• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Status
Not open for further replies.

gutter_trash

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
17,124
Montreal

environmentalist activist Steven Guilbeault has won the Liberal nomination for my riding of Laurier-Ste-Marie.

I think this is the best shot for the Liberals to win this Lefty-Left Riding that was held by the NDP since 2011 and the Bloc Leader Gilles Duceuppe prior to that.

a generic Liberal was trailing NDP's Nima Machouf (wife of Amir Khadir) by a sliver. So now that Liberals have put a name on the candidate, I think that Liberals might have a chance to win in my riding

5d26982a7363e.image.jpg
 
Last edited:

Tiktaalik

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,424
Yeah article about this today

Trudeau hoping to create progressive coalition in Quebec

The Liberals are targeting NDP ridings in Quebec by recruiting high-profile, left-wing candidates who stand to also attract voters away from the Bloc Québécois or the Green Party.

On Tuesday, a former Parti Québécois minister and sovereigntist announced plans to run for the Liberals in a riding south of Montreal, while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend a nomination meeting for a well-known environmentalist on Wednesday. Both Réjean Hébert and Steven Guilbeault want to run in ridings that went to the NDP in 2015.

The Liberals are hoping to make gains in Quebec in the Oct. 21 election, so they can offset expected losses in other parts of the country and win a second mandate.

After the controversy over the SNC-Lavalin affair earlier this year, the Liberals lost much support in Quebec to the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois, with Mr. Trudeau's ratings also suffering in the province.

In an attempt to regain momentum, the Liberals are trying to assemble a coalition of progressive voters who are not only motivated by the prospects of a second term for Mr. Trudeau, but also concerned by the possibility of a return to a Conservative government in Canada.

The first priority for the Liberals is to try to hold on to their 40 seats in Quebec out of 78, but they are also trying to steal support away from the NDP, which has 15 seats in the province.

The NDP's deputy leader, Montreal MP Alexandre Boulerice, said the Liberals are overhyping their progressive credentials.

"It's an honour to be their target, it shows that we bother them. They don't like the fact they are criticized by a party that is more progressive than them," Mr. Boulerice said. "They pretend they are progressives, but many of their decisions contradict that."

On Tuesday, Mr. Hébert, a former Parti Québécois minister of health, announced he will seek the Liberal nomination in the riding of Longueuil-Saint-Hubert, located in the suburban area south of Montreal. In the 2015 general election, Pierre Nantel won the riding for the NDP by 700 votes over the Liberals.

Mr. Hébert said he is hoping that former NDP and Bloc Québécois voters will join forces in the next election under the Liberal banner.

"There are former sovereigntists who think like I do and who are turning the page on sovereignty in order to focus on important social issues – I think those sovereigntists will come to us," he said in an interview. "In the same way, there are NDP supporters who understand that it is not in opposition that you can bring society forward and that the Liberal Party offers a very progressive agenda."

Mr. Hébert, a doctor who wants to improve home-care services, said he is convinced that Canada is in better hands under the Liberals.

"The last thing I want is a return to the Harper years," he said in reference to the Conservative government led by prime minister Stephen Harper between 2006 and 2015.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trudeau will attend the nomination meeting for Mr. Guilbeault, a prominent environmentalist in Quebec. While Mr. Guilbeault is opposed to the federal government's decision to reapprove the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, he is supportive of the Liberal government's overall environmental agenda.

Mr. Guilbeault will be running in Laurier-Sainte-Marie, a riding in Montreal that went NDP in the 2011 and 2015 general elections.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh will be spending much of next week in Quebec, going to mid-sized cities such as Sherbrooke, Drummondville and Trois-Rivières that are currently represented by his party. However, the NDP has not done well in public opinion polls in Quebec under his leadership.

Conservative MP Gérard Deltell said the Liberals are being cynical if they think that attracting a former sovereigntist and an anti-pipeline environmentalist to their ranks will convince voters that they will deliver on their progressive commitments.

"Whatever the Liberal Party says or promises in the next campaign will have little or no value," he said.
 

firehawk12

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,158
"On Wednesday, Mr. Trudeau will attend the nomination meeting for Mr. Guilbeault, a prominent environmentalist in Quebec. While Mr. Guilbeault is opposed to the federal government's decision to reapprove the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, he is supportive of the Liberal government's overall environmental agenda."
Insert that "math is hard" gif here I guess?

