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2015 Canadian Federal Election Thread

Our (Canadian) conservatives are quite a bit less conservative than the Republicans. They're economic conservatives and their foreign policy is pretty much towed by whatever the American one is, but they're more secular and socially progressive.

Yeah I wouldn’t say they’re socially progressive. They're still socially conservative AFAIK (Harper for example); they just don’t bother to politically pursue those values. If they did, I doubt they would be in power right now.

I gotta say, the Canadian parties are pretty bland compared to the British ones. Come on, where's the resident right-wing party at?

The resident right-wing party (Reform/Canadian Alliance) dissolved in 2003 because it was never considered a feasible option. It was a merger between them and a moderate right leaning party (PC) that created the current Conservative party. One was only strong in western Canada and the other was only strong in eastern Canada.

I guess you could say they're bland. You definitely won't get nearly as much entertainment value out of Canadian politics as you would from British or American politics. I guess Canada doesn't have enough people that would find a right or left party appealing so they all have to adapt and stay close to the center. I'd say they're still different enough from each other though.
 

Tangeh

Well-Known Member
Haha, yeah, our "Conservative" party is still more liberal than the American Democrats :p

I'd really be happy with anyone but Harper (not counting Duceppe because the Bloc isn't getting anywhere, lol). Unfortunately, I have the sinking feeling the Conservatives are going to win anyway. It's a shame we have two left-leaning parties right now - having more than one is theoretically great, but there's always the concern that it's dividing the vote. If Layton were still alive the NDP might have had a better shot, but as it stands my hopes aren't high.

I have the same opinion. I've always disliked that a party can come into power with less than 50% of the country's votes. Like, the majority of the country does not want this party in power... but they still are. I'm hopeful that the Conservatives will at least lose their majority, but maybe it's just my fear of seeing NDP take power and inability to see the liberals bouncing back that says the Conservatives will still be at the top. I know the Provincial and Federal governments have different goals and whatever and shouldn't be compared directly like this, but I did not enjoy the tax hikes and huge debt the NDP brought to the NS government when they were in power... and now people are whining about the tax break cuts, like, we have no money haha.

I'm personally in the ABC mindset (Anything But Conservative) but I doubt my liberal vote will change from 2011 considering I'm voting for the representative and not necessarily the party.
 
since the OP's plans to explain more are probably not happening, I'll try to briefly mention some of the things you need to know. Thankfully it JUST BARELY hasn't been two months yet. I'll update this a bit later.

- if you live in america or britain, which seems to be the norm for this site, just remember that almost nobody in Canada is really a conservative by your definition. this includes the conservative party and people who support it. no exceptions. Basically, KantoPKMNmaster and Tangeh have it right. It's true that Harper is more liberal than Obama in comparison.
- the NDP and liberals are always to the left of the conservative party, though they switch places with each other sometimes. it's weird.
- this election is one of the longest in Canada's history because of legislation passed by Harper's government that fixed the election at Oct. 19th, but allowed him to call an election period whenever he wanted. he did so in early august, due to the fact that once the election is called, there become limits on the money that parties can collect through donations and such. This is because more was donated to the conservatives than to the other parties and Harper wanted an advantage since he is going into the election in his worst shape, as YourFavoriteUser mentioned
- harper was somewhat popular as far as prime ministers go until he passed Bill C-51, the Anti-terrorism Act. this started a lot of backlash. I'm not going to go into detail. if you want to know more you can research it yourself. i find it pretty interesting anyway. the NDP promise to repeal the bill, which isn't possible, and the liberals promise to amend it which is. Harper has done other controversial things during his latest term, but this tops them all.
- Justin Trudeau is not ready to be a prime minister but has really nice hair and the conservatives want to remind you of these two things because if you live in Canada you will see ads at least 30 times a day making sure that you know.

