Canadian Politics Thread

Thought I'd try this, throw some things out there (some that I've brought up on other threads), and see if there's enough interest to keep it going.

So after racking up our worst deficit ever (despite cutting some valuable and not-terribly-expensive services - clearly not as valuable as a $16B fighter jet contract), the Tories are claiming that the budget can be balanced in five years as long as we continue to make more spending cuts. I kind of tremble to think what those cuts might entail.

In other news, [Removed Illegal Link] and Ford are closing plants in Windsor, despite having received millions of dollars from our federal and provincial governments. I'm increasingly finding myself wanting to agree with radicals like Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, although I'm not sure how realistically some of those proposals would actually work. (Nationalizing the banks does seem a bit drastic right now.)

Finally, it's old news by now but scrapping the long-form census = sheer madness, right? Even the Western Standard's readers can't all get behind this.

Still, the Liberals do not seem to be successfully hammering the Tories on any of their bizarro decisions from the last few weeks, sadly.

Here was the 'illegal' link on the GM plant: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/windsor/story/2010/07/28/wdr-gm-plant-closing.html

Also I'm maybe 120 pages into John English's recent biography of Trudeau, Just Watch Me, and am really enjoying it.

Scrapping the long form census may or may not be a reasonable thing to do, but foisting this decision on StatsCan, rather than asking them to figure out "how else can we get the information that's needed" just seems like yet another attempt to create an instant wedge issue, to define/appeal to what the conservative party feels to be their base. I'm not sure whether "hammering" the Tories on this is the right way to go, as a tactic. Is that just helping them set the playing field on grounds of their choice? I did like the response from Charlie Angus of the NDP: "I’ve never gone into a Tim Hortons in Canada and had someone rail at me about big bad government spying on them with the census, but I am hearing this from Conservative cabinet ministers. I think the public is shaking its head."

Would like to read that bio of Trudeau. Any idea if the short one by Nino Ricci (in the Eminent Canadians series) is any good?

The census thing just seems like some random issue the conservatives came up with that nobody really cared about that will take up time and space in the media and overall political discourse instead of actual important stuff with real consequences.

B-b-but the long form census is an important statistical tool! Axing it has real consequences! Having that information is essential to e.g. my family member's work at CMHA. In order to make policy recommendations on things like access to transportation or health and community services in minority communities, you need to have accurate information about those communities and their current service needs. The Canadian Medical Association Journal opposes it on similar grounds.

Dan Gardner made some good points here.

Haven't read the Ricci book, sorry.

Maybe I'm romanticizing the past but reading about that time period can make it a bit depressing to consider today's political climate and reflect on how much we are undoing the progress made at that time.

http://news.sympatico.ctv.ca/home/day_says_new_prisons_needed_for_unreported_crimes/29bcad16

(Also, OK, I was romanticizing the past a little, esp now that I've read more on the RCMP's illegal investigations of the PQ and the feds' weak response. Still, great book. I actually never knew before that Trudeau offered Broadbent the chance to form a full coalition [with a majority govt!] with 5-6 cabinet seats after the 1980 election.)

yeah, Stockwell's a card, isn't he? I did read (somewhere) that one growing area of "unreported" crime is in identity theft or credit/debit card fraud. Is it the financial institutions who are not reporting it in this case? Can't think of too many other areas of unreported crime. I can't imagine someone not reporting an actual crime because "oh, it's not worth it, they'll get out in 6 months anyway, so why bother"...which is I think what Day's trying to imply here.

But, hmph...more prisons needed for that? More prisons needed to make the Party look tough on crime, blah, blah. Oh, and to ramp up fear of crime in the electorate, to push 'em towards voting for said Party.

TBH, I'm kind of amazed at how fiscally responsible the Conservatives haven't been. If nothing else, one thing I expected from a Conservative minority was fiscal restraint and a balanced budget.

Did anyone read the Maclean's article attacking the government's economic stimulus package for being poorly timed and just generally random and wasteful, without enough money going where it should? I don't entirely agree with everything in the article - and I'm generally in favour of some stimulus spending - but it does raise some worthwhile points.

It's good to see the CMA moving away from advocating two-tiered health care: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/08/03/cma-health-care.html

I'm a bit late to the party, but good thread. I've secretly wanted one of these for a while but didn't want to start it. What parts of Canada are you guys from?

