Canadian Election

[Pruitt]

YEah - it's not over yet, but once the prominent conservatives - the moderating influences in his cabinet - left, Harper seemed almost doomed to tack to the right.

Which could have conceivably worked, but the scapegoating of muslim women and the ham-fisted response to the refugee crisis scared away many, many moderate voters. (Including myself).

And Mulcair reminds me a bit of Ignatieff in that once a camera is on him he seems robotic and completely insincere. I am smelling a bad, bad night for the NDP on Monday.

[degenerasian]

Pruitt, looks like your riding is going Liberal for sure.

Mine is Calgary-Signal Hill. It's supposed to be 100% Conservative but it's actually in the balance. Polls says 45% Conservative and 40% Liberal. The Liberal lady has really been campaigning hard. I see her handing out flyers at my transit station every morning.

Calgary might get 4 Liberal seats which is unthinkable.

[degenerasian]

And the Liberals win the best ad of the campaign award for this gem.

[Pruitt]

Pruitt, looks like your riding is going Liberal for sure.

Mine is Calgary-Signal Hill. It's supposed to be 100% Conservative but it's actually in the balance. Polls says 45% Conservative and 40% Liberal. The Liberal lady has really been campaigning hard. I see her handing out flyers at my transit station every morning.

Calgary might get 4 Liberal seats which is unthinkable.

Peter Lougheed is rolling in his grave.

Do you think a majority might be in the offing?

I hope not.

[degenerasian]

I do. I think Ontario has gone full Liberal.

Trudeau has run by far the best campaign.

[Pruitt]

The Globe and Mail ran a remarkably moronic editorial on Saturday endorsing the Conservative party but not their leader.

"The Tories Deserve Another Mandate - Stephen Harper Doesn't."

Which is a bit like saying "Biden deserves to be Vice President, but Obama shouldn't be president." In other words, a rhetorical statement, and not a recommendation.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-de ... e26842506/

This editorial lays it out nicely - happy I voted Liberal. Crossing my fingers that it's a minority government.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/ ... ting-them/

[degenerasian]

Election Day!

All coverage is on http://www.cbcnews.ca" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Pruitt you will find this interesting, Andrew Coyne has resigned as editor of the National Post

https://twitter.com/acoyne" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So anyway… I have resigned as editor of Editorials and Comment for the National Post, effective immediately. I will remain a columnist.

2. Postmedia executives and I had a professional disagreement. Their view was that the publication of a column by the editorial page editor…

3. … dissenting from the Post’s endorsement of the Conservatives would have confused readers and embarrassed the paper.

4. My view was that that was what I was paid to do as a columnist: give my honest opinion on issues of public interest.

5. I don’t see public disagreement as confusing. I see it as honest. Readers, in my view, are adults & understand that adults can disagree.

6. The confusion, if any, would have been to have left the impression that the paper’s views were mine, or that my views were the paper’s.

7. To be clear, the owners and managers of a newspaper have a perfect right to set the paper’s editorial line as they wish.

8. Likewise they have a perfect right to decide who and what they wish to publish in their pages.

9. Nobody has a God-given right to be published and the country will get along very well without me telling them how to vote.

10. My concerns were and are merely a) that there should be no suggestion that I was personally endorsing or voting for the Conservatives.

11. And b) that I could not do my job as a columnist if I was obliged to stay silent where these conflicted with those of management.

12. While Postmedia’s intervention was unprecedented in my experience, I could not allow the precedent to stand.

13. So to protect my reputation and to preserve my editorial freedom as a columnist, I felt it necessary to resign the editorial position.

14. I think that’s all I need to say on the subject. If anyone’s still interested, I will be voting for the NDP candidate in my riding.

15. The short-form reasoning: the Conservatives don’t deserve to be re-elected, and the Liberals don’t deserve a majority.


Finally, my prediction: Airheads 143 Fascists 116 Commies 71 Traitors 5 Ewoks 2 Unabombers 1 (#rathagainstthemachine - oh let me dream…).

[Pruitt]

Wow.

I like Coyne, he's a great guest on Canadaland.

I often read the Post - mainly because the Globe website kind of sucks unless you want to py for its content and the Toronto Star is written for sweet-natured elementary school teachers - its columnists do often provide views contrary to the publishers'.

And what is that view?

Here's the front pages from some of Postmedia's papers today. By the way - those are paid ads by the Conservative party. Wonder if they'd have sold that space (at a hefty discount) to one of the other parties?

[Pruitt]

Results in from the Maritimes - this smells like a huge Liberal majority on the way.

[degenerasian]

32-0 Airheads.

Atlantic Canada giving Mulcair a big FU for proposing to abolish the Senate.

[howard]

cbc projects a liberal govt.

edit - i erroneously said majority.

ETA: why is NDP getting bitchslapped so?

[degenerasian]

NDP ran an awful campaign.

Abolish senate lost Atlantic vote.
Issues like Clarity Act, The Niqab lost Quebec.
Balanced budget lost everyone.

And people sick of Harper needed to find the best way and they decided Trudeau was best at the expense of NDP

[howard]

Thanks.

[Pruitt]

cbc projects a liberal govt.

edit - i erroneously said majority.

