CanPol Megathread: Big Changus

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Pinterest Mom: Jun 9, 2009

DariusLikewise posted:

I feel like this is the reason why StatsCan suddenly declared child poverty is at it's lowest ever and Trudeau told everyone today that Canada is going to the moon

I don't think statscan issuing its annual release of the Canadian income survey is part of a conspiracy.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 19:47

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# ? May 29, 2024 01:46

Arc Hammer: Mar 4, 2013; Got any deathsticks?

Nobody is going to touch PR for years now because of the stain on the Libs broken promise. PR will only make a comeback on the federal level when a party lays out exactly how they will implement the changeover as part of their election promises. The Liberals won't do it, the cons will laugh at the idea, and the NDP are too scattershot and vague to come up with any concrete plan to implement PR even if they wanted to.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 19:51

RealityWarCriminal: Aug 10, 2016

I think the ndp would still push for PR but they'll never sniff governance so the point is moot.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 19:53

Baronjutter: Dec 31, 2007; "Tiny Trains"

I love how BC keeps voting worse and worse every PR referendum. We do not deserve nice things.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:00

Maneck: Sep 11, 2011

Arcsquad12 posted:

Nobody is going to touch PR for years now because of the stain on the Libs broken promise.

Also relevant: it's unpopular and keeps getting rejected by the voting public.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:00

hot cocoa on the couch: Dec 8, 2009

hot cocoa on the couch posted:

Lmao they'll probably be like "if you vote us in again we double dog pinky swear to put in PR"

PittTheElder posted:

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2019/02/liberals-suddenly-decide-proportional-representation-might-be-a-good-idea-after-all/

I was responding to this, in which they reportedly are talking about PR again

E: whoops! I�m a dumbass and that site is satire!

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:04

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

hot cocoa on the couch posted:

I was responding to this, in which they reportedly are talking about PR again

That's a satire website.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:05

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

Baronjutter posted:

I love how BC keeps voting worse and worse every PR referendum. We do not deserve nice things.

it only did so well in 2005 because Glen Clark winning a majority while losing the popular vote was still fresh in Liberal supporters' minds

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:08

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

PR keeps being unpopular because it's sold in a very lovely way. The concept of having fringe beliefs represented in parliament is an inherently unpleasant one to most people, so trying to sell PR on that basis is doomed to failure. The explanation that finally changed my mind is "these wackos, by and large, already exist within the major parties; PR would force the deal-making to be done openly and with reasonable transparency instead of internal to the parties.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:08

BGrifter: Mar 16, 2007; Winner of Something Awful PS5 thread's Posting Excellence Award June 2022

Congratulations!

To be fair they do a magnificent job of staying close enough to believable that someone could fall for their articles.

The Beaverton on Singh's election posted:

�We were out there everyday working hard to sabotage his campaign,� said one disappointed NDP insider who worked on Singh�s campaign. �We had [former NDP Leader] Thomas Mulcair accuse him of international war crimes on national television, handed out Jehovah Witness material instead of campaign flyers, and spread a rumour that he wants to build nuclear weapons to blast baby whales out of the Strait of Georgia and force vegans to eat their radio-active carcasses.��

�No matter how hard we tried to backstab him to save our chances in Quebec, nothing seemed to connect,� said a woman wearing �Elect Jagmeet Singh� t-shirt. �I even tried to kick him down the stairs forgetting he has an excellent balance thanks to his jiu jitsu training.�

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:09

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

PT6A posted:

PR keeps being unpopular because it's sold in a very lovely way. The concept of having fringe beliefs represented in parliament is an inherently unpleasant one to most people, so trying to sell PR on that basis is doomed to failure. The explanation that finally changed my mind is "these wackos, by and large, already exist within the major parties; PR would force the deal-making to be done openly and with reasonable transparency instead of internal to the parties.

Nobody tries to sell PR on the basis of representing fringe parties, they sell it by pointing out the absurd results we keep getting election after election in FPTP, like the 2017 BC election where the Greens took 17% of the vote but 3% of the seats.

