Canada Votes, 2019

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So it seems the NDP are in trouble. Low poll numbers and they seem to have slacked on nominating candidates. While the CPC have candidates in all 338 ridings and the Liberals and Greens are getting close, the NDP are only covered in 175/338 ridings. Even the small, upstart People's Party are over 300 now. And the New Democrats have now lost 14 potential candidates in New Brunswick, former provincial candidates who have publicly backed the Greens instead. So, will the story of this election be the NDP f'ing up? I mean, seriously, the election date has been known for years due to the fixed date law and the deadline for dropping the writ (which can be dropped any time between September 1 and 15 under current rules) is similarly no secret. Why the hell are they so far behind with a campaign looming?

Poll-wise, the CPC and Liberals continue to be in a statistical tie, though some analysts suggest that the Liberals growing strength in seat-rich provinces like Ontario gives them an edge. The NDP and Greens lag well behind but, given the tight race between the leaders, it is likely that one or both will end up holding the balance of power in a minority. The Bloc seem to be coming back, at least a bit, in Quebec as voters there abandon the NDP for them and the Liberals. The new People's party remains a rump party for now and hopefully stays that way given how much their leader has been espousing alt-right views (2.6% is one number I heard).
 
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Why Bernier should be relegated to the political rump asap:


I mean, it's one thing to disagree with Thunberg and other climate change activists. It is quite another to openly attack them and encourage others to do the same. In a world that is wrestling with social media bullying, here we have a political leader actively engaging in and encouraging it.
 
If you look at recent polls the NDP is all over the map - I've seen them anywhere from 7% to 18%. The other parties are roughly stable. LPC and CPC at about 33-35%, Greens at about 10%, PPC down at 2-3%. But NDP polling numbers are weird.

Personally, I think Jagmeet Singh was a disastrous choice as leader. Why the NDP - who had credible leadership candidates from within their caucus (Charlie Angus, Niki Ashton, Alexandre Boulerice, even Ruth Ellen Brosseau) - would turn to a provincial MPP from Ontario who wasn't even really particularly well known in Ontario and think he would make a good national leader is beyond me.
 
I believe it was Sam Johnson who said intelligence is beyond the human will! Kind've out of it ... right?

How did we get such a dose of passion?

Then impassivity is strongly rejected ... enough to make the hidden powers rage!
 
Who ever handles Trudeau and thought an interview with a US comedian was a great idea should lose their job. Wow. How terrible he looked. I don’t like him much but I cringed watching him flounder
 
Who ever handles Trudeau and thought an interview with a US comedian was a great idea should lose their job. Wow. How terrible he looked. I don’t like him much but I cringed watching him flounder

Justin is simply not up to going to toe-to-toe with someone like that. He does not really handle confrontation or even tough questioning very well. He did okay in the debates four years ago but he wasn't exactly up against a tough field. I doubt he would have lasted long against a Chretien or Mulroney. Or, dare I say it, his father. That doesn't mean he can't be PM, but it does mean he needs to recognize his limitations as a leader and work with them rather than trying to shoot too far past them.

And, again this election, he's not exactly facing a tough field. None of them are barnburners that I have seen (with one proviso that will follow). Scheer isn't even up to Harper's level, May is a good speaker but just okay at debating. That said, I have no idea how Singh is in a debate. I didn't follow the NDP leadership race so haven't seen him in action yet.
 
If you look at recent polls the NDP is all over the map - I've seen them anywhere from 7% to 18%. The other parties are roughly stable. LPC and CPC at about 33-35%, Greens at about 10%, PPC down at 2-3%. But NDP polling numbers are weird.

Personally, I think Jagmeet Singh was a disastrous choice as leader. Why the NDP - who had credible leadership candidates from within their caucus (Charlie Angus, Niki Ashton, Alexandre Boulerice, even Ruth Ellen Brosseau) - would turn to a provincial MPP from Ontario who wasn't even really particularly well known in Ontario and think he would make a good national leader is beyond me.

On the first issue, polls take a relatively small sample, which means they are relatively accurate for larger parties because their numbers are good. Support for the Greens and PPP is also relatively easy to sample because it is fairly even across the country, with the exception of Elizabeth May and a couple of surrounding ridings. Same thing for the Bloc québécois that has a fairly even support throughout Québec outside of Montréal and Québec CIty. For the NDP, support seems to be concentrated in a few ridings, so polling looks great if many interviewed people are from one of the 5 or 6 stars, or dismal if interviewees are taken outside of these ridings.

As for the NDP leader, we currently have party leaders chosen with deficient rules. For as long as I remember, political parties have allowed membership candidates to recruit new members after leadership campaigns have started. This flawed rule wasn't so bad when leaders were elected by delegates because it provided some kind of safety valve (it created a lot of other problems). But now, a leader has to recruit members, or in the case of federal Liberals, sympathisers, who will vote for the leader. Some races have been with points per riding (ex.: the Conservative leadership campaign), while others were with one member one vote (NDP) or one sympathiser one vote (Liberal). From data that was published shortly after he became leader, Jagmeet Singh used the system the best he could, as he spent a lot of energy in the Brampton and Surry areas where he recruited lots of members and LOTS of money.

