The Maple Leaf Lounge

[Marc]

Ideal outcome is to have about 3 Conservatives cross the floor AFTER Uncle Pierre is confirmed as leader. The CPC will be stuck with a weakened leader (who won’t go away quietly or quickly), thereby forestalling a more competent replacement. No unstable minority political manoeuvring until the dumpster fire in the basement is gone. An opportunity to put policies in place long enough to judge their effectiveness. And a counterweight to the Smiths, Moes, and others of a similar stripe.

There's an op-ed piece in today's Toronto Star pretty much in line with your thinking - the liberals are better off with tories keeping poilievre as the the leader.

when the two main parties are pretty close (or neck and neck as one poll had it last week), the popularity of the leader can make or break things and the only place the current leader of the opposition has a positive polling numbers is Alberta.

Andrew Phillips: Liberals would be smart to keep Pierre Poilievre around

The wounded Conservative leader is the biggest thing Mark Carney's Liberals would have going for them in an early election.

www.thestar.com

 

[Ovation]

There's an op-ed piece in today's Toronto Star pretty much in line with your thinking - the liberals are better off with tories keeping poilievre as the the leader.

when the two main parties are pretty close (or neck and neck as one poll had it last week), the popularity of the leader can make or break things and the only place the current leader of the opposition has a positive polling numbers is Alberta.

Andrew Phillips: Liberals would be smart to keep Pierre Poilievre around

The wounded Conservative leader is the biggest thing Mark Carney's Liberals would have going for them in an early election.

www.thestar.com

Maybe he lurks around here?

While I wouldn’t mind getting paid for my opinions on this matter, it hardly seems difficult to arrive at this conclusion. Good to know the idea is worth publishing, even it’s not with my name on it.

 

[Set Harth]

wow I wonder if something like that ever happened in any other country

 

[Timewalker]

Talk is going around as to whether or not Danielle Smith would be able to make the jump to federal politics and take over from PP.

If it would get her the hell out of Alberta, why not? Misery loves company, and she's unelectable on a federal scale. There aren't enough sociopaths in the country to want her, unless this is what Trump would want. His people are already rubbing their hands in glee because they think she'll hand Alberta over (why buy the oil and water and food if you can get it for free?). They'd probably think she'd have a chance at handing them the whole damn country, which she would do in a heartbeat if there was enough money in it for her, plus a governorship (or whatever they call the leaders of the U.S. territories, 'cause there's no way they'd ever let Canadians have voting rights).

========

I've just read an excellent substack article about Nicolaides' Christmas message.

This is not Nicolaides being stupid (well, he is stupid in some pretty fundamental ways, but this letter has some strategic meaning since he thinks that appealing to the religious demographic will win him brownie points with the recall petition). The author believes there's more to it.

Which is true. This is a blatant Charter violation. If I were a parent with a child in the public school system, I'd be homeschooling my hypothetical kids. I came to that conclusion when LaGrange first unveiled her daft curriculum in 2020. I was part of a FB group of FORTY THOUSAND parents, teachers, university-based education experts, university students, caregivers, and concerned citizens who dissected the hell out of that curriculum to figure out if there was anything useful in it.

When you consider all the emphasis on American content (why do kids in Alberta need to know the KKK slogan?), the inadequate Canadian content, the incorrect Canadian content, the blatant plagiarism from Wikipedia, the insane amount of errors (no, you can't find a map of Alberta, locate Regina and Duck Lake on it, and measure the distance between them because hello - they aren't in Alberta!), the outright racism (LaGrange hired Chris Champion to oversee the social studies portion; he's a known and unapologetic residential school denier, as is LaGrange), the age-inappropriateness of so many things, and the religious bias... damn straight I wouldn't want my kids subjected to this kind of crap in school.

Which is rather the point of why the UCP is breaking everything. If they break enough of the province, they can point to it and say, 'See, it's broken, we need to outsource it to the private sector' and hey presto, the money flows to the Catholic and other faith-based schools, the charter schools, and anywhere but the public schools where it should go.

LaGrange's approach to religion in her daft curriculum was to flatly present Christianity as factual, Islam and Judaism as "they believe" (othering), Indigenous beliefs as "in the past" (nope, there are a lot of people who still follow those beliefs), everything else from paganism and Wicca to Buddhism, etc. as "beliefs that are new and strange that are brought by immigrants and we should try to understand them" (paraphrase; it was some pretty racist bullshit), and as for atheists/agnostics?

