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New Canadian Politics Thread

Aberdeen said:
Winter elections aren't good for turnout
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Low turnout is a double edged sword though if this turns into a "change" election. People who want change are usually motivated, people who are cool with the status quo more likely to stay home.

My concern though is that a lot of Ontario doesn't really know Crombie yet and I'm not big on her as a speaker/personality. A Dougie minority is a win in my books.
 
blkngldbabe said:
Now people have to NOT sit on their hands and actually get out there and vote.
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Vote for who though? I have no idea what the other names even are, which I'd imagine is the same for most people. That does make it tough to get people out to vote. And everybody knows who Ford is.
 
axlsalinger said:
Vote for who though? I have no idea what the other names even are, which I'd imagine is the same for most people. That does make it tough to get people out to vote. And everybody knows who Ford is.
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I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter that they don’t know the names. All of the people who have wrung their hands and then sat by and watched the mess he’s made need to vote. If you’re a “never liberal” then go green or NDP. Just freaking vote. There’s less than a month to read up but if people want to know, they’ll learn.
 
MindzEye said:
Low turnout is a double edged sword though if this turns into a "change" election. People who want change are usually motivated, people who are cool with the status quo more likely to stay home.

My concern though is that a lot of Ontario doesn't really know Crombie yet and I'm not big on her as a speaker/personality. A Dougie minority is a win in my books.
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Winter elections are great if you want to make sure that old, white racists in the 905 and 519 stay home on election day, too afraid to brave the road conditions.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
How do the Cons not fit the bill?
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To actually explore this seriously, I think there's a good argument for the Conservatives in Canada not really having proven themselves as fascists in the way the Trump GOP has.

For the sake of argument, it's probably a good idea to give "fascist" a working definition here because it's a word that is kind of used interchangeably with "authoritarian" among other similar words when it has some specific requirements that aren't always technically met by authoritarian twats referred to as "fascist". I think there's quite a bit of risk in overusing the term because people who otherwise are infact authoritarian twats get to wriggle out of being technical fascists by highlighting the room between their beliefs and actual historic fascists from the 30's-40's.

I'm going to steal Meriam Webster's definition because I think it's the best of the lot I've read as it's ideologically specific enough without getting bogged down in specific historic context:

1738267559137.png


So...do Canadian Conservatives meet that specific defintion?

Populist? Yes
Exalts nation and race above the individual? I don't see it
Centralized autocratic government? I do believe there is evidence to suggest that's the goal
Severe economic and social regimentation? Severe is probably a strong word here, though PP's rhetoric definitely plays footsie with both concepts
Forcible suppression of opposition? Hard to know until it's in power. This will be pretty tough know in Canada until it's too late tbh because of the power given to the PMO.

With all of that said though, I think there's a pretty good argument that they're proto authoritarians at least by association, that share traits with a number of international movements who happen to be further down the road towards authoritarianism than they themselves are. Whether those other movements are further down the road only because of things outside the control of the CPC is up for debate though.

What's the argument? Well, the obvious is the proximity to authoritarian movements.

- The father of modern Canadian right wing politics, former PM Harper, is the chair of the "International Democracy Union"...which sounds about as positive an association as you could ask for, but is actually a group of "centre right and right wing political parties" from around the world.

The issue is that once you take a look under the hood, it's full of christian conservative fringe parties from all over the world and Harper has used it as a platform to build his buddy buddy relationship with Victor Orban.

- One of the worst kept secrets in Canadian politics is that the CPC has extensively utilized consultants from Trump GOP friendly PR firms. They've also brought in people like Chris Rufo (the "brain" behind Florida's anti LGBTQ laws) for public appearances, speeches, etc.

- Even if we ignored the overlap in behind the scenes messaging/PR consultants that the CPC leans on more and more, it's incredibly apparent in PP's rhetoric over the last few years. He's basically singing Trump's greatest hits, to borrow a description of it from the Walrus:

1738269785445.png


If your messaging is the same as an authoritarian who tried to overthrow the US government on Jan 6 and sure appears in the early stages of making it a reality after winning the 2024 election....well, what are you then? Quacks like a duck and all of that. I guess a counter argument could be made that it's politics and liars lie whatever lie they think they need to in attempts to win elections....but even that counter only leads to pretty fucking grim conclusions about what the modern CPC is.
 
I mean, they're not really, sure, especially to the same level the US is. Even if PP is sworn in, I think they'd probably end up mostly in their old playbooks of gutting environmental regulations and stuff along those lines. While Trump has shown that he basically moderated himself in the campaign, and once he's in office, his goal is to make the campaign look mild, PP I think wants to play up to get people excited, but isn't the pure evil like on the US side.