Unfortunately for him, all Canadians have the right to vote at a general election. And unfortunately for the NDP and the Greens, and fortunately for the Conservative (mostly) and Liberals, young adults vote much less than seniors.
 
As for the NDP...Singh seems like a decent guy, he’s a face for diversity, too - I’m sure that was taken into consideration. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just not garnering any attention. He’s too quiet. I hope he kicks butt in the next few weeks as debates start happening, more interviews start happening. But there will be the racists who mix him up with a Muslim and freak out about Sharia and all that crap...and it’s a shame that toxicity exists here.
 
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As for the NDP...Singh seems like a decent guy, he’s a face for diversity, too - I’m sure that was taken into consideration. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just not garnering any attention. He’s too quiet. I hope he kicks but in the next few weeks as debates start happening, more interviews start happening. But there will be the racists who mix him up with a Muslim and freak out about Sharia and all that crap...and it’s a shame that toxicity exists here.

Racism is, sadly, a factor, especially outside the big urban centers. I imagine it's at play in their meltdown in Quebec, too, given that his turban is technically banned for public servants, teachers, etc. there. However, he's also lacking in experience and visibility. As Steven said, he was a first term MPP here in Ontario and most Ontarians outside his riding had never even heard of him and yet he somehow beat veteran federal politicians like Charlie Angus for the job. I like Singh myself but also feel he should have spent more time in the Ontario legislature or maybe gone federal and served some time in The House before becoming leader.
 
On Thursday, I attended a reception for an NDP candidate (who is quite likely to win.) But I was lost, quite lost in the atmosphere of the NDP.
As most of us know, the NDP was formed by giving union leaders enhanced power in a new party based on the CCF. The CCF was socialist. It arose out of a largely Christian context. I was (and am) a CCFr, and I sat in that NDP reception lost in a cloud.

At the formation of the NDP, I was something called a waffler - one of those who was profoundly disappointed by the creation of the NDP and the killing of the CCF. Like others, I feared the NDP would lose most of the CCF principles. And so it did. The unions were simply not interested in socialist or Christian principles. They just wanted political input.

The result is an NDP that has much of the wimp about it.

Years later, over a supper, I would argue that with David Lewis, the (very intelligent) man who created the NDP out of the CCF. He agreed with my feelings. But the CCF just didn't have enough money to survive.

And as I sat in something of a cloud at that NDP reception, my mind floated back 50 years to the death of the CCF I had known.
 
And now we have an unprincipled, flabby Liberal party - and a savagely unprincipled Conservative party. And a wimpy NDP.
 
Looking forward to this election!
Half the population lost in the cloud, with two parties to split their votes and the other half resolved to not let that happen again.

 
Like others, I feared the NDP would lose most of the CCF principles. And so it did. The unions were simply not interested in socialist or Christian principles. They just wanted political input.

Interesting to hear. It is largely why they lost me. The unions just seemed to me to have too much power and I did not accept the idea that it was "better them than the big corporations." I saw too many cases where a union was only looking out for itself and its members, not the big picture. Political parties need to be about the big picture, not one piece of it.
 
I have a serious question ...
  • The F-35 is specifically designed to carry a nuclear bomb. In fact, the production program explicitly includes upgrades to the to B-61 bomb, whose variable nuclear payload will be “dialable” from 0.3 kiloton to 50 kilotons (over 3 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima). By providing over $500 million in funding to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the Canadian government has already delivered public funding to nuclear weapons development, delivery and proliferation. If the government is allowed to go through with its plans to acquire the F-35, the Canadian military will become part of multi-national delivery system for US-NATO nuclear weapons.
  • Canada is a nuclear weapons country, and nuclear disarmament is as much a “Canadian” issue as it is anybody else’s. If remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki means anything, surely it is that we must take up this issue and constantly, unrelentingly demand that governments – beginning with this country’s – take immediate and comprehensive steps to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Which party should I vote for to unrelentingly demand that the government of Canada take immediate and comprehensive steps to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons?
 
Which party should I vote for to unrelentingly demand that the government of Canada take immediate and comprehensive steps to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons?

I believe that the NDP has, or used to have, that in their policies. Maybe Green, too, but I have not seen their current playbook. I haven't started scoping out platforms yet.

Definitely NOT the Liberals or Conservatives.
 
I have another serious question ...
  • It is widely accepted that developments like the tar sands are totally unsustainable even in the short term if Canada is to meet critical climate emergency prevention targets.
  • The billions used here and through other industry subsidies as corporate welfare could be redirected to creating a green energy sector and transitioning workers to new jobs in environmentally beneficial projects with a long-term future.
  • Building housing and clean water facilities creates jobs as well.
  • The purchase of Trans Mountain from Kinder Morgan makes one thing crystal clear: When mainstream, bourgeois politicians tell you the money is not there to meet housing and other essential human needs, they are lying.
If the money is there for either or ... which party should I vote for not to put the needs of corporations ahead of those of people.
 
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