[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[saskganesh]

In an election with bad choices, you vote for the local candidate of value. It doesn't matter though, as I live in the 416. The election will be lost elsewhere.

[crazy canuck]

In an election with bad choices, you vote for the local candidate of value. It doesn't matter though, as I live in the 416. The election will be lost elsewhere.

Elections aren't like driving your car. A party is not going to take you exactly where you want to go. Elections are more like taking the bus. Take the one that is going to get you nearest to where you want to end up.

[Barrister]

In an election with bad choices, you vote for the local candidate of value. It doesn't matter though, as I live in the 416. The election will be lost elsewhere.

So you raise two different points.

Second one first - if you live in a riding where the election is a foregone conclusion, then yes - feel free to protest vote / virtue signal to your heart's content.

If it's a competitive riding though... this is not the US where congressmen / senators have some history of voting against their party.  In Canada voting against the party on any confidence motion is grounds to be expelled from the party.  As such it never happens.  Very occasionally you might get an individual MP who gets permission from the party leader to vote against their own party, or who finds an excuse to not be present for a vote, but that's about as independent as they will get.

As such, short of an absolutely offensively incompetent local candidate - vote for the Party, not the local candidate.

[Barrister]

So if the NDP sucks, and the Liberals suck......who do we vote for? Certainly not PP?

Forgive me - but why not?

Voting Liberal gets you more of the same.  NDP is not credible to form government, and in opposition largely just supports the Liberals anyways.

So what's so terrible about Pierre Poilievre?

If you're worried about wacky right-wing stuff - I can tell you I've been mildly pleased by Danielle Smith's government in Alberta (and remember for the first time in my life I voted NDP in the last election).  It's clear she has to make noises to keep the wacky right-wingers happy - but so far hasn't really governed in such a fashion.  I suspect Poilievre would govern in the same way.

And most of the themes he's pushed for have been pretty moderate - like pushing for pro-growth in housing supply.

[Sheilbh]

Elections aren't like driving your car. A party is not going to take you exactly where you want to go. Elections are more like taking the bus. Take the one that is going to get you nearest to where you want to end up.

Yeah, I agree in general. I think sometimes there is a need for a healthy punishment election that's less about voting for the government you want than punishing the existing government however that is best done. See, Britain 2024

Interested on the lack of rebels in Canadian system. Here, there have always been rebels within parties - inveterate backbenchers who will never get promoted, have a strong base in their constituency party and (typically) very strong view. Before Labour members elected him leader, say, Corbyn voted against the Labour whip more than 400 times in a single term (which was over 25% of the time ). I think that's unusual but even in a a more normal parliament you'll have a few MPs who rebel on about 10% of votes. I think here it wouldn't be tolerated on a three-line whip/confidence matter (though it might not lead to them withdrawing the whip) but there's definite space for rebels - a key factor is that they want to be career backbenchers.

There was actually a politics professor who specialised in studying it and had funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to look at contemporary rebellions which, among other things, meant he had a public-facing blog on rebellions which was really interesting and widely used by political journalists. Unfortunately his ten year funding was not renewed after it ended in 2016 - just as British politics entered an era of unparalleled calm and party discipline

Edit: One interesting finding from all that research that always sticks out is that many are just ideological rebels - they are ideologically opposed to the party leadership. But a lot of rebels basically think it's a good way of building credibility and a brand as a solid local MP. They're not people who just go along with the party line. According to the research there are a few rebellious MPs who do have a genuine local vote but in general it makes zero difference and it's all national swing.

[Barrister]

Interested on the lack of rebels in Canadian system. Here, there have always been rebels within parties - inveterate backbenchers who will never get promoted, have a strong base in their constituency party and (typically) very strong view. Before Labour members elected him leader, say, Corbyn voted against the Labour whip more than 400 times in a single term (which was over 25% of the time ). I think that's unusual but even in a a more normal parliament you'll have a few MPs who rebel on about 10% of votes. I think here it wouldn't be tolerated on a three-line whip/confidence matter (though it might not lead to them withdrawing the whip) but there's definite space for rebels - a key factor is that they want to be career backbenchers.

There just isn't the same tradition of that level of independence here.  You can have individual MPs who might prioritize certain issues more than others, or be silent on issues where the party takes a strong line, but taking a firm position opposed to your own party is almost unheard of.

