Canada General Discussion

[MaxQue]

Did anyone really expect Marois to not be a train wreck?

She is better than Charest.

Lol no, her anti-Anglo pandering is disgusting

Not a fan of it, but I prefer to look to actions, not rhetorics.

And, having lived in Montréal for three years, I understand why it works. Most immigrants are talking English, not French.

[MaxQue]

Unsurprisingly, McLachlin says the Senate judgment will take a while.

It's normal. Anyways, on Constitutionnal Affairs, I prefer than the court takes its time, given the far-reaching consequences of any decision.

[MaxQue]

Does Canada not do opinion polling during the summer?

They would be worthless.

And quite irresponsible, at this moment.

[MaxQue]

Good: Quebec opposition parties will kill or at least force some serious concessions on the PQ's "secularism charter." Hopefully this thing is killed.

Random question for the uninformed and non-french: What exactly does this so-called "secularism charter" actually do, and why?

Ban public servants of wearing any visible religious symbol, in the PQ proposal.

[MaxQue]

Federal part of that poll is saying:

Liberals 41, NDP 28, Bloc 17, Conservative 14.
French vote is: Liberals 33, NDP 31, Bloc 20.

[MaxQue]

In non-news, both Mulcair and Trudeau have weedy records, Trudeau more recently. Far juicier parts of the oppo files to mine than this, IMO.


Max: That Tory improvement in Quebec City might be worth a couple of extra seats, theoretically, right? As for the rest... narrow Grit seat lead given how ridiculously inefficient their vote is.

Indeed on weed. The kind of people which would never vote for someone who already took weed is already voting Conservative, anyways. And I'm not sure than which side has a majority support.

As for Tory seats in Quebec, they did 16.5% at last election, so that is still a decline compared to 2011. A comparision is complicated, through, given redistricting.

[MaxQue]

This is going to help Trudeau in Quebec. Remember what happened when revelations came out that Andre Boiscair was using cocaine while in office? His poll numbers skyrocketed!

And crashed badly afterwards.

[MaxQue]

Any chance of recruiting Rob Ford to run in Montreal?

[MaxQue]

Rob Ford would be unelectable in Quebec for a vast array of other reasons. Not the least of which would be being from Toronto. (although admittedly that didn't hurt Jack Layton) :/

Lack of French and being an hard-right buffoon doesn't help, either.

[MaxQue]

Quebec political fundraising numbers are out. Low Liberals numbers are caused by the leadership race.

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/politique-quebecoise/201308/25/01-4683060-financement-estival-le-pq-a-fait-la-meilleure-recolte.php

Party	Since Mid-June	Since January 1st
PQ	191,558$	636,969$
Liberals	155,558$	229,527$
QS	41,894$	129,743$
CAQ	31,955$	95,105$

CAQ numbers are an absolute disaster.

[MaxQue]

Bachand will announce his retirement from politics today. No surprise since it was leadership or bust for him. Meanwhile Couillard is planning to raise the QST, which is already the country's highest provincial sales tax at 9.75%. Making the PLQ attempt to out-left the PQ even more laughable. Cause God forbid they cut spending instead of raising taxes.

To be fair, he wants to raise the QST to lower income tax. Obviously, that's an right-wing idea since that will lead the lower and middle classes to pay more tax, while the wealthy will pay less, since QST, like all sales tax, is a flat tax.

[MaxQue]

Given the hole Harper's GST cut blew in federal coffers, you'd think the PLQ would be a little more wary. But these are the same guys who quoted Gandhi in support of tax increases, so meh.

Well, don't worry, it's Quebec. PQ and Liberals are both left-wing in opposition and right-wing in government.

[MaxQue]

All our QC incumbents win on personal votes anyways, though it'd be nice to regain some seats in Quebec City. Otherwise a Dipper-Grit battle. Far removed from the heady days of pre-gala '08, if in retrospect that was probably unsustainable.

Wouldn't Mégantic-L'Érable be in danger?

