Contrary to Liberal Party insinuations on this site...

Chantal Hebert says (who is a member of the best political panel on Canadian television) that NDP supporters will continue to vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives out of power, Not just federally, but provincially as well.

An EKOS poll published this week reveals that NDP voters are more satisfied with the outcome of the election that set the party back last month than they were with winning more than a hundred seats and the title of official Opposition in the previous campaign.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/14/ndp-loss-still-a-win-for-p...

So if NDP voters feel that the party cannot win power, they are willing to vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives out.

Ken Burch wrote:

The arrogant bovine manure needs to stop, already.

So, to help stop it, you opened a thread?

Well done! I'm sure that'll do the trick!!

Unionist wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

The arrogant bovine manure needs to stop, already.

So, to help stop it, you opened a thread?

Well done! I'm sure that'll do the trick!!

Yeah, we're already seeing them begin to cluster here like flies to "bovine manure".

terrytowel wrote:

Chantal Hebert says (who is a member of the best political panel on Canadian television) that NDP supporters will continue to vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives out of power, Not just federally, but provincially as well.

An EKOS poll published this week reveals that NDP voters are more satisfied with the outcome of the election that set the party back last month than they were with winning more than a hundred seats and the title of official Opposition in the previous campaign.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/14/ndp-loss-still-a-win-for-p...

So if NDP voters feel that the party cannot win power, they are willing to vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives out.

Yes, this is a good point by Chantal Hébert:

Mulcair led the New Democrats to their second-best federal finish last month but that measure only looks good against the backdrop of more than half-a-century of defeats. A record for the most NDP seats lost in an election was also set on Oct. 19.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/14/ndp-loss-still-a-win-for-p...

I agree with what you say up to a point, Jacob.

We are now moving away from the Harper discussion.

It's true that as an incumbent government, the Liberals will now have to defend their own choices & the record that they accumulate.

But if you read the new piece posted by Chantal Hébert, she points out that many NDP voters may decide to stick with the Liberals if they remain the best alternative to keeping the Conservatives out.

Ken Burch, you are engaging in a lot of supposition above, and some downright inaccurate statements as well.

1) I don't know how you can conclude that Harper was guaranteed to win a Majority in 2011.  He was in Minority territory until the final part of the campaign when the NDP surge precipitated the Liberal collapse.

And the Liberals were actually poised to GAIN seats, particularly in Ontario, when the 2011 election began.  I agree with you that the Liberals were in a weak position, but they were well ahead of the NDP at the beginning and would likely have made some minor gains had Layton not knocked out Ignatieff in the debate.

2) I also don't know how you can conclude that "It's not humanly possible to change allegiance from the BQ to the LPC."

Really?  It happened throughout Jéan Chrétien's time in power when he gained BQ votes in 1997 & 2000, and Justin Trudeau just picked up BQ votes last month across Québec, including in Papineau.

You are correct that Ignatieff wasn't likely to make any major inroads with BQ voters at that point in time, but to say that the Liberals are incapable of winning over BQ voters when Chrétien & Trudeau have both done it, is inaccurate.

The Liberals don't have to do a whole lot to impress. Harper was horrible and he still won elections over and over again until he finally won a majority. With every horrible thing he did the Conservatives maintained 30% support or close to it.

I can't imagine what horrible things you think Trudeau will do that are so much worse than what the Conservatives did.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

When the time comes the Libs will rise or fall on their own merits. "I'm not Harper" won't be a selling point in 2019.

10 years is a long time. Many people grew up under Harper or spent a good part of their adulthood under his dour government.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

Meanwhile, the change in the electorate is permanent, I believe. More people consider the NDP a viable voting option than ever before in the county's history, and they will still be a viable option if the people are feeling hoodwinked in four years.

I agree that it is permanent. The political preference people come of age with is a strong indicator of lifelong political direction. Trudeau attracted a lot of new voters who are likely to keep voting because their first vote elected their preference. Trudeau also stood up for minority rights and for immigrants and he is doubling family reunification and refugee acceptance. Trudeau senior won over immigrants with the same policies. Trudeau is going to signficantly improve the lives of indigenous peoples too. He is going to hold the inquiry for missing and murdered indigenous women and start implementing recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Report. Deliver clean water to all communities within 5 years. Harper was such a scrooge that it will seem like Christmas. There was an increase in voter turnout, and their vote will be directly responsible for improving conditions including simply being treated with basic respect.

