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[Canadian Politics]: New Liberal Cabinet Sworn In

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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    edited June 2015
    hippofant wrote: »

    Wow, what a piece of shit.

    I think it's incredibly depressing how unsurprised I am that the CPC's minister of aboriginal affairs doesn't care about aboriginal people.

    From the article;
    But during the largest ovation, for the commission's support for a national inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt remained seated. The Harper government has consistently refused calls for a national inquiry on the issue.
    Just when I think I can't dislike the CPC more, they find a way. Seriously, what the actual fuck?

    TubularLuggage on
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    hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited June 2015
    Daimar wrote: »
    I think you're confusing politicians for leaders.

    God, don't get me started. It's not just a politician thing. The professors here are the same way. Anything that's wrong, they externalize almost immediately into somebody else's fault.

    Part of me wonders if this is a new phenomenon or things have always been this way, and I was just too young to understand it. People want power, credit, prestige, but are never willing to accept responsibility. I read about people in the "good ol' days" who stood up and took charge of things, even when it wasn't their fault, and I just turn :mrgreen: with envy. Now it's deny, deflect, and dump it on some underling who you fire to cover your ass.

    hippofant on
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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Apparently being absolutely terrible isn't new to Bernard Valcourt. Just a few weeks ago, he suggested that suicide rates among aboriginal youth are their parents problem, not his.

    Maybe he should take another look at his own damn job title.

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    LaOsLaOs SaskatoonRegistered User regular
    Disco11 wrote: »

    If he retires now instead of later, he gets a much better pension package.

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    JeanJean Heartbroken papa bear Gatineau, QuébecRegistered User regular
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    Screen-Shot-2015-06-05-at-10.07.09-AM.png

    "You won't destroy us, You won't destroy our democracy. We are a small but proud nation. No one can bomb us to silence. No one can scare us from being Norway. This evening and tonight, we'll take care of each other. That's what we do best when attacked'' - Jens Stoltenberg
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    RichyRichy Registered User regular
    Somehow I'm reminded of an article I read years ago, about how Harper's masterplan was to destroy the Liberals to setup a permanent Conservative majority, because Canadians would obviously never vote for an NDP government. Seeing it backfire so badly is just awesome.

    Also, I want to hear Harper brag about defeating the Bloc again. It was a ridiculous claim to make when Quebec was orange, but now that the Bloc is back up in second place while the Cobs are fourth its downright hilarious.

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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Good to see the Cons doing so poorly here in the Atlantic region.
    With the way things are going, and without MacKay, I could definitely see them getting shut out of Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland. Possibly New Brunswick too, though they're weirdly difficult to predict.

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    ShadowenShadowen Snores in the morning LoserdomRegistered User regular
    Richy wrote: »
    Somehow I'm reminded of an article I read years ago, about how Harper's masterplan was to destroy the Liberals to setup a permanent Conservative majority, because Canadians would obviously never vote for an NDP government. Seeing it backfire so badly is just awesome.

    Also, I want to hear Harper brag about defeating the Bloc again. It was a ridiculous claim to make when Quebec was orange, but now that the Bloc is back up in second place while the Cobs are fourth its downright hilarious.

    It's kind of darkly ironic that in order to create a permanent Conservative majority, Harper apparently bought in to the idea of the Liberals as Canada's "natural ruling party". "If I can just beat them, and keep them down, everything else will fall into place!" And it did, for a while...but aside from the fact that the Liberals aren't what they were (and they seem unable to really affect Trudeau's numbers no matter how many attack ads they run) when the Cons smushed them, they've completely ignored everyone else.

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    Chake99Chake99 Registered User regular
    Surprised how many people are pro-green.

    Because the right party to vote for is the one that thinks WiFi could be dangerous, calls for a 9/11 inquest, promotes false information about GM foods, is against hydro smart-meters, and was briefly pro homeopathy.
    Any of the major parties are better than the greens.

    Even on environmental issues sometimes the major parties do better - for instance Stephane Dion's liberals had an actual carbon tax on their platform, which would have been a powerful tool to reduce carbon emissions.