Also there was a story about how Indigenous voters have lost faith in the Liberals on The National a few days ago:

I wonder if anyone has told them that by not voting Liberal, they're voting against their own interest?
 
OP
OP
Caz

Caz

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,055
Canada
Been a busy couple of days but the CPC's soft support slowly dropping is both welcome and expected, especially in Ontario where Doug Ford is on track to beat Mike Harris at being a despicable human being and Kathleen Wynne at being hated by anyone living here. That being said...
Oooh..


Nanos showing Liberals in 4% lead over Conservatives federally. NDP recovering slightly. PPC.. hopefully eating into Conservatives and not the Greens.

It's funny that you mention the PPC... I took this picture because what it shows beggars belief.

14t0i7o.jpg


This camper was spotted by myself while driving home from getting groceries. It was heading into Saskatoon from the highway heading eastbound.
I can't speak for anywhere else, but the PPC does offer an enticement to the biggest right-wing whackadoos in the prairies and might be able to split the vote in some ridings here. At least they're dissatisfied with the Tories enough to pay money to do this to a shitty RV.
I cannot express how much I've grown to hate seeing this sentiment. The PPC's mere presence as an official party is a bight on Canadian democracy and depending on the results come October, could be highly consequential for the future of the country. See: The Reform Party coming to dominate right-wing voter preferences in future elections and the eventual merger of it with the PCs to form the CPC who were and remain demonstrably further to the right than the former (firmly centre-right) PCs.

Even if it doesn't surpass the CPC in future elections, it siphoning enough support from the party may see them attempt to convert "People's" voters to their party; despite UKIP never becoming the dominant right-wing party in the UK, their gradual siphoning of Con voters led to Cameron campaigning on a referendum to leave/remain in the UK, a referendum both central to UKIP and whose results have/continue to dominate the conversation about UK politics despite a plethora of other issues affecting the country. While one can certainly point out the results were exacerbated by FPTP producing a massive error in the final seat counts compared to the votes the UK's con party earned, the fact of the matter is that a right-wing party like the CPC benefits the most under the current system due to not having to worry about any significant competition for right-wing voters at the moment due to the manner in which said system rewarding them electorally. Thus, they have an incentive to keep it that way a la Cameron's decision to adopt a UKIP policy. If it turns out that the PPC gets, say, 4% that turns itself into 1 or no seats but the CPC gets blown out of Quebec, Ontario and B.C. in some very close races, it's likely we'll see a similar attempt to convert PPC voters into CPC voters by shifting even further to the right than they already are i.e. drop the dog whistles they currently employ when it comes to say, immigration policy and say the things that Bernier's Bigoted Biker Bros. blurt out. With Canada's current electoral system and electoral reform abandoned (for the time being), that is incredibly dangerous in the long-run.

I've said it before and i'll say it again: While the 2019 election will be highly important, my greatest fear is the fallout, of what lessons the CPC in particular learns from it (or, more likely, does not).
 

Prax

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,755
Yeah it could very well be the PPC become TeaParty Canada Version, steering conservative politics off a cliff and pulling centrists and some of the more suggestable left along with them. It's a monkey's paw wish in the end to hope they gain enough influence to spluit the vote on the right.
 

gutter_trash

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
17,124
Montreal
It's clear that traditional conservative parties around the world are veering off the deep end seems to be a global trend.

Boris Johnson will be Britain's next Prime Minister while the inept useless Jeremy Corbin will be enough to keep Boris Johnson re-elected.

Canada's last line of defence if a Centre to Centre-Left Liberal Party of Canada remaining strong coast to coast. Any veering off into polar extremes farther to the Far-Left would destroy this balance and gave way for the Far-Right to take over everything.
 

mo60

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,198
Edmonton, Alberta
It's clear that traditional conservative parties around the world are veering off the deep end seems to be a global trend.

Boris Johnson will be Britain's next Prime Minister while the inept useless Jeremy Corbin will be enough to keep Boris Johnson re-elected.

Canada's last line of defence if a Centre to Centre-Left Liberal Party of Canada remaining strong coast to coast. Any veering off into polar extremes farther to the Far-Left would destroy this balance and gave way for the Far-Right to take over everything.
I know some of the more progressive leaning conservatives in Alberta don't even like what Kenney and the UCP are governing at the moment.Some of these conservatives do not like how the UCP are handling social issues.It's not a lot of people at the moment but there might be a movement to push the UCP to the left in a few years from now if things do not change to better fend off the ABNDP and the Alberta Party.
 

djkimothy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,456
Wow. Scheer is trending on my feed for all the wrong reasons. Every time he's on the news i think it just pisses people off. These two come to mind.





