# The "Longest Election Campaign in Modern Canada" Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [August 2, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807 "2015-08-02T15:45:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 32
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/621 "2015-10-19T09:43:18Z")
I wish the UN was observing this vote. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/622 "2015-10-19T13:02:28Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > I wish the UN was observing this vote. Today’s election will be fair, honest, and effectively run to a degree that most UN member nations could only ever dream of having. I cannot believe how spoiled, insular and unconscious of their own good fortune Canadians are. Honest to God, you’d think we lived in Zimbabwe the way people bitch and moan and claim the sky is falling in. “Ooooh, the Conservatives ran some yellow ads,” and suddenly we’re North Korea? Christ Jesus. Oh, and it’ll work the other way too, I’m sure if Justin Trudeau is the next PM million of Canadians will say he’s going to personal invite ISIS over for a visit. Tomorrow, no matter who wins (and I suspect we may not exactly know for sure who will, in fact, be the next PM for a little while as a prop-up deal is worked out) the sun will rise in the East and people will go about their business and babies will be born and Canada will work just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/623 "2015-10-19T13:45:26Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Tomorrow, no matter who wins . . . the sun will rise in the East and people will go about their business and babies will be born and Canada will work just fine. That’s what they want you to think. Count your spoons. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/624 "2015-10-19T14:01:33Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > . . . (and I suspect we may not exactly know for sure who will, in fact, be the next PM for a little while as a prop-up deal is worked out). . . . I dunno about that. The unprecedented heavy turnout at the advance polls does not look good for The Harper Government™, which has to be why he made merry with Rob Ford and the Ford Nation of cretins. Trudeau may pull off a majority. It would be incredibly funny if only two Tories are elected. Again. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/625 "2015-10-19T14:53:04Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > I dunno about that. The unprecedented heavy turnout at the advance polls does not look good for The Harper Government™, which has to be why he made merry with Rob Ford and the Ford Nation of cretins. > > Trudeau may pull off a majority. It would be incredibly funny if only two Tories are elected. > > Again. I would give approximately the same odds of that happening as I would the Liberals winning all 338 seats. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/626 "2015-10-19T15:01:48Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > . . . and babies will be born and Canada will work just fine. True, Canada won’t go off the rails when Elizabeth May’s love child by Rob Ford is born, but there will be indignation and indigestion for several election cycles. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/627 "2015-10-19T15:05:02Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > True, Canada won’t go off the rails when Elizabeth May’s love child by Rob Ford is born, but there will be indignation and indigestion for several election cycles. But thirty-four years later, the joke will be on us when Comfrey Sparrowhawk May-Ford becomes the best PM we’ve ever had, and begins the first of her unprecedented seven terms. (What are we permitted when there’s no bridge? WE MAY-FORD!") ---
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/628 "2015-10-19T15:14:05Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Today’s election will be fair, honest, and effectively run to a degree that most UN member nations could only ever dream of having. > > I cannot believe how spoiled, insular and unconscious of their own good fortune Canadians are. Honest to God, you’d think we lived in Zimbabwe the way people bitch and moan and claim the sky is falling in. “Ooooh, the Conservatives ran some yellow ads,” and suddenly we’re North Korea? Since this was sort of in response to a post I made, I’ll comment. Indeed, Canada’s elections are among the best-run in the world, and we’re not teetering on the brink of descent into dictatorship or violence. But there’s an excluded middle here; we can recognize our stability and good fortune, while also pointing out abuses of the process, or excesses of behaviour. Misleading, attacking ads are a constant presence in election campaigning (and even between elections, in recent years). But a national chain of newspapers turning over their front pages entirely to an ad which carries no party logo but warns of the supposed dangers of voting for the opposition is pretty remarkable, and combined with the same chain’s endorsement of the party placing the ad (even censoring its chief columnist for disagreeing) is behaviour worth noting. If I was a teacher in a class about civics, politics, or the media, this would be exactly the kind of case I’d present to my students to consider questions of bias, media ownership, and the role of media in a democracy. And the same goes for other things that have been waved away, a bit, in this thread, by assurances that ‘Canada will still be around tomorrow’. It will, but my standards are higher than ‘continued existence’. When the governing party changes rules in a way that is in its favour, when they restrict what the electoral commission can do, we should ask why. And when a party uses aggressive voter-suppression tactics – and its agents are convicted of doing so – we should make them wear that, rather than letting it slide (either because ‘the system will survive’, or out of partisan willful blindness). I agree with your point that hyperbolics can be excessive here. We’re not in North Korea. But such things come about by degrees, as often as not, and we should point out and refuse to excuse abuses which take even the first steps in that direction. