A Fundamental Shift in Canadian Politics

And why would most Liberals want to vote NDP anyway when people like Jacob Two-Two, Brachina and several others around here treat Liberals like dirt and insult our leader every minute of the day?

Btw, I think some people also forget that Justin is not Iggy.  You insult Justin at your peril.  He is well-loved by Liberals and has grown up in the public eye since he was a child and is the son of our favourite PM.  He is not a Harvard professor who spent more time in America than Canada and who most Canadians had no connection with.  It was easy for the NDP to go after Iggy because even Liberals didn't feel connected to him.  That's not the case for Trudeau.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

 

That is the best way for the NDP to get relegated to third place once more. The NDP needs to get in touch with the 45% or more of citizens that don't vote.  Liberal voters have repeatedly drank the koolaid and still buy the advertising.  Trying to out liberal the Liberal party to steal its vote is a fools game.

ETA: the proof is Dix and Horwath

 

I would agree.  I doubt regular Liberal voters will change their mind.  I also don't see Cons voting Liberal.  I think they would have decided long ago that goes against the grain for them.  But until/unless NDP started looking more conservative and less like socialist  working for the working class, poor student, and prbably pot smoking hippies (who now have Green to vote for)  NDP was unlikely to be a choice, and they would simply continue to vote Con even if they didn't like it.  

If NDP looks like they had a discussion about how can they look more attractive to the ones who are more likely to vote, and usually vote Cons, but no longer want to.  They've accepted they aren't getting the Green types back, so they want to be  considered an option for any voter wanting to change their normal pattern.   

Pondering, since you seem to hope that the Conservatives may fall to third place, how do you see things playing out in Western Canada? Western Canada gives the Conservatives a crap load of seats, so unless we get kicked out of Confederation, this is a big thing to get around. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that.

Sean, I know that it's far from a given that the Conservatives will always have a firm grip on Western Canada, I even pointed that out in my post upthread. What I object to is whenever political analysis is done, it ignores the vast differences and complexities that exist between the different regions of the country. One example that boggles my mind is how the Liberals are considered a "national" party even though they've really struggled in Western Canada since the 1940s and Quebec since 1984. It really does feel like Western Canada is ignored sometimes (not to mention the history of how central Canadian elites got rich off the resources in Western Canada) and as annoying as I find the "Western Alienation" types, the sense of frustration is quite legitimate.

So getting back to the original idea: we're going to beat the Conservatives. Where? Are we going to focus the campaign on Ontario and Quebec and hope that compensates for Western Canada? Or, do we try and defeat Conservatives in Western Canada? If so, how do you see getting Western Canada to stop supporting the Conservatives? If you want to defeat the Conservatives yet don't acknowledge that they have a pretty strong base in an important region of the country, you're going to have a tough time. I haven't heard anyone speak specifically to that aspect in this thread.

Pondering wrote:

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

Wouldn't that be infinitely more outrageous than just being one party of many that engaged in this questionable practice? Wouldn't that be absurdly scummy and underhanded? 

No, this is all political gamesmanship and pretty meaningless when it comes to the 2015 election. It damages the "holier than thou" message the NDP tries to send but people are cynical now anyway.

Sorry, but this is ludicrous. The Liberals are trying to force another party to repay millions for partisan mailouts, while having no intention of paying back the money for their own partisan mailouts. If you really can't see how much worse this is than doing the mailouts in the first place, I can only conclude that you are impervious to reason. It is absurdly obvious. In fact, nothing the NDP has ever done is as scummy as this one Liberal move, and it's not the scummiest thing the Liberals have done by a long shot. You might not see yourself this way, but you are being partisan to an irrational degree.

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I'm not upset about it, I just don't buy the "holier than thou" messaging. I believe the NDP would behave exactly as the Liberals have. 

Really? You're just going to assume that the NDP would pull a trick this dirty even though they've never done anything like this? Every time the Liberals pull another dirty trick you're going to brush it off by assuming, with no evidence, that the NDP would probably do the same? So you're telling me that you're prepared to condemn the NDP for something that they haven't done, while simultaneously forgiving the Liberals for actually doing it? Does your partisanship know no bounds? This is astounding. This is what you call political analysis?

Once again, the hypocrisy of the Liberals trying to villify another party for something they were doing themselves is far worse than the thing itself. That is clear as a bell. If you can't see it, then your brain must have blinders on.

