Canada federal election October 21, 2019 part 2

It will be a while before Vogue calls on Trudeau again

Sans halo, he now walks the ground like every other politician, as pedestrian as the rest of them

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-it-will-be-a-while-before-vogue-calls-on-trudeau-again?video_autoplay=true

Sean, your numbers look largely plausible, but don't you think Bernier will keep Beauce?

Cody87 wrote:

Sean, your numbers look largely plausible, but don't you think Bernier will keep Beauce?

I did not care to divide the total between far right and ultra right. Yes, I think so and I am guessing he could even get a couple more. Or not.

The main point I am making is that when I did this without regard for the total, I ended up where I have been thinking we could be for a while -- re-emergence of BQ as balance of power. This would not be the old BQ of Duceppe, however, but a more hard-right-edge version. I think the NDP and the QS is still taking the left out of the BQ and PQ and leaving a Cacca-Poo-poo stain in its place. Not the kind of thing you will want with balance of power (or power in Quebec as you have now).

Gone will likely be the part of the BQ that gave a shit for people like the old BQ and replacing that will be a hard right nationalist core. I am not sure if the current BQ leader can follow in the direction I think this party will go either -- he is probably to the left of what will come this fall to be the new version of the party. I think the BQ is likely to find that its environmentalist tack with this leader won't ignite as much as the nationalist bend on the right (tragically). My prediction is that he gains many seats but that he loses control of the party in a dramatic irony. The catalyst would be a Scheer party, with support from Bernier (for a price) threatening to pick off support from the BQ. That party will have to move to them enmasse or be broken as its support base will be more from the right than left -- and pushed, of course, by the CAQ.

You can expect the possibility of getting aquainted with a new alliance of Scheer, Bernier and this new BQ. The Quebec-centric leaning of Canadian politics won't be on the left side this time but on the right and more nationalistic than the social-democratic former BQ.

Should this come to passs, you can expect the government not to last long, but this does not mean that what comes after will be any better.

With weakened Liberals and left, the obvious answer for Scheer to re-unite his party and take any wind out of Bernier's sails will be a very hard right Conservative party.

There is a possibility of a massive Conservative response across the country that could replace both the BQ and Bernier's party (seat total not near as much in popular vote). This could be the end of the Liberals and emergence of the NDP as the alternate. However, we will have a very right wing government thanks to FPTP without that strong a popular vote.

Look on the bright side. Canadian voters will learn the lesson and remember it for maybe half an hour.

If the NDP gets another chance at the end of the Conservative sweep it better make good use of it becuase as a country we will have paid a heavy price.

I hope this does not happen but there is a real danger here that it could.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

This could be the end of the Liberals and emergence of the NDP as the alternate. However, we will have a very right wing government thanks to FPTP without that strong a popular vote.

Globally speaking, this is where we are going culturally. Politicians in the middle are (correctly) becoming widely viewed as wholly corrupt. We see this with the SNC-Lavalin situation with Trudeau in Canada, but also with Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Kamala Harris in the U.S., Macron in France, etc. None of these leaders are honestly representing any interests besides their own. This is leading to strong growth among the far left (for ex. in the US Bernie and AOC have dragged the entire democrat party to the left, serious contenders are now talking about single payer healthcare and even UBI) but also among the far right.

The Liberal party was almost destroyed after Ignatieff's failure. Trudeau revived it with his personal brand and charisma. It is unclear how the Liberal party will survive going forward. Every potential next leader will have to explain "Why didn't you stand up for JWR and the principles your party ran on in 2015 - honesty, transparency, etc - when all this was happening?" The only two liberals who have any credibility at all are JWR and Phillipot and they've been excommunicated.

Probably not as early as October, but the NDP has a real chance to be the Conservative's foil going forward. The next Liberal leadership race is going to be appalling.

https://www.thestar.com/amp/politics/federal/2019/04/06/bad-very-bad-or-disastrous-assessing-the-damage-to-trudeaus-political-brand.html

Ahhh, the NDP dream, Liberals destroyed, the NDP becoming the alternative to the Conservatives which would have to happen eventually. A clear choice for voters. Although how long did the NDP have to wait for a kick at the can in Alberta and BC?  Horgan is doing okay, but neither he nor Notley have wandered out of the centre yet (depending on how you define left). 