Anyway some xposts and stuff,

"I’ve never gone into a Tim Hortons in Canada and had someone rail at me about big bad government spying on them with the census, but I am hearing this from Conservative cabinet ministers. I think the public is shaking its head."

Dude prb hasn't been to a Tim Hortons in AB, though. I worked for StatsCan during the last census and there are def people out there who get angry about it. It wasn't just long forms people hated either. Our dept received back a lot of incomplete short forms with only the most basic info (ie just first names, just birth years, or just genders). Occasionally people would write rants on the back of their forms about how much of a nuisance it was, how they thought the threat of prison was unnecessary and archaic, and how they didn't want to fill out the forms because the computer systems StatsCan used to compile/gather data was made by Lockheed Martin (!)

In Windsor since 2008. Grew up in Ottawa.

Recent poll suggests Conservative popularity is waning.

CBC on the premiers' summit. Some roads have been improved around here but I still feel like we could have seen much more in infrastructure by now. Charest raises questions about health care but not many answers seem to have been provided.

Yesterday's Globe editorial on Stockwell Day's prison plan.

You're in AB, salsa shark? Can you explain the Wild Rose Alliance? Their website didn't seem too scary but my friend in Edmonton describes them as something like a Tea Party North.

I'm in Toronto, spent many years in Ottawa. Mostly a lurker here, but hey! who among us can resist a Canadian politics thread! Perhaps someday we'll be as big as the US politics threads!

I'm just outside TO, lived in Canada since 2004 (originally from New Zealand).

I wrote to my MP about the census, the first time I've ever written to this dude. I understand people might find it a nuisance but really if that's all people have to get pissed off about then they should count themselves lucky imo. I use StatsCan in my job regularly, and that resource being compromised for no good reason will hold a lot more serious consequences for Canadians than the inconvenience of filling out a form.

Actually I don't think Wild Rose Alliance is as scary as Tea Party shit. As loathsome, flaccid, and south-of-Red Deer as Alberta Conservatives are, there is a less hysterical, less FOX News-fueled component to Albertan populism, one that doesn't resort to claiming that everything is somehow socialism, that the universities have been undermined by a Marxist Jewish conspiracy, and that their opponents were actually born in Africa or are somehow incarnations of Hitler, despite the comical irony of that. There are actually a good few places in Canada where I think it would be harder to be a brown kid in a classroom full of white faces than it would be in Alberta. Y'all read too much Toronto Star and La Presse.

I mean, sure, a lot of Wild Rosers probably think those things, but Alberta is just not that scary a place and Albertans are kind of dull, friendly people.

Alberta is also birthplace of the CCF/NDP. There is actually some deep seeded socialism in the Prairies that is often overlooked in the rush to paint all Prairie folk as red neck conservatives. Not that those don't exist.

Hm, I always thought the CCF started in SK because of the Regina Manifesto and Tommy Douglas. It does seem that you're right though. (I never thought of SK and MB as right-wing at all, actually.)

Also, just to be clear, I wasn't saying that all Westerners or Albertans are rednecks (at all!) or even that the Wild Rose Alliance are. I was just asking for more information about the Wild Rosers from someone in AB because what I'd heard about them sounded worse than what a scan of their web page suggested.

No worries, that wasn't really directed at you... more just a general observation having lived in the east and west. To be honest, I haven't lived in the Prairies for years and I'm not familiar with the Wild Rose Alliance.

i just always thought of the Wild Rose as a right wing alternative for people who didn't like the CPC.

TBH, I'm kind of amazed at how fiscally responsible the Conservatives haven't been. If nothing else, one thing I expected from a Conservative minority was fiscal restraint and a balanced budget.

i never expected them to do anything reasonable with Canadian's money. they are a party that is led by ideology, as opposed to say - pragmatism or logic or facts etc, and when it comes to ideology money is no object. Mulroney was a joke when it came to handling our finances and Jim Flaherty left Ontario with a hidden debt on his way out of office (iirc they outright fudged the numbers to make themselves look good for the election). i'm always a little amazed when i see the "conservatives are good at managing finances" old wives tale pop-up from time to time.

i saw this thing once - and cannot for the life of me find it now - where some journo surveyed provincial budgets (going back to i'm not sure when) and found that the party most prone to having it's books balanced was the NDP!

