Dynasty, s3: Canadian Politics 2018

I don't passionately care about the sex-ed issue for reasons I won't get into here, but I of course think Ford's being ridiculous and meddlesome. Just got an e-mail saying that ETFO's basically telling us to pay no mind.

"ETFO strongly denounces the government's decision and advises members to continue to exercise their professional judgement when it comes to teaching all sections of the 2015 curriculum...ETFO will vigorously defend members who continue to follow the 2015 Health Curriculum."

Pretty sure teachers will also ignore him when it comes to the social studies curriculum. Love it--take a hike, son.

Quebec's election season starts on August 23rd.

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canada-is-one-of-the-most-socially-mobile-countries-in-the-world-heres-why/

It says more about the 34 other countries than Canada.

That's interesting. I didn't expect that, to be honest, but it's good to know. Hope this Premier isn't able to foul that up too badly. I'm looking forward to reading more of the OECD study.

I'm not surprised. Let's check in again after the next global recession - the one we don't dodge.

who is going to win the quebec election? god we are so fucked

http://blog.qc125.com/ for polls might be one of your best sources Sym.

And it sounds like it's going to be abhorrent CAQ. But the Liberals are very very good at elections.

took me an embarrassingly long time to parse the Liberal logo as an L

But the Liberals are very very good at elections.

literally the only thing

Well they just might be the only party with 5+ seats that gives a damn about immigrants.

But the Liberals are very very good at elections.

What I still thought going into the lasr ON election

*last

Ontario liberals don't have the weaponized referendum boogeyman.

Well they just might be the only party with 5+ seats that gives a damn about immigrants.

iirc the # of immigrants we take in is pretty minor compared to many other countries? (not disputing that the Tories are worse on this)

VHS's comment still seems fair in the context of Quebec Liberals vs other Quebec provincial parties.

Yes.

21% of Canadian population is foreign-born + the second generations of immigrants like me that straddle the lines between home culture + Canadian culture, so you are looking at a pretty substantial % of the population being potentially targeted by xenophobia like Bernier's, the CAQ's or the PQ's. On top of that you have ethnic groups that are bound to be considered like 'foreign' by these racists no matter how many decades their family have been Canadian citizens, which **sigh**. If we want to talk about how many immigrants Canada is taking, by 2015 we did better when compared to most other western nations, in both percentage and straight numbers. Stats here: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimates15.shtml

Now I haven't checked how many of those immigrants live in the province of Quebec vs the other provinces but sadly the # of immigrants we take in is irrelevant at this point? What matters is how much noise the Le Pen-inspired nationalists/Quebecor media consortium is making about the 'non-quebecois' population and how it will impact their lives on a daily basis. The PLQ has been explicitly protecting their cause vis a vis of the nationalist who have been slowly and steadily escalating their rhetorics against 'foreign culture' and playing footsies with straight racist organized groups like la Meute. The famous PLQ face veil ban from a year ago is an obvious punt to the courts they did not care about and did little to calm the xenophobic anxieties. Couillard knew and knows it can't be legislated, that it can't survive the legal challenges it faces. So he did the strict minimum to make it die a slow death and make everyone look xenophobic as shit. Problem is the Journal de Montreal columnist and many nationalists don't give a shit about looking xenophobic anymore. And let's not paint the PLQ as champions either, they just happen to realize that the 'ethnic vote' is a vote nonetheless and that it was up for grabs since that odious term first entered the mainstream on that 1995 night.They mostly been in power since 2003 and systemic racism is still the MO and they did little to change that, even if it is unquestionable they remain the better option for anyone feeling excluded from the Pure Laine nation.

Lots of it is circumstantial but the Quebec economy is doing better than ever, and the famous welfare state that is the envy of the other provinces is still largely the same. Taxes have been reduced, the debt has been reduced, new hospitals have been built, rent is manageable, none of that is perfect but this is simply not a line of attack the opposition can use: 1. the CAQ promises the same kind of soft austerity that will work for as long as Canada GDP is growing by 3% and the Canadian dollar is not staged for Alberta only, 2. the PQ is still remembered as the great debt creator/have a raison d'être that has little to do with the economy and financial well being of the citizens, 3. sadly Quebec Solidaire has a hard time convincing the most-taxed population in North America... to pay more taxes. So basically this election cycle will be mostly about cultural stuff and the main cultural debate shifted from for and against sovereignty to for and against immigration.

