General Election: Oct 21, 2019

[a_majoor]

Interesting that so far there has been no mention of the PPC. While they don't have much in the way of resources and had limited time to get organized, I found it very interesting to see how quickly they had fielded almost the full 338 slate (even before the Liberals). Even with a virtual media blackout they still seem to be able to draw on a very broad base, and I suspect it may be deeper than some people imagine (Maxime Bernier came to London last week with limited notice and drew a crowd of about 500 supporters).

To me this suggests the PPC may well have a spoiler role in the election as a minimum, drawing a lot more votes than people are expecting. Talking to some PPC supporters, they also believe that there is a large pool of disgruntled and undecided voters out there who have not been on anyone's radar to date. I can certainly believe there are a lot of voters who are disgruntled by what is on offer by the traditional parties. How willing they are to try out the PPC is a different story.

I personally will be very interested to see how well they do.

 

[brihard]

I'll be interested to see how they fare too, inasmuch as I'm interested and concerned to see the rise of any populist movement within a democracy. Canada thus far has done reasonably well at resisting the incursion of populism and nationalism into our electoral politics. The PPC have offered themselves up as the pressure release valve for that. It will be interesting to see how many voters take them up on the opportunity.

I'm quite confident (and very hopeful) that they will top out as 'also-rans'. I hope Bernier will not be reelected- it would be a shame to see his tantrum rewarded. Polling data is dubious; that said his riding right now is sitting with a slight CPC edge on Bernier, though it's flipped back and forth within the margin of error. It's a toss up right now. They don't have a snowball's hope in hell of any other seat.

Worst case for Canada as it regards the PPC is they get enough traction that they split enough votes in enough ridings to matters. Pretty much any gain to them will be at CPC expense. Politically and ideologically there's basically nowhere else for them to draw support from; they're trying to shave off the far right of the CPC, and maybe pull in other populists who otherwise wouldn't vote. While the PPC won't take any ridings beyond potentially Beauce, they conceivably could throw enough seats Liberal to give them another majority.

I'm beginning to get concerned. We've all heard at great length about how much the Liberals suck. Got it. Message has sunk in if and where it's going to. It doens't look to be doing the trick though. The friggin' conservatives need to quit dicking around and get out there with some solid 'why you should vote for us'. While 36 days is a long time in an election and a lot can happen, thus far they just haven't really shown up to play- and I'm not talking about the silly theatrics and snarkiness of the televised debates, but actually articulating and pushing real solid positive platform items.

 

[Haggis]

I'm beginning to get concerned. We've all heard at great length about how much the Liberals suck. Got it. Message has sunk in if and where it's going to. It doesn't look to be doing the trick though.

And the polls seem to agree with you.  As of yesterdays's 338Canada projections Team Trudeau is solidly in majority territory.

The friggin' conservatives need to quit dicking around and get out there with some solid 'why you should vote for us'. While 36 days is a long time in an election and a lot can happen, thus far they just haven't really shown up to play- and I'm not talking about the silly theatrics and snarkiness of the televised debates, but actually articulating and pushing real solid positive platform items.

The Conservatives are on the defensive on a number of fronts and the Liberals have seized the initiative from Scheer. It may be too late already.

 

[Jonezy76]

I'll be interested to see how they fare too, inasmuch as I'm interested and concerned to see the rise of any populist movement within a democracy. Canada thus far has done reasonably well at resisting the incursion of populism and nationalism into our electoral politics. The PPC have offered themselves up as the pressure release valve for that. It will be interesting to see how many voters take them up on the opportunity.

I'm quite confident (and very hopeful) that they will top out as 'also-rans'. I hope Bernier will not be reelected- it would be a shame to see his tantrum rewarded. Polling data is dubious; that said his riding right now is sitting with a slight CPC edge on Bernier, though it's flipped back and forth within the margin of error. It's a toss up right now. They don't have a snowball's hope in hell of any other seat.

Worst case for Canada as it regards the PPC is they get enough traction that they split enough votes in enough ridings to matters. Pretty much any gain to them will be at CPC expense. Politically and ideologically there's basically nowhere else for them to draw support from; they're trying to shave off the far right of the CPC, and maybe pull in other populists who otherwise wouldn't vote. While the PPC won't take any ridings beyond potentially Beauce, they conceivably could throw enough seats Liberal to give them another majority.