Canada is in a very different situation than Europe and the States. The Liberals and Conservatives remain the two dominant parties by far. BC has voted against PR. Legault is as far right as Quebec will go and he is having problems with his supposedly popular secularism law. Federally the Conservatives don't dare go beyond dog whistles and the NDP don't dare go too far left. 

People did not vote for Trudeau because of his sunny ways and new way of doing government. Harper promised that too, and failed, and still stayed PM for a decade and came close to winning another 4 years. He won because people were tired of Harper and Trudeau seemed like a reasonable alternative. 

As noted the Liberals have been way lower than this. It is unlikely they will lose the next election but even if they do they will not be wiped out over SNC the way they were over lame-duck Ignatieff. 

This reminds me so much of the celebratory tone here when Mulcair was in first place and Trudeau was doing poorly. Posters said people had seen through Trudeau and could see that Mulcair had substance so Trudeau couldn't make a comeback. I was mocked as a cheerleader and hopelessly partisan for still thinking that Trudeau would win when he was in last place. 

The MSM favours the Conservatives, Liberals are in second place, and the NDP is just to needle the Liberals with. Canadians are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, small L and C because I don't mean in terms of political parties. Socially Canadians are live and let live for the most part. Fiscally Canadians support cautious spending that adheres to common sense standards of value vs cost. They see government as alternately corrupt and inept. What is there to do but roll our eyes at the latest story of the Phoenix pay system. 

That view of government as inept if not corrupt and a fatalistic attitude that suggests it is unavoidable supports the Conservative argument of minimizing government and privitization as marketplace competition will make services cheaper and less prone to corruption. 

The average Canadian is frustrated and fatalistic about government failures. They vote for what they hope will be a stable sensible government who will first do no harm to the Canadian economy and maybe even introduce a good program or two; make some minor improvement in health care or education or child care. Make us look good on the international stage, make good trade deals. 

This is why they flip Conservative/Liberal and only elect the NDP if they are sounding reasonably centrist. 

The pundits write for people interested in politics. People who answer political polls follow politics to some extent. 

The people who decide elections pay attention the last few weeks, the very last week even. This is because they know that the rest of the time it makes no practical difference what they think. On voting day they will have 3 choices. They can get the Cole's Notes version in the last few days. By then SNC will be a footnote.

Pondering: I think you cannot tell the difference between what is a prdiction and what is celebretory. In many cases, people may hope for this (becuase that way we might have the potential to vote for substantial change). Still, while I dislike your dismissiveness of the legitimacy of the opinions expressed here, I acknowledge that the track to the centre is not about party names it is about political culture. I would argue that this is the more important thing and have said this in response to a post about hoping the Liberals would disband (I said they would swamp the NDP and make the NDP a new Liberal party and the NDP woudl be the one to disapear.)

Canada is actually more like the US than you think. For many years both countries have had two centre parties difficult to tell apart beyond rhetoric. Both countries are seeing a polarization now where new voices are going both more to the left and more to the right.

With the new voices in the Democratic party in the US (still not as far as we may like) and the extreme tea party GOP, there is likely more spread between those two parties than we have seen in our lifetimes.

Canada is also seing the potential for more support for more left policies in a long time, between Liberals and NDP while the Right is more right wing than we have seen before.

Forget the names -- those will catch up later. Polarization is happening here before your nose.

I think you are missing the trendline in Canada. I am not making a current prediction on the short term survival fortunes of the Liberal and NDP parties but the gulf between the ends of the political spectrum is widening, even if most of that is by the right moving further to the right. The reality is that people are walking away from the centre already.

The Trudeau Liberals had to pretend to be more left than the NDP to save themselves in 2015. The NDP pretending to be more centre than the Liberals was no match for that. It is the centre in decline.

Maybe Scheer should be forced to live on the water's edge as the oceans rise due to global warming.

