ButterflyEffect

Conservative leadership election is this weekend. The only real unknown about this right now is whether or not Pierre Poilievre will win on the first or second ballot. I suspect he will be a first ballot winner. I have to say it's quite remarkable that the supposed moderate option of Jean Charest is so unpopular that many moderate/red tories have just decided to support Poilievre despite the numerous questionable things he's said and done. I don't think Poilievre will get much traction with the general electorate, outside of traditional CPC voters as well as siphoning off a large portion of 2021 PPC voters. However, with Justin Trudeau indicating that he will take the Liberals into the next election, which is probably still 2 years away, you have to wonder if voter fatigue for Trudeau and the Liberals could play in Poilievre's favor. Every government and Prime Minister has an expiry date...

Happy (late) Canada Day all. While our country might not be perfect, it's certainly worth celebrating

I'm just waiting them to take away voting rights for women. It seems like the pecking order in the USA goes as follows: Men > (or equal to) guns >>>>> Women

There's something happening well beyond that, because your polling agencies are sampling large enough populations to drown out the shy conservatives with ones willing to be honest respondents. I know for 2016 polling that demographic re-weightings of responses were way off, and most agencies tried to fix that by 2020, but there were still wide margins of errors in some of the most critical states. The only difference between 2016 and 2020 was that polling agencies correctly guessed who would win those states in 2020, but the error was still too large. I guess they were less wrong than in 2016, but being bad & right isn't much better than being bad & wrong. Anyway I don't want to derail your thread about something like polling. There's a lot more important things happening in your country than polls being wrong in the rust belt.

There is something fundamentally flawed with American polling that I still can't figure out. Compared to Canadian federal polling, which is damn near perfect. My guess is that the disenfranchised left-leaning young adults stay at home, or spoil their ballot. Third party is always a good protest vote....what's Jill Stein up to these days?

Interesting day in American politics. Honestly a lot of what I've seen from young, left-leaning Americans is an overwhelming feeling of disgust. Basically an overall feeling of "we never really liked the Democratic party, but we were told to vote for them to stop stuff like this from happening. So we did and it changed nothing". Not sure what these people vote for in 2024, but it's clear that the Democrats can't lure them in on promises to stop the Republican party agenda from moving forward, so is there really any reason to vote for them at all? Anyway, may as well target same-sex marriage next, keep the train going until you've finally reached the 1950s again.

Who do you think the GOP is going to throw out there for the next election? I'm obviously no fan of Trump, but you've got to think that the White House is up for grabs right now. Is the GOP going to send someone out there who can actually challenge the Democrats?

I haven't been paying much attention to the Ontario election, though it looks like Doug Ford's majority is safe. Who the opposition will be though is another question. I did see a riding poll today that had the Greens ahead in Parry Sound - Muskoka. That would certainly be an upset, though riding-specific polling does come with a much higher margin of error.

Been away from IDF for a while, so haven't really had much of a chance to ask about now old news: how are we feeling about the Liberal-NDP coalition? This is exactly how our electoral system is supposed to work. And I think it's the path that leads us directly to a Conservative government when the next election happens.

Should it have been needed then it could have been useful to the government and police. But as expected there was really only one thing prolonging the occupation, and that was just the police being horribly inefficient. And by inefficient I mean not even trying to perform their duties. I'm not going to get up in arms about the Emergencies Act like hyper partisans have decided to do. Maybe had the military been the ones coming in and shutting it down I'd feel more strongly. Oh pal, this is a question Canadians have been asking forever. There have been many calls to abolish the Senate over the years. Conservatives are more keen to keep the Senate than any other political affiliation, though there is no real benefit to any political party since the majority of the senate sits as "independents". The Senate reviews bills and passes them. Occasionally they'll find something they don't like, reject it, and send it back to the house for revision, but it's rare for something to be rejected by the senate more than once. This is a process which should, in theory, happen inside the House of Commons with MPs. I guess it does provide some oversight when relating to majority governments, but the Senate will usually try and not rock the boat too much. In a way the Senate can often be lumped into the "ceremonial" aspect of our government, much like in the same way the Queen of England is the head of state, who's role is then delegated to the Governor General, who itself will not interfere in the democratic process of the House.

And for my feelings on the Emergencies Act.....I'm neutral on its implementation. However, it really didn't help end the stupid occupation of Ottawa. All that really changed was the police doing their f*cking job. The EA wasn't needed for that lol.

The senate in Canada is a glorified retirement gig. Work hard when you're younger and maybe you'll be lucky enough to be appointed to the Senate where you can receive a massive salary to more or less sign some papers.

I'm glad the vaccine experts have now become experts on Canadian federal policy. I feel like I needed some Republicans to tell me how I should feel. Still waiting on those empty grocery store shelves....