You know, this thread might get more traffic if it's about Canadian politics in general, rather than just one rather boring federal election. There would be more things to discuss, like Kathleen Wynne's plans to sell off the best power distributor in Ontario to the private sector. There's some pretty huge backlash about that since her party is notorious for wasting taxpayers' money, whether it's due to scandals or just plain bad decisions. There's also that nonsense going on with Miley Cyrus and Pamela Anderson trying to end the wolf cull in BC. They're still going at it, even after Christy Clark explained that it's to keep the endangered caribou alive long enough to reproduce. American celebrities, lmao. :rolleyes:

Tangeh said:
I have the same opinion. I've always disliked that a party can come into power with less than 50% of the country's votes. Like, the majority of the country does not want this party in power... but they still are. I'm hopeful that the Conservatives will at least lose their majority
This would likely be the case regardless of which party gets in. there are three major parties. even if, say, the NDP win for example, it would still probably be with less than 50% of the electorate's votes. this isn't something exclusive to the tories.
 

The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
Haha, yeah, our "Conservative" party is still more liberal than the American Democrats :p

I'm assuming we're discounting things like Harper's horrendous racism toward the First Nations, just for instance. And what they've done with health care.

Seriously, I don't know off-hand everything that Harper's done, but he kind of makes me think you are 100% full of ****.

Although I am pretty confident that, yes, they at least have a spine, which 90% of Demorats who don't align with Warren, Sanders, etc. appear not to.
 
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Haha, yeah, our "Conservative" party is still more liberal than the American Democrats :p
- if you live in america or britain, which seems to be the norm for this site, just remember that almost nobody in Canada is really a conservative by your definition. this includes the conservative party and people who support it. no exceptions. Basically, KantoPKMNmaster and Tangeh have it right. It's true that Harper is more liberal than Obama in comparison.

I refuse to believe Tangeh's claim that Harper is more liberal than the Democrats, or Eelektrik's absolutely ridiculous claim that there are practically no conservatives in Canada, unless they explain their points. Do you two even see what you're typing? rofl.

Harper's economic policies consist of giving the wealthiest citizens huge tax breaks. He has made zero effort to improve relations with the first nations. He's hesitating to accept Syrian refugees. He passed a bill that removes environmental protections on waterways so pipelines could be accepted faster without needing to meet environmental standards. And yes, people do support this crap. If Canada had almost no conservatives, this guy wouldn't have been elected three times.


Just going to address the complaint you made that implies that I apparently need to go into full detail about the election. What I meant before was I'd explain more to KantoPkmnMaster since he inquired about the leaderships, and I simply forgot to, as a result of my inactivity. This is a debate thread, people need to do research on their own instead of simply listening to what I say. Aside from this, your list is full of miscellaneous things that anyone could find out within ~5 minutes of research.

As for discussing provincial politics here, I can't change the title, so you'll have to ask a mod. That or just make your own thread instead of insulting/trying to change mine so you can feel like you contributed.

- harper was somewhat popular as far as prime ministers go until he passed Bill C-51

Except for the fact that he only received 34% of the electorate's votes in 2011. And the Idle No More movement which was inspired by his blatant lack of concern for the environment and First Nations reserves. And the backlash his government got when the Senate scandals happened.

He was hated way before C-51.

This would likely be the case regardless of which party gets in. there are three major parties. even if, say, the NDP win for example, it would still probably be with less than 50% of the electorate's votes. this isn't something exclusive to the tories.

Tangeh clearly said the majority don't want this party in power. The NDP is close enough to the Liberal party, that if they got in, I doubt too many Liberal party supporters would be opposed. Your point is flawed.

I'm assuming we're discounting things like Harper's horrendous racism toward the First Nations, just for instance. And what they've done with health care.

Seriously, I don't know off-hand everything that Harper's done, but he kind of makes me think you are 100% full of ****.

Although I am pretty confident that, yes, they at least have a spine, which 90% of Demorats who don't align with Warren, Sanders, etc. appear not to.

I'm curious as to why the others seem to think Harper is more liberal than the democrats. Not even his economic record points to that being true. And yeah, his racism towards First Nations pisses me off. If any other race had 1,000 women go missing in Canada, we wouldn't need the United Nations to tell us to call an inquiry.

........

In other news, did you hear about about the candidates that the Conservative party dropped? One, Jerry Bance, used to be a contractor and two years ago, he urinated in a homeowners coffee mug and then dumped the contents into their sink. Another one, Tim Dutaud, posted videos mocking mental disabilities. Makes you wonder how many other people with these guys' mindsets are still in the Conservative party.
 
