Current Parliament (Majority Government, as of March 19, 2019):
Liberal: 180
Conservative: 97
NDP: 41
Bloc Québécois: 10
Independent: 4
People's: 1
Green: 1
Other: 1
Vacancies to be filled: 3
Source: http://www.ourcommons.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members
Let's meet the leaders of the five main federal parties:
Justin Trudeau
The 23rd and current Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau has been leader of the Liberal party since 2013 and the first person to be the son of a former Prime Minister, in this case the legendary Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Comparisons to his father are as common as pictures of him photo-bombing people's weddings and holding adorable pandas, but Justin has made a name for himself in politics since first running for office in 2008. Despite claims of him not being ready, he won a majority government in 2015 and his government has spent the past two years expanding rights and protection for transgender people, buying the Trans Mountain pipeline, transforming the Senate of Canada into a less partisan house and, most notably, drafting legislation that legalized marijuana as of October 17th, 2018.
Andrew Scheer
The current leader of the Official Opposition, Andrew Scheer was elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada on the thirteenth and final round with a little over 50% of the vote over Maxime Bernier and a campaign managed by Hamish Marshall, a board manager at Rebel Media (See FAQs for more information) and the manager for the Conservative Party of Canada's 2019 campaign. He's often described as "Harper with a smile", though that undersells his lack of personality, thinly-veiled social conservative views and willingness to pander to bigots.
Jagmeet Signh
The recently elected leader of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh is the first person of color to be elected leader of one of the major federal parties and, currently, the representative for Burnaby South. He has called for carding to be banned and is frequently called stylish, which...yeah, I can't argue with that, the man knows his suits. Can't argue with banning carding either.
Yves-François Blanchet
Elected as leader in 2019, Blanchet is the leader of the only party to campaign on sovereignty of a Canadian province. Much like the Parti Quebecois on the provincial level, the Bloc used to dominate Quebec federally but has lost much of its support since the 90s, where it was the official opposition during the Chretien's first term. The Bloc lost its official party status in 2011 and their most recent leadership election had to be concluded early because no one wanted to run for leader aside from Blanchet (side-note: This was the case for the last leadership election the BQ had).
Elizabeth May
The leader of the Green Party since 2006 and ,currently, its sole Member of Parliament, Elizabeth May has represented the riding of Saanic - Gulf Islands since 2011.
42nd Parliament of Canada's Cabinet (As of March 18th, 2019):
Justin Trudeau: Prime Minister of Canada. Represents the riding of Papineau.
Ralph Goodale: Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. Represents the riding of Regina - Wascana.
Lawrence MacAulay: Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence. Represents the riding of Cardigan.
Carolyn Bennett: Minister of Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. Represents the riding of Toronto - St. Paul's.
Joyce Murray: President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Digital Government. Represents the riding of Vancouver Quadra.
Dominic LeBlanc: Minister of Intergovernmental and Northern Affairs and Internal Trade. Represents the riding of Beauséjour.
Navdeep Bains: Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. Represents the riding of Mississauga - Malton.
Bill Morneau: Minister of Finance. Represents the riding of Toronto Centre.
David Lametti: Minister of Justice, Attorney General of Canada. Represents the riding of of LaSalle - Émard - Verdun.
Chrystia Freeland: Minister of Foreign Affairs. Represents the riding of University - Rosedale.
Jean-Yves Duclos: Minister of Families, Children and Social Development. Represents the riding of Québec.
Marc Garneau: Minister of Transport. Represents the riding of .Notre-Dame-de-Grâce - Westmount.
Marie-Claude Bibeau: Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. Represents the riding of Compton - Stanstead.
Jim Carr: Minister of International Trade Diversification. Represents the riding of Winnipeg South Centre.
Mélanie Joly: Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie. Represents the riding of Ahuntsic - Cartierville.
Dianne Lebouthillier: Minister of National Revenue. Represents the riding of Gaspésie - Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
Catherine McKenna: Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Represents the riding of Ottawa Centre.
Harjit Sajjan: Minister of National Defence. Represents the riding of Vancouver South.
Amarjeet Sohi: Minister of Natural Resources. Represents the riding of Edmonton Mill Woods.
Maryam Monsef: Minister of Status of Women and Minister of International Development. Represents the riding of Peterborough - Kawartha.
