Election 2015

[Baz]

But, but Trudeau can't be a legitimate Prime Minister- he only got 39.5 percent of the vote! That means that 60.5 percent of Canadians voted against him!

(Just pointing out to the Liberal triumphalists, how stupid your argument was when the Conservatives won a majority in 2011 with about the same popular vote).

I did see the guy from Nanos on CTV last night talking about how they got 188 with 40%, and that means blah, blah blah... no, that is exactly what happens in our system, and works both ways.  There is a possible advantage that it leads to Majority Governements more often than other systems...

Craig Oliver's rant, what a jack-ass.  And saying it is the presses job to hold them to account; no, it's not, it's the people of Canada's...

 

[Pencil Tech]

John Ibbitson speaks on "Three things Canadians will not miss about Stephen Harper," in this Globe and Mail video and, in a second video on the "historic rebuke" the Liberals delivered to both Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair.

In both videos Mr Ibbitson makes the points that we shouldn't expect too much onto many promises too soon.

Those who have followed my thoiughts here will know that:

    1. I am pleased we have a majority government ~ it's not a government that proposed the policies I wanted but it can be effective and we can hold it to account, in fourish years time, for how well it kept (or not) its promises;

    2. I am pleased to see the Liberals "reborn" as, finally, after 50 years, a national party again. I never did like the idea of "destroying the Liberals" and having a NDP (left) <> CPC (right) two party system, à la Labour <> Conservatives in the UK;

    3. I look forward to a CPC leadership contest. I believe that we need two robust, centrist and national parties and that we can afford to have two more, narrower, more ideological left and right wing parties (NDP and whatever
        spins off from a too centrist CPC) and even one or two regional/provincial parties;

    4. I am very interested in seeing who joins M Trudeau on his front bench, especially in Finance, as President of the Treasury Board, as Foreign Minister and, of course, as MND and who he picks to be (remain?) as his Clerk and his Chief of Staff.

You need to purge your party of the toxic Harperites and bring back the Progressive Conservative Party (not with Peter Mackay). Then this country will have found its traditional balance again.]

 

[ModlrMike]

I think the election result provides a few interesting revelations:

1. the election was more about defeating Mr Harper as an individual than the Conservatives as a whole. It's not like they were reduced to two seats a la Kim Campbell;

2. once the NDP campaign started to lose momentum, many orange voters became red. I admit surprise that the BQ did not become the alternate vote in Quebec;

3. the BQ collapse in Quebec is now well established. Mr Duceppe has lost his seat on two successive tries. Perhaps this puts the separation squawking to bed.

It will be interesting to see if the various special interest groups get what they campaigned for. I highly doubt that the ABC Veterans are going to get much, if anything. I don't see a return to lifetime pensions, nor do I see the various VAC offices being reopened.

That being said, the sun still came up today and the earth still revolves around it.

 

[Edward Campbell]

You need to purge your party of the toxic Harperites and bring back the Progressive Conservative Party (not with Peter Mackay). Then this country will have found its traditional balance again.]

Nope. That was not a balance. The old PC Party (George Drew, John Diefenbaker, Robert Stanfield, Brian Mulroney, Jean Charest and Peter MacKay) were just Liberals in cheap suits, small town Canada trying to mix with the big city boys.

I agree, in part, that the CPC needs to shed part of its social conservative wing, the "law and order," anti-abortion, intolerant/anti-gay, "religious right" part, and return to what I would call small town/main street Conservative values (social moderation, fiscal prudence, support for the traditional family structure (i.e. two parent families (even if they are gay or lesbian parents) with jobs, mortages, kids in school, and so on.) What we (Canada) doesn't need is a reborn PC party.

 

[jollyjacktar]

the BQ collapse in Quebec is now well established. Mr Duceppe has lost his seat on two successive tries. Perhaps this puts the separation squawking to bed.

I don't know.  I'm dismayed the buggers did as well as they did, they're not on life support or flatlined yet.  Very happy to see Gilles go down in flames, maybe he'll scuttle off to whatever rock he crawled out from under now.

 

[Pencil Tech]

Nope. That was not a balance. The old PC Party (George Drew, John Diefenbaker, Robert Stanfield, Brian Mulroney, Jean Charest and Peter MacKay) were just Liberals in cheap suits, small town Canada trying to mix with the big city boys.

