Author Topic: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election  (Read 31716 times)

scottish

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #300 on: October 23, 2019, 05:31:55 PM »
So you all would like to see a more even distribution of seats among the different parties?     For example Green and BQ should be much closer in numbers based on the total votes received by each party.    Conservative and Liberal should be very close in the number of seats, and we'd probably even have some of those commie (sorry, it's the name, I can't resist) People's Party types elected.


jambongris

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #301 on: October 23, 2019, 05:52:28 PM »
Personally, I’d like to see a distribution of seats that more closely matches the national popular vote while also tying certain MPs to specific geographical areas.

I believe that this is the aim of mixed member proportional representation.

Given the voting patterns of the last election this would mean more seats for the green and NDP and fewer for the liberals. I think the conservative numbers would be mostly unchanged.

I think the voting results would have been different under a different voting system so it’s hard to make direct comparisons using the results from this election.

GuitarStv

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #302 on: October 23, 2019, 07:31:00 PM »
Personally, I’d like to see a distribution of seats that more closely matches the national popular vote while also tying certain MPs to specific geographical areas.


Yes, this.


As it stands now, where you live determines whether your vote matters or not.  That's a bad system, seemingly designed to disenfranchise voters.

Seadog

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #303 on: October 24, 2019, 07:09:35 AM »
+1

The results are pretty fucked up.  The conservatives (who got the most votes) are not the party with the most seats.  The green party got 6.5% of the popular vote and 3 seats.  The Bloc got 7.7% of the vote and 32 seats.  The NDP got more votes than the green and bloc together, and ended up with 23 seats.

The system we use for elections is ridiculously flawed.

To put it another way, this is how many votes it took each party to win each of their seats:

PartyVotesSeats   Votes/Seat
Liberal  5,911,879    156 37,897   
Conservative  6,152,521    121 50,847   
Bloc  1,377,234 32 43,039
NDP    2,846,219    24 118,592
Green    1,161,746    3 387,249

The Green party needed 10 times as many votes as the Liberal party for each of their seats.

It's hard to feel as if all votes are equal under the current system.

Édit: the table’s formatting looks awful in Tapatalk but looked good on desktop. The key takeaway is that the Liberals needed 37k votes for each of their seats while the Greens needed 387k votes for each of their seats.

Unfortunately, like the financial principles we espouse here, I believe that the vast majority of the public are too lazy and/or apathetic to even be aware of what's going on. The commitment to away with the first past the post system was one of the bigger reasons I supported the liberals last time around. Their failure to do so is one of the many reasons I more or less threw my vote away this time. That said, voting for anyone other than the NDP/Liberals in my particular riding could be similarly argued as tossing it away as well.

The sting of it is that it at least appears they did it entirely for selfish reasons. Are they serving the public, trying to make the best, fairest Canada possible, with a house that genuinely represents the people? Or are they trying to do what's best for themselves in the short term and cling to power by hook or crook? There's a disgusting lack of leadership both big parties.

While I don't agree 100% with the greens, I do have respect for them and their leader because she wanted to do what she genuinely believed was best for Canada IMO. Unfortunately, that would require huge swaths of the public to take bitter medicine, and they (the public) also seem to be wholly motivated by short term self interest and nothing more.

GuitarStv

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #304 on: October 24, 2019, 07:26:50 AM »
First past the post favours the Liberals and Conservatives by disadvantaging the other parties (except the bloc).  But Canada will always be ruled by either Liberals or Conservatives.  So we're stuck with it until the end of time it seems.

Wrenchturner

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #305 on: October 24, 2019, 08:21:33 AM »
I think Canada is too divided across social, economic, and rural/urban lines that these issues are not easily solved.  I'm not a huge fan of using popular vote alone since it tends to screw over rural areas.

Unfortunately this means our political parties are selected by being the least-worst and by playing to the ridings.  It reminds me of bracket racing.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #306 on: October 24, 2019, 08:53:03 AM »
I think Canada is too divided across social, economic, and rural/urban lines that these issues are not easily solved.  I'm not a huge fan of using popular vote alone since it tends to screw over rural areas.