Yeah, the NDP governments in SK and MB have been known for their balanced budgets. Tommy Douglas made it a priority.

How did the deficit and debt grow so big under Mulroney? I've been wondering about this. Did taxes get lower? Was it debt financing? With Trudeau, I can at least see where the money went.

i'm not entirely sure. i know part of it was inherited - but he most certainly did not lower taxes!

He inherited a deficit and debt but after 8 years of majority governments in a relatively prosperous decade (at least compared to the 70s), you'd think an economic conservative could have made a dent in it instead of leaving us with our worst-ever pre-Harper deficit. I wonder if privatizing Crown corporations and taking the government out of resources or industry might have actually been a poor financial move. (Just speculating since I don't actually know the economics of the situations.) I also wonder how much was just lost due to things like corruption and patronage.

the crown corporation thing could be a factor. iirc Air Canada was a financial sink hole by the time it was sold tho.
i didn't think corruption was all that problematic back then, was it?

There's some discussion of the debt issue here: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=3318

The factor I should have remembered is that interest rates were jacked up in the 80s to combat inflation.

I wasn't being entirely serious about corruption but I did think about things like this: For example, he moved CF-18 servicing from Manitoba to Quebec in 1986, even though the Manitoba bid was lower and the company was better rated

Or the Airbus contract. Honestly, I doubt those sorts of things could have made a really significant impact on the debt though.

good thread!

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/08/06/the-press-gallery-making-the-liberal-party-seem-courageous-by-comparison/

That was a good link.

It was only yesterday that I realized that American federal income tax rates are actually more progressive than ours, even after Bush's cuts. Maybe you need to factor in deductions/credits as well as provincial vs state rates to get a true picture though.

I'm not sure who this guy is and some of his links don't work anymore but he looks at the deficit/debt question in a fairly detailed way.

This 2008 opinion piece from the Calgary Herald credits Mulroney for policies that ultimately lowered the deficit.

To partly defend Harper's govt, it does make some sense to run a deficit during a recession and to plan to lower it afterwards. Some of their spending/cutting choices do still seem questionable though.

Ontario govt ultimately shows no backbone on sex ed reforms.

This sounds good though.

So Omar Khadr's trial began yesterday. The government's refusal to bring him back to Canada despite his treatment at Guantanamo is truly shameful and inexcusable IMO.

The discussion on the US politics thread made me think it might be worth it to bring up Afghanistan here. I sometimes feel a bit alone in generally agreeing with Jack Layton's position on this and agreeing more strongly as the war drags on. Am I naive for wondering what anyone thinks the Canadian military can accomplish there in a combat role if the US military hasn't won the war by this point? I can see a valid role in humanitarian aid/rebuilding. Collaborating with a government (governments!) that tortures its detainees seems to undermine the whole principle of trying to establish human rights and democracy. The government's attitude towards the detainee issue has been appaling IMO.

More on the census:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/08/11/census-rae-liberals.html
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/08/11/census-mandatory-long-form-fight.html

oh hiii forgotten thread.

So, Ed Stelmach won't be running in the next Alberta election. Should make for a very interesting 12-18 months of politics there, with the conservative stronghold waning somewhat and the Wildrose Alliance threatening to split the right vote in the next election.

There's not actually any way that could lead to a Liberal or NDP government though, right? Are we looking at some sort of probable PC (minority?) government with Wildrose opposition?

Kind of loving the Bloc's latest stunt: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cough-up-arena-cash-or-kiss-quebec-votes-goodbye-bloc-tells-tories/article1882526/

Ignatieff appears to be following the time-tested Liberal strategy of campaigning from the left: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/michael-ignatieff-works-liberals-into-a-lather/article1882597/

Interestingly, the recent Conservative attack ads seem to be portraying Ignatieff the same way, as a "tax and spend Liberal", which is something I never thought about him. (Tbh, the ads are actually the first things to make me warm to Ignatieff!)