Nowhere. Not that atheism is a religion, but 30% of Albertans identify either as atheist, agnostic, or 'no religion'. LaGrange preferred to just pretend we don't exist, so we didn't rate a mention in the daft curriculum that we do exist.

So what happened to this mess? There are 61 school districts in Alberta. 56 of them flatly refused to have anything to do with piloting any part of it (including LaGrange's former colleagues in the Catholic system in my city; I found out from someone running for the local public school board that nobody on either school board actually likes her or can stand to be around her). The others only agreed to pilot one or two subjects.

And then came the provincial election of 2023. LaGrange had begun the second try at a daft curriculum, and was still determined to shoehorn her religious ideology into the public curriculum. So she included bible verses... in GRADE ONE READING CLASSES. She tried to slip them in under the masquerade of "poetry."

So the organic waste hit the air conditioning unit for a second time. When Danielle Smith took over as premier, she moved LaGrange to the health portfolio, and Nicolaides from Advanced Education to Education (K-12). He put up a survey, and of course it was designed to push opinions toward the results that the UCP wanted, so they could claim that they had "consulted" the public and were doing what we wanted.

I haven't heard much lately about pushing religion in public schools... until now, with this Christmas letter. If only postage was free to MLAs. He'd end up with such a mountain of these sent back to him, not to mention other letters telling him off. Someone on FB was musing about sending him a holiday card from the Satanic Temple. I'm actually tempted, since I've got a few stamps lying around that I probably don't have much other use for. It would just end up in the landfill, but it would be cathartic.

What I pity is the NDP. The UCP loves to lie about not receiving people's emails and letters, so of course the sensible thing we do is cc the NDP leader and relevant shadow cabinet critic. That way there's a record proving the email/letter was sent so they can't claim they never received it.

 

[Ovation]

It's technically illegal everywhere in Canada, because it violates the parents' and students' Charter rights on the basis of religion.

It's morally and ethically repulsive, and so very hypocritical. This Minister of Gutting Public Education used to be Minister of Advanced Education, back in 2019 when Jason Kenney took over as premier. Nicolaides is every bit as rigid and bigoted as Adriana LaGrange (anti-abortionist, anti-LGBT, shoving their personal religion down students' throats IN THE CURRICULUM USED BY PUBLIC SCHOOLS), and so on.

Back in 2019, he stated that "public schools teach a radicalized, immoral ideology". This "ideology" that was so "immoral"? Inclusion. Positivity and inclusion of LGBT kids, disabled kids, kids of all faiths and none. Can't have that. He's just a little bit better at masking his repulsive ideology than LaGrange was, as she was pretty vocal about denying reproductive choice to women and girls. When she was on the Catholic school board in my city, she saw nothing at all wrong with approving a "field trip" to send a busload of high school students to Edmonton to participate in an anti-abortion rally.

When Operation Total Recall started (the goal is to at least get recall petitions going for every single one of the UCP MLAs; we've got 20 going so far), Nicolaides was the first one. He was targeted first because the government used the notwithstanding clause to order the teachers back to work when they went on strike. They also used the notwithstanding clause to prohibit girls from participating in school athletic programs if they can't "prove" they were born female. Kids can't choose their own names and pronouns at school without a signed note from their parents. Smith does not give one fraction of a damn that in some cases it would be dangerous for the kid to even hint to the parents that they may be/are LGBT.

So Nicolaides made himself quite a target, not only for these reasons, but also connected with the hatchet job the government is doing on disability benefits. The slash-and-burn they're doing to the AISH program also affects children, if one or both of their parents are on AISH (Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped). Steal the $200 Canada Disability Benefit the parents were to have received (Alberta's the only province clawing it back), slash funding by a further $200 on top of that, and you'll end up with kids at risk of homelessness and definitely not getting enough to eat or getting their school supplies.

This disgusting letter is only part of Nicolaides' pathetic attempts at a "please don't fire me" schtick. He's running scared, and has been for weeks now. If the petition succeeds, he loses his seat and would have to try to win it back in a byelection.

My own MLA is also the subject of one of these recall petitions. She's the one currently pretending to be a competent Minister of Health. In reality, the health system is in shambles. I will very happily sign that petition when I can arrange it.

