Canada PoliERA |OT| Two Years of Sunny Days? That’s Scheer Madness!

killerrin · Feb 15, 2019

bremon said:
Much to the chagrin of the NDP the pipeline probably cost them more votes than the shattered hopes of electoral reform.

Oh yeah, no arguments about it there.

But also TBF, the vast majority of Electoral Reform voters were squarely in the NDP/Green bases to begin with. And the Liberal voters only cared as far as being annoyed that the Conservatives kept on kicking their asses. So them not going through with it just makes the actual supporters want to return to their natural homes, while leaving the Liberals still happy since they are still in power.

But then again. Once the Conservatives go back to kicking their asses because the left returns to being naturally split, then the Liberal Voters will be back kicking and screaming, conveniently forgetting that once upon a time they had a chance to fix their little problem and they didn't take it. And the new wave of youth that is entirely for Electoral Reform won't know the history as well. Leaving us prime for history to repeat itself. As is tradition.

Sibylus · Feb 15, 2019

bremon said:
Yep. 4 more years of that or worse though. Well, a lot more than 4 years but let's take it one mandate at a time.

Incrementalism is a lot more persuasive when it's not down to incompetence.

firehawk12 · Feb 15, 2019

bremon said:
At least the orange team gets another shot at the title this fall. Let's see how they do.

So we're doomed. :(

Lexxism · Feb 15, 2019

bremon said:
At least the orange team gets another shot at the title this fall. Let's see how they do.

Congrats to CPC?

killerrin · Feb 15, 2019

Lexxism said:
Congrats to CPC?

No no. That's only when the Left splits the vote. AKA, when NDP Voters stay home or vote NDP. Haven't you heard the memo, everything is always the NDP's fault. No matter the circumstance.

firehawk12 · Feb 15, 2019

killerrin said:
Oh yeah, no arguments about it there.

But also TBF, the vast majority of Electoral Reform voters were squarely in the NDP/Green bases to begin with. And the Liberal voters only cared as far as being annoyed that the Conservatives kept on kicking their asses. So them not going through with it just makes the actual supporters want to return to their natural homes, while leaving the Liberals still happy since they are still in power.

But then again. Once the Conservatives go back to kicking their asses because the left returns to being naturally split, then the Liberal Voters will be back kicking and screaming, conveniently forgetting that once upon a time they had a chance to fix their little problem and they didn't take it. And the new wave of youth that is entirely for Electoral Reform won't know the history as well. Leaving us prime for history to repeat itself. As is tradition.

I think Ontario proved that there's no real left majority. The majority lives between the shitty right wing and a less shitty ring wing.

Kernel · Feb 15, 2019

killerrin said:
But then again. Once the Conservatives go back to kicking their asses because the left returns to being naturally split, then the Liberal Voters will be back kicking and screaming, conveniently forgetting that once upon a time they had a chance to fix their little problem and they didn't take it. And the new wave of youth that is entirely for Electoral Reform won't know the history as well. Leaving us prime for history to repeat itself. As is tradition

People were sick of Harper, Trudeau won.
People were sick of Wynne, we are stuck with Ford.

It's the new politics, ramp up hate against someone and bring out the voters to kick them out. Scheer has gone from everything from Elbowgate to Omar Khadr. And now he has the biggest gift of all with SNCgate.

Voters can't agree en masse to vote for something but they sure can agree to vote against something.

firehawk12 said:
think Ontario proved that there's no real left majority. The majority lives between the shitty right wing and a less shitty ring wing.

Too many low information voters. If the majority of voters were informed they'd vote NDP or at least never vote conservative.

NDP is the victim of having policies you need to think and understand. Ford makes everything sounds nice and simple. No thinking required.

bremon · Feb 15, 2019

killerrin said:
Oh yeah, no arguments about it there.

But also TBF, the vast majority of Electoral Reform voters were squarely in the NDP/Green bases to begin with. And the Liberal voters only cared as far as being annoyed that the Conservatives kept on kicking their asses. So them not going through with it just makes the actual supporters want to return to their natural homes, while leaving the Liberals still happy since they are still in power.