Ibbitson evaluates Harper's record, making some reasonable points: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/the-five-year-shadow-of-stephen-harper/article1878067/

I really highly doubt we'll see a Lib govt, let alone an NDP one, in AB anytime soon. At least there's potential for things to be shaken up a bit... only a bit, though, I would guess. It'll probably be one of those cases where people get really excited at the potential for change but in the end the conservatives will still get in with a decent majority. I'll be surprised if they don't lose at least a few seats in the process, though. And I'm very curious to see who comes forward for the Tory leadership.

not sure how Libs poll provincially in Alb compared to the NDP - but right now the only federal seat there not held by a Con belongs to the NDP. an NDP gov't would surprise me less than Lib right now. but seriously - that province is just going to go through the same motions of picking their next empty-suit conservative dictator.

this is a valiant lil' thread.

The AB legislature contains 8 (!) Liberals and 2 NDP members going by this site: http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mla_home

NDP support is pretty concentrated in Edmonton, I believe.

thank you for being unlazy enough to look that up for me.

looks like the Conservative propaganda has taken a toll on youtube! lookie what i found:

http://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx177/tupac-chopra/Picture1.png?t=1296103770

i "disliked" the video fwiw.

Apparently the next provincial election in Ontario is going to be fought over the price of beer.

http://www.b12partners.net/mt/Mckenzie_Bros.jpg

Still amazed that it's not legally possible to purchase a six-pack after 5pm on Sunday in Canada's largest city. Toronto, Toronto. Quebec and Alberta are the only good provinces.

Do you think the beer pricing issue has legs? It's a matter of 6.7 cents per beer. Anyway, it looks like the Liberals have been closing the gap (perhaps the reason Hudak is targeting this populist issue?):
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/adam-radwanski/polling-numbers-put-spring-in-ontario-liberals-step/article1892571/?service=mobile

Depending on how the NDP is feeling, we might still see a Liberal minority or accord in the next term.

What do you guys think of McGuinty's record? On the whole, I seem to be one of the few people who likes him. I think the Liberals have made major advances with the minimum wage ($10.25/h is quite impressive, compared to virtually any other jurisdiction on this landmass), community health centres (doubled in number), and green energy, as well as banning cosmetic pesticides. They've definitely made their mistakes though and their handling of G20 security was appalling. Hudak scares me tbh.

I'm a mindless, wishy-washy liberal, so McGuinty pretty much automatically has my vote. (My beer-drinking days are pretty much over, too, so they can't get my vote that way.) Shameful, but I pay far more attention to American politics than my own city, province, or country.

I agree with whoever-that-standup-comic was: Promise to bring back the stubby and win a majority!

Dragging cases of beer for blocks in the winter was pretty much a deal breaker for me ever staying in Ontario.

So... government in contempt of Parliament...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/03/21/pol-privilege-contempt.html#liveblog

I'll be very happy to go to vote if an election comes soon. Hopefully the NDP or Greens can field a decent candidate in my riding this time. Our MP, 4ndrew Saxt0n, doesn't have a top lip, and according to an insider I know, he wears tighty whiteys and sucks at hockey.

i wish those two parties would just fucking merge or something already.

And leave the Marijuana Party as the one you vote for instead of just spoiling your ballot?

Stalinist party all the way!

i wish those two parties would just fucking merge or something already.

NDP and Green? Why? They're not that similar ideologically and there would be little strategic advantage for the NDP in merging with a party that has never even won a seat in Parliament.

Thoughts on the Senate appointments? This is sort of the approach to the Senate that seemed to make the most sense to me for a while so it's refreshing to see Trudeau following through.

senate appointments seem fair enough, in line with what trudeau campaigned on. i would prefer the senate to be abolished but im sure im in the minority there.

so the budget. any thoughts? i don't really have many - glad they're spending some money, hope it has a positive effect on the economy.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trudeaus-first-budget-aims-to-spur-growth-with-29-billion-deficit/article29335996/

goodbye Tom

*crickets*

A mistake imo. Unfortunate election for him - had to follow the NDP's best ever election, which happened in a slump for the Libs, then fight against a strong Lib candidate while that party was in an upswing against the now hapless Conservatives. With hindsight they fumbled the policy stuff, but that only became truly apparent after they lost. Still got better results than Layton in his first election or two! And a good leader of the opposition and still the potential to get a lot of people behind him.

