Canadians taking to spying on their spies As Canadians settle in for the longest general election campaign since 1867, some uncomfortable incidents that had been ignored by commercial media outlets are gaining new exposure. Allegations that Canadian spooks are spying on protesters have become a hot topic online. The result is that Canada's online civil liberties …
"Today, you can hear it discussed (and debated) in depth at any number of blue collar bars."
That's good. When stuff gets there and outside of the broadsheet reading classes politicians usually get the message and start tacking to the wind.
Is there a catalyst for this groundswell of concern? The NDP you mention, is that a populist party?
NDP are Canada's left-wing party. That said, they've moved more towards the center (by Canadian standards) as they started to have a real shot at the crown. They are not as populist as the Pirate or Green parties, but they do stand more for the people than the corporations.
The NDP got elected in Alberta (which has had 43 consecutive years of Conservative government!) on a mandate of moving from flat taxes to progressive taxation, increasing oil royalties, increasing corporate taxes on large organizations, rooting out government corruption and cronyism, balancing the budget (which should be possible in Alberta, of all places!) and spending rationally on infrastructure instead of vanity projects.
The NDP federally are running a very similar campaign, though there are some important differences. For example, federally, we already have progressive taxation, and the federal government doesn't control resource royalties.
During the provincial election in Alberta the polls regularly showed the NDP as winning. The conclusion the pollsters, the press, and the pundits drew from that was that the polls must be wrong, because everyone knew that the Conservatives were going to win, and that it was inconceivable that the NDP could win. Instead, they talked about how disturbing it was that the polls could be so wrong, and so consistently wrong. We may be entering a new era they said, an era where we can no longer trust the polls because changes in society were making it more difficult for pollsters to gauge the true opinions of the populace. And this must be so, because everyone knew that it was laughable to even think that the Conservatives could lose, and the NDP of all parties win. And then the NDP won, just like the polls said they would.
As for the federal NDP, there is something that ought to be mentioned about their leader, Thomas Mulcair. He was a Liberal cabinet minister when he was in provincial politics in Quebec. When he left provincial politics, both the federal Conservatives and the federal Liberals tried to recruit him. However, he joined the NDP and later took over as leader when the very popular and highly regarded Jack Layton suddenly and unexpectedly died.
So, if Mulcair was considered to be quite acceptable to all three parties, there can't exactly be a huge ideological gap between them despite what Conservative propaganda might say. And quite frankly, there isn't. Politics in Canada is more about personalities than ideologies, which is why MPs cross the floor so regularly. You know like how the BQ, the leading "socialist" party in Quebec (before the NDP recently destroyed them) was formed by a faction of the Conservatives who split off over egos and personality conflicts in cabinet (Mulroney versus Bouchard)?
Oh and Trevor? You forgot to mention that if/when the Conservatives get the boot this autumn, it's all over the press that Doug Ford secretly wants to take over the leadership of the party. Ha ha ha ha! I'm really, really, looking forward to that campaign, especially when his brother Rob pitches in to help him out. It's going to be comedy gold!
Thames, I would like to thank you for summarizing what for me is turning out to be a steep learning curve of Canadian politics. As a current Permanent Resident (as of March this year) I am unable to vote but I am taking an interest in such matters for future reference.
My wife being a Citizen is able to vote and obviously has a much better grasp of whats going on.
My impression at the moment is that the Liberals are the equivalent of the left, NDP the center and the Conservatives are the right.
I do however remember the "New strong" (from my first visits to Canada) and was saddened to hear of his untimely death (My wife voted for him at one stage)
@LAGMonkey - "My impression at the moment is that the Liberals are the equivalent of the left, NDP the center and the Conservatives are the right."
Not exactly. The Liberals are the "centre", the NDP are the "left", and the Conservatives are the "right". However, the left isn't by and large very left, and the right isn't by and large very right. Everyone is really more or less centre. Mulcair started out as a Liberal, and so far as I can see he didn't have to change his opinions on anything to join and lead the NDP. His former boss (premier) in provincial politics was Jean Charest, who switched from being the leader of the federal Conservative Party to being the head of the provincial Liberal Party when he jumped the other way in politics. I could name loads of other very senior members of all three parties who jumped from one party to another at various times.
However, left, right, and centre are not really that useful of a definition in Canadian politics. The Liberals for example don't even pretend to have any ideology other than being the party of sound budgetary management, competent management, and "knowing what is best for the country". If that sounds a bit arrogant, well that arrogance is what tends to get them kicked out of power on a regular basis until the voters have forgiven them. Aside from that, their nickname has been "the natural governing party". I just googled that phrase, and the top hits all refer to the Liberal Party of Canada.