Jacob Two-Two wrote:

The question about who is "responsible" for Harper (funny how the voters never get any credit in these discussions) might have had some relevance while Harper was running the country. In four years, it will have none at all.

It never had any revelance in terms of swaying anyone's vote. This is the first election I have paid close attention to and found it fascinating how few people were ever aware of anything that wasn't major headline news and even then they didn't know anything about it only that it happened. The people who decide the election are those who start paying attention no more than 3 or 4 weeks before the election and they make up their minds in the last week. Turns out when I wasn't paying any attention to politics I was in the majority. Even the impact of the Duffy trial faded almost right away. Harper's government was openly smarmy and dirty yet was still re-elected multiple times.

Kevin Page said the Liberal budget was good and included "wiggle room". Trudeau can afford to follow through on his election promises many of which are free or low cost and do lead to better more effective government. Much of what Harper did was ideological rather than practical. Things like building the memorial to victims of communism will be easy to cancel along with a ton of consultants Harper was using. There are a bunch of court challenges to cancel. Things like allowing injection sites to open will cost nothing and Marijuana legalization will generate taxes. The cities are ecstatic about receiving infrastructure help.

Even if Trudeau doesn't achieve everything he is promised voters will be satisfied with the promises he does keep, so much so that I expect he will not only get a second majority mandate, but that it will be bigger than this one.

55 per cent of respondents said they would now vote Liberal — up from the 39.5 per cent who actually did on Oct. 19. Twenty-five per cent would vote Conservative (down from 31.9 per cent on election day), 12 per cent would vote New Democrat (down from 19.7 per cent), 4 per cent would vote Bloc Québécois (4.7 per cent), and 3 per cent would vote Green (3.4 per cent).

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/11/11/justin-trudeau-enjoying-a-...

NDP is down to 12%. People did not just vote against Harper they voted for Trudeau, and even more would vote for him now. This may be a honeymoon but he is going to be very difficult to beat in 2019 because it will be so easy to be way better than Harper. 

The NDP dropping to 12% is not about a Trudeau honeymoon. That is a loss of core support. I doubt promising to hold the Liberals to their balanced budget promise for 2019 is going to win any NDP voters back.

The NDP is in a very bad spot right now. They would do better to bide their time and focus on reorienting the party now that the Liberal lite policy is a dead duck. It came very close to working but it's over as T&T would say.

The best hope for the NDP is that the Conservatives implode as the various factions fight over the leadership.

thought you said above you didn't pay attention to politics before this election pondering!

How did this thread become one about what a scumbag Jack Layton was and how perefect the Liberals are? Boy the Libs on this board hate taking about FACTS! Well Pondering, Terrytowel, Debater, Pookie, Cody87 et al, once the Libs start acting like Libs, don't expect us to be any nicer than you've been. Dance on graves and gloat all you want. You'd better hope that Junior, isn't just more of the same, or, I, for one, will enjoy, IMMENSELY, rubbing your faces in it! I'm just sayin'.

I sure hope that supporters of the NDP find an alternative that will be viable. whatever that is -- be it a revitalized NDP or a new party.

I also hope it will not listen to advice from partisan Liberals like what we see here.

Ken Burch wrote:

There has never been a time, in any past federal election, in which the CCF or the NDP ever decided not to actually try to gain seats or not to try to do well enough to form a government.

Alexa McDonough's "keep the Liberals honest" strategy in 1997 and 2001 was not a "we won't fight to win" vow, it was simply a recognition that, in those years, the NDP was too weak to be able to make many gains. McDonough didn't see the continuation of Liberal Party rule as a greater good, and there was no possibility in either campaign of the more right-wing party actually winning.

J.S. Woodsworth, M.J. Coldwell, Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent and even the doomed Audrey McLaughlin in the "perfect storm" election of 1993 all fought to win.  That is the only way a political party can ever fight an election.  It's the only way any party ever does fight an election.

The NDP didn't cause the Conservative minority victory in 2006.  As has been repeatedly proven,  the no-confidence motion(which did nothing but move the election up by one month)would have passed by two votes even if the NDP had voted against.  And moving the election up by one month didn't cause the Liberal defeat at the polls.  The Liberals caused that by being a terrible government for eleven years.  If Kelowna and the child care plan were such magically wonderful things, the Liberals would have been able to get re-elected simply by promising to approve them as soon as they were re-elected.