'I'll ELIMINATE CARBON TAX': Andrew Scheer's promise if elected PM

https://torontosun.com/news/national/ill-eliminate-carbon-tax-andrew-scheers-promise-if-elected-pm

This was also in that same article:

No, the real scandal is the determined — and, it would appear, largely successful — campaign on the part of the prime minister and his officials to normalize their conduct: as if monkeying around with criminal prosecutions was all part of the usual give and take of cabinet government, or at worst a misunderstanding between people who “experienced situations differently.”

Social conservatism is weaker in Canada and it is waning. It was the fond hope of Conservatives to grow their base through appealing to the social conservatism of many immigrant populations. They frame it as a freedom and support of family values. At the same time they try to appeal to conservative traditionalists who want Canada to remain Christian many of whom are anti-immigration. What's left is extreme fiscal conservatism and libertarianism. The Conservative party has no where to go but down. 

The Liberals have almost replaced the Progressive Conservatives from a fiscal standpoint while maintaining social liberalism and they are less ideologically minded so will pass progressive legislation if it makes sense economically. 

The Liberals did not trick people into thinking they were farther left than they are. The NDP moved to the centre. The Liberals didn't tell the idiot NDP not to support cannabis legalization or to promise no deficits nor to refuse to debate unless Harper was present.  Nobody told the NDP to go all out supporting EE either.  Those were all self-inflicted NDP wounds. 

Which brings to mind another claim that the majority of Canadians support PR because when asked if they think the number of votes should reflect the number of seats in the house they say yes. They do say yes, but they won't vote NDP based on Trudeau not delivering PR nor even necessarily vote for PR if asked.

It is not impossible to transform Canada but we have to start where people actually are not where we wish they would be. We have to address the issues from the perspective of what will motivate them not what motivates us or what we think should motivate them. 

There is no great clash of ideologies on the horizon because most Canadians are not ideological. They just want good government, nice safe neighbourhoods, a decent job, enough money to live including leisure activities, good infrastructure, education system, health system all of which depends on a healthy economy. 

When it comes to 2019 voting that is what people will be thinking about. Who, between Scheer, Trudeau (Freeland) and Singh will best navigate our international economic relationships starting with the US? Trudeau is widely seen has having done the best anyone could do against Trump. CETA is widely seen as a Freeland triumph. The Trudeau government has experience on these files now. Why rock the boat? Would Scheer or Singh deal with Trump better? 

Would either of them be more successful in getting a pipeline to tidewater? Alberta might think so but I doubt other provinces will agree. The changes to the child tax credit have successfully lifted many children out of poverty. That has the biggest impact in the poorest provinces. It is a form of direct transfer payment. The Liberals will contrast it to the Conservatives boutique tax credits. 

The Liberals are far from done. 

Scheer needs to be buried politically as he thinks having a photo-op at a gas pump to enrage Canadians about the price of gas is Canada’s answer to Climate Change

.

Trudeau Threatens Scheer with Lawsuit and Scheer Responds Bring It On

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5088175

https://mobile.twitter.com/Dleebosh/status/1114969345908776960

What the SNC scandal is about

https://www.law.utoronto.ca/blog/faculty/snc-lavalin-controversy-shawcross-principle-and-prosecutorial-independence

Liberals are just not going to win this one

https://mobile.twitter.com/acoyne/status/1114904498026057733

NorthReport wrote:

 

Liberals suddenly decide that Proportional Representation might be good idea after all

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/02/liberals-suddenly-decide-proportional-representation-might-be-a-good-idea-after-all/

Psst...this one goes in the funnies thread...thebeaverton is a satire site. But thank you for posting this, I got two good belly laughs out of that short article.

NorthReport wrote:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/04/05/this-issue-could-define-canadas-elections-its-not-snc-lavalin/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.67c33f98a05c#click=https://t.co/GWAPdhLnUa

I kind of doubt it.

