So I just watched the piece about the Canadian elections on Democracy Now! and I'm wondering if this is an indication that Canada is becoming more ideologically polarized or if it has more to do with the NDP running a great campaign and the Liberals being yesterday's news.
As for Quebec, I've no idea--except it seems pretty clear that Harper is despised there, which makes me think well of Quebec.
Am I correct in thinking that the NDP would be kind of like the Progressive Caucus in the US House? That is, progressives, not socialists?
No, the NDP are socalists in the sense that Canada is a social democracy and they are suspicious of free-marketism, rooted in the trade unions and in favour of keeping Canada's social safety net and social programmes strong. They're like old Labour.
Re what happened in Quebec, the background is that Quebec is left-wing. The Conservatives never do well there. The Bloc Quebecois, which usually wins about half the province but only got 4 seats this time, is a fairly left-wing party, in favour of things like universal daycare. The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Bloc were all along benefiting from support from people who weren't actually separatist but wanted a strong regional Quebecois voice in Parliament. The NDP have recently been presenting themselves as soft sovereigntist in various ways and have wooed that vote. Whether it sticks remains to be seen.
This is the Globe and Mail's position on why the new Lib-Con-NDP constellation is the way it is. It seems plausible to me
( ... )
I have a sneaky suspicion that had young people voted in large numbers, Harper wouldn't have a majority government. I know people who didn't vote because "its not important" and "it doesn't matter" (I don't understand this. They're aware that in other parts of the world, people are dying to vote, but here, its "not important I don't think Harper will touch same sex marriage, or abortion rights - most people, even if they're fiscally conservative, and fell for the lower-taxes BS, I still think most people don't appreciate the government trying to legislate morality. If Harper makes serious cuts to health care / attempts to privatize it, it would be political suicide. Still, I'm concerned about resources for abused/needy women, and Vancouver's Safe Injection site, (sorry, long, snarky comment)
It's OK. As for the youth vote, if wishes were horses. The youth never vote in numbers.
Harper can't legislate against abortion himself, but he can take practical measures to make it more difficult for women to access it and already has done, eg by cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. And there's always the outside chance that one of his MPs introduces a private members' bill on the issue and it passes. It is an outside chance, but if it happened Harper could say it wasn't his responsibility.
I don't think the Conservative party is at all monolithic in that regard. In particular, a lot of the ex-PC members are probably not that different from Liberals, with a slightly different bias on fiscal policy.
A private members bill should be a free vote (and I cannot damn Ignatieff enough for whipping the vote on a private member's bill for crass political motives), and I am personally confident that enough members of the house support choice that an anti-choice bill could not pass.
It was cool reading your updates on Facebook yesterday. I'm surprised to see such a lessening of the liberalism in Canada; I honestly must note that I haven't paid that much attention to Canadian politics in the past...
I wonder how much sway the Green Party (or any Independent Party) will have in next year's presidential election. Many people aren't too thrilled with Obama at the present time, and most are simply gobsmacked at the current Republican front-runners. Hopefully Trump's the Repub candidate; then we might be able to have at least the beginning of a break of the two-party system?
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If you want to see what will happen, just take a look south of the border. Or maybe to Thatcher's England.
To quote a Canadian, "Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost."
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As for Quebec, I've no idea--except it seems pretty clear that Harper is despised there, which makes me think well of Quebec.
Am I correct in thinking that the NDP would be kind of like the Progressive Caucus in the US House? That is, progressives, not socialists?
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Re what happened in Quebec, the background is that Quebec is left-wing. The Conservatives never do well there. The Bloc Quebecois, which usually wins about half the province but only got 4 seats this time, is a fairly left-wing party, in favour of things like universal daycare. The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Bloc were all along benefiting from support from people who weren't actually separatist but wanted a strong regional Quebecois voice in Parliament. The NDP have recently been presenting themselves as soft sovereigntist in various ways and have wooed that vote. Whether it sticks remains to be seen.
This is the Globe and Mail's position on why the new Lib-Con-NDP constellation is the way it is. It seems plausible to me ( ... )
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Hopefully Canada will weather this storm and make it through to be stronger.
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? I presume you mean their first national seat? The Green party wins seats in MN not infrequently.
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Yes.
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I know people who didn't vote because "its not important" and "it doesn't matter" (I don't understand this. They're aware that in other parts of the world, people are dying to vote, but here, its "not important
I don't think Harper will touch same sex marriage, or abortion rights - most people, even if they're fiscally conservative, and fell for the lower-taxes BS, I still think most people don't appreciate the government trying to legislate morality. If Harper makes serious cuts to health care / attempts to privatize it, it would be political suicide.
Still, I'm concerned about resources for abused/needy women, and Vancouver's Safe Injection site, (sorry, long, snarky comment)
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Harper can't legislate against abortion himself, but he can take practical measures to make it more difficult for women to access it and already has done, eg by cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. And there's always the outside chance that one of his MPs introduces a private members' bill on the issue and it passes. It is an outside chance, but if it happened Harper could say it wasn't his responsibility.
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A private members bill should be a free vote (and I cannot damn Ignatieff enough for whipping the vote on a private member's bill for crass political motives), and I am personally confident that enough members of the house support choice that an anti-choice bill could not pass.
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I wonder how much sway the Green Party (or any Independent Party) will have in next year's presidential election. Many people aren't too thrilled with Obama at the present time, and most are simply gobsmacked at the current Republican front-runners. Hopefully Trump's the Repub candidate; then we might be able to have at least the beginning of a break of the two-party system?
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