Stephen Harper did not get a majority in 2011 because of the Orange Crush.   Harper was going to get 39% no matter what.  At 39%, his party was certain to win a majority.  Even if the NDP had done what Liberal apologists here demanded and said "in the name of 'the greater good', we won't try to gain seats this time-and we'll never try to gain seats until Harper is out of power", Harper was STILL certain to gain a majority because the Liberals had the worst leader in their history and no party anywhere ever gained seats with a terrible leader.

The NDP was never wrong to try to gain seats and win government.  NDP gains never caused any of Harper's victories, and the Liberals were never, ever simply entitled to be the only alternative to the Conservatives as a party of government.

The arrogant bovine manure needs to stop, already.

To your point Ken, while the NDP may have targetted more Liberal than Conservative seats overall, in every election since the right united, the NDP came out of an election seeing more seats move from the Conservative to the NDP column than the other way around, while the Liberals (and to a lesser extent, the Bloc) on balance lost seats to the Conservatives. That tells you something about how effective the NDP is in not only challenging Conservatives but defending marginal seats against them.

The last time the NDP was at 12% in a national poll was in December 2010 when Jack Layton was leader and Michael Ignatieff was basking in the glory of having won the Winnipeg north by election...five mo the later in May 2011 guess what happened. The NDP also was as low as 12% nationally in January 2007 right after Stephane Dixon won the Liberal leadership and had a very brief honeymoon where people were entranced by how he had a backpack and a dog named Kyoto. Whatever happened to that.

Trudeau has been PM for exactly two weeks and so far he has been grabbing low hanging fruit making easy announcements that play well to progressive voters. This too shall pass. Pierre Trudeau was wildly popular for the first year he was in power after winning in 1968... Four years later he came within in two seats of losing power and had to make a deal with a strengthened NDP under David Lewis. I think it's very early to speculate on what will happen in the 2019 election and what polls say one week after a new government is sworn in are less than irrelevant.

After the 2011 federal election the Liberals were described as "shell shocked zombies" wandering around and the expectation was that the Liberal party would die.

I also remember those salad days in late 2003 after Paul Martin was sworn in when Liberal support was up in the high 50s and the conventional wisdom was that the Liberal were guaranteed to win over 250 seats and that the NDP would lose official party status.

Canadian politics are like the weather, if you don't like it wait a few minutes and it will change. The only guarantee is that what happens over the next four years will surprise us in unpredictable ways.

"Only the NDP can beat the Conservatives here in British Columbia," Mulcair said (one week before election day).

Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander. But the NDP has trouble making good sauce.

Look every party in every election is going to say everything it can to get people to vote for them. That's what election campaigns are for. If another party does a better job of it than the NDP, that's the NDP's fault. Other parties don't have an obligation to go easy on the NDP just because it runs lousy campaigns.

Cody87 wrote:

And there's a good chance I won't be able to vote Trudeau in 2019, because if half of what I've heard about the TPP is true and he signs it he's pretty much lost my vote no matter what else he does.

And people said the same thing about C51 and look what happened there. For the majority of Candians the TPP is not an election issue.

Trudeau us already wooing labor such as CLC and its president Hassan Yussuff

Cody87 wrote:

Arthur Cramer wrote:

Boy the Libs on this board hate taking about FACTS! Well Pondering, Terrytowel, Debater, Pookie, Cody87 et al, once the Libs start acting like Libs, don't expect us to be any nicer than you've been.

Sorry Arthur but I don't see the world the way you do. The facts I see in my reality are vastly different than the facts you see in yours.

 

And I said it before the election and I'll say it again. I'm not a Liberal. Every election I decide who to vote for based on who I think would do the best for the province/country (depending on what election it is). This is the first election I've voted Liberal at either level of government since 2008, and the NDP should pay attention to that.

You know what an actual nasty piece of work Liberal looks like?

http://rabble.ca/comment/1537594#comment-1537594

http://rabble.ca/comment/1537319#comment-1537319

Seriously, there aren't real Liberals on this board. Those you accuse of being Liberals are at best "small-l" liberals who want the NDP to remain competitive so that in the event that Trudeau needs to be given the boot in 2019, it can happen. If the NDP literally destroys itself by continuing the course it set during the campaign (which it appears likely to do), there will be no check on Trudeau's power for at least another decade.

And there's a good chance I won't be able to vote Trudeau in 2019, because if half of what I've heard about the TPP is true and he signs it he's pretty much lost my vote no matter what else he does.

You seriously want me to believe that these Lib sycophants on this board aren't Large L Liberals? I don't care if someone is a Libearl, as long as they stop trying to tell us they haven't always been Liberals. That's why I object to those assertions so much. Its about truth and honesty. I am so tired of the self-righteous, preachy, almost religous Trudeau cheer leading. Its sickening.