Unfortunately this means our political parties are selected by being the least-worst and by playing to the ridings.  It reminds me of bracket racing.

We're shifting to general principles now, but I am fine with that.

Re rural versus urban, since most of Canada's population is urban any system that counts votes by person and arranges ridings to have roughly equal numbers is going to be more affected by urban votes.  Not sure how that gets fixed without being unfair to urban voters.

What hits me more is provincial politics - the same issues apply, and in many ways what our provincial government does affects us more than what the feds do.  When I was a kid growing up in Quebec I thought it was totally unfair that the government was in a smaller city and Montreal, the main economic engine, was not the government.  Now that I live in Ontario, I am seeing what happens when the main city is also the capital.  As far as Torontonians seem  to be concerned (at least those in Provincial government) the province basically doesn't exist outside the GTA.

So from all this, I am at least glad that our national capital is not a big city.  There is something to be said for a capital that is basically a government town, at least it doesn't have too much local business to distract it.  Toronto was the capital at one time (back when it was York), can you imagine Toronto as the capital of Canada?  I shudder to contemplate it.  Quebec and everything west of Manitoba (or maybe west of Ontario) would already have seceded.

GuitarStv

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #307 on: October 24, 2019, 08:55:52 AM »
The current provincial government in Ontario hates Toronto and has repeatedly enacted policies to make life in the city worse.  I'm pretty sure they're aware that the province exists outside of the GTA.  Otherwise, who exactly are they pandering to?

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #308 on: October 24, 2019, 10:48:28 AM »
The current provincial government in Ontario hates Toronto and has repeatedly enacted policies to make life in the city worse.  I'm pretty sure they're aware that the province exists outside of the GTA.  Otherwise, who exactly are they pandering to?

Seriously?  My (previous) rural area has trouble getting doctors, the hospital is ok but not great, schools are not good, road costs for secondary highways have been dumped on municipalities, the OMB is clearly prodeveloper and indifferent to local concerns.  I lived and live in areas with high Francophone populations, and Amanda Simard left the Conservative caucus over language and education. She is a local hero over that, btw.  And the present government has reintroduced the OMB in its old form. And is very prodevelopment which really hits rural areas, we don't have the population to fight big companies over environmental issues, and the rural residents are the ones who will have to live with the results.  Of course the same holds true for urban areas, but with more people comes more community resources.

I wasn't talking about the present provincial government,  however, I  was talking about decades of indifference.  Highway example - highway 17 starts at Hawkesbury. Westbound is a bumpy ride to Ottawa.  Secondary highway maintence downloaded to local municipalites, remember, and these are not municipalities with lots of money.  Eastbound ends at the ramp for 417 eastbound to Montreal.  There is no ramp to the 417 westbound to Ottawa.  417 was built for the 1984 Montreal Olympics, but in the decades since no government has bothered to add 2 ramps, one for 17 to 417 westbound, and one on 417 eastbound to get onto 17 for Hawkesbury.  The local MPPs have tried,  no success.  So the only way to get to Ottawa is take 17, or take roundabout routes to get to 417. And no commuter train. 
So
There is a reason Toronto is not popular elsewhere.   

GuitarStv

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #309 on: October 24, 2019, 12:18:52 PM »
The current provincial government in Ontario hates Toronto and has repeatedly enacted policies to make life in the city worse.  I'm pretty sure they're aware that the province exists outside of the GTA.  Otherwise, who exactly are they pandering to?

Seriously?  My (previous) rural area has trouble getting doctors, the hospital is ok but not great, schools are not good, road costs for secondary highways have been dumped on municipalities, the OMB is clearly prodeveloper and indifferent to local concerns.  I lived and live in areas with high Francophone populations, and Amanda Simard left the Conservative caucus over language and education. She is a local hero over that, btw.  And the present government has reintroduced the OMB in its old form. And is very prodevelopment which really hits rural areas, we don't have the population to fight big companies over environmental issues, and the rural residents are the ones who will have to live with the results.  Of course the same holds true for urban areas, but with more people comes more community resources.

