[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Jacob]

Which is obviously why you think it's funny 

[Barrister]

Which is obviously why you think it's funny 

Well - mostly because it makes me think of Dawson City. 

If anyone ever gets a chance - you gotta go.  The main town is still almost entirely 1890s gold rush buildings.  For a brief period of time it was the largest city west if Winnipeg and north of Seattle, if I remember correctly.  In a beautiful setting.  And I've talked to West Dawsonites - they're a kind of crazy bunch, since they know they'll get cut off from civilization for a month or two on each side of the ice bridge.

And the courthouse - not that anyone but me would care - is a museum.  So one day every two months they have to close down that portion of the museum, as all us reprobates take over and hold court.

But also Justin Trudeau looks like a tool for announcing a project that is obviously not happening. 

[viper37]

2. Quebecers vote for people who can speak french.  Well sure!  That was a huge reason why Reform couldn't really win in Quebec.  As much as I loved the man, Preston Manning couldn't speak French.  Then came the Canadian Alliance - IIRC Stockwell Day's French wasn't very good either (and yes - comments from back then suggest it was extremely limited).  But note that once Harper came along with passable French the Conservatives did win seats in Quebec.  Not a ton, but some.

Oversimplified history is your teacher?

The Reform Party made its first campaign based on "There's too much French in Ottawa" and was against official bilinguism in Canada.

The Alliance was smarter, but they were seen as a simple offshoot of the Reform.

Harper was smarter than the two previous ones.  It's not so much that he spoke French, it's that he spoke the right words.  And it was also the right timing.  Does the sponsorship scandal ring any bell to you?  Paul Martin begging Canadians to give him a chance on national television?  Mean anything?  Jogg your memory?

Good message + Great timing = winning the election.  He got 11 MPs elected in Quebec.  It's not like it was a blue wave or anything either.  11/75.  He went down to 10 the election after, IIRC.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I remember the Reform Party as being pretty blatantly anti-Francophone and anti-Quebec. Enough so that it made an impression on me, in spite of not being particularly interested in Canadian federal politics.

[Zoupa]

Beeb, I find it a little bit dumb that you think a candidate's last name "sounding French" would somehow resonate in Quebec.

Did Harper's name resonate in English Canada? Did his last name sound English enough that he got extra votes because of it?

Come on man.

[Jacob]

Maybe if Justin Trudeau changes his name to a more English sounding one the Libs will get more seats in Alberta?

[Josephus]

I really do wish to go to Dawson City, and anywhere up in the Yukon someday. Bucket list dreaming.

[crazy canuck]

The right leaning party in BC that has a chance of forming government would never campaign for either the liberals or conservatives, because the provincial party is a coalition of members of both federal parties

You think BCUP is a better positioned against the NDP than the BC Conservatives? Last I looked (which is a little while ago) the media narrative seemed to be that the BC Conservatives were eating BCUP's lunch.

Yes, I'm not sure what media narrative you're talking about but you're probably talking the polling data.

If you can, try and see the numbers of actual party membership.


If that starts changing, then I might buy it to the median narrative.

In any event, I doubt very much that the federal conservative party would want to have any direct involvement with either provincial party of the right wing because they will not want to risk pissing off anybody.

[Barrister]

Yeah, I remember the Reform Party as being pretty blatantly anti-Francophone and anti-Quebec. Enough so that it made an impression on me, in spite of not being particularly interested in Canadian federal politics.

That was what the Liberals attempted to smear Reform as, yes.

[Barrister]

I now remember more of where that came from.

In the 1997 election Reform ran an ad near the end of the campaign - it showed pictures of Jean Chretien, Gilles Duceppe, Jean Charest and Lucien Bouchard, then put Xs through them and said something about Canadians had enough with Quebec-based politicians.

The opposition parties were highly critical of the ad, enough so that Reform stopped running it.

Here's the thing though - it was factually true.  All those politicians were from Quebec, and Quebec had dominated the federal scene for a long time.  Heck out of the last 50 years, how many years have we had a non-Quebec Prime Minister?   Other than Harper's time (9 years), all we have are the very brief times of Joe Clark and Kim Campbell.  I was going to add Paul Martin, but remembered he was from Quebec as well.  Heck even John Turner - probably not a "Quebec politician", but he was an MP from Montreal earlier in his career.

And one last thing - some time after the election I was in a Reform meeting (somehow, as President of the U of Manitoba Reform club, I would get invited to meetings of all the constituency association presidents).  They had someone from head office go through the internal polling from the election, showing how that ad had been effective, and it was almost certainly a mistake to pull it.

[Jacob]

Thanks for the additional context and details, Beeb. I gotta say that - purely based on what you presented - the notion that Reform was anti-Quebec is not a "Liberal smear." And the argument that Reform's rhetoric was "factually based" when it said "enough with Quebec-based politicians" is not a particularly persuasive that Reform was not anti-Quebec.

Additionally - that the ad was effective shows that there was a general anti-Quebec animus running through Anglo politics at the time. That Reform tapped into that animus (and later regretted not continuing doing so) is a pretty clear indication that Reform was - in fact - anti-Quebec IMO.

As for anti-Francophone (which is different but often related to anti-Quebec), the argument that too many resources were spent on bilingualism tended to come from people aligned with Prairie conservatism, at least in my experience.

[crazy canuck]

The anti-Quebec animus was also not so superficial as BB recalls, the major policy issue of the day that drove a lot of Western PC members into the arms of the Reform party was the strong stand the Reform party took against the Meech Lake accords.

[Barrister]

The anti-Quebec animus was also not so superficial as BB recalls, the major policy issue of the day that drove a lot of Western PC members into the arms of the Reform party was the strong stand the Reform party took against the Meech Lake accords.

During the Meech Lake debate Reform was pretty fringe, but growing.

What drove Reform though was taking a strong view against Charlottetown, and actively campaigning for the "No" side in the subsequent referendum.  I think it's hard to say that being against Charlottetown was anti-Quebec however - the no side won pretty decidedly across Canada.

[Grey Fox]

No, that's what it means & shows. A fuck ton of hypocrites that voted against us & then show up to beg us to stay in their country and, years later, have a RoC party pull out ads where they Xed Quebec politicians.

This fuckin' country. 

[crazy canuck]

The anti-Quebec animus was also not so superficial as BB recalls, the major policy issue of the day that drove a lot of Western PC members into the arms of the Reform party was the strong stand the Reform party took against the Meech Lake accords.

During the Meech Lake debate Reform was pretty fringe, but growing.

What drove Reform though was taking a strong view against Charlottetown, and actively campaigning for the "No" side in the subsequent referendum.  I think it's hard to say that being against Charlottetown was anti-Quebec however - the no side won pretty decidedly across Canada.

I think you have just confirmed the animus ran deeper than merely putting a few X's through politicians faces.