I voted Liberal last time, but a part of me is hoping they lose this time. I'm supporting the NDP.
I think the Liberals will probably keep their majority, but who the hell knows.
If they do keep their majority, it won't be as big as last time. If they win, it wouldn't surprise me if it's a minority. It's usually the minority Liberal governments that get stuff done, since the NDP are able to make deals to get sensible legislation passed in exchange for supporting the budget and other crucial bills.
I didn't vote in the last one due to "Heave Steve" and the fact that all the parties seemed to be treating their platforms as a carousel instead of something set in stone and campaigned for.
Steve needed to be heaved, while we still could. A significant part of the UnFair Elections Act was intended to make it much more difficult for people like you and me to vote (along with students, seniors, homeless - yes, they're allowed to vote as long as they're citizens and have a way to provide an address - and indigenous voters).
I've mentioned Tony Turner before. He was the federal scientist studying bird migration, who was suspended from his job for writing and performing "Harperman" - a protest song critical of Stephen Harper. His Charter-guaranteed freedom of expression was stomped on, even though he wrote and performed the song on his own time, in a location that wasn't on government property, with people who didn't work for the government, using equipment not owned by any government department. I suppose his superiors might have been a little peeved that some of the people in his video were members of the Raging Grannies, but they're not government employees.
Anyone remember the piles of books, magazines, and reports - decades of information gathered about environmental studies - that were destroyed because the contents were "digitized" and would be safe? Anyone who really believes that information was saved is welcome to purchase the oceanfront property outside my living room window.
These, and many other things that happened during the Dark Decade, were sufficient reason to "Heave Steve".
I've been... apathetic about Trudeau's government. He broke promises. But he hasn't been disastrous like Harper. He's shady with internal party politics, but doesn't seem to be particularly, unusually amiss with the other aspects of governance. For now, anyways.
There are two things about Trudeau's time as PM that make me furious. The first is his egregiously-broken promise to do away with FPTP. He
promised, unequivocally, that 2015 would be the last election in which we would have that system, that electoral reform was coming that would make Parliament more closely resemble the number of votes cast for each party, rather than the number of seats won. In all my years of being a voter, not once has my choice of candidate ever won in a federal election.
The second is the MAiD legislation (Medical Assistance in Dying). Jody Wilson-Raybould should be ashamed of herself for so blatantly ignoring the Supreme Court's decision that this legislation must include the ability to make advance arrangements for people who are in the early stages of what they know is going to be an incurable condition/terminal illness that will cause unbearable pain, loss of dignity, and no quality of life. The way the legislation works at present, anyone who is diagnosed with Alzheimers or other terminal diseases that will cause cognitive impairments and/or physical conditions that prevent being able to write is basically screwed, because of the requirement that they be able to communicate verbally or in writing, when they want to finalize their decision. By the time that "death is reasonably foreseeable", the patient is no longer of sound mind. Yet, JWR thinks that's "fair."
Scheer is just garbage. Through and through. Bernier twice so.
Agreed. Scheer's take on candidates with reprehensible bigoted/racist/hate speech social media posts is that "they're acceptable candidates as long as they apologize for what they said." Of course he holds other parties to different standards. Someone pointed out today in the CBC comment section that Scheer would have to take this stance, otherwise he would have to turf himself as a candidate over his publicly-stated views on same-sex marriage and his anti-LGBT opinions.
The Greens are weird. They have the widest range of personalities in politics here, in my opinion. Some of them are reasonable, others are plain crazy. The party released a UBI platform point that somehow ended up making the concept seem terrible, which is not super great for the rest of us who want a good UBI. They also sometimes have... opinions... on environmentalism that don't parse.
Elizabeth May needs to do a better job of vetting candidates. It's not enough to just look at their views regarding environmental issues. One of her former potential candidates included a Holocaust denier, who made a disgusting hate speech-filled video on YT. Thankfully that individual was eventually kicked out of the party, but there have been other mistakes.