I wasn't talking about the present provincial government,  however, I  was talking about decades of indifference.  Highway example - highway 17 starts at Hawkesbury. Westbound is a bumpy ride to Ottawa.  Secondary highway maintence downloaded to local municipalites, remember, and these are not municipalities with lots of money.  Eastbound ends at the ramp for 417 eastbound to Montreal.  There is no ramp to the 417 westbound to Ottawa.  417 was built for the 1984 Montreal Olympics, but in the decades since no government has bothered to add 2 ramps, one for 17 to 417 westbound, and one on 417 eastbound to get onto 17 for Hawkesbury.  The local MPPs have tried,  no success.  So the only way to get to Ottawa is take 17, or take roundabout routes to get to 417. And no commuter train. 
So
There is a reason Toronto is not popular elsewhere.

Seriously.

I spent most of my younger life living in deep in Northern Ontario (in a small town of about a thousand people), and most of my adult life switching between Toronto, Barrie, and Mississauga.

The reason that rural areas have trouble getting doctors is that fewer doctors want to live in rural areas.  There already exists a pay premium for medical practitioners who choose to live in the boonies.  I don't know what impression you have of schools in Toronto, but they're decidedly average.  There are some good schools, and plenty of very bad ones.  In what way do you feel the city is favored there?

Have you ever lived in Toronto?  You're talking about road construction and highways as though TO is some kind of mecca of driving.  I'd encourage you to spend six or seven hours rolling down the potholed and poorly designed stretch of road called the 401 through the GTA to dispel you of this myth.  Our roads are terrible.  Our transit is terrible if you don't live on a subway line . . . or if you live in the East end of the city . . . or if you don't work in the downtown core.

The truth of the matter is that the cities in Canada (and Toronto especially) gather more tax dollars for the province than they get back every year.  Those tax dollars go to subsidize the people who choose to live in remote and rural areas.  I don't harbour ill will for heavily subsidizing the people who don't live near me . . . but I'll be damned if I'm going to sit quiet while these same people pretend that Toronto is somehow a favoured child of the province.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #310 on: October 24, 2019, 02:39:42 PM »
I know about Toronto's problems, DD lives there.  The area I was talking about is rural but not isolated, an hour from Ottawa, Cornwall, Montreal.

I guess we are back to the  basic fact that Canada is big.  Distances make things more difficult in general.  And we need people in rural and remote areas, they are contributing. Companies like Xplornet that provide rural internet help. Companies like Bell Expressvu, that had satellite internet and dropped it, hinder.  Movies like La Grande Seduction (Seducing Dr. Lewis) look at this.

And of course, the grass is always greener.  I actually moved to Ottawa because it has most of the advantages of a city without too many of the disadvantages.  Toronto is just so big.

This all started when I suggested that it is better to have the provincial capital not be the main economic city of that province.  Now I'm  wondering if there is any actual data one way or the other.

scottish

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #311 on: October 24, 2019, 03:34:37 PM »
I have the impression that Doug Ford personally hates Toronto, especially city council and the mayor, for the poor way they treated his brother.    (Not defending Rob Ford here, just putting forth Doug's point of view.)

Of course, the conservative 'base' is typically from rural areas, so I could be completely wrong.

Kmp2

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #312 on: October 29, 2019, 11:35:23 AM »
Is Toronto's counsel fairly progressive?
 
I ask because Jason Kenney just released the alberta provincial budget and has hidden a lot of surprises for the cities of Edmonton and Calgary... both who have fairly progressive mayors (for alberta anywa). He's essentially forcing the cities to raise taxes a lot, or slash a lot - or both... but it's going to make the cities look very badly and take the heat for what was a provincial cut. He's totally trying to get these two mayors tossed for someone ahem more like him...

I'm not sure Doug Ford is quite as tactical as Jason Kenney though, be grateful for that.

I should probably go back and read the whole thread before I admit I'm from Alberta though... but if you want to know what it's like to waste your vote, try being a progressive here. I think lynching is a real possibility.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #313 on: October 29, 2019, 02:15:31 PM »
Is Toronto's counsel fairly progressive?
 
