Just use a fucking referendum to get voters to pick the system between the LPC preferred system and the NDP preferred system.
Simple. Democratic.
This only works if you're willing to accept the NDP's system. Otherwise, I can absolutely see how less than a year after the Brexit vote, a guy from Quebec might not be interested in having it all come down to a referendum.
So the whole commission was pointless, since the LPC was planning to impose their preference from the start and did not care what the other parties wanted.
I'm not sure how you can square that with abandoning reform after it failed. But I suppose any future commissions are going to be pointless, since the last one was a purely - and openly - partisan affair.
It didn't fail, it merely returned a result the LPC didn't want.
It failed in that it did not return a clear consensus on what the parties could agree on.
In a parliamentary system that's why majority governments exist.... no?
did all three parties agree on every single piece of legislation that was passed during the harper majority? The LPL ran on passing voter reform. Not a specific form of voter reform.... No more FPTP.
Not really, no. One of the important things that undergirds how a democracy works is that idea that just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. Democracies are not like perfectly balanced machines you are supposed to rules lawyer to get what you want. It's important to maintain legitimacy and practice restraint. I think this is especially important when you are fucking with the very systems for choosing the government. All of which is to say that while getting a majority of seats with just under 40% of the vote technically gives you the power to do whatever the fuck you want, it should not be viewed as a blank check to do whatever the fuck you want.
And even aside from that I will point out that yet again you are using getting a majority in the current system as providing legitimacy for making a change that is itself based in the idea the current system does not deliver legitimate outcomes.
Just use a fucking referendum to get voters to pick the system between the LPC preferred system and the NDP preferred system.
Simple. Democratic.
This should have been done.
I think my MP still has Voting Reform as part of her remit; if she comes door knocking I'll bring it up before she can run away from my grand plans for the senate.
I would have preferred the LPC implemented what they wanted and used the majority we gave them. I understand why they didn't but I was/am still pissed about it.
I'm unlikely to believe them on election reform ever again or at least not in the short term because of it.
To address the "What about the 60% who didn't vote liberal!" feedback, that's not top of my concern. My concern is reducing the possibility that the insane CPC can govern to near zero. FPTP continues to give them too high a chance.
This, right here, is why I supported Trudeau dumping the electoral reform, even if I would have preferred if it had occurred. It is absolutely, totally, in no uncertain terms unacceptable to implement a voting system with that kind of rhetoric. I too wish the conservatives would never again form a government, but blocking them from all hope of political power is completely abhorrent.
I don't agree.
Blocking them from political power because they would be #3 on most of the countries list is completely acceptable.
When they produce a platform that garners more support then that could change.
I don't find anything at all abhorent to relegate parties with positions that the majority of the country find harmful or ridiculous to a dark corner and I certainly don't think any system that allocates power to parties like that (either FPTP or proportional) to be a step in the right direction.
One week into this election, the Liberals are the only party not to have released a platform, and backstage talk is that they're looking for the "big idea" issue to put forward. It's starting to look like they were caught off-guard and unprepared for... this election they themselves called at a date of their own choosing.
It's too bad we've eradicated covid, solved climate change, successfully relaunched the economy, and balanced the budget. Any of those would have been a great issue to campaign on.
Seriously, are they trying to lose this election?
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
So, I dunno if you heard, but NWT has our second outbreak, and this one was immediately bad. It's delta, and within a couple days we were asking the feds for help.
Yellowknife vaccination rates are good, but a lot of the small communities up here are less so. I can absolutely sympathize with First Nations hesitancy regarding vaccination considering what they've lived through in the past. They've been given every reason to mistrust things like mandated vaccinations. Unfortunately, Delta has put multiple communities on lockdown. Canadian Rangers were deployed in several to provide supplies since so many are in quarantine.
I'm crossing my fingers this one burns out fast like the previous, but the way things are going, this may actually be a for real catastrophe.
One week into this election, the Liberals are the only party not to have released a platform, and backstage talk is that they're looking for the "big idea" issue to put forward. It's starting to look like they were caught off-guard and unprepared for... this election they themselves called at a date of their own choosing.
It's too bad we've eradicated covid, solved climate change, successfully relaunched the economy, and balanced the budget. Any of those would have been a great issue to campaign on.
Seriously, are they trying to lose this election?
Well, covid, the economy and the budget are the same thing, the budget was basically balanced before it. And covid won't go away as long as people are being stupid, and you can't fix stupid
And we are not fixing climate change at ~0.05% of the world's population
One week into this election, the Liberals are the only party not to have released a platform, and backstage talk is that they're looking for the "big idea" issue to put forward. It's starting to look like they were caught off-guard and unprepared for... this election they themselves called at a date of their own choosing.