On the positive, though, if you write a letter to all the party leaders, May is the only one who will respond in a timely, on-topic way that actually addresses the issue, states the party position on that issue, says what she's done to address it in the House, and what she plans to do in the future.
From the other parties... Reformacons = crickets. Liberals = "Give us money." NDP, under Mulcair, = "we received your email" first in French and then in English; under Singh, more crickets.
Admittedly, I haven't read May's platform yet. I'll need to do that before making up my mind about voting. The choices aren't great this time around.
I really wish I could like the NDP. But they always seem more concerned with covering the beliefs that aren't covered by the CPC and Liberals. Whenever I think about the NDP, I think "whatever the other two parties aren't." And that is not helpful. I also don't like it. It makes it feel like their beliefs are for sale. Perhaps this is no different from the other parties, but the NDP seems a little too transparent about it.
They didn't used to be this way. I'm old enough to remember when they were better about identifying their principles and sticking to them. So far all I know about Jagmeet Singh's principles is that he thought he needed to splash his wedding all over the place, rather than work on getting a seat in the House, and I don't recall that he's ever really gotten specific on where he stands regarding the Air India issue. There are a fair number of people on the CBC comment boards wishing they had Mulcair back as leader.
It's really unfortunate, because BC's NDP-Green coalition has been amazing. I wish their federal counterparts were just as put-together and reasonable.
Sometimes things work out. You'd never find that sort of coalition in Alberta. Instead we get one of Harper's chief lapdogs, making a mess of our province, and my own MLA helping him do it (she's the Minister of Education).
So if I vote this time, I guess... Liberal? I mean, I know I can reject the ballot, but I don't really want to contribute to the CPC potentially wrangling a win out of rural Canada.
This is yet another hold-your-nose-and-vote election. Of course it won't matter in my riding. A chunk of Maddy's used cat litter could run under the CPC banner and win, in almost any Alberta riding.
I don't remember who I voted for last time, but I don't think I'll vote for the Liberals. Trudeau should have stepped down after the ethics breach.
He might have been under more pressure for that, if it hadn't already been so close to an election. I don't like to think about what would have happened if they'd had to go into this election without a leader. It's an uncertain situation, and without time for a proper leadership convention, they'd be apt to pick someone they might not otherwise have wanted.
It would be a reminder of the election of 1980 (Joe Clark's Conservatives won the election of 1979, Pierre Trudeau stepped down, but before the Liberals could hold a convention to choose a new leader, Clark's government fell in a non-confidence vote when the budget failed to pass; Trudeau came back to lead the party and the Liberals won).
It would also be a possible rerun of the election of 1993, when the Mulroney Conservatives fell from a whopping majority to just
two seats; they'd held a leadership convention a few months before, after Mulroney scuttled off like a rat leaving a sinking ship, and Kim Campbell was the new leader - and our first and so far only female Prime Minister. Kim Campbell never had a chance to show what kind of PM she would have made. The government's mandate was up, and she
had to call an election. By that time, the country was so fed up with the Conservatives that she could have walked on water and still lost the election. It wouldn't have mattered who the leader was; they were Mulroney's scapegoat, who would take the blame for losing the election.
The country doesn't need either of these scenarios to happen again. Whatever I might think of a party's leader, when it's election time they should go to the polls actually
having a leader.
Don't you have a Labour/SocDem option at all in Canada?
As others have said, that role is filled by the NDP, or at least that's how it was a few decades ago. With the repeated fracturing and rebranding of the right-wing parties and the rise of the Green Party, the traditional lines of the older parties have become more blurred in the last 25 years or so.
Looks like I might not vote in this election anyways. Just tried to apply for a mailed ballot and since I'm not traveling outside of my riding, I have to go to the riding office to apply. But... I'm applying because I can't go to the riding office, so... sucks to be me, I guess?
No idea why they make you jump through hoops to vote. The provincial election here was so simple and easy to participate in.