I ask because Jason Kenney just released the alberta provincial budget and has hidden a lot of surprises for the cities of Edmonton and Calgary... both who have fairly progressive mayors (for alberta anywa). He's essentially forcing the cities to raise taxes a lot, or slash a lot - or both... but it's going to make the cities look very badly and take the heat for what was a provincial cut. He's totally trying to get these two mayors tossed for someone ahem more like him...

I'm not sure Doug Ford is quite as tactical as Jason Kenney though, be grateful for that.

I should probably go back and read the whole thread before I admit I'm from Alberta though... but if you want to know what it's like to waste your vote, try being a progressive here. I think lynching is a real possibility.

We already know you are from cowtown - oops, Calgary.

Aren't you glad we have secret ballots?


Kmp2

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #314 on: October 29, 2019, 03:56:51 PM »

Aren't you glad we have secret ballots?

I'm not sure it's a secret ballot if you show up by bike.
I also had one of my worst driver/bike interactions on election day heading home from work. Traffic was bad as everyone left early to vote - so I really hope it was just a frustrated driver and not just that I appear too hippy on my bike to be a 'real' albertan. Dear god I hate that term.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #315 on: October 29, 2019, 04:52:40 PM »

Aren't you glad we have secret ballots?

I'm not sure it's a secret ballot if you show up by bike.
I also had one of my worst driver/bike interactions on election day heading home from work. Traffic was bad as everyone left early to vote - so I really hope it was just a frustrated driver and not just that I appear too hippy on my bike to be a 'real' albertan. Dear god I hate that term.

Well, how can you be a real Albertan if you are not burning gas every chance you get?   ;-)

They know you voted, they cross us all off the voters list - helps to prevent multiple votes.  But only you know where you put your X.  Fortunately.

techwiz

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #316 on: November 04, 2019, 11:55:12 AM »
I was surprised to see this.

Elizabeth May stepping down from leadership of Green Party

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/elizabeth-may-steps-down-as-green-party-leader-1.4669169


RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #317 on: November 06, 2019, 05:37:24 AM »
Recounts start today.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #318 on: November 07, 2019, 04:25:38 PM »
Macleans has an interesting article on the future of Scheer.  Takeaway/LOL line:

The Conservative campaign seemed as much a cult of personality as the Liberals’ or the NDP’s, except that those latter parties’ leaders have personalities.

Ouch.

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/advice-to-conservatives-think-twice/

daverobev

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #319 on: November 08, 2019, 01:31:14 AM »
Nice line.

I was reading a piece on the CBC this morning about how Alberta wants to split from CPP and have their own version ("if Quebec can, why can't we?").

Let me guess... you'd go and invest all the premiums into oil... sorry tarsands companies.

I just can't get over how monumentally stupid (in the Upton Sinclair "can't convince someone of something when their salary depends on it not being so" vein) they - we - are. Self-centred to the point of planetary annihilation.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #320 on: November 08, 2019, 06:48:31 AM »
Nice line.

I was reading a piece on the CBC this morning about how Alberta wants to split from CPP and have their own version ("if Quebec can, why can't we?").

Let me guess... you'd go and invest all the premiums into oil... sorry tarsands companies.

I just can't get over how monumentally stupid (in the Upton Sinclair "can't convince someone of something when their salary depends on it not being so" vein) they - we - are. Self-centred to the point of planetary annihilation.

Wexit - sigh.  Land locked provinces, full of treaty land, how/where will they export their oil and crops?  Wars have been fought historically in Europe by land-locked countries trying to get ocean access.

Oil people love their oil sands.  Environmentalists hate the tar sands.  Because oil people don't want to admit how gunky the stuff is.  And how much more environmentally destructive it is to get it out of the ground, compared to the early oil wells.  We are starting to see the connection between fracking and earthquakes, I wonder how much geological destabilization the tar sands extraction methods cause.

First past the post is killing representation all over Canada.  People in Alberta and Saskatchewan did not all vote for the Conservatives (although vast numbers did) but those votes get lost in first past the post.  I also have to wonder about voters in Liberal ridings - how many would have voted NDP or Green if we didn't have first past the post?  Having 3 liberal-type parties and one conservative party means a lot of vote splitting for liberal oriented parties.  I heard a lot of talk about strategic voting in those ridings. 

