Not according to Jimi Hendrix
If you lean blue, you’ll hate my riding. It’s usually an NDP stronghold, though it’s been red the last two elections, it being held by the Minister of the Environment. Now that she’s out, though, it’s a leftist open game. I have no idea who’s running and I haven’t looked yet. (But since it was Ed Broadbent and Paul Dewar’s stomping grounds, I am interested to see what NDP heavy hitter they’ll bring out this time.)
I’m very much in a, “Let them come to me,” frame of mind. It’s a busy part of the school season.
But all that said, I’ve been more interested in Maxime Bernier’s buffoonery. I like a clown show on occasion, and I’m really hoping the PPC finish with fewer votes than they got last election. Inasmuch as of course I’m interested in who wins, I think the results of the PPC give us an indication as to how much national insanity we need to prepare ourselves for.
That’s what I thought but then I talk to the trees.
Harper did cut the GST by a point. This is a resented tax that falls on everyone. That didn’t make economic sense. But he said he’d do it, and did, which is unusual. I guess this is homage to that. After a month, after reinstatement, everyone would be resentful. It always sucks when the holiday is over.
Still, the government has been throwing around money and using very dubious methodology to claim debts are not important. They are - provincially and nationally. Taxes ain’t going down.
Here is what the National Post said, on the day Trudeau was elected party leader.
“The stakes are high for the Liberals, who hold only 35 of 308 seats in the House of Commons and are in third place for the first time in their history after a decade of declining support from voters.”
Uh… We need election reform!
Debts are important during normal elections, but this isn’t a normal election. If we can’t spend the money we need to spend to take care of our people, what was the point of all that effort becoming one of the richest countries in history? This is a point the conservatives still haven’t grasped about this time in history. And I’m not just talking about Canadian conservatives; it’s endemic to all the right-wing parties in the Western world.
Debt is always important. You might be able to justify, at a given point, going into more debt, but pretending it’s not important is genuinely absurd. Even in a time of crisis, adopting the attitude of “debt doesn’t matter” is a ticket to just burning money, as opposed to spending it intelligently on helping people.
Incidentally, the unemployment rate has fallen substantially and employers are starting to really struggle to hire people even at good wages, something I’m seeing firsthand, so it might be time to accept that we can start winding the spending back a little. Maybe save a little for if the pandemic genuinely roars back to life.
I agree it was important to spend money. However, I certainly do not think this was done in the best possible way, to say the least.
There is also a difference between spending money and acknowledging there are debts to be repaid - and ignoring the issue by discussing a fanciful percentage of GDP argument (which includes inaccessible pension moneys and ignores the very significant provincial debt). Is provincial debt a federal problem? I don’t want to pick on Newfoundland’s electricity boondoggles - but it is a good example of why it is.
The Conservatived seem to have done okay in Nova Scotia.
It is very common in Canada for voters to elect one party at the federal level and another party in the provinces. After a few years of Tory federal governments, most provinces go Liberal or NDP, and vice versa. Also, the incumbent Liberals were at the end of the second term, and voters often like to change things up. The point is just that provincial elections are rarely a indicator of how the federal election will go, even in the province under consideration.
Re: electoral reform. Electoral reform is probably my top issue after climate change. We can do so much better than FPTP. My biggest disappointment from Trudeau has been his complete failure to deliver on this despite it being a pretty big campaign issue for him the first time through. I would seriously consider voting for a party that I believed would deliver on this.
I would assume the NDP is extremely in favor of this.
There is no excuse, at all, for Trudeau to have not done this; he had a majority and could have implemented a different system at his leisure. The Liberals never had any intention of doing so; it was a lie, and the entire “let’s study the issue, oh, we decided not to do this” was plainly a dog-and-pony show.
The federal NDP may be in favour of it, but provincial NDPs that have a chance of winning majorities tend not to be. All electoral systems have certain benefits/costs/outcomes but those in charge tend to favour the systems they do well in; it’s just another reason people are cynical about politics.
What is your opinion of Michelle Rempel an MP from Alberta ?
I’ve heard a lot of people say she would have made a good leader for the Conservatives and an ideal candidate for Prime Minister.
Oh well if “lots of people say” that clinches it. 
Never head of her despite her being the health critic since September 2020 and she didn’t run for leadership of the Conservatives. She may have some work to do to become PM.
Wait, I did read about her - she want to the US or something during the pandemic for … reasons. Mind you a number of idiot politicians have done that.
The Ontario Conservative Party has sent out letters to former donnors flagged as invoices of various amounts. The party has just apologized for it which is nice but is most definitely going to colour people’s views of the federal party.
I was quite disgusted by them when they back-tracked on this.
I have never heard a single person say this and have never read of any serious support for her. Her anti-immigration views make her extremely toxic in places like Southern Ontario and B.C, and that’s a lot of seats to lose support in.
Yeah, me too. I even said I would not vote for him for re-election because of that. Of course, the CPoC has not put up a candidate for whom I could conceivably vote sooooooo…
But in a sense, I’ve kept my word because here in Saskatchewan, 2nd place is usually NDP, so I’ve been voting for them to try (in vain) to keep the CPoC from winning seats out here.
The problem, of course, is no party that wins under FPTP, and especially a majority is going to want to change the FPTP system that got them elected. If only we could find politicians that cared about what was good for the country, and not their personal power.
I had never heard of her at all, let alone as a candidate for PM. Was she even in the running for the leadership?
Anyway, overall, she seems pretty unremarkable. Do you think she would be a good candidate for PM? Why or why not?