I said before though, politics in Canada tends to be more about personalities than policy. A lot of traditional Conservatives hate Harper and what he has done to their party. They don't consider him to be a "real" Conservative, since he came into the party via a merger with the Reform Party (which had a name change to Canadian Alliance before the merger). This is where you see the references to "Reform-a-Cons" - implying a distinction between the traditional Tories and the much disliked "Reformers". Even some of the original Reform Party members didn't seem to like Harper or his associates much. Here's Deb Grey 10 years ago on retiring from politics (the Conservatives were not yet in power) - look at the section from 1:18 to about 2:15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMUb2Dkji6k
She does not sound very thrilled with the then new leadership.
"My impression at the moment is that the Liberals are the equivalent of the left, NDP the center and the Conservatives are the right."
The NDP are less rightwing than the Liberals, I wouldn't call either of them particularly left, although the NDP is more so than the Liberals.
Harper's Conservatives are, as the old saying goes, somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan.
"Today, you can hear it discussed (and debated) in depth at any number of blue collar bars." Yes, and Potty has personally gone and measured the volume of such paranoia in how many "blue collar bars"? It seems to be a common symptom amongst the politically-naive that they fall victim of their own hype and begin to baaaaahlive their most fervent ideals are "common", only for another election result to urinate all over their delusions (see posts in many threads here on El Reg complete with much wailing and gnashing of teeth after the recent UK elections led to the "impossible' Conservative victory). I suspect the tinfoil-clad Canucks will shortly be just as disappointed as their UK brethren.
I hope that the populace south of you is watching this and how it goes., but I know better. The people aren't paying attention. We're in the same boat (or one like it) and while maybe not as bad yet, it will be. How our neighbor to the north deals with this will set a precedent for our government. Scary times, indeed.
In many ways, the Arab Spring reference is good in that it epitomizes the way things spread... In this case, one democracy becomes more repressive, the others follow all in the name of the security theater. Before we know it, we'll be worse off than the regimes we rail against.
While we all blame politicians for these shenanigans, much of this is the result of the effort of corporations and their lobbyists. What's good for corporates isn't (usually) good for the people and what's going on to our north is a good example of what's going on here. No longer are terrorists classified by political leanings but by their stance on the corporations.
Americans aren't even generally aware Canada exists.
I'm not being sarcastic here. I live in Vancouver and when I was shopping in Bellingham - which is just 12 miles from the border on the Washington side, the clerk wanted my phone number for their system. I said there's no point since I'm from Canada. He seemed surprised that I was shopping there.. "Isn't that a long way to go just to go shopping?'
When I pointed out that it was just 12 miles up the road, he apologised and said that he was new here - and that he'd moved from Texas and so didn't know the area well.
I've run into people who think the fact that we have a Queen is so 'quaint' and that apparently, the Queen is just waiting to take over Canada and turn it back into a colony (yes... more than one American has suggested this and no, it's not possible).
And don't get me started on the health care issue. The American view of how that works up here is nothing short of surreal
In the end, Americans have a deep belief that their country is absolutely unique and thus no solution found for a social problem in another country could possibly apply to them or situation in any other county be parallel to theirs in any way.
The recent discussion over gun violence is a classic one in this respect. Games, movies, TV, comics.. all blamed - except that Canadians play the same games, watch the same movies and TV and read the same comics - yet we kill each other with guns 1/4 as much per capita. Population density? Over 1/4 of the entire population of Canada lives in just five cities. Downtown Vancouver has one of the highest population densities in North America.
About the *only* reasons for the difference in gun violence between our nations are cultural differences (such as a fearmongering media in the US which is far less the case up here, a stronger integration of religion - and one religion at that into politics in the US while up here it's far more secular) and strong gun control laws, yet both of these are rejected out of hand by most Americans, if they're even considered at all.
@Jeff Lewis - "I've run into people who think the fact that we have a Queen is so 'quaint' and that apparently, the Queen is just waiting to take over Canada and turn it back into a colony"
You might simply answer them by saying that Her Majesty the Queen is our head of state, so she's already "taken us over". Whatever it is she was planning on doing, I imagine she's probably already done it.
Ask your American acquaintances how many woman presidents they've had thus far. None they say? How quaint. When they've had women presidents for a long a proportion of their country's existence as we've had Queens in Canada, then they can talk about "quaint" social attitudes.
Don't forget that "The Queen" is often used to refer to Her Royal Highness of Great Britain and Northern Island.
Technically the head of state in Canada is the Queen of Canada.
Yes shes the same woman at the moment, but i don't think there isn't anything stopping it from being another woman. Much like the Queen of Australia, the Queen in Right of New Zealand, and all the other Commonwealth Realms.
I believe this kicked off when Empire stopped being fashionable.
I'm surprised it's like that out west. In the Buffalo-Niagara region, we didn't think twice about going to Canada for shopping, seeing the other side of the Falls or even going to a Chinese restaurant before they started requiring passports or special driver's licenses to cross the border. Those of us with them still don't.
