Old & Corrupted: Canadian Politics 2024-25

a new hopefully Zing-friendly thread

Weirdly, since this thread was begun, the old one now loads in Zing. I’m guessing witchcraft is at work.

After the 2021 election, my one staunch conservative friend and I were talking politics (as we inevitably do, despite our goodwill attempts to avoid it) and I said that Trudeau was going to try to contest the next election because his massive ego wouldn’t let him bow out gracefully; he would have to be crushed into the ground by an opponent or forcibly chucked out by the party (which would never do so). My friend expressed surprise and said I was the only person he’d met that thought that, besides Ben Mulroney (these are the circles he frequents on the 364 days a year when he’s not slumming it with me) — that everyone he knew expected Trudeau to step down as leader as soon as a suitable replacement could be found, since the dude was so obviously done, as in nobody was voting for him, just against the Conservatives. Yet here we are. Wildly unpopular, deeply ineffectual, inspiring nobody, and committed to fucking running again, banking on the hope that Pollievre is so distasteful to us that we’ll hold our nose and swallow a medicine spoonful of Trudeau yet again.

A reasonable leader would have set the party free to groom an inspiring successor well before any election talk was in the air. But nOoooo…

When PM Alt-right Milhouse is in power, I hope JT at least has the sense of shame that it’s his fault, and that it haunts him haggard. (This will be small comfort for the rest of us, suffering under an austerity budget, rights and liberties being curtailed, and federal services and infrastructure being sold off to Telus and Shopify.)

What I still don't really get is why people's understandable fatigue with JT and the Liberals necessarily means a turn to lite fascism. I'm familiar with this routine pendulum swing in other contexts, but I moved here in 2014 when the NDP was on the cusp of majority viability and I'm still confused about what happened to stifle that. (tbf I can't even come close to understanding what people see in conservatism these days, so the problem isn't really my ignorance)

Not that I disagree with the point that JT's vanity is a disaster for us all!

Layton had some magic about him, I can’t think of it any other way than that. He talked about love being a primary motivating force in politics and somehow didn’t sound like a hippie! If he hadn’t died, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if he’d have become our first NDP PM.

And now we’d all probably be sick of him too, moaning about how disappointed we are that he didn’t live up to his promise. Ah, but maybe not…

Heard on CBC radio that there are Liberal MPs who are calling Poilievre weird. Maybe a little too transparent? Strange, flaky, peculiar--there are other words that work.

Canadians don’t have an original thought in our heads when it comes to politics.

that peculiar Pierre

I suppose the Liberals might have trouble going after him with "phony" but that's my main impression, and if they keep doing stuff like this maybe it would stick? https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/20/canada-conservatives-video-other-countries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-imeR4n9PU

“Weird” works because it points out how fucked up the maga worldview is and delegitimizes it all in one swell foop. I wish there was another word, one that meant “weird and boring and unoriginal and an opportunistic hack and a dweeb and a conman and a tryhard and someone you do fucking well not want running the goddamn country.”

In other news, hey BC can you get your head out of your ass? Every other province who votes in the conservatives has voted in DEEP FUCKING PROBLEMS with them, don’t be stupid.

yeah this shit's getting scary with the BC United/Libs pulling out today

and the BC Conservatives are definitely the Polievre/Danielle Smith version, not the Ford nation types or the PCs

Interesting development: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberal-staffers-gaza-montreal-byelection-1.7306984

I went back and found this post i made in the 2020 Canadian politics thread

so uh are the BC Liberals even going to exist by the end of this election

― josh az (2011nostalgia), Thursday, October 15, 2020 5:21 PM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Only took just under four years but this finally came true

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-ndp-ending-agreement-1.7312910

I'm getting nervous.

Are the NDP in any position to benefit from a sudden election?

Couldn't say, though I'm sure someone far more knowledgable on the subject can. Just dreading P.P.

Are the NDP in any position to benefit from a sudden election?

I could see some typical liberal voters going to the NDP if they think the Liberal party is a lost cause. There is nothing in the polls indicating something like that is going to happen though, it seems like all ex-liberal voters are going the other way.

weird how Jagmeet is not giving any clear explanation for ending the agreement now. There's nothing about it until the end of the article:

On Tuesday, NDP labour critic Matthew Green said the NDP has been re-evaluating the deal since Labour Minister Steve MacKinnon directed the Canada Industrial Relations Board to impose binding arbitration less than 24 hours after Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National Railway locked out their workers after failing to reach a deal at the bargaining table.

