Because It's 2016: Canadian Politics in Sunnier Days

the environmental stuff is especially enraging for me.

Trudeau's congratulation statement was pretty bad

Jesse Brown ‏@JesseBrown 49m49 minutes ago
You didn't do *anything* so stfu that you are #proudtobecanadian

had a nightmare that bc was a russian oblast

climate policy will be pretty negatively affected i would say

keystone xl is not popular in bc (have some friends who are in favour of it though), so this will be another long fight

nafta is the most interesting, because canada actually stands to gain something from it

thing about nafta: trump talks about renegotiating it or scrapping it entirely but international treaties while chiefly undertaken on the president's behest and negotiated by him have to be confirmed by the senate, surely the senate republicans aren't going to go against free trade? (shouldn't assume anything i suppose)

that's my thinking but ya i guess everything's up in the air right now

I still can't understand why all the Mexicans came to the USA if all the jobs went to Mexico

Duh, to rape.

Reagan's famous shining city upon a hill is now...Hamilton?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-trump-visit-canada-1.3845013

I'm happy with this. To hell with my lofty urban principles. I don't want the canadian economy to suffer more than it should have.

at least they agree on keystone xl

Ugh: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/11/09/trumps-win-an-exciting-message-thats-needed-in-canada-kellie-leitch-says.html

the environmental stuff is especially enraging for me.

not sure that trying to out-harper harper on xenophobia is going to do her many favours

also kellie leith is p much the definition of an elite

Khristinn Kellie Leitch PC OOnt MP, orthopaedic surgeon, former think tank chair

more dangerous than Leitch is that the lots of Quebec nationalists are very much into the Trump/LePen rhetoric and think this is the key to having their own country.

after Tuesday, I'm 100% certain it could happen.

Yeah. I'm feeling very much like I need to get more engaged with Canadian politics after this.

ha

let quebec proceed with seceding and we'll cut them off of everything the rest of canada has but what they want even after seceding. if they want it, they get taxed and exporting to them is treated like all other foreign countries. their main trading partner is the us so they can negotiate something with trump. ha! would love to see that. they won't survive a day

young quebecers are not particularly stoked on independence in general to?and the main goals of the sovereignty movement - protect french, put francophones in power - have been accomplished. yes I'm sure there will be, as there already is, white nationalist movements in quebec, but i wouldn't really worry about it, at all, as something that will gain prominence or get anywhere near power or mainstream influence

The PQ and BQ already had that element but idk, is there really much appetite for separatism in Quebec? Both parties have been routed in their respective elections. Quebec has what might its most federalist provincial government in ages and, on the federal level, came back to the Trudeaus' party for the first time in three decades.
xp!

I guess the worry is that they have to vote Liberals out at some point and we don't want the PQ to become more Trump/LePen-like?

ha

let quebec proceed with seceding and we'll cut them off of everything the rest of canada has but what they want even after seceding. if they want it, they get taxed and exporting to them is treated like all other foreign countries. their main trading partner is the us so they can negotiate something with trump. ha! would love to see that. they won't survive a day

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Thursday, November 10, 2016 12:47 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah having two lost generations of fellow citizens is certainly worth the laugh....

I guess the worry is that they have to vote Liberals out at some point and we don't want the PQ to become more Trump/LePen-like?

― Spiritual Hat Minimalism (Sund4r), Thursday, November 10, 2016 12:54 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes exactly. so far there is no viable alternative between an increasingly xenophobic party and a corrupted to the core one.

speaking sarcastically there

quebec seceding will never happen but it's pretty upsetting when it comes up

in a world in which Donald Trump is president, Quebec can secede.

i'm open to reading literature that demonstrates quebec can *successfully* secede, if you've got them

you just need a successful referendum for the situation to devolved into a massive shit storm for everyone involved. but go ahead, take things for granted, I decided never to do it again.

comparing a secession to electing trump is comparing apples and oranges

*successful* was the keyword up there

i appreciate the cautionary tone, but i googled "can quebec successfully secede from canada"

here are some simply practical problems for quebec seceding:

https://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Canada-let-Quebec-secede

the last two referenda, quebecers have preferred to stay, and last i heard (maybe a few years ago admittedly) i haven't heard any strong desire for another referendum. but let's say they did choose to, the rest of canada would have to be willing to negotiate such a secession. your view is of a city crumbling in chaos suddenly, which i guess could happen theoretically, and sure, we should never take a united canada for granted, but i don't see a secession happening any time soon. and there would be symptoms of it coming to fruition, which i like to believe the rest of us would disseminate, if ever it reached that point

i haven't heard any strong desire for another referendum. but let's say they did choose to, the rest of canada would have to be willing to negotiate such a secession.

