Liberal Party of Canada

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau was supposed to bring forward the motion Monday, but was pre-empted by the government's sudden decision to debate its anti-terrorism law. Trudeau, who is campaigning Wednesday on behalf of a Liberal candidate in the Labrador byelection, handed the task over to Stéphane Dion, his democratic reform critic.

So Trudeau in his first big week on the job is missing in action. One would think that after being away for 7 months on the campaign trail that he would have wanted to make a first good impression. Instead, his big motion is fobbed off on Dion so he can do photo-ops in Labrador. One can already see what this lib leader's priority are and it's not doing work in the House.

Warawa had seemed to be leaning towards supporting the Liberal motion as a free-speech issue, but he told reporters Wednesday he now thinks it's unnecessary. "I find it a little mischievous," he said, saying there was no need to "rush in and take a knee-jerk reaction."

Finally

The NDP has indicated that it will support the Liberal motion. However, without some Conservative support, the motion has little hope of passing.

Isn't it good that NDP were willing to collaborate and thus support the lib motion. Unlike the Libs who these days prefer to collaborate with Conservatives. As said elsewhere, Liberals are just Conservatives dressed up in red dresses.

Look what Derrick had to say

Derrick O'Keefe ‏@derrickokeefe 2h

Wax on about the Charter one day, vote for a Bill that goes against it the next? Just watch him. @JustinTrudeau #cdnpoli #s7

and

Derrick O'Keefe ‏@derrickokeefe 2h

Justin Trudeau says Canadians are tired of "divisive politics", acts on this by uniting w/ Harper voting for #FIPA & Bill #S7. #cdnpoli

Indeed they do but they certainly don't need Liberals telling them to do it, they are self directed.

The Liberals, Tories, and even the Greens voted against Megan Leslie's Climate Change Bill.

The Libs and Tories I understand, they're rightwing clowns, but Emay voting against the enviroment?

I'm sorry for linking to the Huffington Post but this should be shared shared:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/tom-kott/is-justin-trudeau-a-conservative_b_3150871.html

Quote:

Then, in an interview with the CBC's Peter Mansbridge in the same week, Trudeau continued to push for a smaller, and smarter, government. Though the Liberals rallied against "jets and jails" in 2011, Trudeau supports the procurement of fighter jets, believing it's a necessary asset for a strong modern military. He also used the opportunity to establish himself as a staunch federalist, turning the table on Conservatives for associating with soft Quebec nationalists -- albeit three decades ago. Moreover, he attacked the government's Economic Action Plan by saying the economy doesn't need government stimulation. A Prime Minister Trudeau would also fight for minimum government involvement in the economy and support rigorous free trade, according to the interview. These are all things a young Stephen Harper would advocate.

Never has a Liberal leader in quite some time been so small c conservative before winning power!

Justin Trudeau has complained about the "regional resentment" Ducth Disease analyses create (note the lack of emphasis on the analyses validity)

Meanwhile, Scott Brison used the same analysis.

janfromthebruce wrote:

At the leadership win, it was remarked by a prominant Liberal that the Martin Libs filled the room and very supportive of Trudeau Jr.'s win.

So the idea for the libs is basically to not have Trudeau say much of anything, attract the youthful and supposed progressives but hope they really aren't paying attention to what comes out of his mouth and lay the groundwork for the "false god" syndrome.

that was way too easy of a pop quiz - I did it with my eyes closed

And this is weird too, although not verified anywhere that I have seen but does anybody know about this:

Bob Rae Has Early Signs Of Dementia It is sad when these things happen.

Dion is the Liberals Critic for Intergovernmental Affairs and spokesman for la Francophonie.  Pay attention the Liberals are actually saying the right things.  Mulcair has called the integrity of the SCC into question and it looks like he is playing errand boy for the National Assembly.  The SCC does not even hear evidence in the cases that come before it but Mulcair who used to be a law Professor is now asking them to in effect directly subpoena records from the government, something they don't do. They don't order the government to do anything without a case before them and live issues. A Quebec historian writes a book and the NDP asks the SCC to step outside of its jurisdiction. I have no idea how this will play our in Quebec but I think the NDP is playing with fire by opening the constitutional can of worms. I'm old enough to remember the last time the NDP went down that road.

The Liberals are looking to regain the supporters they lost to the Tories. I know in my riding in BC over the last couple of election cycles we figured that the Liberal supporters were going almost two to one to the Conservatives not the NDP. Trudeau is trying to run from the centre. I for one am glad to hear him actually state what we know has always been Liberal policy. They are the original continentalist party in this country and were big on GATT and the WTO. They support big business and always have. It is refreshing for them to have a Leader who is not trying to out flank the NDP on the left.  They are positioning themselves to benefit from a collapse in the Conservative vote by giving the voters a kinder gentler "conservative" party.

Quote:

This motion calls for the federal government to release archived documents related to the constitutional negotiations which led to the patriation of the Constitution in 1982.

However, the federal government has already stated that it does not intend to give policy directives to civil servants responsible for the application of the Access to Information Act.

We would like the government to hold firm in this respect. The Conservatives already have a tendency to politicize everything; there is no need to encourage them in this bad habit. The last thing we should do is politicize the application of the Access to Information Act.