"After Sellout Singh did this stunt today, he is going to have to vote on whether he keeps Justin Trudeau's costly government in power, or whether he triggers a carbon tax election."

Right then, let's all talk like we're back in the schoolyard.

Shut up Skippy, you dirty taint.

lord knows I don't know what regular Canadians think about anything tbrr, but is the carbon tax really such a hot issue that "carbon tax election" is a thing anyone other than PP will get juiced about?

We have an encampment 15 minutes west of town at a prominent gas station. They will be protesting the carbon tax until they all die of old age, even if skippy scraps it.

There’s so much fucked about this ginned-up outrage about the carbon levy, but the thing that gets me is that if PP was to scrap it, our exports would drop by like 40% overnight, since so many of our biggest trading partners have requirements about this. So the Cons will get in, then after a review they will keep the levy, and everyone will be absolutely fine with that.

Fuck this country North America humanity right now.

"Sellout Singh"--the anxiety of influence.

Pollievre has no anxiety about it at all. He’s like “It worked for the orange guy, it’ll work here” and sleeps posturepedic-soundly every night.

Oh, I know--just granting such transparent imitation pseudo-loftiness.

I sincerely hope the Dems CRUSH the US election & go hard on “neighbourly” social programs and that takes the wind out of PP’s pseudo-sails & puts _some_ in the NDP’s at least. I’m sure that fear-calculus is beeping in PP’s little lizard brain & is at least half the reason he’d love Singh to trigger an election this fall.

If I were Singh, the taunt that I was triggering “a carbon tax election” would be enough to keep me from doing so quite decisively. But I’m petty like that.

oups: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/government-should-remove-more-than-330-names-on-victims-of-communism-memorial-because-of-potential-nazi-or-fascist-links-report-recommends

The Department of Canadian Heritage is being told that more than half of the 550 names on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism should be removed because of potential links to the Nazis or questions about affiliations with fascist groups, according to government records.

As originally planned, there were to be 553 entries on the Ottawa memorial’s Wall of Remembrance.

Highly unlikely that any on the proposed list were Canadian so why are we even going to that detail? I'd hoped that the Libs during their tenure would've sunk this sketchy Harper-based project but it appears that they managed to fail at this too.

good luck British Columbia

John Rustad's internet conspiracy brainrot, a thread #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/U524GYPTpW

— Matt Hannah (@mattjdh) October 19, 2024

Was just looking at a "FB memory" where, nine years ago today, I decided I cared more about baseball than Canadian politics because I decided Jays-win (in the ALCS vs. the Royals; Jays were down 2-0)/Harper-wins was preferable to Jays-lose/Harper-loses. This is still pre-Trump; if it came down to the same situation today but with our Trump acolyte running...elimination loss, I'd still go with the Jays; otherwise, I think I'd take the Jays loss, but honestly I'm not sure.

respectfully, that's insane

now if there was something important like a Canucks cup on the line, maybe I'd feel differently

I had second thoughts as soon as I posted...There's an unstated and quite probably naive belief there that we'd just get a pale, Canadian version of Trump--that ours could never be close to as destructive as the real thing. But that's not a risk worth taking, I realize.

(And hometown sports fandom has insanity as a given.)

Haha, my own FB memory for today in 2015 was changing my wallpaper to a really pouty photo of Harper's face

I know Trump has me already misremembering Harper as a Romney-type when he was in fact harder right.

Oh yeah, Harper was proto-fasc. The war on science and the media; the appeal to "old stock" Cdns, the military parades at hockey games, and that's only that which I can still immediately remember.

Pretty sure he “consults” actual fascists now too.

My memories of Mike Harris--his hatred of teachers, and how he got a sizeable part of the public to go along with him on that--are sharper and more personal.

a pale, Canadian version of Trump--that ours could never be close to as destructive as the real thing

i recall wondering how the hell rob ford happened, and then

looks like BC is ending up with one of the strangest possible results yeesh

the conversation above is bringing back traumatic memories of the brief moment in 2011 when a Jack Layton government and Vancouver Canucks Stanley Cup were somehow within reach

my thinking was that the Jays already won two World Series in our lifetime, so the joy you would experience from just a playoff series win wouldn't really compare to the permanent damage PP is going to cause

You're right--myopic comment based on memories of how awful I felt when the Jays bowed out in 2015.

rob ford was the harbinger of "yes, i smoke crack but why do you think that disqualifies me or requires me to resign" style of politics

so we're planning a population decline to, allegedly, tackle the housing crisis, amazing: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/new-immigration-levels-plan-1.7361972

Postal strike. From CBC:

What does this mean for letters to Santa?

