The 2019 Canadian election

[robkelk]

Under the Parliamentary system in Canada, elections are relatively rapid - it hasn't even been called yet and we know we'll be voting in October. So best to start a thread now - why wait for the rush?

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There's a new party contesting the election this time around. One of their platform planks is that, despite all of the evidence, they don't think that climate change is man-made.

That means running ads about the dangers of climate change during the upcoming federal campaign could be deemed partisan activity.

Needless to say, scientists are pissed off. So is the Green Party.

The Communist Party of Canada (yes, we have one) has already issued a press release saying they don't believe in private ownership of business. Here's hoping that this gets corporate subsidies and job-creation programs added to the list of things that could be deemed partisan activity.

[SilverFang01]

Of all the circuit glitched, diode blown dimwittery.

[Rajvik]

I actually find it rather brilliant in an underhanded and backstabbing way. Now, I don't know how your Green party platforms, but I imagine it is heavy on the ecology and turning Canada "Greener" through "clean energy" and the like.

What this new party has done has completely kicked a leg out from under their ability to advertise, and thus, arguably, limited who they can appeal to and how.

[robkelk]

I really wish you'd learn at least the basics before commenting. None of what you said is accurate.

[Rajvik]

I was mostly asking Rob, I don't know your country's political parties, I do know that they are set up for a multi-party parliament that would never really fly here in the states, but I don't know what who stands for. I was making a guess off our own (pretty much defunct) green party

[robkelk]

I knew we have one of these somewhere... Ah, here it is!

Poll Tracker

As of this posting, the two big parties are separated by an amount smaller than the margin of error in the polling process.

[robkelk]

Greens forced to backtrack as NDP 'defectors' say they never jumped ship

Five of 14 former provincial NDP candidates the New Brunswick Green Party claimed had defected to its ranks this week are actually staying put.

So much for that migration of candidates... although, considering some of the things the most-visible candidate (and, according to the article linked above, the one who set up the migration) was saying, perhaps it's for the best. The Greens still get a black eye for not fact-checking before publishing, though.

[robkelk]

We have a lovely little eggcorn in Canadian politics.

In order for an election to be legal, a writ of election needs to be drawn up. Somebody, decades ago, heard "draw up the writ" as "drop the writ", and ever since then every Canadian election has started with somebody dropping the writ.

The writ will be dropped on Wednesday.

So now it's time to pick who's going to be Prime Minister for the next four years (assuming a majority government). Somebody at CBC seems to not like politicians - if all you had to base your choice on was this photo montage, would you vote for any of them?

[classicdrogn]

Maybe glasses guy? He looks like the discredited professor who tries to warn people about The Terrible Truth for the first one or two acts of the movie, then dies or gets sidelined after giving Dashing Shinysmile the critical information to Save the Day.

Of course, since real life is not a movie it probably means he's the die-hard reactionary conservative out of the lot. I honestly do have no idea who any of these people are, so, yeah.

[Rajvik]

the Sihk on the top right, he at least seems like he has an idea what he's talking about

now granted i have no damn clue who that is, i'm just going off the picture, perhaps a little context Rob?

[Norgarth]

I am Canadian, and the only one of those people I can ID offhand is the top center

Spoiler

Current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Sort of Canada's version of Dubbya; his father was a notable (and long serving) prime Minister, but the son doesn't quite measure up.

[robkelk]

They're all named in the article that I linked to...

Glasses-guy wants to split up the country. The Sihk is the leader of the leftist NDP party.

Top left: Conservative - Andrew Scheer (party leans right)
Top middle: Liberal - Justin Trudeau (party leans center-left)
Top right: NDP - Jagmeet Singh (party leans far-left)
Bottom left: Green - Elizabeth May (party leans left)
Bottom middle: People's Party - Maxime Bernier (party leans far-right; he's the one who thinks climate change isn't man-made)
Bottom right: Parti Quebecois - Yves-François Blanchet (single-issue: declare Quebec independence)

[classicdrogn]

Hee, so I picked un petite cul du Quebec and Raj went for the far-left? All my lols.

[robkelk]

See what happens when you don't follow the link?

[classicdrogn]

What, you expect me to put actual time and effort into posting? Pfft.



And you did ask "based only on these pictures," after all.

[Rajvik]

And you did ask "based only on these pictures," after all.

That's my line damn it

[robkelk]

The House of Commons will review all MPs' personal websites, after discovering ad trackers on dozens of them. (They'd prefer that there not be an equivalent to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal during this election, please.)

Obviously, they've never heard of the Privacy Badger plugin or the DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials plugin... but many web surfers haven't heard of these plugins, either. (At least on Firefox, DuckDuckGo's plugin is easier to use while the EFF's plugin offers more fine-grained control over what's blocked. They're both good.)

[hazard]

The really interesting questions are 'is it legal for ad trackers to extract something of value from thee personal webpages of serving politicians and/or is it legal for serving politicians to get something of value for having trackers on their websites?'

[robkelk]

All prisoners have the right to vote in the federal election. Here's how

Considering prisoners don't necessarily have a right to access the internet, I'm not sure how much good that page will do... especially for inmates who don't have anybody from the outside coming to visit them.

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The election campaign finally has a scandal that's actually sticking.

[classicdrogn]

Uh? It seems like using makeup for an authentic middle eastern skin tone is being more respectful of the character when you're dressing as Aladdin than "whitewashing" him would be.

[Rajvik]

i have to agree with Classicdrogn here, it's kinda like the Northam issue, did i have problem with him having dressed up as Michael Jackson and doing black face then, no. But the picture of him as either the Klansman or the guy in black face in that picture was just wrong

[robkelk]

It's being played up as a discontinuity of behaviour - he did this back before he was a politician, and now he's saying he doesn't do things like that.

Honestly, he's getting more flack for the wishy-washy way he's responding to the re-publication of these photos than he got for doing it in the first place. "Wishy-washy" isn't what one normally wants to see in a Prime Minister.

[Rajvik]

Rob, nobody likes a washy washy politician, but they still get elected more often than not if for no other reason than they seem to cater to a larger base group

[robkelk]

Poll Tracker indicates the difference in support between the Conservatives (leaning to the right) and Liberals (centrist/slight-left) has been smaller than the margin of error in polling since August 7. The NDP (leftist) routinely poll a few percentage points higher than the Greens (leaning to the left), but even if you add those two together they still don't poll as high as the two major parties. As for the other 10% or less of people willing to express a preference, the Bloc Quebecois (single-issue) routinely polls roughly double the People's Party (rightist and populist), with the fringe parties picking up the scraps.

EDIT: In other words, a typical Canadian election after one week.

[robkelk]

Poll Tracker indicates the difference in support between the Conservatives (leaning to the right) and Liberals (centrist/slight-left) has been smaller than the margin of error in polling since August 7. The NDP (leftist) routinely poll a few percentage points higher than the Greens (leaning to the left), but even if you add those two together they still don't poll as high as the two major parties. As for the other 10% or less of people willing to express a preference, the Bloc Quebecois (single-issue) routinely polls roughly double the People's Party (rightist and populist), with the fringe parties picking up the scraps.

EDIT: In other words, a typical Canadian election after one week.

At the halfway point of the campaign, Poll Tracker still indicates the difference in support between the Conservatives (leaning to the right) and Liberals (centrist/slight-left) has been smaller than the margin of error in polling since August 7.

However, the NDP have pulled ahead of the Greens to the point that there is now a noticeable difference between them. The People's Party, OTOH, would be lucky to elect anybody if the vote was held today.

Oh, and I got my voter's card in the mail today. I am officially an Elector... just like millions of other people in Canada.