Carla Qualtrough - Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility. Represents the riding of Delta.
Kirsty Duncan: Minister of Science and Sport. Represents the riding of Etobicoke North; became Minister of Sport and Persons with Disabilities following Kent Hehr's resignation.
Patty Hadju: Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour. Represents the riding of Thunder Bay - Superior North.
Bardish Chagger: Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. Represents the riding of Waterloo.
François-Philippe Champagne: Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. Represents the riding of Saint-Maurice - Champlain.
Karina Gould: Minister of Democratic Institutions. Represents the riding of Burlington.
Ahmed Hussen: Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Represents the riding of York South - Weston.
Ginette Petitpas Taylor: Minister of Health. Represents the riding of Moncton - Riverview - Dieppe.
Samus O'Regan: Minister of Indigenous Services. Represents the riding of St. John's South - Mount Pearl.
Bill Blair: Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction. Represents the riding of Scarborough Southwest.
Pablo Rodríquez: Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism. Represents the riding of Honoré-Mercier.
Filomena Tassi: Minister of Seniors. Represents the riding of Hamilton West - Ancaster - Dundas.
Jonathan Wilkinson: Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard. Represents the riding of North Vancouver.
Mary Ng: Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion. Represents the riding of Markham - Thornhill.
FAQs
What news/subjects can be discussed here?
Anything, really. As long as it's related to Canada in some capacity like the recent comments made by the U.S. ambassador to Canada in regards to climate change, it's as welcome here as maple syrup on a stack of flapjacks. With butter. And a touch of whipped cream. No cherries though. Blueberries are acceptable.
When is the next federal election?
The next election is scheduled for October 21st, 2019, though an election can be triggered prior to this date by the current Prime Minister requesting the Governor General of Canada to dissolve Parliament and call for an election or, in the unlikely event that a motion of no confidence is brought before Parliament and passes, an election is triggered, as was the case in 1980 that lead to the dissolution of Prime Minister Joe Clark's minority government in less than a year and Pierre Trudeau's final majority government.
What about by-elections and provincial/municipal elections?
For federal by-elections, Elections Canada has you covered. To keep up on the provincial elections, their by-elections and whether you're registered to vote via the following websites for each province/territory:
British Columbia
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
Nova Scotia
New Brunswick
Prince Edward Island
Newfoundland & Labrador
Yukon
Northwest Territories
Nunavut
As for municipal elections, the website Muniscope has all the details for when a municipal election is occurring in your province.
What's this Rebel thingy i've been hearing so much about?
A: Right, let's talk them and why it's relevant to Canadian politics. Get yourself a drink or two, this is going to be a long one.
The Rebel Media is a far-right website/YouTube channel founded by former Sun writer and man who's been sued for libel several times that's busy suing Twitter users covering his organization's lack of remittance for Fort McMurray relief funds Ezra Levant. Since the organization began in 2015, they've produced such Pulitzer-worthy journalism like a video titles "Top 10 Things I Hate About Jews" (the title has since been changed), meddling in France's election by linking to leaked documents they failed to verify the validity of and their coverage of the Quebec mosque shooter that alleged the shooter was a Muslim even after the shooter had been identified as an anti-Muslim white nationalist. I'm not linking to any of these for reasons that should be obvious, though I will link to Shaun's video on Rebel's coverage of the latter story, as it highlights the bile-filled nature of their coverage of that tragic event. In addition to their abysmal journalistic standards, Rebel has become infamous for their Islamophobia (just as an example, one of their contributors said "Deus Vult", a phrase used during the first Crusade that saw thousands of Muslims murdered, as a call to retake the city of Jerusalem when seeing people praying publicly) and generally engaging in dog-whistling tactics to drum up support for fundraising of their operations.
The Rebel caught the eye of mainstream media after the Charlottesville riot in August when it arose that one of the contributors, Faith Goldy, filmed herself participating in the demonstration, repeatedly calling the white supremacists as "patriots" and complaining about "The Left™" right before the car crash that injured several people and killed Heather Heyer. This incident, along with their inaccurate coverage of the events that took place in Charlottesville, prompted several members of Parliament to denounce The Rebel for having a contributor appear not to cover the event as it unfolded but to participate alongside white supremacists. Andrew Scheer, whose then-recent leadership campaign involved several interviews on The Rebel and , attempted to distance himself from the site he would frequent appear on for interview, stating that he would not be appearing on The Rebel until it changes its current editorial direction. At around the same time, several Rebel contributors like Gavin "founder of the hate group 'Proud Boys'" McInnes, Barbara Kay and the aforementioned Faith Goldy were either fired or left The Rebel.