But then again. Once the Conservatives go back to kicking their asses because the left returns to being naturally split, then the Liberal Voters will be back kicking and screaming, conveniently forgetting that once upon a time they had a chance to fix their little problem and they didn't take it. And the new wave of youth that is entirely for Electoral Reform won't know the history as well. Leaving us prime for history to repeat itself. As is tradition.

Yep. That's the shattered promise that I'll always remember about this mandate. But my CPC MP reassured me FPTP is an amazing system when I met with him to ask what they were doing to hold the Liberals accountable. "It's a great system and wasn't our promise" was basically the response.

Sibylus said:
Incrementalism is a lot more persuasive when it's not down to incompetence.

Yes, but just think of how much incompetence there is to go around. One party is still begging for a chance to prove their incompetence half a century later, but are seen as too incompetent to be trusted.

firehawk12 said:
So we're doomed. :(

Yes. Just a matter of to what degree to figure out.

Lexxism said:
Congrats to CPC?

Potentially. Hopefully not.

killerrin said:
No no. That's only when the Left splits the vote. AKA, when NDP Voters stay home or vote NDP. Haven't you heard the memo, everything is always the NDP's fault. No matter the circumstance.

They're always partially to blame because they're perennial losers who've never given people a reason to believe they aren't losers. Personally, I blame cancer. Jack maybe could have done it given more time.

Kernel said:
NDP is the victim of having policies you need to think and understand. Ford makes everything sounds nice and simple. No thinking required.

Turns out those bastards figured out that not having a platform at all is best because people just use their imaginations to exaggerate how fantastic you'll be to themselves.

Pedrito · Feb 15, 2019

I don't think SNCgate will even have much of an impact on the voting. The average voter doesn't know who JWR is, doesn't know what SNC-Lavalin is and doesn't know how the judicial system is supposed to work. People will have heard there's some kind of "scandal" going on, but won't be able to describe what it's about.

Elections right now are won by railing against immigrants and the "elites", not by palace intrigues (though it's covered in a way by the "elites" part).

Kernel · Feb 15, 2019

bremon said:
Turns out those bastards figured out that not having a platform at all is best because people just use their imaginations to exaggerate how fantastic you'll be to themselves.

Hudak was honest on his cuts and he lost out to Wynne.

So they lied and won.

killerrin · Feb 16, 2019

Turns out SNC Lavalin is a leading bidder for the Trillium Line extension of Ottawa's Phase 2 LRT. This could be interesting.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5019532

Kernel said:
Hudak was honest on his cuts and he lost out to Wynne.

So they lied and won.

The funny thing is the ONDP's own head campaign person (who ran successful winning campaigns in other provinces) told the ONDP not to run a platform in this environment because it would have only worked against them. And then they didn't listen to him thinking they would have been destroyed for not having a plan.

So I guess, oops. But hey, on the bright side, campaigns are going to get real easy for these parties real soon as they learned first hand they don't need to spend all that time and money putting together a coherent plan... Talk about Efficiency!

Vamphuntr · Feb 16, 2019

Pedrito said:
I don't think SNCgate will even have much of an impact on the voting. The average voter doesn't know who JWR is, doesn't know what SNC-Lavalin is and doesn't know how the judicial system is supposed to work. People will have heard there's some kind of "scandal" going on, but won't be able to describe what it's about.

Elections right now are won by railing against immigrants and the "elites", not by palace intrigues (though it's covered in a way by the "elites" part).

Yup and like someone said above it's also voting to kick out the previous PM that was starting to get hated. I mean during the coverage the JWR event you never really saw Singh or Scheer much. It was their golden opportunity but media seems to give much more importance to the opinions of their pundits and experts than them. They are so weak that other than their own base no one cares about them. Like said on the top of this page the pipeline will be much more damaging to the Liberals than the current events especially since now that it's stalled by the court they've literally bought a pipeline they can't use so both camps are at lost.

djkimothy · Feb 16, 2019

Pedrito said:
I don't think SNCgate will even have much of an impact on the voting. The average voter doesn't know who JWR is, doesn't know what SNC-Lavalin is and doesn't know how the judicial system is supposed to work. People will have heard there's some kind of "scandal" going on, but won't be able to describe what it's about.

