sounds odd coming from him because of course he can") was out of line, i quickly realized, a bad faith reading of what he said, before i had watched the full victory speech, and trying to explain it without my full conviction didn't help and to continue, i'm arguing against misunderstandings of my poorly-expressed thoughts...

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/jody-wilson-raybould-testimony-live

Wilson-Raybould started her testimony with a strong statement saying she there was a “consistent and sustained effort to seek to politically interfere” to secure a deferred prosecution agreement for SNC-Lavalin. Wilson-Raybould said it involved 11 people and ran from September until December of last year.

Wilson-Raybould said it is inappropriate for anyone in the government to press “the Attorney General on things he/she cannot take into account,” such as partisan political concerns.

Trudeau statement at 8 pm tonight.

I think that's probably it for Trudeau--direct link or not, and mitigated by the fact (if I understand this right) that he waived privilege to allow her to testify.

Geez

Katie T thinks it gives us cover in the business community and the legal community, and that it would allow the PM to say we are doing something. She was like “if Jody is nervous, we would of course line up all kinds of people to write OpEds saying that what she is doing is proper.”

Well that was super lame.

He didn't deny the "and I am an MP in Quebec – the member for Papineau" quote.

Just been reading a short thread on this. I like how it ends.

10. Last detail. Jody Wilson-Raybould's father was an Aboriginal activist who butted heads with Justin Trudeau's father. Here they are bantering. Bill Wilson tells Pierre Trudeau that his daughter Jody wants to be PM one day. Maybe she will be? https://t.co/RNq3Q3ihVx

— Ezra Levant 🍁 (@ezralevant) February 28, 2019

I suggest you look up Ezra Levant first (I assume you're not familiar with him).

Yes, and? It was a comment on the end of the thread, how son and daughter are locked in years later.

Would you feel comfortable posting a Tommy Robinson tweet in the British politics thread?

A google told me he was a 'canadian media personality' which is not what Tommy Robinson is.

The thread seems mostly a recount of things that are happening. As it hasn't been reported much here I assume that isn't the full story so I also wanted to see if anyone disagreed with it.

Ezra Levant openly supports Tommy Robinson, by the way.

Anyway, this is a good summary of some of the more visible instances of bigotry he's been involved in:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ezra_Levant

(Granted, RationalWiki can be annoying, but they do a good job when it comes to stuff like this.)

lol ok I'll be mindful to post and thoroughly check all the weird wikis as its hit a nerve but it looks like a benign thread regardless of who has posted it.

Do you know who TR is? He has always been a far-right activist and pretty much on the fringes here, even now. I read the (actual) wiki page on Ezra and skimmed through the controversies and EL seems to have gotten far-right after a while? Trying to think of someone that would fit that better than TR.

ezra's been a far-right activist since the 90s eating off far right think tank / koch money since then but it took him a while to move his grift out of alberta.
i somehow got on ezra's mailing list and got woken up at 4 am about a week ago by his announcement that he's putting out a hit on an antifa guy and needs 65k from me.

I do know who TR is, yes, and I can't think of an exact Canadian analogue for his ilk, thankfully. I do find it telling that EL is among his apologists, though (not to mention TR was a correspondent for EL's Rebel Media).

All I'm saying is that while that video is indeed relevant and interesting, you'll be hard pressed to find a Canadian ILXor willing to discuss it without shooting the messenger when the messenger is Ezra fucking Levant.

Fair enough - apologies all. Be patient with us, especially if Trudeau doesn't survive this

For the record, I wasn't indirectly trying to defend Trudeau. He fucked up hard.

Yeah, Levant sucks but that thread is fine.

Best course for the Grits might be for JT to resign and someone clean like Freeland (or JWR herself?) to take over? Wonder if the NDP could capture the centre-left now.

trudeau isn't going to resign though i wouldn't have thought. ego.

Corruption always looks so stupid

I can't see Trudeau resigning over this either.

give it 8 months!

yeah I guess I should have clarified and said, not anytime soon. anyway

One thing that strikes me about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, apart from the obviously egregious ethics of it all, is what it says about the attitudes leading L/liberals actually hold towards the institution of liberal democracy.

— Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) February 28, 2019

OTM

Liberals need to pay a heavy price for this. However, there is an alternative universe where the liberals let SNC-Lavalin sink for these 10 years and the results are horrible. I have no doubt the NDP or the Conservatives would have pressured the exact same way. The real question is not how come the Liberals did this, it is how come one EPC company has so much power in our country? This is where I hope NDP will lead instead of just shitting on Trudeau.

what does that even mean?

ndp should really focus on the populist angle that both the liberals and conservatives are in the pocket of big business and bay street and don't represent hard working canadians blah blah blah

how come one EPC company has so much power in our country?

From the Hudsons Bay Company to Bombardier, when have such companies ever NOT had massive power in Canada?

If the NDP cared about hard working canadians, and I have no doubt they do, they would have taken the same exact position as the Liberals with regards to SNC Lavalin and their possible ten years ban on federal contracts. The company represent 8000 employees in Canada alone. If you have ideas on how to challenge that SNCL monopoly on EPC in Canada without disrupting the industry at large and creating massive unemployment in selected areas then I am all ears, socialist slogans blahs blahs blahs don't do it for me. Nor would a NDP campaign that doesn't offer solutions to this problem other than <lol trudeau sucks>.

Yeah I'm for the rule of law and separation of powers personally

yeah that's what Andrew Scheer is saying.

andrew scheer otm

lord knows there were no scandals under the CPC

much as I hate JT, I have such a horribly sinking fucking feeling about what comes after him

yeah it's going to be the tories and it's going to be v bad

It's going to be really bad if Trudeau gets away with an another electoral win too.

elaborate please

Not as bad as Scheer duh. But considering what just happened I wouldn't want the Canadian electorate to give Trudeau a sense of impunity and invincibility. Last time it happened in Canadian politics, with the liberal, it really sucked.

VHS, are you saying, in essence, that SNC Lavalin is too big to fail (or be prosecuted)? Nationalization would be one answer to that.

now you're talking my language

the NDP are so, so badly in need of a sharp leftward lurch and it drives me nuts that so many party rank and file don't agree

I believe if it is too big to fail it is too big to be nationalized, I think it merely moves the same problems from one location to another. An idea I have and have to verify is to gradually discriminate larger companies in favor of smaller companies on provincial and federal projects, so these smaller companies acquire the skills and workers to grow and it caps SNCL to become too huge to ever create this dependence. Pump equity into midsized companies like Stantec so they can diversify the amount of projects they can deliever (I think they don't have energy projects for example), it could also create a more balanced industry. Finally SNCL who is already kinda big, should not be able to buy smaller canadian firms but maybe that's already the case, I would have to check. Something similar to the big five banks is what I would aim for like over the next 20 years. It's easier to do for infrastructure than for aviation, which is the other similar big engineering problem Canada has. These are ideas they might be really bad.

"These are ideas, they might be really bad" <--not a bad NDP slogan actually

I would not trust a nationalised SNCL with a lib and cpc governement anymore than I do now.

hahaha xp

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shuffle cabinet Friday. https://t.co/sMfbCWrnLG #cdnpoli

— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) March 1, 2019

That’ll help

yup, crisis averted!! JT's generational political instincts strike once again

sigh

the ‘jobs’ thing makes no sense

Could you expand on that? The whole economic angle seems fuzzy to me.

pic.twitter.com/LLfN8bSyrV

— Dril MP 🇨🇦 (@cdnparliawint) February 28, 2019

This guy has such a hate-on for teachers.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-ontario-school-boards-hiring-freeze-budget-1.5038662

So glad I'm getting out. We've had like 13 sick leaves in our school this year (including at least three stress-related), even though we have a really small staff. If class sizes go up, and there are more splits next year, it'll be chaos.

― clemenza, Saturday, March 2, 2019 5:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A teacher friend was telling me last night about an increasing problem of violence in the classroom because of increased integration of special ed students into regular classrooms without adequate support.

Cuts to disability support in Ontario are also worrying. We're hearing about v elderly people who are losing home care (something that would be less expensive than institutionalized care in the long term) hours. (Ours haven't been touched, thankfully.)

I take it your friend teaches high school? Nothing like that where I am (and we actually have a contained class, so there's not as much integration; the girl who joins my class for art is angelic). Don't get me started on the lack of support for regular-stream kids with IEPs (not the fault of the support teachers--they're overwhelmed with paperwork). It'll all get worse for as long as Ford's around.

No, he teaches elementary school (but is a spec ed specialist, tbf)!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/philpott-resignation-trudeau-snc-lavalin-1.5042411

Jane Philpott, one of Justin Trudeau's most trusted ministers, announced today she has resigned from cabinet as the Liberal government's crisis over the SNC-Lavalin affair deepens.

he's fucked, but so are the rest of us

when PM Scheer and Trump meet for the first time I'm going to be upset

Ugh. Fuck all of this.

If Trudeau resigns I would see no problem following the party of JWR vs Scheer.

NB: Singh is a lame duck because lol Quebec.

One heartening thing about this whole debacle are the two women, Philpott and Wilson-Raybould. I'm trying to imagine similar actions within Trump's orbit and...it's impossible. (Cohen to a degree, but speaking out now is kind of risk-free for him.)

Singh is also just lame tbh

The problem with JWR taking over the party (if that is what is potentially happening here) is that, in the minds of too many voters, the Liberal brand itself is what is damaged, not just Trudeau. Enter Scheer.

One heartening thing about this whole debacle are the two women, Philpott and Wilson-Raybould. I'm trying to imagine similar actions within Trump's orbit and...it's impossible. (Cohen to a degree, but speaking out now is kind of risk-free for him.)

― clemenza, Monday, March 4, 2019 7:07 PM (thirty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

More importantly I don’t see it happening with Scheer.

I mean, once upon a time I was convinced Dougie was too charmless to win an election, so I daren't underestimate pols that were never going to appeal to me anyway

I thought the same of Harper tbh.

Dispiriting how every time this kind of thing happens almost no one thinks to themselves 'perhaps I should try the NDP instead'. Do we really need a Scheer/Ford/Legault triumvirate?

Perhaps we'll get Faith Goldy as minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship.

I don't think a Tory win is guaranteed if Trudeau resigns.

NB: Singh is a lame duck because lol Quebec.

Not to beat on dylannn but just want to note that we cannot both believe this to be true and also not think it is pushing significant barriers for him to lead a major party into an election as a brown-skinned man in a turban (assuming these are the factors that VHS is implying).

Anyone keeping up with what is actually going on with SNC-Lavalin btw? The larger questions that were raised, touched on in the Luke Savage thread and the tbtf discussion here, are interesting.

This is some grim shit, admittedly:

“The Conservatives have over a 20-point lead in the 905, which has the most seats that swing back and forth in any election campaign,” said Bricker.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5021267/trudeau-approval-rating-snc-lavalin-wilson-raybould/

I don't know if this is at all right but it is an interesting comment I saw online that directly opposes the prevailing narrative:

the more i think about it the more i think wilson raybould is the one who has been unethical. she shepparded the law amenment through parliament which allows the government to step in and defer prosecution. if she had an issue with that law she should have resigned then. that law is questionable, but she should not have been surprised they were preparing to use the deferred prosecution option, and in fact her characterization of the facts is skewed. there would always be internal discussion about such a move. she disagreed, so jt excercised his abosolute right to remove her and put his own choice into the portfolio. and if he doesn't proceed with filing a decision in parliament to defer prosecution he's a wimp.

we do not have the pure shawcross doctrine in canada, first because we don't have a justice minister separate from the ag, and with the new amendment we have given the government the right to over rule a prosecutors decision. they are supposed to do this to protect innocent stake holders such as employees and pensioners.

one can question whether we should have a shawcross doctrine in full, and whether this law is wrong, but jwr had ample opportunity to do that and did nothing. she is what i used to call a mad dog prosecutor. they see everyhint as evidence of guilt. the very same discussions can also be seen as evidence of worry about job losses and pension loses.

so the scandal that wasn't there might bring down the liberals because a few mad dog mentality prosecutors and their supporters are posturing.

there is no there there.

Afaict, the nature of the "internal discussion" is salient to whether the Shawcross doctrine has been breached.

First, the Attorney General must take into account all relevant facts, including the effect of a successful or unsuccessful prosecution on public morale and order — we would probably now call this the public interest. Second, the Attorney General is not obliged to consult with cabinet colleagues but is entitled to do so. Third, any assistance from cabinet colleagues is confined to giving advice, not directions. Fourth, responsibility for the decision is that of the Attorney General alone; the government is not to put pressure on him or her. Fifth, and equally, the Attorney General cannot shift responsibility for the decision to the cabinet.

http://craigforcese.squarespace.com/public_law_blog/2019/2/9/laffaire-snc-lavalin-the-public-law-principles.html

The line is probably fuzzy, but I think the intensity of the "advice" (after she had explicitly told them that she had made up her mind) and the some of the reasons being given (partisan political reasons that go beyond public interest) are supposed to be part of the case that Trudeau and his staff had crossed the line into applying inappropriate pressure.

she shepparded the law amenment through parliament which allows the government to step in and defer prosecution. if she had an issue with that law she should have resigned then.