    Also re: missing and murdered aboriginal women, I feel it's a bit silly, those calling for the inquest are suggesting that somehow the RCMP are neglecting to investigate crimes against aboriginals, when this is really not the case -

    http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/mmaw-faapd-eng.pdf

    Is the RCMP report on the issue. Murders of aboriginals are solved at comparable rates to non-aboriginals. There's also the fact that aboriginal men are murdered and go missing at a comparably higher rate than aboriginal women.

    The minister of aboriginal affairs also met with chiefs. He communicated the fact that 70% of the murders of aboriginal women were carried out by aboriginals-
    several chiefs said the minister should be fired for blaming aboriginal men for the tragedy, a position they dismissed as unsubstantiated and demeaning.

    So the RCMP then stepped up and substantiated that figure which was understandably left out of the original report

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/70-per-cent-of-murdered-aboriginal-women-killed-by-indigenous-men-rcmp-confirms/article23868927/



    Hic Rhodus, Hic Salta.
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    hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    edited June 2015
    Chake99 wrote: »
    Also re: missing and murdered aboriginal women, I feel it's a bit silly, those calling for the inquest are suggesting that somehow the RCMP are neglecting to investigate crimes against aboriginals, when this is really not the case -

    http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/pubs/mmaw-faapd-eng.pdf

    Is the RCMP report on the issue. Murders of aboriginals are solved at comparable rates to non-aboriginals. There's also the fact that aboriginal men are murdered and go missing at a comparably higher rate than aboriginal women.

    The minister of aboriginal affairs also met with chiefs. He communicated the fact that 70% of the murders of aboriginal women were carried out by aboriginals-
    several chiefs said the minister should be fired for blaming aboriginal men for the tragedy, a position they dismissed as unsubstantiated and demeaning.

    So the RCMP then stepped up and substantiated that figure which was understandably left out of the original report

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/70-per-cent-of-murdered-aboriginal-women-killed-by-indigenous-men-rcmp-confirms/article23868927/

    The issue wasn't that the number was unsubstantiated. It's that the RCMP has consistently said that it doesn't calculate such statistics because it doesn't consider such statistics meaningful, and they're committed to race-blind criminal investigations, and that Douche Valcourt the Douchiest (tm) sprung that number out as a means of blaming the aboriginal community for the crimes themselves, which is already plenty heinous enough, but also without providing any context as to comparative numbers. Given cultural and co-localization factors, and that most murders are committed by people known to the victim (and most people know more people of their own race than other races), that fucking number is meaningless. You might as well say that people who live in Chinatown are more likely to be murdered by a Chinese person....

    hippofant on
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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    The Greens tend to poll higher than their actual vote share, especially this far out from an election.

    Also, Chake, I hate to burst the bubble you're living in, but the Canadian government and Canadian authorities don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to this country's aboriginal peoples.

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    PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    The Greens tend to poll higher than their actual vote share, especially this far out from an election.

    Also, Chake, I hate to burst the bubble you're living in, but the Canadian government and Canadian authorities don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to this country's aboriginal peoples.

    I think that last sentence works for every country ever.

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    El SkidEl Skid The frozen white northRegistered User regular
    I was just listening to the radio, and was dismayed to hear that with all the financial needs on aboriginal reserves, the budget for aboriginal affairs has a huge chunk of money budgeted to it that just isnt going to be used this year.

    I just...how is that possible? Why would you not spend the whole budget? Why would next year's budget get chopped??

    So yeah, the government is basically never good with native peoples. :(

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    hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    El Skid wrote: »
    I was just listening to the radio, and was dismayed to hear that with all the financial needs on aboriginal reserves, the budget for aboriginal affairs has a huge chunk of money budgeted to it that just isnt going to be used this year.

    I just...how is that possible? Why would you not spend the whole budget? Why would next year's budget get chopped??

    So yeah, the government is basically never good with native peoples. :(

    I dunno about in general, but the Conservatives have been doing this since they came into power. They've been overallocating in the budget, so they get to say they're spending X on Y, but then throughout the year, they restrict that money from actually being spent, so they end up spending X/2 on Y and then claim they've produced a surplus (or balanced the budget, or whathaveyou). This has caused issues over in Veterans Affairs too, but not enough people are paying attention to how the money is actually spent, compared to just the #s that are announced during budget season. (Which have other deceptive qualities involved too. Basically, the Conservatives have taken budget season and turned it into a PR stunt.)

