Are We Leaving Liberals Behind?

voice of the damned wrote:

Right now, we only have 2 Liberal Premiers. Is there any precedent for that in Canadian political history?

I'm pretty sure I remember a time when there were none, or maybe just one. Some time in the early 80s, as I recall, when BC was run by the Socreds, Alberta was PC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were either NDP or Conservative, Ontario was still the Big Blue Machine, Peckford was running Newfoundland, Hatfield New Brunswick, Buchanan Nova Scotia, and I'm not sure who was in charge in PEI.

That's mostly off the top of my head, and I can't guarantee there were no Liberals in the Maritimes, but I do recall a specific media report saying that there would soon likely be no provinical Liberal governments, or maybe that that was already the case.

In any event, given that the Quebec and BC Liberals aren't really Liberals in the same sense as the federal party, we can actually say that, outside of Ontario and the maritimes, Liberal parties aren't really a factor at the provincial level. And this has been the case even at times when the federal party was kicking ass(eg. during the aforementioned early 80s), so extrapolations from provincial to federal results probably aren't than meaningful.  

At one point in either very late 1979 or very early 1980, the Liberals were out of power federally and in every province.  At that particular moment, the Liberals held no provincial seats west of Manitoba and only one federal seat.

Ken Burch wrote:

voice of the damned wrote:

Right now, we only have 2 Liberal Premiers. Is there any precedent for that in Canadian political history?

I'm pretty sure I remember a time when there were none, or maybe just one. Some time in the early 80s, as I recall, when BC was run by the Socreds, Alberta was PC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were either NDP or Conservative, Ontario was still the Big Blue Machine, Peckford was running Newfoundland, Hatfield New Brunswick, Buchanan Nova Scotia, and I'm not sure who was in charge in PEI.

That's mostly off the top of my head, and I can't guarantee there were no Liberals in the Maritimes, but I do recall a specific media report saying that there would soon likely be no provinical Liberal governments, or maybe that that was already the case.

In any event, given that the Quebec and BC Liberals aren't really Liberals in the same sense as the federal party, we can actually say that, outside of Ontario and the maritimes, Liberal parties aren't really a factor at the provincial level. And this has been the case even at times when the federal party was kicking ass(eg. during the aforementioned early 80s), so extrapolations from provincial to federal results probably aren't than meaningful.  

At one point in either very late 1979 or very early 1980, the Liberals were out of power federally and in every province.  At that particular moment, the Liberals held no provincial seats west of Manitoba and only one federal seat.

From 1979 to 1985.

I think it is the Conservatives that are on the way out. They have cobbled together an unholy alliance of social conservatives, free market extremists and a bewildered segment of the working class that blame immigrants and elites for the decline of their industries. 

They had hoped the social conservatism of many immigrant groups would swell their ranks. It was working but the Conservatives couldn't afford to lose those who feel intimidated by immigration. Conservatives can't go full on anti-immigrant because the business community wants them and they are a large voting block. Young people wouldn't like it either. Social conservatism in the form of intolerance is dropping. Many immigrants may be socially conservative but they often understand repression much better than we do and don't want to see it here. They recognize the Conservative dog-whistles. 

Free market economics is losing popularity fast. "Protectionism" is on its way back. Even the World Bank and IMF are concerned about the growth in inequality. It isn't good for the economy. 

The Liberals are basically taking over the Conservative position without the social conservatism or free market dedication. Liberals are not particularly ideological in terms of the party. They are pro-business, moderately socially liberal staying just even or slightly ahead of popular opinion on social issues. The farther right the Conservatives have gone the less the Liberals have to do in terms of benefits. They buy off segments of the population. For example, the senior's raise at 70 in the OAS. So far their "balance the economy and environment" line has worked pretty well for them but that is fading fast and will continue to do so. 

Greta Thunberg said "we won't forgive you". Young people are not going to forgive the Conservatives and Liberals for the climate change pain we are and will continue to suffer. 

The assumption that only the Conservatives or Liberals can win is gone. Layton didn't win but the consensus is he could have. The NDP have won in Alberta. That is huge even if it never happens again. The NDP is doing well in BC. Polls consistenly show that even when the NDP is doing poorly they still rank consistently well in parties people consider voting for. 

