[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Monoriu]

I am very disturbed that someone of Chinese heritage is running for the leadership of a major political party.  Chinese should be apolitical. 

[Tonitrus]

Indeed.  What would Mao Zedong think? 

[Barrister]

So - the Conservative leadership race - who are the main contenders, what do they stand for, and who do you support, who do you loathe, and who would be okay you suppose?

I ask because I haven't followed it at all, so I look to languish to be informed

As far as I can tell (and remember no votes have been cast yet, and it's pretty much impossible to do polling), the three leading contenders are O'Leary, Maxime Bernier, and Kellie Leitch.

O'Leary seems to be running on name recognition and "business acumen".  Actual policy pronouncements have been fairly moderate though.  Probably perceived as being the front-runner now that he's announced.  I'n not a fan - as Oex hints at, his record as a businessman is very checkered.

Kellie Leitch has certainly been gaining a lot of media attention, which in a crowded field is a good thing.  She of course has been talking about "Canadian values".  I know some here are horrified, but I am not.  They are code words that don't really mean anything.  As such I'm not horrified, but I'm not impressed either.  I'm not sure what actual policies she's running on.

Maxime Bernier is running as a real economic libertarian - tear down interprovincial trade barriers, get rid of supply-management, lower taxes.  He's also running on being the only francophone in the race.  He too has a bit of a checkered past (he's the one with the HA-associated girlfriend a decade ago).

Bernier has my fairly soft support at this point - I like that he's running on economic issues, and that he can speak French.  I would still support the Conservative Party if Leitch or O'Leary won - this isn't a #NeverTrump kind of scenario here.

[crazy canuck]

Read up on him and his business "acumen" before deciding he isn't so bad...

It was a tongue in cheek dig at how extreme the Conservatives have become 

[crazy canuck]

I know some here are horrified, but I am not.  They are code words that don't really mean anything.  As such I'm not horrified, but I'm not impressed either.  I'm not sure what actual policies she's running on.

By definition code words have meaning.  That is why they are being used 

[Admiral Yi]

Didn't know that the lord high mayor crackhead died last year until today.

[Josephus]

Didn't know that the lord high mayor crackhead died last year until today.

[Jacob]

So - the Conservative leadership race - who are the main contenders, what do they stand for, and who do you support, who do you loathe, and who would be okay you suppose?

I ask because I haven't followed it at all, so I look to languish to be informed

As far as I can tell (and remember no votes have been cast yet, and it's pretty much impossible to do polling), the three leading contenders are O'Leary, Maxime Bernier, and Kellie Leitch.

O'Leary seems to be running on name recognition and "business acumen".  Actual policy pronouncements have been fairly moderate though.  Probably perceived as being the front-runner now that he's announced.  I'n not a fan - as Oex hints at, his record as a businessman is very checkered.

Kellie Leitch has certainly been gaining a lot of media attention, which in a crowded field is a good thing.  She of course has been talking about "Canadian values".  I know some here are horrified, but I am not.  They are code words that don't really mean anything.  As such I'm not horrified, but I'm not impressed either.  I'm not sure what actual policies she's running on.

Maxime Bernier is running as a real economic libertarian - tear down interprovincial trade barriers, get rid of supply-management, lower taxes.  He's also running on being the only francophone in the race.  He too has a bit of a checkered past (he's the one with the HA-associated girlfriend a decade ago).

Bernier has my fairly soft support at this point - I like that he's running on economic issues, and that he can speak French.  I would still support the Conservative Party if Leitch or O'Leary won - this isn't a #NeverTrump kind of scenario here.

Of those, Bernier sounds pretty acceptable. I'm supportive of bringing down interprovincial trade barriers, and I'm fairly agnostic on keeping/ getting rid of supply-management. I'm suspicious of lower taxes, but I'll take them I guess - the question naturally being what spending he'd cut to affect the tax cuts (or whether it's based on bullish economic growth scenarios or some such).

Re: Leitch, I can't say I'm horrified by your position on her but I'm certainly not impressed. Code words are employed for a reason - and to an effect - and to brush over that is fairly suspect IMO.

As for O'Leary - from my superficial exposure he seems like a bit of a twat, but comparisons to Trump notwithstanding I'm confident he'll be orders of magnitude less of a twat than the actual Trump. At this point main concern there is the potential of fanning Trumpist-type sentiment in the population, which is something we don't need any of IMO.

Mike Chong - nice to see a bit of ethnic diversity in the leadership race; it'll be interesting to see if it has any impact one way or the other. I'm curious if PRC could elaborate on what makes him appealing to the broadest range of Canadians...? It seems that his main economic plank is privatizing the CMHC (which I don't have an opinion on at this point), accepting that climate change and emissions are for real and should be addressed (by means of a revenue neutral carbon tax and the elimination of green regulations and subsidies), and making MPs more accountable to their constituents rather than party leaders (not sure I believe he'll hold to that once (if) he's the leader).