Talk is going around as to whether or not Danielle Smith would be able to make the jump to federal politics and take over from PP.

If it would get her the hell out of Alberta, why not? Misery loves company, and she's unelectable on a federal scale. There aren't enough sociopaths in the country to want her, unless this is what Trump would want. His people are already rubbing their hands in glee because they think she'll hand Alberta over (why buy the oil and water and food if you can get it for free?). They'd probably think she'd have a chance at handing them the whole damn country, which she would do in a heartbeat if there was enough money in it for her, plus a governorship (or whatever they call the leaders of the U.S. territories, 'cause there's no way they'd ever let Canadians have voting rights).

========

I've just read an excellent substack article about Nicolaides' Christmas message.

This is not Nicolaides being stupid (well, he is stupid in some pretty fundamental ways, but this letter has some strategic meaning since he thinks that appealing to the religious demographic will win him brownie points with the recall petition). The author believes there's more to it.

Which is true. This is a blatant Charter violation. If I were a parent with a child in the public school system, I'd be homeschooling my hypothetical kids. I came to that conclusion when LaGrange first unveiled her daft curriculum in 2020. I was part of a FB group of FORTY THOUSAND parents, teachers, university-based education experts, university students, caregivers, and concerned citizens who dissected the hell out of that curriculum to figure out if there was anything useful in it.

When you consider all the emphasis on American content (why do kids in Alberta need to know the KKK slogan?), the inadequate Canadian content, the incorrect Canadian content, the blatant plagiarism from Wikipedia, the insane amount of errors (no, you can't find a map of Alberta, locate Regina and Duck Lake on it, and measure the distance between them because hello - they aren't in Alberta!), the outright racism (LaGrange hired Chris Champion to oversee the social studies portion; he's a known and unapologetic residential school denier, as is LaGrange), the age-inappropriateness of so many things, and the religious bias... damn straight I wouldn't want my kids subjected to this kind of crap in school.

Which is rather the point of why the UCP is breaking everything. If they break enough of the province, they can point to it and say, 'See, it's broken, we need to outsource it to the private sector' and hey presto, the money flows to the Catholic and other faith-based schools, the charter schools, and anywhere but the public schools where it should go.

LaGrange's approach to religion in her daft curriculum was to flatly present Christianity as factual, Islam and Judaism as "they believe" (othering), Indigenous beliefs as "in the past" (nope, there are a lot of people who still follow those beliefs), everything else from paganism and Wicca to Buddhism, etc. as "beliefs that are new and strange that are brought by immigrants and we should try to understand them" (paraphrase; it was some pretty racist bullshit), and as for atheists/agnostics?

Nowhere. Not that atheism is a religion, but 30% of Albertans identify either as atheist, agnostic, or 'no religion'. LaGrange preferred to just pretend we don't exist, so we didn't rate a mention in the daft curriculum that we do exist.

So what happened to this mess? There are 61 school districts in Alberta. 56 of them flatly refused to have anything to do with piloting any part of it (including LaGrange's former colleagues in the Catholic system in my city; I found out from someone running for the local public school board that nobody on either school board actually likes her or can stand to be around her). The others only agreed to pilot one or two subjects.

And then came the provincial election of 2023. LaGrange had begun the second try at a daft curriculum, and was still determined to shoehorn her religious ideology into the public curriculum. So she included bible verses... in GRADE ONE READING CLASSES. She tried to slip them in under the masquerade of "poetry."

So the organic waste hit the air conditioning unit for a second time. When Danielle Smith took over as premier, she moved LaGrange to the health portfolio, and Nicolaides from Advanced Education to Education (K-12). He put up a survey, and of course it was designed to push opinions toward the results that the UCP wanted, so they could claim that they had "consulted" the public and were doing what we wanted.

I haven't heard much lately about pushing religion in public schools... until now, with this Christmas letter. If only postage was free to MLAs. He'd end up with such a mountain of these sent back to him, not to mention other letters telling him off. Someone on FB was musing about sending him a holiday card from the Satanic Temple. I'm actually tempted, since I've got a few stamps lying around that I probably don't have much other use for. It would just end up in the landfill, but it would be cathartic.