The second item I find egregious.
 

Terrell

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,624
Canada
I cannot express how much I've grown to hate seeing this sentiment. The PPC's mere presence as an official party is a bight on Canadian democracy and depending on the results come October, could be highly consequential for the future of the country. See: The Reform Party coming to dominate right-wing voter preferences in future elections and the eventual merger of it with the PCs to form the CPC who were and remain demonstrably further to the right than the former (firmly centre-right) PCs.

Even if it doesn't surpass the CPC in future elections, it siphoning enough support from the party may see them attempt to convert "People's" voters to their party; despite UKIP never becoming the dominant right-wing party in the UK, their gradual siphoning of Con voters led to Cameron campaigning on a referendum to leave/remain in the UK, a referendum both central to UKIP and whose results have/continue to dominate the conversation about UK politics despite a plethora of other issues affecting the country. While one can certainly point out the results were exacerbated by FPTP producing a massive error in the final seat counts compared to the votes the UK's con party earned, the fact of the matter is that a right-wing party like the CPC benefits the most under the current system due to not having to worry about any significant competition for right-wing voters at the moment due to the manner in which said system rewarding them electorally. Thus, they have an incentive to keep it that way a la Cameron's decision to adopt a UKIP policy. If it turns out that the PPC gets, say, 4% that turns itself into 1 or no seats but the CPC gets blown out of Quebec, Ontario and B.C. in some very close races, it's likely we'll see a similar attempt to convert PPC voters into CPC voters by shifting even further to the right than they already are i.e. drop the dog whistles they currently employ when it comes to say, immigration policy and say the things that Bernier's Bigoted Biker Bros. blurt out. With Canada's current electoral system and electoral reform abandoned (for the time being), that is incredibly dangerous in the long-run.

I've said it before and i'll say it again: While the 2019 election will be highly important, my greatest fear is the fallout, of what lessons the CPC in particular learns from it (or, more likely, does not).

Your statement hides an important truth: the far right already heavily influences the CPC. It has since the Reform merger. Believing that the PPC will suddenly make things worse is a bit naive, when all it does is take the far-right voters that were already comfortably living inside the CPC's big tent. You need look no further than Scheer's mealymouthed response to banning conversion therapy that djkimothy just posted above, but there are numerous other examples that simply don't bear repeating.

The CPC is the party of people like Maurice Vellacott, the most loathesome MP I can think of at the moment from a long LONG list of dirtbag CPC MPs, and was already representative of the American-esque far-right politics you all fear all the way back in 1995 through to 2015 (when he thankfully lost the nomination when his riding boundary was redrawn).

It's also important to note that the UK is not Canada, not by a long shot. One notable example is comparing how Canada respects referenda results that are politically unfavourable versus the UK approach. (Note: Canada doesn't and sadly the UK does)

Additionally, there are not enough far-right voters in this country to abandon the appeal to centrists and reactionary white middle-class voters. If they didn't need them, Scheer wouldn't be constantly trying to reapply that veneer of respectability that he and his party depend on to get elected as though it were clown makeup applied with a trowel. Appealing too much to the far right is part of what got the party under Harper kicked to the curb in the first place.

"BubububuBUT FORD", I hear in inevitable retort. But doesn't mean much to me, since Ford took advantage of the same thing Harper did, and that's a weak and ineffectual Liberal Party. Thankfully, we don't have much to worry about there, it's seemingly the NDP's turn to wither and shrink into irrelevance this election, and Ford's time in office appears as though it will be short-lived and causing a disillusion with the CPC's veneer of respectability.

TL;DR - The PPC does not represent a growth of far-right ideology's influence on politics, just a potential redistribution of some of it under a new banner, which could be politically advantageous to the left and centre-left.
 

Kernel

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,851
TL;DR - The PPC does not represent a growth of far-right ideology's influence on politics, just a potential redistribution of some of it under a new banner, which could be politically advantageous to the left and centre-left

I'm not sure the PPC had an overall strategy in forming the party besides Bernier having a tantrum and breaking off to form his own.

Maybe there's some long game he's playing but he doesn't seem to be finding many good candidates.
 

Terrell

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,624
Canada
I'm not sure the PPC had an overall strategy in forming the party besides Bernier having a tantrum and breaking off to form his own.