The "but fringe wackos will be represented in Parliament!" line is what PR's opponents use to demonize it. And, as you say, it's actually a terrible attack if you think about it for more than two seconds and realize just how many examples we have of the fringe wackos taking over a big tent party and the rest of the big tent holding their nose and electing a lunatic to be the leader of a country or province.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:11

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Helsing posted:

If they had some really popular accomplishments to fall back on this wouldn't be nearly so bad for them. But they broke their promise on election reform, I don't think they've won very much praise from the way they've rolled out marijuana legalization, their NAFTA negotiations were underwhelming at best and they've managed to piss off both sides of the pipeline debate.

I agree with all of this but the NAFTA negotiations could�ve gone far worse, and if those steel and aluminum tariffs get lifted it would definitely shore up a lot of support in SW Ontario.

I�m sure the Liberals will find more new and exciting ways to commit unforced errors before October though.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:13

DariusLikewise: Oct 4, 2008; You wore that on Halloween?

Pinterest Mom posted:

I don't think statscan issuing its annual release of the Canadian income survey is part of a conspiracy.

StatsCan specifically wrote an analysis that said the CCB is lifting children out of poverty, that was released on Feb 26th and hit the news cycle the same day.

Edit: I'm not saying it's a broad conspiracy, but now would be the time for the Liberals to start pounding their chests about any accomplishments they have because if they don't the only thing that's going to be on peoples mind is that they did a bad and sneaky thing

DariusLikewise fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Feb 28, 2019

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:15

TheKingofSprings: Oct 9, 2012

PT6A posted:

PR keeps being unpopular because it's sold in a very lovely way. The concept of having fringe beliefs represented in parliament is an inherently unpleasant one to most people, so trying to sell PR on that basis is doomed to failure. The explanation that finally changed my mind is "these wackos, by and large, already exist within the major parties; PR would force the deal-making to be done openly and with reasonable transparency instead of internal to the parties.

It's also far preferable to, god forbid, the wackos to be actively catered to as the US is going through right now.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:16

Legit Businessman: Sep 2, 2007

Legit Businessman fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Sep 9, 2022

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:18

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

the loving state of liberals in 2019. smdh

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:20

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

For example, if I were trying to sell people on a pure PR system using the results of the 2015 federal election, I might do it like this:

Liberals: 6,943,276 votes, 184 seats
Cons: 5,613,614 votes, 99 seats
NDP: 3,470,350 votes, 44 seats
Bloc: 821,144 votes, 10 seats
Greens: 602,944 votes, 1 seat

Liberals: 1 seat per 37,375 votes
Cons: 1 seat per 56,703 votes
NDP: 1 seat per 78,872 votes
Bloc: 1 seat per 82,114 votes
Greens: 1 seat per 602,944 votes

Anyone who looks at those numbers and thinks that's in any way a remotely fair electoral system that treats every vote equally is delusional.

Also most of the country hates the Liberal Party these days so pointing out just how over-represented they were in the last election might help anyway.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:28

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Or, in other words, if you voted conservative your vote was worth about 2/3 of a Liberal vote. If you voted NDP, your vote was worth about half a Liberal vote. If you voted for the Bloc, your vote was worth less than half a Liberal vote. And if you were unfortunate enough to vote for the Greens, your vote was worth about 6% of a Liberal vote. So on a national scale, if you and 16 of your friends all joined forces and voted for the Greens, you got cancelled out by one person voting Liberal.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:35

cowofwar: Jul 30, 2002; by Athanatos

Maneck posted:

Also relevant: it's unpopular and keeps getting rejected by the voting public.

It�s unpopular when put to a referendum but referendums always sway status quo because they are low turn-out and so voters are predominantly fearful old people.

Also PR is too complex for the average low info voters. We elect representatives whose role is to figure these complex things out in detail for us; dumping a complicated series of choices on a complicated matter to the public in a referendum is retarded. A person will always reflexively vote status quo when overwhelmed.

