[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Sheilbh]

The situation in Canada is much more confused because of Morgentaler, but it's quite clear that the government could almost certainly pass some kind of abortion law.  The fact that no government has tried to do so, either Liberal or Conservative, in 30 years is pretty telling.

There's fairly regular votes on it here - but it's a free vote. There's no party line as it's an issue of conscience (same with the death penalty). I don't think there's ever been enough to pass any restrictions - but parliament recently make permanent the rules allowing telemedicine abortion form the covid emergency rules.

Broadly more Tories vote for restrictions and more Labour/Lib Dems vote for fewer restrictions - but it's far from universal. It's shrinking now but their used to be a fairly strong Catholic Labour vote, for example, especially from Glasgow, Liverpool etc who tended to be anti-abortion. Same with the death penalty and, increasingly, votes on gay rights issues.

Though Northern Ireland is different.

[Josquius]

That guy is painfully Toronto centric. And not just in the way he pronounced around and about.

JJ McCullough is from Vancouver and still lives there.

He's a bit of an odd duck also.  Jos I definitely wouldn't take him as a definitive voice on Canadian politics.  He's gay but broadly supports the Conservatives.  Somehow he has a weekly column on washingtonpost.com, despite his claim to fame being a cartoonist and youtuber.  He's not really a big fan of all the protections for the French language.

Not going to watch the video at work.  His 35 "tribes" slices things pretty thin - and by the looks of it he slices the right up far more than the left (which makes sense given his own outlook).

hmm, I do dislike conservatives....
But I also dislike the French....


I don't know, I've seen some of his videos before and he seems a fairly reasonable centrist type. Quite surprised to hear he's a tory.

And yes, his aboot sounds very forced.

[Barrister]

I think he keeps his politics out of the youtube stuff.  It comes out more on Twitter or WaPo columns.

(I realized that though I didn't subcsribe to his stuff on youtube, I do follow him on Twitter)

[viper37]

There's fairly regular votes on it here - but it's a free vote.

The Liberals don't do free vote.  They never did it while in power, and even in the opposition, I think they always enforced the party line.  Maybe once they allowed it, but no more than that.

If the Conservatives were to so much as propose a free vote on abortion issues, the left will be up in arms about an hidden agenda.

[viper37]

Did a quick search and it seems others have explained that his accent is very much fake and/or contrived.  So, tries really hard to sound like he is not actually from around here.

@ BB my argument goes beyond his accent.  His politics are also no consistent with being from around here.  That same search showed he fancies himself as a Conservative commentator, so that explains that.

Montreal is a city pretty much to the left.  The mayor of the city is from the woke far left, far more concerned about the tyranny of non neutral language than collecting the trash.

  She's not THAT left. Montreal's trash collection is not controlled by the Ville centre.

Meh.  She's from the same party as Luc Ferrandez used to be from.  The guy who doesn't believe in snow plowing and who has a irrational fondness of oneways. 

And she did wanted to adopt a non gendered language for official city communication to fight against the mysoginy of the French language or something like that.  And she did spoke only in English during press conferences.

Not that some small cities councilors are models to be followed , but they can almost be reasoned with.  Outside of her smile, what has she given Montreal?

[viper37]

Did a quick search and it seems others have explained that his accent is very much fake and/or contrived.  So, tries really hard to sound like he is not actually from around here.

@ BB my argument goes beyond his accent.  His politics are also no consistent with being from around here.  That same search showed he fancies himself as a Conservative commentator, so that explains that.

Montreal is a city pretty much to the left.  The mayor of the city is from the woke far left, far more concerned about the tyranny of non neutral language than collecting the trash.

Yet, I know quite a few far right guys in Montreal.  The only thing consistent with Montreal is, like all large cities, a complex of superiority over remote areas.

I doubt Vancouver is totally different.

I am not sure what that has to do with the comments the YouTuber made about how to characterize federal politics of Quebers.

You say he can't be from Vancouver because he doesn't think like you and your friends.

I'm trying to demonstrate how it is very possible that some people living in a large city have political ideas that do not adhere to the usual norm.

[Barrister]

There's fairly regular votes on it here - but it's a free vote.

The Liberals don't do free vote.  They never did it while in power, and even in the opposition, I think they always enforced the party line.  Maybe once they allowed it, but no more than that.

