I think Ford will win the provincial election. I think the federal Liberals will too though much could change anywhere. I thought Murphy Brown was a good show and that Candice Bergen is a fine and spunky actress. However, it will take a long time to heal the divisions.
O’Toole had military experience, is a corporate lawyer and has some political skill. His biggest problem was annoying people by saying one thing then doing what was pragmatic. He struggled to get teammates to agree climate change was a problem. And that was potentially much easier than the hot mess of very different visions of what his party should be. It remains to be seen if someone else can do better.
lol … I thought the same! Strange choice for interim leader as Ms. Bergen seems to have strong liberal inclinations …
Bergen is a political activist who once accepted a date with Henry Kissinger. In 1967, she participated in a Yippie prank when she, Abbie Hoffman, and others threw dollar bills onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, leading to its temporary shutdown. In 1972, she served as a fundraiser and organizer for George McGovern’s presidential campaign.
So Interim Conservative Leader Bergen is just fine with the protestors in Ottawa blocking traffic and breaking laws… as long as that can be used as a political weapon against Trudeau.
What a shitty, shitty person. She does not give a shit about actual people, or how to solve a problem. She just wants to USE these people to throw shit at other politicians.
“I don’t think we should be asking them to go home,” reads an e-mail from Ms. Bergen to then-leader Erin O’Toole’s senior caucus team on Monday.
“I understand the mood may shift soon. So we need to turn this into the PM’s problem,” the Manitoba MP added in her note.
She cannot be the permanent leader by virtue of taking this job.
Pierre Poilevre has to be considered a heavy early favorite, and therefore has a pretty good shot at being PM.
The thing about the CPC being unable to get its shit together is that Trudeau is pretty bad at his job. He’s unprincipled, shallow, and dumb, and yet the conservatives have churned out clowns.
If this guy (“that fucking weasel” according to my dear mom) get in… Kiss the Conservative party goodbye. I’m sure they’ll retain seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and get the racist and nazi vote all sewn up.
With the last two leadership elections, we’ve seen the rank-and-file CPC membership selecting leaders that the Parliamentary caucus have deemed Not Conservative Enough. It seems like there’s a built-in conflict there.
So imagine a series of leaders, elected by the more-moderate party membership, being tossed out by the more-radical caucus membership. It would be soooo sweet to watch.
Did this not already happen with Scheer? There is a contradiction in the system, but it’s not like the NDP hesitated to turf Mulcair when the election results came. Conservatives felt it was a problem that a leader painted himself as “true blue” to get elected then went pragmatic. But the real problem was this strategy did not yield much in the way of results.
There are a lot of issues on which to challenge Trudeau and Ford. (I am not a partisan but at the moment these are my preferred candidates). A divided CPC will nonetheless struggle nationally. In Ontario, I am confused as to why Del Duca seems to be so rarely heard - he may be very good but he is not yet very prominent. Horvath seems to be very effective at getting opposing views publicized.
The US Republican Party also gave us such a lesson in 2016. Humans have been forgetting how to learn for some time now
But there’s a potential for another lesson this year: perhaps the Conservatives will put in a “true blue” leader and see them go down in flames in the next election. (Or potentially win one election and then get kicked out. I’ll choose the “go down in flames” option.)
Yeah, pretty much, which is why I’m thinking it might happen again. I’m just wondering how many times we can get them to step on that particular rake before they figure it out.
Mulcair isn’t quite the same. He was leader of the NDP for a lot longer, led them to one of their best election results in 2012, when they became the official opposition, but then lost most of that gain in 2015, which was a year a lot of people thought they had an actual sot at forming the government. The NDP gave him a lot more opportunity to succeed than either Scheer or O’Toole got from the CPC. Scheer only lasted about two and half years as leader, and was turfed after an election in which they actually increased the number of seats the party held. But that wasn’t enough to convince the party to let him have more time to build towards an even better result the next time. To them, it’s “win or die”.
