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The "point and laugh at Canadian politics" thread!

Lerticus

Senile Old Coot
☭ Communism ☭
OK, so Trudeau and the Liberals have had some scandals... oh, but look at the opposition! Why does America, my eternal enemy, get to have all the publicity for terrible politics?

Let's get dangerous!

"The process was flawed," Scheer said of the new guide. "Complete lack of consultation. Seems to be ideologically driven by people who have a philosophical perspective and a bias against certain types of healthy food products.

"So absolutely we want to get that right."

Scheer added his party wants the guide to "actually reflect what we know, what the science tells us."
Seems legit, right? Follow the science!

But wait a moment, what does it mean to "actually reflect what we know" about nutrition, what is the plan, and why is he talking about this again?

Why bring this up?
Scheer made the comment at the Dairy Farmers of Canada's annual general meeting in Saskatoon on Wednesday, after being asked by a young farmer about the Conservatives' food policies.
If that raises a red flag for you, good job!

Yes, dairy farmers (among several food industry groups) tried to pressure the sitting government into pushing their wares into the new food guide so they would be able to profit. It had nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of nutrition science.

So now the leader of the Conservative party wants to... suck up to all the industry groups! As per usual. Of course, "what they know" is more important than what real scientists know about nutrition. But, hey, point to the other side and claim that they were out to destroy industries on purpose for no reason at all. That many of these farmers are sitting in the prairie provinces, where the Cons traditionally do the best, shows exactly which party is "ideology driven".

So, what does he actually know about the subject of nutrition?
"I truly do believe that chocolate milk saved my son's life,"
...
"He was eating toast, would eat bacon, he would eat very plain grilled meats and we couldn't get him to eat much else. And so [we] were really worried about it. Where was he gonna get his calcium and other vitamins? And he loved chocolate milk and he would drink chocolate milk by the tumbler-full," Scheer said.
Science!!!

Wait... that's the planks of his platform!? He knew fuck all about what sort of vitamins were in his kid's food, he figured that chocolate milk must be wonderful for vitamin thingies, his kid lived, so now the entire science of nutrition for every family in the country should be based off his half-assed parenting!? The fuck!? How did this muppet even get voted in as a party leader!? How does his party maintain a third of the voting intentions in this country!?

The plan. Sorry... the """plan""".
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is promising another review of Canada's recently updated Food Guide should the Tories come to power this fall
...
"I can make all those decisions myself," Scheer said of the currently proposed labels, which Ottawa already has confirmed would not apply to milk.
...
Scheer also vowed that a Conservative-led government would abandon the Liberals' plan for front-of-package nutrition labelling.
To be clear, he would just rip up all the science and go with his gut. He thinks that a food guide is actually telling people what they can and cannot buy. He wants people to not have critical information about how healthy the food they are buying actually is.

Going for all the climate change denying going on in Canadian politics would be low-hanging fruit. It is abhorrent, but it is clearly nothing more than the Conservatives being pawns for the oil and gas industry like they have been since the beginning of time. This is pouring rocket fuel over the Harper-era muzzling of scientists and fabrication of facts to support their greed for power and money, no matter how large or small the issue.

Everyone please pray for more Liberal scandals. Canada might not survive this moron, especially if he makes us all drink chocolate milk to stay healthy.
 
Can someone give me a roll up on Canadian politics?
 
Can someone give me a roll up on Canadian politics?
Parliamentary system. Federal election day coming in October, official campaigns beginning soon.

In the red corner, the Liberal Party of Canada. They like to be all warm and fuzzy and accepting of ideas and different cultures. Currently they are the party in power with a majority government. There have been some scandals early in the year, but overall they have helped to build the economy with deficit spending.

In the blue corner, the Conservative Party of Canada. They like being secret Republicans. Ostensibly, they claim to like responsible spending, and being cautious about things instead of running ahead into scandals. While in power they make many scandals, deficit spend even more than the Liberals, privatize profit at the expense of the citizenry, try to slow down immigration, push "tough on crime" laws that repeatedly get struck down for being unconstitutional... like I said, wannabe Republicans. Their strongholds are in the oil and gas provinces, so the idea of environmental protection is a total joke.

In the orange corner (because we love those corners) is the National Democratic Party. They tend to be a bit of a spoiler vote against the Liberals since they compete on the social liberal levels. Depending on the current party platform, they might be strong on unions, but they tend to ally a fair bit with the Greens on needing a strong environmental policy. They are the unofficial third major party, though they have never won either a minority or majority federal government.

Then it starts to fall apart with smaller parties who have gained seats in the past, and a brand new spoiler party for the Conservatives.