The stuff Mulcair said about Trudeau and Trump a couple of weeks ago--that Trudeau should join him in calling out Trump as a fascist--was, politically, either disingenuous, naive, or just stupid in the extreme.

What killed him in the election was his stance on the niqab. It turned off the Qubecers he was relying on for a large chunk of votes. Bad politics, but it was the right stance.

The denouncing trump thing is just dumb. I think he must have been scrambling for an issue to build himself up with.

The niqab explanation doesn't make sense to me. Why did Quebecers vote for the Liberals, then, who had the same stance?

Mulcair was a great Opposition leader but the NDP election campaign was pretty disappointing to me. By the end, I barely felt any connection to the party anymore. The balanced budget pledge was pretty foolish and unnecessary. As was discussed on this thread, it would have been hard to do that and implement a daycare programme without making serious cuts elsewhere. Otherwise, their policy priorities seemed to be virtually impossible (abolishing the Senate), trivial (a federal minimum wage that would only impact a tiny number of workers), or pointless ('pro-Quebec' policies about federalism that Quebecers didn't even care about anymore) to me. (A day care programme is probably a good idea but I'm not sure it should be done at the federal level.) On macroeconomic policy, there wasn't too much ideological distance between them and the Liberals anymore. I think someone new might revitalize the party.

I mean, idk, Mulcair does have strengths and it's possible that he could come around stronger for the next time. I'm not even really sure what the NDP is about at this point. The Greens probably offer a stronger left-of-centre critique these days?

the NDP policy platform was really confused and uninspiring, but in hindsight there was no stopping TrudeauGod so it doesn't really matter. can't see the libs losing too much ground the next election or two, so maybe it's best to let the lunatics run the asylum for a decade. i kinda hate Avi Lewis though

Also don't like Avi Lewis. Seems unlikely that he'd stand, or win. He's never been elected to anything has he?

The niqab explanation doesn't make sense to me. Why did Quebecers vote for the Liberals, then, who had the same stance?

for whatever reason the media zero'd in on Mulcair over this. i wasn't even sure of Trudeau's stance, tbh. and – those votes were the NDP's to lose going into the election – I don't doubt he'd have performed way better if he had the opposite stance.

dude, just imagine if mulcair had been anti-Niqab how much ppl would have shit on him

he'd have lost my vote...

Mine too, for sure, and it would have ripped the party apart. If anything, I thought JT made the stronger statement on this in the French debate. I can't believe that people in Quebec were unaware of Pierre Trudeau's son's position on a multiculturalism issue.

I have never been impressed by Avi Lewis but he is not likely to lead the NDP, is he??

This is disappointing, although the commenters are probably right that there is no real surprise: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberals-quietly-approved-arms-sale-to-saudis-in-april-documents/article29612233/

to me the bulk of the disapointment came from the balanced budget promises. the niqab thing was just noise (Quebec already answered that question indirectly with the precedent prov. elections) and did not affect my views on the NDP.

American politics was getting too combative and negative so I tuned back into Canadian politics for this: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-conservative-whip-1.3588407

sunny ways!

dear oh dear

lay off the meat and boxing trudeau

this is about the stupidest thing you can get in trouble for

love how they took a jab at harpo tho

also "I'm certainly someone who knows that sometimes it's a challenge to always be positive and be welcoming" is not something a pm should say

there was some safety talk from ndp mps that was a bit smh

trudeau is such a goof

don't mean to make light of the situation but my feeling is trudeau elbowing brosseau was an accident, but it was a consequence of not controlling whatever heartbreak he was having when he, of all things, wanted to hurry along the opposition whip (even i feel stupid writing this), and now the ndp mps are blowing this thing out of proportion

That sounds about right tbh.

I think he gave a good apology.

was it better than the komagata maru apology?

okay too early too early

I loled.

I'm a little puzzled why Gordon Brown couldn't walk around the pack of MPs. There was plenty of open aisle.

imagine being an oppo politician and having to act like you gaf about this

come on trudeau is basically jian gomeshi

The manufactured outrage around this is hard to swallow. And Brosseau acting all Celine Dion, choking back tears about how she was assaulted — by a self-purported feminist, no less! I was expecting something like the guy who elbowed the Trump protester in the face.