I don't know much about her role in the initial amendment, but wouldn't she probably say that she accepts the idea of DPAs in principle but that SNC failed to meet the standard in this particular case?

Will definitely read that post in full. xp

I mean regardless of the question of JRW and what she did, this whole episode is just showing Trudeau's ineptitude at governing a crisis.

absolutely

Will definitely read that post in full. xp

That was helpful.

Not to beat on dylannn but just want to note that we cannot both believe this to be true and also not think it is pushing significant barriers for him to lead a major party into an election as a brown-skinned man in a turban (assuming these are the factors that VHS is implying).

― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Tuesday, March 5, 2019 8:18 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is an important factor but as Chantal Hebert just reminded me on twitter, there is no reason for the Quebec electorate to elect a politician who does not speak the basics of their language. Even Harper understood this.

Misread, she talked about JRW. Back to the racist barrier.

Yeah, Singh's French seems competent to me, at least as good as Harper's. I'd be surprised if Scheer's was better.

How is Freeland's French? I thought it was OK?

Canadian political history explained: https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/03/scheer-credits-rising-poll-numbers-to-time-tested-conservative-strategy-of-hope-the-liberals-do-a-big-scandal/

(I usually find that Indians and Canadians can understand each other's politics immediately once you explain "Congress are basically the Liberals".)

PM Justin Trudeau considering a statement of contrition over SNC-Lavalin. https://t.co/qFojqcG6Qw #cdnpoli

— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) March 5, 2019

bit of a thread derail but I'm trying to educate myself a bit wrt the political history of canada. was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on books of canadian political history/philosophy/biography? abstruse is fine. documentaries are good too, "the champions" doc series about lévesque and trudeau is a favourite

PM introduces deferment of impeachment legislation... or whatever the f. Take a hike!

ndp should really focus on the populist angle that both the liberals and conservatives are in the pocket of big business and bay street and don't represent hard working canadians blah blah blah

― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Thursday, February 28, 2019 10:41 AM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

email i received from the ndp today:

Another key cabinet minister, Jane Philpott, has resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet just days after Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke truth to power about the PMO scandal – and Trudeau’s Liberal government is scrambling.

People across the country are shocked by how far Justin Trudeau is willing to go to protect his wealthy friends at SNC-Lavalin. Imagine if he cared half as much about making sure Canadians have safe housing, clean water, and access to medication...

Jim, John English's Just Watch Me is also very good on PET from 1968-2000, covering the whole time he was PM.

sounds good

butts speaks:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-butts-tells-committee-wilson-rayboulds-shuffle-was-independent-of-snc-2/

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/liberal-mps-shut-down-snc-committee-before-vote-on-recalling-wilson-raybould

Sad lol: https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/03/14/ndp-deputy-leader-wants-to-hire-unpaid-interns-but-says-he-wouldnt-have-to-if-the-liberals-banned-them.html?fbclid=IwAR213xjJ-rny0ebEV8k5oxGtekHHC3ouJC9rYIwPOJhgv7b0sjNTjTpbyGE

as an NDP member I feel exceptionally qualified to say: what a shitshow of a party

As a former member of the ndp (membership lapsed because all my credit cards are maxed out lol) I agree!

if you're not calling the NDP a shitshow then you're not a real NDP member

Has there ever been a viable left-wing alternative to the federal NDP?

Not in the sense of "could win more seats than the Greens", afaict.

The viable left-wing alternative to the current NDP is a genuinely left-wing NDP

is there a left bloc in the ndp? like a momentum uk but for canada's ndp?

http://ndpsocialists.ca/

thanks!!

they look pretty damn dead events-wise, though

http://ndpsocialists.ca/events/

SNC-Lavalin back in the news

BREAKING: PMO announces Canada’s top public servant is retiring. Michael Wernick came under heavy criticism from the opposition recently after his testimony about the SNC-Lavalin affair. pic.twitter.com/rLAnbypUdE

— Katie Simpson (@CBCKatie) March 18, 2019

MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes quits Liberal caucus

Trudeau not looking good in this

After increasing class sizes to build resiliency, we're doing this to, um, promote choice?

https://globalnews.ca/news/5106128/ontario-student-choice-initiative/amp/?fbclid=IwAR2G5qz_b2GQT8vsa-SnAgEK-fZ-9TYgu0DmmjxIllmtIQTQg0EOxIlculo

Tbc, I WOULD be in favour of removing accessibility funding from student fees but that would be if the province (or feds) would cover it. Somehow I doubt that's what is happening but I guess we'll see?

Lol, prophetic thread title: https://globalnews.ca/news/5112402/ontario-licence-plate-redesign/?fbclid=IwAR3_KSG1TyV3BjOkrC-uwEabU47B4L9nZ5dmdwLXQNyjjB2UFrS8dBJXco0

In other news, I'm so happy that François Legault and the CAQ are putting the Islamic veil back at the forefront of provincial politics. We really needed another debate about this most neglected of topics.

I'm actually curious to see how far they go with crucifixes this time.

A silver lining would be nice, I guess.

Apparently they are taking it out of the parliament.

Still bullshit. I don't give a shit about the crucifix, I care about minorities losing job opportunities.

Haven't listened yet, but I thought this thread being at the top of the board would have to do with JWR's basement tape.

Apparently they are taking it out of the parliament.

Wait, is there any confirmation on this? Everything I've read so far has been in the language of "might" and "are considering". (I do agree with your second point btw.)

Just listened to the Wilson-Raybould tape. Fascinating. I have to say, only knowing the story in broad outline, I found Wernick comes across okay. She knows the conversation is being taped, so she can choose her words very carefully and frame the conversation however she wants. He doesn't--and while he's clearly exasperated, all he says is that he's worried she and Trudeau are headed for a showdown. I don't hear that as an implied threat of reprisal, although I can see where someone might.

In case any of you are fellow Canadians abroad, you might like to know that the disenfranchisement of citizens who have been away for 5+ years has been reversed. Interestingly, voter registration gives you a lot of options for which address to use - your last lived address, a relative, or someone you'd live with if you lived in the country (but once you've chosen, you can't change it). For me, that meant options to register in conservative strongholds, liberal ridings at risk of swinging to tories, and the province's only NDP-held riding (lol alberta). Went with the last one.

Good for QS!: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/with-new-position-on-secularism-quebec-solidaire-redefines-left-wing-politics-in-the-province-1.5079087

QS is the only Quebec party we can count on these days.

QS is the only Quebec party we can count on these days.

I almost wrote that but second-guessed myself as I know too little about provincial politics beyond Quebec. Sad if true.

Yeah I'm not an expert in all parties across all provinces but I do know that acquaintances across the country are all pretty disillusioned/uninspired.

yup

Wait, is there something wrong with the BC NDP?

(I've way lost touch with the SK NDP. They're poised to win this year, right?)

bc ndp are a letdown for their base in metro van and burnaby who are broadly left, in favour of indigenous rights, and environmentally conscious.

tenants rights activists had pushed for their rental task force to tie the limit on rising rent to suites rather than tenants, preventing landlords from hiking rents when tenants move out. positing this as the best protection against affordability (i agree). they didn't do this. they did bring in protections against renovations (which i think is good) https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rental-housing-task-force-recommendations-mixed-reviews-1.4944023

they're going forward with the site c dam despite sort of coming out against it, while hedging their bets, when they were in opposition. submerging native lands (including burial grounds), environmentally destructive, hugely expensive, smaller renewable projects would seem to make more sense https://thenarwhal.ca/topics/site-c-dam-bc/

they're making a small rise to income assistance rates - which were frozen for a decade by the bc liberals - but the top rate is $760 https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2019/03/29/Fair-Income-Assistance-Poverty-BC/ a room in an SRO in vancouver can cost $500 or $600, and a "shelter rate" studio apartment in say low-income housing or mixed-income housing in a condo development (the best case scenario in terms of quality of dwelling and rent) is $350. rent comes out of the assistance cheque.

there is more to moan about but I've kind of checked out recently

bc ndp are a letdown for their base in metro van and burnaby who are broadly left, in favour of indigenous rights, and environmentally conscious.

this should be metro van and victoria

also knowing someone who worked with john hogan before i can say he's [REDACTED AS FUCK FOR BEING TOTALLY LIBELOUS]

QS are separatists ftr

Yeah, they also do have the advantage of not being in government or being likely to form government, and thus being less likely to disappoint supporters. I am glad to see any Quebec party take a stand against this nonsense, though.

massive LNG subsidies are another point against our local Dips. still the best BC govt of my lifetime, which is the lowest bar imaginable

I want to know this scurrilous libel! (I think)

thought this thread would be lit up with JWR and Philpott getting booted, which seems like a disaster for the Liberals...maybe they think negative partisanship will be enough to get them to %35, don't know if the Trudeau trolls out in force on Twitter are indicative of larger Canadian sentiment

As I understand it, they're not rabid separatists but instead take the position of, essentially, "if we sense there's popular support for separation at this time, we'll roll with it"

That's almost weirder imo. Dividing the country into two is kind of a fundamental issue and the sort of thing I would want a political leader to have a clear position on.

From their official website:

La population québécoise forme une nation qui a de nombreuses caractéristiques spécifiques dont une langue commune – le français -, une culture, une histoire et des institutions politiques, économiques et sociales propres. Elle inclut des personnes de toutes origines auxquelles il appartient désormais de définir, ensemble, en toute égalité, son présent comme son avenir politique. Cette nation a le droit absolu de décider elle-même cet avenir, sans ingérence de l’extérieur.

La question nationale n’appartient pas à un seul parti politique, ni même à l’Assemblée nationale. Elle appartient à toute la population du Québec. C’est pourquoi notre parti propose que le débat sur l’avenir du Québec se fasse au moyen d’une vaste démarche de démocratie participative. Toute la population pourra ainsi se prononcer sur des changements politiques et constitutionnels, de même que sur les valeurs qui y seront associées. Un référendum clôturera cette démarche qui devra prendre le temps nécessaire pour favoriser la réflexion la plus large et la plus inclusive possible.

Le Québec doit disposer de tous les pouvoirs nécessaires à son plein développement aux plans social, économique, culturel et politique, ce qui lui est refusé dans le cadre fédéral. Notre parti opte donc pour la souveraineté. Sans être une garantie, la souveraineté est un moyen de fournir au Québec les outils nécessaires pour réaliser son projet de société et s’épanouir pleinement comme peuple.

Oh, and there is no English version. Hardly a coincidence…

I mean, that's better than more explicitly ethnocentric varieties of Quebec nationalism but I just don't agree with its fundamental premises.

Why? I'm personally on the fence.

I do not think that the existing federal arrangement (already highly decentralized and officially bilingual and multilingual; currently led by a PM who represents a Quebec riding and whose party represents a majority of Quebec ridings) is hindering Quebec's "social, economic, cultural, and political development" in any real way aside from making it harder to override minority rights with legislation such as the currently proposed bill that we are discussing. Whatever issues there are can generally be worked out within the context of an already fairly flexible federalism, and have been for a long time. If anything, an independent francophone country of 8 million people surrounded by larger, more powerful English-speaking countries may well have a harder time "realising its social project and flourishing as a people". The very fact that the more ethnocentric varieties of Quebec nationalism are the more popular ones should give pause to anyone who favours sovereignty for Quebec to be able to determine its own "values" and "cultural development". But also, personally, esp living 20 minutes' walking distance from Quebec, I do strongly believe in the bilingual, multicultural project, which I feel like experience daily, and do think that the country (and my own life) are stronger and richer for the presence of Quebec in Canada.

Fair points, all, and I'm mostly inclined to agree. I do sympathize with QS's underlying worry that genuinely socialist projects are unlikely to succeed within Canada, but like you said, there's no guarantee that they would outside of it either (the EU makes for an interesting point of comparison here). I do think bona fide bilingualism is bound to remain a pipe dream, however, mostly because it's a one-way street: barring a few exceptions (such as, I assume, yourself), francophones pick up English while anglophones feel embarrassed at best whenever the topic of French comes up. No wonder this state of affairs has spurred a more combative sovereignist stance in Quebec, all the more so when you consider that francophones are to be found all over the country.

Beyond the official provisions that federal services are available in both languages throughout the country, you can't really expect people to speak a language with any competence if they don't have to regularly use it with native speakers. (I teach in both languages and would still not describe myself as more than competent at best.) I don't see how Quebec sovereignty would make a difference here. There are plenty of independent European countries where people speak English far better than anglophones speak the local language.

I think Quebec has done a poor job promoting french outside of its borders and into the whole of North-America. Institutionally, it has been way more preoccupied with itself (nation building) than to truly help francophone communities thrives outside of Quebec and to help Canadians learn french and French-Canadian culture. Those communities have felt abandoned because they weren't exactly of the cause and faced much larger pressure as provincial minorities, anglophones can obviously thrive without French.

That being said I came here to say that all is forgiven if Pharmacare happens.

All.

I quite liked this piece (in French) on discrimination and the slippery slope, in Canada and around the world:

https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/551388/ce-qui-se-passe-au-quebec-comme-ailleurs-est-grave

Simple, factual, and to the point.

