Public Address | Cafe | Polity: Canada voted

David Hood

Sat, 07 Nov 2015 10:02:58 +1300

I think I am starting to get Canadian awesomeness fatigue (or possibly envy) from the parade of articles coming across my newsfeed about the new Canadian government.

p.s. Scientists have now been unmuzzled, they are allowed to talk to he media and actually answer questions.

David Hood

Thu, 05 Nov 2015 18:13:04 +1300

Well, that's a Canadian cabinet that makes a unusual and dramatic symbol of being actually representative of the population, which is something that in an ideal democracy should not be that unusual.

martinb

Sun, 25 Oct 2015 01:05:31 +1300

Rob if you haven’t got anyone in the Labour Party who could make a statement about doing politics of hope, or so openly and unashamedly back diversity and multi-culturalism, or talk about sunny ways or a new kind of kinder politics go and get them.

yes the same way that…

David Hood

Sat, 24 Oct 2015 12:14:15 +1300

Portugal also electorally interesting, leftists have an agreement of a coalition and a majority of seats, but the President has invited the right wing coalition (38% of seats) to form a minority government.

Matthew Goody

Sat, 24 Oct 2015 10:32:47 +1300

within BC there’s a noticeable urban-rural split.The rural areas might as well be part of Alberta.

Simply not true.

Only Green Party MP comes from rural riding.

NDP continued long tradition of doing well in urban East Vancouver.

South East BC ridings both went NDP, as did much of the…

Don Christie

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 23:25:19 +1300

I was in Toronto a couple of days before the election. Tactical voting played a big part in the end result. Once the NDP downwards shift started it accelerated very quickly due to this phenomenon.

The Conservatives did find their "wedge" issue. Something to do with veils I think. A…

Kumara Republic

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:45:31 +1300

British Columbia all solidly voted Liberal

Not surprisingly, within BC there's a noticeable urban-rural split. The rural areas might as well be part of Alberta.

Craig Young

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:35:10 +1300

I imagine that as the NDP appear to be a green political party, we're talking about water drinkability here.

Rich of Observationz

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:31:36 +1300

National water safety standards

Are we talking lifeguards, clean water in lakes and rivers or drinkable water coming out of the taps?

Craig Young

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:21:29 +1300

These are the New Democrat policies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party

New Democrats today advocate, among other things:

Four years of budget surpluses relying on tax increases on corporations and ending tax breaks for stock options

Increasing corporate tax rate from 15% to 17% and lower the small business tax rate from 11% to…

Craig Young

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:17:53 +1300

Courtesy of Wikipedia, here are a list of current Liberal Party policies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Canada

Cut the middle class tax bracket ($45,000 — $90,000) from 22% to 20.5% and create a new tax bracket for income above $200,000 taxed at 33%

Set national targets to lower greenhouse gas emissions through cooperation with…

Edward Sargisson

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:12:44 +1300

A Kiwi-born Canadian here. This was my first vote in a federal election here (which I enjoyed very much thank you!) In making these comments I'll note that I'm on the West Coast which is a long way politically from central or eastern Canada.

Canada is different in having 3…

Craig Young

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 09:45:42 +1300

In a word, Alberta. The oil and gas rich province is nauseatingly right wing and it's where the Conservative base is.

Anyhow, here are some stats for the rest of you. The new composition of the Canadian House of Commons is as follows. Out of 339 total seats, the Liberal…

Tom Semmens

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 07:56:20 +1300

If you read the internet then you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who isn't wildly exulting in the departure of Harper. But somebody must vote for him and his party.

What I am curious about is the roughly third of Canadians who voted for Harper; I’ve heard nothing about…

Katharine Moody

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 03:12:42 +1300

Yep, I know a few (thankfully more overseas than here).

Kumara Republic

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 01:20:04 +1300

My assessment of it is that a large group are lurching more left than left of centre when it comes to voting.