Trudeau’s expulsion of two former cabinet ministers is virtually unprecedented, records show

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/canada/jody-wilson-raybould-jane-philpott-liberals-caucus-expelled/wcm/517c2985-304b-45ce-b246-6cdfbba487f1

Michael Moriarity wrote:

I'm not at all sure that the Russian spooks will try to influence the Canadian elections this fall, but it is within their capabilities if they wanted to do so, and they certainly wouldn't be restrained by ethical considerations. So the interesting theoretical question is, if this hypothesis turns out to be true, what would the Russians do? What would be their overall objectives and tactics?

It seems to me that their most likely objective would be to create discord between Canada and the U.S. In this, they would be perfectly aligned with NDPP's priorities. So what would this imply? We know that both the Libs and Cons are utterly dedicated to keeping the empire happy. The NDP is not much more independent minded, nor is the Elizabeth May party. Bernier would be an even more drooling lap dog than Scheer or Trudeau. So what's a would be election influencer to do? Perhaps, like NDPP, they would try to encourage people to boycott the vote, to reduce the legitimacy of the resulting government.

And of course, it doesn't just have to be the Russians. You can pick any technologically advanced country and ask the same questions. If, say, the U.S., or Israel, or China, or India were to use their capabilities to influence our election, what would they do, how would they do it, and to what end? I find these speculations quite interesting.

Assuming that the Russians are interested, I assume they would, they have a major problem. I think the interest of others is much greater and so would the amount of money they would spend. Frankly the Russians may have been players and may even have been innovators. But now I do not think they can compete. Our government is too stuppid to notice.

While we can debate if the US government would be interested, because bullying Canada offers a cheaper deal, the problem here is the focus on nation states in general and Russia in particular. I am appalled by this focus on the part of the government on countries as it both minimizes the severity of this issue and shows how clueless our government is.

I have written in these threads numerous times that I have been concerned by the focus even here on the assumption that this problem is limited to Russia, perhaps other countries, or does not exist at all.

The democratization (as we call it) of social media means that the cost of organizing and executing this can come without the resources of a state. An inestment of perhaps $100,000 would go very far. This is chump change if you are the NRA or a reasonably well financed neoNazi organization -- or ANY interested religious group. (Language and culture means the ability to do this is much greater closer to home.)

The biggest point about the apparent cluelessness of Canadian authorities to the compromising of Canadian election is that the US as a threat actually sits second. Nowhere has Canada admitted that this technology is most likely to be used by those with money and a desire to warp elections -- in Canada. The reason, of course, is that they have the most to gain. It won't just be used to sow division -- it will be used by extremists here on the right to move the needle of our election towards them. Just imagine a true believer selling his house to finance a concerted anti-choice set of candidates. It does not have to be one big organized group either. A few dozen right wing groups can act independently and have their efforts come together in effect.

Nobody can identify it easily becuase it will come from Canadian IP addresses. It will look organic when it is planned. It seems all our defences are based on the assumption that the distortion will come from outside and that what happens inside is somehow legitimate. Put bluntly -- election spending limits are obsolete and anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand how this election manipulation thing works. Election spending is based on the old media. It is impossible to trak in the new media. What we might be able to do is put up firewalls based on IPs to make sure that only Canadians can fuck up our elections.

There is probably no state actor in the world with as much interest as those here. The price has come down like nobody admits --if you can mine bitcoin, you can completely undermine an election -- before noon.

I am shocked that the alarm is not being raised. If I wanted to get into conspiracies, I would think that those who want to do this may want to make sure we are looking at the Russians or some state when they do. We would never see them coming.

As for the US election in 2020 -- you bet that will be compromised. I don't know if Putin would want to waste his resources. If the purpose is to create havoc why give food when you can teach people to fish? This is now a self-igniting fire any extremist with not that much cash can participate in. Why on earth would the Russians want to continue now the fire is lit?

This is an extension of the reach of advertising. Advertisers have long wanted to manipulate us. Ads are not about letting us know an option is available but about employing trickery to manipulate us into using it. Social media is a much, much larger extension of that. This is not a national weapon but a corporate one.

Now let me reprise for a moment the whole issue of what a democratic system is in practice. It is one that unlike other systems allows the public (many of them anyway) to choose a government.