I mean, it's mostly an academic question at this point, but I think we'd do that, unless you'd be willing to send troops to Quebec.

sure, but i just can't get my head around how they would solve the other practical issues. especially as brexit has shown how deeply complex it is and, as someone said in the quora link, crimea

anything is possible,

good luck splitting montreal in half in a berlin-during-the-cold-war fashion tho. but yeah, there is limited desire for quebec sovereignty right now let's freak out about the real shit coming down the pipe - as uncertain as the nature of that shit is.

The question on the Quora page was pretty dumb, as pointed out by subsequent comments, and a lot of those 'practical' issues don't seem insurmountable to me. The national debt question is the only one I would take especially seriously. The question about the divisibility of Quebec, and FN treaties, seem most serious to me. Otherwise, banks and TV networks are private institutions anyway; presumably Radio-Canada would separate from the Ceeb. Connecting the two remaining halves of Canada would be pretty manageable: mainland Americans manage to make it to Alaska and vice versa. Issues about citizenship rules or where to locate customs posts are the sorts of things any new country has to handle, and they usually manage to figure those things out. Obviously, if Quebec became independent, it would set its own immigration rules. A new Quebec government would have no obligation to employ former Canadian civil servants as Quebec civil servants but they might well be the right people for the job.

"What about the roughly 1 million French speaking people in Canada who don't live in Quebec, and the roughly 1 million English speaking people who do"

The national debt question is the only one I would take especially seriously. The question about the divisibility of Quebec, and FN treaties, seem most serious to me.

Uh, to clarify this, the latter issues, about whether Quebec would also be divisible, especially given unceded FN land, or land that was ceded under treaties to the Crown, are the most serious issues imo, but they are not even touched on in the first response.

"What about the roughly 1 million French speaking people in Canada who don't live in Quebec, and the roughly 1 million English speaking people who do"

This is just dumb. There are already lots of speakers of minority languages in the country, and in many other countries, and they seem to get by.
― Spiritual Hat Minimalism (Sund4r), Thursday, November 10, 2016 12:27 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there are a few things you don't seem to understand or you take them very lightly, but what he is referring to is that would those french-speakers be considered quebec citizens and not canadian citizens? both? canadian citizens and not quebec citizens? what about casting their vote, before and after the referendum, etc.?

furthermore, how can a government represent you when you did not vote for it or have a say in the referendum?

Presumably, people who were official residents of Quebec prior to a referendum would become Quebec citizens and people who were not would not, regardless of their first language. Afaik, QC residents vote in referenda and non-residents do not. Why would a francophone in Edmonton be considered a Quebec citizen just because they speak French? You're right that I don't understand this and take it lightly.

I mean, there might be a transitional period when a QC government would decide to fast-track immigration of Canadian francophones or vice versa.

Under the category of 'shit I'd've been LOLing over if I'd read it prior to Tuesday':

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/sam-oosterhoff-ontario-pc-candidate-niagara-west-glanbrook-1.3818897

Sam Oosterhoff could soon become the MPP for Niagara's wine country, and he's barely old enough to drink (legally).

Oosterhoff, 19, is the Progressive Conservative candidate in the Nov. 17 byelection in Niagara West-Glanbrook. If he wins, he will become the youngest MPP in Ontario's history.

[. . .]

Oosterhoff's Facebook likes include the "We can end abortion" community and the Libertarian Christian Institute — as well as the indie bands Imagine Dragons and Death Cab for Cutie.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/11/11/if-donald-trump-kills-nafta-canada-could-benefit-walkom.html

i have mixed feelings about remembrance day. if it were only about the world wars, they would be less mixed

but anyway, cohen reciting in flanders fields: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2016/11/11/listen-to-leonard-cohen-recite-in-flanders-fields.html

It's coming here too; we have to get coherent. While most Canadians tend to act with fundamental decency, it's in large part a culturally enforced characteristic, and you don't have to scratch too deeply below the surface of most white Canucks to expose xenophobia. Most people I talk to - and myself as well - are probably better informed about US politics and culture than Canadian, many admire and emulate American "freedom" and ideological individualism, and we seem to pretty consistently lag US social and political trends by a few years, bringing in Mulroney after Reagan, Chrétien pretty much concurrently with Clinton, Harper after Bush, Trudeau after Obama. The coming years will be a battle for the hearts & minds of swing voters (i.e. most of the population) especially if the "alt"-right gains mainstream traction in the US and Europe as it seems likely to. Under that polite surface there's a lot of incoherent fear and resentment. I think the strength of institutions will prevent us from electing a real demagogue, but our values are in more peril than I hear anyone admitting and I could see us becoming a Vichy-type lapdog state under a new Harper without too much resistance.

otm dilettante. we better engage with the white middle class now before it's too late, and all the while continue to fight for indigenous and environmental rights. it's seems like a tight rope to walk but we can do it.