CBC News has contacted Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) about Canada Post's holiday tradition. The corporation responded with an email saying the strike has "impacted Canadians, small businesses, as well as our ability to get mail to and from Santa in the North Pole."

smart to include a blatant lie in your official response to a strike

I'm a unionized teacher, so 100% pro-union, but above and beyond that, throwing in "from"--not only can't your kids send letters, they won't get gifts.

*maybe we need, not maybe we been

somehow i doubt all those former NDP supporters will be able to push the libs left

Fuck me id pay a 50% tax rate to drive a bulldozer for three hundred grand.

Thought Newfies (or Atlantic Candaians) are pretty solidly Liberal?

There is a particular type of Newfoundlander who historically would commute for four-day work weeks from Nfld out to Ft Mac and make buckets of money but stay living on the rock. Newf last night told me that this type of migratory behaviour had been discouraged and/or made impossible, and he (and his large Newf mate) had relocated permanently to Ft Mac. I don't think anybody making more than 150 a year (especially as a dirt-digger; their job description! I love it) is likely to be voting anything but PCP regardless of their place of birth/point of origin. These guys were full-tilt pro-51 people though. We're in Phoenix right now, me for work, them for a vacation. I've met more Canadians than Americans, here, in the last 18 hours

I read 67% voter turnout and I am happy to have read that

Libs up to 169 seats now

Looks like it's officially a 169-seat minority; Peel/GTA cost the Liberals a majority. I don't know who has leverage over who, but, as pointed out by others above, the chances of another election in the next two years seem remote.

Yeah. Our (new) GTA riding went blue by only about 700 votes. 73% turnout though, so people at least cared.

It's just anecdotal, but the national distribution of these results makes some sense to me in terms of which areas are "happy" vs "want change". I'm a lifelong Ontario resident, and the quality of life here seems notably worse in many ways, than 15/20 years ago. By contrast, I visited the east coast circa 2001 then again recently, and things out there seem quite improved. Also Vancouver in 2006 vs this year and it was shockingly degraded. Unfortunately no point of reference for Alberta and the prairies, but we have family who moved out there and are decidedly now amongst the F Trudeau people, and are not racist, so I guess it rings true that the gripes are largely economic anger. As for Quebec, from short visits to Montreal and Quebec City, it seems to be holding steady, consequently not seriously worked up either way. Obviously there's more nuance in all areas, but that's my general impression.

My sister and brother-in-law are in Georgetown--he said there was a big change this year in the election boundaries?

Oh, it was actually even closer than I thought - only 298 votes! But yes, Georgetown was part of Wellington, Michael Chong's PC riding in the last election, but now they've created a new riding where it's now tacked on to at the top of Milton east and (for now) a bunch of empty fields. Mostly because there is massive amounts of new development planned in that space in next few years, so quite likely it will be the last time it goes blue (but who can say). Now I see why Carney was in town twice within about as many weeks leading up!

Robert Fife on CBC’s Power and Politics re: Conservative MPs feelings about Pierre Poilievre.

“MPs have told me that they found it really difficult going door-to-door because a lot of people were saying ‘we some of the policies you’re doing, but we think your leader is a dick’.” pic.twitter.com/RE6n3a78NG

— Ahmar Khan (@AhmarSKhan) May 1, 2025

And a matter of days after the election, taxpayers will be on the hook for a fucking bi-election in Alberta, where milhouse will be making a pathetic bid to keep his residence at Stornoway.
The conservatives need to take the hint and drop that absolutely clown.

dammit. Guess it was too much to hope for that the ghouls would turf him

I like how they found him the safest seat in the country, not taking any chances this time

what does the guy who resigned get out of this?

also does PP have to physically move his residence into the riding?

I have one friend who agrees with me, and two friends who strongly disagree (because of French): I think Ford is angling to run for the PC leadership.