What I pity is the NDP. The UCP loves to lie about not receiving people's emails and letters, so of course the sensible thing we do is cc the NDP leader and relevant shadow cabinet critic. That way there's a record proving the email/letter was sent so they can't claim they never received it.

Yikes. I now feel bad for thinking Mon oncle François and the CAQ are as bad as Smith and the UCP. Don’t get me wrong, Frankie and the CAQ are pretty fucking bad. But they pale in comparison to what you’re describing. I guess I can only say “Bon courage” and hope these recall efforts prove successful.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I'm curious to see how many things wrong with this the non-Albertans here can spot.

I don't know about spotting mistakes, but as an atheist, if my MPP sent me this, I'd probably have stopped reading after the first paragraph.

I don't know enough to know whether it reaches a level of illegality here in Ontario, but my personal feeling is that parliaments (both provincial and federal) should be secular. Members are, of course, able to hold whatever religious beliefs they like, but if they are communicating as a representative of a parliament (and especially as a representative of the governing party), then religious beliefs should be kept out of it.

Ideal outcome is to have about 3 Conservatives cross the floor AFTER Uncle Pierre is confirmed as leader. The CPC will be stuck with a weakened leader (who won’t go away quietly or quickly), thereby forestalling a more competent replacement. No unstable minority political manoeuvring until the dumpster fire in the basement is gone.

I do have a concern about this, though. As unfathomable as it is to me, Poilievre seems very popular with his base. And there is a segment of the population who will just switch their vote between the Liberals and the Conservatives just because they're "tired" of the current party. (I'm assuming probably from the older days, when there wasn't as much difference between the old PCs and the Liberals.) Political fatigue is a thing, and at some point, the Liberals are going to lose, and the Conservatives are going to win. (I still believe that if it wasn't for that extraordinary set of circumstances we had at the beginning of this year, the Conservatives would have won the election handily.)

So under this scenario, it's possible Poilievre will still be the leader of the CPC the next time an election rolls around, even if it is another four years down the road. By then Carney's honeymoon will be well over, and Trump will be gone (in a sane world, anyway, I guess we'll see what really happens). Carney is already alienating the NDP voters who loaned him their vote to block the CPC, as well as the more left-leaning liberal voters, by introducing legislation that doesn't seem that far off from what the CPC might have introduced. So there is absolutely no guarantee the Liberals win in 2029, and I personally don't want to take the chance that we come out of that election with Poilievre as prime minister. So if another floor-crossing now wil help weaken his position enough that he gets shown the door at the leadership review, I say go for it. Don't wait.

Granted, we have no idea who the Conservatives would pick as their new leader. I certainly don't want a Prime Minister Jamil Javani, Michelle Rempel Garner, or especially Danielle Smith (thanks for that nightmare fuel, @Timewalker ! ) either. Someone like Erin O'Toole would be preferrable, but no way the modern CPC votes him back in. As much as I dislike him, even Doug Ford would probably be preferrable to that lot!

My personal dream scenario is that too much infighting between the PC wing and the Reform wing of the CPC causes them to split back up. Splitting the right vote like that helps the left-leaning parties, and if the New PCs happened to win an election, while I wouldn't like it, it probably wouldn't be as bad as the modern CPC winning.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I think the reason they didn't bother here is because you could run a piece of cat crap as a conservative candidate (whether provincial or federal) and it would be elected. They didn't see the point in bothering, as they never had a chance in the first place. So many people in this part of the country just let their names be used to fill out the ballot slots.

Well, you only get as much as what you put out. I think not bothering is a huge part of the problem in getting voter apathy. I sure as heck wouldn't be voting for anyone who doesn't show themselves making an effort, because in the end, it reflects poorly on them and the community they want to represent. They really need to do better.

In a different life, I have a feeling I'd become a politician.

 

[Timewalker]

I don't know about spotting mistakes, but as an atheist, if my MPP sent me this, I'd probably have stopped reading after the first paragraph.

I don't know enough to know whether it reaches a level of illegality here in Ontario, but my personal feeling is that parliaments (both provincial and federal) should be secular. Members are, of course, able to hold whatever religious beliefs they like, but if they are communicating as a representative of a parliament (and especially as a representative of the governing party), then religious beliefs should be kept out of it.