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    shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    hippofant wrote: »
    Basically, the Conservatives have taken budget season everything and turned it into a PR stunt.

    An accurate description of Harper's entire reign.

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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    The Greens tend to poll higher than their actual vote share, especially this far out from an election.

    Also, Chake, I hate to burst the bubble you're living in, but the Canadian government and Canadian authorities don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to this country's aboriginal peoples.

    I think that last sentence works for every country ever.

    Sadly, yeah, pretty much. Basically, we're no exception when it comes to that, which makes the CPC stance of "Nope. All problems in the aboriginal community are 100% their own fault" even more infuriating.

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    ShadowenShadowen Snores in the morning LoserdomRegistered User regular
    So according to the BCCLA (BC Civil Liberties Association), parts of C-24 allow for some citizens and not others to have their citizenship taken away? You can even be born in Canada, but if you're even eligible for being a citizen of another nation you could theoretically be stripped of citizenship, creating "two-tier" citizenship. Currently you would need to be convicted of a crime that threatened national security (terrorism, treason, etc.). Of course, it would be relatively easy to expand the list...

    And of course, this is all in the name of fighting "jihadi terrorism", but regardless of crimes they commit some people simply cannot be stripped of citizenship, while others can.

    Also, the process for doing this was "streamlined", removing a judge from the process, with most decisions instead being made by the CIC minister. Because that's a good idea.

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    hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    Yeah. It's total bullshit. Basically, the CIC minister now has the unilateral authority to strip someone of citizenship if they are eligible for citizenship in another country. Which is bullshit, because a lot of other countries use bullshit citizenship rules - like, China will randomly consider me a citizen, since my heritage is Chinese, even though I was neither born there nor ever wanted it, and China doesn't even recognize dual-citizenship.

    I believe one can theoretically appeal the ruling, but that's obviously hard if you've already been deported or denied entry. So ... seek refuge in a church, I guess.

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    InvectivusInvectivus Registered User regular
    Is it October yet?

    And if it isn't, does anyone have a time machine

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    SurikoSuriko AustraliaRegistered User regular
    Shadowen wrote: »
    So according to the BCCLA (BC Civil Liberties Association), parts of C-24 allow for some citizens and not others to have their citizenship taken away? You can even be born in Canada, but if you're even eligible for being a citizen of another nation you could theoretically be stripped of citizenship, creating "two-tier" citizenship. Currently you would need to be convicted of a crime that threatened national security (terrorism, treason, etc.). Of course, it would be relatively easy to expand the list...

    And of course, this is all in the name of fighting "jihadi terrorism", but regardless of crimes they commit some people simply cannot be stripped of citizenship, while others can.

    Also, the process for doing this was "streamlined", removing a judge from the process, with most decisions instead being made by the CIC minister. Because that's a good idea.

    Oh hey, we're on exactly the same crazy train over in Aus (though the person need not be convicted of any crime, and it's explicitely the immigration minister's call with no court or judge involved). It's uncomfortable how this is suddenly sweeping across conservative governments at the same time.

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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Would it be unreasonable to be worried that Harper and the CPC may look at polls between now and the election, decide there's a good chance they're not going to get re-elected, and go into overdrive with shoving terrible bullshit through parliament?

    October really can't get here soon enough.

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    shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Suriko wrote: »
    Shadowen wrote: »
    So according to the BCCLA (BC Civil Liberties Association), parts of C-24 allow for some citizens and not others to have their citizenship taken away? You can even be born in Canada, but if you're even eligible for being a citizen of another nation you could theoretically be stripped of citizenship, creating "two-tier" citizenship. Currently you would need to be convicted of a crime that threatened national security (terrorism, treason, etc.). Of course, it would be relatively easy to expand the list...

    And of course, this is all in the name of fighting "jihadi terrorism", but regardless of crimes they commit some people simply cannot be stripped of citizenship, while others can.

    Also, the process for doing this was "streamlined", removing a judge from the process, with most decisions instead being made by the CIC minister. Because that's a good idea.

    Oh hey, we're on exactly the same crazy train over in Aus (though the person need not be convicted of any crime, and it's explicitely the immigration minister's call with no court or judge involved). It's uncomfortable how this is suddenly sweeping across conservative governments at the same time.