But that being said, he's going to get awfully buddy-buddy with a lot of people who do think that way, and a lot of people who aren't just doing the DEI/trans dance to get people excited, but who actually deep down believe that stuff. He'll owe them some stuff, and it won't be fun.

But the other part, is that despite being a career politician, we also don't actually know much about what PP believes in, other than Justinflation and that he doesn't like Carbon Tax Carney. His entire platform is basically "Liberals bad", so what he would actually do in power, nobody really knows. Maybe it won't really be a big deal - he'll do nothing on the environment, cut some taxes, and just kind of do nothing. But especially if he still gets his majority, maybe he'll perk up with real power, and actually do something.
 
MindzEye said:
To actually explore this seriously, I think there's a good argument for the Conservatives in Canada not really having proven themselves as fascists in the way the Trump GOP has.

For the sake of argument, it's probably a good idea to give "fascist" a working definition here because it's a word that is kind of used interchangeably with "authoritarian" among other similar words when it has some specific requirements that aren't always technically met by authoritarian twats referred to as "fascist". I think there's quite a bit of risk in overusing the term because people who otherwise are infact authoritarian twats get to wriggle out of being technical fascists by highlighting the room between their beliefs and actual historic fascists from the 30's-40's.

I'm going to steal Meriam Webster's definition because I think it's the best of the lot I've read as it's ideologically specific enough without getting bogged down in specific historic context:

View attachment 24060


So...do Canadian Conservatives meet that specific defintion?

Populist? Yes
Exalts nation and race above the individual? I don't see it
Centralized autocratic government? I do believe there is evidence to suggest that's the goal
Severe economic and social regimentation? Severe is probably a strong word here, though PP's rhetoric definitely plays footsie with both concepts
Forcible suppression of opposition? Hard to know until it's in power. This will be pretty tough know in Canada until it's too late tbh because of the power given to the PMO.

With all of that said though, I think there's a pretty good argument that they're proto authoritarians at least by association, that share traits with a number of international movements who happen to be further down the road towards authoritarianism than they themselves are. Whether those other movements are further down the road only because of things outside the control of the CPC is up for debate though.

What's the argument? Well, the obvious is the proximity to authoritarian movements.

- The father of modern Canadian right wing politics, former PM Harper, is the chair of the "International Democracy Union"...which sounds about as positive an association as you could ask for, but is actually a group of "centre right and right wing political parties" from around the world.

The issue is that once you take a look under the hood, it's full of christian conservative fringe parties from all over the world and Harper has used it as a platform to build his buddy buddy relationship with Victor Orban.

- One of the worst kept secrets in Canadian politics is that the CPC has extensively utilized consultants from Trump GOP friendly PR firms. They've also brought in people like Chris Rufo (the "brain" behind Florida's anti LGBTQ laws) for public appearances, speeches, etc.

- Even if we ignored the overlap in behind the scenes messaging/PR consultants that the CPC leans on more and more, it's incredibly apparent in PP's rhetoric over the last few years. He's basically singing Trump's greatest hits, to borrow a description of it from the Walrus:

View attachment 24061


If your messaging is the same as an authoritarian who tried to overthrow the US government on Jan 6 and sure appears in the early stages of making it a reality after winning the 2024 election....well, what are you then? Quacks like a duck and all of that. I guess a counter argument could be made that it's politics and liars lie whatever lie they think they need to in attempts to win elections....but even that counter only leads to pretty fucking grim conclusions about what the modern CPC is.
Click to expand...
Basically, from what your analysis tells us, the only thing preventing Poilievre's CPC from being a de facto fascist party is the necessary opportunity to get their hands on power. We only get to see if they're good or evil when it's too late to stop them because, as you point out, a parliamentary system allows for a lot more dictatorshippy things than a US style system does.

So if anything, Pee-Pee could easily catch up to where the US is headed if given the power to do so. That, to me, is reason enough not to want him anywhere near a majority in the next election and to label him and his party a gang of fascists. If they're not fascists right this minute, it's only because they've not been given the legal cover to go all the way. They're fascist wannabes and that's close enough to regard them as an existential threat to democracy.
 
UWHabs said:
I mean, they're not really, sure, especially to the same level the US is. Even if PP is sworn in, I think they'd probably end up mostly in their old playbooks of gutting environmental regulations and stuff along those lines. While Trump has shown that he basically moderated himself in the campaign, and once he's in office, his goal is to make the campaign look mild, PP I think wants to play up to get people excited, but isn't the pure evil like on the US side.

But that being said, he's going to get awfully buddy-buddy with a lot of people who do think that way, and a lot of people who aren't just doing the DEI/trans dance to get people excited, but who actually deep down believe that stuff. He'll owe them some stuff, and it won't be fun.