The one example I can think of is a guy named Tom Wappell.  Liberal MP and a firm social conservative / pro-life politician.  But at least in those days (first elected 1988, last elected 2006) issues around abortion and homosexuality did cross party-lines a little bit and I don't think were whipped.  IIRC (and assisted in part by Wiki) Wappell announced he was "very disappointed" in the same-sex legalisation bill but did not vote against it.

And a guy like Wappell would never be allowed to exist within the Liberal Party today.  Justin Trudeau announced early on as leader that all Liberal MPs must vote in favour of the pro-choice position.

Beyond that I'm really struggling.  Elijah Harper in Manitoba?  He refused to give assent to something that required unanimous consent, which prevented Manitoba from adopting the Meech Lake accord.  But he was widely celebrated, Meech lake came crashing down in any event, he was doing it based on something about Native rights (Harper is Native), so he survived - but even then that was one vote.

Sheila Copp - Liberal cabinet minister in the 90s.  She had promised to resign if the GST wasn't scrapped.  Mind you - it was a Liberal Party promise to scrap the GST, but when Chretien failed to do so Copp was pressure to resign.  She did so - and immediately ran again and won, but that was a slight criticism.

Beyond that - there are examples of MPS taking a stand and getting kicked out of caucus - but that's precisely why they don't do it.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, there used to be a tradition of MPs being more independent, but all of the parties changed their rules to give the party leader more control.  The Liberals are the worst/best depending on your view of whether the leader should be culling non likeminded people.  BB is correct, Wappell and a number of other Liberal MPs could not stand for office in the current Liberal party. 

[Neil]

So if the NDP sucks, and the Liberals suck......who do we vote for? Certainly not PP?

Forgive me - but why not?

Voting Liberal gets you more of the same.  NDP is not credible to form government, and in opposition largely just supports the Liberals anyways.

So what's so terrible about Pierre Poilievre?

If you're worried about wacky right-wing stuff - I can tell you I've been mildly pleased by Danielle Smith's government in Alberta (and remember for the first time in my life I voted NDP in the last election).  It's clear she has to make noises to keep the wacky right-wingers happy - but so far hasn't really governed in such a fashion.  I suspect Poilievre would govern in the same way.

And most of the themes he's pushed for have been pretty moderate - like pushing for pro-growth in housing supply.

Smith hasn't been a complete disaster in every way, but she has not been very sound and I wouldn't vote for her in a prospective election.  I thought that her cancellation of the renewable projects in the face of an electricity crunch was the height of foolishness, acting like it's an either/or situation rather than using every means to extract energy we can find.  I'm very concerned with all the sniffing around an Alberta Pension Plan that's going on, and I keep getting emails about an Alberta Provincial Police force, which we know would be a bad idea.  I also have no idea what she's doing in creating a duplicative bureaucracy by splitting AHS into four groups, especially since it'll still be the same resources on the front line that are delivering care.  It's especially schizophrenic in the face of the health lab flip-flopping.   

And while I see what they're trying to do with municipal political parties, I see the additional of political parties to municipal elections as entirely negative and slightly corrupt. 

[Barrister]

Smith hasn't been a complete disaster in every way, but she has not been very sound and I wouldn't vote for her in a prospective election.  I thought that her cancellation of the renewable projects in the face of an electricity crunch was the height of foolishness, acting like it's an either/or situation rather than using every means to extract energy we can find.  I'm very concerned with all the sniffing around an Alberta Pension Plan that's going on, and I keep getting emails about an Alberta Provincial Police force, which we know would be a bad idea.  I also have no idea what she's doing in creating a duplicative bureaucracy by splitting AHS into four groups, especially since it'll still be the same resources on the front line that are delivering care.  It's especially schizophrenic in the face of the health lab flip-flopping.   

And while I see what they're trying to do with municipal political parties, I see the additional of political parties to municipal elections as entirely negative and slightly corrupt. 

Let's go through these items:

-renewable energy "pause" - moronic.  You can reconsider without cancelling everything entirely.  Perhaps her worst position to date.
-APP (both Pension Plan and Provincial Police) - both have significant positives.  The problem (as in so many things ) are the enormous transition costs.  Hard to assess unless they actually go ahead with either.
-AHS flip-flopping - unfortunately this is just shit government does.  Alberta used to be split into separate health care boards.  Then they brought in a province-wide board.  Now we're going back to separate boards.  In the Public Service we see this kind of reshuffling of the cards every once in a while.

