[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Grey Fox]

The thing is that those Trumpy people are insane and believe all sorts of dumb and stupid things. Pandering to them only serves to usher us towards a Christian white nationalist dictatorship.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, I feel like if you're in power you get the blame. If you've been in power for almost ten years you get even more of it because it's more difficult to blame the last guys.

It's not fair, it may not be true or accurate. It's natural if you are the government you are responsible even for things that are not in your power or that you don't do.

There is not a country in the world where the opposition is noting that actually there are large global supply shocks that are causing inflation issues and we should cut the incumbent some slack I think probably, broadly in most cases that is broadly true - but I don't think that really matters. Especially because the actual lived experience of people is falling real wages and life getting more difficult.

Surprised at how high those Trump numbers are. I've not seen an equivalent in the UK but in 2020, 75% of Brits would have voted Biden and not a single constituency would go for Trump.

Edit: And it's obvious but I think it is going to be a very, very challenging time for incumbents (like the 70s). Every minute they're not talking about how they're helping people deal with cost of living, I think they're losing even more votes. But practically I don't think many (democratic) countries will have the same government party in, say 2025-26, that they had in 2020-21.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, I feel like if you're in power you get the blame. If you've been in power for almost ten years you get even more of it because it's more difficult to blame the last guys.

It's not fair, it may not be true or accurate. It's natural if you are the government you are responsible even for things that are not in your power or that you don't do.

There is not a country in the world where the opposition is noting that actually there are large global supply shocks that are causing inflation issues and we should cut the incumbent some slack I think probably, broadly in most cases that is broadly true - but I don't think that really matters. Especially because the actual lived experience of people is falling real wages and life getting more difficult.

Surprised at how high those Trump numbers are. I've not seen an equivalent in the UK but in 2020, 75% of Brits would have voted Biden and not a single constituency would go for Trump.

Edit: And it's obvious but I think it is going to be a very, very challenging time for incumbents (like the 70s). Every minute they're not talking about how they're helping people deal with cost of living, I think they're losing even more votes. But practically I don't think many (democratic) countries will have the same government party in, say 2025-26, that they had in 2020-21.

I think the nuance you are missing is that every opposition party notes that economic conditions are terrible, that the governing party is not handling it correctly, and that they would do it better.

There's nothing new in that. And if that is all that PP was doing, there would not be an editorial cartoon commenting on what he is doing.

What he is doing is he is saying that Trudeau caused the spike in inflation.

I went to the labour parties website to see if there was anything similar to what PP is doing here in Canada. While they certainly engaged in the sort of rhetoric identified in the first paragraph, they did not say that the Tory government caused the inflationary spike.

One assumes that labour party supporters and the voters that they seek to attract are more intelligent than that.

[Josephus]

Sheesh....one of the greatest party leaders in Canadian history dies, and not a peep on here. Ed Broadbent deserved to be prime minister. Not least because his name was easy to spell.

[Grey Fox]

One of the few with actual respect for Quebec. RIP.

[Barrister]

Sheesh....one of the greatest party leaders in Canadian history dies, and not a peep on here. Ed Broadbent deserved to be prime minister. Not least because his name was easy to spell.

I had seen Broadbent's name mentioned around social media, but I didn't know he died until I saw this post.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ed-broadbent-dies-1.7080936

Certainly an effective leader for the NDP, and his Broadbent Institute has been a powerful voice on the left in Canadian politics.

I do remember the mid-80s when the NDP was consistently leading in the polls for a time.  They ultimately were squeezed out in the 1988 Free Trade election when it became a "binary choice", but even then led the NDP to it's best showing up to that point (and I think it's best showing ever until Jack Layton in 2011).

Rest in Peace Ed.

[Barrister]

Rachel Notley to resign as Alberta NDP leader.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rachel-notley-announces-intention-to-step-down-as-alberta-ndp-leader-1.7085037

Fair enough - she's been leader for almost a decade now (first elected in 2014).  After winning the 2015 election, she's now been defeated twice in 2019 and 2023.  She's done very well as an NDP leader - prior to her the NDP were typically restricted to just a handful of seats (like 1-2) while the Liberals were the opposition party (looking it up in the 80s they did briefly hold 16 seats and were opposition, but by the 90s the Liberals were back as the main opposition party and NDP back to 2-4 seats).  Right now though the NDP are pretty firmly established as the main opposition party, and the provincial Liberals are pretty much just pining for the fjords.

Of course one immediately goes to who will replace her.

