2025 Federal Election - 28 Apr 25

[Fabius]

I don't understand the argument when people talk about the Conservatives "playing to their base"

I just want a government that has the ability to execute on ideas, that doesn't pass legislation the people don't want, doesn't grift away millions of hard earned tax dollars at a time, doesn't allow 1.2 million people a year to move here while only building housing for 200k, promotes and protects the same idea of Canada that everyday Canadians do, doesn't have a big scandal every f**king week, respects the basic principals of democracy & good governance, and whose senior Cabinet ministers aren't out-of-touch twats

Maybe that makes me their "base"...I don't know. I don't know what their base is, or what it looks like...


I want a competent government that enacts common sense legislation, that is in line with the same basic moral code the rest of us have, can actually execute on things, and doesn't intentionally sabotage our own economy.

(You know, like the good ol' days!)



I want a government that wants Canada to be strong, that puts the best interests of Canadians first.

I DON'T want a government that actually tries to propel us into being the world's first 'post nation state'


I want criminals who blatantly victimize other people to go away from those people.

I don't want someone that's already out on bail for a violent offense (often times more than one) to be walking around society committing more violent offences.



I don't feel like this is a Conservative "base" thing. I don't feel like Pierre is tailoring anything towards a 'core base' of his supporters.

I feel like his message resonates among most normal, working class people regardless of what party they have historically affiliated themselves with.

The only issue is that concepts of “ideas” “best interests” “principles of democracy” “morals” “competent” and “common sense” don’t all share a universal understanding of what that’s entails. They are all open to subjective opinions.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Picking and choosing won’t get you anywhere. We can compare a whole lot more like abortion, health care, supply management, religious issues etc. It isn’t on everything but it is much closer ideologically than the GOP on a lot of policy issues but not all.

Picking and choosing is the only way to reassess "conventional wisdom" that may have been approximately true 40 years ago but is no longer relevant for the simple reason that progressive parties are moving at a faster relative velocity than conservative parties. People ought to recognize when they're repeating myths that no longer have bases in facts.

 

[lenaitch]

Security clearances?

Given our short writ periods, there is no way they could get them done in time. Some candidates were only chosen a few days before the deadline.

Claiming the CPC is going to reverse abortion rights in Canada is a polite version of Goodwin's Law. People only trot that out once any legitimate argument they had has been trounced.

But it may well be a big part of the reason why the Conservatives are polling poorly with females in the 20-30 year old range. The CPC has elements of the far right in its tent. The Liberals have much less of a far left component since that generally migrates to the NDP. No clue how much sway or impact the far right has, but that female group may be seeing what is going on down in the States with restrictions on personal autonomy, abortions access, etc. and - rightly or wrongly - drawing parallels with our Conservatives.

 

[PuckChaser]

@lenaitch The folks that believe CPC will remove abortion rights are folks ideologically in sync with LPC or NDP and will never, ever, vote Tory. Despite an almost 10 year majority rule and multiple leaders stating over multiple years in multiple unequivocal statements each year that they will never support changes to current laws, the partisans trot out a boogeyman every single time. It's laughable but really shows the lack of depth of the electorate to fall for the "evil CPC abortion ban meme" everytime.

 

[suffolkowner]

the CPC might not be anti abortionists but how many anti abortionists are CPC?

 

[Furniture]

the CPC might not be anti abortionists but how many anti abortionists are CPC?

The LPC might not be communist, but how many communists are LPC?

When did you stop beating your wife? When did you stop being a racist? When did you stop being an antisemite?

See how dumb that is?

 

[OldSolduer]

The LPC might not be communist, but how many communists are LPC?

When did you stop beating your wife? When did you stop being a racist? When did you stop being an antisemite?

See how dumb that is?

We may see it but the average voter will buy it every time.

Democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others.

 

[Brad Sallows]

That the CPC declines to tilt against a windmill doesn't mean it agrees with the presence of the windmill. Other parties might wish the CPC would fight every battle, but a party can choose where to make its efforts.

Again, "Canadian conservatives are like American Democrats" is a decades-old thing that "everyone just knows" that isn't really so. Progressives move left faster than conservatives, by definition. Obviously at some point in time it becomes true that the median Canadian conservative is closer to the median US conservative than to the median US progressive no matter what starting point you choose to situate your estimate or your old wives' tale.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

That the CPC declines to tilt against a windmill doesn't mean it agrees with the presence of the windmill. Other parties might wish the CPC would fight every battle, but a party can choose where to make its efforts.

Again, "Canadian conservatives are like American Democrats" is a decades-old thing that "everyone just knows" that isn't really so. Progressives move left faster than conservatives, by definition. Obviously at some point in time it becomes true that the median Canadian conservative is closer to the median US conservative than to the median US progressive no matter what starting point you choose to situate your estimate or your old wives' tale.

American Democrats loot, burn, riot, scream at the sky, wear pink pussy hats and other equally ridiculous items. They hold mass protests when others are working for a living. Many are socialists and far left wing. Some are just downright racist. They will jail you for your abortion stance if you don’t follow their dogma. DEI, sex change operations on children, trans story time and drag shows for junior grades are their forte. They surveille church goers and school meetings for people exercising their rights.

I see zero comparison to Canadian Conservatives.

I do see lots of similarities with Canadian liberals though.