Elsewhere I heard Erin O'Toole spoken of favourably... do any of you have an opinion of him? He seems to position himself as a champion of rural communities and the North. From a brief scan of his website he seems solidly Conservative, but I didn't come across anything that freaked me out immediately.

[Jacob]

Hey BB - how likely do you think it is that the Alberta PC party will eject Kenney rather than let him win the leadership? And if they do, what are the likely repercussions?

Read this in the NP and thought of you: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/don-braid-alberta-pcs-consider-kicking-out-jason-kenney-before-he-can-dismantle-the-party

[Barrister]

Hey BB - how likely do you think it is that the Alberta PC party will eject Kenney rather than let him win the leadership? And if they do, what are the likely repercussions?

Read this in the NP and thought of you: http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/don-braid-alberta-pcs-consider-kicking-out-jason-kenney-before-he-can-dismantle-the-party

I'm going to my local PC constituency association meeting tonight to vote for the pro-Kenney delegates.

The chance is non-zero.  The leadership race rules were very deliberately made to be weighted against Kenney.  This is the first leadership race I've seen in a long, long time where members don't vote for leaders - but rather they vote for delegates.  Plus, the party introduced a huge number of what I might as well call "super delegates" - party members who are delegates by reason of holding various positions within the party.  Something like one third of all delegates are unelected in this way, and all are pretty much assumed to be anti-Kenney.

So Kenney right from the start virtually needs to run the table - he needs to win 75% of all elected delegates.  And the thing is - it seems like he's doing it.  He has quite the machine behind him - I'm favourably disposed towards him as a candidate, but I haven't been politically active for several years.  But through Facebook I signed up for some "support Kenney" page, which then led to gentle reminders to go out and purchase my membership, and then to vote tonight.  Haven't heard a peep from any other candidate.

It would have been one thing if they disallowed him right at the start.  But I think it would be quite unprecedented to disallow him when the delegate selection process is well under way, coming close to completion in fact.  I have no idea what the repercussions would be.  It would certainly increase the chance of a second NDP government.

[Grey Fox]

Gotta be careful when supporting non-french speaking leader candidates in Federal Parties.

Last time the Libs had English only front runners, Dion became the leader.

[PRC]

Jacon, re: Chong.  He seems to be a red tory to me and so would have some appeal to those who would vote Liberal.  I might be wrong in that assessment but there it is.

[Barrister]

Jacon, re: Chong.  He seems to be a red tory to me and so would have some appeal to those who would vote Liberal.  I might be wrong in that assessment but there it is.

I don't think there's any appetite in the Conservative Party membership for a Red Tory-type.  Traditionally most winning candidates in the Reform/PC heritage has usually gone to the more right-wing candidate in one sense or another.  Only exception I can think of would be Joe Clarke (both times).

Now there are different flavours of right-wing to run on (see Leitch on cultural issues, or Bernier on economic issues but my prediction is anyone running on a centrist-type platform is dead in the water.

[viper37]

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/01/18/justin-trudeau-refuses-to-answer-questions-in-english

Justin Trudeau refuses to answer questions in English

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused Tuesday to respond in English to several questions put to him in English in Sherbrooke, Que., telling the town hall meeting that because he was in Quebec he would speak French.

Ironically, one of the English questions put to Trudeau was about the availability of English-language mental health services.

The Sherbrooke event was Trudeau's seventh town hall question-and-answer session since last Thursday. But it was the first one he's held in the province of Quebec.

He held another town hall Tuesday morning in the officially bilingual province of New Brunswick but no one at that Fredericton town hall put any questions to him in French.

He did get a French-language question at a town hall last week in Peterborough, Ont. and, there, chose to respond in English.

The tradition on Parliament Hill or in press conferences is that bilingual politicians, like Trudeau, will answer a question in the language used by the MP or a journalist who asked the question.

According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, about 42% of the approximately 200,000 people in the Sherbrooke area are bilingual, able to speak and understand both official languages.

Of the 10,000 in the region who listed English as their mother tongue, 77% were also able to speak French.

Sherbrooke is also home to Bishop's University, where English is the language of most instruction.

that's because the question was too difficult and he found a pretext to not answer it.  In the past, he never had any problems using English in Quebec.

Search for the "selfie ambush", that one was amusing too

[viper37]

So - the Conservative leadership race - who are the main contenders, what do they stand for, and who do you support, who do you loathe, and who would be okay you suppose?

I ask because I haven't followed it at all, so I look to languish to be informed

I like Blaney and Chris Alexander, but none of them will make it to the top, so my choice doesn't really matter.
If they elect O'Leary or one of the social conservatives, I foresee another run of not voting at the Federal election.