The Conservatives are having their last hurrah. The Liberals will replace them as the pro-business party despite the desires of the MSM and the true elites who want as pure a free market as they can get. 

The Liberals are always getting classified as on the left just because they aren't as extreme right as the Conservatives. Although there is certainly a difference between the two the business community will go Liberal and probably drag the Liberals even more to the economic right. 

I see both the Liberals and Conservatives shrinking over the next couple of decades. The Conservatives will lose voters because they will die off and because the immigrant vote is growing and they can't get both it and the anti-immigrant vote. The Liberals will lose voters because they will wear the climate change denial inherent in buying a pipeline.  They will gain voters because as the Conservatives shrink the business community will rally around the Liberals. 

The greatest danger to the NDP is becoming the new Liberals. Forces with money will try hard to make it that way. Had Mulcair won the election the NDP's fate as a centrist party would have been sealed. Progressives within the NDP dodged a bullet. 

Singh may not be as far left as some would like but he has definitely turned the party in that direction. 

Aristotleded24 wrote:

So judging by the comments here, it looks like there were no Liberal governments in power in the 1980s. This also coincides with Turner's implosion of public support which paved the way for Mulroney's massive majority, and the federal NDP nearly overtook the Liberals during this time frame.

I still think what we're seeing now is of far greater magnitude. The Liberals never struggled to retain official party status in Ontario or ended up having third party status in PEI during this time. I think it is a time that the left can take advantage of, if the left plays this thing right.

To be accurate, there were no Liberal governments anywhere in Canada for a few months in late 1979 and early 1980.  From the 1980 to 1984 federal elections, there was a federal Liberal government but the party was in opposition in Quebec and all provinces and territories.  From the 1984 federal election until the 1985 Ontario election, there were once again no Liberal governments anywhere in Canada.  After 1985, Liberals started making a comeback on the provincial level, coming to power in Ontario, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland before the decade was out.  Not that that was a good thing by any standard, as those "Liberal" governments, with the slight exception of Ontario's, were all clearly right of center on economic and spending policies.

 

I do not think any political grouping is on its way out. Parties and party names come and go.

Two party systems are usually based on them being not very far apart and for the wings not to have significant power. With polarization there is sufficient room and demand for a middle party. Both of the two parties need it in order to be stable.

As the NDP is pushed away from the centre and the Conservatives away from the centre the Liberals are assured of existing. Both right and left parties need Liberals to exist in order for them to be where they want to be otherwise they would be populated by people who want to compromise to the other side more than they do. What would the NDP do with the Liberals that would knock on their door and change them if they did not have a Liberal party to go to.

None of this means that the weakest party has to be the left party or that the strongest party has to be the centre or a right party. The NDP should not push for the demise of the Liberal party but rather for the expansion of their party and containment of the Liberal party. When the Liberals disappear, as we have seen provincially, the NDP becomes a Liberal party in all but name.

The US is a different example. Right now they have a two party system crying out for a third party. The left of the population wants Democrats to be more left left but that party is carrying the baggage of the centre and needs a place for that to go (Joe Bidden, Hillary Clinton et al). The Republicans have moved far from where traditional Conservatives want to be. They want to cast off the "moderate" Republicans) but there is nowhere for them to go as the Democrats move left. There is presently room for a party in the centre in the US of the moderate Republicans and the right wing Democrats due to polarization. For both Democrats and Republicans they need this party to emerge in order to have stability or they need to become that party and have their more left or right people go somewhere else. It looks to me as if the left is finally taking more of the Democrats and needing to shed the right and the right of the Republican party is liable to split into the Tea Party and the re-emergence of the more centre-right GOP. What could happen over time is that the Tea Party take over the Republican name completely and the Republicans who are not that far to the right create a new centre-right party. Then the Democrats will lose some support to that centre right thing and the Democrats will be able to establish a more left option as the more right Democrats moderate the Centre right party to perhaps identify itself as a centre while seeking to differentiate itself from the Tea Party.