 

[Halifax Tar]

On one hand the liberals target the wrong things, on the other hand the CPCs plans are plainly unconstitutional. We get two extremes, seems like no one knows how to deal with crime properly

I mean the LPC could stop coming after law abiding people and their legally obtained property. That we be a nice first step in not creating criminals out of ideology.

 

[CBH99]

the CPC might not be anti abortionists but how many anti abortionists are CPC?

Given the other options available to them in this country, I'm actually willing to say probably more than we'd think

 

[CBH99]

I mean the LPC could stop coming after law abiding people and their legally obtained property. That we be a nice first step in not creating criminals out of ideology.

And once a government starts down that very broad, wide, and slippery slope it's difficult to imagine it not happening again with something else...

10 years ago in Canada if you took the right PAL course & mailed off the application with everything in it, a month or so later a PAL card would arrive in your mail.

From then on in as long as you purchased your firearm legally & stored, transported, and operated it appropriately - you were allowed for own a firearm.

The government said you could when they sent you that card


...so to turn around and say to those same people "We've changed our minds! Instead, you need to give us ALL of your guns! Legally purchased using the card we sent you doesn't matter, we changed our minds and now you have to give them to us because we say so...or YOU will become criminals too!"

Pretty slippery slope. What else does the government get to change their mind on, and then retroactively just make a whole group of people criminals...

 

[suffolkowner]

The LPC might not be communist, but how many communists are LPC?

When did you stop beating your wife? When did you stop being a racist? When did you stop being an antisemite?

See how dumb that is?

I don't

Your first analogy seems fair

 

[Furniture]

I don't

Your first analogy seems fair

You're asking a leading question designed to make the entire group look like one small segment. It's exactly the same as the other examples i used, just pluralized.

The reality is, lots of LPC supporters are SoCons, and anti-abortion. My parents are very conservative, but are LPC supporters, as are many of their generation. It's as if they don't care about the policy, and only care about the party name, even if that party no longer represents their views.

 

[suffolkowner]

You're asking a leading question designed to make the entire group look like one small segment. It's exactly the same as the other examples i used, just pluralized.

The reality is, lots of LPC supporters are SoCons, and anti-abortion. My parents are very conservative, but are LPC supporters, as are many of their generation. It's as if they don't care about the policy, and only care about the party name, even if that party no longer represents their views.

I didn't actually just proposed a potential heuristic

But maybe abortionists are distributed randomly amongst all the parties or maybe the proportion is twice as high in the liberals

An example more relevant to this election perhaps

The cpc aren't Trump supporters but how many Trump supporters are cpc

 

[Good2Golf]

The cpc aren't Trump supporters but how many Trump supporters are cpc

Perhaps the same as or less as to how many LPC supporters are agents/supporters of the CCP/UFWD…

 

[IKnowNothing]

I don't understand the argument when people talk about the Conservatives "playing to their base"

Byrne and Poilievre have spent the last three years banging a very consistent messaging drum. That messaging has strongly resonated with a certain group of people. People who donate, show up cheering to the rallies, share the videos with a "damn right!". This is their base.

Their base is not large enough to win the election.

There is another group of people- people with whom the messaging did not resonate, or who even reacted negatively to it. People who were sick of Trudeau, but not actually supportive of Poilievre, who's "support" vanished the second their was a non-PP option that wasn't Trudeau (or Singh)

"Playing to their base" means doubling down on a style/message/overall package that their strong supporters will love, rather than trying to find a way to broaden the tent back out and win the undecideds that have turned their backs on three years of said overall package.


Did you read the Mcleans link?

 

[lenaitch]

@lenaitch The folks that believe CPC will remove abortion rights are folks ideologically in sync with LPC or NDP and will never, ever, vote Tory. Despite an almost 10 year majority rule and multiple leaders stating over multiple years in multiple unequivocal statements each year that they will never support changes to current laws, the partisans trot out a boogeyman every single time. It's laughable but really shows the lack of depth of the electorate to fall for the "evil CPC abortion ban meme" everytime.

In terms of the younger demographic, particular the female segment as cited, I'm not convinced they are in sync with anybody. As a group writ large, they are generally unengaged with politics and don't follow the traditional media (I won't say MSM because that has been turned into a pejorative expression). Most of their information comes from social media feeds which are largely driven by algorithms and a lot of that information is US-based or US-focused. All sides are trying to get them engaged - obviously to their camp Seeing as our political landscape is essentially binary, left vs right, I think it is fairly natural for many Canadian observers to equate Republican with Conservative, and many don't like what they see coming out of the Republican camp at either the federal or state level. Images of Jenny Bryne wearing a MAGA hat don't help.

It might not be right and it might be nowhere in the Conservative party platform, but people may believe those ghosts still exist, and are open to be convinced that they do.

 

[PuckChaser]

@lenaitch You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. If young people aren't politically engaged they're never going to care about Jenni Byrne in a MAGA hat. You're are right in that social media run by China as a giant InfoOp or by 90%+ left leaners in Silicon Valley skews the view to the left and manipulates what people consume is tainting the image of the CPC.

 

[OldSolduer]

I don't know about you guys but we didn't lose over 118,000 KIA to hand this nation over to the CCP or whatever foreign nation wants us.

To those that cozy up to China - and that means the CCP as well, in my mind they are traitors and are committing treason.