Stockholm wrote:

Trudeau has been PM for exactly two weeks and so far he has been grabbing low hanging fruit making easy announcements that play well to progressive voters. This too shall pass. Pierre Trudeau was wildly popular for the first year he was in power after winning in 1968... Four years later he came within in two seats of losing power and had to make a deal with a strengthened NDP under David Lewis. I think it's very early to speculate on what will happen in the 2019 election and what polls say one week after a new government is sworn in are less than irrelevant. After the 2011 federal election the Liberals were described as "shell shocked zombies" wandering around and the expectation was that the Liberal party would die. I also remember those salad days in late 2003 after Paul Martin was sworn in when Liberal support was up in the high 50s and the conventional wisdom was that the Liberal were guaranteed to win over 250 seats and that the NDP would lose official party status. Canadian politics are like the weather, if you don't like it wait a few minutes and it will change. The only guarantee is that what happens over the next four years will surprise us in unpredictable ways.

When I continued believing that the Liberals would win this election, even though my certainly was shaken somewhat in the end, it was not based entirely on polls it was based on my evaluation of Trudeau, his strategy and Canadian voters along with the polls.

We just had 10 years of Harper so it seems Canadian politics is not that erratic. Harper won mandate after mandate and had approval ratings higher than the number of votes he won.

The people predicting the demise of the Liberals were Conservatives and NDP both of whom dearly want the Liberals to vanish because the Liberals, and not each other, are the primary competition of both. It is common knowledge that Liberal infighting between the Chretien/Martin camps, the sponsorship scandal and a succession of weak leaders was behind Liberal losses not some radical change in the politics of the electorate. All the Liberals needed was generational change, getting rid of the tired old guard that had been in power for too long and was responsible for all the infighting.

Canadian governments defeat themselves. It is only the Conservative nastiness that defeated Harper. Had he been a little nicer, or a little less ideological, we would probably still be under a Conservative government. A new leader might have done the trick too. Trudeau might have been able to improve Liberal fortunes but he would not have won.

The election of 1972 still resulted in a minority win for the Liberals and there were reasons that they dropped so low that no longer exist. The seat count was 109 Liberal, 107 Conservative, and 31 NDP.

The election was the second fought by Liberal leader, Prime MinisterPierre Trudeau. The Liberals entered the election high in the polls, but the spirit of Trudeaumania had worn off, and a slumping economy hurt his party. The Tories were led by Robert Stanfield, the former premier of Nova Scotia, who had an honest but bumbling image. The Tories tried to capitalize on the public's perception that the Liberals were mismanaging the economy with the slogan, "A Progressive Conservative government will do better."

The Liberals campaigned on the slogan, "The Land is Strong", and television ads illustrating Canada's scenery. The slogan quickly became much derided, and the entire campaign is viewed as being one of the worst managed in recent decades. The party had developed few real issues to campaign on. One program that hurt the Liberals in many parts of the country was official bilingualism, which many English-Canadians viewed as an expensive waste of money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_1972

The Liberals almost defeated themselves in 1972 but they still won, even though they were dealing with inflation, separatism and a crappy campaign team. Two years later they won a majority and Stanfield was down to 16 seats.

1972 was Pierre Trudeau's second election, but the Liberals had been in power since 1963, almost a decade. In the end they held power from 1963 to 1974.

Justin Trudeau easily has four years of low-hanging fruit and an excellent campaign team and great MPs. You can bet they are already planning how best to roll out the platform to create maximum impact for 2019. At a guess I imagine a lot of infrastructure projects will be coming to fruition and tax money will be flowing in from marijuana legalization. Clean water projects will be coming online for indigenous communities among other improvements. Civil servants are going to go all out to help Trudeau deliver.

There will be many highs and lows over the next four years but I don't expect a radical change in voters political habits or behavior. Conservatives claimed that Canada was moving to the right and that Conservatives had won over the immigrant community because they are ideologically conservative. The centre of power was moving west and would continue to do as both the economy and population grows. TPP favors export sectors like beef and wheat which would further strengthen the west economically.

Now there is a temptation to say the country is moving left. To some extent it is true because each successive generation is a bit more socially conscious than the one before in large part due to the influence of educators. Conservatives have good reason to rail against "liberal" education. The shift still isn't radical and moving "left" on one issue does not imply moving "left" on all or most issues.

