Canada General Discussion: Trudeau II

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Not surprised Harper still wants to pull the strings even after he was defeated.

He's really in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If he stays on as MP, he'll be accused of holding back party rebuilding, and the Liberals will gleefully turn 2019 into a second referendum on Harper. If he resigns like Prentice, he'll be forever disgraced and ostracized from the party.

Oh well, the least he could have done was find a consensus interim leader who would assume control first thing on October 20. That was too much for his ego, though.

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Do you guys think Elizabeth May will remain Green party leader for the entirety of the incoming Parliament?

I think so. Assuming Trudeau keeps his promise to kill FPTP, she needs to prepare the party for 2019 when they will almost definitely elect a sizeable caucus and become a permanent force in Parliament.

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He's really in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If he stays on as MP, he'll be accused of holding back party rebuilding, and the Liberals will gleefully turn 2019 into a second referendum on Harper. If he resigns like Prentice, he'll be forever disgraced and ostracized from the party.

I think the correct thing to do would be to quit when the new leader is elected. That should be long enough for the Liberal honeymoon to subside and to avoid any "quitting on election night" backlash, while still getting out of the way well in advance of the election.

IMO he should have stated himself on election night that he will step aside as party leader, he is proud of watching the party grow up, that it's time for it to make its own future, and that he will strictly sit as a backbencher.

Not doing so, even if he truly is merely a backbencher, allows the Liberals to accuse Harper of still secretly leading the party. They'll take the punditry speculating about Harper influencing the leadership race and run with attack ads showing Harper pulling the new leader's strings. Then Justin is guaranteed re-election (provided there's no video of him strangling a kitten).

For the good of the party, the leadership convention needs to be delayed to, say, 2017. And then Harper himself quietly resigns as an MP on a Friday night next, say, July, before quietly moving on to whatever else he wants to do. That gives the party enough time to rethink its direction and conduct a thorough debate about its future.

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Ruth Ellen Brosseau: from Carleton University bartender to Prime Minister in eight years.

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Jason Kenney's Twitter diarrhea is so unprofessional. It's as if he doesn't accept the election results. If this sets the tone for the leadership race, the CPC will be lucky to hold 30% in 2019.

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Ottawa set to lift sanctions on Iran, Tories being hypocritical jerks yet again: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-could-lift-sanctions-against-iran-following-landmark-deal-by-us/article28233774/

Navdeep Bains hints that Iran is a potential market for Bombardier: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/minister-sees-iran-thaw-as-opportunity-for-canadian-aerospace-industry/article28253293/

Moodys downgrades Alberta credit rating: http://ipolitics.ca/2016/01/18/moodys-adjusts-outlook-for-alberta-to-negative-rating-still-triple-a/

Conservatives in denial that they lost the election, Exhibit #756: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rona-ambrose-economy-1.3408606

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Ontario will be experimenting with a guaranteed minimum income. Feds might too.

That's awesome!

As with the Ontario Liberals' pension reforms, the devil is in the details... I like the idea but I'm not confident that Wynne will execute it well.

Looks like Wynne's re-election strategy is well underway. She will pray to God (which she nominally believes in) that her plan to balance the budget by FY17/18 will run its course. She will implement measures such as this and the university tuition program to bolster her progressive credentials which were badly damaged by selling off Hydro. She will then repeat the 2007/11/14 re-election strategy of seizing on Tory stupidity (this time probably through their candidates rather than the leader) to retain the loyalties of centrist voters.

And presto (which, like everything else her government touched, costed way over budget), the OLP becomes the Natural Governing Party.

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I haven't been paying much attention to Canadian politics much since the elections. Why is Mulcair drawing so much hate from the NDP base? Is it because of the election results and him shifting the party rightward?

Not just that. His concession speech on election night pretended as if the party wasn't thrashed. Then he seemed to cocoon himself around his handlers, only making weak progressive noises (like denouncing Trudeau for not explicitly denouncing Donald Trump ) when he realized he truly had a fight on his hands. Who wouldn't be angry in such circumstances?

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A shameless plug to my prediction all the way back on October 1...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=216858.900

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Stay classy, Conservatives...

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Electoral reform has finally appeared on the agenda in Parliament. Maryam Monsef has laid out eight principles which she wants to use to guide the process. Among them are that the new electoral system shouldn't be more complex, and that the local relationship between the MP and the constituent must be maintained.

Seemingly this rules out party list PR. MMP becomes iffy.

On that note, assuming we receive some form of PR (STV or regional open lists), things will change.

The Liberals must learn the meaning of compromise as it's unlikely to retain its majority. It won't form a coalition with the NDP, or any coalition at all. Borgen becomes mandatory viewing at Langevin Block.

The NDP's leftward lurch last weekend is partly gambling on the introduction of reform. If it hovers at 10-15% support, it's still guaranteed a respectable 35-50 seats. If reform fails, then the NDP will have trouble maintaining official party status.