I agree, in part, that the CPC needs to shed part of its social conservative wing, the "law and order," anti-abortion, intolerant/anti-gay, "religious right" part, and return to what I would call small town/main street Conservative values (social moderation, fiscal prudence, support for the traditional family structure (i.e. two parent families (even if they are gay or lesbian parents) with jobs, mortages, kids in school, and so on.) What we (Canada) doesn't need is a reborn PC party.

Well I would have thought that your second paragraph described the names in your first paragraph but OK. Look, if anything can be learned from the Harper demise it's this: Canadians don't scare anywhere near as easily as Americans, so don't keep going down that Tea Party, Fox News path because we're not all sitting barricaded in our bunkers waiting for ISIS to knock down the patio door, and we don't think it's a crime wave out there (because we can read statistics), so having a 'law and order' PM say that marijuana is infinitely more dangerous than tobacco and then days later happily go on television with a crackhead and his drug dealer brother as showcase supporters is a towering monument to the cynicism and contempt that that evil little man Harper had for the intelligence of the people of this country; and we may not like niqabs but we hate being manipulated into acting like racists more. All the Baird and Calandra yelling, the narrowcasting and wedge politics, and Kory Teneykes (BTW how did Poilievre ever hold on to his seat?). That's not us man. That's why Trudeau won, and won big.

 

[a_majoor]

I would call this the "Revenge of the Laurentian Elites", as Gerald Butts and his team seek to reclaim the perques and privileges that accrued from under the "Laurentian Consensus".

As many people have noted, this may be good for the "Elites", but as middle and working class people in Ontario have found (and Canadians will quickly discover), not so great for the rest of us. The TFSA tangent upthread is a good example; it was a great way to assist people of more modest means to get ahead of the curve (there are several studies posted on the Making Canada Relevant Again economic super thread  which detail this), but isn't in itself something which supports large bureaucracies or provides well paid jobs to party stalwarts like the Ontario Pension Plan. It is good that the TFSA has been around long enough to have gained traction and a supporting constituency; "they" may hate it and try to chip away at it, but it will be politically difficult to kill.

Perhaps saddest for me is to see Canadians closing their eyes and going back to the smug "little Canada" mentality that was detailed in a Ruxted Group piece back in 2007, when it looked like Canadians were starting to grow up and take a larger "Big Canada" mentality and emerge on the world stage as a responsible middle power again the way we did from the 1940's and into the 60's. We had bought that reputation with a huge amount of blood and treasure, and paid again in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan to get where we were yesterday, now we stand to lose that investment and all the sunk costs it entailed.

 

[Brad Sallows]

There are many silver linings.

As of this morning, the LPC popular vote % is less than what the CPC won in 2011.  Henceforth the asinine "the government is illegitimate since 60% of Canadians voted against it" will be used only to mock those who bleated it incessantly during the years of Conservative government.  As the LPC takes up government, there will be many more things to be walked back.

With a strong (gale force) tailwind of anti-Harper hysteria, the LPC did not manage (current figures) to equal the aforementioned CPC popular vote %, and the CPC hung onto its 30+%.  Liberals and their supporters will find ways to interpret this as a strong mandate for their policies, and a strong rebuke to Conservatives.  I hope they do - overreach is the quickest path to a turnabout.

Harper beat Harper.  Trudeau did not beat Harper.  Although I'd like to believe the NDP vote collapsed due to an accumulation of its pandering to QC and unnerving public statements from its extreme left fringes, it's hard to escape the conclusion indicated by timing: Mulcair took a principled position on a minor issue (niqab); xenophobes turned away from the NDP; the sheep saw the drop in polls and joined the parade/stampede.  Until that moment, no amount of LPC or NDP positive chicken-and-pot, hope-and-change promises was able to shift the vote share.  It took a negative event to move votes.  Trudeau is the beneficiary of circumstances outside his control, including a discreditable shift on the part of the voters who deserted the NDP for the LPC.

The BQ is still essentially dead.

>that evil little man Harper

Another silver lining: the immature petulant intolerant rude abusive uncivil name-calling politics of division and fear practiced by people incapable of distinguishing policy issues from morality or with no tangible grasp of politics as practiced by all parties in Canada is going to slowly go away.  (Mulcair is right that the politics of "fear and division" is going away; he's just wrong about who he thinks is guilty of it).

>You need to purge your party of the toxic Harperites and bring back the Progressive Conservative Party (not with Peter Mackay). Then this country will have found its traditional balance again.]