Polarization opens the centre. The movement on the right to a Reform version of Conservatives and the NDP to a more true left vision after Mulcair leaving has another dynamic. But names could change or be lost. The emergence of Bernier's party could attract the right of the CPC and gradually move the Conservatives back to where the Liberals are and any growth in the NDP would move the Liberals towards them. The Conservative and Liberal organizations could merge or one disappear. Alternately the Conservatives could move to the right and eat Bernier's party to remain the right party leaving the Liberals intact. The present configuration is temporary and one of these four parties will vanish.

The Greens are a different phenomenon and do not sit on the left-centre-right axis and could merge, continue to exist or fade away. In that sense they are most similar to the BQ or PQ as parties that are defined in terms of left and right more by present leadership than any deep ideology.  Such parties rise with the issue they represent and can collapse either by that issue fading or through leadership changes in that party or changes in the other parties as we have seen.

So no -- short answer is that the Liberals are not going to go away, or at least we should hope they do not, although they could become the third party.

 

DELETED: Post was redundant to Bekayne's.

 

voice of the damned wrote:

bekayne wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

To be accurate, there were no Liberal governments anywhere in Canada for a few months in late 1979 and early 1980.  From the 1980 to 1984 federal elections, there was a federal Liberal government but the party was in opposition in Quebec and all provinces and territories. 

From 1981 to 1985 the Liberals didn't hold a single legislative seat west of Ontario.

Actually, if I'm reading wikipedia correctly, the drought lasted into 1986, when they picked up one seat each in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and four in Alberta. (Unless they won a byelection in '85?)

You are correct. I mixed up the year of the Alberta election.

bekayne wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

To be accurate, there were no Liberal governments anywhere in Canada for a few months in late 1979 and early 1980.  From the 1980 to 1984 federal elections, there was a federal Liberal government but the party was in opposition in Quebec and all provinces and territories. 

From 1981 to 1985 the Liberals didn't hold a single legislative seat west of Ontario.

True.  I thought I'd conveyed that above(I guess I'd forgotten the '81 Manitoba election, when the last provincial Liberal seat was lost there).  Thanks.

Pondering wrote: 

Albertans elect Trumps.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a right-wing Alberta politician who didn't have a counterpart somewhere else in Canada. Klein = Mike Harris, Kenney = Ford, and even if Alberta had been totally removed from Confederation, Harper would still have been only one seat short of a majority during his last parliament.

And yeah, you have Liberals and Red Tories in other provinces, but people like Lougheed and Getty were pretty much the same as Bill Davis and Richard Hatfield. And it's pretty hard to find ANY politicians in Canada from that era who were to the right of the Bennetts and Vanderzalm in BC.

And I would hardly compare mayors like Reimer. Nenshi, and Iveson to Donald Trump.  

Then there is the great War Measures Act Premier, Bourassa and his buddy the architect of Canadian austerity, PM Brian Mulroney.

bekayne wrote:

voice of the damned wrote:

 

And yeah, you have Liberals and Red Tories in other provinces, but people like Lougheed and Getty were pretty much the same as Bill Davis and Richard Hatfield. And it's pretty hard to find ANY politicians in Canada from that era who were to the right of the Bennetts and Vanderzalm in BC.

Sterling Lyon?

 

I don't know much about Lyon's internal policies. I do know that he was VERY hostile to bilingualism, though it could also be that he just got more publicity for that because Manitoba was a province where  people were pushing for bilingualism(whereas eg. in Alberta, people were hostile to bilingualism, but in that era, it wasn't really being pushed on a provincial level, so our premiers didn't get much involved with it, until the Piquette affair later on.)

He was also notorious for opposing the Charter Of Rights of course, but he had that in common with other premiers as well. I still remember him being sworn in as a judge, and chuckling along with the audience when he read the part about promising to uphold the constitution. 