I do have a concern about this, though. As unfathomable as it is to me, Poilievre seems very popular with his base. And there is a segment of the population who will just switch their vote between the Liberals and the Conservatives just because they're "tired" of the current party. (I'm assuming probably from the older days, when there wasn't as much difference between the old PCs and the Liberals.) Political fatigue is a thing, and at some point, the Liberals are going to lose, and the Conservatives are going to win. (I still believe that if it wasn't for that extraordinary set of circumstances we had at the beginning of this year, the Conservatives would have won the election handily.)

So under this scenario, it's possible Poilievre will still be the leader of the CPC the next time an election rolls around, even if it is another four years down the road. By then Carney's honeymoon will be well over, and Trump will be gone (in a sane world, anyway, I guess we'll see what really happens). Carney is already alienating the NDP voters who loaned him their vote to block the CPC, as well as the more left-leaning liberal voters, by introducing legislation that doesn't seem that far off from what the CPC might have introduced. So there is absolutely no guarantee the Liberals win in 2029, and I personally don't want to take the chance that we come out of that election with Poilievre as prime minister. So if another floor-crossing now wil help weaken his position enough that he gets shown the door at the leadership review, I say go for it. Don't wait.

Granted, we have no idea who the Conservatives would pick as their new leader. I certainly don't want a Prime Minister Jamil Javani, Michelle Rempel Garner, or especially Danielle Smith (thanks for that nightmare fuel, @Timewalker ! ) either. Someone like Erin O'Toole would be preferrable, but no way the modern CPC votes him back in. As much as I dislike him, even Doug Ford would probably be preferrable to that lot!

My personal dream scenario is that too much infighting between the PC wing and the Reform wing of the CPC causes them to split back up. Splitting the right vote like that helps the left-leaning parties, and if the New PCs happened to win an election, while I wouldn't like it, it probably wouldn't be as bad as the modern CPC winning.

I didn't mean spot the typos. I meant political mistakes, like a cabinet minister using his office to preach to his constituents. Or pretending to be "Christian" when he voted to shred the AISH program that puts food on the tables and roofs over the heads of some of the students whose parents he just preached to. How does somebody who smugly proclaims himself Christian square all this so it makes sense? Some people will become homeless, including these kids.

Admittedly I took a bit of a dig at the non-Albertans here, out of frustration because of the anti-Alberta bigotry that tars all of us with Danielle Smith's extremist views and cozying up with the separatists.

Charlie Angus is all over YouTube, talking about a 300,000-member "citizens' army" and training all sorts of people. Even the disabled - apparently somebody like me would be useful in operating drones, though with my lousy vision and other medical issues, I wouldn't trust myself with anything like that.

And now there are other frustrations, like with the municipal elections we had in October. I can see both sides of the criticism, because I was both discriminated against by a poorly-trained Deputy Returning Officer and his supervisor, and I was a ballot counter who doesn't appreciate the people yapping about us taking bribes and cheating, when they have absolutely no clue what goes on during ballot counting. Everyone works with a partner, and there are multiple supervisors and scrutineers watching everything we do and listening to everything we say. Cheating would be impossible unless the entire room was in on it.

Add to this the frustration that WE weren't given stellar training, either. The ones leading the training should have had better training to do the training for us. It was a mess, and of course none of them thought to mention to us all the personal information we'd need to provide. I had to make a special trip because they didn't bother mentioning we'd have to provide a void blank cheque for direct deposit information (who carries cheques anymore?), plus our emergency contact information (mine doesn't even live in the same city as me; I don't have her phone number memorized or written down, so I had to ask if I could get all this to them another day, and the election office isn't at City Hall anymore).

(sorry, my politics-connected life is a mess lately and I'm partly just venting here)

Well, you only get as much as what you put out. I think not bothering is a huge part of the problem in getting voter apathy. I sure as heck wouldn't be voting for anyone who doesn't show themselves making an effort, because in the end, it reflects poorly on them and the community they want to represent. They really need to do better.

In a different life, I have a feeling I'd become a politician.

The thing is, people who just let their names be used like this don't actually want to represent the community. Remember Ruth-Ellen Brosseau, who was partying in Las Vegas on election night in 2015 and was shocked to get a phone call telling her to get herself back to her riding in Quebec because she'd just been elected as an NDP MP? She had quite the panic, because she'd let her name be used just to tick the box in her riding, never expecting to actually win. The real problem came when she realized that she'd been elected to a riding that was mostly francophone, and she didn't speak French.