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I'm assuming we're discounting things like Harper's horrendous racism toward the First Nations, just for instance. And what they've done with health care.

Seriously, I don't know off-hand everything that Harper's done, but he kind of makes me think you are 100% full of ****.

Although I am pretty confident that, yes, they at least have a spine, which 90% of Demorats who don't align with Warren, Sanders, etc. appear not to.

LOL what? Why are you associating conservatism with racism, there are racist liberals too you know. Harper spends a lot and if he was conservative he wouldn't be. It is you and Bill cipher that are the ones full of sit.

Why would we believe a source called the Harper decade, you can tell by the name it's biased. And I didn't know Harper was obligated to like people who take from the government and don't pay taxes in return.
 
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Too bad the tax exemptions don't apply to the Inuit or Métis, nor do they apply to First Nations that don't live and work on reserve, nor do they apply to Aboriginals without status cards, which only a small amount of First Nations can even get since status is patrilineal for some goddamned reason...

Okay they spend a lot. Any numbers? Meanwhile a candidate for the Conservative party is defending therapies that attempt to "turn gay youth straight", and campaigning against Ontario's sex-ed curriculum even though the federal government has no power over Ontario's education plans.

Recently Harper called marijuana “infinitely worse than cigarettes”. Y'know, because a little lung cancer is nothing, certainly not as bad as a pleasurable buzz.

Those are just from this past week. Anyone who is paying attention can see Conservative Party of Canada constantly blasts any kind of social progress. They're basically the Republican Party of the United States except maybe a little bit less rude. But not much less. There is no comparison to the Democrats.
 

Jersey Jimmy

¿dónde está el FOUR DOLLA TUBA?
Are the Conservative party shooting themselves in both feet? Because from the way it looks, that's exactly what's going on. And it's for the better - I'm leaving the States as soon as possible, and I'd love to live in a NDP-controlled Canada.

Recently Harper called marijuana “infinitely worse than cigarettes”.

Holy crap, he's literally Canadian Bush.
 
The Conservatives can actually feasibly win another term. Harper's TPP deal seems to be gaining support for the party, while the NDP's opposition to it seems to have hurt them (as well as the NDP's arguably disappointing campaign overall). I like them, but right now it looks like we'll either get a minority Liberal government, a Conservative minority government, or an NDP/Liberal coalition. That last one isn't likely because while Mulcair is open to a coalition, Trudeau isn't.

Meanwhile, Harper has been promising to ban the wearing of niqabs during citizenship ceremonies, which is really just a distraction from actual issues, but the promise is popular in Quebec where the NDP have most of their support. Mulcair opposed the niqab thing so the NDP's support seems to be going down in the region where they need it the most.

Plus there aren't any other right wing parties so the Conservative party isn't likely to lose a lot of its base.
 
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The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
Recently Harper called marijuana “infinitely worse than cigarettes”. Y'know, because a little lung cancer is nothing, certainly not as bad as a pleasurable buzz.

To be entirely fair to him, most politicians don't understand anything about marijuana.

Plus there aren't any other right wing parties so the Conservative party isn't likely to lose a lot of its base.

So basically, this sounds kind of like they might have a case of having a split ticket over on the left, or something.

Anyway, since someone didn't inform us about C-51 and it's kind of a big deal, let's talk about that. Actually, first, I kind of wonder if Justin Trudeau's changing opinion on C-51 (originally he was against it, at least without some serious fixes, but came to support it before its passage) will help or hurt him.
 

Thibideau

Beautiful Midnight
Sadly I'm fairly certain that the Conservative's are going to win again, although this time at least it's possible with minority instead of another majority government. The Harper government has wrecked this country but since the average age of our population is increasing with the baby boomers still running the show, things aren't likely to change. There are too many scary things going on in today's world and they like to hide and pretend they aren't their problem, so Harper is the perfect guy for them to vote for because he shares the sentiment.