It's too bad we've eradicated covid, solved climate change, successfully relaunched the economy, and balanced the budget. Any of those would have been a great issue to campaign on.
Seriously, are they trying to lose this election?
Well, covid, the economy and the budget are the same thing, the budget was basically balanced before it. And covid won't go away as long as people are being stupid, and you can't fix stupid
And we are not fixing climate change at ~0.05% of the world's population
Ehhhh, we're in the top 10 most emitting countries, I figure we have some role to play.
Also, COVID could be severely mitigated if we enforced mask mandates, went into lockdown, paid people not to go to work, and so on. So really it's leadership failure.
One week into this election, the Liberals are the only party not to have released a platform, and backstage talk is that they're looking for the "big idea" issue to put forward. It's starting to look like they were caught off-guard and unprepared for... this election they themselves called at a date of their own choosing.
It's too bad we've eradicated covid, solved climate change, successfully relaunched the economy, and balanced the budget. Any of those would have been a great issue to campaign on.
Seriously, are they trying to lose this election?
Well, covid, the economy and the budget are the same thing, the budget was basically balanced before it. And covid won't go away as long as people are being stupid, and you can't fix stupid
And we are not fixing climate change at ~0.05% of the world's population
Ehhhh, we're in the top 10 most emitting countries, I figure we have some role to play.
Also, COVID could be severely mitigated if we enforced mask mandates, went into lockdown, paid people not to go to work, and so on. So really it's leadership failure.
We are, but what we have is a whole bunch of relatively clean provinces and then Alberta and Saskatchewan with lots of oil and gas. Any focus on climate change involves shutting down the oil industry. That's probably an election non-starter. Maybe you could push for clean electrical generation
And unfortunately health is the perview of the provinces so they can't generally enforce sweeping mask mandates or lockdowns from the federal level. And they did / are paying people to not work, it lead to by far the biggest deficit since the 60s, realistically they can't pay huge swathes of the population to not work at all for long periods of time
One week into this election, the Liberals are the only party not to have released a platform, and backstage talk is that they're looking for the "big idea" issue to put forward. It's starting to look like they were caught off-guard and unprepared for... this election they themselves called at a date of their own choosing.
It's too bad we've eradicated covid, solved climate change, successfully relaunched the economy, and balanced the budget. Any of those would have been a great issue to campaign on.
Seriously, are they trying to lose this election?
Well, covid, the economy and the budget are the same thing, the budget was basically balanced before it. And covid won't go away as long as people are being stupid, and you can't fix stupid
And we are not fixing climate change at ~0.05% of the world's population
Ehhhh, we're in the top 10 most emitting countries, I figure we have some role to play.
Also, COVID could be severely mitigated if we enforced mask mandates, went into lockdown, paid people not to go to work, and so on. So really it's leadership failure.
We are, but what we have is a whole bunch of relatively clean provinces and then Alberta and Saskatchewan with lots of oil and gas. Any focus on climate change involves shutting down the oil industry. That's probably an election non-starter. Maybe you could push for clean electrical generation
And unfortunately health is the perview of the provinces so they can't generally enforce sweeping mask mandates or lockdowns from the federal level. And they did / are paying people to not work, it lead to by far the biggest deficit since the 60s, realistically they can't pay huge swathes of the population to not work at all for long periods of time
That Oil and gas was and still is a huge part of our GDP. Clean energy is a great point and the middle provinces that don't have easy access to hydro could certainly use it.
PSN: Canadian_llama
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
It's official - open community spread of Delta variant in NWT.
Catastrophe. Our hospital will be overwhelmed pretty much immediately.
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
If the Liberals are re-elected on Sept. 20, Trudeau said, he would introduce a first home savings account which would allow Canadians up to age 40 to save $40,000 toward their first home and withdraw it tax-free when it comes time to buy. Money added to the account would go in tax-free and could be withdrawn without any taxes owing on possible investment gains.
Like, I get that this was just one part of a larger housing strategy (with other measures that also seem incredibly quaint), but part of the solution is...another, more restrictive TFSA?
If the Liberals are re-elected on Sept. 20, Trudeau said, he would introduce a first home savings account which would allow Canadians up to age 40 to save $40,000 toward their first home and withdraw it tax-free when it comes time to buy. Money added to the account would go in tax-free and could be withdrawn without any taxes owing on possible investment gains.
