Defenestrate Them All: Canadian Politics 2021

And can anyone tell me what might have happened in Richmond to swing it blue to red??

to win it for the sex pest? great

I think Richmond is getting younger...but maybe Con rhetoric on China played a part too?

*Zooms in on Edmonton*

This mf named Brock Crocker pic.twitter.com/3HYuMLH7IB

— Will Burns (@wcburns) September 21, 2021

Curious about Kitchener Centre, which went to the Greens - is this mostly Wilfrid Laurier/UWaterloo students?

I don't feel like calling an election and hoping for a majority means that you have lost or failed if you only win a plurality of seats and form a minority government (especially in a five-party Parliament)? That people still see it that way says more about how much the LPC is still seen as the Natural Governing Party imo. Checking the voters' confidence after going through a major crisis actually seems to me like a reasonable thing to do for a minority government, even for non-power-grab reasons.

(Also still don't think winning a 34% plurality of the popular vote is a 'win'.)

I was in Kitchener two weeks ago and there were Morrice signs absolutely everywhere, so likely more than just the student vote.

What are the demographics of the riding like? I don't think I've ever been to Kitchener. I gather that the Liberal incumbent dropped out bc of sexual misconduct allegations so it became a three-way Tory/Green/NDP race?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/kitchener-centre-federal-election-race-1.6176985

Do the PCs usually win the popular vote? I find that a little troubling.

don't think the PCs have won the popular vote since 1988...

but Scheer only won it by 200K, and O'Toole's margin will probably be a lot smaller after they count a million or more mail-in ballots this week. it's more about running up 70% margins in every riding in rural Alberta than anything else. Still, guess the Liberals have only won the popular vote once since Paul Martin did it in 04.

Forming a minority government without a plurality of votes but with the support of other parties, with whose combined vote share you actually have majority support, seems completely fair and right to me, though. That's how I would expect things to work if we had a proportional system where representation was 100% in line with the popular vote. (And that's leaving aside that we vote for local representatives anyway, so there's no real 'popular vote' when ballots have different names on them in every riding - I voted for Yasir Naqvi, not for Justin Trudeau or the Liberal Party per se.)

yeah the popular vote is a meaningless concept in a parliamentary system. my hunch would be that the combined LIB+NDP+Green vote has been over 50% in every Federal election for a long long time, so whether conservatives get the most votes really doesn't matter.

Exactly. Why I’d prefer ranked ballots.

So I think it’s kind of crazy this Vuong guy, who was kicked out of the liberal party days before the election over a past sexual assault allegation, is refusing to step down.

Yeah, ranked ballots would be my preference too. Wonder if NDP/Greens can hold Libs to electoral reform this time around?

"Mostly" is an overstatement and I'm not sure what the last sentence was meant to be but I am curious about the discussion in the replies - people saying that some of those reliably NDP ridings (e.g. Timmins James Bay) are gradually trending away from them. Canada does seem different from a lot of similar countries in that there is still a not-insignificant subset of rural ridings (mostly ones with unionized blue-collar communities and large First Nations populations) that typically vote for the leftmost major party - I do wonder how long they will resist the rightward trend of rural demographics in other countries (or even other parts of this one).

The federal NDP is a young, woke urban party that gets seats mostly in rural ridings (Northern Ontario, Manitoba,BC). It's so weird.

The became they sell doesn't fit the ridings they win.

— Bryan Breguet (@2closetocall) September 22, 2021

i don't think so. wasn't even mentioned in the liberal platform (i don't think) – and if the other parties wanted to press the issue they would need the conservatives on board. which they will never, ever, in a million years be.

xpost

B-b-but they won the popular vote!

Who is Bryan Baguet?

Tooclosetocall guy: https://www.tooclosetocall.ca

The phrase “the became they sell doesn’t fit the tidings they win” is going to be lodged in my head for some time like a small rock in your shoe that you can’t ever quite find or dislodge.

lol what is that word even supposed to be

I'm guessing something like "the package they sell doesn't fit the ridings they win" but it's a guess.

I cannot figure out if there is a typo. All of the replies just rolling with it.

he has a thread on his feed about why the Tories would be smart to keep O'Toole for the next round that I thought was insightful. not that I hope they listen...