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/629 "2015-10-19T15:22:45Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > But thirty-four years later, the joke will be on us when Comfrey Sparrowhawk May-Ford becomes the best PM we’ve ever had, and begins the first of her unprecedented seven terms. > > (What are we permitted when there’s no bridge? WE MAY-FORD!") Could be. Along those lines, keep an eye on Sarah Elisabeth Coyne over the years (she’s now 24 and studying economics at Wharton). Pierre Elliot Trudeau was her dad, and her mom, constitutional expert and backroom Liberal Deborah Coyne, recently went over from the Liberals to the Greens. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/630 "2015-10-19T17:13:47Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Shit’s going down at the National Post. Apparently when the NP’s editorial board got its standing orders to endorse the Tories Coyne agreed, but he had plans on personally endorsing another party (not surprising as while Coyne is a true-blue, small ‘c’ conservative he’s been one of the most vocal highlighter of the current government’s unethical behaviour). > > However when the higher-up heard this they AXED his editorial. [Coyne might not stay](http://canadalandshow.com/article/andrew-coyne-v-national-post) if he is being censored like this. Well, [that’s that](https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/656131437691805696). ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/631 "2015-10-19T17:17:45Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Count your spoons. Present! (Couldn’t resist.) ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/632 "2015-10-19T19:02:06Z")
> [@wolfstu](#): > > . . . But there’s an excluded middle here; we can recognize our stability and good fortune, while also pointing out abuses of the process, or excesses of behaviour. . . . > > . . . I agree with your point that hyperbolics can be excessive here. We’re not in North Korea. But such things come about by degrees, as often as not, and we should point out and refuse to excuse abuses which take even the first steps in that direction. The entire polling-place crew, quitting their jobs at a hotly contested polling station where the Tories fear losing the riding, thereby keeping it locked tight for an hour after it was supposed to open, wasn’t planned? Come on! The fix was in. > **[Ballot, staff shortages, fire cause delays at polls | CBC News](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-polls-open-vote-1.3277587)** > > Voter turnout was expected to be high in Canada's 42nd federal election but some people reported problems at their polling stations, including a few cases of too few ballots. But maybe they were busy climbing all the flagpoles surrounding the polling place and ripping down the Liberal ads. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/633 "2015-10-19T19:10:10Z")
In Toronto it was even worse. From the same story, above: > [@](#): > > At one polling place in downtown Toronto, where polling stations were supposed to open at 9:30 a.m. ET, an Elections Canada officer reportedly did not arrive until nearly 11 a.m. ET. At another polling place in the city, a ballot box did not arrive until about 10:30 a.m. ET, resulting in long wait times for voters who had lined up to cast a ballot. Maybe the Elections Canada officer is Rob Ford. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/634 "2015-10-19T20:32:42Z")
Andrew Coyne is an honest and principled man, always has been. Back in the runup to the Iraq War Coyne wrote a column in which he said in so many words “now that it’s proven Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.” That was shortly after Colin Powell’s presentation at the UN. I wrote him an email explaining, very politely, that really it was not proven at all, and based on my experience in the field of military intelligence the presentation was strikingly weak and well well short of proof. He wrote back in essence saying “you’re wrong, buddy,” and we exchanged a few friendly but disagreeing emails. As it turns out I was right. (Given my track record, that’s LUCK, folks, not skill.) A few years later - hell, actually, it was like nine or ten years later - we ran into each other at a show in Toronto where I was performing and he asked if I was THAT Rick (lastname,) the guy he’d exchanged those emails with. I confirmed I was. “Well,” he said, “you were absolutely right.” ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/635 "2015-10-19T21:58:50Z")
Admittedly not ever having met the man, that strikes me as true to character. I don’t agree with him much on a matter of policy, but he strikes me as a Principled Conservative I Can Disagree With Politely. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/636 "2015-10-19T22:00:57Z")
No drama at my polling station. Quite a number of people coming and going, but with 10 or so separate lines no one was waiting for more than 1 person in front of them. However, the volunteer at the door of the school directing people towards the gym had a nametag that said Mohammed, so I suspect some sort of shenanigans. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/637 "2015-10-19T22:12:44Z")
The election IS being observed [**by an outside party**](http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/international-group-to-monitor-canadas-federal-election): > [@](#): > > The Organization for Security and Economic Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is drawing up the plan in direct response to concerns about recent changes to Canada’s election law under the Conservative government. Canada is a member of the OSCE. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/638 "2015-10-19T22:23:44Z")
Relax, ok? It’s impossible that our democracy is being eroded because we’re not North Korea. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/639 "2015-10-20T00:44:02Z")
Crimson tide on the Atlantic coast? ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807/640 "2015-10-20T00:52:10Z")
If Trudeau wins a majority, I wouldn’t be surprised if he says “Welcome to the 20-teens.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-longest-election-campaign-in-modern-canada-thread/726807.md?page=33)