5846 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

IMO ditching the electoral reform promise won't be that big a deal in 2019. It's not a bread and butter issue. It has been hard to explain in the past, a little inside baseball-ish. It won't lower taxes, reduce the deficit or put $$ in wallets.
Basically it made sense when the Libs were looking like third-placers. Now it's, "why fix it, we're in power, the system works!"
Personally I prefer it but I'm not crushed if it doesn't happen.

 

I feel the same way more or less.  I think coalition or minority governments probably are not the worst thing ever, but even here we are not seeing mass swings in policy every time we go from Conservative to Liberal.

[johnk]

o'leary would never intend to offend anyone http://www.cbc.ca/ne...rsday-1.3963724

He'll split the imbecile vote with Leitch. Way too much baggage. Will the other candidates haul out the old Con "just visiting" ads they used to carpet bomb Iggy?

[johnk]

I feel the same way more or less.  I think coalition or minority governments probably are not the worst thing ever, but even here we are not seeing mass swings in policy every time we go from Conservative to Liberal.

Majorities lead to complacency and eventual contempt for voters. Canada has functioned well with minority governments. IIRC Pearson never had a majority and he had one of the most productive governments in our history.

[lanforod]

Im not sure Canada would do as well if we had multiple small parties with MPs. A 3 major party split isn't too bad, but the more you split the pie, the harder it is to get things done.

[amor de cosmos]

He'll split the imbecile vote with Leitch. Way too much baggage. Will the other candidates haul out the old Con "just visiting" ads they used to carpet bomb Iggy?

we've heard from arlene dickinson but i'm surprised we haven't heard from amanda lang yet. i can't wait for that.  

Edited by amor de cosmos, 03 February 2017 - 01:59 PM.

[johnk]

Im not sure Canada would do as well if we had multiple small parties with MPs. A 3 major party split isn't too bad, but the more you split the pie, the harder it is to get things done.

Absolutely. When we had 5 parties it was a fustercluck, a separatist party actually forming the opposition. Small fringe parties can really throw sand in the gears.
Israel is a case in point where there have been tiny extreme or single-issue parties holding governments to ransom. Often the price is a seat at the cabinet table providing influence and a platform for oddball causes well out of proportion to their actual vote numbers.

Edited by johnk, 04 February 2017 - 03:35 PM.

[VicHockeyFan]

So 13 candidates on the stage last night.  Nobody had much time to "win" the debate.  But guess who easily won the media coverage?  This is a search just using "halifax debate" as the search term in news:

 

[amor de cosmos]

Ambrose shouldn't downplay the trump effect. look at all the free advertising he's getting, and as another article said, he's not even in the country much less campaigning door-to-door here. that was probably the whole idea with the video at the gun range. they recorded it months ago & have been sitting on it since then, probably saving it for when it would make headlines. pretty cynical move right there.

[rjag]

The only electoral reform I think should be considered is that a federal party has to run candidates in more than 50% of the ridings. This would hopefully stifle the pq and single issue parties.

On the topic of minority government I think Harper did a good job during that time. Minority government tends to keep the wilder contentious ideas in check

[lanforod]

Which wilder contentious ideas did Harper implement when he had majority governments??

[rjag]

Which wilder contentious ideas did Harper implement when he had majority governments??

 

I'm just saying that in a minority government situation, decisions tend to be more balanced due to the need for support from the other parties. 

[amor de cosmos]

The Liberal donation, which was received on April 3, 2004, came a few months ahead of the June 28, 2004 federal election and was linked to a Rosedale postal code in Toronto that matches a corporate registration record for O’Shares Investments Inc., his investment firm.

The Liberal candidate in Durham in 2004 was Timothy Lang, the brother of television journalist Amanda Lang, with whom O’Leary would later co-host The Lang & O’Leary Exchange on CBC from 2009 to 2014. Lang ended up narrowly losing the riding to Bev Oda.

There are number of other donations to the Durham riding association from April 2004 for $458.62 — among them one from former Liberal MP Bob Kaplan — suggesting there may have been a fundraising event around that time.

Though O’Leary hasn’t been particularly generous with his Canadian political contributions, an Ottawa Citizen analysis by Glen McGregor in January 2016 counted up $42,000 in donations he’d given to Democrat candidates in the U.S. between 1998 and 2007.

That included $6,000 to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.

The donations were all from addresses in Boston, where O’Leary has lived as the chairman of O’Shares Investments.

http://ipolitics.ca/...-conservatives/
 

OTTAWA - Kevin O'Leary is a businessman, reality TV star, photography buff and self-professed airplane geek.

He is not, however, an Ottawa politician.

And he's banking on that to get him elected as leader of the federal Conservative party and then, prime minister of Canada.

"I think the body politic in Canada is like the rest of the world. They're tired of the B.S., they're tired of the politicians B.S.-ing them and spinning them and they want an operator," O'Leary said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

Do we?

A claim of being an outsider, an operator, was partly what propelled Donald Trump to victory in the U.S. presidential election. Ever since, Canadians have been consumed with the question of whether what happened there could happen here.

Over the coming weeks The Canadian Press will dive into that question in stories that seek to explore the extent to which conditions exist in Canada for what happened in the U.S., and how Canada's political system is evolving as a result.

The starting point is figuring out exactly what happened.

etc
http://www.timescolo...h.YzyES6wS.dpuf

[VicHockeyFan]

What do YOU want to know? I'll be taking your questions during my AMA on reddit.com/r/Canada tomorrow at 3pm ET! I've arranged to have my French tutor with me all day so I can field your questions in both of Canada's official languages. Looking forward to the opportunity to hear what you have to say and hopefully pratiquer mon français!