I'm beginning to get concerned. We've all heard at great length about how much the Liberals suck. Got it. Message has sunk in if and where it's going to. It doens't look to be doing the trick though. The friggin' conservatives need to quit dicking around and get out there with some solid 'why you should vote for us'. While 36 days is a long time in an election and a lot can happen, thus far they just haven't really shown up to play- and I'm not talking about the silly theatrics and snarkiness of the televised debates, but actually articulating and pushing real solid positive platform items.

I'm also worried that the PPC will bleed off CPC votes. The ONLY chance to unseat Trudeau and the Libs is the Cons.. A vote for Max = a vote for Justin.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Taken as a whole, the PPC and it's stated principles and aims isn't particularly populist, although that depends extremely heavily on interpretation of "populist", which these days seems to be "anything further right than just right of centre".  The best course of action to stop a stampede of people who might like a populist party (they see something they like elsewhere described as "populist", so they vote for whatever they see in Canada described as "populist") is to stop lazily and incorrectly summing up the PPC as populist.  And the CPC should do to the PPC what the LPC did to the NDP last election - yank the rug CPC-ways and occupy it, firmly.  The PPC positions are mostly conservative / libertarian; that should be easy to do.

LPC supporters have made their rationalizations to pave over the ethical cracks.  Changeable voters not entirely happy with the status quo need an attraction.  The NDP and CPC leaders are weak and ineffectual, so that attraction seems unlikely to be strong enough.

The danger here is not the populists or any other fringe factions, or even the "elites".  The danger is the potential giant "F-U" by one set of Canadians to the rest of Canadians if the LPC is re-elected with a majority in spite of the manifest scandal.  That is the path to populism.

 

[Blackadder1916]

I was looking at something on Youtube this morning and an interesting and catchy ad came up.  As I hadn't done any searches (recently  ) dealing with the primary subject matter, my assumption is that the site's logarithm is assuming that my interest is either Canada or politics (or more specifically Canadian politics) since the current PM is featured prominently in the ad.

https://twitter.com/reefertilizer/status/1052711347299840000?lang=en

I wonder if Elections Canada will consider this a political ad and make it subject to the requirements for "issue advertising".  Until I started to actually listen to the lyrics, I thought it was a campaign ad.

 

[ballz]

I had high hopes that Bernier would start a legitimate, libertarian political movement that emphasized personal responsibility, smaller federal government, etc. He did have good people behind him, well-connected, and with good political experience which is why they were so successful in getting the ground game established, starting EDAs and getting candidates. However, all those people have since abandoned him since he basically just went off the rails with some pretty stupid dog-whistling and I'm no different than those people. I liked Max when he was genuinely interested in libertarian principles over vote-buying, now it appears he's interested in votes and the only people left to get votes from are the fringes who weren't voting before. I suspect he hasn't taken too many CPC supporters from the CPC who haven't subsequently switched back to CPC.

The old Max could have been a force to reckon with, the current Max reminds me of a poker player that's gone full tilt mode until they're out of chips.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Aaaaaaaaaand for a slighty different view, here's the World Socialist Web Site's take on it all ...

... the Tories and the media, led by the Globe and Mail, the traditional voice of the Bay Street financial elite, are cynically and hypocritically seeking to use the SNC-Lavalin affair to shift politics still further right. Particularly sinister is their insistence that the RCMP must be empowered to investigate the SNC-Lavalin affair, and the actions of Trudeau and the Prime Minister’s Office in particular, in the midst of the election campaign. This would effectively give Canada’s national police—a force notorious for its right-wing sympathies and repeated violations of Canadians’ democratic rights—a powerful say in the election’s outcome.

(...)

The Trudeau government is a pro-austerity, pro-war government that must be implacably opposed by the working class. But in doing so, it must lend no support to the reactionary intrigues of the Tories and the Globe. Their attempt to make the RCMP the arbiter of the election’s outcome is part of a breakdown of democratic forms of rule in all the advanced capitalist countries.

(...)

The social democratic NDP as usual trails after the capitalist elite’s traditional parties of government. The NDP has essentially echoed the Conservatives’ talking-points on the SNC-Lavalin affair, while making clear that, in the event of a hung parliament, it will prop up a minority Liberal government.

(...)

The only viable response to the SNC-Lavalin scandal is for the working class to take up the struggle for socialism. The corrupt relations that exist between the political establishment as a whole and Canada’s fabulously wealthy corporate elite can be broken only through the establishment of a workers’ government, committed to placing the banks and basic industry under public ownership and workers’ control, a vast program of public works to meet pressing social needs, such as housing, health care, schools and social services, and a halt to the tens of billions of dollars wasted on preparing Canadian imperialism to fight in a new world war. Above all, working people can only end the domination of big business and the super-rich over political life by taking up the fight to abolish the capitalist profit system that gives rise to it.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Ah, World Socialists.