The Conservatives *should* delay the leadership convention until well after the new system is known. But whether the new system is ranked ballots or PR, they will go nowhere with another Harper-like leader.

The Greens will easily reach official status under PR. It might even win 25 seats if the perfect storm arises. Elizabeth May could well decide to retire after the 2019 election. They will rebuff any Liberal flirting after the 2019 vote.

As long as the Bloc retains 15% of the vote in Quebec, it's guaranteed official status. Perversely this incentivizes it to appeal to the pur et dur segment. Maybe it even becomes a European-style right-wing populist party on the lines of the Front Nationale.

The Conservatives must also watch their backs. PR would allow the emergence of a party to their right, especially if the new leader is unable to fire up the base. Even if the Christian Heritage Party elects only its leader, this grants far greater visibility.

If the NDP is unable to unite after its current soul-searching, there's room for a party to its left. Maybe Quebec Solidaire going federal? Lefties looooove to schism, after all.

No Libertarians will get elected. Not a single Libertarian has been elected to any national parliament anywhere in the world.

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Trudeau stated he personally prefers IRV, but that he will respect the parliamentary committee however it decides.

At last weekend's NDP conference, delegates spoke strongly for PR instead of IRV, and pointed out that the latter is a transparent plot to turn Canada into a Japan-style one party state.

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Err, Costa Rica, Australia, Denmark, Slovakia...

Classical liberal parties, but not *Libertarian* parties. There would be room for such a party under PR, but it will have to work hard to distinguish from the Liberal Party.

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Maybe Harper wants to maintain a public profile because he sees himself pulling off another Diefenbaker or Trudeau Sr.

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If the Liberals were truly Machiavellian, they should go with true PR and not AV/IRV. PR would encourage the other two national parties to fragment into niche parties, leaving the Liberals as the only national, big-tent brokerage party. AV/IRV OTOH, still strongly discourages the creation of new parties.

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Justin Trudeau is the dream Liberal with a capital L. Campaign as progressives, govern as technocratic centrists to keep "red Tories" satisfied, and very occasionally throw red meat to keep the NDP down.

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If we get a PR-based electoral system, *and* the NDP moves left, then I think we'll see many conservatives strategically voting Liberal to grant them a majority.

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Part of me thinks Trudeau/Butts is sincere about wanting electoral reform, in small part so that the so-cons in the CPC will become encouraged to break off and form their own party, and thus destroy the CPC as a united entity. It could depend on ~10% of the national vote and therefore 30ish seats, a very significant representation.

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Brad Test goes all SJW and said Leitch's Muslim-baiting makes him feel discriminated against:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/tories-who-support-traditional-marriage-feeling-discriminated-against-trost-1.3081392

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We're starting on thin ice with Trump, some personal diplomacy would help.

SAD!

Having a drama teacher who knows how to stroke an ego (while the details are snarled up in endless committee meetings) won't hurt at all.

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Kevin O'Leary is now the landslide frontrunner: http://poll.forumresearch.com/data/5c0ebf22-45a0-488e-929f-f8579ccbdd67FED_Conservative_Leadership_(012217).pdf

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On the bright side, at least Kellie Leitch has crashed back to joke status. We've dodged a bullet - for now.

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Ah, so the Liberal honeymoon has finally ended. Most of their loss has been to the Conservatives. They'll need to make real accomplishments (the internal trade deal helps, maybe they should start Harper-style national propaganda campaign), and hope O'Leary wins the CPC leadership. They probably already have hours of attack ad footage ready to air.

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Ah, so the Liberal honeymoon has finally ended. Most of their loss has been to the Conservatives. They'll need to make real accomplishments (the internal trade deal helps, maybe they should start Harper-style national propaganda campaign), and hope O'Leary wins the CPC leadership. They probably already have hours of attack ad footage ready to air.

I believe a recent poll showed O'Leary is the most electable candidate, while Bernier and Leitch did poorly.

Most electable or highest name recognition? A lot of those polls are effectively the latter.

This is what I'm referring to. http://globalnews.ca/news/3207501/kevin-oleary-justin-trudeau-conservative-leadership-race-poll/?sf52910041=1

It could be just name recognization, but 37% for O'Leary and 26% for Leitch is a big difference.

It's a yuuge difference. It's the difference between being on the cusp of government and facing an existential crisis.

That said, O'Leary has tied himself to something he has absolutely no control over. The Liberals will be able to run not just against O'Leary's douchey behaviour, but against three years of the Trump Administration (assuming by then the Trump Administration hasn't already ended or is so weakened they are no longer fearful of bashing him).

Very good to see Kellie Leitch failing in both the leadership race and the general election poll.

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https://twitter.com/glen_mcgregor/status/826558392923721729

Katie Purchase has written to Fox News demanding the take down the tweet that is still up, that says the Moroccan Muslim shot the mosque. I'm proud of the government's response and they should be ready to sue Fox News pants off if they don't comply.