Ultimately though I have lost faith in the government and the people that run it. Our political parties don't care about the people they're supposed to be representing so much as they care about lining their pockets. Politicians have the largest pensions in the country. Politicians, not doctors, or teachers, or even public servants. They do not care about change, they care about protecting their pension while other potential MP's try to steal it from them. Meanwhile the Harper government has trashed the country and just flat out ignored all of it's problems. He Bank rolled his home province of Alberta and all his little friends to get the Oil sands going despite every climatologist in the world telling him that it is making Canada into one of the planet's largest polluters. Almost every other province except for Alberta and somewhat Saskatchewan(By proximity) has lost industry and jobs since the Conservatives have taken over. Then the price of Oil bottoms out and the Oil sands are now a tar pit and all those jobs are gone and Harper has nothing to show for it.

So until someone is will to admit that the system is broken we will continue on this road to ruin. Right now it doesn't really matter who wins the election, we're screwed no matter which way the wind blows at this point. Harper will keep ignoring the structural problems of the country, Trudeau and Mulcair will spend us into oblivion. I'd mention the Greens and the Bloc but really what would be the point :p
 

The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
Sadly I'm fairly certain that the Conservative's are going to win again, although this time at least it's possible with minority instead of another majority government. The Harper government has wrecked this country but since the average age of our population is increasing with the baby boomers still running the show, things aren't likely to change. There are too many scary things going on in today's world and they like to hide and pretend they aren't their problem, so Harper is the perfect guy for them to vote for because he shares the sentiment.

Ultimately though I have lost faith in the government and the people that run it. Our political parties don't care about the people they're supposed to be representing so much as they care about lining their pockets. Politicians have the largest pensions in the country. Politicians, not doctors, or teachers, or even public servants. They do not care about change, they care about protecting their pension while other potential MP's try to steal it from them. Meanwhile the Harper government has trashed the country and just flat out ignored all of it's problems. He Bank rolled his home province of Alberta and all his little friends to get the Oil sands going despite every climatologist in the world telling him that it is making Canada into one of the planet's largest polluters. Almost every other province except for Alberta and somewhat Saskatchewan(By proximity) has lost industry and jobs since the Conservatives have taken over. Then the price of Oil bottoms out and the Oil sands are now a tar pit and all those jobs are gone and Harper has nothing to show for it.

So until someone is will to admit that the system is broken we will continue on this road to ruin. Right now it doesn't really matter who wins the election, we're screwed no matter which way the wind blows at this point. Harper will keep ignoring the structural problems of the country, Trudeau and Mulcair will spend us into oblivion. I'd mention the Greens and the Bloc but really what would be the point :p

What proportion of Canadian youth vote (you know, of the ones who are can vote, obviously)? A lot of young folks in America are very liberal, but a lot of them also don't ****ing vote for various reasons (it's often said that about X% of people age X years old vote, so you have 20% or so of college kids voting, while two-thirds or more of the old people -- you know, the ones keeping the conservative obstructocrats in power -- vote; kinda messes up that whole representational democracy thing).
 

Thibideau

Beautiful Midnight
What proportion of Canadian youth vote (you know, of the ones who are can vote, obviously)? A lot of young folks in America are very liberal, but a lot of them also don't ****ing vote for various reasons (it's often said that about X% of people age X years old vote, so you have 20% or so of college kids voting, while two-thirds or more of the old people -- you know, the ones keeping the conservative obstructocrats in power -- vote; kinda messes up that whole representational democracy thing).

In the 2011 election I'm pretty sure the 18-24 age group was only around 40%. The Baby Boomers were around 75% and there's a lot more of them then there are us. So while it is important to vote, I can't fault the younger demographic for not voting because even if 100% of them went out to vote in the last election it wouldn't have made a difference because of how our government is structured. When we vote we're only voting in our riding, so we actually have very little say in who is running our country. If you live in a traditionally Conservative riding, then 9/10 times your vote actually means nothing and I mean literally nothing. Each riding represents a seat in parliament, so they don't care if Liberals or NDP get more votes in total throughout the country, it's all about the seats. You may get lucky once and a while if there is a huge momentum shift, but neither opposition party has enough momentum to sway all the Conservative seats. It's pretty much a dead heat right now so what I foresee is best case scenario is a Conservative minority, worst case Conservative Majority.
 