Boy, the propaganda machine has its claws deep into this thread. Full grocery shelves here too, turns out the few truckers who would rather protest than actually work don't control the entire countries supply chain. For every trucker who would rather go be a Karen in Ottawa there are several who will happily do their job. ANYWAY, looks like the government should be releasing its full election report within the coming weeks. Preliminary results have already been given to those who map them. It's certainly very niche, but I like finding out how my neighbourhood votes. Last election it leaned heavy to the NDP. I think this time it'll have swung Liberal. And my hometown I assume has probably continued its trend towards being a Conservative blowout.

Tough break too. The Conservatives have finally found a way to make significant inroads in rural NL, they shouldn't try and rock the boat too much here. Hold a steady course and they could win as many as 3 seats here in the next election. They'll probably find a way to alienate everyone east of Manitoba though.

They did mention the new MPs at one point. I wonder how they're feeling right now. If this is their first introduction to federal politics I wonder how many of them want to run to the hills and hide

https://www.tvo.org/article/anything-to-end-the-insanity-a-tory-insider-on-otooles-ouster An incredibly good read: an interview between Matt Gurney and an unnamed member of O'Toole's political inner circle. Gives a lot of insight into the rift in the CPC, what caused O'Toole's demise, how it unfolded, and what's to come next.

Lewis would be more likeable to female voters, that's for sure. I can't see Poilievre's angry, yelling male persona resonating with them at all. Western male conservatives will love him though. Me? Not so much. I know whatever the CPC rolls out as their next leader will likely not be anything I'm interested in, but I'd love to be wrong about that. If the pivot towards the centre line didn't work for them they're definitely not going to try again.

The Commanders isn't a great name, but they could have done worse I guess. But those uniforms.....sweet god what have they done. Three different uniforms, all with completely different designs. No cohesion or anything. Different fonts for all, even what's displayed on the chest is different for each one (Commanders for the home, Washington for the away, and nothing for that god awful black alt). And the logo......someone literally typed W into MS Word using some font they probably stole from the internet and called it a day. I would expect nothing more from Dan Snyder. This wreaks heavily of not wanting to change the team name at all, and basically phoning it in.

Candice Bergen, MP for Portage - Lisgar will be the interim CPC leader. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/otoole-leadership-vote-1.6336336 I think it's a shame that interim leaders are unable to run for permanent leadership once the time comes. I really liked Rona Ambrose who stepped in after Stephen Harper resigned in 2015. I was hoping to see her name pop up in the last leadership election, but she seems content to stay out of politics, at least for now. EDIT: lol, post that and then jump over to twitter and see this immediately. https://twitter.com/EvanLSolomon/status/1488984966482567171

I too voted for O'Toole's vision for the CPC, after years of voting for Jack Harris and the NDP here in my riding. Unfortunately as soon as election night was over you could feel it was the beginning of the end for him. It's unfair, and I believe we pointed out shortly after the election that he was one of the few leaders who should stick around as party leader. But you could really feel that divide forming. Ultimately the party will be ruled by the people west of Ontario, and it's likely going to be a "get in line or get out" ultimatum by them. I don't have anything positive to say about Stephen Harper, but he sure was good at keeping everyone in the party unified. Now that the CPC aren't even close to winning elections anymore, despite having one of the weakest and most beatable Prime Ministers in office, the divide in the party is more evident than ever.

Aaaaanyway, The Conservative party has ousted Erin O'Toole as their leader after only 1.5 years and one election. Whether or not this is a mistake remains to be seen, though I imagine the more right-wing MPs, who greatly outnumber the red tories, controlled this vote. I appreciate O'Toole's attempts to modernize the party, but the hardcore right-wing Reform Party members would rather the party stay to its 90s roots. Would have liked to see O'Toole have another election cycle considering he didn't do any worse than Andrew Scheer, but I guess his time is up. You really can't help but feel that had the Conservatives elected Peter MacKay as their leader that things would be very different today. Most obvious next leader would be Pierre Poilievre, who has felt like he's been campaigning for the position for the last year or so. Hardcore Conservatives will love him. I doubt he will do any better than O'Toole or Scheer where the Conservatives need to break through to win an election (suburban Toronto). Possibly a bold prediction, but either Poilievre wins the next election, or this is the death of the current Conservative Party of Canada. I really don't think there's middle ground anymore.

Simply put, I have no desire to recognize or discuss something like this:

I think you have other things to worry about

Two straight minorities in a row, including one where he made essentially no ground? Trudeau will survive short term but if the Liberal party has any intentions of improving their fortunes in the next election he won't be the Prime Minister. I agree with RWG that O'Toole may be the only leader (sans Bloc) who has made their case for staying on as leader. Even still, I imagine the right-wing of the Conservative party aren't happy of both his shift to the centre line and its failure to result in government. Depending on how angry the Western right is, he could be tossed to the curb for someone less centrist.