I have to admit that Scheer follows his Roman Catholic beliefs - 5 children on an over-populated planet.

Well that was a mix of politics and environment, just like the last election campaign.  ;-)


Wrenchturner

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #321 on: November 08, 2019, 10:20:54 AM »
I'd be okay with Alberta joining the U.S.

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #322 on: November 08, 2019, 11:16:29 AM »
I'd be okay with Alberta joining the U.S.

And route all our shipping that far north to go around? Which land would go with a seceeding province was a big discussion topic with Quebec separation.  Either one causes a part of Canada to be geographically isolated.  And at some point First Nations territory will be in the mix.  If I remember correctly,  Quebec Cree had a lot to say about which way they would go.

It's amazing how messy the discussion gets once people get into details.

On the personal side, my Dad was born in Alberta and spent a lot of his youth there.  I don't want to see Alberta go any more than I want to see my home province (Quebec) go.

GuitarStv

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #323 on: November 08, 2019, 12:29:49 PM »
I'd be okay with Alberta joining the U.S.

And route all our shipping that far north to go around? Which land would go with a seceeding province was a big discussion topic with Quebec separation.  Either one causes a part of Canada to be geographically isolated.  And at some point First Nations territory will be in the mix.  If I remember correctly,  Quebec Cree had a lot to say about which way they would go.

It's amazing how messy the discussion gets once people get into details.

On the personal side, my Dad was born in Alberta and spent a lot of his youth there.  I don't want to see Alberta go any more than I want to see my home province (Quebec) go.

No, Alberta can join the US.  Pack up and move wholesale.  But they don't get to take our land with them though.  :P

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #324 on: November 08, 2019, 01:26:25 PM »
I'd be okay with Alberta joining the U.S.

And route all our shipping that far north to go around? Which land would go with a seceeding province was a big discussion topic with Quebec separation.  Either one causes a part of Canada to be geographically isolated.  And at some point First Nations territory will be in the mix.  If I remember correctly,  Quebec Cree had a lot to say about which way they would go.

It's amazing how messy the discussion gets once people get into details.

On the personal side, my Dad was born in Alberta and spent a lot of his youth there.  I don't want to see Alberta go any more than I want to see my home province (Quebec) go.

Maybe they can hire Boris Johnson to help them figure it out?

Wrenchturner

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #325 on: November 08, 2019, 01:42:31 PM »
Lots of contempt for self-determination here.  If a referendum to leave were to pass, would it not be ethical to honor it?

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #326 on: November 08, 2019, 02:00:04 PM »
Lots of contempt for self-determination here.  If a referendum to leave were to pass, would it not be ethical to honor it?

If the three people who live in my home held a referendum to leave Canada and establish the noble country of Stevetopia, is Canada ethically bound to honor it?

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #327 on: November 08, 2019, 02:03:45 PM »
Lots of contempt for self-determination here.  If a referendum to leave were to pass, would it not be ethical to honor it?

People are stupid and short sighted.

I honestly believe it is - for a stable nation - madness for bits to break off. There is a decent democratic tradition. Those yelling for self-rule are deluded - things won't be any/much "better" or even *that* much different if they are suddenly "free of the shackles" - there will still be someone taxing them, someone making laws, someone...

And Brexit is categorically showing you're better off being part of something than trying to pull out. Those yelling loudest will gain personally, but the masses won't.

It is, in short, populism. Populism is basically selfish.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #328 on: November 08, 2019, 02:37:14 PM »
I've lived through Quebec referenda. They are incredibly divisive.  And how can an entity vote to leave until the terms of leaving are defined? So 2 votes are needed, 1 to start negotiating the terms of separation, and another to say yes or no once the terms have been set.  Which means, however things turn out, a huge amount of animosity has been generated. 

And for Alberta, First Nations people are going to be seriously involved. Which way will their votes and territories go?

Oh. You will notice that Quebec is still part of Canada, and their separation faction goes back a long time. 