She buckled down and learned, though, and made an effort to learn her job. She did well enough to be re-elected twice, and her constituents came to like and respect her. That would never happen here, with someone who just let their name be used as a placeholder.

 

[Ovation]

I don't know about spotting mistakes, but as an atheist, if my MPP sent me this, I'd probably have stopped reading after the first paragraph.

I don't know enough to know whether it reaches a level of illegality here in Ontario, but my personal feeling is that parliaments (both provincial and federal) should be secular. Members are, of course, able to hold whatever religious beliefs they like, but if they are communicating as a representative of a parliament (and especially as a representative of the governing party), then religious beliefs should be kept out of it.



I do have a concern about this, though. As unfathomable as it is to me, Poilievre seems very popular with his base. And there is a segment of the population who will just switch their vote between the Liberals and the Conservatives just because they're "tired" of the current party. (I'm assuming probably from the older days, when there wasn't as much difference between the old PCs and the Liberals.) Political fatigue is a thing, and at some point, the Liberals are going to lose, and the Conservatives are going to win. (I still believe that if it wasn't for that extraordinary set of circumstances we had at the beginning of this year, the Conservatives would have won the election handily.)

So under this scenario, it's possible Poilievre will still be the leader of the CPC the next time an election rolls around, even if it is another four years down the road. By then Carney's honeymoon will be well over, and Trump will be gone (in a sane world, anyway, I guess we'll see what really happens). Carney is already alienating the NDP voters who loaned him their vote to block the CPC, as well as the more left-leaning liberal voters, by introducing legislation that doesn't seem that far off from what the CPC might have introduced. So there is absolutely no guarantee the Liberals win in 2029, and I personally don't want to take the chance that we come out of that election with Poilievre as prime minister. So if another floor-crossing now wil help weaken his position enough that he gets shown the door at the leadership review, I say go for it. Don't wait.

Granted, we have no idea who the Conservatives would pick as their new leader. I certainly don't want a Prime Minister Jamil Javani, Michelle Rempel Garner, or especially Danielle Smith (thanks for that nightmare fuel, @Timewalker ! ) either. Someone like Erin O'Toole would be preferrable, but no way the modern CPC votes him back in. As much as I dislike him, even Doug Ford would probably be preferrable to that lot!

My personal dream scenario is that too much infighting between the PC wing and the Reform wing of the CPC causes them to split back up. Splitting the right vote like that helps the left-leaning parties, and if the New PCs happened to win an election, while I wouldn't like it, it probably wouldn't be as bad as the modern CPC winning.

The trends are not heading leftward in the short or medium term. Carney’s approach may be alienating the left-leaning electorate to a degree but that’s not an especially strong part of the overall population right now (otherwise the NDP would not have crumbled nearly as much as it did).

Also, no way Poilievre hangs on for another four years if more defections happen after the vote. But if there are no more, and a spring election happens, then Carney still lifts the Liberals over the hurdle with Poilievre as CPC leader. But Doug Ford? Someone out of Atlantic Canada? Risky. But I could be wrong.

 

[Avro Arrow]

(sorry, my politics-connected life is a mess lately and I'm partly just venting here)

No worries. Vent away. There's a lot of awful stuff going on, and those of you stuck under the UCP are certainly getting a bunch of it.

The trends are not heading leftward in the short or medium term. Carney’s approach may be alienating the left-leaning electorate to a degree but that’s not an especially strong part of the overall population right now (otherwise the NDP would not have crumbled nearly as much as it did).

Fair enough. Although I do think a fairly large contingent of NDP voters strategically voted Liberal in the last election because of circumstances, and I don't really know if they would be willing to do so again in the same numbers.

Also, no way Poilievre hangs on for another four years if more defections happen after the vote. But if there are no more, and a spring election happens, then Carney still lifts the Liberals over the hurdle with Poilievre as CPC leader. But Doug Ford? Someone out of Atlantic Canada? Risky. But I could be wrong.