Shortly thereafter, a video from a former anti-Islam Rebel UK member named Caolan Robertson was released in which said member claimed Ezra Levant flew to the U.K. after Robertson's sudden firing and offered to pay him $20,000 in hush money. The video used audio of a conversation in what sounds like Ezra attempting to intimidate Robertson by referencing how "smart" other Rebel contributors were for not raising a stink after being let go and makes several other claims such as Ezra rejecting a video about UKIP committing electoral fraud (Side-note: Ezra has tried to get Nigel Farage to join The Rebel) and having vicious tirades that would often bring employees to tears. Most damning of all, he drew attention to the lack of knowledge about where people's donations go when they give money to The Rebel, stating that "when you donate to a Rebel campaign, you're actually giving money to a business, not a charity".
These major events, along with changes to YouTube's monetization policy that saw content that The Rebel produces plummet in terms of profitability, several companies refusing to place their ads on The Rebel's website, the cancellation of a cruise featuring Rebel individuals and a rumor that the CRA would be launching an audit into The Rebel's fundraisers were seen as potentially the end of The Rebel, though this seems unlikely. Their YouTube channel currently has over 800,000 subscribers (again, not linking to it for obvious reasons) and counting and their website was recently relaunched it with one show featuring a guest appearance from well-known transphobe and former Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos. Needless to say that short of the rumored audit producing damning results about The Rebel's fundraising, it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
So what does this lengthy all have to do with Canadian politics? Well, as mentioned earlier, Scheer's 2017 leadership campaign featured several appearances on The Rebel Media and the campaign management itself featured one Hamish Marshall. Marshall is the founding director of Rebel and a close friend of Scheer; they've attended each other's weddings. While the leadership campaign was relatively light on obscene remarks outside of Scheer calling to defund universities that don't "protect freedom of speech on campus" aka. they don't allow anti-choice demonstrations or people to misgender other students or faculty members given the examples he cited, in the months since winning the leadership election, Scheer and the Conservative Party of Canada took a noticeable turn in terms of tone. After his nominee for the women's committee, anti-choice Racher Harder, prompted Liberal MPs to walk out of a meeting in protest and was resoundingly rejected in a vote that resulted in another Conservative MP to fill Harder's nominated position, Scheer claimed that the Liberal Party was not willing to tolerant a strong woman like Harder, an act which, as one commentator described it, made Scheer out to be "a Dollarama knock-off Ann Coulter/Milo Yiannopoulos provocateur". But while they were willing to cite the two abhorrent American alt-right figureheads, Scheer's remarks were more in line from the rhetoric one would hear from a Rebel contributor. Even viewing the Conservative Party of Canada's website will yield more complaints about the latest actions of the Liberal Party (they recently purchased the site "savelocalbusiness.ca" in response to the Liberals suggesting to remove loopholes that literally only the 1% and 0.1% use) and multiple donation buttons in a similar manner to Rebel drumming up support for their fundraising by asking you to "sign their petition" rather than showcase any concrete policies to expect from the Conservative Party of Canada. More recently it was discovered that Hamish Marshall would be managing the Conservative Party of Canada's 2019 campaign in spite of Scheer's previous disavowal of and distancing from Rebel Media, of which Marshall was a founding member of the organization and when questioned about whether he was aware of Marshall's ties to Rebel Media, Scheer's response was to end the news conference he was hosting.
On a lesser note, it's worth remembering that all of the examples that were mentioned had been published before the Charlottesville riot and thus CPC MPs like Kellie Leitch, Maxime Bernier and, most notably, current leader of the Official Opposition Andrew Scheer did not see them as worthy of denouncement or as reason to stop appearing on The Rebel, let alone see that their appearances will contribute to the normalization of Islamophobic, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and thoroughly bigoted views in Canada just as Harper saying that "Islamicism is the greatest threat to Canada" did in 2011. In addition, while several Conservative Party of Canada MPs like Michael Chong and Michelle Rempel have since denounced The Rebel, other members of the party who appeared on the network chose to be silent in light of the news and Scheer's attempts to distance himself from The Rebel still leaves the option for him to return in the future given his word choice. But that's not the most worrisome part...which is saying a lot.