Wrenchturner

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #329 on: November 08, 2019, 03:22:33 PM »
Lots of contempt for self-determination here.  If a referendum to leave were to pass, would it not be ethical to honor it?

If the three people who live in my home held a referendum to leave Canada and establish the noble country of Stevetopia, is Canada ethically bound to honor it?

This isn't a comparable example.  Hong Kong might be a better one.

Wrenchturner

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #330 on: November 08, 2019, 03:28:33 PM »
I've lived through Quebec referenda. They are incredibly divisive.  And how can an entity vote to leave until the terms of leaving are defined? So 2 votes are needed, 1 to start negotiating the terms of separation, and another to say yes or no once the terms have been set.  Which means, however things turn out, a huge amount of animosity has been generated. 

And for Alberta, First Nations people are going to be seriously involved. Which way will their votes and territories go?

Oh. You will notice that Quebec is still part of Canada, and their separation faction goes back a long time.
I do remember the referendum when I was a kid, I think Quebec stayed 51/49% if I recall correctly.  I don't have great animosity towards other provinces, nor am I particularly irritated by the election outcome or anything like that.  I find that Canada is quite divided and I don't know if it does the country any favors to remain in this strange state where we are united in government but separated in culture, economics and politics.  I also don't attribute this to political failings either, it's simply a product of a very large country with relatively few people and a relatively short period of existence.  I'm not sure what a Canadian identity is --not one that I can attribute to anyone in Canada equally.  Even Trudeau said Canada is post-national, didn't he?  And the cultural mosaic strategy seems to undermine national unity as well.

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #331 on: November 08, 2019, 03:56:27 PM »
I've been following the Wexit thing and even my spellcheck doesn't think it's legit. It's a kneejerk reaction from some disenfranchised voters, who are an extreme minority getting outsized media attention.

I haven't found any serious policy expert or other knowledgeable person who thinks that Alberta is remotely prepared to be an independent nation. It would be economically and socially catastrophic. The alternative would be joining the USA. The thing is, the US doesn't grant statehood to new territories any more. Alberta become the 51st state? There already is a 51st state. Puerto Rico is taxed but not represented in Washington. Albertans might not feel represented in Ottawa, but just wait until they have literally no representation whatsoever. The USA would love to annex Alberta for resource extraction, as they have done to Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and more. They won't put in what it takes to give the people anything like what they give the actual states, infrastructure and funding - wise.

The idea is frankly even more ill-advised than Brexit. Don't feel heard in Ottawa? Most of us don't. The electoral system sucks. Push for electoral reform.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #332 on: November 08, 2019, 04:05:48 PM »
I've lived through Quebec referenda. They are incredibly divisive.  And how can an entity vote to leave until the terms of leaving are defined? So 2 votes are needed, 1 to start negotiating the terms of separation, and another to say yes or no once the terms have been set.  Which means, however things turn out, a huge amount of animosity has been generated. 

And for Alberta, First Nations people are going to be seriously involved. Which way will their votes and territories go?

Oh. You will notice that Quebec is still part of Canada, and their separation faction goes back a long time.
I do remember the referendum when I was a kid, I think Quebec stayed 51/49% if I recall correctly.  I don't have great animosity towards other provinces, nor am I particularly irritated by the election outcome or anything like that.  I find that Canada is quite divided and I don't know if it does the country any favors to remain in this strange state where we are united in government but separated in culture, economics and politics.  I also don't attribute this to political failings either, it's simply a product of a very large country with relatively few people and a relatively short period of existence.  I'm not sure what a Canadian identity is --not one that I can attribute to anyone in Canada equally.  Even Trudeau said Canada is post-national, didn't he?  And the cultural mosaic strategy seems to undermine national unity as well.

Canada does have a cultural identity, it just gets submerged/swamped by all the noise from our neighbour.  Read Fire and Ice by Michael Adams.  Plus we are no more segmented than any other modern nation that was formed by mixed settlement and amalgamation.  I felt right at home in 2002 reading Australian newspapers, their State versus Fed issues sounded just like ours.

