Senate The Canadian Politics Thread

The knives are definitely out for Trudeau. But who would want the job now? Freeland, I suppose, but anyone in parliament is tainted by association. Despite the positive press Sean Fraser was getting a while ago, the minister of housing is not a great gig to move up from in this political climate. Mark Carney is waiting in the wings, but he's waited this long, he can probably afford to wait longer and go down in the next election's slaughter.

I'm going to hate the coming four to ten years of Conservative rule.

 

I wouldn't be at all shocked if the Liberals were reduced to fourth place. At this rate, I'm expecting the Bloc to form Official Opposition, with the NDP as the de facto progressive wing of the Commons unless the Liberals rally in the election after this one under Carney... who reminds me far too much of Ignatieff to come across as an inspiring figure.

 

I think people dislike Justin so much even if he leaves the liberals are still boned. At this point I'd be happy as long as it isn't a conservative majority

 

Dominic LeBlanc has been interested in the leadership for quite a while. I think he and Fraser have the best odds to save the furniture in the Atlantic (and the Liberals need to save the furniture here if they don't want the CPC to become the new "natural governing party" ) and he's probably savvy enough to avoid pissing off Québec in the campaign. I also see him being able to perform well against Poilievre during the debates - can't say the same for Freeland or Carney. Freeland in particular sounds incredibly out of touch.

I'm hoping for a CPC minority that has to depend on the Bloc to pass bills (longshot). But it'll probably be a Harper-on-steroids majority.

Anyway. For now I'm keeping my reluctantly acquired CPC 5-year membership for voting rights only. I may decide to cancel it and reluctantly acquire a Liberal membership if the leader's post becomes open. From the NDP to the Greens to the CPC to the Liberals, that would be quite the journey. Also planning on voting for Dominic Cardy's longshot Canadian Future Party in 2025 if they manage to get registered.

 

What was Trudeau's quote after the bielection that there should be "change Canadians can see?" Yeah that's your problem, budday, optics!

 

Well far be it from me to say anything positive about Ford, and I won't, but the LCBO is on strike and why is this even a thing anymore? Only a government run institution only place I can buy booze in the province of Ontario? (Yes I know restaurants and wineries but still overall I have to go to the LCBO) I mean, why? But here's OPSEU saying the quiet part loud why they're striking 'The LCBO also said the union's leadership had made it clear at the bargaining table that it would strike "solely over their demand that the government reverse its decision to have ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages (coolers and seltzers) being available in convenience and grocery stores."' So they are striking to maintain their monopoly to sell booze. Once again, why?

I'm stocked up pretty good for at least 2 months if this goes on for awhile (it will). After 2 weeks some options will be available. My father and I stocked up multiple times to get us through the dark nights. My sister and my mom love it, they are like "Yay! Prohibition part 2!"

 

Personally speaking I'm hoping for a Conservative majority.

 

Probably will be. And some may think Poilivere will get along with Trump in the White House honestly Trump is gonna $!%# him over something because Trump screws over everyone so Poilivere will have to admit that his dream boy Trump is going to screw him. I'm sure it'll make Poilivere cry

 

It's not like Trump hasn't already forced Trudeau into getting rid of NAFTA because he didn't think it was a fair deal for the United States, because we now have the USMCA.

 

Why?

 

So they can get rid of the carbon tax and a lot of other reasons.

 

Following up on this, there's scuttlebutt from the PMO that Carney is being looked at to replace Freeland as Finance Minister, which is probably a good appointment given his past experience... but it seems that the PMO's primary issue is with Freeland's messaging. I'm really not sure what it's going to take for the Grits to realize that they're not about to get thrown out of government because of their messaging.

 

Things are looking grim for the Liberals in the upcoming LaSalle-Emard-Verdun byelection. According to Mainstreet, it's 29% LPC, 26% BQ, 25% NDP. Some Liberal and NDP sources say the NDP could take this seat - so far the only declared candidate is local councillor Craig Sauvé for the NDP who is known in the area. This is a riding that Lametti won with 43% in 2021.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have raised over half a million dollars recently in a one-day event in Mount Royal. Considering the momentum there and the demographics of the riding, it's not impossible that they succeed in unseating Anthony Housefather in 2025. And Mount Royal has been held by the Liberals since 1940. Pierre Trudeau's former seat.