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

I've heard the idea that as the older population dies off the yonger population will shift voting habits to the left. It didn't happen. The Conservatives are still here, and they appeal very strongly to people's desire to take care of themselves first and foremost. Even in the smaller communities where right-wing parties dominate, while it may be true that younger people there may lean more to the left, my experience is that younger people there also support right-wing politicians in great numbers characteristic of the rest of the population. Look to the small areas where right-wing politicians blow out their competition in large numbers. Even though demographics in these areas tend to tilt older, there aren't enough of them by themselves to blow out other parties by those large numbers. They are getting help from younger voters. Younger voters who disagree with this often end up in bigger centres, which are more left-leaning to begin with.

Bigger centres have more ridings and if we ever get PR rural areas will have even less clout. Of course 100% of any population group isn't going to vote the same way. As a whole, young people are more progressive than old people. That's why it is an issue that younger voters have not been voting in the numbers older generations vote. Turn out of the youth vote can change the outcome of an election.  Alberta is an outlier. It's the centre of the Reform base and more distinct than Quebec in their politics. Albertans elect Trumps. Conservatives only make it on the national stage by pretending they are not extreme right-wingers. 

https://election.ctvnews.ca/singh-swarmed-by-cheering-students-at-ryerson-university-day-after-debate-1.4629957

Singh’s visit to Ryerson University was planned by campaign staff, but the students who came out didn’t know in advance about the “mainstreeting” event. In fact, the leader was supposed to walk around campus and meet people as he went but the student mob was so big he didn’t move more than a block in his nearly two hours on campus....

Young people represent a major voting block and Singh, like the other leaders, is trying to tap into that power. In 2015, 58.3 per cent of newly eligible voters turned out, an increase of roughly 17 per cent from the 2011 general election. According to Elections Canada, the greatest change was among voters aged 18-24. Turnout in that age category increased 18.3 per cent.

https://election.ctvnews.ca/singh-swarmed-by-cheering-students-at-ryerson-university-day-after-debate-1.4629957

 

I agree with some of this but not the part about rural centres getting less clout. Rural ridings do not tend to have much less population with a few exceptions. Generally they are just larger geographically. The loss of clout you suggest by leveling this is less significant than the gain from having less lopsided results where the rural regions are overwhelamed by the numbers of urban areas. when you have large majorities you can ignore whole regions of the country. When the seats are closer and in many cases cross party cooperation is required, smaller areas of the country have more clout than less.

As it is now, a Province like Ontario can be part of a false majority where a party with 45% of the vote can get 80% of the seats. This can be enbough to have more than 50% of the seats of a false majority government. This means that a flase majority in Ontario can dominate the majority party and essentially ignore the will of the rest of the country.

What PR does it not only does it create a more representative balance between parties but it also creates a more representative balance of where that vote came from. A country like Canada with some provinces much larger than others cannot afford to have a system that distorts so badly that a single province can have a majority of a majority party and rule the country when it did not have a majority of the votes in that province. A proportional vote result means that the government would have to listen to all regions of the country more equally. And it is about time that the federal government of Canada did.

I have come around to PR, definitely provincially, less so federally but still accepting. Bernier is still a cautionary note. 

Winning a majority of seats is not a false majority. It's how our system works. You win a majority by winning the majority of seats not the majority of votes. In Canada both provincially and federally it has not led to a two-party system. New parties rise and fall. We occasionally have minority governments.

Right now a vote in PEI means more than a vote in Ontario. Under PR that would no longer be. Under PR Quebec and Ontario would have even more power as they are by far the most heavily populated areas. The influence of cities would rise which is one reason I am for it. 

Voters consistently reject PR so I don't see how you can claim their intentions are not reflected in the outcome. The majority of the population seems to want to elect the PM and party that take power rather than have parties bargaining after the election. Proponents of PR never seem to consider why it is repeatedly rejected by the very people you claim are not represented under our current system. 

I've come around to PR in large part because I hope the left can move on Whether we are under FPTP or PR we still have to convince people to demand the changes we need no matter who is in power. 

voice of the damned wrote:

Pondering wrote: 

Albertans elect Trumps.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a right-wing Alberta politician who didn't have a counterpart somewhere else in Canada. Klein = Mike Harris, Kenney = Ford, and even if Alberta had been totally removed from Confederation, Harper would still have been only one seat short of a majority during his last parliament.