Enjoyed the writing and the effort at global and historical contextualization. I tend to be suspicious of slippery-slope arguments generally; the bill is wrong on its own terms.

(I do intend to listen to the JWR tapes soon.)

I wasn't aware of the history here (briefly mentioned in that article, and also relating to previous posts):

https://www.tvo.org/article/why-ontario-once-tried-to-ban-french-in-schools

Makes me sad. There's nothing I'd like more than to be fully fluent in French right now, even having come out of immersion.

now that's progressive conservatism

#BREAKING: 1st @fordnation budget-- making booze available @ 9am, giving cities power to allow public drinking, allowing the promo of happy hr, pushing to legalize online gambling & buy lotto tickets on your phone. License Plates & Drivers licenses to be branded Tory Blue #ONPoli

— Travis Dhanraj (@Travisdhanraj) April 11, 2019

Ontario budget calls for a new sign... #ONpoli pic.twitter.com/6mjBn1PkLw

— Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) April 11, 2019

This reads like a budget made by and for teenagers.

Yeah, I don't know why that stuff is in a budget bill at all tbh but it is taking attention away from e.g. a 2.1% per year cut to the Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services, the reversal of the gas tax transfer to municipalities, and the absence of much to do anything about housing costs. I have no idea wtf tying university funding to "performance outcomes" even means in practice.

Clearly academics aren't working hard enough. Except for Jordan Peterson, maybe.

Sour kidding aside, I'm still fucking livid at Canada's inability (and this appears to be a transprovincial issue) to veer towards the left instead of the most boneheaded, self-parodic right whenever the Liberals glaringly mess up.

I asked myself the same question after the last Quebec elections. If you're fed up with the two party system and the PLQ in particular, why the hell would you vote for Legault? Especially when there's more money to go around than usual (mais poser la question, c'est y répondre…).

Yeah, I guess BC is the exception there (if the QC Liberals count as Liberals, the BC Liberals probably should too)? I still don't even know what it is that the OLP glaringly messed up (Hydro prices I guess??).

Through the next round of SMAs, Ontario will become a national leader in outcomes-based funding by tying 60 per cent to performance by the 2024–25 academic year. The first year of these new agreements will tie 25 per cent of funding to performance outcomes, and this proportion will increase annually by increments of 10 per cent for three years and 5 per cent in the last year until it reaches a steady state of 60 per cent in 2024–25.

How are we supposed to know what this means if they don't define what the 'tie' is?

I guess so. I have no idea why Wynne was universally loathed but then again I know very little about Ontario politics.

xp

Sour kidding aside, I'm still fucking livid at Canada's inability (and this appears to be a transprovincial issue) to veer towards the left instead of the most boneheaded, self-parodic right whenever the Liberals glaringly mess up.

Complacency and (unearned) superiority is a helluva drug, is my totally unscientific analysis

Also less fun than drinking in parks:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ontario-legal-aid-funding-cut-1.5095058?fbclid=IwAR2TYJAGhfSGTjFdTfcxTpwTosvI85BMCCi4D0BTW4NAFeaNopc9V1rEf4Y

Gotta make sure those hoi polloi don't have access to a fair legal defence.

I guess so. I have no idea why Wynne was universally loathed but then again I know very little about Ontario politics.

A simple possibility might just be that she and the OLP didn't make disastrous errors but were too far left ideologically for too many comfortable middle class voters, which might be what Simon is getting at. If the left can make inroads with lower-income rural voters, that might be their ticket.

Gas stations that fail to display the Ford government's carbon tax propaganda face a fine of up to $10,000 PER DAY https://t.co/ox7X20IxuC #onpoli pic.twitter.com/BVP39FqXr8

— John Bowker (@bowker_john) April 12, 2019

What a fucking disgrace. Is this even legal?

Can't find it now, but I saw a tweet looking for a willing gas station owner to take them to court over this.

"Yeah, I guess BC is the exception there (if the QC Liberals count as Liberals, the BC Liberals probably should too)? "

They most certainly should not

For so many Canadians, Liberals are already 'the left'. Canada does not veer left after the liberals mess up because most Canadians don't care about the left.

Something about small string instruments comes to mind: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/chinese-tycoon-s-complains-about-b-c-taxes-on-purchase-of-5m-supercar-1.4378611?fbclid=IwAR29JMZ3vfTYtfN7SX6gHqIHR1xTI4RMLgso49i-BiHC8B_rXdeKA229KoA

This is really disappointing, especially coming as part of an omnibus budget bill, and frankly a betrayal of what the Liberals were supposed to stand for when they campaigned: https://canoe.com/news/national/liberals-propose-immigration-changes-in-budget-bill-that-would-deny-refugee-claims-at-unofficial-crossings

Coyne OTM on how cynical and hypocritical this is: https://r-login.wordpress.com/remote-login.php?action=auth&host=nationalpost.com&id=37979189&back=https%3A%2F%2Fnationalpost.com%2Fopinion%2Fandrew-coyne-in-two-years-liberals-go-from-welcometocanada-to-deportations-without-hearings&h=

Urgh

voting in the AB election is underway.

not much drama in that race surely. good showing by ndp would be to come within, i dunno, 8 points of UCP?

next, alberta turns off bc's oil

It's another case where, while Notley has been a baffling disappointment to the left wrt the pipeline, I honestly don't know why she is so bad and hated vs the UCP for AB voters.

because they're albertans and she's a "left-wing" woman

very anomalous situation ndp coming to power there purely due to conservative infighting. back to decades of conservative rule surely?

welp

The NDP are actually doing a little less badly than I expected but yeah, no. Are almost all of their seats in Edmonton?

I mean, how could one not be impressed with Jason Kenney's tenure as minister of citizenship and immigration? I, too, would want my province to be run by a man who understands that most foreigners want nothing more than to 'cheapen' our Canadian values, as he so elegantly put it.

i'll never forget his fake citizenship ceremony: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-bureaucrats-pose-as-new-citizens-on-sun-news-1.1271079

not much drama in that race surely. good showing by ndp would be to come within, i dunno, 8 points of UCP?

― findom haddie (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, April 16, 2019 9:32 AM (yesterday) Bookmark

lol this was optimistic. 23 points or something in actuality

PEI election results are definitely interesting: PC minority with Greens as Official Opposition. Genuinely curious to look into more of what the PEI Greens are about. I gather their PCs are in the Maritime Red Tory vein?

Still processing both of these (from a week ago):

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/ontario-library-service-funding-pc-doug-ford-1.5102406

http://shorttakes.canadianmusician.com/ford-government-budget-slashes-ontario-music-fund-by-more-than-half/

I like music. I like books.

― clemenza, Thursday, April 18, 2019 6:31 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

remember a while ago when I said things were deteriorating? I'm sticking to that.

General strike against Ford on May 1

The only protest I can find in Ottawa takes place when I am working this evening, which is probably part of the point of a general strike but I, uh, also don't get paid if I don't work and, strictly speaking, don't have an employer anyway.

The bloodbath continues (hyperlink to similar freeze in Otrawa at the end): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/paramedics-funding-shortfall-1.5129154

Although this is somewhat reassuring, wtf were these people anticipating when they elected a Ford-led PC government less than a year ago??: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/mobile/poll-suggests-support-for-pcs-has-collapsed-ford-now-less-popular-than-wynne-1.4435061?fbclid=IwAR2eeX8iQPjeIv2J8qmltIk9rmOThdcSmkkYEVbOSB_vd4OTpbaOK-8dLCY

The proposed changes to ODSP have been actually frightening to us: https://rnao.ca/policy/action-alerts/stop-changes-odsp-definition-disability?fbclid=IwAR0NWKmNF7zqDBCJac1YLBXgAuuCw2GazeVs6b9mhyrWWTuyspjmQN3djMQ

Also, less than a year after voters delivered the Ontario Liberals a bloody rout, they are the most popular party in the province now that they have an interim leader? (Quick: name him.)

Ford is going to fuck everything up so hard. Ontario is doomed

Also, less than a year after voters delivered the Ontario Liberals a bloody rout, they are the most popular party in the province now that they have an interim leader? (Quick: name him.)

For more reasons why this seems insane, afaict, the NDP has been doing all the work of opposing the PC government, and often well. I honestly don't know what the Liberals (who were fine imo) have done to improve the public's opinion of them, other than not having a lesbian leader anymore.

why are the NDP so bad and hated (in Ontario)

Ppl hated Bob Rae as premier because he uh... Idk what he did or didn't do. He created pd days for teachers? Dude like immediately joined the federal libs which doesn't exactly support the "ndp is its own thing" theory the ndp says sometimes

Anyone itt familiar with the courage coalition?

Tbf, Rae joined the LPC 11 years after his term as Premier ended! I'm usually a defender of his Premiership. Really, though, the ONDP's 74 seats from 1990-1995 were an anomaly. Their electoral success after that time has not been any worse than it was before that time.

I don't have an exact answer to symsymsym's question. I will note, though, that I'm not sure that many NDP provincial governments of the past few decades have been much further to the left than the last Ontario Liberal government, which might be the point Will was getting at.

Yeah AFAICT NDP gvmnts have not been terribly bold for some time now

wtf were these people anticipating when they elected a Ford-led PC government less than a year ago?

Canada is supposedly one of the most educated countries in the world. You'd think that would make a difference in terms of political literacy.

getting a masters degree in 1982 does not grant you media literacy in 2019. media literacy in 2019 is p much a full time job. education has nothing to do with the sophistication of global rightist propaganda.

and yeah re: bob rae i have no real opinion, i'm just saying what i vaguely remember people saying about it in retrospect. usually people during the mike harris reign being like "at least it isn't bob rae!" i did live in rural-ass ontario, and not the cool union-y type of rural either. the "half of em work for bruce A and the other half farm" type which = a lot of "i got mine"

There was a nationwide recession as the ONDP came to power in 1990. They spent a lot on stimulus in their first budget (which became generally accepted as the correct response to a recession in the 00s). To reduce the deficit afterwards, they came up with the idea of the 'Social Contract', where all public employees would get 12 unpaid days off per year (the fabled 'Rae Days'), in order to spread the pain around harmlessly and avoid having to lay anyone off. The unions didn't agree to this, negotiations broke down, and the government went ahead with the plan anyway. Afaik, it actually worked as intended but the union leaders felt totally betrayed by this disregard for collective bargaining and abandoned the ONDP, who had previously been able to count on union support. The unions, and the rest of us, got to deal with Mike Harris's PCs instead. To listen to some people, you would think Ontario was plunged into famine and plague the instant Rae was sworn into office but I saw no evidence of that. I know I'm in the minority but this is mostly how I see it: https://www.tvo.org/article/bob-rae-was-right-but-before-his-time

(Not that I think collective bargaining principles should be disregarded but I don't think the Social Contract was a bad idea.)

And here is our Premier Douglas Robert Ford (@fordnation).

I'm sorry but this sounds really threatening, I'm not clear what I've done that could constitute a threat since it's pretty demonstrable that there is something very corrupt in QP, none the less.https://t.co/culpbINhP5

— Michael Cole 🇨🇦 (@michaeljacole) May 24, 2019

Wow @ that.

Equally wtf: https://pressprogress.ca/bc-liberal-mla-says-child-labour-is-needed-to-prevent-south-asian-kids-from-joining-street-gangs/?fbclid=IwAR2fa0TnkRyWDkElc5yr83x8-n03Wkg4GtIKXZDbo1hGzD72NTvygnN7bg4

lol

Where to begin…

canadian conservatism does it again

How much farmwork is he doing on Saturday nights?

That’s what good farm kids do. They put down their books. They changed their clothes. They went to the barn, and they started getting the cattle ready for milking time.

You go to school to get a job. If you've got a job at 12, why continue going to school? QED.

This is something: the CFS is taking the Ford to court over making student fees optional for activities it has deemed matters of 'student choice' (and which, in partisan emails, it has apparently described as 'crazy Marxist nonsense).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-universities-optional-fees-1.5153201

Anyone know anything about the legal grounds for this?

Heading to this soon: https://north-shore.info/events/fighting-for-our-lives-contingent-for-june-7-anti-ford-actions/

The whole Bob Rae saga is somehow proof to me that leftists are harder on leftist politicians than right wingers are on right wing politicians. Or at least, they are more demanding.

This is something else: 95yo LBP/PET-era Cabinet Minister Paul Hellyer discusses his apparently sincerely held views on UFOs, extraterrestrial life, and the deep state.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/by7ipl/i_am_a_95_yo_former_canadian_minister_of_defense/

Valiants Thor, the Benevolent Venusian with an IQ of 1200 lived in the pentagon for three or four years, offered us Earthlings a richer, healthier life in exchange for giving up our nuclear weapons. His offer was not accepted. (More on Thor, including his picture, in my latest book Hope Restored.)

Bill 21 is alive. Fuck this province.

Democracy at its finest. What a fucking disgrace.

fuuuuuuuuuuuck quebec

I just read through the bill and the adopted amendments and, yep, it's bad. And this, from yesterday, actually sounds even worse: https://globalnews.ca/news/5396431/quebec-government-passes-bill-immigration-bill-9/

Well, this says it's 'only' 16k applications that are potentially scrapped now: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/closure-bill-21-bill-9-national-assembly-1.5177520

Disappointed that Gatineau mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin seems to support Bill 21.