Alberta provincial NDP have been somewhat at odds with the Federal NDP under Notley.  While I would hesitate to call Notley a centrist, she has definitely taken a more pragmatic turn in particular while in government.  She defended to an extent Alberta's oil and gas sector against federal NDP who take much more of a "leave it in the ground" approach, and her provincial carbon tax was hardly punitive to that sector.

But she's still the leader of the NDP, and NDP members get to vote for her replacement.  In 2014 when elected the NDP was still a pretty small party, with only 4 MLAs.  Nobody ever expected them to win in 2015 (and indeed from my point of view they were unprepared for leadership and made some small but costly unforced errors - particularly noticed in my field).  But still Notley was the daughter of a former NDP leader so she was duely elected.

Will the next leader run in a more explicitly progressive direction?  In particular on climate change / energy issues?  I have to think that would

[Jacob]

... which probably won't help the NDP in Alberta.

From BC, Notley looked like a solid NDP leader well suited for Alberta. Very much from the "practical solutions for regular folks" wing of the NDP (like the current BC gov't) and not the "idealistic" wing, which I think helped her win when she did.

We'll see how it plays out.

[crazy canuck]

Any indication as to why she is stepping down?  Seems a big blow to the asperations of the NDP to have a credible shot to form another government in Alberta.

[Jacob]

Saw a thing on the CBC about Alberta's power shortage. An alert was sent out to the public, asking them to lower their consumption to avoid rolling blackouts - and the response was apparently immediate and significant. A 100 mW drop almost immediately, and another 100 mW about a minute later.

Well done Alberta - here's hoping you make it through in good shape.

[Barrister]

Any indication as to why she is stepping down?  Seems a big blow to the asperations of the NDP to have a credible shot to form another government in Alberta.

She's almost 60, been NDP leader for 10 years, and has lost the last two elections.

It'a fairly unusual for a Premier, after losing an election, to stick around as leader into the next election, never mind past that.

[Barrister]

Saw a thing on the CBC about Alberta's power shortage. An alert was sent out to the public, asking them to lower their consumption to avoid rolling blackouts - and the response was apparently immediate and significant. A 100 mW drop almost immediately, and another 100 mW about a minute later.

Well done Alberta - here's hoping you make it through in good shape.

I covered that in TBR, although the only thing people commented on was water heaters.

It was kind of scary - it was perhaps the coldest day of the year that day, and the thought of rolling blackouts seemed terrifying.

What was really discouraging on social media is how everyone immediately went to their partisan attack points.  RIght-wingers went after the Notley government for closing coal plants and relying on renewable energy (it was night, and there was no wind, so neither was producing a drop of power), whereas left-wingers went after PC/UCP governments for mismanaging the power grid.

When in fact it was a pretty unusual set of circumstances (we haven't had cold like that for 20-30 years) and Albertans of all political stripes all hung together pretty well as you noted.

[Barrister]

Any indication as to why she is stepping down?  Seems a big blow to the asperations of the NDP to have a credible shot to form another government in Alberta.

She's almost 60, been NDP leader for 10 years, and has lost the last two elections.

It'a fairly unusual for a Premier, after losing an election, to stick around as leader into the next election, never mind past that.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/notley-resigns-alberta-ndp-winner-analysis-1.7085776

CBC article, basically saying that since the NDP has now tasted power they want it again - and not just to be a left-wing rump.  We'll see.

Article suggests three possible contenders.  Rakhi Pancholi, Sarah Huffman, and Kathleen Ganley.

Pancholi - I've never heard of this person.   Googling suggests she's a lawyer, was first elected in 2019 (so wasn't part of the NDP government).

Sarah Huffman - she was health minister and deputy premier during the NDP government.  Health is a brutal department for anyone to handle.  I don't remember her being particularly impressive, but also don't remember her embarrassing herself either.  Before politics she was a school board trustee - in that was she appears to be a life-long politician.

Kathleen Ganley - was Attorney General in the NDP government.  She only had a year or two at the bar before being elected and in my "inside baseball" analysis didn't know what she was doing and I was seriously not impressed.  But don't take me opinion as meaning anything.  That would also be pretty old news by the time of the next election

[Barrister]

JAcob - while I find some value in putting my own political thoughts down on "paper", you're the only one who has shown some interest in what's going on in Alberta politics.  If you aren't interested in this kind of stuff please let me know.

[HVC]

I covered that in TBR, although the only thing people commented on was water heaters.

I wonder what type of water heater Notley uses