Elections right now are won by railing against immigrants and the "elites", not by palace intrigues (though it's covered in a way by the "elites" part).

Yah, this has been a sentiment for some of the pundits i read. It's something for people to write about for a 3 week cycle but we'll forget about it by summer. Unless, like justin ling says, something new emerges.

Something off topic. Someone on change.org posted a petition to sell montana for trillion dollars to canada. A nice parody and some of the commenters are having fun with it. A trillion is a bit steep but we'd get some nice national parks out of it. ;)

https://www.change.org/p/christian-...for-1-trillion-to-eliminate-the-national-debt

firehawk12 · Feb 16, 2019

I think it just builds to the Liberals are shit narrative that similarly happened after a couple of terms of Harper's bullshit.

But I guess I'm biased because, as gutter likes to say, I inherently think Liberals are trash anyway. lol

Tiktaalik · Feb 16, 2019

The SNC Lavalin scandal does the job of further underlining the narrative that the Liberals are mostly interested in helping out their "corporate buddies" and other persons in power (see: meeting with the Aga Khan, buying a pipeline to help Alberta oil corps, Infrastructure bank, etc). If the voter is already receptive to this narrative, whether they're inclined to support the Conservatives or NDP, it's going to further cement their leaning to those opposition parties and it'll help those parties fundraise.

The much bigger problem I see is that even if this issue never blows up and it simply simmers as a vaguely sketchy thing, it plays into the narrative that "Trudeau is just another politician" and that Real Change™ was a sham (see also: lying about electoral reform, and perceived lack of follow up on indigenous issues). The danger here is that the core reason the Liberals won was because they turned out all these new voters, young, and indigenous people that hadn't voted before, and if those new voters are disaffected and stay home, then that's millions of Liberal votes that that party got in 2015 that vaporize.

The other dynamic I see here is that there's a split between Quebec and the rest of Canada. We've already seen the Quebec government and Quebec establishment media circle the wagons to protect SNC Lavalin ostensibly because of the need to protect 'good jobs' while the ROC media doesn't seem to care as much (even though there's tons of SNC Lavalin jobs in the ROC as well). You could see a situation where the ROC pulls away from the Liberals toward opposition parties while in Quebec people rally behind the Liberals. That would produce a stark and unhealthy regional divide in the next parliament.

firehawk12 · Feb 16, 2019

Tiktaalik said:
The much bigger problem I see is that even if this issue never blows up and it simply simmers as a vaguely sketchy thing, it plays into the narrative that "Trudeau is just another politician" and that Real Change™ was a sham (see also: lying about electoral reform, and perceived lack of follow up on indigenous issues). The danger here is that the core reason the Liberals won was because they turned out all these new voters, young, and indigenous people that hadn't voted before, and if those new voters are disaffected and stay home, then that's millions of Liberal votes that that party got in 2015 that vaporize.

Canada is ripe for a populist leader to basically sweep the board because right now the "pox on both your houses" narrative is basically low hanging fruit at this point.

I just hope it's more Sanders/Corbyn than Trump/Duterte/Bolsonaro when it happens.

gutter_trash · Feb 16, 2019

Corbyn is whack, his pro-Brexit stance is at odds with young Labour voters who want to remain in the EU.

firehawk12 · Feb 16, 2019

gutter_trash said:
Corbyn is whack, his pro-Brexit stance is at odds with young Labour voters who want to remain in the EU.

UK is going to need a realignment because of the Brexit issue anyway. It's like Quebec and the fact that there isn't a place for a socialist who may also be a federalist.

gutter_trash · Feb 16, 2019

Last time I checked, valiant Canadians decided to vote NO in 1995 and 1980.

Brexit however was infected by Russia backed UKIP Nigel Farage and social media fud

Corbyn is the worst thing to ever happen to Labour

Kernel · Feb 16, 2019

Nightmare scenario is Bernier ugh.

gutter_trash said:
Last time I checked, valiant Canadians decided to vote NO in 1995 and 1980.