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Jacob Two-Two wrote:

I'll give you another example. In another thread I challenged you with the fact that JT campaigned for leader on free and fair nominations, then immediately interfered in the nomination process the first time it came up. Your reaction: I'm fine with that. 

What I understood JT to be saying when he first made the annoucement is that he wouldn't assign seats. The person would have to be elected by the riding. When everyone started making a fuss because of supporting one canditate over another, or parachuting someone in, I didn't see the fuss. They still had to be elected locally. As far as I'm concerned he kept his word. Other people just read more into what he said. 

People like the riding president?

"There was absolutely no due or fair process ... and there was absolutely zero local involvement," riding president Julia Metus said in the statement.

"This is contrary to everything the Liberal party — new or otherwise — is supposed to stand for."

I guess you know better than her what Justin meant, seeing as you two are so close. She probably just doesn't understand him the way you do.

Or, more rationally, Justin is a liar and a cheat. A typical Liberal scumbag.

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I believe Mulcair will raise corporate taxes by a bit but with a minority government, which is the best he can get, he won't be able to do much even if he wants to.

Hey, remember last election? When everyone "knew" that the best the NDP could hope for was a strong third? They were dead wrong, weren't they? Doesn't pay to make too many assumptions in politics, especially with a party that's on its way up. Maybe you should just vote for the best party, instead of trying to outsmart the whole process by divining the outcome beforehand.

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Honestly I don't believe that Mulcair has a hope in hell against Trudeau this cycle. I think the stars are just aligned for him.

Well yes, that's pretty obvious. Sadly, that seems to be the full depth of your analysis. Justin gives you the warm fuzzies, so he must be awesome, despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, because if he wasn't awesome then where would these warm fuzzies come from? He must be honest, no matter how much he lies. He must be hardworking, no matter how much he skips out on his job. He must be intelligent, no matter how many stupid things he says. He must be ethical, no matter how many times he breaks his word. Your warm fuzzies tell you so. And the fact that you keep having to overlook more and more of his real actions to keep this illusion going gives you no pause at all. It's honestly quite sad.

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I think Mulcair will gain more by setting his sights heavily on Harper. Attacks on Trudeau will just look petty because he is popular. People want to like him.

Sure they want to like him. That's what it means to be charming. But applying for PM isn't like becoming a talk show host. It's a real job with a highly specialised skill set, and there aren't a lot of people out there who would have the skills to do it, despite whatever intentions they have. When people finally take a hard look at Justin, they'll find him seriously lacking. As I said elsewhere, attacks on people only fall flat when the public isn't seeing the same criticisms that you're making. Once Justin has to do more than make speeches to friendly crowds, they will see it. That's when the cumulative effect of the attacks will bear fruit. You're backing the wrong horse, Pondering. Justin's actions have clearly shown him as a scumbag. His actions, not my feelings. But even if he wasn't, he still wouldn't have what it takes to run the country.

 Mulcair's reasoning on the east pipeline is its carbon output can be basically cancelled out by cap and trade. He calls it internalizing the costs and polluter pay. But that won't work for Keystone (most of the pipeline is in the USA which doesn't use cap and trade) and on top of that it will export 40,000 jobs.

 Your welcome.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

why is Alberta that much more extreme that Ontario and Quebec, both of whom have, in recent memory, elected and re-elected right-wing governments that were just as bad?

I have no time for people who try to dismiss Albertans as being exceptionally backward compared to the rest of the country.* We all have shit to deal with in our own backyards, and no province or region is a monolith. That said, if one were to judge solely by election results, Alberta is pretty much a right-wing monolith.

The PCs came to power in Alberta in 1971. Since then, Ontario has had four changes in government, with the PCs, Liberals, and NDP all having formed majority governments. In that same time, Quebec has gone back and forth between the Liberals and PQ six times.

Within that same timeframe, federally, Alberta has mostly voted PC, Reform, Alliance, and Conservative. Although voting for Mulroney in large numbers, Quebec has also voted en masse for the BQ, Liberals, and NDP. And in Ontario, support has mostly swung between the Liberals and PC/Conservatives, along with an occasional smaller contingent of New Democrats.