The person that did not know Canada was only 12 miles away was a transplant from Texas. I am surprised he found his way to Washington State as Texans are generally ignorant of anything outside of Texas.
Geographic ignorance in the States is appallingly common. I have been in many parts of the country where people did not know where New Hampshire (my home) was.
My two American favorites after moving from Toronto to the Bay Area of California are:
1. " Of course California has a greater population than that of Canada - California is bigger than Canada ! "
2. " You have driven on every road in Canada - right ? "
Oh, but they are NOTHING compared to the comments made by US visitors to Canada.
I live in Victoria, 1.5 hour ferry ride from Washington State. We are, of course, used to Americans thinking it's OK to bring RVs full of guns up here - "I haven't broken any American laws" one would-be importer remarked - but overall, well...
In front of our parliament buildings is a statue with the legend "Captain George Vancouver, RN".
"Gee, I didn't know he was a registered nurse" one American was heard to observe.
You have to explain to them that, no, that can't use US stamps on their postcards home.
But my favourites are the ones who ask for directions to the bridge back to the mainland.
"There isn't one"
"Yes there is, we drove over it".
"No, that must have been the ferry"
And so it goes.
A nation with a collective IQ in single digits.
re 'the health care issue' the other year I was fuming on a women-only email group about the sheer idiocy and chutzpah of some cretinous US politician that was saying that the NHS in the UK showed that a socialist health system couldn't work (there had been numerous articles in the press about health-care related failings at the time), and he was stating that privatised healthcare was clearly superior.
Now, I was cross because the things that had been going wrong had been going wrong because of the privatisation of parts of the NHS - like cleaning services being contracted-out, instead of being handled by NHS employees, So that American politician had been saying that a socialist health-system can't work, as demonstrated by the failures of the privatised bits that were indeed serving the nation so poorly, and therefore full privavtisation is the way to go with healthcare.
Cue one of the other email group members from the USA, who immediately accused me of being a communist and completely failed to see the logical flaw in a US politician saying that because the semi-privatisation of the NHS was making it worse that therefore a socialist NHS couldn't possibly work well, and a fully privatised heathcare system must be the answer.
When I pointed out the poor performance of the US healthcare system compared to the UK one even given the NHS's current deficiencies, all I received was an incoherent blast of hysterical rhetoric in response. I had, formerly, respected the woman - but then we'd never discussed anything political outside feminism before. What IS it with some USAians that they can't discriminate between a socialist care system and communism?
Even the Conservatives in the UK that I've discussed the matter with have never claimed that a socialist NHS can't work - it so very evidently did work very well for decades, and continues to do pretty well despite continuous Conservative attacks. No, what the local right-wingers have tended to say is that they like the idea of a privatised healthcare system better simply because they don't want to in any way pay for someone else's healthcare needs. Now, THAT is fair enough - it's not a position I agree with, and I also feel it's ethically unsound, but at least they're honest about it.
The NDP in Alberta's provincial election benefited from a split in the right wing vote between the Conservatives and the Wild Rose parties. Unfortunately the opposite applies federally, with the centre and centre left vote split between the NDP and the Liberals. Unless something dramatic occurs during the campaign, like maybe enough younger people actually voting, expect another Harper win.
It depend if Quebec stay primarily orange (which from the pool it should), along with British Colombia and Ontario showing a rise for the NDP, there is some hope for the Conservative been kicked out of power.
But indeed I have no hope of anything else but Canadian Alliance... I mean Conservative, winning in Prairies.
Sounds like a UK or Irish Prime minister with a good majority too. Or indeed very many places not the USA.
The USA President is more like a Monarch that can be limited by parliament. Like a Monarch, the USA President isn't elected directly but selected really by those with power.
The USA President does though have some powers that UK or Irish Prime Ministers don't have.
And people are worried about laws that let the government declare anyone a terrorist just for protesting against an injustice shows that the people there have half a brain, and won't be led willingly down the path their political and corporate masters have planned.
Meanwhile in the US, voters are getting stupider all the time, as evidenced by the success Trump is having. The only saving grace for Trump's success is a bit of schadenfreude for Fox News for trying so successfully to dumb down the republican base with their fact free brand of news that they've finally reaped what they sowed.
Point of order: NO ONE has voted for the lunatic Trump and I doubt anyone ever will.
I believe his function is to corral the loony right under one banner so they can be transferred to the real Republican candidate's ticket at an appropriate time. That way they will vote for the right guy instead of sitting at home drinking and cleaning their guns.
I don't think for a minute the lunatic Trump is going to run. If - after the Republican primary is over and he is an Independant or nothing - by some belch in the Universe's laws of probablity he does run, he won't win.