Also NDP wont push PR because they are a temporarily embarrassed majority party. Just like the Liberals, they don�t want a system that might dilute their power if they win; so they are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face.

cowofwar fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Feb 28, 2019

# ? Feb 28, 2019 20:46

Pinterest Mom: Jun 9, 2009

https://twitter.com/ty_olsen/status/1101174635171737600

# ? Feb 28, 2019 21:09

Laminar: Dec 11, 2006

Just wanted to post my hot take about SNC. They tried to hire me several years ago and I didn't go because ethically they are a mess. I'm a consultant but I'm only partially a monster.

As for the posters above saying "everyone asks for bribes", yes that is true in certain countries, but it is still illegal. I've said no and lost work dozens of times. Also for those that were talking about the charge code for bribes it was "PCC" for project consultancy costs. I ironically use it as a charge code in my projects because I find it funny and most people don't know what it is.

As for it SNC "only being corrupt at the top" this is entirely not true and the industry knows it. While a specific individual working for SNC might not be the one accepting bribes, the whole industry knows SNC does it and it has a culture of it. So while a few people at the top got caught, I don't buy for a minute far more didn't know. Financial controls are too tight for that.

SNC needs to be banned for 10 years not to punish SNC, but to be an abject lesson to all the corporations that will do anything to get more profit. We need to show that there is significant financial downside to offering bribes. If they get a DPA they will still have made money off this entire fiasco, and the lesson being taught to everyone is "if you are big enough it doesn't matter".

# ? Feb 28, 2019 21:13

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

https://twitter.com/j_mcelroy/status/1101200798837424128
https://twitter.com/Wilkinson4BC/status/1101200534189404160

lmao

# ? Feb 28, 2019 21:14

Laminar: Dec 11, 2006

Pinterest Mom posted:

https://twitter.com/ty_olsen/status/1101174635171737600

Racist, sexists? Why not both!

# ? Feb 28, 2019 21:18

PhilippAchtel: May 31, 2011

Summing up what many have already posted. A bit melodramatic.

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-moral-catastrophe-of-justin-trudeau/

quote:

The moral catastrophe of Justin Trudeau

Paul Wells: What Jody Wilson-Raybould described today is a sickeningly smug protection racket and it should make us all question what we�re willing to tolerate

The dangerous files are never the obscure ones. Scandals don�t happen in the weird little corners of government, in amateur sport or in crop science. They happen on the issues a prime minister cares most about, because everyone gets the message that the rules matter less than the result.

It�s a constant in politics. In 2016 I took one look at Bill Morneau�s first budget and wrote this: �The sponsorship scandal of the late Chr�tien years was possible because it was obvious to every scoundrel with Liberal friends that spending on national unity would not receive close scrutiny from a government that was desperate to be seen doing something on the file. A government that considers the scale of its spending to be proof of its virtue is an easy mark for hucksters and worse.�

It wasn�t a perfect prediction. I kind of expected the hucksters and worse to be outside government. Unless the Trudeau Liberals can produce persuasive evidence that Jody Wilson-Raybould is an utter fabulist (and frankly, I now expect several to try), her testimony before the Commons Justice Committee establishes pretty clearly that the hucksters and worse were running the show. Led by the grinning legatee who taints the Prime Ministers� office.

There will now be a period of stark partisanship. We�re in an election year. Loyal Liberals will tell themselves, and then everyone else, that the price of looking clearly at Justin Trudeau�s bully club (so many men; wonder how Katie Telford felt about that while she was signing off on every element of it) is ceding the field to Andrew Scheer. Who, they will tell themselves and then the country, is an actual Nazi.

I mean, after all, that�s pretty close to what they told one another, and then Jody Wilson-Raybould, last fall, isn�t it? There was an election in Quebec in the first week of October. And Ben Chin, a former journalist who did whatever Christy Clark needed done in B.C. before moving east to do whatever Bill Morneau and the PMO needed doing, used that thin reed of an excuse to try to sway Wilson-Raybould�s chief of staff, Jessica Prince. �If they don�t get a [deferred prosecution agreement], they will leave Montreal, and it�s the Quebec election right now, so we can�t have that happen,� Wilson-Raybould told the committee, paraphrasing Chin�s conversation with Prince.