On the other extreme, there are the ‘thwarted social climbers’ who maintain the delusion of ‘born to rule' or 'keeping up appearances’ and will scapegoat all those below…

Sue

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 21:58:28 +1300

4th – Justin Trudeau and his political heritage paid a part as well. Ignoring the politics of personality is something political parties do at their own risk

Katharine Moody

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 21:23:22 +1300

Third, for most of the year and across almost all issues, the Liberals have pitched themselves as centrist. Look at their platform, titled “A New Plan for a Strong Middle Class.” The main policy sections are squarely aimed at middle income earners, especially those with kids.

It's a good campaign…

TracyMac

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 20:52:56 +1300

I had no idea sex slavery was legal in Canada until recently.

Thanks for the laugh. Yes, all those Bad Things are not legal in Canada, I understand, so the actual purpose of the bill was unclear, to say the least. (Well, it was clear, in another way...)

As for…

Kumara Republic

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:48:06 +1300

It may well be be that Mulcair’s decision to go hawkish the deficit was bad, but it’s also possible that if he’d stayed dovish we’d now be talking about how he was always going to lose because Canadians couldn’t trust him on government finances.

Instead of simply saying "it's a…

Kumara Republic

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:41:51 +1300

More specifically, and what will emerge when the smoke clears, is that Mulcair and the NDP misread and miscalculated Quebec. It's astonishing to me how they let their influence in French Canada slip away so quickly.

Jack Layton was a hard act to follow for the NDP after cancer caught…

Matt Crawford

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 17:04:14 +1300

I had no idea sex slavery was legal in Canada until recently.

Stephen Judd

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 15:50:00 +1300

There are some insightful comments from lefty Canadians here (link is to point in thread when the election was called for the Liberals).

Keir Leslie

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 15:30:27 +1300

It may well be be that Mulcair's decision to go hawkish the deficit was bad, but it's also possible that if he'd stayed dovish we'd now be talking about how he was always going to lose because Canadians couldn't trust him on government finances.

Steve Barnes

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 15:10:48 +1300

Trudeau (and 29 other Liberal MPs) voted for Harper’s explicitly xenophobic Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.

Every year, 15 million girls are forced into marriage worldwide. Complications from childbirth are the leading cause of death among these child brides[2]. Physical abuse, sexual slavery, and so-called ‘honour’ killings are also carried out…

Sacha

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 15:03:06 +1300

and that they may desert their clients when things go bad.

Russell Brown

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 14:46:45 +1300

She's not talking about economics. She's very happy with the election result because of Trudeau's views on women's rights, on abortion, on Native rights, the number of missing Aboriginal women. His promise of a gender-balanced cabinet. This, too, is "the left".

On the other hand, a Canadian I know is…

Stephen Judd

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 14:24:52 +1300

I for one am glad to see that Crosby Textor can't fix every Anglosphere campaign. It is good that the myth of their mystical powers has been countered by events.

Matthew Goody

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 14:18:55 +1300

hopefully to one heading in a better direction

No question. It's only been a couple of days but the excitement that Harper is gone and things are changing for the better is evident wherever you go.

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 14:14:40 +1300

Still, the result is a much needed 'regime change', and hopefully to one heading in a better direction than Harper's death spiral...

Matthew Goody

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:46:05 +1300

A look beyond the economic platform of the Liberals is evidence enough that the Liberals are certainly not the party of the true left.

Mulcair made a bad judgement going into the election that striking the middle ground on the economy was the best policy to win. He was very…

Emma Hart

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:45:50 +1300

Second, and more importantly, anyone claiming Canadians now see the Liberals as the party of the true left in Canada needs to talk to more Canadians.

I'm talking to a Canadian about this right now. Obviously other Canadians have other views, because... I'm now contemplating the concept of a Canadian…

Marianne Elliott

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:42:14 +1300

This is a step sideways, but what, if any, significance would you ascribe to the election promise made by the Liberal party to undertake electoral reform if elected? I've been following the #votetogether strategic voting campaign run by progressive campaigning group LeadNow with interest – and part of the overall…

Public Address

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:42:14 +1300

Discussion from blog post.