Brexit however was infected by Russia backed UKIP Nigel Farage and social media fud

Corbyn is the worst thing to ever happen to Labour

There was a ton of fuckery there. People got lied to so bad and now they're too proud to admit it.

Except for the politicians that want the resultant disaster capitalism.

Vamphuntr · Feb 16, 2019

gutter_trash said:
Last time I checked, valiant Canadians decided to vote NO in 1995 and 1980.

Brexit however was infected by Russia backed UKIP Nigel Farage and social media fud

Corbyn is the worst thing to ever happen to Labour

Valiant Canadians also cheated, stole and wasted millions in taxpayer money to boost their score in Quebec after 1995. Those good folks were the Liberal party of Canada :)

Azzanadra · Feb 16, 2019

Pedrito said:
I don't think SNCgate will even have much of an impact on the voting. The average voter doesn't know who JWR is, doesn't know what SNC-Lavalin is and doesn't know how the judicial system is supposed to work. People will have heard there's some kind of "scandal" going on, but won't be able to describe what it's about.

Elections right now are won by railing against immigrants and the "elites", not by palace intrigues (though it's covered in a way by the "elites" part).

Ehh I have to disagree. The average voter does not care about the details, if they hear about some "scandal" they will go to the polls with the mindset of "corrupt Liberals at it again!". Today most people can't even properly articulate what AdScam was. I think with SNC Lavalin, its easy to break it down to "corrupt Liberals" and "bribing dictators" as soundbites, and often that's enough to sway your average joe/jane.

Kernel · Feb 16, 2019

Azzanadra said:
Ehh I have to disagree. The average voter does not care about the details, if they hear about some "scandal" they will go to the polls with the mindset of "corrupt Liberals at it again!". Today most people can't even properly articulate what AdScam was. I think with SNC Lavalin, its easy to break it down to "corrupt Liberals" and "bribing dictators" as soundbites, and often that's enough to sway your average joe/jane.

Yeah that's how I see it too.

A lot of voters already assume they're corrupt anyway.

Few care about the details, even less would understand them anyway.

I was blue in the face arguing about Omar Khadr with people but it was no face.

"Trudeau gave a terrorist millions!"

Arctic Chris · Feb 17, 2019

firehawk12 said:
I just hope it's more Sanders/Corbyn than Trump/Duterte/Bolsonaro when it happens.

You were doing so well and then this ...

Unknown Unknown · Feb 17, 2019

The SNC thing reminds me of Chrétien's Liberals in a good way.

Speaking of the pipeline the NEB review should be coming out this week. Can't wait for the commenters who all of sudden find their indigenous peoples concerns again.

firehawk12 · Feb 17, 2019

Zyzomys said:
You were doing so well and then this ...

Ford's dismantling Ontario and we're just going to let it happen, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I actually wouldn't be surprised if somehow Mad Max was able to worm his way back to the CPC and take on the leadership mantle by basically appealing to the alt-right crowd he's gotten now with his splinter group.

Arctic Chris · Feb 17, 2019

firehawk12 said:
Ford's dismantling Ontario and we're just going to let it happen, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I actually wouldn't be surprised if somehow Mad Max was able to worm his way back to the CPC and take on the leadership mantle by basically appealing to the alt-right crowd he's gotten now with his splinter group.

Ford is your problem. We have our own self grown issues in Quebec. 🤗

djkimothy · Feb 18, 2019

Zyzomys said:
Ford is your problem. We have our own self grown issues in Quebec. 🤗

Yah come summer the majority of the provinces will be under conservative leaning governments. Though i don't know how the CAQ leans.

Arthois · Feb 18, 2019

Neither do we or them.

djkimothy · Feb 18, 2019

If it wasn't for the JWD scandal, need to remind ourselves that a caravan of racists are hitting cities and ending in Ottawa soon enough.

bremon · Feb 18, 2019

I'm in the middle of where that convoy is talked about quite fondly. What a waste of money and time that trek is.

djkimothy · Feb 18, 2019

Yah , I'm not sure how it's going to ben received here in Ottawa.