Like, I get that this was just one part of a larger housing strategy (with other measures that also seem incredibly quaint), but part of the solution is...another, more restrictive TFSA?
Come on now
Taxes aren't what's holding people back from buying homes, so I don't understand the purpose of this at all.
I talked to my dad about buying his home. I was 12 when we moved, and I remember the house was $129,900. I asked him how much he made at the time, he said around $60K.
So the home was double his salary.
I make about $100k a year. My dad's house NOW is worth over $400k. So more than 4x my salary.
I asked him if he would have been able to afford a home if house prices were double what they were, or he made half as much as he did. He said he didn't know.
But the answer is, of course, no.
And I make more than the average by a fair margin.
If the Liberals are re-elected on Sept. 20, Trudeau said, he would introduce a first home savings account which would allow Canadians up to age 40 to save $40,000 toward their first home and withdraw it tax-free when it comes time to buy. Money added to the account would go in tax-free and could be withdrawn without any taxes owing on possible investment gains.
Like, I get that this was just one part of a larger housing strategy (with other measures that also seem incredibly quaint), but part of the solution is...another, more restrictive TFSA?
Come on now
I look forward to being able to use this for…nine months. I am sure it will be vital to my house purchasing plans. Or. Perhaps not.
ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
edited August 2021
Checking an aggregate of poll numbers so far and it feels like Conservatives are gonna get a minority government. (They might even squeak out a majority if trends continue.) Granted these are fairly swift changes, so they could easily switch back or change completely in the next few weeks, but that's also a bit concerning. It feels like it usually takes something significant coming out to change polling numbers as quickly as we're seeing.
For all the mistakes Trudeau has made, the Tories led by fucking Erin O'Toole winning is just not something I would have predicted, given the whole "no one covered themselves in glory except maybe New Zealand but conservatives worldwide including in Canada royally screwed the pooch on the pandemic."
Shadowen on
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JeanHeartbroken papa bearGatineau, QuébecRegistered Userregular
O'Toole is not Harper or Scheer. He has led a very centrist campaign so far. Attacks that worked against his predecessors fall flat against him.
Not to mention than this election call was extremly irresponsible on Trudeau's part. I'm quite angry he has done such a shameless power grab in the middle of the fourth wave, while sanitary restrictions are being reinstated. Yet, he's campaigning like he's one who was caught by surprise. I find that pretty insuting. The least he could do is present a clear vision & plan for his third mandate.
"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
So far the only move I've seen the Liberals do is release a doctored video of O'Toole saying he's for privatization of healthcare. Which he is. So they didn't need to doctor a video of him saying it, they could just have used an undoctored video of him saying it. But by doctoring it, the Liberals successfully shifted the discussion away from O'Toole's plans to privatize healthcare and onto the Liberals' doctoring videos about O'Toole's plans to privatize healthcare.
Like I said before, the only way this election makes sense is if the Liberals are deliberately trying to lose.
I'm going to try to avoid looking at polls for the rest of the campaign. I already know how I'm voting, I'm already doing what I can for the party of my choice in my riding, so there's no use stressing myself out.
I'm going to remind myself for now that, there have been multiple past campaigns where the polls in the first few weeks in no way resembled the results.
I don't know the current numbers, and frankly I don't want to know, but I do remember that 2019 seemed more dire than it ended up being going into election night, because deep blue ridings skewed the PV polling.
While Trudeau calling the election when he did was stupid, if we get an O'Toole majority because most voters take everything they hear at face value and have the memory of goldfish, I'm officially through caring about politics, because it's pointless.
By which I mean I'll be depressed and annoyed for a week, and then will get back to doing my bit where I can, because those of us who actually care and have any actual sense can't afford to give up. I'm really hoping to skip the 'complete and utter dismay about the state of our society' phase though.
If the Liberals are re-elected on Sept. 20, Trudeau said, he would introduce a first home savings account which would allow Canadians up to age 40 to save $40,000 toward their first home and withdraw it tax-free when it comes time to buy. Money added to the account would go in tax-free and could be withdrawn without any taxes owing on possible investment gains.
Like, I get that this was just one part of a larger housing strategy (with other measures that also seem incredibly quaint), but part of the solution is...another, more restrictive TFSA?
Come on now
Taxes aren't what's holding people back from buying homes, so I don't understand the purpose of this at all.
I talked to my dad about buying his home. I was 12 when we moved, and I remember the house was $129,900. I asked him how much he made at the time, he said around $60K.
So the home was double his salary.
I make about $100k a year. My dad's house NOW is worth over $400k. So more than 4x my salary.