And yeah, you have Liberals and Red Tories in other provinces, but people like Lougheed and Getty were pretty much the same as Bill Davis and Richard Hatfield. And it's pretty hard to find ANY politicians in Canada from that era who were to the right of the Bennetts and Vanderzalm in BC.

And I would hardly compare mayors like Reimer. Nenshi, and Iveson to Donald Trump.  

Joe Clark is from Alberta and was a red Tory. Bill Davis was pretty tame by today’s standards as well.

Pondering, 

You can wish for more clout for Quebec in the HoC as you have clearly stated but your bias hurts other regions of Canada.

In the late 1970s, the world price of wheat was high - about $8.50 per bushel. MPs from Quebec and Ontario squealed that this was too high a price that they should have to pay to feed their hungry little children so they enacted a law which set the national price for wheat at a ceiling well below $8.50 per bushel.  Western grain farmers were forced to sell their wheat to eastern Canada at this reduced rate when they could have sold that wheat internationally for a huge  profit. The national government shafted the western Canadian grain farmers. BUT...they said that they were also doing this for the benefit of the farmers too because they drafted a price floor that if the world price of wheat dropped below this set floor price then this would help to protect the farmers from a crash in the world market.

Well, the price of wheat did crash. And when it dropped below the floor price that eastern Canada set for the farmers, then the MP’s from Quebec and Ontario screamed blue murder that the west was cheating the east which wasn’t fair. Why should they pay the floor price when they can buy their wheat from the United States for much less? They scrapped the law which would’ve helped the farmers a little because it wasn’t in the interest of southern Ontario and Quebec to do so.

More clout for Quebec will not help Quebec out more. It will simply infuriate western Canada more and intensify an already toxic issue. 

I used to be a strong nationalist. I am an old woman now and consider the benefits of western Canada withdrawing from the rest of Canada.

I see how Bombardier has made a complete mess of itself. It used to be a small family owned snowmobile business. Within 50 short years it grew from a back yard garage company into a multi billion dollar global scale aerospace and rail industry. The company did not expand to that scale and in so few short years without massive federal subsidies going to that company on a  regular basis. Because of their heavy duty subsidization, they lost 50.01% of their aerospace industry to Airbus, and they cannot meet their rail commitments on time. BTW, Bombardier used Federal subsidies to buy up Canadair and relocate thousands of western Canadian jobs to Quebec to create Bombardier aerospace.

Oh, and during WWII, western Canadian grain farmers kept Great Britain fed with wheat. They may have had food shortages in other food categories but they always had ample supplies of wheat in England thanks to western Canada. Great Britain was unable to pay for the grain during and after the war because of their war debts. The Canadian government forgave their debt. Western Canadian farmers were never compensated one penny because Quebec MPs didn’t think it was fair to them to have to pay for England's debt to western Canadian grain farmers.

Tax dollars seem to float into southern Quebec with such ease. Yet you feel that you need to have more influence in Ottawa to further  intensify your own interests there. 

I don’t foresee Canada surviving as a single country. There are too many regional disparities.There is also too much political narcissism in Canada. This is due to representation by population with the majority of that population residing in southern Ontario and southern Quebec and MPs who are only able to think about themselves and the interests of their own constituents. 

Some day this is going to end, and Quebec cannot independently sustain itself on forestry and hydro alone. Western Canada can independently sustain itself but Quebec cannot.

Quote:

As it is Western Canada totals 30.7% of the seats and has 31.8% of the population. BC and Alberta are shortchanged more to weight the two smaller provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Quebec has 22.63% of the population and 23% of the seats.  Atlantic Canada has 0.065% of the population and 0.0946% of the seats. The top-up is coming from Ontario but the difference is not massive for Ontario. Ontario has 38% of the population and 35.8% of the seats. the greatest discrepency is in the North but this only represents a rounding to one seat for each territory. The impact on the provinces is minimal. The problem regionally is grossly exaggerated especially when you consider that larger provinces carry other advantages and their caucuses tend to support each other more than they do between smaller provinces.

