Canada General Discussion: Trudeau II

[RogueBeaver]

Whoa: Tootoo is leaving Cabinet and the Grit caucus to seek addiction treatment. Best of luck to him.

Stepping down from cabinet I understand - but leaving the caucus, to sit as an independent, for addiction treatment? That seems weird. I would not be surprised at all if there turns out to be more to this than has been announced.

Rampant journo speculation on Twitter about that, but nothing yet.

[Hatman 🍁]

Speculation is that he got drunk at the Liberal convention and was inappropriately hitting on a staffer.

Alcohol abuse is unfortunately all to common among the Aboriginal community, even among high profile politicians (as we saw with Saganash). I hope that stories such as these shed a light on this issue. 

[Vega]

Speculation is that he got drunk at the Liberal convention and was inappropriately hitting on a staffer.

That's it?

[RogueBeaver]

Globe says Trudeau told caucus that there was nothing in particular. There have been embarrassing drunk performances, most infamously the late Ralph Klein. In the Diefenbaker era, there was a minister who was literally piss-drunk at the Montreal airport, and pissed in a potted plant - insisting on pulling down his pants in front of a media gaggle. More recently, Elizabeth May's performance at last year's Press Gallery dinner.

[Hatman 🍁]

Speculation is that he got drunk at the Liberal convention and was inappropriately hitting on a staffer.

That's it?

Well, I guess it depends on how inappropriate he was behaving towards said staffer. I'm sure there's zero-tolerance for sexual harassment within the Liberal caucus considering what happened with the two Liberal MPs in the last parliament. 

[RogueBeaver]

Chinese foreign minister met with Trudeau yesterday.

Electoral reform committee's composition being changed.

[Hatman 🍁]

The Liberals have scrapped their majority on the electoral reform committee and have adopted the NDP plan, which alots seats based on the popular vote: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wherry-electoral-reform-committee-1.3612377

Good move! I told you guys the Liberals weren't going to go it alone on this! Though, I didn't expect them to do this, but hey, why not? They weren't going to push something through on their own anyways, so might as well give themselves a minority (plurality) of seats on the committee.

[RogueBeaver]

Palmer: BCNDP are underdogs going into next year's campaign.

[RogueBeaver]

Gallery dinner last night.

[Njall]

In case anyone hasn't been paying attention to Alberta politics over the past 10 days, the Wildrose Party has not been having a fun time:

Here's a timeline of Derek Fildebrandt's odd and brief suspension from the Wildrose caucus.

CBC analysis of the fallout.

The same week, a group of Wildrose MLAs had to apologize for a blog post comparing the Alberta carbon tax to the Ukrainian Genocide.

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In slightly related news, the Alberta PCs will choose a new leader in Spring 2017.

[Hatman 🍁]

Fildebrandt is a bit of an odd ball. He was in a few of my classes at university, and his politics were very insane.

[RogueBeaver]

Clark is eager to lead her Grits into battle.

Well yeah PM, referenda are supposed to be B&W. As you well know from your own '92 experience.

[Hatman 🍁]

So, there's a giant sinkhole not too far from parliament...

[Vega]

So, there's a giant sinkhole not too far from parliament...

I guess they'll have to hold their sessions in the other part of Rideau Hall.

[RogueBeaver]

Big infrastructure announcements inbound. Ditto massive expansion of parliamentary IC oversight.

[Hatman 🍁]

So, there's a giant sinkhole not too far from parliament...

I guess they'll have to hold their sessions in the other part of Rideau Hall.

[Hatman 🍁]

NDP now ahead in latest Newfoundland poll:

38-34-27: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/cra-poll-dwight-ball-popularity-down-1.3624034

[RogueBeaver]

Trudeau considering a NATO request to deploy up to 1000 troops to Eastern Europe. Believe if seen.

Forum: 49/32/10. Justin's approval steady at 57%.

[Hatman 🍁]

Gordie Howe has died. RIP.

[Njall]

More Wildrose Party shenanigans: A constituency association passes a resolution calling for a review of Brian Jean's leadership at the next AGM.

Alberta NDP convention this weekend in Calgary.  According to Twitter, a resolution will be debated about whether the ABNDP should disaffiliate from the national party.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Trudeau considering a NATO request to deploy up to 1000 troops to Eastern Europe. Believe if seen.

Forum: 49/32/10. Justin's approval steady at 57%.

Holy crap, those NDP numbers are devastating. How many seats do you think the NDP would win with 10% of the nationwide vote?

[Vega]

Trudeau considering a NATO request to deploy up to 1000 troops to Eastern Europe. Believe if seen.

Forum: 49/32/10. Justin's approval steady at 57%.

Holy crap, those NDP numbers are devastating. How many seats do you think the NDP would win with 10% of the nationwide vote?

If they centralize their votes in the right places and focus on maintaining rather than gaining, they shouldn't lose more than 10 or so.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The NDP better hope the housing booms in Toronto and Vancouver burst and/or liberals antagonise Quebec.

[DC Al Fine]

Trudeau considering a NATO request to deploy up to 1000 troops to Eastern Europe. Believe if seen.

Forum: 49/32/10. Justin's approval steady at 57%.

Holy crap, those NDP numbers are devastating. How many seats do you think the NDP would win with 10% of the nationwide vote?

If they centralize their votes in the right places and focus on maintaining rather than gaining, they shouldn't lose more than 10 or so.

That's a big if though. The NDP vote is spread pretty thin. They didn't win many seats by a large margin. If you apply a proportional swing to Forum's regional numbers the NDP win maybe half a dozen seats.

Of course, the NDP will get a new leader, the economy might change, or the Liberals might anger the left, so it's far from hopeless, but the NDP are danger of very, very serious losses next election.

[RogueBeaver]

Wynne's Cabinet overhaul will be tomorrow.