You can always count on their brand of crazy to brighten the day....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

There seems to be a lot of speculation about Commissioner Lucki being married to Morneau's cousin. Has anyone seen anything solid about this?

 

[The Bread Guy]

Ah, World Socialists.

You can always count on their brand of crazy to brighten the day....

:nod:
#NDPNotQuiteSocialistEnough

There seems to be a lot of speculation about Commissioner Lucki being married to Morneau's cousin. Has anyone seen anything solid about this?

One Twitter post (attached) with no link included, being retweeted by non-fans of the RCMP & Team Red … #ALotOfPeopleAreSaying

 

[Remius]

The man she is married to is a retired RCMP staff sgt.

Is he a blood relation to Morneau?  Other than what some guy posted on twitter  :dunno:

Are a spouse's cousins considered to be a potential conflict?  2nd cousins?  3rd? 4th?

I have a massive extended family with 2nd and 3rd cousins I don't even know.  I don't even know a good chunk of my spouses 1st cousins let alone the next ones removed. 

 

[ModlrMike]

The connection is tenuous at best. That being said, it's more about the narrative. As long as the "LPC in bed with SNC" story can be exploited, the more it will be.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The connection is tenuous at best. That being said, it's more about the narrative. As long as the "LPC in bed with SNC" story can be exploited, the more it will be.

VERY true - but in spite of what some people say, details also matter.  You can make that link pretty clearly & easily without making stuff up.

 

[Remius]

Maybe, maybe not. Say what you want about Bernier, he can think on his feet, is (apparently) imumune to embarrassment and is the master of the quip. The pay off for Bernier (in terms of his base) is attacking Trudeau. He could end up making the PM look stupid, depending on the issue.

Now, I suppose, that could also hurt the CPC, if he does well enough that enough people decide to give him a second look. Or he could just make Scheer look reasonable and safe. Time will tell.

Fair points.  But I think that Bernier is banking on the conservative votes.  I don’t think he is really competing for the LPC or NDP vote share.  That means that Scheer will have to show he is the better choice for conservatives as opposed to the only choice.  Means less time on Trudeau at the debates and you can bet Bernier will be after Scheer on a variety of conservative issues. 

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Fair points.  But I think that Bernier is banking on the conservative votes.  I don’t think he is really competing for the LPC or NDP vote share.  That means that Scheer will have to show he is the better choice for conservatives as opposed to the only choice.  Means less time on Trudeau at the debates and you can bet Bernier will be after Scheer on a variety of conservative issues.

You and I mostly agree. Any votes Bernier gets come out of the CPC hide or out of folks who would not ever vote Liberal or NDP. Maybe some Blocqusties or even Greens (the Greens are a weird bunch and are all over the poltical map).

The roadmap for Bernier to make a splash and get fireworks is to go after Trudeau and not Scheer. Those will be the clips that get played on the news- not him and Scheer arguing about Dairy marketing boards.

 

[AbdullahD]

So bernier plays far right allowing scheer to play mid right taking votes from the libs and a conservative minority government is hatched...

Yeah i know, it wont happen. I can dream though.

Abdullah

 

[Jarnhamar]

Bernier never stuck me as serious.

Maybe he's on to something with his platform, though I've heard he has a habit of blowing stuff off.

Also heard even if he wins every seat or whatever he can, he won't have enough to form a government. "At best" he'll give us another 4 years of the honourable Prime Minister Trudeau playing dress up.

 

[ModlrMike]

Bernier was invited to the debate solely for his fireworks value. The press isn't interested in anything else. They want sound bites that play. The only way he gets airtime after the debate is to go after Trudeau.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Bernier was invited to the debate solely for his fireworks value. The press isn't interested in anything else. They want sound bites that play. The only way he gets airtime after the debate is to go after Trudeau.

Suggesting that Bernier was invited for entertainment value may have been valid if the upcoming debate was, as in years (elections) past, sponsored and organized by the "Consortium" (the major TV media outlets combined).  However, this debate is organized by the Leaders’ Debates Commission which is a government body.  While the Commission, as a government body, may be open to criticism for bias, I have much respect for the Commissioner and would expect him to abide by the mandate and guidelines that he has been given.  The Commissioner, by the way, is David Johnston, the former Governor-General.