The other blue corner party is the Bloc Québécois. As you can tell from the name, they are Quebeckers and mostly the French variety, Their reach is, unsurprisingly, limited to Quebec, leaving them in a distant fourth place, with less than a quarter of even the third place NDP. Their policies are to support Quebec Independence and separation from Canada (though they never follow through on the separation threats since they lost a referendum in 1995), a bit of environmentalism, and being as asshole French as possible.

In the green corner is the Green party. They are pretty much single-policy driven, so they have made tremendous gains in Canada by getting a second seat in parliament. Which doesn't even give them official party status, and leaves them out of parliamentary committees (though sometimes other parties throw the Greens a bone on the environment file, even though they don't have to put them on those committees).

Finally, in the purple corner is the brand new People's Party of Canada. They have one seat in parliament, with the partly leader having left the Conservative party. They will be running in all ridings of Canada, so they have the potential of splitting the conservative voters in this election. The platform is mostly like that of the Conservatives, but the party was formed out of the leader stating "I've come to realize this party is too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed".

So where are we now?
The Liberals are ending their first mandate under the leadership of Justin Trudeau, ending the decade+ control of the Conservatives under Stephen Harper.

Canadians primarily do not vote for a party, they vote against the assholes who are in charge right now, which can and will backfire spectacularly (this is about federal politics, but Ontario electing Ford as premier has created non-stop shitstorms in less than a single year in power and polling shows that he might be pulling down the federal Conservatives by name association). Which means that now voters are facing a choice of voting for either Liberal Trudeau, and some of his scandals (which have mostly died off), or the Conservative's Scheer (AKA Harper version 2.0). The NDP have a pathetically weak leader, so they will likely be losing a bunch of seats in this election.

At the moment the current top topic for Canadians is the environment, followed by government spending. The Liberals created a federal carbon price, but it was hard to understand by many that the money would go back out as rebates at tax time (with the daily and monthly hits hopefully incentivizing more home-based green strategies to pollute less and save more), and has been called the dreaded "gas tax". Currently the Liberals are winning that one with two provincial courts determining that they have the right to regulate, and that some of the right-wing bitchy provinces do not have a right to pollute. They also are doing well with record employment numbers and economic growth, but the specter of the debt boogeyman still exists. In fact, the Conservatives have been polling ahead of the Liberals after the latter party took a big hit with those past scandals.

Clearly, I have a preference with wanting to keep Scheer far away from the reigns of power. Again, it's not like people around here vote for a party unless they are dedicated party staffers and members. Harper lost because of attacks on the scientific community, going hard right on immigration and pushing Islamophobic agendas, putting the country into two recessions with the worst jobs record since the Great Depression, etc. Scheer wants to do all of this again, but with added climate change denying and hating all science in general.

So it all comes down to how many people are willing to hold their noses and vote for the scandal-ridden Liberals instead of being sold a load of regressive horseshit. With a weak NDP the Liberals are likely to grab some of their seats, and the new dynamic with the People's Party of Canada might throw a wrench into the Conservative's plan to grab more seats for themselves.
 
So a party titled the "Peoples Party" is a conservative party. That's feels ironic, even if they lack official status.

And your description of politics sounds depressingly familiar, in the context of this decades political trends.
 
So a party titled the "Peoples Party" is a conservative party. That's feels ironic, even if they lack official status.
They are billing themselves as having freedom, so I suppose that is where the "people" come from, giving power of choice back to people. While the party is going to be putting out a platform with a list of core principles, they supposedly will be allowing their individual members the freedom of not walking in lockstep like Conservatives want on other topics.

Oh, but one of the top billing policies was completely reforming immigration, so there has already been a number of alt-right questions at town-hall meetings. Supposedly there is no actual connection, but the shitheads have glommed on to both of the conservative parties in the last few months, and if there is one thing that these parties hate to do, it is turn away their base of uneducated asswipes.

So far it hasn't hit the mainstream too hard since immigration is not a super-high priority this year (unless it changes), but if that debate opens up again the Liberals can point to a lot of "Oh, I didn't hear that particular question" and "I was there to protest the pipeline not getting built fast enough and not completely aligning myself with the rally movement that was organized by and featured prominent racists" events that would put their opposition on the back foot.
 
So are the Liberals a labour equivalent or more of a 'true' liberal party?
Not entirely familiar with all the global parties, but the Liberals are less union-oriented than the NDP, but still aiming their policies for the masses. They are often portrayed as anti-business because of their engaging in global trade policies (and because the Cons frame it that way), but they do not shill for the labor unions and employees.

Mostly liberal, but with a bit more of "interference" with financial stimulus on the national economy, and somewhat stronger protections for workers and regulation of industry than classic liberalism. So it depends on what you consider to be a "true" liberal party.
 
So this is what a commie USA looks like, arguing over the freaking milk lobby influencing dietary guidelines.

Sounds like a nice place to live!
 