We believe this act should be strengthened; however, this should be done as part of a global legislative review and not in response to one specific request for information.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2013/04/ndp-mp-call...

mark_alfred wrote:

http://www.liberal.ca/what-we-stand-for/

The url above is the current policy themes of the Liberal Party.  Of course, why, after the Liberals commit to certain things, to then just dump them once they're in power (or dump them if they don't prove successful in raising their popularity, IE Green Shift) people still pay any attention to this party is a complete mystery to me.

Anyway, here is their constitution.

I hate to accuse anyone of plagiarism, but having just read the policy themes from the Liberal website, they're obviously stolen from the NDP's new preamble, which was passed at last month's convention.  I can see no substantial difference between the two 'statements of principle'. 

Can we sue the Liberals for stealing our principles?  Oh, wait a minute.  I didn't check the date on the Liberal site.  Hold off on the suit until we figure out who should sue who.

Trudeau speaking at Sisler High School here in Winniepg and then going downtown to Portage Place to try and dupe voters.

Brachina wrote:

Is Parliament out of session? Because otherwise wow does Justin hate spending time in Parliament or what.

Yep, he could  end having the same kind of attendance record as Ignatief, and we know how that turned out.

Justin doesn't believe he needs to be in the House because it's a waste of his time. Hence, why his record as a lowly backbencher Lib MP. He much before to be out walking the streets with his soapbox, and not hemmed in in actually standing up. And that would require cognet thought.

He's hiding behind his mothers skirts? Gawd.

Trudeau's mom may be knowledgable about bipolar disorder and speak about mental health issues, however, bullying is a serious matter, particularly in schools. There is a fair bit of difference between political attacks and bullying.

And the distinction is important. Bullying usually includes power in-balances in relationships. I find that someone who has led a life of privilege and is a millionaire would not be preceived as the "poster child" for anti-bullying. Thus, he's using his privleged position to muddy the water between political attacks and bullying.

As well I don't even see the point about who is being bullied as relevant. If a school yard bully is from a marginalized family then are you saying it is not bullying as long as he only attacks kids from better off families who drive new cars and live in their own homes? In your opinion what is the income level cutoff that determines when something is bullying or not?

I wasn't going to say anything, but I had to add to what Jan posted. The issue happened in my riding. What is driving a lot of it is the fact the media attention would have really helped my MP, the beautiful and talented, Kevin Lamoureux. When there's whining, look closely, you'll probably see Lamoureux lurking around, peeking out from underneath his rock.

Unfortunately bullying to some extent has always been a part of Canadian politics. All the major parties have engaged in unfairly attacking the personalities of the leaders they are opposing but until Harper's governments they've mostly done it just before or during election periods. But Harper has notched it up considerably and taken it to another level using it very extensively between elections. The Liberals bullied Harper with their personal negative ads for the 2006 election and that probably gave Harper the impetus to use bullying personal negative ads against the Liberals between elections during his minority governments. Negative personal attack ads were effective during the Harper minority periods because it was easy for Harper to claim that the Liberals and the opposition were selfishly out to grab power through calling an unwanted election instead of cooperating with the duly elected government. That's one reason the Conservatives campaign against an undemocratic "coalition of the socialists and separatists" was successful. Now that we have a majority situation it seems like it is much more difficult for the government to create effective negative personal advertising against the opposition leaders. The opposition leaders have no real power so it is very difficult for the Conservatives to make them out as an impending threat. As we near the next election, these personal attack ads might be more effective at selling the idea of a leader being a threat to Canada by virtue of their negative personality traits but if the Conservatives run these negative personal ads too soon it may innoculate the voters from believing them when it might have worked nearer to election time.

Two things that seem to have increased the use of bullying personal attack ads are 1) minority governments and 2) the Conservative's knowledge that the opposition parties don't have the resources to retaliate against the negative advertising in kind. This gives strength to the  argument in favour of the opposition parties cooperating to produce advertising to counter the Conservative's attack ads but, since some of the opposition parties don't mind seeing the other opposition parties being bullied, there's an incentive for the opposition parties not to work together in countering the Conservatives attack ads.

There are ways that bullying personal attack ads could be taken out of the political process. We could have a law requiring that media that runs personal attack adds offer equal time for rebuttal to the persons and parties being attacked. We could also publicly fund the parties more so they have the resources to be on a level playing field regarding political advertising.

ETA: We could also have fair voting where we would have a multi-party system that requires the parties to work with each other.

You know what gets me about these calls for we New Dems to be nicer, its always after we react to something that is said on the forum, or in the meida. Trudeau talks about New Politics, Harper reacts, Trudeau says that's bullying, we react and we get told we are crazy partisans. Otherwise, when we talk policy, show that the king has no clothes, we get attacked as negative, and around and around it goes. If you don't want people to comment on something, don't say it. If you do, and its in the public forum, its fair game. I'd say those people whining about we uncivl Dippers, should get off their high horses. By the way, I don't like the term Dipper, I'm not one. I am a New Democrat, who belongs to the New Deomcrat Party. I don't belong to the "Dipper" party. Why you start there is you want civility. You won't of course. I'm just askin'.

Well said JKR.

Actually the NDP do support the Kyoto accord and the recent motion defeated with support of the Libs and one Green. And they do have policy concerning dealing with climate change.

As to Trudeau and bullying, I perceived his backlash against not beiing allow to have his media in tow when he was speaking to students as a form of bullying against another lower level of govt - a school board, and by extension a school. That is a provincial responsibility according to the constitution. He shouldn't try bullying schools - what's good for the goose is good for the gander.