I'm not a sociologist, so I have no idea if the fact that the 2 most noticeable recent incidents of inward-looking [(if you can call legislation an incident) Quebec's secular dress code legislation and the fuss about a durag in Edmonton (https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/mailmaster-standard-rural-mailbox-0610010p.html#srp)] are in the 2 regions that think about separatism.  If a society is looking inward it is not looking outward to the whole that it is part of.

Plus Snacky types faster than I do and is wiser, pay attention to her opinions.

GuitarStv

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #333 on: November 08, 2019, 05:18:02 PM »
Lots of contempt for self-determination here.  If a referendum to leave were to pass, would it not be ethical to honor it?

If the three people who live in my home held a referendum to leave Canada and establish the noble country of Stevetopia, is Canada ethically bound to honor it?

This isn't a comparable example.  Hong Kong might be a better one.

Really?  The three people in my family are not poorly treated by Canada, are represented by the Canadian government, and are utterly unprepared to form a country of our own.  Seems like a very comparable example.

snacky

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #334 on: November 08, 2019, 05:37:41 PM »
Tangentially related and amusing: Australia once had an island secede. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_and_Lesbian_Kingdom_of_the_Coral_Sea_Islands

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #335 on: November 08, 2019, 06:36:15 PM »
Having grown up in the heart of Alberta oil country (Leduc) I know that the default position is that Albertans always work hard and contribute more, and anything that goes wrong is the fault of the rest of Canada.  Never dare to point out that they have the highest standard of living and largest economy per capita while still whinging the loudest of all.

Do they honestly think they will be better positioned to force a pipeline through the ROC if they are a separate country?  I remember the stupid and ill advised 'Western Canada Concept' party in the early 80s, last time there was an oil recession.  This is just more of the same.

Wexiters assume BC would go along, and that is about the last thing that would happen here.  Wexiters suffer from the common assumption that their own position is the 'common sense' position, when from the outside looking in it is just dumb.  28% of Albertans voted for someone that is not Conservative, how do they feel?  Should they separate from Alberta?

FIRE Artist

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #336 on: November 08, 2019, 06:49:29 PM »
  28% of Albertans voted for someone that is not Conservative, how do they feel?  Should they separate from Alberta?

Edmonton will have to become a city state. JK will want to make Calgary his new nation’s capital anyway so he won’t consider us a loss.

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #337 on: November 08, 2019, 07:20:43 PM »
I've always though that the heavy reliance on oil in Alberta is a bit strange.   We lived there for most of the 90's.    Friendly people and a beautiful province, but they have this unbreakable dependency on the oil and gas industry.

There have been a few attempts to get the economy to start shifting to technology, but they all just fade away.

There was Novatel in the 80's and early 90's.    One of the first wireless companies in the world.    This was eventually acquired by Harris and Nortel, I don't think there's much if anything left anymore.

Then in the mid-nighties the federal govt paid Computing Devices to open an R&D plant there for a big army contract.   That's how I moved to Calgary.    This had lots of potential (aside from the ridiculous bureaucracy around defense contracts).    It was a really interesting place in many ways, we were doing the military equivalent of the internet before there was much of an internet.

Computing devices was acquired by general dynamics in the oughties, but instead of prospering the operation there just seems to be holding on.

The thought of Canada without Alberta is just wrong, though not as wrong as the thought of Alberta without Canada.   Now that the government has bought the pipeline, they need to start cutting through the bureaucracy and make it work.     Heh, if this continues at the current pace, there may not be any market for oil by the time it's done.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #338 on: November 10, 2019, 08:22:23 AM »
I thought this was an interesting piece on Western alienation.  As in, you were fat while the ROC was hurting, now you are hurting and ROC is still hurting - so how come you are the only ones who matter?

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-a-note-to-brad-wall-the-rest-of-canada-understands-tough-economic/

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #339 on: November 14, 2019, 09:02:03 AM »
Remember the elections reform the Liberals promised last time and then dropped?  Maybe this would be a good time to revisit it, it looks like it would not have had a big effect on the results, so all the parties could make voters happy while not risking their own results.