The reason that smaller provinces are overrepresented in parliament is that the Elections Act stipulates that no province can have fewer seats than it had in 1985. This was done to appease Quebec, which is slightly overrepresented in parliament (moreso at the time the current Elections Act was passed in the 80s). Governments since then have not dared touch the issue because it is too toxic and could fuel seperatist sentiment in Quebec.

This is why it will be the Conservatives that will be left behind. 

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/andrew-scheer-free-speech-conservative-platform_ca_5da10705e4b087efdbae5cb8?utm_hp_ref=ca-news

Leading up to the 2019 provincial election in Alberta, Kenney’s United Conservaitve Party platform contained an explicit reference to the Chicago Principles, noting that post-secondary institutions must “develop, post and comply with free speech policies that conform to the University of Chicago Statement on Principles of Free Expression.”

However, critics of the principles argue they are tailored to American hate speech laws and worry they could embolden intolerant views on Canadian campuses. 

The Progressive Conservatives split because of the Reformers who then took over the party when they merged back. It remains a problematic union.  Blue Liberals are not at all comfortable with Reformers and Red Tories don't much like them either. The Conservatives have the strongest largest base and the most money but they are losing centrist voters. They still gather enough up to win elections but it is dwindling not growing. 

Neoliberals have cut government to the bone with tax cuts and privatization but Canadians expect services. More cuts mean real pain and people don't see the need for them. There is no general panic over the deficit and that could be the doings of the neoliberals. They gave credit instead of raises. Debt has been normalized. As Ford has discovered it isn't so easy to make cuts when governments have been cutting for decades. 

Scheer is unpopular enough that people aren't that afraid that he will win. The consensus seems to be that Trudeau will win but that it might be a minority. That would dramatically increase the visibility of Singh and the NDP. Singh is saying the right things about taxing the rich and about Canada being a wealthy country.

I recently received a facebook pass it along message. It was requesting food and warm clothing for children, women and men, socks, underwear, baby formula. I was appalled. It soundled like a list of things to send to a disaster area or third world country not somewhere in Canada. 

Sure there are plenty of racists and ideologues that don't care but there are a lot of Canadians like me that are shocked. 

This is the last hurrah for neoliberals. The pendulum will swing back. I think it is a matter of two steps forward one step back. The last half century of neoliberalism has almost destroyed the world as we know it. Every year is a new year of more voters terrified of climate change and what will happen within their lifetimes. Sure there are some youth skeptics but they are a small minority. 

Whether or not Singh continues to rise in time for this election he is putting the NDP on track to reflect the concerns of Canadians over the next four to eight years. The warnings are getting ever more dire year after year. Fires and disasters are multiplying. Land is falling into the sea. 

I don't believe our economic system is going to collapse. I do believe that people in Canada and elsewhere are on the verge of rejecting the traditional parties. They will wear responsibility for climate change. They will be blamed for not taking action sooner. That will include the Liberals as their efforts have been minimal. But I only made little holes in the boat is not a defence. People are sick of corporate welfare. 

Maybe it will take 12 years not 8 but very soon I believe there will be a political revolt against the Conservatives and the Liberals as climate change continues to take its toll and inequality grows. 

One day I was on the subway in Toronto. A nice young lady asked me where I was from. I told her Saskatchewan. She asked me where Saskatchewan is? I told her that Saskatchewan is a province in western Canada. She asked Mississauga? I told her no. Much further west. About 3000 km west. She said “oh...Guelph?” I said no.  Much further west. I emphasized western Canada. I told her that it is a three day drive west. She said, “oh...Windsor?”

This is what happens when you live in a bubble. You watch the local news and it is all about Toronto. That is what local news is in Toronto...news about Toronto.

Then you watch the provincial news, and the provincial news is all a rehash of what you watched earlier on the local news.

Then at night, you watch the National! Sixty percent of the news is all a rehash of the local news in Toronto, twenty percent covers Ottawa, and then Quebec and Ontario’s reaction to what happened in Ottawa, and then they will spice up the national news with international news and squirrel sightings in BC or other points Canada to humour people living in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.

The news is the window to your bubble. It shows you all that they want you to see and know.