Support for Bill 21 is overwhelming in Quebec at the moment, primarily outside of Montreal where chances of meeting a muslim immigrant are slim to none. In any case, this is what 'we' voted for – 'we' only have 'ourselves' to blame. It's a lesson in populism, if you will.

As for the decrease in immigration quotas, it's doubly telling when you consider that Quebec's unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1976 and hiring is an uphill struggle in certain sectors right now.

And while Quebec is currently at the forefront of fascism-lite in Canada, keep in mind that the average pure laine's take on immigration and religious minorities is gaining ground in the ROC as well. We're headed towards even more hateful rhetoric while gently patting ourselves on the back, as usual.

I've said it before, but I'm consistently amazed that anyone might look to the French assimilationist model and say 'Yes, this has worked quite nicely so far, we should emulate it back home'. It's even more absurd in a province where the last violent incident involving the muslim community was a neonazi terrorist attack.

I'm also pissed at some of my acquaintances who were shocked when Marine Le Pen applauded Legault's election last year – totally not in the same ballpark, right?

There has been some significant opposition in Gatineau/Outaouais, although I guess largely from English school boards: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/western-quebec-anglophones-bill-21-opposition-1.5091203

luv to declare a climate emergency and approve a pipeline expansion within 24 hours

sigh

I didn't fact-check everything she said but Elizabeth May is pretty compelling here imo: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tasker-trans-mountain-trudeau-cabinet-decision-1.5180269

Speaking of lessons in populism, the majority of British Columbians still support the expansion:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/majority-support-trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion-project

Canadian values ftw.

A new Ipsos poll conducted on behalf of Resource Works [1] : Resource Works communicates with British Columbians about the importance of the province's resource sectors to their personal well-being. It demonstrates how responsible development of British Columbia's resources creates jobs and incomes throughout the province, both directly and indirectly, while maintaining a clean and healthy environment. And Resource Works explores the long-term economic future of British Columbia as a place that depends on the responsible development, extraction and transportation of the province's resources.

well they seem unbiased!

Good catch.

I would believe that they majority of BCers do support the pipeline, but I really doubt it's 60-30. Past polls I've seen had pretty different responses. And the way a poll asks these questions could really skew the results.

there were some STEMy students on my bus this morning, doing co-op terms so on their way to their workplaces downtown, talking about their plans for the future, all from asia - one guy mentioned going home to jordan, another mentioned being indian.

one had planned to move to montreal after he graduated and said that with the government that had been elected he was changing his plans and was going to move to toronto instead. the other two assented.

Pipeline should be given to FNIM people as part of reparations imo.

im all for reparations but since a bunch of the nations whose land it's going over don't want it that would be flawed (of course a bunch of nations are for it too, first nations aren't a monolith etc.)

Canada 1st in the world in resettlement of refugees in 2018 with 30%.

I suppose that yes, sometimes, Canadians values ftw.

that's heartening

Agreed it would be a complex thing to work out but any form of reparations for the FNIM will be complex, just like any legitimate solution to a complex problem is. I'm just throwing the idea without knowing some of the important details, I'm just working from a basic assumption: it it is to cross those First Nations lands without their consent, at least it should be theirs to profit from the monetary gains.

that's basically the status quo. the government of canada has - a very sui generis - "fiduciary responsibility" for first nations' lands, which the government of canada technically owns. they will consult with the first nations about what they want done in a particular case, because they legally have to, but then they decide what they wish to do. so in this case they will allow the pipeline to be built, and the first nations whose lands it is built on will receive money from it

ok from a what I understood they are not the proprietors of the pipeline itself, they would need to buy stakes.

Full text of the CCLA's court challenge to Quebec's Bill 21. Supporting this might be the most effective way to oppose the bill: https://ccla.org/ccla-nccms-application-regarding-bill-21/

Easier to read in Firefox than Safari ime

I was just thinking about how this thread sees little to no action, whereas plenty of us consistently contribute to discussions on foreign politics. My excuse is that I happen to be abroad at the moment, but even if I wasn't, I'd still have almost nothing to say about the way things are currently going in Canada, save once or twice a month on average. Yet I am deeply worried about the current situation in Quebec (not to mention Ontario) and the prospect of a yet another Conservative government at the federal level is upsetting, to say the least.

Anyhow, I tend to think that keeping abreast of political developments beyond our borders gives us a better sense of what we should or shouldn't do in Canada (although I'd love it if we could grant less attention to our immediate neighbours), but every now and then I can't help but wonder whether these claims of open-mindedness aren't also a convenient escape from the sheer lack of enthusiasm federal and provincial politics tend to elicit from the majority of Canadians, even when the inexcusable is taking place. See for instance: Legault tweeting praise of Mathieu Bock-Côté, an extremely dangerous pro-Le Pen demagogue who is dead set on becoming Quebec's very own Eric Zemmour, a highly successful French 'intellectual' who gives Jordan Peterson a run for his hatreon; or the string of islamophobic attacks that have been occurring of late in a province where 'there is no islamophobia', to quote the statement Legault used to mark the mosque shooting's one-year anniversary.

I suppose I'm just sad that it should be so difficult (and like I said, I myself am guilty of this, probably more so than most) to get excited over our politics, although you could also make a case for it being a good thing. More broadly, it's almost as though a vicarious existence were part and parcel of the Canadian existence…

*Canadian experience

Tbf, our neighbours seem to have figured out a way to have some kind of national-level election campaign going on at any given time, which does keep their political scene dramatic. Also an escape of sorts from having to think about the next thing Ford or Legault is going to ruin.

Oh yeah, our neighbours are an inexhaustible well of catharsis on par with the tragicomedies of old, it's just that we're so used to the passive role of the spectator that it occasionally feels like our entire shtick is reactivity rather than initiative – for better or for worse, once again. I'm very much of two minds about this.

But yes, I do agree with you, of course, and will look into the issues you list.

I heard this story on Radio-Canada yesterday, about the difficulties of attending post-secondary education for undocumented immigrants in Quebec; apparently York (in Toronto) is beginning a pilot project to allow undocumented students to attend as Canadians.

xp

Ugh, that's ridiculous and awful. In France (here I go again, but in this instance it's an example worth emulating), if you're undocumented but have been living with your family on French soil and attending school for at least two years, you're allowed to become a resident upon turning 18.

Btw, these are some of the incidents I was referring to:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-man-decries-racist-violence-after-being-stabbed-leaving-a-store-1.5222628

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justice-et-faits-divers/201907/25/01-5235017-un-homme-attaque-verbalement-une-femme-dorigine-algerienne-et-sa-fille.php

Tbf this shit regularly happens outside of Quebec as well, but when the provincial government's policies are in line with hate speech, it's a double whammy of dangerous idiocy.

Wow @ that video

and these attacks get so little national coverage too

Wow @ that video

I had meant the video posted by the man that came with the CBC article but this actually applies to both videos.

fuuuuuck

BIG shakeup at Postmedia as its new CEO takes Canada's largest newspaper chain on a sharp turn to the right. Ezra Levant's old editor is now in charge of ALL political coverage. Jordan Peterson given a permanent office. FOX News North? @sdbcraig has it: https://t.co/lOjXpxCSbO

— Jesse Brown (@JesseBrown) August 12, 2019

Ugh.

Many employees fear current plans to double down on what management calls “reliable conservative voices” will eradicate the local perspectives and political independence of some of Canada’s oldest and most important newspapers. These include the Citizen, Journal, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun, Windsor Star, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, and Calgary Herald. In some large Canadian cities, Postmedia runs the only local daily newspaper (or in the case of Montreal, the only English-language daily).

Justification for such concerns has already emerged, according to several sources.

Since Libin’s appointment was announced, one editor-in-chief was removed from his newspaper and reassigned to a newly created corporate role, after he raised objections that the company was not respecting the editorial independence of his newsroom and after he published an editorial board endorsement of carbon pricing, which upset management.

Responsibility for the National Post’s political bureau in Ottawa was taken away from the paper’s head of news, who also had to be informed by one of his own writers that he was no longer in charge of them.

Meanwhile, reporters and editors across the chain are perplexed by the seemingly opaque nature of Libin’s powers, which has left them uncertain about what kinds of stories they will or won’t control going forward.

And in a separate development stemming from Postmedia’s interest in shoring up a conservative audience base, Jordan Peterson — the prominent psychologist and University of Toronto professor who has become a global celebrity for his critiques of left-wing politics — has been working on a secret project out of the fifth floor of Postmedia’s offices.

Not good.

Actually kind of terrifying tbh.

If this is true, it is indeed creepy and terrible, although the grip of Postmedia on English-language Canadian news was always somewhat oppressive. I guess we'd still have the Toronto Star and French news? (I have no idea what one is meant to do with CBC these days.)

how much of a reach do you think any of these papers have? I don't get the sense that the Sun and the Province set the agenda in Vancouver or BC nearly as much as they did in the 90s. Nobody reads them anymore!

National Post always mixed some interesting heterodox opinion columnists with virulent unadulterated Islamophobia

the free Star Metro paper here strikes me as left of centre if anything

how much of a reach do you think any of these papers have?

my extremely gut-feeling answer is "more than you might think, especially among the over-55s"

Ha, I just reviewed the thread and found zero links to any local Postmedia paper and one Postmedia link period (to the NP). Definitely different from the days when the whole family read the Citizen every day.

Best Prime Minister:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/pm-trudeau-sought-to-influence-wilson-raybould-in-many-ways-ethics-czar-1.4549332

Definitely feels more and more probable that we are heading for a conservative government this fall. I'm hoping that they at least don't get a majority.

Fuck everything about this.

yeah, we're screwed

Fucking awesome: Legault in Quebec, Ford in Ontario, Kenney in Alberta, etc., and Scheer for the whole country.

and we'll still be thinking we're better than america

Not a high bar tbf.

What are the Grits' chances if Trudeau resigns, someone else (Freeland?) takes over?

Also, how depressing is it to be hoping for a federal Liberal government to survive after a corruption scandal? There just seems to be zero hope for a leftist alternative at this point.

uh, i think the only way you can think up such a thing happening would be some accelarationist fantasizing. tories get in and the economy finally goes tits up and jagmeet storms in and leads us to glorious social democracy? so far-fetched i can't even imagine it

:(

i'm starting to fear that Jagmeet will never become PM

SNC is very bad and corrupt imo but I don't think Lib voters care. And there's a definite ceiling on Scheer's support. My gut feeling is still that we are stuck with Justin, probably forever.

I half-wondered whether there's a way this might actually help him in Quebec, to be seen to have fought so hard to save a homegrown giant and all those jobs.

The accelerationist in me hopes for a poor NDP showing so they can finally get a decent leader for a change

l'etat, c'est SNC Lavalin

I feel pretty confident that the NDP will be getting a new leader after 2019, possibly barring Jagmeet becoming the junior partner in a minority coalition. But do they have any decent possibilities? I liked Nathan Cullen, vaguely, but he just retired...

Ashton?

She'd be my pick obv

I half-wondered whether there's a way this might actually help him in Quebec, to be seen to have fought so hard to save a homegrown giant and all those jobs.

That's already the way it's being spun here and I think there's a decent chance it might work. It doesn't seem like people here like Scheer or Singh much so might just end up voting Liberal by default. Unless they decide to go back to voting Bloc? It's not a very predictable electorate

What about Mad Max? Is he still in the race?

Unless they decide to go back to voting Bloc?

This would probably guarantee a Tory government if it happened.

What about Mad Max? Is he still in the race?

I think he has a shot of winning his own seat (which would mean, per current rules, that he would be at the debate for the election following this one)

This would probably guarantee a Tory government if it happened.

Agreed. I hope it doesn't happen.

The Liberal position on the whole SNC Lavalin thing is basically the same one as the provincial government here (i.e. even though they are corrupt, it is important that they be allowed to continue to do business with the government because of jobs) so possibly this will have no effect on Liberals vote turnout at all in Quebec.

Lol, just checked what the editorial board of Le Devoir had to say and yep, they're just throwing these questions out there: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/editoriaux/560653/affaire-snc-lavalin-dans-quel-interet

Haha, seems about right. Le Devoir gonna (do its) devoir.

Hottest take of the year goes to: https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/joe-oliver-heres-a-truth-few-dare-to-utter-canada-will-benefit-from-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR25zQwxGqUkM7ahFc74sqARbgqf3UrGVCsDwQSZSymwlLqPiwd38dmQ0II#comments-area

extreme weather bad, climate change good

Insofar as conservatism is just tribalism, that sweltering take is probably more widespread than we think.

Oh, I used to participate in a Canadian politics forum with plenty of small- and large-C conservatives on it and you definitely came across this viewpoint. A former cabinet minister writing this in a major newspaper is ... something, though.

The cynicism is just breathtaking. Fuck that article.

I kept waiting for him to baldly suggest that we accelerate the process.

Naturally, no mention that Canada has among the highest per capita emissions.