[MaxQue]

Not suprisingly, nobody talked of the Nova Scotia PC leader, which said than if NDP is reelected, Nova Scotia is the next Detroit or Greece.

[MaxQue]

This poll appears to only use the vague phrase "the international community should intervene in the Syrian conflict", with no mention of anything military. So people who just believe that the UN should be holding negotiations or something like that could easily be answering "yes".

There's a later question about whether Canada itself to intervene. It's roughly 55-45 against.

So people want other countries to do something but don't want to do something themselves. Makes perfect sense.

Well, it's the government position. Strongly support an intervention, but not taking part in one, because we don't have anything useful for the kind of intervention which is proposed.

[MaxQue]

And Mulcair continues to pull the NDP rightwards. I'm almost hoping the NDP loses big time in 2015 so that he'll get the boot.

That's not different of Layton-era policies. Running on any tax hike for persons is suicidal with a politician as talented than Harper on the other side. We cannot like him any chance of him twisting that into "MULCAIR WANTS TO TAKE YOUR MONEY". He is excellent at that.

[MaxQue]

Yeah, Hollande's 75% tax announcement was met here with almost universal horrified reactions from the media/political class. Low and behold, when polled, voters would support it being brought in here.

And how exactly could Harper convince voters they were going to be the ones taxed when the NDP could specifically state a figure in the hundred thousands, which the overwhelming majority couldn't even hope to get near to?

Spin and the help of the media. The important isn't what NDP propose, but what media is saying than they propose.

[MaxQue]

Andre Boisclair (the former PQ leader, now representing Quebec in New York) sues Duchesneau (a CAQ MNA), Legault (the CAQ leader) and the CAQ itself for libel.

They accused him of giving a contract to someone close of organised crime back in 2003, while being a minister, while being a cocaine addict. They argue than since cocaine is illegal, he must have buy it from organised crime and so, he knew the person who got it.

They have no proof and it's rather weak and filmsy. Most people I know ridicule the CAQ for trying that. Given CAQ fundraising is terrbly low, being sued for libel won't help them (court proceedings are expensive and experts seems to think than they would lose, which would be quite costly).

[MaxQue]

LOL @ the idea of PKP ever getting his hands dirty and entering elective politics. Though the fantasy of Premier PKP would make me physically ill.

I think it would cause a significant part of PQ to leave or join QS/ON/etc.

[MaxQue]

Unless the PLQ was led by a Desmarais.

They value their privacy enough to not go in the spotlight. If/when they lead something, it's from behind the scenes.

[MaxQue]

With the Gritslide in NS, I'm expecting more Gritmentum being hyped by the national media.

I'm just happy that this "incumbents always win" crap we've been hearing is over.

Not necessarily. Wasn't over when the PQ won last year, was it? I totally agree that the trend should be shut down but will believe that when the opposition wins whichever provincial election is held next.

I suppose it's finished. In Quebec, Liberals lost, but came very close of winning, when polls were putting them much further back.

[MaxQue]

BC Southern Interior NDP MP Alex Atamamenko will retire in 2015. That's the first opposition MP to announce their retirement.

That riding's seen some pretty huge swings. Is it an NDP riding or an Atamamenko riding?

No clue and we will never know. Was created in 2004 and will be dissolved and thorn apart for the next election.

[MaxQue]

And while Wallin, Duffy and Brazeau (women-beater) are still Senators, a bunch of innocent, hardworking and competent civil servants (in my department) got their letters this week. This government is beyond disgusting.

But they are evil, leeches living off the taxpayer hook!

[MaxQue]

More Ford. Says he was extremely inebriated at the time.

At this point, I feel sorry for him. He needs help.

[MaxQue]

On another subject, what do resident Dippers think of the reborn NPDQ?

As I'm the most affected Dipper here (as the resident Quebec dipper), I have nothing new to say for the moment. I still think it's unwise to throw ourselves in during a minority and, during the very divisive charter debate.