But the other part, is that despite being a career politician, we also don't actually know much about what PP believes in, other than Justinflation and that he doesn't like Carbon Tax Carney. His entire platform is basically "Liberals bad", so what he would actually do in power, nobody really knows. Maybe it won't really be a big deal - he'll do nothing on the environment, cut some taxes, and just kind of do nothing. But especially if he still gets his majority, maybe he'll perk up with real power, and actually do something.
Click to expand...
Pee-Pee is the worst kind of person: the wannabe. His entire life has been consumed by his lust for political power. It's literally the only thing he has ever pursued in his entire life. And even now we can see, by the way he runs that party with an iron fist, the lockstep messaging he enforces, the contempt he can't hide for those who disagree with him and even those he SUSPECTS disagree with him, like the media, that he is a small, petty little would-be tyrant.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
Pee-Pee is the worst kind of person: the wannabe. His entire life has been consumed by his lust for political power. It's literally the only thing he has ever pursued in his entire life. And even now we can see, by the way he runs that party with an iron fist, the lockstep messaging he enforces, the contempt he can't hide for those who disagree with him and even those he SUSPECTS disagree with him, like the media, that he is a small, petty little would-be tyrant.
Click to expand...


Well I don't know anything about all that. Most likely true though.

I simply do not like or trust the prick and that's good enough for me.
 
MindzEye said:
To actually explore this seriously, I think there's a good argument for the Conservatives in Canada not really having proven themselves as fascists in the way the Trump GOP has.

For the sake of argument, it's probably a good idea to give "fascist" a working definition here because it's a word that is kind of used interchangeably with "authoritarian" among other similar words when it has some specific requirements that aren't always technically met by authoritarian twats referred to as "fascist". I think there's quite a bit of risk in overusing the term because people who otherwise are infact authoritarian twats get to wriggle out of being technical fascists by highlighting the room between their beliefs and actual historic fascists from the 30's-40's.

I'm going to steal Meriam Webster's definition because I think it's the best of the lot I've read as it's ideologically specific enough without getting bogged down in specific historic context:

View attachment 24060


So...do Canadian Conservatives meet that specific defintion?

Populist? Yes
Exalts nation and race above the individual? I don't see it
Centralized autocratic government? I do believe there is evidence to suggest that's the goal
Severe economic and social regimentation? Severe is probably a strong word here, though PP's rhetoric definitely plays footsie with both concepts
Forcible suppression of opposition? Hard to know until it's in power. This will be pretty tough know in Canada until it's too late tbh because of the power given to the PMO.

With all of that said though, I think there's a pretty good argument that they're proto authoritarians at least by association, that share traits with a number of international movements who happen to be further down the road towards authoritarianism than they themselves are. Whether those other movements are further down the road only because of things outside the control of the CPC is up for debate though.

What's the argument? Well, the obvious is the proximity to authoritarian movements.

- The father of modern Canadian right wing politics, former PM Harper, is the chair of the "International Democracy Union"...which sounds about as positive an association as you could ask for, but is actually a group of "centre right and right wing political parties" from around the world.

The issue is that once you take a look under the hood, it's full of christian conservative fringe parties from all over the world and Harper has used it as a platform to build his buddy buddy relationship with Victor Orban.

- One of the worst kept secrets in Canadian politics is that the CPC has extensively utilized consultants from Trump GOP friendly PR firms. They've also brought in people like Chris Rufo (the "brain" behind Florida's anti LGBTQ laws) for public appearances, speeches, etc.

- Even if we ignored the overlap in behind the scenes messaging/PR consultants that the CPC leans on more and more, it's incredibly apparent in PP's rhetoric over the last few years. He's basically singing Trump's greatest hits, to borrow a description of it from the Walrus:

View attachment 24061


If your messaging is the same as an authoritarian who tried to overthrow the US government on Jan 6 and sure appears in the early stages of making it a reality after winning the 2024 election....well, what are you then? Quacks like a duck and all of that. I guess a counter argument could be made that it's politics and liars lie whatever lie they think they need to in attempts to win elections....but even that counter only leads to pretty fucking grim conclusions about what the modern CPC is.
Click to expand...
Count will never read your post from beginning to end, of course, and will likely try to critique it with a one sentence dismissal, but to me this is a perfectly reasoned synopsis of why Poilievre cannot be trusted with power.
 
So the latest brainwave from Premier Quisling out in Alberta is that we should invite the Americans to establish a military base in Northern Canada.

That’d be quite a response to the country whose head of state is currently wiping his ass with the trade deal he signed with us, and is threatening a trade war and annexation. Roll over, show your belly and invite them right in.
 
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