Maybe there's some long game he's playing but he doesn't seem to be finding many good candidates.
Oh, I didn't suggest as such, Bernier is definitely flying by the seat of his pants based on a salty grudge. But it's quite clear what he wants his voter base to be, whether he admits it or not, since his exiting tantrum was ripe with "more-conservative-than-thou" overtures and hasn't attracted much in the way of voters outside of the far right voters who are uninterested in a party that they see as compromising what they want to appeal to centrists. It was a while ago, but I remember the 2018 CPC convention where people were leaving in a huff because the most right-wing agenda points were getting pushed aside by the absolute slimmest majority. In the past, they'd have to hold their noses and vote CPC anyways in the hopes of a majority that could revisit these issues (which they often do), but now they have a protest vote that didn't previously exist. We are unlikely to see a revisit of the Reform Party takeover of the right, since the CPC would need to engage in political suicide to the degree of Mulroney's GST and the formation of the Bloc under his watch, but the modern CPC is too craven for that to be likely.

If Bernier had any endgame, I imagine that it could be summed up as "punish the CPC". And he now has the means to do that if he plays his hand correctly.
 
Last edited:

gutter_trash

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
17,124
Montreal
If Bernier was smarter, he would be siphoning more support away from the CPC.

But Bernier is not the brightest light-bulb in the box and it shows in his campaign strategy (I don't think he has a strategy)
 

Terrell

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,624
Canada
CPC loses election and PPC proposes merger with Mad Max as leader?
I doubt it's anything that ambitious, if only because anyone would be able to see the political realities that make this near-impossible. It's more just backing the CPC into a corner with a big persistent middle finger that may or may not outlive him.

As the meme says, some people just want to watch the world burn. In Bernier's case, it's the conservative world because he's bitter that his brand of conservatism was deemed unwelcome by the dominant Conservative party establishment. And so much the better for us. When conservative politicians make enemies of other conservative politicians, the left gains something from it In the end. US Republicans know this, which is why they rally behind their awful president, despite all the awful shit they've said about him in the past.
 
Last edited:

Hours Left

Member
Oct 26, 2017
18,389
I just saw the premier group photo and threw up in my mouth. What an embarrassing herd of useless, straight men.
 

Tiktaalik

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,424
Kind of a no brainer policy given that many municipalities are super into the concept of separated bike lanes but have no money. No real details but I assume the general thrust of the idea would be funding for bike lanes.

NDP's Jagmeet Singh says Canada needs a national cycling strategy

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is a well-known cycling enthusiast whose folding bike seems to travel almost everywhere he does.

Singh now wants to bring his love for two-wheeled-transportation to Canadians everywhere with a national strategy to make cycling safer for everyone.

On Thursday, Singh led a bike tour of downtown Ottawa with several of his party's local candidates to highlight the need for better cycling infrastructure.

NDP MP Gord Johns has a private member's bill before Parliament to establish a national cycling strategy that would commit Ottawa to set targets for expanding cycling infrastructure, encourage more Canadians to use bikes to get around and create a public-education campaign on cycling safety for cyclists and motorists.

A national cycling strategy was also a promise in Singh's 2017 run for the NDP leadership.

Singh says investing in transit and cycling infrastructure is not only helpful to reduce the amount of time Canadians spend stuck in traffic, it's also better for the environment.

"We're determined to make it easier and safer to ride," Singh tweeted before embarking on the four-kilometre bike from an Ottawa bike store to the Parliamentary district.
...


The NDP's Cycling Strategy: Solutions to Help People Tackle Traffic and Climate Change

OTTAWA – Surrounded by Ottawa candidates, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh announced that a New Democrat government would implement a cycling strategy to fight climate change and support community planning and design that makes travel safe, convenient and comfortable for everyone, regardless of their mode of transportation.
...
 

firehawk12

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,158
There's a tweet thread that suggests the Greens have brought Warren Kinsella into their war room.

But hey, they're a clear alternative right???
 

Terrell

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,624
Canada
There's a tweet thread that suggests the Greens have brought Warren Kinsella into their war room.

But hey, they're a clear alternative right???
You'll need to contextualize this response to that news for some of us in the back of the room who only remember Kinsella as the guy Chrétien hired to do the same thing for the Liberals in '93 and got name-dropped in the sponsorship scandal because he worked for them.
 