So yes, while Ontario and Quebec have both elected right-wing governments, I think the fact that there's at least some variation in their voting patterns is the reason they don't get stuck with those labels quite as often, or in quite the same way.

* ETA: just in case it wasn't clear, I'm in no way suggesting that Aristotleded24 has done this. Quite the contrary.

Yes, well isn't that the thing, if the NDP is polling badly you must strategically vote for the Liberals, because your vote is wasted, and the Conservatives might get in, and if the NDP is polling well you must stratefically vote for the Liberals, because you might split the vote, and the Conservatives might get in.

 The Satellite Offices were payed for by the NDP itself, so get that staight, no government money was spent on that. 

 The NDP has a right to self defense on the issue of mailings, don't like it tough.

 I believe Pondering maybe refering to Asymetrical Federalism. Basically any province can drop out of a federal program, like say a national housing program and do there own without being penalized fincially.

 

 And its something I supported as the constututional reality.

Having worked in the federal government for some time, I cannot say that most things are worse off under the Conservatives than the Liberals. Certainly, while I don't agree with the Conservatives on many policy matters, I can see action on many files since they took office. Under the dithering Liberals, all we saw in the civil service was a whole lot of nice-sounding talk but no action (except when it came to padding their own and their buddies' pockets). The climate change file is but one such example, but there are many others. The Liberals, unfortunately, are nothing more than a haven for self-aggrandizing opportunists who want nothing except power but have no idea what to do with it once they get it. As much as I'd like to see the Conservatives replaced, I don't think a Liberal govenment (especially one headed by Justin "Dubya" Trudeau) would be an improvement. In fact, I think most things would be worse off.

I am also tired of all this talk about "progressives" and how the NDP, Greens and Liberals are somehow cut from the same cloth. They aren't. The NDP and Liberals have completely different views on how to structure the economy and civil society. Whereas the NDP, in both its traditions and record, is steeped in the cooperative and labour movements, the Liberals have always been aligned (even moreso than the Conservatives) with the country's corporate elite. This is why, unless they are addressing the Chamber of Commerce, the Liberals would rather talk about social issues like marijuana and abortion or issues of perceived patriotism like Canadian "unity" than, say, corporate taxation. While such issues resonate with me too, I believe there are more fundamental issues to be discussing. Simply put, I am not a "progressive," whatever the f*ck that means, I am a social democrat - and I vote that way.

Winston wrote:

Having worked in the federal government for some time, I cannot say that most things are worse off under the Conservatives than the Liberals. 

[...]

Simply put, I am not a "progressive," whatever the f*ck that means, I am a social democrat - and I vote that way.

Thank you for that! It sets out, unmistakably, the difference between progressives and partisans.

Jack Layton's lasting legacy was that, even though he was the leader of the "social democrats" (whatever the f*ck that means), he was able to see the utter bankruptcy of the above when he pushed for a coalition government in November 2008.

 

Pondering wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

It's what I call a blue-collar Tory dynamic. These people want effective government services, they want their tax dollars respected, and they want their children to be safe and have as good or better a life than they had. They swing back and forth between the right and the left all the time. Look at voting patterns in the City of Winnipeg to give you an idea. There's also a very strong anti-establishment streak in Western Canada, whether the establishment means big banks, corporate and economic interest, or activist special interests. Basically, voters in Western Canada are looking to pick whichever side best makes the case that it will stand up for them, and straddling the middle as the Liberals claim to do does not appeal to that mindset.

Okay, so the Liberals are perceived to be establishment and neither the NDP or the Conservatives are. It still seems bizarre to me as they seem like the two extremes, so people who would want the Conservative market driven focus would not want the NDP tax and social services model.

I think the sentiment can be best summed up by, "just make up your damn mind, follow through with your decision, and then we can move on to the next issue."

Pondering wrote:

So, my sense of Albertans is that even if they were against Keystone, they would see it as their decision. Keystone crosses no provincial borders. It's international giving the federal government a voice, but it is not up to Quebec, or B.C. or P.E.I to have a deciding vote.

People have obsessed over the possibility of Quebec separating for as long as I can remember because of the separatist movement but I think the danger has passed for Quebec. I'm not saying that Alberta is on the verge of separation, but if the States approves Keystone, and Ottawa steps in and shuts it down, I think it would cause a very serious rupture between Alberta and the rest of Canada that would boost western separatist sentiments on principle.