Basically what that means is that we might be stuck between a Montreal-centred PLQ that is insanely corrupt and balances between hard and soft austerity for the pleasure of Power Corp, Bombardier and Couche-Tard and a rural/suburban oriented CAQ that think Islam can't exist in a democracy and balances between... hard and soft austerity for the pleasure of Power Corp, Bombardier and Couche-Tard.

I look at Notley and Horwath with great envy.

Also my go to vote in this fuckin provincial mess was the weed legalization dudes but obviously that isn't an option anymore.

Merci Justin.

thanks VHS, booming post. Quebec politics are hard to get my head around

thanks Sym, ILX might be my outlet for these things up until October 1st.

For anyone interested, there will be an english debate for the Quebec provincial elections (for the first time ever).

If anyone feel like I've hijacked the thread I'll make a specific one for the prov. elections.

this thread is pretty hijackable imo

well quebec is part of canada and this thread is hardly so busy as to require splintering threads to keep it on topic or something so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yeah keep it here so we don't feel bad using this thread to bitch about bc and vancouver politix

lol sounds good

co-sign on keeping it all in here

a separate thread for quebec?

http://104.236.16.159/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/Referendum.jpg

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-government-says-it-will-discipline-teachers-who-dont-follow/

What's extra good about this is he's making it anonymous. Because it's not like a grade 7 or 8 student who's angry at a teacher for some reason would ever abuse it.

Ugh and wow

Heh, for a second I thought you were referring to this unsurprising piece of 'breaking' news, Sund4r (maybe you secretly were):

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-maxime-bernier-to-make-announcement-ahead-of-conservative-convention/

fits both! justin's going to be PM for the next 50 years

i'm ambivalent.

on the one hand: vote splitting on the right, potentially nullifies them as a political force under first past the post.

on the other hand: there is a good chance this results in a mainstream far-right federal political party with parliamentary representation

Former Harper policy director:

I hope Justin Trudeau and his cabinet colleagues are breaking out the champagne in Nanaimo this morning. Congratulations to @gmbutts & co. who have secured an easy win in 2019 despite a mostly terrible summer.

— Rachel Curran (@reicurran) August 23, 2018

Hey Maxime ..remember how I challenged you in an email? Remember how you blamed it all on people around you and how you apologized profusely? How you said you were committed to our team? Wow. You are such a 🐔💩.

— Todd Doherty (@ToddDohertyMP) August 23, 2018

Took me a while to understand he meant chicken shit.

We should probably set up a separate thread for Ford:

http://www.blogto.com/city/2018/08/doug-ford-climate-change/

no pipeline! there probably wasn't anything better for trudeau to have spent $4.5 billion on

Does it spell the end of it for sure?

no? but I don't think there's a clear path to getting it built anymore

I'm delighted. eat my shit, trudeau!

Can this affect whether the sale goes through?

Hopefully every time this govt talks about reconciliation someone will be wise enough to remind them they tried to pass a pipeline without consulting the FN people.

God bless the National Observer

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/08/08/analysis/kinder-morgan-just-told-its-shareholders-how-it-persuaded-trudeau-government-pay

As predicted by everyone the CAQ was ramped the xenophobic rhetoric: yesterday it was Legault claiming that 'our grandchildren won't speak french' if immigration continues the way it does. Today, he announces a program in which immigrants would have 3 years to learn french or else they would have the leave. But he doesn't want to call it deportation juuuust yet. The first has no data or evidence at all, as always with the white genocide argument. The second might never be possible because Quebec is part of Canada, still it's vile, just completely vile. I am stunned.

All of which would be whatever if Legault was a marginal candidate, but he is still comfortably leading the polls despite blunders (those blunders are not related to his xenophobia remarks). All of which would be whatever too if I saw a passionate response to this from Quebec media, or heck even Canadian, but it seems like it only gathers a collective shrug.

Also the young Montreal anglo who happens to not give two damns about Quebec politics but can name every chair of the SCOTUS is my new pet peeve (unless said young Montreal anglo is american).

thought i just had while inventing the stupid word "ilxit" for my dn--

brexit is not that clever, but quebexit would have been. did anyone use this phrase in either of the referendum years?

Nope

So Doug Ford just decided to suspend the charter.

how is this shit legal