Which brings us back to that aforementioned disinformation campaign in France that Rebel was involved in. Back in May, a Rebel journalist with a Russian social media page, Jack Posobiec, was the first person to tweet a link to the documents that were released on Pastebin via 4chan using the hashtag "MacronLeaks and "Macrongate", hashtags that saw a significant amount of bot activity within the first ten minutes of Posobiec's initial tweet. Posobeic, being the professional journalist that he is, didn't even bother to check the validity of the documents, many of which were discovered to be fake. As to where these documents came from, there is evidence to suggest that they were obtained by Russian hackers and that the bot activity were part of a coordinated effort by Putin's Russia to help get Marine Le Pen elected President of France, in particular due to Le Pen calling for a "French Brexit" that would continue to destabilize the EU who've imposed crippling sanctions against Putin's Russia, if not end the eurozone entirely. Posobiec has his own lengthy connections to social media campaigns with Russian origins Pizzagate and Ezra Levant later tweeted a fake photo of Macron with Angela Merkel that originated from Posobeic (a tweet Ezra has since deleted) but this answer has already gone on long enough so i'll keep the remaining portion brief. Russia has already attempted a disinformation campaign in Canada with Chrystia Freeland earlier this year (Freeland is one of thirteen Canadian diplomats who have been banned from Russia since 2014) and all signs indicate they're going to make a concerted effort to attempt to interfere in Canada's next federal election as retaliation for the crippling sanctions that Canada has placed on Russia such as with the recently passed Magnitsky Act. When that happens, it's likely that the Rebel will be among the first to be involved whatever misinformation campaigns they come up with alongside the Conservative Party they are now inseparably linked to. Make no mistake: You will be hearing a lot about The Rebel as we get closer to the 2019 election, none of which will involve anything remotely good.
That was...a lot.
A: That's not a question. Also you wanted an explanation, so I gave you one. I didn't even get to show you this video of Andrew Scheer getting dragged over his weak disavowing of The Rebel!
How can I get into the Canada PoliDiscord?
A: You can PM me, firehawk12 or matthewwhatever for an invite.
Do you guys really apologize that much?
Sorry, I wouldn't know the answer to that one. Eh.
Follow For News Updates
Althia Raj: Huffington Post Canada's Ottawa Bureau Chief. They're a veteran when it comes to covering politics and currently hosts the HuffPo political podcast "Follow-Up" in addition to appearing on CBC's "Power & Politics" panel.
(The) Beaverton: Not technically news but they do have funny commentary on recent events. They're essentially the "The Onion" of Canada.
Canadaland: An independent, political-focused website with a popular podcast. They've been covering the ongoing Rebel mess in greater detail than I could in a single post so you should look to them if you want to see any of the details I had to leave out.
CBC: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aka. the organization started by a conservative Prime Minister (R.B. Bennett) that the current Conservative Party of Canada wants to defund or dismantle entirely because reasons. They're one of the few media outlets to cover indigenous issues in addition to covering major news stories. Fun fact: Subway is currently suing them!
Desmond Cole: Former journalist at The Star, speaker and activist. They've been extensively speaking about and covering carding, the lack of police accountability for the murder of black people like Andrew Loku, and the action and inaction of Toronto's mayor, John Tory. He collaborated with director Charles Officer earlier this year to create the documentary "The Skin We're In".
PressProgress: An independent, non-profit news website that lives up to their name, providing some of the most reliable coverage and most critical articles this side of Montreal.
Sandy Garossino: Former trial lawyer and writer for "The National Observer". Their article on Omar Khadr is a must-read.
TrudeauMetre: A website dedicated to covering the promises of and progress made by the current Liberal Party.
Jordan Peterson: Just kidding.
Well, that was a long one. Hope that you all enjoy your time here! While I recover from putting together this lengthy post, enjoy this gif of Mike Layton growing a mustache!
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