Unfortunately, I doubt this brand of passive-aggressive inanity is going away: "you need to be exactly like the party I prefer on the terms I dictate; in fact, I'd prefer if you just went away and let my party rule forever".

 

[Jarnhamar]

It's spiteful but I take a bit of joy with Cheryl gallant being elected again as a CPC MP.  She's such a train wreck.    A parting gift from Harper maybe.

 

[Brad Sallows]

And this comment I will make separately because I think it's important.

The anti-Harper / anti-CPC hysteria does not exist because the outgoing government was particularly corrupt* or mean-spirited.  Almost every time I've looked at some alleged shortcoming of the policies or practices of the Harper government, I've found it was basically an application of lessons learned (sometimes bitterly) from past Liberal governments.  In most cases you don't need to look further back than the Chretien government.

The hysteria exists because of the social media amplifier.  And now we're going to find out if the political "right" can be as unhinged and miserable as the political "left" over differences of policy.

[Add: *It was much less corrupt - nothing on par with AdScam or allegations against the PM of bribe-taking or meddling in deals ever surfaced]

 

[dapaterson]

So, a few links and quotes about the Liberal Party's military commitments:


https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/report-on-transformation/

We will implement the recommendations made in the Canadian Forces’ Report on Transformation.

The Canadian Armed Forces’ ability to protect Canada’s borders and work with our allies overseas should never be compromised. Threats to its ability to meet future obligations must be addressed head on.

The Report on Transformation made a series of recommendations on how to build a more modern, efficient, and effective military, including reducing the size of administration within government and the Canadian Armed Forces in order to strengthen front-line operations.


https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/investing-in-our-military/

We will maintain current National Defence spending levels, including current planned increases.

Under Stephen Harper, investments in the Canadian Armed Forces have been erratic, promised increases in funding have been scaled back, and more than $10 billion of approved funding was left unspent.

This mismanagement has left Canada’s Armed Forces underfunded and ill-equipped, and the courageous members of the Forces unsupported after years of dedicated service.

We will not let Canada’s Armed Forces be shortchanged, and we will not lapse military spending from year to year. We will also reinvest in building a leaner, more agile, better-equipped military, including adequate support systems for military personnel and their families.


https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/strategic-priorities/

We will immediately begin an open and transparent review process of existing defence capabilities, with the goal of delivering a more effective, better-equipped military.

The Canada First Defence Strategy, launched by Stephen Harper in 2008, is underfunded and out of date. We will review current programs and capabilities, and lay out a realistic plan to strengthen Canada’s Armed Forces.

We will develop the Canadian Armed Forces into an agile, responsive, and well-equipped military force that can effectively defend Canada and North America; provide support during natural disasters, humanitarian support missions, and peace operations; and offer international deterrence and combat capability.

We will continue to work with the United States to defend North America under NORAD, and contribute to regional security within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

We will ensure that equipment is acquired faster, and with vigorous Parliamentary oversight.

We will put a renewed focus on surveillance and control of Canadian territory and approaches, particularly our Arctic regions, and will increase the size of the Canadian Rangers.


EDIT: See also: https://www.liberal.ca/files/2015/09/A-new-plan-to-strengthen-the-economy-and-create-jobs-with-navy-investment.pdf

 

[Edward Campbell]

I agree, broadly and generally, with Brad: it was, last night, and for a couple of weeks leading up to last night, time for a change. Canadians never liked Prime Minister Harper; some respected him, as they should have because he was a (qualitatively) "good" prime minister ~ far  better than Prime Ministers Martin, Chrétien, Mulroney and Trudeau* ~ at the policy and "machinery of government" business, and his government was not corrupt, the personal foibles of e.g. Mike Duffy being acknowledged, but they never 'warmed' to him. He was easy to dislike and to mistrust, Canadians, generally, will not miss the man, even though they might not respect his replacement very much.

Canadians wanted change and they voted for it ... that's all. M Trudeau is a nice, pleasant, telegenic young man. We will see if he haas the brains and balls to be prime minister of a G7 country. I hope he does; but I'm prepared to be disappointed and even a bit embarrassed when I travel abroad.

There is nothing much more to "read in" to last night's results beyond it being "time for a change." Now the CPC and NDP have time ( a couple of years) to rebuild and reintroduce themselves to Canadians.