    I really feel like there's some sort of world-wide version of ALEC that we just don't know about.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council

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    blkmageblkmage Registered User regular
    Would it be unreasonable to be worried that Harper and the CPC may look at polls between now and the election, decide there's a good chance they're not going to get re-elected, and go into overdrive with shoving terrible bullshit through parliament?

    October really can't get here soon enough.

    The last sitting day before summer break is in two or three weeks, so they won't be able to introduce anything new. They would have set their legislative agenda with the parliamentary calendar in mind long beforehand, so anything else that's already in the pipeline that they want passed should get passed unless they somehow fucked up managing their bills.

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    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    hippofant wrote: »
    Yeah. It's total bullshit. Basically, the CIC minister now has the unilateral authority to strip someone of citizenship if they are eligible for citizenship in another country. Which is bullshit, because a lot of other countries use bullshit citizenship rules - like, China will randomly consider me a citizen, since my heritage is Chinese, even though I was neither born there nor ever wanted it, and China doesn't even recognize dual-citizenship.

    I believe one can theoretically appeal the ruling, but that's obviously hard if you've already been deported or denied entry. So ... seek refuge in a church, I guess.

    Also based on a basic reading it seems that the final decision is in the hands of the Minister anyways.

    So basically the exchange could go like this:
    Minister: "I don't like you so I'm revoking your Canadian citizenship"
    Person: "No, that's unfair, I've done nothing wrong, I have a family, and you have no reason other than you don't like me"
    Minister: "I've considered your appeal and I'm still going to go with the whole revocation of citizenship because who cares what you think you terrorist"

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    CanadianWolverineCanadianWolverine Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    I really feel like there's some sort of world-wide version of ALEC that we just don't know about.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council

    Oh, we know about how the conservative ideas across mulitple countries all seem to hit at around the same period of time - its basicly the impact of the internet on politics, especially in very insular sub-cultures like conservatism, there tends to be a lot of feed back loop of ideas.

    Haven't there been Conservative politicians who have pretty much full on copy-pasted speeches another country's Conservative gave?

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    Andy JoeAndy Joe We claim the land for the highlord! The AdirondacksRegistered User regular
    So I'm an ignorant American who doesn't fully understand parliamentary government. I more or less get why small, single-issue parties like the Greens and the Bloc exist - to leverage potential coalition agreements to advance their preferred policies. I don't, however, really see why there should be a generically left party (Liberals) and also a generically slightly-further-left party (NDP), especially when there's only one major right-wing party. Does anyone here feel like bothering to explain why NDP doesn't merge with the Liberals?

    (I could honestly ask the same of Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the UK.)

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    Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Andy Joe wrote: »
    So I'm an ignorant American who doesn't fully understand parliamentary government. I more or less get why small, single-issue parties like the Greens and the Bloc exist - to leverage potential coalition agreements to advance their preferred policies. I don't, however, really see why there should be a generically left party (Liberals) and also a generically slightly-further-left party (NDP), especially when there's only one major right-wing party. Does anyone here feel like bothering to explain why NDP doesn't merge with the Liberals?

    (I could honestly ask the same of Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the UK.)

    Because neither party is 'generically-left'. The NDP and Liberals are ideologically distinct parties. There is some crossover, but Liberals are much more centrist than the US media would have you believe, whereas the NDP are solidly left.

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    Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Addendum:

    We used to have two 'right' parties, the Tories (Progressive Conservatives) and the Reform/Canadian Alliance. The Tories were the typical official opposition, sometimes getting a majority for a term or two here and there, but when the Liberals continued to dominate, they merged with the much farther right Reform party to form the Conservative Party of Canada. And because Harper is from the far right, the inmates are running the asylum in the CPC, so we really just have a moderate left wing, a centrist, and a far right party now. There isn't all that much room in Canadian politics for the moderate conservative any longer (Though most of them haven't caught on to the fact that they have been betrayed by the former Tories).

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    PsykomaPsykoma Registered User regular
    Because left leaning doesn't mean the same policies.
    The same reason why there's multiple right leaning parties in Alberta.

    The biggest difference I could point to right now is that the Liberals, while still left leaning, backed the conservatives with their 'anti terror' "Police can arrest you whenever they feel like and you can shove your complaints up your ass" bill while the NDP didn't.