A few years ago I saw a trucker in the emergency department. He had a four day history of severe chest pain. The rhythm strip done at triage suggested that he had had a heart attack.
He was a tough, friendly, likeable middle-aged dude. He was working in Florida when the pain began. He felt he could not afford American medical care, so spent three days driving back to Canada.
One could debate the wisdom of driving a massive truck on highways under difficult personal conditions. But I get it. Truckers are tough. They do important work. They do not always have commensurate pay and benefits and it was unclear what was going on. I sympathize with the job done by truckers.
Most people do not know a great deal about medicine, nor should they if they do not want to. Truckers also do not know a lot about medicine. The above anecdote is illustrative. They should not be setting health policy. They have every right to peacefully protest, but not to blockade. The 20% of truckers who are South Asian do not seem to be very prominent in the protests.
Western separatists, far right extremists< conspiracy theory whackos, Northern Trumpers and rabid antivaxxers seem to be pretty prominent in the protests though.
If Pollievre wants to hitch his horse to this wagon, good luck to him.
Interesting quote from Coyne, who has advice for the new leader of the CPC:
Present yourself as a sensible, thoughtful person, who has come to his position by a process of mature reflection rather than by tribal association; who has been persuaded by the facts, and could be persuaded otherwise by a different set of facts; who treats the voters, in short, like adults, and you can get a hearing for the most radical ideas.
I can’t think of a single Conservative politician who could pull this off. And if such a person exists, they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting more than a couple of votes. “mature reflection”? “persuaded by facts”? These qualities are an anathema to Conservative party members.
The thing is… if a person came to their position by mature reflection… If they used facts to get there… and if they are amenable to change if new facts present themselves…
This hypothetical person would likely not hold very many ideas that anyone would define as “radical” in the first place.
Maybe Coyne was thinking of an idea that would be “radical” to many in the far right of the CPC. Like maybe “Immigrants to Canada are an integral part of what makes this country great” Many heads in the CPC would asplode.
I think Conservatives could promote many useful ideas, true to their philosophy, with enough will and promotion.
balanced budgets, or a plan for achieving this in time, once pandemic spending has ebbed
increased consumer protection with regard to telecommunications, cyber security, housing, etc. under the aegis of freer markets and fairer competition
proper legal reform, including areas of the law long seen in need of it, such as limitations, simpler taxes, and other needed modernizations
recognizing Canada is and should remain a country of immigrants, a crackdown on illegal immigration, apart from approved compassionate claimants such as legitimate refugees
A more pragmatic foreign policy
Needed reforms regarding the Senate, higher ethical standards by rewarding whistleblowers (as in the US) in an effective way, public registry of shell companies
More consistent support for small business and the military - including those who serve, and not merely equipment, defending borders, more support and more accountability for security, more support for innovation and self-reliance and Canadian business - including better data collection, infrastructure including digital infrastructure
I have not seen these as being Conservative Party policies for some time.
Balanced budgets? Sure. I think all they have is “cutting taxes”. For corporations. Not sure how this is going to lead to balanced budgets. The Conservative folks I know all think you can achieve this by somehow stopping “giving Quebec all our money” Whatever the hell that means.
Crackdown on illegal immigration? Is this really that much of a problem? Do we need to build a wall and get the US to pay for it?
A more pragmatic foreign policy? How is our foreign policy not sensible and realistic at the moment? Should we be sucking up to Russia more, and dumping Ukraine?
It would be great if a conservative platform would contain more support for innovation, data collection and infrastructure for Canadian businesses. I don’t see them ever caring about this though.
What I expect to see from them is:
Resurgence of a “tip line” to turn in anyone who looks foreign, or wears a funny hat.
“We hate Trudeau and so should you”
Tax cuts that will pay for themselves
Anti-vaxx freedom chants
I just don’t see a way for the CPC to go back to the PC party of old.
The Liberals are lucky. They have the NDP on their left.
The CPC are unlucky. They have to please the center right and the far right. And the far right have currently descended into nuttery territory. I’m afraid they are going to take over the party.