So basically, this sounds kind of like they might have a case of having a split ticket over on the left, or something.
That's basically what has always happened since 2006.

Anyway, since someone didn't inform us about C-51
I'm not Google.com. Inform yourselves lol. It was brought up in this thread a few times.

and it's kind of a big deal, let's talk about that. Actually, first, I kind of wonder if Justin Trudeau's changing opinion on C-51 (originally he was against it, at least without some serious fixes, but came to support it before its passage) will help or hurt him.
Bill C-51 actually isn't getting as much attention as it did in early 2015 so it's actually not as big a deal as you think - at least for now. Most of the recent discussion has been about the refugee crisis, the TPP deal, reforming the Senate and reforming the First-past-the-post system.

The Liberal party tends to vote in support of most of what the Conservative party tries to pass. They think pandering to conservative voters is the safe option because then Harper will have less material to attack the Liberal party on. That's part of why the NDP became popular at the Liberals' expense in the last few years.

Trudeau is still saying that he will amend the act but he's claiming that Mulcair is wrong for being against it, and Harper is wrong for passing it. So I guess he just wants to pretend to be the middle ground and pander to everybody now. I actually don't think this will hurt Trudeau, since Mulcair has done the same crap regarding other issues (pipelines, marijuana, the budget, etc.) and the NDP's campaign has been pretty weak. As long as the NDP keeps losing support, the Liberals should be fine because they're the ones most likely to benefit from the NDP's losses.
 
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The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
In the 2011 election I'm pretty sure the 18-24 age group was only around 40%. The Baby Boomers were around 75% and there's a lot more of them then there are us. So while it is important to vote, I can't fault the younger demographic for not voting because even if 100% of them went out to vote in the last election it wouldn't have made a difference because of how our government is structured. When we vote we're only voting in our riding, so we actually have very little say in who is running our country. If you live in a traditionally Conservative riding, then 9/10 times your vote actually means nothing and I mean literally nothing. Each riding represents a seat in parliament, so they don't care if Liberals or NDP get more votes in total throughout the country, it's all about the seats. You may get lucky once and a while if there is a huge momentum shift, but neither opposition party has enough momentum to sway all the Conservative seats. It's pretty much a dead heat right now so what I foresee is best case scenario is a Conservative minority, worst case Conservative Majority.

But, see, that's exactly the kind of mindset that loses elections.

I'm not Google.com. Inform yourselves lol. It was brought up in this thread a few times.

I don't think anyone who brought it up got into too much detail, but I dunno, I don't have a lot of time to write this post, much less check back in the thread.

The Liberal party tends to vote in support of most of what the Conservative party tries to pass. They think pandering to conservative voters is the safe option because then Harper will have less material to attack the Liberal party on. That's part of why the NDP became popular at the Liberals' expense in the last few years.

So, about as spineless as US dems?

Trudeau is still saying that he will amend the act but he's claiming that Mulcair is wrong for being against it, and Harper is wrong for passing it. So I guess he just wants to pretend to be the middle ground and pander to everybody now. I actually don't think this will hurt Trudeau, since Mulcair has done the same crap regarding other issues (pipelines, marijuana, the budget, etc.) and the NDP's campaign has been pretty weak. As long as the NDP keeps losing support, the Liberals should be fine because they're the ones most likely to benefit from the NDP's losses.

The big thing I've come to understand, from doing research on this thread and talking with Canadian friends, is that Trudeau is something of a professional weenie. But also I kind of don't know a lot about Mulcair, either, so I guess there is that.
 
But, see, that's exactly the kind of mindset that loses elections.
He's right though. Plus the government has the ridings set up so the conservatives have the best chance at winning seats and the other parties are less likely to pick them up. For example, the Green party actually gets a good number of votes, and if we had proportional representation, they would have more seats than they do, but since most of those people are in the same riding, and the others are in ridings that are traditionally Con/Lib/NDP, they only ever win one seat.


So, about as spineless as US dems?
I suppose you could say that.