To that, my response is "too damn bad." Keystone in particular has been singled out as having a particularly detrimental effect on the planet's ecosystem. It must be stopped using any means possible, and it must be accompanied by more green energy to reduce the demand for tarsands oil in the first place.

Pondering wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Is this why that hero of national unity Trudeau thinks that it's a bad idea to put Albertans in charge of the federal government?

He admitted he misspoke and that he meant Harper style politics and it was years ago.

And what a coincidence that he only apologized once that interview was made public and he started feeling the backlash, many years after the fact?

When a politician apologizes for something, 99% of the time what (s)he means is, "I'm sorry that the public found out about my transgression and the fact that it's hurting my prospects of being elected." Public apologies from politicians are generally self-serving and trying to justify whatever it was that got them in trouble in the first place.

Pondering wrote:

Winston wrote:

Having worked in the federal government for some time, I cannot say that most things are worse off under the Conservatives than the Liberals.

So you have no problem with the decimation of environmental protection laws, no problem with the pettiness of closing down the environmental lakes project while installing a fake lake for photo ops.? If you can't see any difference between Harper reformacons and the Liberals you deserve another 4 years of reformacons.

I do see a difference between the 2 parties. The Conservatives, for the most part, are generally honest and open about what they believe the role of government should be (i.e. none) and about their feelings towards people who lose out under their policies. The Liberals have a well-documented history of pretending to care about certain causes (i.e. the environment) and then not following through (i.e. worse GHG emissions than George Bush).

And the credit for saving the experimental lakes belongs primarily with the governments of Manitoba and Ontario, not the federal politicians.

Winston wrote:

Having worked in the federal government for some time, I cannot say that most things are worse off under the Conservatives than the Liberals. Certainly, while I don't agree with the Conservatives on many policy matters, I can see action on many files since they took office. Under the dithering Liberals, all we saw in the civil service was a whole lot of nice-sounding talk but no action (except when it came to padding their own and their buddies' pockets). The climate change file is but one such example, but there are many others. The Liberals, unfortunately, are nothing more than a haven for self-aggrandizing opportunists who want nothing except power but have no idea what to do with it once they get it. As much as I'd like to see the Conservatives replaced, I don't think a Liberal govenment (especially one headed by Justin "Dubya" Trudeau) would be an improvement. In fact, I think most things would be worse off.

Exactly Winston. The danger is that when it becomes about stopping a certain politician more than about the policies that politician espouses, then people don't pay close attention and they get something as bad or worse. I can use the example of the Chretien Liberals, who promised to repeal NAFTA and the GST and implement national daycare. Instead, NAFTA was kept, we still have no daycare, and the Liberals made brutal cuts to health care, social programs, and unemployment that Mulroney would not have dared do. We can also look to the US, where people are so scared of the Republicans that they supported Obama, and instead got inaction on the struggling economy, a growing wealth gap, a pitiful response to the oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, and more wars of agression and war crimes overseas. I can even give a local example, where everybody is so scared of Brian Pallister because his cuts will hurt poor people, except he came out publicly in favour of raising EIA rates long before the NDP did.

Almost all provincial elections have seen the return of the party in power due to people not wanting to rock the boat.  So, if nothing dramatic happens with the economy, then the Conservatives will win again in 2015, I predict.

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If the NDP works on the premise that everything west of Ontario is the same they will not do well. 

There are very real differences between the Coast and the Interior of BC let alone between BC and the other provinces on the far side of the Great Divide. I get really tired of the term Western Canada because as someone who has lived on the Salish Sea for many decades and raised my family here and who has lived in both Sask and Alta with family in both provinces I think the Western regions have far less in common than the two Central Canadian provinces have with each other.

 

The only thing most Canadians agree on is that Ottawa is screwing their region. What I mean is that Central Canada shares an economy that is intertwined and codependent and it also shares a bipolar love/hate relationship. For much of the rest of Canada that relationship is not part of our culture.

In BC no matter whether the Head Office conducts its business in English or French makes little difference to a worker getting screwed by a Central Canadian corporation.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

kropotkin1951 wrote:

The only thing most Canadians agree on is that Ottawa is screwing their region. What I mean is that Central Canada shares an economy that is intertwined and codependent and it also shares a bipolar love/hate relationship. For much of the rest of Canada that relationship is not part of our culture.