I asked him if he would have been able to afford a home if house prices were double what they were, or he made half as much as he did. He said he didn't know.
But the answer is, of course, no.
And I make more than the average by a fair margin.
Taxes aren't the problem.
One other consideration is interest rates.
My parents bought their home in 1990 for $67,000, and they had something like a 12% variable interest rate. Inflation would indicate that the 2021 equivalent of $67,000 is about $121,000, and the house is would fetch at least twice that on the market. But someone buying the house now may be paying 2% on a five year fixed rate mortgage, which moves the price point of affordable houses upwards.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
Checking an aggregate of poll numbers so far and it feels like Conservatives are gonna get a minority government. (They might even squeak out a majority if trends continue.) Granted these are fairly swift changes, so they could easily switch back or change completely in the next few weeks, but that's also a bit concerning. It feels like it usually takes something significant coming out to change polling numbers as quickly as we're seeing.
For all the mistakes Trudeau has made, the Tories led by fucking Erin O'Toole winning is just not something I would have predicted, given the whole "no one covered themselves in glory except maybe New Zealand but conservatives worldwide including in Canada royally screwed the pooch on the pandemic."
A few important caveats here before we panic
First, Canadian polling is not nearly as accurate as US-style polls, so a grain of salt with reading them is important - they were especially poor the last two elections
Second, the aggregate polls themselves are not as important as the seat projections, which are still showing Liberal minority, with the Liberals dropping several seats that the NDP and Conservatives would likely take
It's still mindbending to me to see O'Toole pop so hard in the first week, but they also dropped their entire platform early, Afghanistan is happening, and realistically a lot of what they've currently got is the CPC floor; taking the centre is their only route to victory and it is gonna be a few weeks before we see where that lands
Most of the Canadian populace won't be tuned in until after Labour Day, which the parties are aware of, so that's when we'll see the real strategies come into play and have a better idea where things are going
B.C. has a vaccination passport system coming asap. I was more excited until I learnt it only prevents me from dealing with unvaxxed customers tho. I'm sadly still stuck with all my stupid anti-vaxx coworkers. But hey at least gets me away from some of the unvaxxed.
Two SW Ontario small-town anecdotes with respect to the election. My town, which normally sees a pretty big front-yard sign turnout has been fairly anemic. Predictably there's a spattering of Con/Lib signs, but overall numbers seem down, and conversations I've had locally have struck a tone of 'glum'. Yesterday visited my parents who live in another SW Ontario small town. The signs were out in force, no Liberal/NDP signs I could see, a huge amount of Con signs, and a surprising amount of PPC signs. So some right-wing fervor.
Genuinely kind don't know why yard signs have persisted into the modern age. I get how back when communication was slower maybe they had some value, but it just seems like weird signalling behaviour at this point. My partner called them bumper stickers for your house, and I couldn't agree more.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I saw one Liberal sign this morning on my way to work. Haven't seen any others.
The Conservative candidate is a dude from Ontario who openly said he has no intention of coming here, so I don't think the Cons are going to be doing much campaigning in Yellowknife. I'm worried that the absolute apathy everyone has about this election is going to cause an upset, though. I hope not. I expect a Liberal victory, as it's been solidly Liberal the whole time I've been here. I'll be voting NDP. I have not actually looked at the platforms and don't care, because this is the most pointless election ever in a not-dictatorship.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I'm going to try to avoid looking at polls for the rest of the campaign. I already know how I'm voting, I'm already doing what I can for the party of my choice in my riding, so there's no use stressing myself out.
I'm going to remind myself for now that, there have been multiple past campaigns where the polls in the first few weeks in no way resembled the results.
I don't know the current numbers, and frankly I don't want to know, but I do remember that 2019 seemed more dire than it ended up being going into election night, because deep blue ridings skewed the PV polling.
While Trudeau calling the election when he did was stupid, if we get an O'Toole majority because most voters take everything they hear at face value and have the memory of goldfish, I'm officially through caring about politics, because it's pointless.
By which I mean I'll be depressed and annoyed for a week, and then will get back to doing my bit where I can, because those of us who actually care and have any actual sense can't afford to give up. I'm really hoping to skip the 'complete and utter dismay about the state of our society' phase though.
While this is a relatable sentiment, this is also something that I feel like crops up every go-round where you (not specifically "you", everyone "you") need to be realistic about your riding. While I don't know which one you're in, we're now smack-dab in the middle of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, and there's no way we're electing a conservative. A liberal is up for re-election, polling shows him with like half the vote, NDP in a not-particularly close second, and then the local con with like half that. I'll vote my belief, support the party, and encourage others to be similarly thoughtful, but in the grand scheme of this election being in central HRM my vote pretty much does not matter.