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/who-wins-election-2019-under-a-ranked-ballot-system/

Of course from this article, who knows how it would have really gone if we had ranked ballots?  Who would have been our first, second and third choices if we had had ranked ballots.  Lots of people might have voted NDP who voted Liberal, but lots might have put both NDP and Green ahead of Liberal.  We will never know.

rocketpj

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #340 on: November 16, 2019, 11:47:49 PM »

Of course from this article, who knows how it would have really gone if we had ranked ballots?  Who would have been our first, second and third choices if we had had ranked ballots.  Lots of people might have voted NDP who voted Liberal, but lots might have put both NDP and Green ahead of Liberal.  We will never know.

I definitely would have voted Green or NDP instead of Liberal.  100%.  I almost hate to post that online because it will only help to discourage the 2 'main' parties from ever allowing any form of PR to go ahead.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #341 on: November 17, 2019, 06:38:31 AM »

Of course from this article, who knows how it would have really gone if we had ranked ballots?  Who would have been our first, second and third choices if we had had ranked ballots.  Lots of people might have voted NDP who voted Liberal, but lots might have put both NDP and Green ahead of Liberal.  We will never know.

I definitely would have voted Green or NDP instead of Liberal.  100%.  I almost hate to post that online because it will only help to discourage the 2 'main' parties from ever allowing any form of PR to go ahead.

Ssssshhhh. Let's let them think we would all have been good little sheeples so they don't become timid forest creatures and run away from electoral reform again.

Can you see an NDP government with a Conservative opposition?  That would be popcorn time.

Wrenchturner

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #342 on: December 12, 2019, 10:36:40 AM »
Scheer resigns after some pretty serious allegations:

https://nationalpost.com/news/andrew-scheer-resigns-as-conservative-leader/

techwiz

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #343 on: December 12, 2019, 11:10:13 AM »
Wow that's big, I was wondering how long he would last. Andrew Scheer

Anyone want to guess who the next leader would be?

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #344 on: December 12, 2019, 11:59:39 AM »
Wonder if Scheer will list Prime Minister on his resume? :)

I suspect Peter MacKay will take run at it (I believe this was his plan all along when he announced he wouldn't run a couple of elections ago).  I hope Rona Ambrose expresses interest although she may be too forward thinking for the reform partly ppl.

GuitarStv

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #345 on: December 12, 2019, 12:22:20 PM »
"First person to get more votes than a Trudeau" made me giggle.  :P

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #346 on: December 12, 2019, 01:43:56 PM »
I hope Micheal Chong takes a run at it.  But he is likely to reasonable for a party that choose Scheer and had Mad Max as the second choice. 

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #347 on: December 12, 2019, 01:51:19 PM »
I hope Micheal Chong takes a run at it.  But he is likely to reasonable for a party that choose Scheer and had Mad Max as the second choice.

That last leadership race was such chaos though, who knows what will happen with the next one.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #348 on: December 12, 2019, 04:26:26 PM »
I heard someone on the radio (CFRA, which is definitely a Conservative station) who identified as socially liberal and fiscally conservative and who donates to the Conservative Party, who was really pissed off about the private school tuition.  It isn't clear yet whether the total tuition costs were paid, or just the increase caused by the move from Manitoba to Ottawa.  But with the salary and housing and other perks that Leader of the Opposition gets, you would think he could pay his kids' tuition.  But of course he has 5 of them - that gets me right in my ecologically conscious heart.  (I walked the walk, I had one).

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if the coalition of the old Reform and Progressive Conservative Parties can hold - Reform territory is holding, but the old PC territory has stopped voting for them.

RetiredAt63

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Re: Canadian Politics - 2019 Election
« Reply #349 on: December 13, 2019, 12:21:14 PM »
Back to Scheer and the tuition, I saw this elsewhere. Someone has a snarky sense of humour.

Actually, what is in the news is private Catholic schools. Are there any private Catholic schools in Manitoba? I saw a post elsewhere that there are none. If so, what were the kids attending in Manitoba? And in Ottawa. Ontario has separate Catholic school boards, but they are still public schools.
« Last Edit: December 13, 2019, 12:23:35 PM by RetiredAt63 »