I mean, Rob Ford happened in Toronto. Pauline Marois happened in Quebec. Canada isn't immune to what happened on Nov. 8.

whats his name, jason kenney, ffs, managed to convince vast numbers of non-white canadian immigrants to vote for the most anti-non-white-canadians party. i still shudder when i think about the words "old stock"

http://www.homedouglas.com/bbc/collection/e/extra-old-stock-1988/extra-old-stock-1988.jpg
Ruined my ironic shitty beer of choice forever.

also kellie leith is p much the definition of an elite

― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 10 November 2016 12:20 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Khristinn Kellie Leitch PC OOnt MP, orthopaedic surgeon, former think tank chair

― harold melvin and the bluetones (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 10 November 2016 12:23 (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Does the American anti-intellectual/anti-'elite'/'I could have a beer with him' tendency have the same kind of currency in Canadian politics? Rob Ford is the only major example I can think of; maybe Ralph Klein? Generally, my impression was that Canadians prefer their leaders to be elitist, arrogant assholes.

Re the Walkom, I'm also sort of curious about NAFTA. As I said on the US thread, I have concerns about the way corporations have been able to sue the Canadian government over environmental legislation.

But, yeah, to be clear, I totally agree that Leitch is being ridiculously hypocritical about "out of touch elites".

That strain is very much alive at a grassroots level, but I think the structure of our system really works against maverick schlubs gooning their way to the top. I work among lots of folks who look enviously over the border at Trump, the Nevada militias, direct democracy, redneck pride, anti-PCorrectness, etc. Lots of provincial-level politicians in the West esp during the heyday of the Alliance moment were way more aligned with anti-elitism than with traditional Toryism. I do think we're a bit insulated from a tidal wave of it by our institutions but there's no question it's a force - & going to be a larger one as time goes on.

Cult of personality (related phenom) very much alive in Can. Politics today (probably an inescapable feature of modern politics going forward, actually). Klein a great example, but not too much of a stretch to Notley and Trudeau "seeming like really nice people" or "something about Mulcair just rubs me the wrong way" (whereas Layton's NDP with the same platform would have done much better in the popular vote) or how much Calgarians idolize Nenshi - very little of their approbation or dislike seems to have much to do with policy (in general) & way more to do with charisma. Criticism of policy often seems more a justification for personal feelings about the projected image than real ideological disagreement.

I can't explain a decade of lizard-mask Harper by thiat theory at all, so yeah it breaks down at some point.

Not saying that personality/charisma are unimportant but does Trudeau's charisma come from anyone imagining he could have a beer and watch the game with them in Timmins? I thought he had more of a Prince Charming thing going on, and his father was the epitome of the elite by any definition.

that being said, i remain extremely pessimistic as to how Quebec nationalist parties will distance themselves from the increasingly racist and xenophobic sections of the population.

it might surprise you to learn some of the most important figures in quebec nationalism are pretty fuckin outspoken on this issue:
http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/e9020f7c-0021-4659-a972-e2908ac6db6b%7C_0.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/jean-francois-lisee-racism-immigration-burqas-1.3785382

though "systemic racism" aside, of course lisée's still on his party's fuckin anti-burqa tip

i still think there is a large degree of separation between PQ/Lisée/Drainville and organisations like Atalante Québec and lol La Fédération des Québécois de Souche (Federation of pure-bred Québécois, kid you not). i don't think the PQ are as openly xenophobic as those proper french alt-right organisations, nor do they live in the same sphere of politics. the same way John McCain and the american alt-right are not exactly the same battle. the question now is how influent one will try to be on the other in the coming elections, because yeah, PQ will use the white nationalism card for sure.

I c&p-ed the discussion to the 2017 thread: Canadian Politics 2017: I've Got a Pipeline Straight to the Heart of You

thanks sund4r!

My union joins in:

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-elementary-teachers-union-calls-for-renaming-john-a-macdonald-schools

I used to supply at one of the (what I take to be many) Sir John A.s occasionally.

Moved it to the 2017 thread:

Canadian Politics 2017: I've Got a Pipeline Straight to the Heart of You