 

I've been closely following the trajectory of this since it began as the "Centre Ice Conservatives" think tank a few years back, but the Canadian Future Party, designed to be a pragmatic, centrist alternative to the Liberals and Conservatives, has officially launched and will field candidates in the upcoming federal byelections.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-future-party-launches-1.7294230

I'm very curious to see if they can gain any significant traction. Unlike the People's Party, which I think has a very limited market to appeal to, there does seem to be a legitimate desire for an alternative to the current incarnations of the LPC, CPC and NDP. If people like what they hear, could this siphon support from the Liberals, and win back the disenfranchised voters who have parked themselves with the Conservatives for want of a better option? Going to be interesting to watch as we get closer to our next election.

 

I don't see it going anywhere, but it would be interesting to see if a party can take off without being a regional grievance party.

 

"You want a even more centre centre, that's us, baby!"

 

Well, what a byelection night.

NDP held on to Elmwood-Transcona at 48%. The race saw the Conservatives jump 16 points from their 2021 results (28%) to land at only 4 points behind the NDP, at 44%. Impressive showing by the CPC in Winnipeg. The Liberals who were always going to be third place, crashed to just under 5 %.

In LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, the three-way competition saw the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals lead at various points of the night before the Bloc finally gained it at 28% (incumbent Liberals at 27%, NDP at 26% with a star candidate). Just like that, another Liberal stronghold bites the dust.

Doesn't look like there's any reliable Liberal seat left in the country. And yet, the Liberal caucus seems reluctant to oust Trudeau. And Trudeau is arrogant enough to believe he's still in the game...

 

Trudeau cannot pull off arrogance the same way his father could. I don't know why the party is so spineless when it's obvious their biggest liability is Trudeau.

 

According to Donald Trump, Trudeau's real father is Fidel Castro. Seriously.

 

Eh, whatevs. Ezra Levant was saying that almost a decade ago.

 

The liberals will have a bad showing next election and will lose to the conservatives but that isn’t really a surprise to anyone. However I will be interested to see how many seats the NDP gains. I don’t know if the liberals will do as bad as they did in 2011.

only time and the election results will tell. I just hope we don’t have a conservative in charge for another 10 years like we did with Harper.

I honestly won’t be suprised at all if it’s Conservtives NDP, Liberal. Hell it’s not even impossible for the liberals to have less seats than the Bloc, although extremely unlikely but not out of the realm of impossibility.

 

What you fail to take into account is that Jagmeet Singh kinda sucks as a leader.

I would almost expect the worst-case scenario in the next election, Conservative majority with the Bloc as the official opposition squeaking ahead with 2 more seats than the Liberals. NDP come out even, picking up some Liberal ridings but losing some to the Conservatives. 3 Green seats and an independent somewhere.

 

That doesn't sound worst case, it sounds only case. I'm assuming there could be something actually worse than what we are going to get

 

Not gonna lie. This is pretty awesome.

 

I think the Liberals are all but over as a political brand. They're essentially dead at the provincial level west of Ontario, and outside of Parliament only form the government in Newfoundland. Their embarrassing demotion to third place back in 2011 was the beginning of an end that was postponed by 1) Trudeaumania 2.0 in 2015, and 2) Singh not being a good enough leader to galvanize progressive and moderate voters to support the NDP. I don't see how the party survives longterm, with or without Trudeau. Too many of the players around Trudeau are as complicit for the mistakes, scandals, and lapses in judgment emanating from this government as he is, and I can't see public confidence in the party itself suddenly being restored with Carney or Freeland or Anand or Champagne or LeBlanc in the leadership role. And I'm saying this as someone who used to be a registered Liberal and was a staunch Trudeau supporter in the early "sunny ways" days.

Flip side, I genuinely do not believe that the bulk majority of our Conservatives (including Poilievre) are anything other than centre-right, small-c conservatives, with the obvious exception being a handful of extreme voices that largely exist outside of caucus. Having lived in a red state during the political ascendancy, first term and fallout of Trump, the only significant parallels I see between our Conservatives and the south's MAGA Republicans are a predilection for alliterative social media name calling and lowest common denominator sloganeering. It's as embarrassing as the Liberals trying to appropriate "weird" or the NDP stealing "we're not going back" from the Democrats, but no more indicative of a strong policy correlation, since neither the Liberals nor NDP parallel well with the Democrats. There are surface-level similarities, but also stark differences.

So I don't think any of our core rights, liberties or way of life are at risk with the majority Conservative government we're almost certainly going to end up with, and I do think that we could see genuine improvements on a handful of major files... but it's all going to be coated in a veneer of obnoxiousness that I'm not looking forward to dealing with for 4-12 years. I would much rather be living under the governance of a focused, properly-led NDP, one with a clear emphasis on evidence-backed policies that foster a more economically fair society for the working classes. Layton dying has to be in the top five for worst things to happen to this country.

Sorry, by the way... I'm really just thinking out loud here.