Two SW Ontario small-town anecdotes with respect to the election. My town, which normally sees a pretty big front-yard sign turnout has been fairly anemic. Predictably there's a spattering of Con/Lib signs, but overall numbers seem down, and conversations I've had locally have struck a tone of 'glum'. Yesterday visited my parents who live in another SW Ontario small town. The signs were out in force, no Liberal/NDP signs I could see, a huge amount of Con signs, and a surprising amount of PPC signs. So some right-wing fervor.
Genuinely kind don't know why yard signs have persisted into the modern age. I get how back when communication was slower maybe they had some value, but it just seems like weird signalling behaviour at this point. My partner called them bumper stickers for your house, and I couldn't agree more.
This was actually the first time we got a sign, partly because it's the first year we had somewhere to actually put it, but partly because I think with the NPD in particular it's worth showing people how many people are actually voting for the party to help combat the ever-green (and ever-stupid) vote-splitting debate. Nobody who puts a sign on their lawn is only "lightly invested" in the party and so it helps to cement that it actually isn't pointless to vote left of the LPC.
I saw one Liberal sign this morning on my way to work. Haven't seen any others.
The Conservative candidate is a dude from Ontario who openly said he has no intention of coming here, so I don't think the Cons are going to be doing much campaigning in Yellowknife. I'm worried that the absolute apathy everyone has about this election is going to cause an upset, though. I hope not. I expect a Liberal victory, as it's been solidly Liberal the whole time I've been here. I'll be voting NDP. I have not actually looked at the platforms and don't care, because this is the most pointless election ever in a not-dictatorship.
you expect a liberal victory, but are worried the cons might win so you're voting ndp
ok then
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I saw one Liberal sign this morning on my way to work. Haven't seen any others.
The Conservative candidate is a dude from Ontario who openly said he has no intention of coming here, so I don't think the Cons are going to be doing much campaigning in Yellowknife. I'm worried that the absolute apathy everyone has about this election is going to cause an upset, though. I hope not. I expect a Liberal victory, as it's been solidly Liberal the whole time I've been here. I'll be voting NDP. I have not actually looked at the platforms and don't care, because this is the most pointless election ever in a not-dictatorship.
you expect a liberal victory, but are worried the cons might win so you're voting ndp
ok then
I don't buy into strategic voting, and you can look down on me all you want for being an idealist, but if it's vote for a party I don't believe in to stop another party I don't believe in, I'll just save myself the fucking afternoon and not vote.
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I saw one Liberal sign this morning on my way to work. Haven't seen any others.
The Conservative candidate is a dude from Ontario who openly said he has no intention of coming here, so I don't think the Cons are going to be doing much campaigning in Yellowknife. I'm worried that the absolute apathy everyone has about this election is going to cause an upset, though. I hope not. I expect a Liberal victory, as it's been solidly Liberal the whole time I've been here. I'll be voting NDP. I have not actually looked at the platforms and don't care, because this is the most pointless election ever in a not-dictatorship.
you expect a liberal victory, but are worried the cons might win so you're voting ndp
ok then
I don't buy into strategic voting, and you can look down on me all you want for being an idealist, but if it's vote for a party I don't believe in to stop another party I don't believe in, I'll just save myself the fucking afternoon and not vote.
I feel like I summoned this upon you by calling it out in my post.
I'll never forget the 2011 Federal Election, where I know for sure I convinced at least 10ish friends to vote in the first place, and to vote NDP over Liberal when they did.
... and then the Conservative ass-wipe Jay Aspin beat Liberal incumbent, and pretty-cool-guy Anthony Rota by 18 votes.
Sure it was an 8 point drop for the Liberals and a 5+ for the Cons and NDP, thanks to a pretty terrible Ignattieff. But goddamn, sometimes those votes really do make a big fucking difference.
but whatever, fuck strategic voting. Vote who you believe in, otherwise we give into the insidious ABC strategy that keeps shit like Trudeau in office for far too long.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
I saw one Liberal sign this morning on my way to work. Haven't seen any others.
The Conservative candidate is a dude from Ontario who openly said he has no intention of coming here, so I don't think the Cons are going to be doing much campaigning in Yellowknife. I'm worried that the absolute apathy everyone has about this election is going to cause an upset, though. I hope not. I expect a Liberal victory, as it's been solidly Liberal the whole time I've been here. I'll be voting NDP. I have not actually looked at the platforms and don't care, because this is the most pointless election ever in a not-dictatorship.
you expect a liberal victory, but are worried the cons might win so you're voting ndp
ok then
I don't buy into strategic voting, and you can look down on me all you want for being an idealist, but if it's vote for a party I don't believe in to stop another party I don't believe in, I'll just save myself the fucking afternoon and not vote.