In any event I'm not favourable inclined to NDP leader Naheed Nenshi either.

[crazy canuck]

BC created regional health authorities a while ago.  Now there is a lot of political pressure to scrap them, because of all the administrative duplication that occurs.

Just the amount of paperwork that is generated when a health care professional moves from one health authority to another creates a small mountain.

[Neil]

I don't see what the positives from an Alberta Provincial Police force would be.  We're already hard up for recruits.  Why go to a smaller pool? 

The problem with the AHS move is that the groups are functional, not regional.  So you'll have separate bureaucracies for continuing care, acute care and recurring care, many of which are housed in the same facilities and in many cases the work is done by the same people.  I'd actually be more sympathetic to regional health authorities than this (and I'm not very sympathetic to such an idea at all in such a mobile society). 

[Barrister]

I don't see what the positives from an Alberta Provincial Police force would be.  We're already hard up for recruits.  Why go to a smaller pool? 

That's actually easier to answer!

If you sign up for the RCMP you can request a certain area, but it need not be granted.  So you can be an Alberta recruit and be sent almost anywhere in the country (Ontario and Quebec have their own forces so unlikely, you tend to have to volunteer to go to the North).

That can be pretty hard on an applicant.  Also if you have a spouse, or maybe kids.

I think I mentioned future Mrs B had applied for the RCMP, been accepted, deferred initially because of her sick niece, and then declined entirely because of me (despite me telling her to go).  If she could have been at least restricted to Alberta it would have made things much easier.

Having a national police force responsible for local policing in a huge area of an already huge country is not very practical and really just a historical accident.

That being said - the transition costs are HUGE.  Cities like Surrey and Grande Prairie are trying to transition to local police and finding it very expensive.

[viper37]

So if the NDP sucks, and the Liberals suck......who do we vote for? Certainly not PP?

Forgive me - but why not?

Voting Liberal gets you more of the same.  NDP is not credible to form government, and in opposition largely just supports the Liberals anyways.

So what's so terrible about Pierre Poilievre?

First of all, he is a populist, and I would not encourage such behavior in a politician.

In details, I've been over this before:

• Calling Tiff Macklem incompetent.  No, just no.  He's the Governor of the Bank of Canada, it's independant from the Government.
• Not saying what he would do different from the official policies set forth by the government to rule the Bank of Canada, i.e., maintain inflation between 1% and 3% while calling the Bank management incompetent. 
• Propose that we adopt Bitcoin as a currency.  This is just plain stupid.  A currency must be stable, not extremely volatile.
• Constantly insulting everyone with derogatory comments.  It's not dignified of a political party leader.
• His behavior in chamber where he's been mostly acting like a child.
• His opposition to public transit in Quebec while supporting public transit in the West.  That's double standards that reeks of populism.
• His support for the Freedom convoy.  Either you support all anarchists, or you don't support any.  Last I checked, PP and the Conservatives where against illegal protests that blocked critical infrastructures.
• At a time where Canada should be showing a united front toward the US, he insists at creating division instead.
• He refuses to get a security clearance and know the names of his MPs who are potentially subject to foreign interference.  The only leader to do so.
• He has not committed himself 100% to the defense of Ukraine and the support of NATO, he has refused to take a strong anti-Russia stance after many of his supporters and even MPs had been ambiguous to say the least about their Russian support.
• He has never taken a strong stance against conspiracy theories, and refuse to enforce vaccine mandates.

Basically, I can't trust him.  If I can't trust my Prime Minister to do the right thing, I can't vote for his candidate.  Danielle Smith is a disaster for Canada, and we will be picking the pieces for Alberta's negligence for years to come, as if we weren't doing it right now due their negligence in environemental regard.  That pipeline is costing us a fortune, the global warming reduction effort is being made by the rest of Canada, and coastal regions are suffering, our fisheries are nearly gone, exacerbated by global warming, and Alberta is refusing to lift a finger to do its part in the most selfishly possible way, encourage by the Federal Conservative leader who believes Global Warming is a myth and C02 production must be maximized for the good of the environment.

[Barrister]

Viper, I feel like you get your information from some very strange alternate view of reality.  I really couldn't even begin to respond to all of that.

[Grey Fox]

Viper, I feel like you get your information from some very strange alternate view of reality.  I really couldn't even begin to respond to all of that.

Apparently the same reality than I live in because this is one of the few times where Viper and I agree.

So, I guess, Quebec.