Advertising, marketing, social media, is the answer/opposition to democracy. Since the choice runs through the people, it is about manipulation of those people towards the direction the one spending the money want them to go.

Yes interesting. But people are not near worried enough.

The illusion of a free election is far more effective than a brutal dictatorship in getting the poeple to willingly be screwed over.

Pondering wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Nobody can identify it easily becuase it will come from Canadian IP addresses. It will look organic when it is planned. It seems all our defences are based on the assumption that the distortion will come from outside and that what happens inside is somehow legitimate. Put bluntly -- election spending limits are obsolete and anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand how this election manipulation thing works. Election spending is based on the old media. It is impossible to trak in the new media. What we might be able to do is put up firewalls based on IPs to make sure that only Canadians can fuck up our elections.

Yes, and that doesn't even touch on the more subtle stuff. Scheer announced he was going to release documents 2PM Sunday on SNC-Lavalin. Unless the news is ignoring it those documents haven't been released. 

There has been lots of gleeful back and forth on Trudeau's legal threat and Scheer's "bring it on" response with no comment on Scheer failing to release the documents. Could Trudeau's legal challenge have put a chill on that? They can't ignore it indefinitely. 

No. Not. A. Chance.

Another example of Trudeau floundering and having another oral fart.

Motions for discovery could make this election year interesting, but this is a court battle that would not finish before the election and the court case would keep it on the front burner. Imagine how well Trudeau would be recieved behind a bank of lawyers trying to stop his stuff getting into a court battle he started..

Even if technically there is a cause of action, there is nothing to gain for Trudeau.

The idea that it sends a warning begs the question, why would anyone pay attention to it? If the point is to say before the public that Scheer is lying (and not follow through with the suit), then that won't work as people will presume the lack of a suit means Trudeau was bluffing. Big lawyer party. Not a good look.

Interesting explanation here - I do not agree with all of it but some thoughts:

https://player.fm/series/the-current-from-cbc-radio-highlights/scheer-al...

NorthReport wrote:

A bit of history.

Trudeau is threatening to sue Scheer.

In 2008, Harper actually sued the Liberals for libel

A 2005 non-confidence vote, an alleged bribe, and a dying MP. How it all went down

 

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/trudeau-is-threatening-to-sue-scheer-in-2008-harper-actually-sued-the-liberals-for-libel

A suit can be puffery but a threat without following up (in a public case) will only be seen as such. A suit settled later may or may not achieve objectives. A threat without follow-up is going to be seen as an admission that there never was a case.

When someone owes you money you threaten. With libel I am not sure that threats in public cases are that good a tactic. In some cases where intimidation is an objective they might work but in situations like this a bluff gets called since intimidation can already be ruled out as an effective strategy. Trudeau should have sued or kept his trap shut on this. His position has been diminished.

I could be 100% wrong on this but I think in a libel case the accused has to prove they already have proof that what they are saying is true. It is not a means of legitimizing a fishing expedition for proof in the court room. 

The Liberals had no proof on the Cadman offer and the Conservatives didn't want to renew the story. The Conservatives are bluffing. They would lose in court. This will likely go in the same directions as the Conservative case against the Liberals. 

For the moment the Conservatives succeeded in making the accusations in the first place, the Liberals will have succeeded because the accusations won't be repeated outside the HoC. 

A foreign government can influence a Presidential election easier than our 338 simultaneous elections.  If the Russian spies are good enough to figure out exactly which ridings to target and what issues can be highlighted on social media to influence voter preference then I am very, very impressed. All are major parties are looking for people who can do that very thing.

WWWTT wrote:

Pondering wrote

I was mocked as a cheerleader and hopelessly partisan for still thinking that Trudeau would win when he was in last place. 

If the liberals were in last place, where were the greens polling, 3rd?

No they would be fourth behind the Bloc, if the Liberals are in last place.

Ya I wouldn’t be sure about that kropotkin? Sounds logical, but something tells me logic doesn’t count for anything when making shit up. I’m sure Pondering has a real good explanation more than worth making 20 comments to fully explain!