I mean listen, do what you want, but strategic voting is certainly a real thing whether you buy into it or not
regardless for me, I live in an NDP stronghold that will never not be a NDP riding and it literally doesn't matter who i vote for which is also a frustrating feeling if you don't want to vote NDP
Hardtarget on
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I saw one Liberal sign this morning on my way to work. Haven't seen any others.
The Conservative candidate is a dude from Ontario who openly said he has no intention of coming here, so I don't think the Cons are going to be doing much campaigning in Yellowknife. I'm worried that the absolute apathy everyone has about this election is going to cause an upset, though. I hope not. I expect a Liberal victory, as it's been solidly Liberal the whole time I've been here. I'll be voting NDP. I have not actually looked at the platforms and don't care, because this is the most pointless election ever in a not-dictatorship.
you expect a liberal victory, but are worried the cons might win so you're voting ndp
ok then
I don't buy into strategic voting, and you can look down on me all you want for being an idealist, but if it's vote for a party I don't believe in to stop another party I don't believe in, I'll just save myself the fucking afternoon and not vote.
I mean listen, do what you want, but strategic voting is certainly a real thing whether you buy into it or not
regardless for me, I live in an NDP stronghold that will never not be a NDP riding and it literally doesn't matter who i vote for which is also a frustrating feeling if you don't want to vote NDP
Oh, I know it's real.
I lived in Alberta when there were still two parties on the right. And then everyone cried about splitting votes and strategic voting and we need to unite the right and now things are worse.
So I refuse to participate in something that I watched make things worse.
My district (Halifax West - boy, do we ever have a statistically surprising number of Bluenosers here) has been solidly warm colours since 1993, but that was Geoff Regan winning every time but one (NDP won in 1997). Regan is retired, and now Lena Diab is the Liberal running. She’s a Lebanese immigrant, and the NDP candidate is an old white guy. So on the one hand, ABC, and I value representation of women, immigrants and minorities. On the other, I believe a lot more strongly in the NDP platform.
I may not vote until Election Day. I know my one vote is a drop in the bucket, but I don’t want to regret it either way.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I believe I am free this election with regard to strategic voting, as there is no longer a Liberal incumbent (not running again), so all of the candidates are fresh, and the NDP candidate was my former professor (and is all of the signs I see), and the NDP is traditionally competitive here.
Low overall turnout helps the Conservatives, as their base is both much smaller and much more rabidly fanatical.
Summer elections have low turnouts. Elections less than two years since the last one have low turnouts. Elections without a clear electoral issue or reason to exist have low turnouts. Elections in the middle of a pandemic where everyone has much more pressing matters to care about and are worried about in-person contacts have low turnouts. And this election in particular has had the most bland and unmotivating first two weeks of any election I've ever seen, which will encourage a low turnout.
Like I said, the only way this election makes sense is if Trudeau and the Liberals are deliberately trying to lose.
I was going to say that in a tinfoil hat way that the LPC want another party (CPC) to take power for when the bill comes due on the pandemic, so someone else gets blamed for the taxes or services cuts to try to dealing with the debt.
Which would be a huge mistake as the CPC are pro’s at blaming others for things the CPC did, let alone something they fought against.
MWO: Adamski
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Neat development ... Looking like my local CPC candidate is a sexual predator, because of course he is.
Posts
Not really, no. One of the important things that undergirds how a democracy works is that idea that just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. Democracies are not like perfectly balanced machines you are supposed to rules lawyer to get what you want. It's important to maintain legitimacy and practice restraint. I think this is especially important when you are fucking with the very systems for choosing the government. All of which is to say that while getting a majority of seats with just under 40% of the vote technically gives you the power to do whatever the fuck you want, it should not be viewed as a blank check to do whatever the fuck you want.
And even aside from that I will point out that yet again you are using getting a majority in the current system as providing legitimacy for making a change that is itself based in the idea the current system does not deliver legitimate outcomes.
This should have been done.
I think my MP still has Voting Reform as part of her remit; if she comes door knocking I'll bring it up before she can run away from my grand plans for the senate.
I don't agree.
Blocking them from political power because they would be #3 on most of the countries list is completely acceptable.
When they produce a platform that garners more support then that could change.