We watch the national news. We all know all about you. That is what they want us to see and know.

All you know about us are entertaining little stories about squirrels and that western Canada is Mississauga.

Left Turn wrote:

Quote:

As it is Western Canada totals 30.7% of the seats and has 31.8% of the population. BC and Alberta are shortchanged more to weight the two smaller provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Quebec has 22.63% of the population and 23% of the seats.  Atlantic Canada has 0.065% of the population and 0.0946% of the seats. The top-up is coming from Ontario but the difference is not massive for Ontario. Ontario has 38% of the population and 35.8% of the seats. the greatest discrepency is in the North but this only represents a rounding to one seat for each territory. The impact on the provinces is minimal. The problem regionally is grossly exaggerated especially when you consider that larger provinces carry other advantages and their caucuses tend to support each other more than they do between smaller provinces.

The reason that smaller provinces are overrepresented in parliament is that the Elections Act stipulates that no province can have fewer seats than it had in 1985. This was done to appease Quebec, which is slightly overrepresented in parliament (moreso at the time the current Elections Act was passed in the 80s). Governments since then have not dared touch the issue because it is too toxic and could fuel seperatist sentiment in Quebec.

Also a Province cannot have fewer MPs than senators.

but still a smaller province has less than proportional clout that a larger province.

In any case,as I say,  proportional vote to population of a province would lead to greater Ontario dominance and that is bad for the country. We need proportional party representation to votes before we need to worry about population to provincial representation concerns.

Misfit wrote:

Pondering wrote:

It isn't Southern Ontario and Quebec that are living in a bubble. We are the majority. In truth it may be provinces that are superfluous. Municipalities should deal directly with the Federal government. 

Says a woman who lives in the bubble. Btw, which provinces are you referring to as being superfluous? Please do elaborate!

All of them. Living in a bubble suggests being separated from reality or protected in some fashion. There is no "bubble" surrounding the majority of Canadians. They are just a majority because they live in the most populous region. They can't help it. They can't choose not to be a majority. It's just the way it is. 

We pass laws to protect minorities from majorities because majorities have so much power. Central Canada is the most populated area of Canada but we are strewn all along the border with the US. Cities all along it have the highest populations. 

Consider housing and social assistance. No province or city wants to win metals for being the best at providing for the poor. They want to improve things just enough to say they are doing stuff. If any city or province rises too far above the others they will become magnets for the needy. 

Not all children would react that way. It is wonderful to be aware of the world and other cultures but politically the person with the most votes still wins. Corporations couldn't care less about culture. And the people who want pipelines want them for money. If the people who don't want pipelines were offered enough money it is possible many would change their minds about it even if they say they wouldn't now.

There is no doubt our motives are driven by personal and territorial based interests. That is human nature. We need to identify first as Canadians. 

Pondering wrote:

Not all children would react that way. It is wonderful to be aware of the world and other cultures but politically the person with the most votes still wins. Corporations couldn't care less about culture. And the people who want pipelines want them for money. If the people who don't want pipelines were offered enough money it is possible many would change their minds about it even if they say they wouldn't now.

There is no doubt our motives are driven by personal and territorial based interests. That is human nature. We need to identify first as Canadians. 

Canada is not a single level thing that was created from nothing. It was an agreement between places that did not need to come together. It is a Confederation - a word we still use without always understanding what it means.

While it is true it was constructed by colonials in a colonial system and is a product of imperialism, the agreements and people behind it were not all purely imperialist: some even were here to avoid imperialism elsewhere (Darcy McGee for example). 

While Canada's record on Indigenous people is horrific, it is also a reason why we cannot pretend we are a single entity. There are many nations here who have been coerced but have never surrendered to the whole of Canada. The provinces are not the only parts of what we call Canada and see on the map as Canada that retains rights to an identity that is not just a merger of everything here. I think that Canadians need to understand what Canada actually is in order to have the nation to nation dialogue it needs with Indigenous nations.

There is no shame in acknowledging that we came into a single country on the condition that we could retain the distinctiveness and differences we have and that includes nations that stopped fighting Canada, despite racism, but did not give up their natiotionhood or rights to identity. Provinces entered Canada also conditionally.