Elections Canada Returning Officers ask a lot of questions that are really none of their business. How do you know, today, if you actually will be in your riding on voting day? How do you know if you're going to feel well enough? With some people, they've assumed they would, but circumstances happened to take them out of town - and they lost their chance to vote. I used to vote at the advance polls if it was more convenient, and they'd ask me if I would be out of town on voting day. Apparently it's a crime to them if you say no, so I learned to just say 'yes' and get it over with.
You've got some mobility issues, as I recall, so you're eligible for an in-home special ballot, where the EC workers come to you. They bring all the necessary paperwork (ballot, envelopes, ballot box, and you have to provide ID as you would normally have to anyway; since they take photos of it, don't use anything financially sensitive or that could be used to facilitate identity theft such as bank cards/documents or your SIN card). Yes, there are hoops for that, too, and I'm not looking forward to them. I nearly didn't get to vote last time because that <censored> Returning Officer decided that sending someone to my place was optional (her option), even though I met all the qualifications necessary. Thank goodness I had someone to advocate for me - who actually could go to the Returning Office (which wasn't even in Red Deer, so I couldn't have gotten there anyway) and talk to them on my behalf.
I had a chat with one of the CBC reporters a few days ago. He's the one who put together the "Voter's Guide" article a few days ago, and when I saw that there was nothing in there pertaining to in-home ballots for the disabled, senior, or shut-in people (ie. people with mental health or other health considerations that would preclude them being able to go to a polling station), I emailed him to ask him to address these things in a future article.
Next thing I know, I got an email back, asking if I'd do a phone interview with him. So I did, and am now waiting to find out if he's going to use anything I said. He emailed yesterday and asked for a photo to use, but since I never post my personal photos online, I told him sorry, but I wouldn't be able to do that. I haven't heard back, so that might have been a dealbreaker. Hopefully not, though, since this whole rigamarole we have to go through is effectively disenfranchising the non-able-bodied electors of this country. As I told the reporter, there are many people who think they're not allowed to vote unless they do it at the polling station; even the candidate I voted for last time was unaware that in-home special ballots were an option.
You have the right to vote, and Elections Canada has the obligation to help you find a way to do it. If you have a candidate in mind, it can't hurt to phone them, explain your situation, and ask for help. At the very least, they might give you a ride to the Returning Office so you can apply for a mail-in ballot if that's the method you prefer.
What I dont get is why those are even issues anymore. I thought Canada was far past it.
It depends on what region of the country you're in, or at least that's my perception. There are still people here in Alberta complaining that our premier didn't try to invoke the notwithstanding clause to make same-sex marriage illegal in Alberta.
Cant vote, but my wife's canvassing for the Liberals on weekends.
Not sure if I can volunteer because Permanent Resident, but even if I can, interpersonal interactions with strings of strangers is about the worst thing I can do to myself.
Admittedly I'm not up on the rules regarding citizenship and volunteers, but I think I've heard about some of the refugees helping out in campaigns. I don't think it's prohibited, but it doesn't hurt to ask. And there would be plenty of things to do that don't require a lot of contact with strangers. Campaign offices don't run themselves, and there would likely be clerical and "gofer" tasks that need people to do.
Were both far to the left of the Liberals, but I have never been fond of the NDP as anything more than a balance of power in a coalition. Our support mostly pragmatic, but we also both just really respect our local MP as a person.
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My overly simplistic of the parties would be something like:
Conservatives: we wanna be like America circa 2013.
Liberals: we take seriously the best things America aspires to but we actually do them.
NDP: We wanna be to the tugboat pushing the liberals left, but oh my god please don't give us a majority.
Bloc Quebecois: We want to make sure the interests of Quebec are not forgotten by an Anglophone majority.
Green: We want to address climate in a pragmatic way, using ideas and principles from the left and the right to achieve this goal.
There are some who think of Jack Layton as the best Prime Minister we never had. The NDP would be so much farther ahead if Layton hadn't died. It's unfortunate that the sentiments he expressed in his Last Letter have mostly been forgotten.
- 2 quick Canadian elections 101:-
They did a really poor job educating the public about it.