ETA: why is NDP getting bitchslapped so?

NDP will recede to around its traditional level of Federal support.

Last election was an anomaly largely based on Quebec - which had maybe elected one or two NDP MPs before, elected more than 50.

Their much admired leader died to be replaced by a pragmatist with no charisma.

[degenerasian]

The Liberal leader last time was shit.

[Johnny Carwash]

Had assumed Justin Trudeau was Pierre's grandson, not his son. Guess Pierre still had it going later on.

[degenerasian]

Had assumed Justin Trudeau was Pierre's grandson, not his son. Guess Pierre still had it going later on.

Yup, he was 47 and still a bachelor when he became Prime Minister in 1968. Dated Streisand for over a year before marrying Margaret.

[travzilla]

Looks like i might have voted in the closest riding in the country. Blakie (NDP) up 40 votes over Toet (CPC) with one poll left to count.

Glad I got to vote twice! (wife didn't care, said she would vote for whoever I told her to)

[travzilla]

And NDP wins my riding. Tonight went about as well as I could have hoped for. Liked the Liberal platform the best, but voted NDP to prevent a conservative win locally.

Early turnout numbers:

2015 - 67%
2011 - 61%
2008 - 58%

[Pruitt]

The slimeball who represented this riding for the past 7 years is now out of work. But at least he's STILL the son of a Holocaust survivor.

My taxes will probably go up (don't they always), but a couple of undemocratic bills will be yanked away, deficit will be increased to (hopefully) fund necessary infrastructure projects...

But the best part of this election result is that so, so many Canadians rejected what the Conservative party had become. A fiscally responsible government turned ugly in order to appeal to the (happily) silent minority in this country. The ones who look inward and who see dark skin as a threat to the mythological "Canadian way of life."

Canadian elections are usually like the stereotype of Canadians - earnest, dull and awkward when things get exciting. This time the Conservatives tried their hand at the politics of divisiveness, but they must have forgotten that in this country, more than 40% of all citizens are first or second generation Canadians. Inciting fear of the immigrant may have appealed to the 30% who'd vote for them anyway, but it was always bound to offend the rest of the country. A quick look at Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver's results will show you how badly this campaign failed.

And 68% voter turnout... not bad. Although you have to wonder what it would have taken to get the other 32% to vote. Polling stations here are often open for 5-6 days.

[Pruitt]

Just one more word...

[degenerasian]

I think in the end Canadians were tired of hate politics and wanted to vote for the young happy guy over the two old grumps.

The Conservatives have always been between 35 and 40% over the last few elections and never even attempted to find new policies to include the other 60%. They had one consistant message (low taxes, balanced budgets and immigrants are scary)

The Liberals are now at that 40%. What will they do in the next 4 years to grab some of the other 60%?

[sancarlos]

Had assumed Justin Trudeau was Pierre's grandson, not his son. Guess Pierre still had it going later on.

The oldtimers and the Canadians already know this, but for the benefit of anybody who doesn't know the story...There was a bit of a scandal in the late 1970s, when on the same day she separated from Pierre Trudeau, Margaret Trudeau started a weekend of hanging out with the Rolling Stones, who were in Toronto for a couple shows. The newspapers were all full of stories about Mick and her, but in his autobiography, Ronnie Wood strongly implied that it was actually he who was banging her.

[brian]

You'd think the wife of a prime minister could do better than a bass player.

[Pruitt]

She was a wild one, our former first lady. Married Pierre in 1971, when she was 23 and he was 52







Pierre and her divorced in 1984. He got custody of his three sons (two of whom were born on Christmas Day!) And was a single father - although he was also busy showing Margot Kidder his little man of steel during this period.

In 1991 at the age of 72 he became a father again.

The guy had no clue as to how to run an economy, but he was surely one of a kind. An intellectual playboy.

[howard]

well, that deescalated quickly:

[Pruitt]

well, that deescalated quickly:

And in classic Canadian style -

But he gave no timeline.

Here's our Prime Minister (Designate) on the morning after election. What I like is how nonchalant some of the people are, a few just walk past him. Also, the security is pretty unobtrusive.

[Johnny Carwash]

So between being a Trudeau and a former snowboard instructor, Justin has nailed like 60% of the female population of Canada, right?

[degenerasian]

well, that deescalated quickly:

And in classic Canadian style -

But he gave no timeline.

Here's our Prime Minister (Designate) on the morning after election. What I like is how nonchalant some of the people are, a few just walk past him. Also, the security is pretty unobtrusive.

Good feature on how Trudeau won this election

[Rush2112]

[Pruitt]

And a McGill alumnus!

[sancarlos]

Prince Humperdinck!

[tennbengal]

Perfect - thanks - was wondering why he looked so familiar. To. the. pain.

[Pruitt]

Trudeau sworn in today (we do things quicker up here) and announced his cabinet. 50% women, some ridiculously titled and hwolly inconsequential departments...

But, we have an astronaut as our Minister of Transportation. 10 year old me is ecstatic.

[degenerasian]

They missed the most important portfolio. Minister of Marijuana. Or the BLAZE MEISTER!

[Johnnie]