I�ve never met a Liberal yet who doesn�t reliably confuse his electoral skin with the national interest. So much of what Trudeau and his minions have done in the last year stems from that instinct. Take the ludicrous half-billion-dollar bailout for people in my line of work, never explained, sprung out of nowhere in Morneau�s fall economic update�or as I now like to think of it, between Trudeau advisor Mathieu Bouchard�s meeting (yet another one) with Prince and Michael Wernick�s chat with Wilson-Raybould. You can get a lot of op-eds written with that kind of dough. Take the cool billion the Canada Infrastructure Bank coughed up to pay for a politically popular and impeccably well-connected transit project around Montreal. That money appeared, from a brand-new bank that has not funded a single other project ~~and did not then yet have a CEO~~ (Update, Thursday: Wrong! It had had a CEO since last May � pw), on the day before Philippe Couillard launched the Quebec election campaign. It is now impossible to believe on faith that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ben Chin, Mathieu Bouchard, Katie Telford and Justin Trudeau.

But anyway, back to partisanship. Liberals and their many friends across the land will insist that all this behaviour must have no real-world repercussions because the other side cannot be permitted to gain the upper hand. And similarly, a lot of battle-hardened opponents of the Liberals will call for the jails to be opened up to welcome fresh Liberal meat. Fortunately, there is indeed an election coming up, and I�m content to let voters decide the partisan affiliation of the next government. I offer them no counsel.

But we get to draw our own conclusions as citizens. What the former attorney general described tonight is a sickeningly smug protection racket whose participants must have been astonished when she refused to play along. If a company can rewrite the Criminal Code to get out of a trial whose start date was set before the legislation was drafted, all because a doomed Quebec government has its appointment with the voter, then which excesses are not permitted, under the same justification? If a Clerk of the Privy Council can claim with a straight face that ten calls and meetings with the attorney general, during which massive job loss, an angry PM and a lost election are threatened, don�t constitute interference, then what on earth would interference look like? Tonight I talked with two former public servants whose records rival Michael Wernick�s. Both were flat astonished that he seems not to have pushed back against this deeply disturbing, and plainly widespread, behaviour.

There�ll be time to contemplate mechanisms in the days ahead. I don�t think the ethics commissioner has a broad enough mandate to investigate matters like that Canada Infrastructure Bank investment and other tendrils of this affair. But in the end, the moral collapse of Justin Trudeau�s government teaches each of us a lesson, if we will only listen: There had damned well better be a limit to what we�re willing to do or say, whatever the cause we claim to serve. The rules need to be rules�not for the people we despise, but for ourselves. For myself. For you. Or else we have no souls.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 21:21

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

"...anyway vote Conservative"

# ? Feb 28, 2019 21:24

Wistful of Dollars: Aug 25, 2009

I think the Liberal's best chance is now Scheer being caught with a dead hooker.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 21:30

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

How�s Tabitha Southey on the bad takes scale? I can�t remember if she was bad or okay Maclean�s essay.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 22:20

Capri Sunrise: May 16, 2008; Elephants are mammals of the family Elephantidae and the largest existing land animals. Three species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant.

Wistful of Dollars posted:

I think the NDP's best chance is now Scheer being caught power-bottoming for Trudeau

Fixed

# ? Feb 28, 2019 22:51

Starks: Sep 24, 2006

Laminar posted:

Just wanted to post my hot take about SNC. They tried to hire me several years ago and I didn't go because ethically they are a mess. I'm a consultant but I'm only partially a monster.

As for the posters above saying "everyone asks for bribes", yes that is true in certain countries, but it is still illegal. I've said no and lost work dozens of times. Also for those that were talking about the charge code for bribes it was "PCC" for project consultancy costs. I ironically use it as a charge code in my projects because I find it funny and most people don't know what it is.