One problem with Confederation is that it is outdated but any new configuration would have to be based on agreement: we might want to renegotiate provincial boundaries upon agreement and we ought to review old understandings about resources  and needs that evolved since 1867-1949. Indigenous people's need to be able to exert control over the resources in their lands that were not understood historically. Provinces agreed to jurisdictions provincial and federal for different things and that is the constitutional template of Canada. Indigenous poeple did not give up these jurisdictions and this is a significant difference when it comes to resources on Indigenous land (that includes treaty lands, non-treaty Indigenous lands as well as land under control of Indigenous Nations as well as land occupied by Canada without any aggreement to do so.)

I do not think we have to reject regional (or other identities) to be good Canadians or even to find common cause.

I think with respect, the various nations and provinces and identities in Canada can live in proximity without requiring being identical or forgoing the divisions that exist culturally and legally.

Canada has always been asymetrical.

Pondering I agree with the thrust of your points -- however, together we stand does not require us to be the same. We can stand together recognizing asymitry rather than have a fight over trying to find a single vision where the fight would tear us apart.

I have to say I traveled the road on this and came to this conclusion after a long time.

Aboutt he rest - I disagree that the NDP was ever the extreme but I know what you mean and I think it is semantics. The people have moved towards the NDP and the COnservatives have moved away from them. I think much of this is due to social media and bias confirmation as far as the Conservatives getting more extreme. When I do tlk politics with Conservatives they all say the same thing -- that they are at the centre. Conservatives moved to the right in part becuase they lost track on what the centre was. I remember moderate Conservatives in the 1990s still knew they were right of centre. Now extreme conservatives imagine they are the centre.

As far as which party will vanish I think this is too soon to tell. One party is definitely going to go. There will be one right, one left and one centre among the large ones. The reason for this is actually simple in conversation there is not room for more (except non left-right parties like the BQ or Greens, religious or regional parties).  Usually there is a left solution, a compromise or fence sitting solution (depending on how polite you want to be) and a right solution. Other options will come particularly with leadership questions but they will compete with the other one in the broad area and one will lose.

Therefore one of these scenarios will happen but unlikely that more than one will as the space will open:

1) People's Party vs Conservative will fold back into one party byt Bernier blowing out or the CPC moving to the right.

2) The Conservatives moving to the centre and taking on the Liberals and one of those parties disappearing

3) The Conservatives moving to the Centre taking enough of the Liberals's right side that the remainder move to the left and merge with the NDP.

One of those four parties is going to go. The most likely is very obviously Bernier. If Bernier goes then the Conservatives will tack slightly to the right to make sure another does not come up and the Liberals will have breathing room.

This period is complicatec while the Greens and the BQ are present since they leave less room for error by any of the parties. There will always be a conservative party that is supported by wealth and capital - even if it is called Liberal such as in BC. My sense is that a Liberal-Conservative switch is unlikely in the short term due to polarized politics. There is more of a gap between all the parties so there is less chance of the money of Canada not keeping alive a Conservative party. However they could switch to Liberal if the Conservavatives put up an especially bad leader (from a right wing perspective).

An NDP-Liberal merger is really unthinkable unless the Liberals have had the right side carved out so completely that what is left would be small enough that New Democrats would not think they could be swamped and the remainder would be left enough to contemplate such a thing. It also requires - as we have seen - having no mythical saviour in the wings. I think the NDP has to be extremely cautious about this as Liberals to far to the right of the NDP have to have a place to go for the NDP to consider a merger. Otherwise these people would join the NDP and bring it to the right. An NDP Liberal merger - for the NDP ideas to survive needs a right party (say Bernier's) to eat into the Conservatives's right side enough that the Conservatives can move to the centre and accept the right Liberals. Without this, those right Liberals would swamp the NDP. Ultimately we are going to have a right and a centre party in order for a left party to survive - even if any of these three is small. There is no need for the centre party to be dominant but it must exist with a party to its right to avoid exiles coming and blowing up the left party.

I think this is an important concept people who favour mergers usually miss so I hope I explained it better this time.