I don't find anything at all abhorent to relegate parties with positions that the majority of the country find harmful or ridiculous to a dark corner and I certainly don't think any system that allocates power to parties like that (either FPTP or proportional) to be a step in the right direction.
It's too bad we've eradicated covid, solved climate change, successfully relaunched the economy, and balanced the budget. Any of those would have been a great issue to campaign on.
Seriously, are they trying to lose this election?
Yellowknife vaccination rates are good, but a lot of the small communities up here are less so. I can absolutely sympathize with First Nations hesitancy regarding vaccination considering what they've lived through in the past. They've been given every reason to mistrust things like mandated vaccinations. Unfortunately, Delta has put multiple communities on lockdown. Canadian Rangers were deployed in several to provide supplies since so many are in quarantine.
I'm crossing my fingers this one burns out fast like the previous, but the way things are going, this may actually be a for real catastrophe.
Well, covid, the economy and the budget are the same thing, the budget was basically balanced before it. And covid won't go away as long as people are being stupid, and you can't fix stupid
And we are not fixing climate change at ~0.05% of the world's population
Ehhhh, we're in the top 10 most emitting countries, I figure we have some role to play.
Also, COVID could be severely mitigated if we enforced mask mandates, went into lockdown, paid people not to go to work, and so on. So really it's leadership failure.
I bet $1 on it.
We are, but what we have is a whole bunch of relatively clean provinces and then Alberta and Saskatchewan with lots of oil and gas. Any focus on climate change involves shutting down the oil industry. That's probably an election non-starter. Maybe you could push for clean electrical generation
And unfortunately health is the perview of the provinces so they can't generally enforce sweeping mask mandates or lockdowns from the federal level. And they did / are paying people to not work, it lead to by far the biggest deficit since the 60s, realistically they can't pay huge swathes of the population to not work at all for long periods of time
That Oil and gas was and still is a huge part of our GDP. Clean energy is a great point and the middle provinces that don't have easy access to hydro could certainly use it.
Catastrophe. Our hospital will be overwhelmed pretty much immediately.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-won-t-enact-legislation-to-recognize-federal-truth-and-reconciliation-holiday-1.6153652
Like, I get that this was just one part of a larger housing strategy (with other measures that also seem incredibly quaint), but part of the solution is...another, more restrictive TFSA?
Come on now
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Taxes aren't what's holding people back from buying homes, so I don't understand the purpose of this at all.
I talked to my dad about buying his home. I was 12 when we moved, and I remember the house was $129,900. I asked him how much he made at the time, he said around $60K.
So the home was double his salary.
I make about $100k a year. My dad's house NOW is worth over $400k. So more than 4x my salary.
I asked him if he would have been able to afford a home if house prices were double what they were, or he made half as much as he did. He said he didn't know.
But the answer is, of course, no.
And I make more than the average by a fair margin.
Taxes aren't the problem.
I look forward to being able to use this for…nine months. I am sure it will be vital to my house purchasing plans. Or. Perhaps not.
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For all the mistakes Trudeau has made, the Tories led by fucking Erin O'Toole winning is just not something I would have predicted, given the whole "no one covered themselves in glory except maybe New Zealand but conservatives worldwide including in Canada royally screwed the pooch on the pandemic."
Not to mention than this election call was extremly irresponsible on Trudeau's part. I'm quite angry he has done such a shameless power grab in the middle of the fourth wave, while sanitary restrictions are being reinstated. Yet, he's campaigning like he's one who was caught by surprise. I find that pretty insuting. The least he could do is present a clear vision & plan for his third mandate.
There's still a lot of time to turn that around but it was a concerning opener.
Like I said before, the only way this election makes sense is if the Liberals are deliberately trying to lose.
I'm going to remind myself for now that, there have been multiple past campaigns where the polls in the first few weeks in no way resembled the results.
I don't know the current numbers, and frankly I don't want to know, but I do remember that 2019 seemed more dire than it ended up being going into election night, because deep blue ridings skewed the PV polling.
While Trudeau calling the election when he did was stupid, if we get an O'Toole majority because most voters take everything they hear at face value and have the memory of goldfish, I'm officially through caring about politics, because it's pointless.
By which I mean I'll be depressed and annoyed for a week, and then will get back to doing my bit where I can, because those of us who actually care and have any actual sense can't afford to give up. I'm really hoping to skip the 'complete and utter dismay about the state of our society' phase though.
One other consideration is interest rates.
My parents bought their home in 1990 for $67,000, and they had something like a 12% variable interest rate. Inflation would indicate that the 2021 equivalent of $67,000 is about $121,000, and the house is would fetch at least twice that on the market. But someone buying the house now may be paying 2% on a five year fixed rate mortgage, which moves the price point of affordable houses upwards.