    However it is an issue because it means the conservatives don't have to do much to get into power, just make sure the left vote is split in just the right proportions.

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    NewblarNewblar Registered User regular
    Even though people talk about them as being part of the left, the Liberals are traditionally centrist.

    Granted they do have a leftist bent but the gulf is still quite wide between the parties.

    There is also a fair bit of animosity between the Liberals and NDP as they compete fairly directly for many of their voters.

    If they did merge they wouldn't simply get all of the votes both parties currently receive. The hardcore NDP voters would find another leftist party to vote for, barely anyone in Alberta would vote for a party they see as Liberal due to something that happened before I was born, and many in Ontario hold a similar type grudge towards the NDP. There's also the likely scenario that not everyone in the party would want to merge potentially causing two more splinter parties.

    If they merged, you would certainly see a stronger Bloc and Green Party but if you would see a stronger viable alternative to the Conservatives is debatable.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
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    Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Newblar wrote: »
    barely anyone in Alberta would vote for a party they see as Liberal due to something that happened before I was born

    I think you're overstating things.

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    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2015
    Nova_C wrote: »
    Newblar wrote: »
    barely anyone in Alberta would vote for a party they see as Liberal due to something that happened before I was born

    I think you're overstating things.

    Last provincial election in BC, the Liberals were running ads about how much the NDP sucked in the 90s.

    Khavall on
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    SwashbucklerXXSwashbucklerXX Swashbucklin' Canuck Registered User regular
    Speaking of Liberals in BC... I've heard the provincial Liberals aren't actually liberal? If that's true, who is? Just the NDP? Making plans to move out there, gotta get my politics on.

    Want to find me on a gaming service? I'm SwashbucklerXX everywhere.
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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Speaking of Liberals in BC... I've heard the provincial Liberals aren't actually liberal? If that's true, who is? Just the NDP? Making plans to move out there, gotta get my politics on.

    The short answer is that the BC Liberals are that province's conservative party, while the NDP (and to a lesser extent the Greens) are the left wing party. It's to the point that their provincial Conservative Party is considered a minor party. I'll leave it to someone a bit more knowledgeable on BC politics to get into why this is the case.

    At least part of it is a more extreme case of political parties varying a bit in ideology by region. Like how provincial Progressive Conservative parties in the Atlantic region, while being the right wing option on the ballot, often aren't particularly conservative, especially compared to some of the right wing options in the more western parts of the country.

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    DaimarDaimar A Million Feet Tall of Awesome Registered User regular
    It's all relative, BC is so granola that the Liberal platform seems right wing.

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    DeciusDecius I'm old! I'm fat! I'M BLUE!Registered User regular
    Welp, the attack adds have started playing on my favourite local radio station.

    Did you guys know that Justin Trudeau is too young and pretty to govern effectively?

    I mean he's only two years younger then Harper was when he took office, and Harper is definitely much more nerdy looking.

    Well I know who I'm voting for now! Thanks CPC for your informative message.

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    I never finish anyth
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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    Decius wrote: »
    Welp, the attack adds have started playing on my favourite local radio station.

    Did you guys know that Justin Trudeau is too young and pretty to govern effectively?

    I mean he's only two years younger then Harper was when he took office, and Harper is definitely much more nerdy looking.

    Well I know who I'm voting for now! Thanks CPC for your informative message.

    I mean, there's no way a governing Conservative party running ads attacking the Liberal Party leader's appearance could backfire, right?

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    notdroidnotdroid Registered User regular
    edited June 2015
    (To play in the background for ultimate ambience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpTx0VDBKw)

    Guess who's back, back again
    Duceppe's back, tell a friend
    Guess who's back, guess who's back?
    Guess who's back, guess who's back?
    Guess who's back, guess who's back?
    Guess who's back?

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gilles-duceppe-preparing-comeback-as-leader-of-bloc-québécois-1.3105751
    http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/politique/2015/06/09/001-gilles-duceppe-direction-bloc-quebecois.shtml

    notdroid on
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    KetBraKetBra Dressed Ridiculously Registered User regular
    Time for the liberals to bring chretien out of retirement

    KGMvDLc.jpg?1
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    TubularLuggageTubularLuggage Registered User regular
    deadderWEB-june9_0.jpg

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