SixPointEight · Feb 18, 2019

Of course Dougie supports them on a false premise.

Pedrito · Feb 18, 2019

On the Yellow Vests Facebook Page, they're all whining that the convoy isn't getting any media coverage.

Well, almost no media coverage

I'm in the Philippines right now.
And the convoy made the news here!

wow they have free press!

they just tell the truth.not like the agenda driven paid out media here

Hours Left · Feb 18, 2019

Headline: Racist dickheads waste gas

Pedrito · Feb 18, 2019

https://www.gofundme.com/yellow-vest-official-convoy-to-ottawa-2019

I should really get in the business of scamming hillbillies

djkimothy · Feb 18, 2019

Whoa...

TheDestructiveSquirrel · Feb 18, 2019

Wow...

Deleted member 12950 · Feb 18, 2019

I hadn't realized there had been reports naming him directly as the person attempting to influence the SNC-Lavalin charges.

djkimothy · Feb 18, 2019

Nothing in public, but it almost seem wink wink nudge nudge on the twitter verse.

also... ;)

djkimothy · Feb 18, 2019

Some context of how big of a deal it is.

Silex · Feb 18, 2019

Called it. It was inevitable given how this story was shaping.

Tiktaalik · Feb 18, 2019

Part of the strategy of having a fall guy is that they fall on their sword and take the blame. Here Butts is explicitly saying he didn't pressure the AG, but he's resigning anyway. Doesn't this give room for opposition politicians to keep on this then to keep looking for the truth in who did pressure the AG (whether Butts or other)?

Tiktaalik · Feb 18, 2019

He's trying to misdirect or reframe the debate by saying there was speculation that he had pressured the AG. Actually there was speculation that Trudeau had pressured the AG.

Deleted member 12950 · Feb 18, 2019

Tiktaalik said:
Part of the strategy of having a fall guy is that they fall on their sword and take the blame. Here Butts is explicitly saying he didn't pressure the AG, but he's resigning anyway. Doesn't this give room for opposition politicians to keep on this then to keep looking for the truth in who did pressure the AG (whether Butts or other)?

Yeah, I was going to say I don't think I'm the most politically astute person but I don't think this helps things. It doesn't seem to make it look as if everything going on was above board. If there was nothing untoward going on surely an open investigation or inquiry would be preferable to losing your right-hand man without anything being cleared up.

Tiktaalik said:
He's trying to misdirect or reframe the debate by saying there was speculation that he had pressured the AG. Actually there was speculation that Trudeau had pressured the AG.

and given Trudeau's comments the other day about JWR asking him if he was directing her this is a possibility.

evrythngwastakn · Feb 18, 2019

God fucking damnit Trudeau, all you had to do with keep your powder dry for another year and you'd have kept those dipshit conservatives out for sure. Now, who the fuck knows what this will do.

Politicians and their self inflicted Ls man.... what the fuck

Tamerlane · Feb 18, 2019

evrythngwastakn said:
God fucking damnit Trudeau, all you had to do with keep your powder dry for another year and you'd have kept those dipshit conservatives out for sure. Now, who the fuck knows what this will do.

Politicians and their self inflicted Ls man.... what the fuck

They can't help themselves... and now that electoral reform was never passed the cons actually have a chance to take control again.

ContraWars · Feb 18, 2019

Meh. Butts is probably just at that point in his life where he wants to quit and go on max pogey like the rest of his people. Down with the causeway!

Becks' · Feb 18, 2019

Just a thought of Andrew Scheer as a PM makes me want to vomit.

firehawk12 · Feb 18, 2019

djkimothy said:
Nothing in public, but it almost seem wink wink nudge nudge on the twitter verse.

also... ;)

lol

evrythngwastakn said:
God fucking damnit Trudeau, all you had to do with keep your powder dry for another year and you'd have kept those dipshit conservatives out for sure. Now, who the fuck knows what this will do.

Politicians and their self inflicted Ls man.... what the fuck

Ask Liberals not to help their corporate buddies? Yeah.

Canada PoliERA |OT| Two Years of Sunny Days? That’s Scheer Madness!

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