A few important caveats here before we panic
First, Canadian polling is not nearly as accurate as US-style polls, so a grain of salt with reading them is important - they were especially poor the last two elections
Second, the aggregate polls themselves are not as important as the seat projections, which are still showing Liberal minority, with the Liberals dropping several seats that the NDP and Conservatives would likely take
It's still mindbending to me to see O'Toole pop so hard in the first week, but they also dropped their entire platform early, Afghanistan is happening, and realistically a lot of what they've currently got is the CPC floor; taking the centre is their only route to victory and it is gonna be a few weeks before we see where that lands
Most of the Canadian populace won't be tuned in until after Labour Day, which the parties are aware of, so that's when we'll see the real strategies come into play and have a better idea where things are going
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Genuinely kind don't know why yard signs have persisted into the modern age. I get how back when communication was slower maybe they had some value, but it just seems like weird signalling behaviour at this point. My partner called them bumper stickers for your house, and I couldn't agree more.
The Conservative candidate is a dude from Ontario who openly said he has no intention of coming here, so I don't think the Cons are going to be doing much campaigning in Yellowknife. I'm worried that the absolute apathy everyone has about this election is going to cause an upset, though. I hope not. I expect a Liberal victory, as it's been solidly Liberal the whole time I've been here. I'll be voting NDP. I have not actually looked at the platforms and don't care, because this is the most pointless election ever in a not-dictatorship.
This was actually the first time we got a sign, partly because it's the first year we had somewhere to actually put it, but partly because I think with the NPD in particular it's worth showing people how many people are actually voting for the party to help combat the ever-green (and ever-stupid) vote-splitting debate. Nobody who puts a sign on their lawn is only "lightly invested" in the party and so it helps to cement that it actually isn't pointless to vote left of the LPC.
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you expect a liberal victory, but are worried the cons might win so you're voting ndp
ok then
I don't buy into strategic voting, and you can look down on me all you want for being an idealist, but if it's vote for a party I don't believe in to stop another party I don't believe in, I'll just save myself the fucking afternoon and not vote.
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... and then the Conservative ass-wipe Jay Aspin beat Liberal incumbent, and pretty-cool-guy Anthony Rota by 18 votes.
Sure it was an 8 point drop for the Liberals and a 5+ for the Cons and NDP, thanks to a pretty terrible Ignattieff. But goddamn, sometimes those votes really do make a big fucking difference.
but whatever, fuck strategic voting. Vote who you believe in, otherwise we give into the insidious ABC strategy that keeps shit like Trudeau in office for far too long.
I mean listen, do what you want, but strategic voting is certainly a real thing whether you buy into it or not
regardless for me, I live in an NDP stronghold that will never not be a NDP riding and it literally doesn't matter who i vote for which is also a frustrating feeling if you don't want to vote NDP
Oh, I know it's real.
I lived in Alberta when there were still two parties on the right. And then everyone cried about splitting votes and strategic voting and we need to unite the right and now things are worse.
So I refuse to participate in something that I watched make things worse.
My district (Halifax West - boy, do we ever have a statistically surprising number of Bluenosers here) has been solidly warm colours since 1993, but that was Geoff Regan winning every time but one (NDP won in 1997). Regan is retired, and now Lena Diab is the Liberal running. She’s a Lebanese immigrant, and the NDP candidate is an old white guy. So on the one hand, ABC, and I value representation of women, immigrants and minorities. On the other, I believe a lot more strongly in the NDP platform.
I may not vote until Election Day. I know my one vote is a drop in the bucket, but I don’t want to regret it either way.
So yay.
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Summer elections have low turnouts. Elections less than two years since the last one have low turnouts. Elections without a clear electoral issue or reason to exist have low turnouts. Elections in the middle of a pandemic where everyone has much more pressing matters to care about and are worried about in-person contacts have low turnouts. And this election in particular has had the most bland and unmotivating first two weeks of any election I've ever seen, which will encourage a low turnout.
Like I said, the only way this election makes sense is if Trudeau and the Liberals are deliberately trying to lose.
Which would be a huge mistake as the CPC are pro’s at blaming others for things the CPC did, let alone something they fought against.
MWO: Adamski
Think they'll replace him with another candidate? (I honestly don't know how the process works)
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Another party would.
The CPC will probably use this as a "radical feminist trying to destroy honest god-fearing conservative sexual assaulter" angle to boost his campaign.
You love to see it.
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