___
* Yes, yes, I know I left out Prime Ministers Campbell, Turner and Clark.

 

[Rocky Mountains]

I agree, broadly and generally, with Brad: it was, last night, and for a couple of weeks leading up to last night, time for a change. Canadians never liked Prime Minister Harper; some respected him, as they should have because he was a (qualitatively) "good" prime minister ~ far  better than Prime Ministers Martin, Chrétien, Mulroney and Trudeau* ~ at the policy and "machinery of government" business, and his government was not corrupt, the personal foibles of e.g. Mike Duffy being acknowledged, but they never 'warmed' to him. He was easy to dislike and to mistrust, Canadians, generally, will not miss the man, even though they might not respect his replacement very much.

Canadians wanted change and they voted for it ... that's all. M Trudeau is a nice, pleasant, telegenic young man. We will see if he has the brains and balls to be prime minister of a G7 country. I hope he does; but I'm prepared to be disappointed and even a bit embarrassed when I travel abroad.

That's it in a nutshell.  Ten years is enough.  As long as Trudeau's handlers control him things might not be so bad.  If he starts thinking for himself look out.

 

[TwoTonShackle]

But, but Trudeau can't be a legitimate Prime Minister- he only got 39.5 percent of the vote! That means that 60.5 percent of Canadians voted against him!

(Just pointing out to the Liberal triumphalists, how stupid your argument was when the Conservatives won a majority in 2011 with about the same popular vote).

The point people were making is that the majority of Canadians were voting for a progressive system, which was split and that a conservative system won out with less popularity because it was the only option on the right.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Another silver lining for us old farts.  The phrase "Pime Minister Trudeau" won't sound strange to our ears.  "PM Mulcair" or "PM May" would have taken some getting used to.

 

[Strike]

We will ensure that equipment is acquired faster, and with vigorous Parliamentary oversight.

If you want one, you really can't have the other.  Whoever wrote that line doesn't really know how Ottawa works I think. 

 

[Altair]

Nanos did the best again. This was their last results (Sunday)

They had:
Liberals 39.1 (actual 39.5)
Cons 30.5 (actual, 31.9)
NDP 19.7 (same, 19.7)
Bloc 5.5 (actual, 4.7)
Green 4.6 (actual, 3.5)

 

[Baz]

The point people were making is that the majority of Canadians were voting for a progressive system, which was split and that a conservative system won out with less popularity because it was the only option on the right.

That's the point people were trying to make, but it didn't stand up.  When it is convenient, the "progressives" group themselves together against the "non-progressives," but they aren't the same.

The real point is that there are 15% of the population, which translates to 30% of the voting population, that align them selves with more conservative values, and there are a group of people that think that is such a bad thing that they need to attack them every chance they get.  When that swells to just 20%, because people wanted a change from the "progressive agenda," and which is enough to create majority government, then they cried like little children.  Worse, they started demonizing the leader like he was hitler or some other dictator, and he wasn't.

By the way, I'm not a conservative, I'm a centrist; an area the liberals historically dominated which is why they won so much.  I'm progressive in that society needs to be for everyone, but I'm conservative in tthat everyone needs to take care o themselves to some extent; when they fall through the cracks then society should catch them.  I can't understand why the middle class in Canada continues to believe that more government support is in their best interest; it is the middle class that will pay for it!

I have no problem with the liberal platform, I just hope they keep some sembalnce of intact, especially the part about consulting with Canadians.  From the point of view of the military, I hope that maybe we can do what most other countries do and have a national discussion on it, but I think the chances of that are slim.  The F-35 decision, or whatever other aircraft epoeple are talking about over on that thread, shouldn't even begin until we have that discussion, and then define the requirements to meet the resulting defence policy.

 

[FSTO]

If you want one, you really can't have the other.  Whoever wrote that line doesn't really know how Ottawa works I think. 

Haven't governments been saying that since the Spanish Armada?

 

[Brad Sallows]

>The point people were making is that the majority of Canadians were voting for a progressive system, which was split and that a conservative system won out with less popularity because it was the only option on the right.

And in doing so they revealed historical ignorance of Canadian politics: the LPC is above all a centrist party, not a leftist one (WTF is a "progressive system"?).  They were (and probably still are, or will be shortly) well-connected into the "Big" establishments - Business, Law, Labour, etc - which implies a rolling back of the clock (always allegedly a conservative trait) to reassert their old power structures and practices.

The vote split assumption requires the assumption that all of the LPC vote share "belongs" on the left.  The most progressives can argue is that part of the LPC vote share would migrate to the NDP if the LPC dissolved - not all of it.