I'm a little puzzled why Gordon Brown couldn't walk around the pack of MPs. There was plenty of open aisle.

Was he trying to? My impression was that he and other MPs were sort of dawdling and chatting. I'm not entirely clear on what JT's issue was, whether it was just that for some reason, he wanted them to pick up the pace? If anything concerns me, it is more the way JT accosted Brown, which is Royal Galipeau level. Elbowing Brosseau was definitely unfortunate but almost definitely an accident, although it wouldn't have happened if JT hadn't lost his temper in the first place.

Lol, breakdown: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/what-happened-in-the-house-of-commons-a-scene-by-scene-look-at-trudeaus-confrontation

Looking forward to Oliver Stone's three-hour HoC.

Multiple elbowers!

Tom Mulcair:

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjE2ODEyOTU2NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTA5MjIzOA@@._V1_UY317_CR4,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

why did trudeau want to hurry things along? was brown trying to win over some votes against trudeau's assisted dying bill?

why did trudeau get in a word fight with mulcair? or was this just built-up anger from earlier this year?

i couldn't really give a shit. all this faux outrage is what's pissing me off. a bunch of jackass partisans acting like fucking children. their over reactions are dishonest to the point of being offensive. i think i'm done with the NDP. screw these clowns – when i saw how they were acting, I don't blame Trudeau one bit for losing his patience. i think most Canadians would have reacted way angrier if they were stuck in a room with that fucking behavior.

one dipshit conservative (Alberta) MP likened Trudeau's behaviour to that of a fucking drunk driver. that one had me livid. we just lost some friends of the family (almost an entire family – three very young children and a grandparent) to a drunk driver. i was kind of not-too concerned with what was going on until i saw that and totally lost all. fuck all these faux outrage assholes. i'm so fucking mad a bout that drunk driver comment. Elizabeth Fucking May is the only voice of reason here so far.

it's a step up from proroguing parliament

i think it was about the liberal attempt to make the parliament even more majoritarian...which while not as bad as proroguing, is not great: http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2016/05/19/Parliamentary-Brawl-101/

trudeau would have been so self-righteous if harper ever pulled anything like this

Elizabeth Fucking May is the only voice of reason here so far.

Agree with this btw.

Still working out what I think of the actual assisted dying bill (which seems to have gotten forgotten in all of this).

so the senate, rightly as far as actually complying with the SCC ruling, wants to amend the assisted dying bill so that it is available to people who are not necessarily close to death, and trudeau gov and jody wilson-raybould the justice minister (and mp for my riding) are not too happy.

also electoral reform, what the heck is happening with that?

i am personally a fan of mixed-member proportional representation but that would p much guarantee that neither of the big two parties would ever have a majority government so that will never happen

i haven't followed the assisted dying bill's journey at all. most of my attention when it comes to can pol news has been focused on ridiculousness of vancouver's and toronto's housing market.

I feel like im burned out on the housing market stuff living here in Vancouver as it justs dominates so much airtime and column inches. I know I will never be able to afford to buy here, luckily for me im not from here, nor do I want to live here long-term. I do feel awful for the people that I meet who grew up in Vancouver and can't hope to remain in the city if they want to be a homeowner.

Also obv there's homelessness crisis, which is just getting worse, and the affordability of renting, which isn't exactly great either (tho tbh the rent prices while steep are not as exorbitant/crazy as prices of buying real estate) and these things are not unrelated to the housing market. also the sheer amount of poor people on assistance who have the most abominable housing (rat and bedbug infested SRO rooms for $450 pcm)and pay half their monthly welfare check :/ but no level of government is going to do anything about that, as that would involve building livable social housing (and I guess the crazy real estate prices don't help in securing land for such housing).

I have real misgivings about any policy (including the current status quo) that allows assisted suicide for some people but not others, on the grounds of disability.

STV is probably my preferred voting system but I think people are realising (as we did years ago on this thread) that reforming the electoral system might likely require a constitutional amendment.

Time for a new thread? There are over 2000 posts on this one.

Makes sense. New(ish) government, new thread.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-now-the-second-biggest-arms-exporter-to-middle-east-data-show/article30459788/

utterly disgusted by this

sunny ways

Because It's 2016: Canadian Politics in Sunnier Days