Ah, there he is:

https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/560699/les-candidats-de-maxime-bernier-et-l-avortement

Because curbing late-term abortions should be our top priority.

Tbh, I had no idea he was running candidates outside of Quebec.

Non-paywalled site for a Toronto Star story about more brilliant work by Ford's govt: https://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/news-story/9553856-ford-government-s-streamlining-delays-funding-for-agencies-that-help-the-disabled/ . Seriously worried about what's going on here; we have a very good support system in the province now.

This seems really confused. An identical message can be legal for a non-third-party-registered charity in one election and not in another, depending on what the worst party happens to be advocating?

Because of that, Elections Canada is warning that any third party that promotes information about carbon dioxide as a pollutant or climate change as an emergency could be considered to be indirectly advocating against Mr. Bernier and his party. Activities can be considered partisan by Elections Canada even if they don’t mention a candidate or party by name, the agency’s rules say.

An Elections Canada spokesman confirmed “such a recommendation would be something we would give.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-environment-groups-warned-saying-climate-is-real-could-be-seen-as/

Wtf? Can we block every bank from advertising since they probably oppose the stance of the Communist Party? Oil industry ads might be indirectly opposing the Green Party?

Oh, I guess it only affects charity tax status. Still weird. That is not a partisan message.

Exactly. This is a case of the very 'feels over reals' that the right routinely ascribes to its opponents.

I guess it only affects charity tax status

although maybe those corporations should still have to register as third parties

What about the anti-carbon tax stickers that Ford is mandating at gas stations?

Interprovincial drama: https://r-login.wordpress.com/remote-login.php?action=auth&host=montrealgazette.com&id=72587893&back=https%3A%2F%2Fmontrealgazette.com%2Fnews%2Fquebec%2Fequalization-is-part-of-the-original-deal-and-quebec-will-fight-to-keep-it-says-premier-legault&h=

Kenney's stance, tying support for equalization payments to the building of pipelines, seems ridiculous and tbh troll-y, while Legault seems to want to rewrite constitutional history, although I do think he's right to want to retain the equalization system.

Nantel might... have a point?: https://r-login.wordpress.com/remote-login.php?action=auth&host=ottawacitizen.com&id=66829272&back=https%3A%2F%2Fottawacitizen.com%2Fnews%2Flocal-news%2Fousted-from-the-ndp-longueuil-mp-nantel-to-run-for-the-green-party%2Fwcm%2F25c664d7-9e23-4203-835f-793fe31ecc27%3Futm_term%3DAutofeed%26utm_medium%3DSocial%26utm_source%3DTwitter&h=%23Echobox%3D1566259754

It's a sad day when one has to choose between Legault and Kenney (la peste et le choléra).

https://pagesix.com/2019/08/29/kevin-oleary-wife-should-do-the-time-if-guilty-in-boat-crash-says-brother-of-man-killed/

hey remember when this guy was on a short list of potential Conservative party leaders

Hm, interesting to see what happens with that.

This is a bizarre policy that seems to serve no real purpose other than to justify cuts to teaching hires: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-teachers-score-70-per-cent-math-test-1.5261201

I could see the point if this test was being given only to teachers who are, you know, going to teach math, and if elementary school and high school teachers were tested differently, but why require every teacher to write this test? Do the Fords have shares in Kaplan or something?

Equalization is great but one thing I never understood is why Newfoundland & Labrador is considered a ‘have’ province and yet are always on the verge of bankruptcy. If anything it’s them not Alberta that is getting a raw deal.

To take a stab at it, according to this article at the Library of Parliament, the equalization formula is based on the following:

On a per capita basis, Equalization assesses a province’s ability to generate own-source revenues and compares that fiscal capacity to the average fiscal capacity for all provinces. With the exception of user fees (fees for the use of public services), all provincial government revenue sources are allocated to one of five categories: personal income taxes, business income taxes, consumption taxes, property taxes and natural resource revenues.

Save for natural resource revenues, the Equalization formula estimates fiscal capacity in each of the four remaining revenue categories by determining the amount of per capita revenue that each province could generate if all provinces had identical tax rates. Because of the wide range of natural resources and royalty structures across the provinces, actual resource revenues are used to measure fiscal capacity instead of creating a national average tax rate.

Newfoundland has had a huge boom in natural resource revenues over the last 10 years. Their tax rates don't appear exceptionally low but I believe that their governments have spent a lot over this same period, running deficits, and they have a lot of accumulated debt - two things that the equalization formula does not make accommodations for. They also suffer when oil prices drop.

I think it’s the ‘save for natural ressources’ part that screws NF up and is a baked-in advantage for Quebec with Hydro.

Somewhere between lol and O_O @ American right-wingers describing Kim Campbell as a "Canadian leftist" or "hateful liberal" after her Mar-a-Lago tweet:

Sick & twisted-fmr Canadian PM wishes hurricane to hit Mar-A-Lago. @realDonaldTrump won't be there to get hurt, but many ppl, including service workers, families, etc would be hurt and property destroyed. Are liberals this hateful? https://t.co/5CyDsDmKrj

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 30, 2019

IT IS UNBELIEVABLE KIM CAMPBELL FORMER CANADAS PM WISHES HURRICANE DORIAN DESTROYS TRUMP MAR A LAGO HOME. I LIVE IN MIAMI AND I KNOW THE DESTRUCTION OF A HURRICANE. THIS LEFT WING MONSTERS LIKE MS CAMPBELL, HAVE A BLACK EVIL SOUL. MAGA 2020 ALL THE WAY!!!

— Miguel Diaz (@MiguelD97851742) August 30, 2019

Former progressive PM, Kim Campbell, leads a bad example for women in politics. #lunatic pic.twitter.com/IfiLFZnnvP

— Poletical (@Poletical) August 29, 2019

Kim Campbell has a Mental Disorder and it is called
TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME
This syndrome can also be found as the mental illness inflicting
Democrat Socialists in the USA 🇺🇸 and
NDP & Liberal Socialists in Canada 🇨🇦

— Liberty (@i776rreks) August 29, 2019

This is the Canadian Left. Because they don’t like Trump, it’s okay for the glutton nutjob failed politician that is Kim Campbell to wish death and destruction on Americans in Florida? Watch her cohorts like her tweet. The scum you scrape off your shoe. Reaffirms everything Lol! https://t.co/AZP7mY5BZu

— WallStPete (@WallStPete) August 29, 2019

(Campbell was a Tory PM for anyone who doesn't recall 1993.)

More serious issue wrt Canada-US relations:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tasker-canadian-muslims-us-border-crossing-1.5264218

Newest Patriot Act is about Trudeau and the upcoming Canadian election. It wasn't perfect, and fawned at times, but I do think Minhaj went a lot more in depth and did more research than American journalists or commentators (let alone comedians) typically do when covering Canada, while still being funny; far better than John Oliver's bit about the 2015 election, for example. He actually pressed Trudeau pretty hard on selling LAVs to Saudi Arabia, asking him to promise on air not to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. Trudeau seemed to squirm a bit when Minhaj pushed him on the contradiction between his climate change commitments and his dedication to building the Trans Mountain pipeline ("like trying to lose weight by eating more Kit Kats"). He discussed SNC-Lavalin and Bill 21 reasonably well. (Referring to Quebec as "the Boston of Canada" is p weird, though.)

Trudeau seemingly kinda maybe issuing a threat(????) was super weird

Yeah, I lolled, then thought afterwards that it was a little weird for an actual world leader to do that. Hopefully, it was scripted.

I really don't think so!

Quebec absolutely the Boston of Canada in that we are insufferable snobs with an inferiority complex who whine all the time and don’t realize how fortunate we are.

Also we think we are the shinning example of the nation’s progressivism but in reality the society is closeted racist.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree…

Western Canada: "Hold my beer."

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/mark-hecht-ethnic-diversity-harms-a-countrys-social-trust-economic-well-being-argues-professor/amp

MB election results to come in tonight. PCs probably on track for another win.

Depressing to see Tory blue federal lawn signs all over the west end suburbs whenever I'm there.

Yep, PC majority. NDP did pick up some seats.

Depressing to see Tory blue federal lawn signs all over the west end suburbs whenever I'm there.

(That was re: Ottawa, not MB)

Sad as it is to say, I still tend to assume that the Prairies are unredeemable.

The NDP governed MB from 1999-2016!

What did they achieve in the way of social policies? Genuinely curious.

Doer gov was a pretty meat and potatoes balanced budget type of thing, not scaring the small c conservatives too much. His replacement,who's name I cant remember,went against a promise not to increase provincial sales tax and that was the end of that

Cut tuition; tuition rates are about half of Ontario's. Some of the highest levels of health care and education spending in the country. Modest but consistent environmental reforms: phasing out of coal factories, shifting towards renewable energy. Immigration agreement with the Philippines. Ahead of the curve on same-sex adoption rights. Definitely not radical but achieved some progressive changes while maintaining a balanced budget and healthy economy.

Not bad at all.

xp. ah yeah, my 5.40am gloss was a little minimal and not positive enough.

doer gov a really good example of a provincial ndp gov not being shitty

im not looking forward to this election

Huh, our NDP candidate is a podcaster. http://www.michaelspratt.com/poadcast-legal-matters

Ha, I'll look into Taman's record but I'm leaning Green at this point. Ottawa Centre is a Lib-NDP contest and I have no strong preference between them rn.

My animosity towards Catherine McKenna over TransMountain is almost balanced out by wanting to stick it to the misogynists who are giving her crap.

i live in what used to be the safest ndp riding in canada, and which even after last election, where there was a huge swing to the liberals, the ndp candidate still won by 20 points.

makes me slightly disinclined to campaign but i guess you shouldn't be too complacent and i could also volunteer in one of the currently liberal ridings in the burbs.

well now we might pay attention to the elections!

Uh oh... a Vancouver businessman has had a sudden and conveniently timed crisis of conscience over something he saw in an old year book.

Ugh. Just ugh to all of it.

God, what a story.

https://magiciconsigli.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/winkies-2.jpg

great headline from yesterday:
https://election.ctvnews.ca/some-voters-question-whether-canada-is-ready-for-a-pm-with-a-turban-1.4598227

What this is all about if you don't live in Canada and can't be bothered looking up details:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-brownface-arabian-nights-1.5289165

If you look at that picture, there may be--may be; I don't know any details--a second issue: he's a teacher, and that may be a student he's kind of friendly with there.

I hope the media will heavily report that the NCCM has accepted his apology. Already tired of white people being offended in lieu of POCs.

andrew scheer always sounds do nervous when he talks

this is kind of weird to say, but i agree with ed the sock?

xpost

don't think the NCCM actually has the power to absolve Trudeau on behalf of all Muslims. And there is no way that they'd accept an apology that quickly from a Conservative (or even someone from another party) who did the same thing

how did conservative oppo research miss this, harper must be rolling in his grave

Fantastic assumption man.

The NCCM doesn't have the power to absolve Trudeau on behalf of all Muslims because no institution holds that kind of power and it ain't the point of the NCCM, so duh. That's not the point. The point is that politically-minded jerks will use the photo's offensiveness to rip into Trudeau while ignoring what the leading body of Canadian muslims has to say about it and I find it to be excruciating and hypocritical. If a consensus of Canadian muslims come up with a clear rebuke of the NCCM decision I will rescind that.

yeah, fair enough

what really gets me about that photo is how utterly unsurprising it is

If you look at that picture, there may be--may be; I don't know any details--a second issue: he's a teacher, and that may be a student he's kind of friendly with there.

I don't think that's a teenager?

Honestly, I doubt this will move the needle very much.

Yeah same.

I just wish there was more outrage for Bill 21, rather than an obvious mistake made 18 years ago.

And there is no way that they'd accept an apology that quickly from a Conservative (or even someone from another party) who did the same thing

I mean, if this is true, is it because the NCCM has some partisan loyalty to the Liberals? Or is it because Liberal policy has been better for Muslims than they think Tory policy would be?

Ya, I would think it’s been earned at little more than with, at least, the cpc.

yeah I mean it's totally just an assumption...and yeah CPC/PPC/CAQ all implicitly and explicitly condone some form of Islamophobia, so maybe JT has earned the benefit of the doubt

just tired of the monstrosity of the alternative being used to excuse Trudeau for lying about first past the post, for SNC Lavalin, for buying a pipeline, etc etc etc

This is like an alternate universe - yeah his opposition are fucking horrific on every level, but how is this acceptable? Even if you’re leaning heavily on youthful mistake (at 29?), he’s the son of an ex-PM and grew up used to public scrutiny. Come the fuck on, it’s horrendous judgement at best.

Insofar as it's impossible to conceive of an NDP (centre-left) victory at this point in time (or any other, really) because ours is a two-party system in all but name and Canadians currently appear to be more interested in letting the world know they're on the same nationalist bandwagon as everyone else (see: results of the latest provincial elections), this is the pathetic alternative we're left with.

'Fuck everything about this' is likely to be my refrain throughout.

overheard conversation between a couple of dumbasses in my office talking about the photo today, flawless logic on display: "how can that be racist - aladdin's not even real! who is it racist against, cartoon characters?"

Yeah same.