So, @Lerticus. It seems that the Liberals have won, but is now the minority government for Canada.

Are there talks about a coalition or something? or will Trudeau govern with a minority?
 
So, @Lerticus. It seems that the Liberals have won, but is now the minority government for Canada.

Are there talks about a coalition or something? or will Trudeau govern with a minority?
Discussion are probably underway for a Liberal - NDP coalition to form. It will be a rather unstable government and may only last for around two years depending on a number of factors. Though there's a good chance it pass a good amount of legislation for however long it lasts.
 
Discussion are probably underway for a Liberal - NDP coalition to form. It will be a rather unstable government and may only last for around two years depending on a number of factors. Though there's a good chance it pass a good amount of legislation for however long it lasts.

I'm thinking a three way LIberal-Bloc Quebecois-NDP coalition. Though I don't know how that would work 😜
 
So, @Lerticus. It seems that the Liberals have won, but is now the minority government for Canada.

Are there talks about a coalition or something? or will Trudeau govern with a minority?
Traditionally Canada has been fearful of coalitions for whatever reasons. This tends to mean that a minority government will fall quickly and another election will take place in about 16-24 months.

This time might be different in some ways, at least in the longevity department. NDP has openly states that they would be willing to join a coalition with the Liberals, which would give a solid majority. They have a few conditions that they would bring to to the table, but unless they try to kill of the now government-owned pipeline that is finally about to get built they have a fair bit in common with the Liberals and an arrangement could be made.

The Bloc has stated that they would not join a coalition, but they are still opposed to almost everything that the Cons stand for, so they would still be more likely to support either a Lib/NDP coalition or a Liberal minority.

Nothing has been said, but I get the feeling that the Libs will try to run a minority government with pulling in support from other parties on a case-by-case basis. While the Cons didn't win, they had a bit of a surge, and none of the other parties want to take a risk on splitting the left any further and letting the Cons back in power and fucking over the majority. Therein lies an incentive to not try to take down a Liberal minority, because this way they can get things done for four years with only a variation on details and extent, while a potential Con government means that none of the things that they want get done at all.

For a major example, the Cons ran on a "*wink wink* we totally will do things to reduce carbon emissions, but we won't give any details as to how this will happen and we will dismantle all the efforts that have been made in the last four years, oh, and we will force new pipelines down the throats of provinces who don't want them and ignore First Nations if need be to get it done" kind of platform. Liberals said that they were on the path to meaningful progress, and everyone else said that stricter measures needed to be taken.

If the other parties support a Liberal minority they get at least as much action on climate change as there is now, or more, but if they force another election and lose then they get nothing. A lot of platforms are exactly like this, with all the left-leaning parties having a difference on how to get one thing done, while the Cons are on the right looking to tear it all down.

A Liberal minority here might be stronger than one might think, so it might stand on its own or at least delay before getting into coalition talks. There are now two provincial coalition governments, so the idea is starting to take hold in Canada, but it is still largely untested waters on a federal level.
 
Are most of the votes for the conservatives coming from Saskatchewan and Alberta? Just wondering.
 
Are most of the votes for the conservatives coming from Saskatchewan and Alberta? Just wondering.
Yes and no. In AB/SK they won all of the ridings decisively with over 70% of the vote (surprising no one, it is climate change denial/burn all the oil cultists over there; I lived in the area for years, I am not exaggerating in the least). They were still competitive in a lot of ridings though, with them actually getting about a percent higher of the popular vote than the Liberals (just diluted outside of their home turf). EDIT: Actually, upon doing some more research, it looks like they actually were down in numbers everywhere else, and the prairie vote actually was that strong that it skewed the national percentage.

A lot of the pundits are saying that this means that the Liberals have to reach out to the prairies because of the deep divisions, but in reality it means much more that it doesn't matter how hard you try to help those provinces out, they will always vote Con and blame you for every problem anyway.

SK premier went on record today demanding that the election results mean that the federal government should scrap the carbon tax, force through pipelines, and redo the formula on equalization payments between have and have-not provinces. Problem is that the Liberals are already working on building a pipeline and getting no credit (even though 11 years of the Cons in charge they didn't make any progress on a pipeline), and the people in the other parts of the country all want to take steps to fight climate change. But they still make demand that their 10% of the population should get to dictate what happens in 100% of the country because they spent years pulling up crude from the ground and bolstering the economy. Now they are all pissed that the price of oil is low and that they can't do their one thing forever, and might eventually have to quit the cult and diversify their economy instead of insisting that the world must guarantee them oil jobs forever.

At this point it might be best to do what they want and fuck with them at the same time by ending equalization payments (giving them what they want) and then only giving federal money to provinces that are not so well off. The conservative provinces are so piss-poor with their economic planning that they will have to shoot themselves in the foot, hand, and head by constantly begging for money.
 
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