Well is it not self evident that he was able to sell a became that fended off a Liberal manifestation of a supermajority stemming from buying the becomings of so many people just left on the curb of a crisis?

lol

fair point

https://www.vice.com/en/article/93yp5d/supporters-of-maxime-bernier-and-peoples-party-of-canada-call-election-rigged

Not sure what to make of the return of the Michaels and likely exchange for Wangzhou. Obv it is good that they are home and seem unharmed. Does Trudeau deserve any credit for this or is it a matter of things working their way through the American courts?

who cares about these guys?!! they are probably spies, right? and given how many random people are unfairly imprisoned around the world every day of every year, why has so much ink been spilled on this?

well, we're speculating here, but this was most likely a biden/US-china deal, as he had mentioned it earlier in the year that he would pursue their release.

in case you've not been following the story, the chinese gov't sentenced michael spavor to 11 years of jail time in early august. the case hasn't been revisited since then, as far as i know, with no re-trial. the chinese gov't also said the michaels' arrest had nothing to do with meng wangzhou. yet as soon as wangzhou was returned to china, both michaels are returned to north america. this is some absurd, internet-level troll that i'd like to say is without precedent, but i'm sure china has done something like this before. i have no doubt the chinese gov't had a good chuckle out of all of this, and i think the CSIS would agree, which is why they decided to tweet this:

Welcome home, #Michaels 🇨🇦

— CSIS Canada (@csiscanada) September 25, 2021

also, like all things china, it's hard to really say what went on behind the scenes with the michaels, but just as a reminder, spavor is good friends with kim jong-un, north korea being china's close ally

the michaels' background is hardly mentioned in canadian news outlets, which i think may be because the US is behind trying to get as much support from north americans as possible for getting them back, possibly because they do have some insider information that may be useful to the US

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46552644

annamie paul out. the greens never even elected any antifa zionists

if May is the only one who can consistently get elected, why are they picking different leaders?

May resigned as leader two years ago (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elizabeth-may-green-party-leader-1.5346635) so it seems they have been flailing since. Paul actually seemed decent to me.

i joined the Green Party to vote for annamie for leader
ridiculous what happened to her

So apparently Alberta is holding a referendum tomorrow?: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-equalization-referendum-1.6214401
About a question that even Jason Kenney admits is pointless and purely for political leverage?:

The referendum on equalization is your chance to say yes for a fair deal.

This is an opportunity to tell Ottawa to take us seriously. pic.twitter.com/20CHNgrC1p

— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) October 17, 2021

Do people know much about the recent law in ON restricting spending on political advertising even outside of election campaigns? I can see some justification for restrictions on campaign funding but it seems odd that they would have needed the notwithstanding clause for this. The Star seems to think it's being used against small activist groups in a non-partisan, non-election-related context: https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2021/10/17/minister-in-ford-government-used-controversial-law-to-try-to-handcuff-grassroots-groups-fighting-to-stop-new-prison.html

So apparently Alberta is holding a referendum tomorrow?: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-equalization-referendum-1.6214401
About a question that even Jason Kenney admits is pointless and purely for political leverage?:

The referendum on equalization is your chance to say yes for a fair deal.

This is an opportunity to tell Ottawa to take us seriously. pic.twitter.com/20CHNgrC1p
— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) October 17, 2021
― Sequel to Sadness (Sund4r), Sunday, October 17, 2021 7:55 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I love this. so petty and meaningless. and despite the fact that probably most albertans have some kind of grievance about the issue, it might end up failing because of how unpopular Kenny is.

also cycling back: greens need to stop being the liberal party for people who really love "the nature of things" if they want to differentiate themselves enough to get voted for. although with the NDP we already have the quasi-meaningless, no-hoper "progressive" third party that is about the best they could ever hope to be

so petty and meaningless. and despite the fact that probably most albertans have some kind of grievance about the issue, it might end up failing because of how unpopular Kenny is.

Calgarian here -
My current councillor: taking over from Jeromy Farkas, basically the opposite from him in every way. And speaking of resounding rebukes, I'm very glad Farkas was so soundly defeated.
The councillor in my previous ward: this guy. I do wonder whether a lot of the votes for him came from early ballots, but that might just be wishful thinking.

Kourtney! \m/_

Yeah, Chu’s (extraordinarily narrow) victory basically shows up Ward 4 as the Alberta of Calgary.

What scares you most? We asked Canadians:https://t.co/nMEkSeoiPj pic.twitter.com/EaECQobqeN

— Angus Reid Institute (@angusreidorg) October 28, 2021

I like that Canadians equally fear "Trudeau/Canadian politics and government" and "Bad candy"

Bad candy is a decent description of Justin Trudeau

i feel like if you asked a thousand americans what scared them, no one would answer "nothing"

"Fear itself"--old transplanted Americans who voted for FDR in 1940. I wish Trump had finished right between spiders and snakes.

Find it hard to believe "pain" isn't on there.