When judging where the election would be going I took polls into account, but with the proviso that 66% of the population didn't make up their minds until the last couple of weeks before the election and was only vaguely aware of what was going on politically even with issues that were in the news for a full month, even on sensational topics. Voters tuning in at the last minute are going to look at the leaders forming a more solid general impression of them. They get a general impression of the platforms, in particular what's in it for them, but there is a strongt tendency to go with the incumbent unless someone else looks significantly better. That gets easier to do the longer a party or leader is in power. 

The big question, the one the election rode on, was always how Trudeau would perform during the election campaign. Trudeau's record in 2019 will be way better than Harper's ever was. He will have the same campaign team and that team will have lots to brag about.

It's possible that either the Conservatives or NDP will rally over the next four years and the Liberals will tank because of some catastrophic event. It's not likely. Trudeau's presentation improved tremendously since becoming Liberal leader. Since winning the election his confidence has only grown. He has an excellent slate of mps and ministers. Of course it is always possible he will lose in 2019, but the indicators tell me even if his support fluctuates as Harper's has come campaign time voters will give him another shot.

Speech at the G20

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/differences-should-be-a-source-of-strength-...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world/trudeaumania-canada-s-charismatic-ne...

Trudeaumania: Canada’s charismatic new PM mobbed by selfie seekers

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s charismatic new Prime Minister, made his international debut on Sunday and was greeted by business executives seeking selfie pictures and an appointment book full of meeting requests from the world’s most powerful politicians.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/g20-gets-taste-of-trudeaumania-1.3319923

The difference between Harper and Trudeau is so stark that it will contribute enormously to Trudeau's success for at least one more election. After that less so because memories will fade just as they did for adscam.

Arthur Cramer wrote:

 I don't care if someone is a Libearl, as long as they stop trying to tell us they haven't always been Liberals. That's why I object to those assertions so much. Its about truth and honesty.

The Liberal party candidates received 2.7 million votes in 2011. The Liberal party candidates received 6.9 million votes in 2015. That means that for every voter who voted Liberal (sufficient to qualify someone as a Liberal in your books) - for every "Liberal" in 2011 there are 2.5 Liberals now in 2015. So, how is it hard to believe that some of the "Liberals" on this board were "New Democrats" in 2011? With 4.2 million new voters, it's nigh impossible that all of the "Liberals" have always been Liberals.

Justin Trudeau's father, PET, ran a campaign opposing the Conservative proposed wage and price controls, and then upon winning, proceeded to implement wage and price controls (he basically raided Conservative policy, something Chretien also did after his 1993 win).  If Justin Trudeau decides to raid NDP policy after running against it, then I will be impressed. 

For instance, if he says the following, then I would support him:

a Justin Trudeau that mark_alfred could support wrote:

You know, even though I opposed raising corporate taxes, I feel that corporations can and should pay their fair share, so I'm raising corporate taxes and closing the loopholes that allow CEOs to pay lower tax on their stock options.  This will help us deliver programs long term and stop any need to cut public services.  So we will not be looking for 'efficiencies', because you all know this is just code for 'cuts' -- there's no need with the NDP's revenue raising programs that we've decided to steal. 

And, you know, even though I derided the NDP promise of raising the minimum wage, I'm going to implement a $15/hour minimum wage. It's just the right thing to do.

And, you know, even though I ran on just doling out some money to parents rather than implementing national affordable child care based on the successful Quebec model, I've rethought this and, well, it's gonna happen. 

And, you know, even though I felt there was no need for a national environmental standard in the form of a national cap and trade system with all revenue generated going back to fabulous green projects, I now see the light of the NDP's promise on this, so I'm implementing it.  We just can't wait when it comes to the environment. 

And, you know, Harper's Bill C-51 is totally unnecessary.  It's just wrong, and can't be fixed.  It's gone, in the circular file.

The TPP is just bad as it is, I realize that now that I've seen it.  We won't even table it, as the NDP stated.  Rather, it's either renegotiated or it's gone.  It is unnacceptable in it's current format.

And, you know, rather than just bulshitting about electoral reform with the goal being to implement the not very useful preferential ballotting, I've decided that I agree with the NDP when they say that we should move toward making every vote count via proportional representation, so open list MMP is on it's way.

And, you know, a unicameral system is what the provinces have, along with many good nations, and it's fine.  Time to stop wasting money on the senate.  This reform will help us to implement MMP, and getting rid of the Senate gives us room to have more MPs.  So via MMP we can make sure the provinces receive adequate representation in the House with more MPs -- this is real change, rather than my former dilly-dallying about senate and electoral reform.  I'm gonna steal this from the NDP, and work hard.  Time for real change.