As could I, of course. Predicting the future has never really been my strong suit. Admittedly, I tend to have a more pessimistic outlook over the last few years, and have lost a lot of faith in my fellow humans. I hope you're right that Carney still beats Poilievre if a spring election were to occur. But the fact that the LPC and the CPC are basically still in a statistical tie at the moment doesn't really make that a sure thing, in my mind. If Carney loses his left flank back to the NDP, do the red tories he picks up from the CPC make up for that? I don't know. I still tend to think that the Liberals only won last time due to a confluence of special circumstances that may not hold into next year. And I'd rather see Poilievre gone as soon as possible, than take the chance that the CPC manages to eke out an election win with him at the helm.

 

[Marc]

I still tend to think that the Liberals only won last time due to a confluence of special circumstances that may not hold into next year

yes it was definitely a win due to the special circumstances.

but poilievre's popularity (or lack there off there will continue). Said many times the only reason he and tories were in such a strong position was people were utterly sick of justin the boy blunder and that any other time he wouldn't have stood a chance. I think being up against a 3rd term trudeau was the big factor in why he decided to run for leader of the opposition when he did despite earlier opportunity.

And yes their cupboard is bare for leadership that's not the extremist conservatism out of alberta.

The problem that will face the liberals at the next election will be going into a 5th term and no matter how well they do and if country is in good shape it's still going to work against them.

Unless you've got a electorate where one party is firmly entrenched or without manipulation, most will swing back and fourth between left and right fairly regularly because people want some change.

The 2007 Australia federal election is a great example. You at most factors and the conservative gov would have been returned but they'd been in office for 11 years (Australian federal elections are every 3 years including the half senate) and looking at 4th term.

But people were sick of howard and the coalition got a beating (though not as bad as this year's election) and the lying rodent became the second P.M to lose his seat.

 

[Ovation]

And I'd rather see Poilievre gone as soon as possible, than take the chance that the CPC manages to eke out an election win with him at the helm.

Certainly I want Poilievre to go long before he can be PM. No question. But the scenario where a few more defections after his review remains, to me, ideal (weakens him and the CPC, forestalls election for a few years, etc.). But certainly if he topples sooner I won’t cry.

If there’s an early election, I’d rather see Carney v Poilievre again than a fresh CPC leader if only because Pierre is even more unpopular in Quebec and Atlantic Canada now than at the last election (which I think would offset any gains he could eke out in other regions). I think his loss last time was as close as he can ever get (dissent within his party has risen, not declined, and Ford will again be a restraining force in Ontario if Uncle Pierre is still the leader.

If a Liberal majority emerges, it’s very likely the Liberals will lose the next time around, for all the usual reasons after a long time governing. But by then, Pierre will be gone. That can only be a good thing.

 

[Set Harth]

justin the boy blunder

 

[Tim Walker]

Note the speculation beginning at about 14:00.

Offering a view from south of the border, I would have to say that U..S. statehood for Quebec is very unlikely. Consider an advantage of the old status quo-whatever issues that the rest of Canada has had with Quebec, the U.S. government has not had to deal with them.

For example, the status of the French language has not been an issue in U.S. politics.

The U.S. government could negotiate a bilateral trade deal with an independent Quebec, without having to deal with cultural issues.

 

[Owain Taggart]

The thing is, people who just let their names be used like this don't actually want to represent the community.

Then why the heck are they letting their names be used in the first place. That just sets a terrible precedent. These are the things that are part of the problem and this kind of thing should not be allowed. Frankly, if they can't put out, they should stay out. It's a terrible disservice to voters. Potted plants would have more personality. Yes, I remember your previous analogy. Oh look, you got me fired up!

 

[Ovation]

Note the speculation beginning at about 14:00.

Offering a view from south of the border, I would have to say that U..S. statehood for Quebec is very unlikely. Consider an advantage of the old status quo-whatever issues that the rest of Canada has had with Quebec, the U.S. government has not had to deal with them.

For example, the status of the French language has not been an issue in U.S. politics.

The U.S. government could negotiate a bilateral trade deal with an independent Quebec, without having to deal with cultural issues.

Um…no. Just…no. But please do share the name of the drugs that YouTuber is using.

 

[Tim Walker]

Ovation, I think that fellow is just very naive regarding (hypothetical) statehood for Quebec. Perhaps he is used to the idea of having to deal with Quebec. U.S. officials, however, are not, and after trying to negotiate with an independent Quebec, quickly realize that trying to include Quebec would be more trouble than its worth.