I am a lifelong resident of Ontario, and I have no idea what you mean by this. If you could be more specific, perhaps I could agree or disagree.

Central Canada shares an economy that is intertwined and codependent.  Ontario and Quebec have historically been each others largest trading partners and that relationship has dwarfed the trade between Quebec and other parts of Canada or Ontario and other parts of Canada. 

Debater wrote:

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

None of this is backed up by real information. All studies show that Con votes are much more fixed than Lib votes, which are comparatively soft. It makes no sense to say the Libs are harder to kill than the Cons. They are clearly the easier target. I'm not sure if the Cons can get much lower than they are but the Libs sure can. More importantly the majority of Lib voters have the NDP as their second choice and far fewer of Con voters do. It's obvious where the votes are to be mined.

Harder to kill?  Do you see the language you are using?  You are allowing your emotions to completely overwhelm your reason.  And it sounds disturbing to hear you talk of wanting to kill off another party - you sound like Harper.

Keep a few points in mind:

1.  The NDP had a chance to win over Liberal/NDP swing voters in 2011 under Layton.  Even with the Liberals down below 20% and falling to 18.9%, they still weren't able to beat the Conservatives anywhere outside Quebec.

2.  The Liberals have a better chance of beating the Conservatives because they attract red tories & blue liberals who are not normally going to vote NDP.  We saw this particularly in Ontario in 2011.  When you try to precipitate a Liberal collapse, you just risk driving those Liberals back to the Conservatives to block the NDP.  Chantal Hébert cautioned the NDP about this in a column earlier this month.

You are absolutely wrong, and embarassingly Liberal-partisan, when you say "the NDP wasn't able to beat the Conservatives outside Quebec in 2011."  Here are the FACTS:

In 2011, the NDP won 103 seats, and came SECOND in ANOTHER 110 seats.  Outside of Quebec, the NDP won 44 seats in the rest of Canada - and the Liberals won 34 seats IN TOTAL.  In other words, the NDP won more seats outside of Quebec ALONE than the Liberals won in the entire country.

The NDP holds more seats than the Liberals in every area of the country except Atlantic Canada (where it is still quite close).

The NDP won 12 seats in BC, the Libs 2;  in the West, the NDP won 16 seats; the Libs 5.  In Ontario, the NDP won 22 seats - the Libs won 11.  In Quebec, of course, the NDP won 59 and the Libs hardly any. And in the Atlantic provinces, it is mainly a wash.  The FACT is that the NDP beat Conservatives all over the country, and the Liberals got seriously beat BY the Cons.

Importantly, the NDP has support throughout the country:  in the North, in the West, in Ontario, in Quebec and in Atlantic Canada. The Liberals have NO seats in the North, only 5 seats west of Ontario, a handful in Quebec.

The FACT is that if you look at the numbers, it is the NDP who is best positioned to defeat Harper in 2015 - unless, of course, you believe the Toronto Star, Liberal-biased media and the horse-race pollsters who are methodologically incompetent and laughingly unreliable.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

If the NDP works on the premise that everything west of Ontario is the same they will not do well. 

There are very real differences between the Coast and the Interior of BC let alone between BC and the other provinces on the far side of the Great Divide. I get really tired of the term Western Canada because as someone who has lived on the Salish Sea for many decades and raised my family here and who has lived in both Sask and Alta with family in both provinces I think the Western regions have far less in common than the two Central Canadian provinces have with each other.

I'm not meaning to suggest that everything west of Ontario is the same. I feel when there is talk about the importance of "Ontario and Quebec," that everything west of Ontario is being ignored. On that point I think we can have some basis of agreement.

I also agree with your contention that there are differences within Western Canada, which you've pointed to in BC. I'd also go out on a limb and suggest that there are differences even within Ontario and Quebec, for example Toronto is not the same as Northern Ontario is not the same as 905 is not the same as the rural south. I even think there may be commonalities between the same types of areas. For example, urban ridings in Vancouver and Toronto may have more in common with each other than the geographic regions they are located. Likewise there may be more in common with rural Manitoba and Saskatchewan ridings with rural Ontario ridings.

My point is that the platform needs to have enough flexibility to reasonably articulate concerns in every region of the country.