I just wish there was more outrage for Bill 21, rather than an obvious mistake made 18 years ago.

pretty much. As terrible as this is, it isn't going to change anybody's opinion of him that much (see Aga Khan, trip to India for other instances of terrible judgement). I don't think anybody's going to actually start thinking Trudeau is racist because of this.

No. But I think the usual view of political scandals is that they hurt most when they confirm general perceptions that are already out there*--in this case that Trudeau is privileged, clueless, and a hypocrite.

*with the standard caveat that normal rules do not apply to Trump

wtf, another? How have none of these surfaced before now?

https://globalnews.ca/news/5922861/justin-trudeau-brownface-video

'Fuck everything about this' is likely to be my refrain throughout.

― pomenitul, Thursday, September 19, 2019 7:53 AM (five hours ago)

Trudeau has has negative momentum for a while now and most liberals know it. If there was some other star candidate waiting in the wings, I’d almost wonder if this was a Patrick Brown style hit job to pull a last minute leadership switcheroo. But yeah, fuck everything about this sums it up nicely.

Also I’d like to remind anyone who thinks blackfaces were consensually understood as bad in 2001, that they are still not really understood as bad in Quebec. The context is different and I think it matters.

they are still not really understood as bad in Quebec

Correct.

What about in BC, though?

the Arabian Nights teacher party was in Vancouver though

is there any context yet on this new little video of him in blackface throwing his hands up?

fuck him. what a complete distraction. Put a new leader in. I don't care if it is an internal hit.

so we went from zero to three in less than a day? it doesn't reflect well on Trudeau at all – but i find it more than a little gross this is only coming to light now because of political opportunism and not any kind of sense of right and wrong. it's obvious someone was sitting on these until the election – and whether it was the conservatives or greens (Kinsella), no one comes out looking good on this. i always felt Trudeau was a entitled rich kid and he’s definitely lost some respect from me over this. however he did a better job than i expected as PM and has welcomed refugees & very publicly denounced Islamophobia. So this is all kind of a giant, gross, unwelcome wash in my books.

Yeah, blackface was something you would semi-regularly see on Québecois TV as late as the 90s. That doesn't make it right but I can excuse a teenage Trudeau for not realizing there's anything wrong with it.

Brownface in Vancouver in 2001 at age 29 is certainly worse. He should have known better by then, I would think.

He has to fuck off. To not have come totally clean last night. Nope. Go away.

There is indeed something quite gross about all the Bill 21 supporters and 'close our borders' conservatives celebrating this debacle, when they'd be the first to defend a right-leaning politician from such charges, tooth and nail. That said, hypocrisy is a juicy target regardless of one's own values.

In any case, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that a conservative government would be significantly worse for visible minorities, period.

I haven't even looked at reaction yet from the right. I agree with what you're saying here. And yet I was always going to have a hard time standing in line on a weeknight to prop up the Liberals. This is just too much. We don't vote directly for PM. Put someone else up front. Basically anyone.

And lose all the votes he's just gained in Quebec?

(Sorry, I couldn't help it.)

yes. the way i see it, if you're in a riding that could go either liberal or conservative and you let this tip you to Con; you're an idiot.

xposts

He has to fuck off. To not have come totally clean last night. Nope. Go away.

― maffew12, Thursday, September 19, 2019 10:52 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

He did say there was the Day O video.

The video was shot in the early 1990s, however, it’s not clear where it takes place ... He’s wearing a white T-shirt, and his jeans are ripped at the knees.

Grunge-era blackface

and lets be realistic, they're not changing leaders mid-campaign. if they wind up with a minority or in opposition after the election, they will probably start looking to do just that tho.

I'll forgive him if he records a calypso album immediately

lol

Btw, last year Scheer gave a dogwhistling speech in which he warned of 'forces of political correctness' so hearing him say that brownface was 'just as racist in 2001 as it is in 2019' is quite rich.

And lose all the votes he's just gained in Quebec?

I actually wondered about this, thinking about that legendary Bernier tweet.

I'm having trouble getting very worked up about this tbh. He did something dumb, not criminal, 18 years ago (+ earlier as a teenager at a Jesuit college in Quebec), for which he has apologized. I don't know that there's any reason to believe it was motivated by hate or mocking cruelty as opposed to clueless Orientalism - arguably, someone could make that accusation about having an 'Arabian Nights'/Aladdin theme for a party in the first place. Since then, he came to power in an election where he defended the right of Muslim women to wear the niqab while swearing citizenship against the Tories and BQ and has welcomed Middle Eastern refugees when they were getting turned away elsewhere. We knew he was a privileged goof who likes to wear embarrasing costumes; does anyone think this means he is likely to promote racist policies at any level? I wasn't leaning Liberal before and I'm not now but I don't think this calls for a resignation. Maybe I'm 2-5% more likely to vote NDP over Green to promote the representation of a leader who has dark skin and a turban full-time?

One photo last night, I didn't care, it's basically as you put it. Then this other stuff coming out is a bit much. Why mention Dayo and not whatever the hell else? What is going on here?

Why Green over NDP btw?

I do agree that dumbassery is likely the root cause of his past behaviour; he doesn't strike me as a closeted racist.

xp

That all (Sund4r's post) sounds about right to me, though pom is otm too. In a better world where politicians were always held to high standards, this would be disqualifying, but in this electoral system you're voting against people you hate not for you like imo (nb. I am American) and this helping the Conservatives in any way would be deranged.

For those who won't or don't have to vote Liberal, I'm curious how you're distinguishing the NDP from the Greens (uh, I assume no one here is considering other options). Climate change is my biggest issue, but I was pretty disappointed that the Green platform doesn't mention public transit at all.

xxp leave dayo alone!!1

And Scheer said those things as an elected official. I think that Trudeau being a teacher at the time and not a politician has to be addressed somehow, because I don’t think it is useful to conflates both predispositions. We all make mistakes and when are you an entitled rich brat, which Trudeau has all the reasons to be, it takes even more time to learn from mistakes; it doesn’t help than in Quebec, I will repeat, those are not considered mistakes and perhaps if I had been scolded back at Brebeuf maybe the learning happens earlier. Also, how many people do we think scolded him on that night in Vancouver? People were sure willing to take photos with him.

In the end what matters is the policy as an elected official, and there is so much worse damage he has done as a PM with say just the freakin Trans Mountain pipeline, which might not be his worst thing ymmv. And yet he won’t learn from that mistake too because we built a political system in which the consequences for mistakes are only weighed with caveat of the alternative: who among us wants Scheer back? After all, Trudeau did a tremendous job in reducing poverty, his promotion of a multicultural nation is relief in a world of right wing populism, assisted suicide and weed legalization are great.

What truly upsets me is that deep down I doubt that the NPD will surge after this, that Canmedia is just unable to give credit to the NPD as a political organisation. Is not just the coverage, but the love for all things centrism makes it hard for the NDP to be itself: a left wing response to Canadian centrism. It’s why Mulcair fell in the trap. It also upsets me that racism in parts of Canada will make it hard for Singh to gain momentum. No one cared about the Greens until the NDP elected a sikh. I don’t know if I would always vote for the NDP, but a strong NDP would make the liberals and consequently the PC more liable and accountable. Now we are in a shitty position having to choose between the Transmountain pipeline and Transmountain pipeline + dog whistling + austerity. Just like Trudeau wasn’t put in a position to learn from his brownface mistakes when he was in high school.

The second shitty thing is that in that context, if a teacher tomorrow in Sarnia is revealed to have used blackface, he loses his job and gets shamed to death and will probably won’t have a big enough platform to apologize and will most probably not be given a chance to learn from his mistakes. But both the conservatives and liberals, over and over and over get a chance.

I'm in an NDP riding and they've got a new candidate this year, as Hélène Laverdière is retiring. Chances of not losing it to the Liberals seem slim, if only because their candidate also happens to be a co-founder of Equiterre (which will likely sideline the Green Party completely), so I see no reason not to vote NDP again. There's the Bloc, too, I guess, but I highly doubt anyone gives enough of a shit anymore.

xps

Yeah, that's all otm, VHS.

As a side note, I do appreciate that Trudeau has implemented Bill C-76, which allows Canadians that have been living abroad for more than five years to vote as well. It doesn't concern me personally, as I've only been away for a year and plan on moving back (well, if at all professionally possible) but it's still an important step imho.

I'm leaning green over ndp, though it might be different if either of these parties had an actual shot of winning (either the election or my riding). I prefer to give my vote to a party which has the fight against climate change as their main focus (as it should be for all parties and every voter).

Also I want dental care. Very much so.

Unless it was violent or criminal, I don't really gaf what anyone did as a teenager, honestly.

If anyone else watched the Scheer/Singh/May Maclean's/CityTV debate, I don't think it's hard to see why someone might lean Green over NDP. Imo, May made detailed, well-informed, well-thought-out statements, while Singh tended to speak in sentimental generalities and repeat a catchphrase about how Liberals and Tories only help the people at the top. She actually seemed like she had done serious thinking about economics and a budget when she explained the list of taxes she planned to bring in to pay for increased services and why it made sense to make pharmacare free and universal before dental care. She wants to commit to a hard target for emissions and was v good at hammering Scheer on Tory opposition to the UN declaration on indigenous rights and the FIPA with China. Singh has always been weirdly evasive about the LNG project in BC. I preferred May to Mulcair in 2015, btw, and also preferred the Green platform to the NDP's then. I voted for Paul Dewar despite his party. If a Green vote throws my riding to Catherine McKenna, I can live with that. If the Conservatives had a chance of winning Ottawa Centre, the election would probably already be a lost cause.

Btw, I realize you weren't saying this, pom, but the idea of anyone being put off by Trudeau's brownface/blackface pictures and then considering the BQ is O_O.

xp

Btw, I realize you weren't saying this, pom, but the idea of anyone being put off by Trudeau's brownface/blackface pictures and then considering the BQ is O_O.

Hah, that didn't even cross my mind but now I'm amazed that it's a legit possibility in some alternate plane of existence.

Canadaland episode on the event is good.

yet he won’t learn from that mistake too because we built a political system in which the consequences for mistakes are only weighed with caveat of the alternative

a system he promised to change once he took power

Fun to see him dredge that up when he's leading a minority government

Interesting to see Le Devoir's framing and the fairly forgiving responses even from Trudeau's opponents in Quebec: https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/562947/brownface-des-elus-quebecois-a-la-rescousse-de-justin-trudeau

you know under bill C21 Trudeau couldn't even be a teacher in Quebec

Some forgiving responses by Surrey voters in this article too:
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/trudeaus-brownface-mistake-could-cost-him-in-b-c-swing-ridings-expert-says

Everyone in that Le Devoir article is otm except for Legault and his caquistes, who can all go fuck themselves on principle.

Also interesting to hear from Marwah Rizqy (Quebec Liberal Party) and Ruba Ghazal (Québec solidaire), whose families come from Morocco and Palestine, respectively. Basically, both of them agree that he fucked up, but that he's not a racist.

you know under bill C21 Trudeau couldn't even be a teacher in Quebec

lol

Ok, just got it now (slow day).

lol indeed.

Anglo-media pundits really don’t get that 1. Bill 21 comes with a notwithstanding clause so a PM has little to none power to overturn it and 2. a federal hopeful taking the bait as to fight against the bill plays exactly in the hands of Quebec nationalists and that will undoubtedly make the situation worse for religious minorities in Quebec. The whole Bill, the whole artificially created situation has been designed as to invite Quebec-Canada confrontation.

The pundits unwillingness to understand the situation beyond their language barrier but to coast on the virtue signalling is sickening to me.

Canada's PM Justin Trudeau admits he can't remember how often he wore blackface, as row deepens ahead of election https://t.co/hG09CHbPAN

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) September 19, 2019

wow, that's really young to have dementia that bad.

he doesn't recall any of the times he did it

May's answer to Loi 21 was to find jobs elsewhere in Canada for minorities who couldn't do their jobs bc of the law, which is... interesting.

My Canadian friend just sent me this text:

"Al Molson"

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/09/trudeaus-popularity-skyrockets-in-quebec-after-revelation-of-brownface-photos/

They've been reading ilx.

It's barely a parody at this point:

https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/563006/mot-cle-les-excuses-repetees-de-trudeau-suffiront-elles

'Rebuked in the ROC, forgiven in Quebec'

Sad lol at the final paragraph of that Beaverton piece:

“We have confirmed that the subject in question was not an employee of the Quebec government and was wearing makeup,” said Quebec Premier Francois Legault. “Our secular laws are meant to target real people of colour, not fake ones.”

Otoh, here is a completely different take from the francophone press, arguing out that JT should have known better since his father was also the 'father of multiculturalism' and that, as a drama teacher, he should have been aware of the history of blackface. More pertinently imo, though, the author also challenges the argument raised by the pundits in the Le Devoir piece that blackface means something different in Quebec since it has less connection to American cultural history (itself a debatable proposition): she ddiscusses the history of minstrelsy in Quebec and Canada more generally, including Quebecois troupes and even Calixa Lavallée, author of "O Canada".

