Because there was such an large ‘anti monarchy’ issue in this election? Tell me again, what was Duffy’s qualifications for the senate? Brazeau?
His name may have given him a leg up, but you don’t get a sweeping majority in this country if you don’t move Canadians to vote for you. Unlike Mr Trudeau, Duffy was never elected to any office by Canadians yet magically made it into the freaking senate!
I am thrilled the Liberals really spanked the Cons good. Stephen Lewis was thrilled Canadians overwhelmingly rejected Harper politics, even though the country went red instead of orange. I’m also amused that some are still eager to count out Justin, where by any measure this campaign was brilliant. He went from third place to first, and didn’t let Harper define him, even though he tried real hard with the relentless negative ads. I’m willing to see how he governs.
Monarchy=power/wealth because of who your parents were, not who you are. It wasn’t about the monarchy, but hypocrisy and political dynasties. I didn’t figure what I said would have been misinterpreted.
Ah, Duffy. Someone appointed to the Senate like every other PM in history has been doing since confederation? How many did PET appoint? 81 vs Harper’s 59. Were all PET’s appointments gems? Doubt it. Will Justin do anything different? What are you willing to bet he will?
But you are correct. That alone would not have made the Liberals jump past everyone else. But, then I didn’t say that, did I? I said that it made him the liberal leader, which just happens to be now the PM of Canada. And if you think that his name wasn’t a factor, then you probably believe he gained the leadership of the Liberal party on his ability to teach children French. Because many of those same people who voted for him for that role voted in this election for the same reasons.
So, the difference between a minority government and a majority governement based on the name? Think that’s a good reason for gaining power, do you?
Do tell us, since confederation exactly how many senate appointees were never elected to any office by Canadians?
Perhaps the man has leadership skills that you do not yet appreciate.
This is great news, but I still wish the left parties would combine in one party, so a scenario like 2011 could not happen again.
In 2011 the Conservatives got 28.5 seats for every million popular votes cast for their party. The NDP got 14.9 seats for every million votes, the Liberals got 12.2 seats for every million votes, and the Greens 1.7 for every million. That sucks. I am the last member of the nuclear family I grew up in who is not Canadian, and I’m active in Democratic Party politics. We here in the States think we are screwed by Tom DeLay’s redistricting (plus the unfairness of California only having two senators, same as empty red states like Idaho and Wyoming), but what I described above is on a whole other level.
Which is of course why they adopted this strategic voting plan, which seems to have worked, but I bet the numbers are still going to come down with the Conservatives getting more bang for their buck in terms of seats per million votes, and that remains a problem–which could be eliminated if the left parties just joined into one.
I dunno. The odds were definitely not good with one party on the right and two parties in the left. But a majority win and a gain of over 150 seats really tells you what a come from behind victory this was. Joining with the NDP would have watered down the brand. This was a good hard-fought honest win. And JT is a Uniter, not a Divider. Harper is going to have a hell of a time living this down. But considering his shredding trucks were already busy on the weekend, he must have seen the writing on the wall.
Is it a qualification? Didn’t think so.
Congratulations wolfpup! as I know you would appreciated it, Sou at Hotwhopper commented about Harper’s loss:
Could be. Sometimes kids are better than their fathers. Hopefully, his math teaching skills will help him as he manages the economy and navigating the world political stage. (Hopefully, he’s smart enough to populate his staff with competent people who can help him, which if he does, will make him a good leader).
Looks like the Liberals have an almost complete lock on the National Capital area. They took two ridings from long-time NDP stalwarts and fell just short of turfing the much-despised Pierre Poilievre.
Winner: Libs and Nanos.
Losers: NDP and Cons
Live to fight another day: Green and Bloc
Night folks
“The sun will rise in the East and people will go about their business and babies will be born,” is a very low standard for “just fine.”
It wasn’t that cold in London this weekend, was it? 
Rather, Canada is a textbook case of a polity which is poorly represented by “first past the post” plurality elections. The Tories are of the right, and the NDP of the left, but the Grits appear to be of the centre. And the Greens are something else again, I guess.
I’m coming to realize that, by contrast, Greece’s “reinforced proportionality” is actually very clever. There’s still a huge advantage to winning a plurality of support, but it doesn’t insist on sorting everyone into two camps just to win. (And it pushes the crackpot nationalists into their own party off to the side!)
The Liberals aren’t left-wing, unless they’re compared to the radical right-wing Tories. These Tories are to the right of every previous Tory government (and provincial Social Credit parties) in the history of Canada.
Every party is left-wing in comparison to Harper’s Conservative Party. It is so right-wing that even Harper cabinet ministers jumped ship and the mayor of Calgary, of all places, denounced it. It is so right-wing that it fosters hate groups. It is so right-wing it wants a hotline so Canadians can inform on their neighbours, just as the late, unlamented East German Stasi secret police had. It is so right-wing it would dictate the clothing women should wear. It is so right-wing it created second-class Canadian citizens so it could deport them at will — with no appeal — and that means Jews who immigrated to Canada and Jews born in Canada as well as Muslims who immigrated and Muslims born in Canada, Muslims to whom it’s second-class-citizenship legislation purportedly is aimed because they’re all terrorists, hence the terrorist hotline — but Muslims only at first. Since Israel declares all Jews everywhere in the world citizens of Israel, any Jew it would deport would be to Israel because that person would not be stateless. So Muslims and Jews and everyone else it care to deport whom it claims isn’t stateless. Remember, no appeal.
Harper is so right-wing he had the typical dictators’ contempt of Parliament and constantly short-circuited it and even shuttered it before a parliamentary vote would have tossed his government out.
The Liberals aren’t left-wing. The NDP is left-wing; it’s always left wing. Liberals are shape-shifters. They are right-wing when they decide it would help keep them in power. They are middle-of-the-road when they decide that would keep them in power. They are left of centre when they decide that would keep them in power — and promising in an election campaign to run deficits to help the middle class is only the latest example. Shape-shifting helps keep the Tories and the NDP at bay, until the shape-shifters become so corrupt Canadians have a belly full, as they had with Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. Just as they have with The Harper Government™.
But whatever the Liberal Party’s shape is, it’s always only temporary and it generally keeps itself in power for that reason. Not for nothing is it called Canada’s natural-governing party.
As I understand it, Harper’s law on dual citizens covers anyone who would have a citizenship elsewhere if their Canadian citizenship were removed–even if they don’t actually have a personal claim on it yet?
So a Canadian of Irish or Italian descent in the last three generations could be exiled, because Ireland or Italy would take them in theory? Do I understand that right?
Yes.
Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati says in this June 2014 story that it could go back five generations.
This story says
Almost all true. (I don’t think it’s right wing to say that women should not have their face covered during a citizenship ceremony.). And my sister, who also still has US citizenship, was especially concerned about the second-class citizen law.
But this right wing party won a majority of the seats in Parliament in 2011 with less than 40% of the vote. If that were possible in the US, the Republicans could be even more right wing than they are, and could take over the House, the Senate, and the presidency. Better to have one center/left party as a bulwark against this, if you ask me. (ETA: “Centre/left”, that is.)
But the women would prove their identities before the ceremony by removing the veil in the presence of another woman.
This isn’t enough for the bigots. They want to make it as difficult as possible.
Sorry, confused on who the bigot is? The one who wants people to proudly declare allegiance to their new country or the person who automatically distrusts half of their new fellow citizens?