If you mean the CPC leader, I don't think it's an open position

the guy who resigned is six months away from receiving a government pension apparently, so he's not getting much out of it besides gratitude from some jackasses. maybe they'll promise him he can have the seat back next time?

and I don't think you need to live in your riding. he'll set up an office but I doubt Edmonton-Crowfoot will be seeing much of the guy.

ty

Holy crap, I think our riding actually just flipped Liberal when they verified it?! I'm just seeing local posts. Something official must be out there

Yes, wow, and the margin is only 29 votes.

must have been some big errors to flip a 300 vote margin: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/election-validation-riding-flip-liberal-conservative-1.7525641

If you mean the CPC leader, I don't think it's an open position

Oh, I don't mean today; I think he's laying the groundwork for ~three years from now, when PP is either out or even less popular than he is now. I think my friend and friend's brother are missing the forest for the trees by fixating on the issue of French. Political ambition doesn't know the trees, just the forest, and Ford doesn't lack for ambition.

Toronto Marathon today:

https://i.postimg.cc/HswsWNhr/marathon.jpg

beautiful

I'm out right now, piecing together sketchy details of the big meeting today.

"Some things aren't for sale."
"Never say never."

Never--there, I said it.

I'm watching some CBC people talk about the meeting, and how Carney smiled at certain times instead of taking the bait, and I had a flash that, in preparing to meet with Trump, it's probably a lot like Father Merrin's pre-game speech in The Exorcist:

We may ask what is relevant, but anything beyond that is dangerous. He is a liar, the demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological , Damien. And powerful. So don't listen, remember that, do not listen.

Except for maybe the part about mixing in the truth--not sure if Trump ever does that.

I was on Vancouver Island all last week and heard this radio interview with Jäger Rosenberg, an 18-year-old NDP candidate in West Vancouver. One of the most interesting parts is where he talks about teens identifying as conservative because the party has made more efforts to connect with them, but when asked about to talk about specific values and policies, their preferences are traditionally liberal. I think a very similar thing has happened in the U.S.

I honestly can’t give a shadow of a shit about this meeting. Nothing will come of it. It’s no different than going to the old folks home to see your racist grandpa. No useful information will come of it and anything discussed will be forgotten.

Not worth the cost of travel outside of saying you tried. All we can so is work on trade partnerships with real countries and deal with the last-movie-he-watched edicts from his toilet

… as they come.

… as they come.

I don't know--ideally, yes, but my preference would still be that all his nonsense is directed elsewhere.

Trump was asked what top concession he wants out of Canada.

“Friendship,” the president responded.

When journalists pointed out that isn’t a concession, Trump said, "I just want to be friends with Canada.”

why is this so funny

why does Trump love Carney so much

the "film tariffs" which is totally a thing that makes sense as a concept, are spreading a lot of fear and angst among my friends and loved ones. Jon Voight can go fuck himself

A friend in town told me about something that I haven't bothered to check--that when Trump's son got into some serious financial trouble, Brookfield bailed him out when Carney was there? Sounds plausible, at least.

Also: no photos in circulation of Melania Trump eyeing Carney salaciously.

This is great: "Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign, it's not for sale."

And with that statement, DJT's brain began to spin as he tried to grasp how some other country had managed to buy Canada before he could. "Probably Jina," he mumbled to himself before his thoughts turned to the upcoming lunch menu

Also Carney joined Brookfield in August 2020 but the Brookfield acquisition of Kushner's Manhattan office tower lease happened two years earlier, in 2018

Good to know--will gladly point that out to my friend (a good guy, but a churchgoer and--inexplicably, for that very reason, if you ask me--a conservative).

Saw the Carney clip: as soon as Trump says "never say never," Carney silently (or maybe audibly and it was noisy) mouths "never" five or six times for the reporters. Love it.

is it just me or does trump seem to like carney? if so, anyone got any theories as to why? respect for his wall street background?

Sawdust Lagoon shot down my one (second-hand) theory above. Who knows? Maybe his Canadian ire was just 100% Trudeau-focused.

maybe his central casting bankerness

though it's always possible today is the historical high point of the relationship

As soon as it sinks in that Carney made him look silly--will probably take a day and a few dozen headlines--antipathy will rapidly take hold.

There's also that Carney just won a big election after the party was down in the polls, Trump likes winners.