 

 

https://www.facebook...?type=3

 

[lanforod]

One of the things the other candidates said was O'Leary wasn't taking it seriously enough by not quitting his day job. I dunno though. If he's seriously learning French, that shows commitment to tackling one of his negatives. I won't really believe he is until I hear word of him actually conversing live in French.

[VicHockeyFan]

Meanwhile in Canada … Things Are Just as Bad

 

https://www.nytimes....s-bad.html?_r=0

 

There is no Canadian exceptionalism. What’s happening here now has been happening for decades: Bias and discrimination are rooted in our history and government. All that’s true about America’s broken system is true, too, of Canada’s. The only real difference is the illusion that Canada is intrinsically better.

America has elected a dangerous demagogue to its highest office. In Canada, we’re just one election away from falling into the same trap.

 

[VicHockeyFan]

Canadian Media Ramps Up Attacks On O’Leary

 

http://dailycaller.c...acks-on-oleary/

[spanky123]

One of the things the other candidates said was O'Leary wasn't taking it seriously enough by not quitting his day job. I dunno though. If he's seriously learning French, that shows commitment to tackling one of his negatives. I won't really believe he is until I hear word of him actually conversing live in French.

 

What day job? It is not like they film Shark Tank each week! As I mentioned before, his track record in business is iffy at best and makes Trump look like a choir boy. 90% of the deals they commit to on Dragon's Den or Shark Tank never get done anyways so learning French and doing TV interviews is his job these days.

[VicHockeyFan]

 

A recent Ipsos poll, conducted for Global TV, suggests that Mr. O’Leary could be Justin Trudeau’s worst nightmare in 2019. “Head-to-head, it’s competitive between Trudeau and O’Leary,” said IPSOS CEO Darrell Bricker. “Since the election, this is the only scenario where Trudeau is challenged.”

 

 

Well, it’s just a poll, and 2019 is light-years away. But if I were Mr. Trudeau I’d be worried. He, more than most people, should understand the huge advantage of celebrity. Mr. O’Leary also gets three things broadly right. He’s focused like a laser on economic growth and jobs. He’s positive on immigration. And he’s indifferent to divisive social issues, which are a bedrock of U.S identity politics.

 

 

In an age when Canadians will have to compete in a harsh new world remade by Donald Trump, Mr. O’Leary is running as a bread-and-butter centrist with no time for foolish carbon taxes. He isn’t wasting his breath tearing down the other candidates. His target is Mr. Trudeau, and his message to the party is that he’s the only guy who can take him down. He may well be right.

 

 

A lot could go wrong for Mr. Trudeau between now and 2019. Mr. Trump could really hurt us. The economy could go south. We could rack up whopping deficits. By 2019, you can be pretty sure that Mr. Sunny Ways will have lost some of his allure. By then, voters might cotton on to a no-holds-barred pragmatist.

 

 

 

http://www.theglobea...rticle33916053/

[amor de cosmos]

^ no surprise there but that doesn't seem to be the point of that article. she also said this
 

I think he’s a jerk. I once went on the business show he co-hosted. I’d been asked to explain how the U.S. tax department was terrorizing little old ladies and other U.S.-born Canadians by demanding that they file U.S. tax returns, even if they hadn’t lived there for 60 years. The moment I opened my mouth, he lit into me like a pit bull. He called me a naive tax-evading whiner. He didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

Mr. O’Leary is a blustering ignoramus. But he could well be the Conservatives’ best hope. Voters across the Western world have developed a hankering for disruptive populists who aren’t afraid to challenge the establishment and break some china to get things done. That’s how he has positioned himself.

*snip*

A lot could go wrong for Mr. Trudeau between now and 2019. Mr. Trump could really hurt us. The economy could go south. We could rack up whopping deficits. By 2019, you can be pretty sure that Mr. Sunny Ways will have lost some of his allure. By then, voters might cotton on to a no-holds-barred pragmatist.

In disruptive times, the old rules cease to matter. Mr. O’Leary doesn’t have very many policy ideas, the pundits grump. But so what? He doesn’t have to. Consistency doesn’t matter either. Who cares what he may have said about this or that once upon a time? What people care about is results. As for French – well, he’ll take lessons.

meanwhile trudeau just broke a major election promise on electoral reform and is being dogged by the cash-for-access thing. meet the new boss, same as the old boss. maybe it's time to drain the swamp in ottawa, and prove all the experts wrong? if people think canada could never have a leader like trump they've got memories just as short as americans'. it wasn't so long ago that toronto had a duly-elected crack-smoking mayor. i'm sure nobody saw that coming either.

Edited by amor de cosmos, 07 February 2017 - 09:03 AM.

[Bernard]

The electoral reform promise will harm Trudeau in a number of ways:

 

1) The NDP, Greens and CPC can legitimately call him a liar in public

2) Something like 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 centre left people voted Liberal because of the promise because he matched the NDP and Greens.  In BC it will be biggest problem and will lead to the loss of a lot of seats here

3) A lot of electoral reform activists got involved with the Liberals.   The party is already weak in active members, losing the electoral reform community will reduce the grassroots strength of the party

4) The issue is more important with people under 35 than over 60.  Trudeau won because he managed to get a huge increase in the under 35 vote to come out.

 

It will not be "The Issue" of the election but it is much more damaging to the Liberals than a lot of older commentators are saying.   This together with other issues is making a one term Liberal government not unrealistic