Terrell

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,624
Canada

This is definitely some of the context I required to understand this, so thanks for that. Seems the issue is that he's a political hitman with no true allegiances other than who writes his paycheque at any given moment. It's not a great look, I'll give you that, but one that can likely be easily ignored, depending on the tactics he suggests that the Greens employ. My main curiosity now is how the Greens can afford him, if he's accustomed to a Liberal Party pay grade.
 

Terrell

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,624
Canada
Well, it seems we know why the Greens hired a sleazeball now: to ward off other sleazeballs.

"Lying and personal attacks in politics have become the new norm," Green Party deputy-leader Jo-Ann Roberts told The Tyee.

"Elizabeth had to admit that she does not have the sophistication it takes to deal with this stuff. We can play to her great strength, climate change, but only if we don't let other people take her apart at the knees. Kinsella knows the dark world much better than we do. By hiring him, we are sending a message to other parties: we will not just let ourselves be attacked."

The article says he was hired exclusively to defend May and the party, not to go on the offensive.
So he's basically the giant doberman, notorious around the neighborhood, that the Greens have chained up on the front lawn, from the sounds of it.
 
Oct 27, 2017
17,431
Well, it seems we know why the Greens hired a sleazeball now: to ward off other sleazeballs.



The article says he was hired exclusively to defend May and the party, not to go on the offensive.
So he's basically the giant doberman, notorious around the neighborhood, that the Greens have chained up on the front lawn, from the sounds of it.
This... is so weird. Like not only can I not imagine any other party making a statement like that, but I can't imagine anyone being afraid of Warren Kinsella.
 

gutter_trash

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
17,124
Montreal
after a decade, I still don't know what are the Greens policies are

too many lefties get suckered into voting Green thinking that they are as lefty as them, LOL but the Greens are not really Left
 
Last edited:

Terrell

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,624
Canada
This... is so weird. Like not only can I not imagine any other party making a statement like that, but I can't imagine anyone being afraid of Warren Kinsella.
Well, I can understand it. Having watched May for over a decade, she and the Greens on the whole have never defended themselves from attacks, either because they're too high-minded to do it, simply unable to or a combination of both. It's by far their biggest blind spot. So if everyone knows it, saying it out in the open doesn't pose much of a political risk.

As for Kinsella, reputations matter. There's no shortage of instances where politicians have backed down from what we publicly consider toothless foes, decisions based entirely on history and reputation in Ottawa.
 

killerrin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,237
Toronto
Well, it seems we know why the Greens hired a sleazeball now: to ward off other sleazeballs.

The article says he was hired exclusively to defend May and the party, not to go on the offensive.
So he's basically the giant doberman, notorious around the neighborhood, that the Greens have chained up on the front lawn, from the sounds of it.

I can understand it. In politics now-a-days, you need an attack dog to protect yourself. Hell, It's the kind of role the NDP has needed for awhile. If the Ontario NDP had someone whose job it was to be the attack dog and protect Horwarth, she'd probably be the one running the province now. Politics has simply changed. This is how things operate in the end stages of an electoral system which gives out massive rewards for being mean and never cooperating.

Progressives in general just haven't caught up to the fact that if they want to win elections under our system, and if they want to be able to get their policy across and keep it in place, they need to be able to stoop to the level of everybody else and get their hands dirty. In the past the population cared about holding politicians to account, but today the citizenry couldn't give two shits as long as "MyTeamWins™ ". If you don't go on the attack, then you get taken advantage of and your willingness to do nothing in face of attacks means that you get a regressive like Doug Ford instead of a Progressive like Andrea Horwarth.

It sucks that this is the case. But thats the hand we are dealt. FPTP causes it. Our fundraising and campaigning laws cause it. The fact that we sit next to the USA causes it.

too many lefties get suckered into voting Green thinking that they are as lefty as them, LOL but the Greens are not really Left
The Green party is more left than the Liberals. They've had Pharmacare, Preventative Dentalcare and a Negative Income Tax on their party platform for years now. On the Student Loan front, they want to work towards Abolishing Tuition and eliminating existing Student Debt through increased interest free periods.

Where is the Liberal positions on half of these items? Sure. The're not the NDP. But they're a hell of a lot more progressive than the LPC tries to claim itself to be.
 

gutter_trash

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
17,124
Montreal
Liberals need to ditch their stupid "democratic" nomination process for selecting candidates for their ridings.

Take charge, let the leadership pick their favorites, their stars.

The 26 year old school teacher who's father packed the auditorium in Saint-Laurent is proof that open nominations is a joke.
 

Lexxism

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,798
Toronto
Status
Not open for further replies.