Here is the piece, sorry: https://www.lapresse.ca/elections-federales/201909/19/01-5242021-il-ny-a-rien-la-.php

En 2001, Justin Trudeau n’était plus un élève du secondaire, mais un enseignant de 29 ans. Et il enseignait… le théâtre ! Il devait bien avoir entendu parler du minstrel show

There's unfortunately less of a causal link there than she'd like.

the history of minstrelsy in Quebec

lasting up to the 1950s, acc. to the piece; Lavallée apparently performed in blackface in an American troupe. xp

https://globalnews.ca/news/5926620/blackface-canada-history/

In a 2005 doctoral thesis, University of Toronto researcher Lorraine Elmire Louise Le Camp documented hundreds of minstrel performances across Canada from the 1840s to 1960s. These include shows mounted by charitable organizations, religious groups, schools and members of the military and law enforcement.

I think this is where I need to confess to my online community that I dressed up as the Iron Sheik for Halloween 1988. It was a different time and I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.

Admittedly, I did not colour my skin, although I did paint on a moustache.

Nobody is arguing that minstrel shows weren’t part of the Quebec cultural landscape, it’s just that even in the 2010s some prominent Quebec comedians argues that painting your face black as nothing to do with minstrelsy. The question really is did Quebec francophone culture took the time to digest the racism of minstrelsy and its consequences and the answer is no obviously not, let’s remember they still call themselves the white n-words of americas.

I dressed up as the Iron Sheik for Halloween 1988

Easiest FP ever.

How do you read Theriault's argument as presented in Le Devoir and quoted below, VHS? I do think he is positing a distance between Quebec's cultural landscape and the practice of performing blackface minstrel shows:

Le sociologue Joseph Yvon Thériault explique ce contraste par l’histoire différente du Québec et du reste du Canada, de même que la proximité culturelle du Canada anglais avec les États-Unis. Le blackface est né au sud de la frontière au XIXe siècle, où les spectacles de minstrels permettaient à des acteurs blancs de se moquer des Afro-Américains avec un accent ridicule ou des comportements enfantins. La société américaine s’est construite autour de l’esclavage et de son abolition et le phénomène du blackface y a été structurant, explique M. Thériault. Au fil des décennies, le Canada et les pays anglo-saxons se sont américanisés. La sensibilité au blackface s’est importée. Mais le Québec s’est davantage construit en miroir à la France, dont le passé colonialiste n’a pas compté le même épisode d’esclavage en terre française qu’aux États-Unis, note M. Thériault. « La notion est moins prégnante » au Québec, dit-il.

My FSL translation:

The sociologist Joseph Yvon Thériault explains the contrast with reference to the different histories of Quebec and the rest of Canada, along with English Canada's cultural proximity to the US. Blackface was born south of the border in the 19th century, where minstrel shows allowed white actors to mock African-Americans with a ridiculous accent and juvenile actions. American society was built around slavery and its abolition and the phenomenon of blackface was one of its structuring elements, explains Mr. Thériault. Over the course of decades, Canada and other Anglo-Saxon countries became Americanized and thus imported a sensitivity to blackface. But Quebec developed more in the image of France, whose colonial past did not include the same kind of history of slavery on French soil as was seen in the US, notes Mr. Thériault. "The idea does not have as much significance", he says.

(Obv, you don't need that, VHS, but some readers might.)

(Or maybe I'm getting something wrong, which you could point out.)

I’ll speak in generalities for the sake of shortness.

I think it’s mostly bullshit, Quebec culture is very aware of many aspects of american culture and most of the time have imported them. After all they are aware enough they compare themselves to slaves as per the moniker I referred to upthread, it’s simply that the only racism Quebec culture and society has ever cared about is the one made against themselves by anglos. + perhaps some aspects of FNIM racism in the margins.

France’s brand of racism is that it does not understand why not everyone does exactly like France’s culture and politics, the Republique values are supposedly unbiased, universal, eternal, so to not subscribe to these sentiments, to not erase your race at the altar of these values, is sin against humanity. I don’t think that sentiment exists in Quebec. I think Quebec’s geographical and cultural isolation made it so they simply didn’t care to download the racism memo that has developed since the 60s, nor did it upload their experience of racism it to the world really, are african americans aware of Quebec’s struggles ? It is important to understand that some quebecers won’t consider themselves ‘white’ as per constructed by recent intersectional thinkers.

None of that explains Trudeau who is the son of famous PM and whose personal experience can’t be understood in those generalities.

I agree that it seems obviously wrong. It's just somewhat incredible to me that a sociologist could make that argument and have it repeated in a respected paper.

Tbf Le Devoir isn't exactly known for its progressive views.

For example, the complete absence of east and south asians (despite large demographics) in Quebec cinema is really because Quebecers are obsessed with telling their own stories as a habit of self-preservation, and if it ignores large swaths of the population then who cares? The priority is self-preservation.

All of that is changing with the narrative of cultural genocide by multiculturalism promoted by Quebecor and les nationalistes identitaires. But I don’t think these two forms of racism, ‘targeted and willful ignorance’ and ‘absolute demographic fear for the future’ are that exclusive to one anothee.

Le Devoir has an old history of violent anti-semitism for which it never apologized. As a newspaper, it is written form of what I described earlier.

I mean, if the gist of the argument is something like 'blackface is always more hurtful in a country with a long traumatic history of slavery than it is in a province that has practiced slavery on a relatively small scale and for a much shorter period of time', it's not wrong per se. But if we're expected to conclude that there's nothing reprehensible about blackface in Quebec or that the Québécois are somehow unaware of basic facts about their southern neighbours' past, that's messed up. I don't think that's what he's saying, though (his line is that 'it's a less entrenched notion') – he just does a very poor job of properly contextualizing and historicizing the practice in Quebec, which is doubly problematic coming from someone in his position.

I hope the quebec dubbing of Eddie Murphy remains a secret amongst card carrying members of L'amérique du nord francophone.

On a slightly unrelated note, I remember reading Tintin au Congo as an eight year-old at the Bibliothèque de Côte-des-Neiges and it was a perfectly normal, educational thing to do at the time.

I mean, if the gist of the argument is something like 'blackface is always more hurtful in a country with a long traumatic history of slavery than it is in a province that has practiced slavery on a relatively small scale and for a much shorter period of time', it's not wrong

I'm not sure why Quebec should be different from English Canada in this regard?

His argument is that English Canada is more Americanized than Quebec. Insofar as much of ROC culture is essentially indistinguishable from American culture (a typical Québécois claim), it more readily parses blackface as inherently racist.

Like Montreal is the first non-american city to have a baseball team and part of it is thanks to Jackie Robinson's one season stay with the Royals, it has the world largest and most beloved jazz festival, it has the brute force of the american film industry exporting films in our cinemas by the thousand, it has a deep understanding of racism towards its own french population, it has the actual minstrelsy history, all the elements are here to clearly understand what blackface is. Not knowing how hurtful blackface is, is a choice. It's not historical circumstances.

Quebec cultural elite can't pretend to be assailed by american and canadian culture and use that excuse to bar religious garments in public service as to self preserve AND suddenly be ignorant of one the most significant aspects of american culture.

On a slightly unrelated note, I remember reading Tintin au Congo as an eight year-old at the Bibliothèque de Côte-des-Neiges and it was a perfectly normal, educational thing to do at the time.

I never read that Tintin when I was a kid (for whatever reason, I didn't like Tintin as a kid) but I did read a lot of Astérix and there was the African character on the pirate ship which was basically the comic book equivalent of black face. I wonder what black kids who read Astérix thought of that character?

Only woke dude on that pirate ship imo

His argument is that English Canada is more Americanized than Quebec. Insofar as much of ROC culture is essentially indistinguishable from American culture (a typical Québécois claim), it more readily parses blackface as inherently racist.

I realize that's the argument. The logical twists required to support it are doing my head in, though.

So much Quebec punditry and social media is about finding excuses for racism and not owning up to the mistakes.

(I’ll soon be done with these rants)

Tbf I think it's fair to say that English Canada occupies a middle ground between Quebec and the US in this regard. It deems blackface highly offensive, but nowhere near as much as in the US (imagine a Dem candidate in Trudeau's shoes right now), and certainly more than in Quebec where it just elicits a collective shrug. So the claim that there are contextual gradations doesn't seem beyond the pale to me. Like I said, what I find unacceptable is the implication that Quebec is ultimately right not to give much of a fuck, which is why we need more articles like Isabelle Hachey's in La Presse.

xp

Tbf I think it's fair

lol I need to stop using 'tbf'.

Yeah, that sounds fair and, as noted above, I don't even consider Trudeau's past actions unforgivable.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable, but Thériault comes across as saying '…and this is fine, so deal with it, anglos!', which just stems from most annoying navel-gazing persecution complex imaginable, especially with Legault at the helm and the motherfucking Loi 21.

ours is a two-party system in all but name

Although I'm not satisfied with our electoral system, it is true that we frequently have minority governments with multi-party confidence and supply arrangements or occasionally coalitions and that multiple parties govern at the provincial level. Are there any countries that actually have something that could be described as a stable multi-party 'system' with regards to the head of government, i.e. where the position of head of government (President, PM, Chancellor, ...) regularly rotates between more than two consistent parties? I've asked this elsewhere and not got an answer. Most countries I can think of have two main governing parties with other parties mostly serving as coalition partners. When a third party wins government, it is usually either a one- or two-term flash in the pan or the beginning of a new two-party system.

I don't think I really understand French parties at all, though.

(And actually, a lot of the cases I thought of where there are not two consistent governing parties come close to being one-governing-party systems with occasional interlopers, like Sweden or Japan. Canada is maybe somewhere between this and a two-party system tbh?)

Are there any countries that actually have something that could be described as a stable multi-party 'system' with regards to the head of government, i.e. where the position of head of government (President, PM, Chancellor, ...) regularly rotates between more than two consistent parties?

Not for the head of government (though see below), but Australia has only had a Prime Minister with a majority once since 1996, and currently has 12 parties represented in the Senate. It's been very unstable for a decade, though!

There's a sooort-of two-party system inasmuch as since 1925, the balance of power in the Lower House has swung between the Labor Party, and a formal coalition of whichever the largest right-wing party is at the time, and whichever the largest farmers'-rights party is at the time. (Since 1998, there has been a coalition of three, with a single-state right-wing-farmers'-rights party added to the mix.

Exceptions are in 1931, when a new right-wing party formed a minority government, before establishing their coalition next time, and 2010, when Labor formed a minority with the support of three independents and one Green.

Since the 1950s, the Senate has traditionally had additional representation, often holding a balance of power, by a left-wing party or two (as well as independents). This largely came from single-party lower-house voters who would vote differently in the upper house on the "keep the bastards honest" principle. In the 50s and 60s this was the Democratic Labor Party, in the 70s and 80s they were replaced by the Australian Democrats, the Nuclear Disarmament Party had some minor action in the 80s, and since 1990 the Greens have been a fluctuating force (becoming more of a middle-class generalist party than a "stop woodchipping" party as the Democrats withered, and the Labor party shifted more and more right-wing.)


Currently the Labor party has 69 seats, and the Liberal (read: tory) party has 45, but by the terms of the formal coalition, the leader of the Libs gets to be PM, and the leader of the larger of the two farmer's parties gets to be deputy, and acting PM when the PM is overseas. So we frequently have the head of a party with 10 (out of 151) seats in Parliament as the PM.

We also have not had an election where the resulting PM served a full three-year term since 2004: in 2010, 2013, 2015 and 2018, the ruling party or larger coalition member has undergone a civil war and kicked out the PM, replacing them with another MP.

I mean, the PM has been either Liberal or Labor for the last 50 years, right? That's what I'm asking about, really; Canada has had various parties come and go too. I'm genuinely curious if there are any cases where the PM could e.g. be Liberal, Labor, or Green, and all three parties regularly take turns heading the government over the course of decade. It seems like people ultimately gravitate towards a binary.

Liberal or Labor except that multiple times a year, it will be a Nat. In a Westminster system, of course, the PM doesn't have many powers.

oops (Since 1998 2008, there has been a coalition of three btw

would italy count?

a stable multi-party 'system' with regards to the head of government

We've got a boatload of different parties in Romania, and they do alternate somewhat (with the notable exception of the ever-ubiquitous Social Democratic Party, ex-'communists' who are in fact a Trojan Horse that does not stand for any left-wing values and whose sole characteristic feature is corruption) but I suspect that this wide array of electoral choices reflects the country's relative instability more than anything.

There's been prime ministers from four different parties in Denmark in the last 50 years. But I don't really think the prime minister position is what's most impacted by a multi-party system, it's more about the different constellations of minority governments being able to govern.

Romania post-89 and Italy post-92 might count, although I would need to be convinced regarding stability in both cases. Based on Wikipedia, Denmark's PM has mostly been Social Democrat or Venstre since WW2 (and exclusively since 93), with two exceptions, one of whom was PM for three years? (11 years of Conservative People's Party does count for something.) I do think that weakening the stranglehold of a couple of party leaders would be a good thing, which could come from greater empowerment of MPs, greater empowerment of smaller parties, or both. It does seem like we'd very possibly still end up in the situation of having to hope for a 'lesser evil' of two main leaders as our head of government (the context in which the comment was made that I responded to), regardless of electoral system. I do find it interesting that any type of democratic system does seem to gravitate towards a binary. I don't know exactly why that should be the case - in principle, it should possible for a polity to organize itself around e.g. the four quadrants of the Political Compass or any number of other sorts of groupings - but it seems widespread.