As for it SNC "only being corrupt at the top" this is entirely not true and the industry knows it. While a specific individual working for SNC might not be the one accepting bribes, the whole industry knows SNC does it and it has a culture of it. So while a few people at the top got caught, I don't buy for a minute far more didn't know. Financial controls are too tight for that.

SNC needs to be banned for 10 years not to punish SNC, but to be an abject lesson to all the corporations that will do anything to get more profit. We need to show that there is significant financial downside to offering bribes. If they get a DPA they will still have made money off this entire fiasco, and the lesson being taught to everyone is "if you are big enough it doesn't matter".

Yeah like I said, they got caught bribing in Montreal. It�s not restricted to third world countries where you have to bribe people to be competitive (insert joke about Quebec). It�s their business model.

# ? Feb 28, 2019 22:58

Legit Businessman: Sep 2, 2007

Legit Businessman fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Sep 9, 2022

# ? Feb 28, 2019 22:59

Blood Boils: Dec 27, 2006; Its not an S, on my planet it means QUIPS

John Horgan has officially lost my vote :siren:

https://twitter.com/jjhorgan/status/1098696246540218368

i will never support anyone who refuses to acknowledge the supremacy of Lt-Commander Reginald Endicott Barclay III

# ? Feb 28, 2019 23:06

JawKnee: Mar 24, 2007; You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line

Blood Boils posted:

John Horgan has officially lost my vote

https://twitter.com/jjhorgan/status/1098696246540218368

i will never support anyone who refuses to acknowledge the supremacy of Lt-Commander Reginald Endicott Barclay III

It's good op

# ? Mar 1, 2019 00:14

The Dark One: Aug 19, 2005; I'm your friend and I'm not going to just stand by and let you do this!

Who's the goon who specifically argued with with about his love of Voyager?

# ? Mar 1, 2019 00:40

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

How do you even debate with someone who is willing to admit to your face that they would rather see their kids live shorter more miserable lives if it means saving a few bucks on taxes? Like I cant tell whether Im tired or angry or frustrated but my brain just cant make that leap. Its impossible.

Boomers are a plague.

# ? Mar 1, 2019 00:41

hot cocoa on the couch: Dec 8, 2009

So what�s to come of SNC-Lavalin? Now that their crimes and the governments attempt to sweep them under the rug are front page news, they�re pretty much gonna have to get slapped with the 10-year disbarment right? Wouldn�t it be political suicide not too, after this debacle?

# ? Mar 1, 2019 01:41

apatheticman: May 13, 2003; Wedge Regret

Furnaceface posted:

How do you even debate with someone who is willing to admit to your face that they would rather see their kids live shorter more miserable lives if it means saving a few bucks on taxes? Like I cant tell whether Im tired or angry or frustrated but my brain just cant make that leap. Its impossible.

Boomers are a plague.

I mean liking Janeway is bad but....

# ? Mar 1, 2019 02:01

vincentpricesboner: Sep 3, 2006; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Wilhelm posted:

Fixed

Wtf is this?

# ? Mar 1, 2019 02:17

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

apatheticman posted:

I mean liking Janeway is bad but....

Sorry I work with some really awful people who exist to be nothing more than spite and racism golems and today I ended up having not one or two but three of them all smugly walk up to me today and announce their love of Ford's leaked attempts to privatize everything and the incoming Scheer majority.

# ? Mar 1, 2019 02:18

Entorwellian: Jun 30, 2006; ~~Northern Flicker~~
Anna's Hummingbird

Sorry, but the people have spoken.

Blood Boils posted:

John Horgan has officially lost my vote

https://twitter.com/jjhorgan/status/1098696246540218368

i will never support anyone who refuses to acknowledge the supremacy of Lt-Commander Reginald Endicott Barclay III

Not that it exonerates him, but I think he mentioned this a long time ago before the election happened.

# ? Mar 1, 2019 02:28

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# ? May 29, 2024 01:46

MA-Horus: Dec 3, 2006; I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

Um excuse me it's a three way tie between my main man James tiberius Kirk, Hikaru sulu and The Sisko.

And my phone autocorrected sulu to silicone. Oh my.

# ? Mar 1, 2019 02:32

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