The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread

With some reason, since he only served for some two months. :smiley:

Fact is that the Canadian prime ministership has been dominated by guys from Quebec - Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien, Martin. The only major PM in the last 30 years who hasn’t been from Quebec is Harper, as Campbell and Turner were both short-serving appointees who were not subsequently elected to the office.

Seems odd to me at least to say that Quebec is a politically despised province when for 25 of the last 30 years, our PMs have been from that province: and the most prominent of those are both Francophones (Trudeau and Chrétien).

The Conservatives united the right. The Liberals and the NDP have split the vote on the left in a first-through-the-gate election process, such that in any given riding, the Conservatives can pick up the seat simply because of the split. Thus I would prefer that the Liberals and NDP merge. Although there are some NDP MPs who would like to do this, and who gave serious thought as to which party they would run for, most of the NDP MPs and most riding presidents find the policy differences between the Liberal Party and the NDP to be so great that they would block a merger. Thus if the NDP wishes to move from second place into power, it must pick up the ridings where the split vote went to the Liberals.

For an ROC voter who would be willing to vote for either Liberal or NDP, I would expect that the issue of separation would be significant. The Liberal candidates would receive votes from otherwise undecided left leaning voters for whom the dominant competitive issue is national unity.

I fully expect that both the Conservatives and the Liberals will be using Ms. Turmel’s sovereignist background against the NDP in the next election. The greater the leadership role that the plays (e.g. moving from interim leader to being sworn in as the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition), and the longer the leadership role that she plays (e.g. for a couple of months while Mr. Layton was passing away, to a significantly longer period until the next leadership convention is held), the more ammunition the Conservative and Liberals will have.

The question then is if forthwith replacing Ms. Turmel will lose more seats in Quebec than not replacing her will lose seats in the ROC.

The ROC wanting Quebec to stay in Canada is not because the ROC despises Quebec, but rather because the ROC believes that Canada includes all of us.

As it stands, Quebec receives more in equalization payments than the ROC combined. It would be economically advantageous to the ROC for Quebec to go its separate way, but because we believe Quebec is an integral part of Canada, as opposed to just a financial drain, we do not want the country to split.

The NDP doesn’t need to merge with anyone. All they need to do is move more to the centre and they will pick up the progressive vote. If the Liberal party implodes, yes, they should “act fast” and swallow them up (like the Reform did to the PC’s); but the NDP haven’t hit any upper limit support yet so there’s simply no need give up and try to merge with the 3rd party Liberals (who have major issues in the west).

Do you even think Turmel’s name will be spoken 3-4 years from now in the next election? Quick, who was the interim Lib leader after Martin?

I don’t despise separatists, I just don’t agree with them. I also need to point out that not all Québecois are francophones, and not all francophones are separatist.

I understand that there are people who will vote BQ/PQ who are not separatist - I think they are playing with fire, myself, but I think it’s a better use of time to present them with better federalist alternatives than to try to play the fear card. I don’t despise them, either.

I’m very sorry if my disagreement with the separatist cause comes across as ‘despising’ - it’s just that these discussions affect everyone in Canada.

Bill Graham, was interim leader of the Liberals until that fellow who’s name I can never remember took over the reigns and lost the 2008 election. Why I recall Bill Graham is that he eventually gave up his seat to Bob Rae, the present interim leader, who left the NDP because it looked like the Liberals had a better chance of taking power. Oh the irony.

The thing is, with most interim leaders of any party, it is easy to forget them because the opposing parties focus on the permanent leaders who are in power at general election time. I doubt if the Conservatives and the Liberals will let the public forget Ms. Turmel come the next general election, so the sooner that she is moved aside, the less ammunition the other parties will have. In other words, the sooner she is replaced, the sooner the public will forget her and the sooner her separatist background will be dismissed by ROC left leaning voters.

So, is anyone else bemused by everyone-and-their-cousin posting quotes from Jack Layton’s letter, and putting farewell notes on their FB statii?

I genuinely liked the guy, and I feel sorry for ANYONE who suffers through an illness like that, but I remember TV and newspaper writers–and even friends and colleagues at school–do everything short of celebrate when Ronald Reagan died from Alzheimer’s, and remind us not to mythicize his legacy, because he was actually a deeply flawed human who made a bunch of mistakes. I can’t think of a comparable Canadian politician who’s died in that same time period, so I don’t know if that’s a U.S./Canada thing, a left/right thing, or if I’m just comparing apples and oranges. Maybe I just need to wait a day or two for the newspapers and bloggers to load up on the dickish snarky comments about Layton.

I know Ralph Klein is fighting some form of dementia right now; I can’t possibly imagine him getting this sort of treatment. Or Brian Mulrooney, Kim Campbell, Rob Ford, etc. Or heck, even Harper when dies!

I’m trying hard to look at this through an objective lens, and hope that it’s just that we don’t stoop to the same lows as U.S. politics. Iunno, am I WAY off base? I’ve no qualms if someone can prove me wrong on this one!