I think the reason that most countries end up with a two party system is that people tend to vote against a party just as much as they vote for a party and this means that they will often end up voting for whichever party they think has the best shot at beating whichever the party they want to vote against, which makes it very difficult for a third party to gain any ground. I think for a lot of people, when voting for a third party you take the risk of splitting the vote on "your side" and handing over power to the other side.

At least this is what I feel is happening in the Canada and U.S.

already feeling like the brownface scandal isn't moving the needle much

i feel like this being released by the party that has demonized refugees/immigrants/muslims/thegays has taken a lot of the bang of it.

In other news, climate change skepticism appears to be on the rise:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-survey-suggests-canadian-trust-in-science-may-be-eroding/

About one-third felt scientists were influenced by government agendas. Another third thought science has been swayed by corporate agendas.

Are these supposed to be incorrect views?

i feel like this being released by the party that has demonized refugees/immigrants/muslims/thegays has taken a lot of the bang of it.

I half-wondered if it was released by the Liberals: Tories can't go after him without looking like hypocrites and inviting scrutiny of their record. NDP risk looking like politically correct scolds if they go after it too hard. Nationalists in Quebec, otherwise sworn enemies of the Liberals, rush to defend him. Everyone starts talking about Trudeau's record on immigration and multiculturalism. Probably unlikely but an idle thought. Afaict, my brown-skinned friends or family who have commented on it mostly seem to think it's a bogus issue, fwiw.

NDP on track to lose most to all of their QC seats, acc. to Grenier?: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/ . That saddens me a little, esp since their platform is probably much better than it was last time around.

Even the Bloc is polling better. And the cons are currently in second place. :(

Is this mostly over Singh's religious symbol? I listened to a brutal interview with him on Radio-Canada a week or so ago where Singh kept trying to talk about the health and survival of the country as opposed to the party while the interviewer kept coming back to "OK, but you can't do anything about that if you don't have any MPs".

I guess the NDP's presence in Quebec only stemmed from an election when Jack Layton was the only major party leader who spoke good French and grew up in Quebec so this might just be a return to normal?

Likely a bit of both, but predominantly the former. Most Quebecers are in favour of Bill 21 at the moment…

:(

Libs and NDP are neck-to-neck in my riding, which has been the NDP's for years:

http://canada.qc125.com/districts/24039f.htm

Fingers crossed…

odds of winning for my riding are currently LPC: >99%

Wow, they list only a single Ontario riding as "NDP-leaning".

http://canada.qc125.com/districts/ontario.htm#list

:(((

Those numbers are garbage. There likely has not been any polling done for many individual ridings. Must be some algorithm based on the last election plus the current federal or provincial polls.

Probably true

It says on the website that it's "a statistical model of electoral projections based on opinion polls, electoral history of Canadian provinces and demographic data".

They have the liberals with a good lead in my riding, but from what I can tell they are getting trounced by the NDP in the lawn sign war.

blaming quebec for the plummeting NDP seems like bad logicking: the whole country has reacted listlessly to their current communication strategy and leadership.
the big difference is that unlike in other parts of the country (where leftists' only other alternative is the greens or the liberals), in Quebec there is another option - albeit one that advocates for a new form of systemic racism.

That site has popular NDP encumbents here in BC losing to neophyte tories. Not likely, My prediction is that the NDP will do fine and end up with close to 50 seats.

How is the Bloc a leftist alternative?

Lucien Bouchard introduced Quebec to austerity.

If you don’t have separatists sentiments, you have no good reason to vote Bloc. Quebec is stuck with the same alternatives.

NDP is losing in Quebec because Quebec progressives are happy with Trudeau and the Liberals and the keynesian policies.

Reading over the BQ platform, they are a little more progressive on some issues than I expected. Still, a lot of their proposals boil down to devolving federal powers to the provincial government of Quebec (anything that effects the environment or land of Quebec, the CRTC; the imo ridiculous demand to be able to withdraw from national programs with full compensation and no conditions) - esp with the current QC government, I see no reason to believe that any of this would result in more progressive/left-leaning policies.

if you don't think the Bloc are left-wing (in a canadian political context) then i don't know what you're thinking

Sund4r - the evidence for that is exactly what you're quoting. Almost everything that doesn't fall into your devolution category (or cultural protectionism/secularism) is... a left-wing policy.

and if you read the CAQ's policy platform you might also be surprised by their progressivism on several issues

on economic and environmental issues, the quebec population is at least 45 degrees (if not 90) to the left of the rest of the country

not that i'll vote for them this time

Sund4r - the evidence for that is exactly what you're quoting. Almost everything that doesn't fall into your devolution category (or cultural protectionism/secularism) is... a left-wing policy.

A lot of the platform falls into those categories, though!

In any case, I do agree that the BQ were generally left of centre when they were more prominent in the House pre-2011; they were practically the Quebec wing of the NDP at times. I found them worryingly xenophobic and nationalistic in the last two elections.

I don’t see how you can square the economics of Charest, and Bouchard, who’ve been elected and re-elected since the late 90s on the promise of cuts, as progressive. But to each their own I suppose.

Sean and VHS made some fair points so I'll apologize for jumping to wondering whether QC's loss of interest in the NDP came from biased motives.

I really want a provincial Quebec NDP.

If I were in QC I would probably vote QS tbh

(speaking in my shit capacity as an ex-Mtler)

I can’t vote for separatism.

I guess I think of QC separatism not as a Concrete Thing Likely To Actually Happen as a (from the left at least) at least semi-rational rejection of the status quo, sort of adjacent to how the UK Labour party has been resistant to taking Brexit entirely off the table. But of course for me it's purely academic.

That's how I view QS as well, with the proviso that I have far more sympathy for that kind of separatism than I do for Brexit.

these days quebec separatism is tugged between Scottish-style progressive nationalism and xenophobic pure-laine uh homegrown québecois nationalism. I think more the latter than the former. but enough of the latter - especially within QS - that I'm still a soft separatist.

I have far more sympathy for that kind of separatism than I do for Brexit.

I definitely feel the opposite. At least we have plenty of pre-EU British history to refer to.

Britain has never been oppressed by the EU.

Btw, in case there was a misunderstanding, by 'that kind of separatism' I meant what sean describes as 'Scottish-style progressive nationalism'.

I would need more convincing wrt the oppression of one of the founding provinces of Confederation, actually (and possibly even wrt Scotland). That would probably be a very long discussion, though, so I think the key points for me are that i) I don't think the province is currently oppressed and ii) the separatist option in this federal election is not QS but the BQ so that's the platform I am more concerned with atm. If I still lived in Quebec, I could see how I might throw a protest vote to QS provincially; the BQ do seem much more intense about laïcité.

That would indeed be an all too lengthy discussion, but yeah, QS is adamantly opposed to Bill 21 (they're a '514 party' according to their detractors), whereas I wouldn't be surprised if Bloc supporters were of the opinion that it doesn't go far enough, so aside from the separatism (which comes across as halfhearted in QS's case, as in 'we'll bail if the country as a whole doesn't agree with our progressive aims'), and without accounting for the differences between provincial and federal politics, they don't have all that much in common, although you're right to point out that the Bloc's platform is more left-leaning than you'd think.

right/left as generally understood in ROC and U.S. doesn't really work for the Bloc (or the PQ). They are definitely left-leaning economically and are even progressive on many social issues, but at the same time are anti-immigration and anti-religious-minorities.

Looking at the PQ budgets and the literature around them since Bouchard’s election all the way to Marceau’s 2014 budget, I don’t see a single proposal that isn’t austerity laden. The evidence is clear that when it comes to economics, the PQ has long switched to the right. That’s the raison d’être of the QS.

Hm, this (by HuffPo writer Amy MacPherson) is long and throws a lot of stuff out there but it does raise some curious questions about how the brownface scandal was broken. Does seem strange that it came from a US magazine, naming as source a mysterious businessman who no one can track down and whose connection to the school is unclear. Maybe these things don't matter if the story is true? Still, if foreign interference and campaign regulation are issues that matter, it might be worth considering.

https://freethepresscanada.org/2019/09/23/dirty-tricks-behind-trudeau-brownface-blackface-scandal/?fbclid=IwAR0n_X2k8UMphms3NIfVXsInZuJse5wqRDRH_Xw-fqICEbMumUgS6mr-Z-U

It’s the russians! They never forgot 1972 and Henderson’s goal.

Lol

I love the idea of Russians wanting to interfere with canadian elections and having this dark and elaborate and secret plan and in a bunker somewhere but ~ ‘Master Putin we forgot to take in account Quebec’s abject indifference to Canadians minorities and their issues. Our plans has failed!’

the separatism (which comes across as halfhearted in QS's case, as in 'we'll bail if the country as a whole doesn't agree with our progressive aims')

Going back: I should probably let this go, esp since i don't even live in QC, but I think this actually gets at why I have a hard time with the QS idea of 'progressive Quebec nationalism'. QS has never been more than a third party; they are currently doing especially well by holding 10/125 seats in the National Assembly, six of which are concentrated in one city. There is very little evidence that their province as a whole agrees with their progressive aims, perhaps no more so than significant pockets in BC, which is currently led by a fairly progressive NDP/Green government, or Manitoba, which had 17 continuous years of NDP government recently, or even Ontario, whose 15-year Liberal government tried to spearhead some major labour and environmental reforms in its time. The idea that Quebec sovereignty could be grounded in a civic nationalism built around multicultural, social democratic values that are so distinct from the rest of Canada's as to potentially justify separating the country (without any of the "xenophobic pure-laine ... québecois nationalism" that we all seem to agree is currently more dominant) just seems frankly far-fetched to me. (The idea of fundamentally incompatible values between Quebec and ROC seems particularly dubious when the governing centre-left national party, led by a Quebecer, enjoys majority support in Quebec). At least in the case of Scotland, the 'progressive nationalist' party actually has majority support within Scotland, while a right-wing party governs nationally, allowing them to credibly make the claim that their subnational jurisdiction shares their distinct values.

tl;dr Progressive Quebec nationalists will probably have to choose between progressivism and nationalism imo.

<i>(The idea of fundamentally incompatible values between Quebec and ROC seems particularly dubious when the governing centre-left national party, led by a Quebecer, enjoys majority support in Quebec). </i>

agree - separatism under Harper had a lot more juice to it (and maybe we'll see with Scheer...) In Scotland, the SNP's rise in influence really came about suddenly, after decades of something closer to a BQ identity - and what fed it was Cameron's (then, later, May's, and now Johnson's) Tories.

So I think that a push for SOVEREIGNTY here would require a federal government with whom Quebecers disagree more
but the rise/return of the federal NDP or provincial QS in Québec depends in very large part (imho) on the state of the Bloc/Parti Québécois. Those are the natural homes for progressive (separatist-friendly) francophone Quebecers, and they will only consider the alternatives en masse at times when the Bloc or Parti are in tatters (or, as was briefly the case in recent years, oddly right-wing).

are QS running federally now? i don't understand what are you guys talking about, i thought they were a provincial party

Yeah, we got off topic, after I said I wouldn't.

Back on topic, maybe the NDP have also been reading the BQ platform?: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ndp-quebec-platform-1.5284356

Singh's proposals include giving Quebec the final word on environmental evaluations for major infrastructure projects on its territory, such as pipelines.

Why just Quebec tho?

When he pressed, he did seem to suggest that he would extend the veto to every province: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/powerandpolitics/jagmeet-singh-ndp-provincial-veto-pipeline-1.5288365

Idk if that's written in the platform, though. Idk if this means that e.g. a province could also veto the affordable housing development project the NDP is proposing?

The NDP is committed to formalizing the process for appointing Supreme Court judges who represent Quebec and will ensure the selection is made from a list of candidates pre-selected by the Government of Quebec.
The NDP is committed to legislation that prevents Conservative or Liberal governments from signing a unilateral agreement with web giants without consulting with Quebec, as Melanie Joly did with Netflix.
The NDP will formally consult Quebec on any international trade agreement. We also commit ourselves to transparent trade negotiations so that the costs and benefits are known before agreements are signed.

(from https://action.ndp.ca/page/-/2019/Q3/Images/2018-08-30_NPD-QC-Platform-EN-FINAL.pdf)

The first of these is especially a bit O_O to me. I don't think the PM and Cabinet currently consult any provincial governments when it comes to the appointment of Supreme Court judges that represent their regions, let alone allow them to make a list of candidates? (All of Atlantic Canada gets one Supreme Court judge, all of Western Canada gets two.) I don't believe they even consult Parliament. Transparent trade negotiations are always a good idea but what exactly would "formal consultation with Quebec" consist of, as distinct from the role of other provinces?

Weird, even for Bernier: https://www.straight.com/news/1307396/peoples-party-canada-uses-photo-japanese-canadian-internment-ad-against

PM already has to commit 3 of the nine positions to civil law judges, namely Quebec. I think that has uproven to be good enough.