> so they can be transferred to the real Republican candidate
They tried that with Ron Paul - didn't go so well for them. Ron's voting base couldn’t stomach the ordained stooge and went home. After Obama's performance the republican hope is that they are now the least worst choice even with a corporate / Israeli approved leader. But everyone can see the US is in trouble, Trump has outlined a number of problems and set expectations. These problems having been aired will not now magically disappear from the minds of voters, especially republican voters.
Exactly. I believe he has a shot at it especially if broadens his topical choices for ranting. Scary? I'm on the fence about this but giving thought to packing some bags for a run to the border. My more liberal friends are listening to him now and agreeing... that's scary. Seems they are abandoning Hillary, though I can't imagine why other than things like email.. secrets... putting up with Bill all these years.
If Trump's function was to "corral" voters to the proper choice down the road, he wouldn't be running down his opponents so much. He spends as much time criticizing other republican candidates as he does Hillary and Obama.
He speaks to the same angry white man who listened to Joe the Plumber a few years ago, who listen to guys like Rush, who watched Morton Downey Jr back in the day. The guys who think things are rigged against them being able to move up in the world like they believe they deserve. That a billionaire is voicing it for them is kind of surreal, but that's what he's tapping into with his screeds against immigration, against Mexico, against China. He pays lip service to stuff like complaining about Obamacare because those people have already been trained to hate it, but he doesn't really care and knows he's just singing with the choir there since all the republican candidates are against it.
He's taking extreme positions and finding support, and some of the republican candidates are being forced to echo his positions. Others like Bush are trying to honestly state their position rather than seeing how extreme they need to be to win the primary, but Bush has said he'd risk losing the primary to win the election. That may happen, and the republicans may be in a lot of trouble in a general election if they have a candidate who has taken up very extreme positions that the middle of the road voters who decide elections can't accept. Even if Trump isn't the eventual nominee, and I doubt he will be, he may cause them to lose the election.
Of course if he runs as an independent he certainly would cause them to lose the election; while he'll pull some from the democrat side he's obviously going to pull more from the republican side and would effectively hand the presidency to Hillary or possibly Sanders.
"He's taking extreme positions and finding support, and some of the republican candidates are being forced to echo his positions. Others like Bush are trying to honestly state their position rather than seeing how extreme they need to be to win the primary, but Bush has said he'd risk losing the primary to win the election. "
That's pretty similar to the situation in the Labour leadership election if you ask me. Of course some will say that Corbyn's policies are not extreme, but whatever.
".....Of course some will say that Corbyn's policies are not extreme...." I like Corbyn, at least he seems reasonably honest, even if I don't actually agree with just about any of his policies. The problem for Corbyn is his policies, whilst popular with the Left, will not appeal to the Center. Similarly, a lot of Trump's rantings may appeal to the extreme Right, but he will stand zero chance in an election when he has zero appeal to even the moderate Right, let alone the Center, and that's before you even get round to the fact he does not have Corbyn's honesty.
"I don't think for a minute the lunatic Trump is going to run. If - after the Republican primary is over and he is an Independant or nothing - by some belch in the Universe's laws of probablity he does run, he won't win."
Another astonishing prediction from Stevie the Prescient. Wrong in every single detail.
Stap moi.
PM Harper was described as a 'policy wonk' (expert). In fact, his government has lost nearly all of the challenges that have reached the Supreme Court. The scorecard is about 12 losses in 14 cases (roughly).
It's nice to see that Trevor Pott can write an article without the vile, bile and spittle that is often included in his comments. Hey, I mean that in a nice way. ;-)
Trevor is way over inflating how much the average Canadian cares about the election and the issues surrounding it. The reality is that barely 50 percent of eligible voters will even bother to show up at the polls. These "hotbeds" of political discussion Trevor makes reference to are likely nothing more than already disenchanted, semi-radical types who hate absolutely anything to do with Steven Harper and the conservatives. But he is right about one thing, the NDP look poised to form their first national government ever, largely at the expense of the Liberals. As long as they don't start spouting radical leftist nonsense and Mulcair keeps his “Angry Tom” persona under wraps, They stand a very good chance of winning.
P.S. I hate Bill C-51 as well.
" The reality is that barely 50 percent of eligible voters will even bother to show up at the polls"
You think that makes you different from the rest of developed world?
People who really want to vote often can't in any meaningful way and risk threats if they do.
Those who have the right regard it as a low priority as the choices they have are usually so poor as to not make it worth the walk to the voting office.
Either way it's the politicians who screw it up for all of us, whatever regime we live under, and it seems there is little that can de done to change regimes. Unless your name is Blair/Bush and you fancy a bit of illegal warmongering of course.
Sad isn't it.
Trevor is way over inflating how much the average Canadian cares about the election and the issues surrounding it
The only Canadians who matter are those who turn up to vote. They are generally the ones discussing the politics. As for the rest, quite literally, who cares? They are essentially "unpeople" as far as determining the fate of our nation is concerned. And they're unpeople by choice.
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