If the Conservatives were to so much as propose a free vote on abortion issues, the left will be up in arms about an hidden agenda.

There used to be such a thing as a pro-life Liberal.  There were an outspoken handful in caucus.

Trudeau in 2015 said that was impossible - to be a Liberal candidate you had to support abortion rights.

[crazy canuck]

Did a quick search and it seems others have explained that his accent is very much fake and/or contrived.  So, tries really hard to sound like he is not actually from around here.

@ BB my argument goes beyond his accent.  His politics are also no consistent with being from around here.  That same search showed he fancies himself as a Conservative commentator, so that explains that.

Montreal is a city pretty much to the left.  The mayor of the city is from the woke far left, far more concerned about the tyranny of non neutral language than collecting the trash.

Yet, I know quite a few far right guys in Montreal.  The only thing consistent with Montreal is, like all large cities, a complex of superiority over remote areas.

I doubt Vancouver is totally different.

I am not sure what that has to do with the comments the YouTuber made about how to characterize federal politics of Quebers.

You say he can't be from Vancouver because he doesn't think like you and your friends.

I'm trying to demonstrate how it is very possible that some people living in a large city have political ideas that do not adhere to the usual norm.

Ok, sure there are outliers - but that is the point isn't it.  He was expressing views much more in line with what you would expect from a certain crowd in Toronto - and trying to emulate their accent to boot (see what I did there).

[crazy canuck]

There's fairly regular votes on it here - but it's a free vote.

The Liberals don't do free vote.  They never did it while in power, and even in the opposition, I think they always enforced the party line.  Maybe once they allowed it, but no more than that.

If the Conservatives were to so much as propose a free vote on abortion issues, the left will be up in arms about an hidden agenda.

There used to be such a thing as a pro-life Liberal.  There were an outspoken handful in caucus.

Trudeau in 2015 said that was impossible - to be a Liberal candidate you had to support abortion rights.

And he won a majority government when everyone had written off the Liberals.  There may be a lesson there.

[crazy canuck]

The globe and mail has a memo from the Conservative interim leader ordering MPs and senators not to comment on the Roe v. Wade leak.

BB, you can stop being all holier than thou about how the conservatives give choice to their MPs

[Jacob]

Oh this is an interesting little thread on abortion in Canada. Apparently it was impossible to get a legal abortion in PEI until 2016, due to an informal shadow ban that wasn't repealed until then: https://twitter.com/katemckenna8/status/1521469181807534081

Here's a graphic outlining the access to abortion in each province: https://twitter.com/farrahsafiakhan/status/1521346833636806656/photo/1 - in Alberta if you can't make it to Edmonton or Calgary, you're shit out of luck. Another interesting fact is that there are more "Crisis Pregnancy Centres" that places that provide abortions in Canada.

[Jacob]

The Abortion Right Coalition of Canada lists 88 out of 119 (so 74%) of Conservative MPs in the current parliament as being anti-choice.

[Barrister]

Half-decent article laying out the history of abortion caselaw in Canada - namely the Morgentaler decision.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/abortion-rights-canada-morgentaler-court-1.6439612

The article suggests that given caselaw post-Morgentaler the SCC would probably find that a right to abortion does exist under section 7 of the Charter (and they're probably right).  In particular it points to the assisted suicide decision.



I just post it because (despite being the CBC) it's a nice corrective to the many hysterical takes I've seen from Canadians on social media about the US leaked decision.

While I think it almost impossible to think the SCC would uphold a blanket ban on abortion if one was passed in Canada, and obviously the prior regime of asking a panel of doctors for permission to have an abortion was already ruled unconstitutional, I think more moderate rules (like a ban passed 20 weeks or something) would be at most an open question before the court.

[Jacob]

The concern in Canada is not a blanket ban, but soft bans like the one that in practice made it impossible to get an abortion in PEI until 2016.

When the leading PC candidate is openly courting loony fringe voters and adopting US style talking points - calling the Bank of Canada "financially illiterate", for example - sensible people have good cause to be concerned.

[viper37]

That freedom of speech is not a desirable trait in Canada's politics?  That recruiting the best people for the best positions, independent of party affiliation is not desirable?  That political corruption is much more valued than honesty?  That moral corruption is desirable trait in our politicians?

Yeah, I see many lessons