Then should we also “move aside” the Conservative Transport Minister - Denis Lebel - who also was once part of the Bloc?

I’m only asking because of the whole good for the gander and goose/mudslinging/glass houses thing. You know, fair play?

I am not even remotely separatist, but sometimes it seems like “the s-word” is a boogeyman in Canadian politics and I guess I get tired of it. The topic is barely on the radar, but my God federalist politicians love to throw it around and slap it on anyone they please (nevermind that some of them are also fair targets). I’ve had dinner with a prominent sovereignist media personality (and will again, next month) - does that discredit everything I may say and do?

I know, I know, this is a politics thread and it’s all very valid discussion. I’m just annoyed by it today and kind of feel it’s a little tasteless in light of Mr Layton’s death (even though I’m participating too). Excuse me, I need to go wash my glass walls, I think.

And now the only opposition party that still has a permanent leader is the Greens.

I never really cared for many of the NDP policies - I thought they suffered too much from an assumption that they would not get into power and have to make good on most of them, so could go pie-in-the-sky on them - but Layton was probably the best *individual *choice for PM in the last election. He will be missed.

My neighbour (a long time NDP voter) got into hyperbole over the weekend, when (while half snapped), he complained that he was now down to having to chose between a separatist (Turmel) or a foreigner (Ignatief). Never mind that Turmel is not a separatist despite the cards she carried, never mind that Ignatief was a Canadian despite often not residing in Canada and marrying a foreigner, and never mind that neither of these two will be leading a party in the next election. Regardless of his faulty reasoning, the fact remains that he will not be voting in the next election.

Denis Lebel is not leading the Conservatives, and he distanced himself from the Bloc a decade ago, rather than less then ten months ago. Very big differences there, such that to play tit-for-tat at the next election would not play out well for the NDP.

Well, you’d have me beat in trivial pursuit. And there is a reason why the interim leaders are forgotten, it’s because they stop becoming relevant 5 mins after a permanent leader is chosen. Interim leaders are simply not a reflection of the party, nor do they steer the party’s agenda in any way. They are caretakers. Let the Libs/Cons get their free shots now, everyone knows that they won’t have this chance when the new leader is chosen. Also, Turmel is tough enough to handle it in the meantime.

Which brings us to the obvious question – who will be the next leader? Who has the chops that Mr. Layton had? He was truly remarkable in his ability to sell the NDP to the Canadian public.

When I was at the Als game, my new tailgater friends were telling me how they got shit from ROC’ians for flying a quebec flag over Percival Molson stadium. Which I think is very stupid (getting angry; not flying the flag). I’ve got my beefs with language laws (which I don’t care to get into), but English Canada is very buttsore about the aura of privilege in Quebec. But you’re allowed to dislike a politician for any reason you so choose; I think though, that this will pass.

I think whoever takes over the party is going to be set up for failure.

The recent success of the NDP was due, in part, to historic changes within Quebec and in part to the specific personality and charisma of Mr. Layton.

In the next election, the NDP leader is not going to have the particular concatenation of events that lead to the NDP sweeping Quebec going for them; and is unlikely to be able to match or surpass the political impact of Mr. Layton, earned during a lifetime of politics.

Chances are, the NDP will contract back to the status it enjoyed prior to the last election - a contraction for which the current leader will be blamed, fairly or not.

Wait, what? Why wouldn’t a Québec flag fly over Percival Molson stadium? It’s a stadium in Québec owned and maintained by a Québec-based university! Last time I was there (for a McGill event) the Canadian, Montreal and McGill flags were also flying. Is that not theAlbertan flag at McMahon? British Columbian flag at BC Place? Do I need to do the other teams? Whoever those ROCians were were rather stupid people! How inane.
I guess I don’t really see a difference between the leader of a party and the cabinet faces of that party; if the one should meet certain standards, so should the others, no? I’ll take your point about the timeframe, Muffin, but given as how Turmel has been (also) a member of the NDP for longer than Lebel has been un-associated with the Bloc, I guess I just figure that has to count for something. Maybe not.

Read it and weep. Seriously.

http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/238187-letter-to-canadians-from-jack-layton.html

Malthus, I think that you may very well be correct about a big contraction. I think the degree of the contraction will pretty much come down to whether the Liberals or the NDP can come up with a strong leader in short order.

Well, there’s the obvious point that Reagan lived a long life and was about a zillion years old when he died and long retired, while Layton was just 61 and had just achieved something amazing for the NDP and now will not be around to be the Leader of the Opposition, so there’s an element of tragedy to Layton’s death there wasn’t for Reagan.

Also…

Reagan held power.

Jack Layton did not.

Had Layton become Prime Minister and then died eight years from now, the reaction to his death would have been a more honest examination of his record, because he would have pissed a lot of people off.

And there would be the inevitable comparisons with Greece as that is where Canada would be if the NDP were ever in power.