And, you know, banks and cell phone companies are ripping people off with huge roaming fees and service charges.  It's wrong.  So I'm stealing the NDP's idea of strengthening the Consumer Protection Act to truly protect people from many of the abuses they currently suffer.

And, you know, it's good but not enough to just repeal the Conservative's Bills C-377 and C-525.  Like the NDP proposed, we're going to go further and reintroduce the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act, and we're going to introduce legislation to ban the use of replacement workers in
labour disputes.

Oh heck, I realize the NDP had it right, so we're going to implement their platform completely.  Big business may no longer want to take selfies with me, but I don't care.  I've decided to actually implement decent programming for the people.

Just remember that the Liberals and Conservatives have a similar but different set of objectives. Liberals do not wna tthe NDP's self-destruction to take them down as well to benefit the Conservatives. The Conservatives would like the Liebrals to get a taste of that. Neither want the NDP to be viable as a threat to win.

Liberals may rightly be nervous of Mulcair but not becuase they think he can win but becuase they are nervous of the damage he may do that could help the Conservatives. Conservatives may want Mulcair to stay but not becuase they think Mulcair can take Trudeau out and replace him but because he may be able to weaken Trudeau enough that they can win.

To both of them Mulcair is the weapon rather than the solution and the prospect of him being deployed against the government is attractive or not depending on if you support the government. The NDP must be wary of how those interests come into what should be a fairly internal debate. You can see that the Liberals here are very eager to be involved in an NDP discussion. It is clear what their objectives are and they have a history of having no shame on this site. But those who want a left party to become government, replacing the Liberals and Conservatives, should not let partisans from other parties distort the conversation that must exist. And this place is one of few places where it can exist without being controlled by the leadership that brought the NDP to the position it is in now.

And that leadership may have its own objectives as well -- they may be motivated to not wear this lose as their own responsibility. They may want to protect the reputaitons and even careers of people who brought the NDP to its current position. And they are also lying to you pretending, for example, that this is the NDP's best showing in the House other than 2011.

Debater wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

NDPP wrote:

Justin Trudeau Gets Rock Star Welcome At G20, Faces Questions on Canada's Role in ISIS Fight

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/g20-turkey-trudeau-1.3319803

"This is the best G20 I've ever been to,' Trudeau quipped at one point during a working lunch. He also met briefly with Obama and had a warm conversation with the US president, Trudeau's aides said.

According to the aides, when asked what he would do first as prime minister, Trudeau indicated he would cut middle class taxes - to which Obama responded laughing, saying that it sounded pretty good..."

Perhaps 'Rock Star Welcome' is a PR version of reality on the part of his aides largely intended for the rubes back home. The G20 group photo places him far from the center almost offstage.

Yeah, the CBC in particular has been gobsmacked with boy wonder.  Trudeau has for a long time put himself out there to people for selfies.  That hardly equates to him being considered a significant world leader yet.  Maybe in the future he will be, or maybe not.  We'll see.

I don't think anyone is saying that a Canadian PM who was only elected a few weeks ago is a "significant world leader".

How could he be?

He's barely had a chance to do anything yet.

Depends on what you call significant.

If you consider that in spite of recent damage Canada still has some stature ont he world's stage then the answer may be yes. If you consider that he has a majority mandate in a recent election the answer may be yes again, especially as that mandate was for significant change in terms of Canada's foreign policy. The fact that Canada's foreign, security and environmental policies were raised to considerable degree in the election does add significance to the leadership that emerged.

So Trudeau is a significant world leader upon being elected. He is untested and unaccomplished as a person who has just taken office, but nonetheless, he is significant and will be treated as such.

Cody87 wrote:

Arthur Cramer wrote:

 I don't care if someone is a Libearl, as long as they stop trying to tell us they haven't always been Liberals. That's why I object to those assertions so much. Its about truth and honesty.

The Liberal party candidates received 2.7 million votes in 2011. The Liberal party candidates received 6.9 million votes in 2015. That means that for every voter who voted Liberal (sufficient to qualify someone as a Liberal in your books) - for every "Liberal" in 2011 there are 2.5 Liberals now in 2015. So, how is it hard to believe that some of the "Liberals" on this board were "New Democrats" in 2011?

Because they continually used lines and rationalizations that only partisan Liberals would defend, like the lie that Layton was responsible for Harper's victory in 2006 or that he was responsible for the Conservative majority in 2011.