The big thing I've come to understand, from doing research on this thread and talking with Canadian friends, is that Trudeau is something of a professional weenie. But also I kind of don't know a lot about Mulcair, either, so I guess there is that.

Mulcair makes a lot of good points when criticizing Harper's record in office, but nobody really believes he's going to be able to keep a single one of his campaign promises and eliminate the deficit at the same time like he claims he could. I don't think Mulcair is a "weenie", especially in comparison to his two opponents, but expectations were high for him because his predecessor was a great leader. Then he deviated from his platform by throwing in populism and a difficult to believe campaign. and it looks like he is paying for it.

Whereas the conservatives has already been painting Trudeau as an idiot for the last two years - to the point where Trudeau really couldn't do anything but exceed expectations so that's my reasoning for why Trudeau and the Liberals are all of a sudden in the lead. Plus, there's the massive amount of people that just want anybody but Harper to win so they're willing to gamble on whatever Trudeau will lead them into.

___

13/10/2015: Looks like nobody is replying. It's now a week until the election. I've already voted, for the Green Party. I'm so sick of everyone else at this point. Right now the Liberals are enjoying a good lead in the polls, and the current topic that gets the most talk is the TPP.
 
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The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
13/10/2015: Looks like nobody is replying. It's now a week until the election. I've already voted, for the Green Party. I'm so sick of everyone else at this point. Right now the Liberals are enjoying a good lead in the polls, and the current topic that gets the most talk is the TPP.

I don't think that's too unusual. One of my friends in Canada told me she voted orange, but wished there was an "anyone but Harper" option.
 
http://globalnews.ca/news/2277153/t.../?hootPostID=a623af75b6a4d1a0be52d0a5ad633747

One of Trudeau's campaign co-chairs has resigned after advising TransCanada (major energy corporation that is trying to get major pipeline projects approved) how to lobby the next government, including advice on lobbying a potential Liberal minority. He's not a registered lobbyist and the emails at this point seem to be all legal, but this is the kind of news that could derail the Liberals just before Election Day.

I don't think that's too unusual. One of my friends in Canada told me she voted orange, but wished there was an "anyone but Harper" option.

I'd prefer an alternative to Harper that's actually good. So far, Trudeau and Mulcair don't offer that. Mulcair displays some disturbingly Harperlike behavior and the Liberal party has a lot of problems with corruption.

In other news, voter turnout MIGHT be looking up. The advance voting happened this weekend, where people can avoid the lineups and vote early, and there was an increase in voter turnout in the advance polls compared to the advance polls in 2011. This could imply that the trend will continue and voter turnout on election day will be high.

Although the Toronto Blue Jays will be hosting the Royals on election day and people are saying that could distract a lot of people from voting. Great timing, MLB. :)
 
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Thibideau

Beautiful Midnight
Well I voted during the advance polls. I've voted Green in the past two federal elections but I voted NDP this time around mostly because they seemed like they might actually have a chance in my riding, plus the only debate that our riding had, the NDP and Greens were the only ones that showed up to it. To me there is nothing more arrogant than a candidate who is just resting on the colour of their party to win rather than their own values. But sadly I'm sure the Conservative candidate is sure to win my riding again and our region will continue to suffer because we're not a part of Alberta. My town has lost so many jobs that the real estate dropped to nothing and now it's only salvation is offering cheap homes for people to retire to. Huge manufacturing town and over the course of 12 years we're essentially a giant retirement home. This is why I have a hard time voting. I know that I should because people died to give me the right to vote, but nothing ever changes. The politicians of this country are more interested in protecting their massive pensions than trying to make real change. It's hard to cast a vote for one crook over another =/

I'm glad the advance polls had such a high turn out though even if that meant I had to wait in line 20 minutes to vote. :p
 

The Admiral

the star of the masquerade
Although the Toronto Blue Jays will be hosting the Royals on election day and people are saying that could distract a lot of people from voting. Great timing, MLB. :)

I've been saying for a while that professional sports ruin everything. Is this proof?

To me there is nothing more arrogant than a candidate who is just resting on the colour of their party to win rather than their own values.

That seems really dumb to do, since I'd think the parties have potentially wide platforms, as in American politics.
 
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