Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Ped]

Originally Posted by Wolven

He can always afford to do the right thing, the problem is he always chooses not to.

If PP had a brain he would absolutely kick out Jivani because as an independent, Jivani still not going to vote with the Liberals. But PP thinks he needs to pander to that base.

[DJones]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Source?



Life’s about choices. I don’t agree with you that someone getting kicked out of a party or leaving a party would be the end of their career though.



Define democratic country. Russia considers itself a democracy. Do they count?
I never said that our system was perfect or can’t be improved. At the same time though I think some of its warts could easily be addressed by voters holding representatives more accountable. While you may argue that is unlikely to happen, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen or wouldn’t help fix the problem.



I’ve already provided an explanation for what I think would help and you just keep coming up with excuses for why things like representatives voting against a party can’t happen even though it absolutely can.

So what is your solution?

As I said, use a different electoral system. Pick one out of a hat among developed countries. It would be better than ours. Plenty of lists of democracies out there if you want to read up on them.

I have zero interest in having all decision making being done by what Ontario decided they were in the mood for once every 5 years. Having this system in a country this big and diverse is absurd.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Wolven

It sounds like you are unaware of what transpired to cause Trudeau to resign. Freeland's letter, followed by a closed door caucus meeting, resulted in Trudeau's resignation. The writing is on the wall that had he not resigned, then the caucus was prepared to vote him out as leader.

There may be a lot of power in being the PM but the caucus can vote you out as leader of the party (and thus remove you as PM) if you piss enough of them off.

Trudeau didn't have to resign and could not be kicked out, and Freeland quit because of what Trudeau attempted to do to her.

Read up on the situation before providing false info (while simultaneously claiming someone else is unaware)

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Firebot

While that's true technically, most voters don't do this and only vote based on the party without ever learning about the candidate (see Kevin Vuong as the perfect example of blind partisan voting). People do this because of how much importance the party matters in our parliamentary system.

I'd argue the majority of voters don't care about parties platforms at all. they mostly vote on vibes and received identity from their social structures.

I bet you, i could comeback her in a week lauding some conservative policy idea and Mark Carney being a genius for it, and have our resident geologist immediately attack it. Or do the reverse and have 2 - 3 people who otherwise would have defended a policy smash it to pieces because I present a Carney statement as a PP statement.

This is the reason we are supposed to elect people to make these decisions for us, rather than hoping that a plurality of people with lives to live are informed enough. This is an Alberta example but to me it galling that only 2 UPC MLAs have crossed the floor in the wake of Smiths poor fiscal management, self dealing, and tacit support for separatism, all while steering the province off a cliff on purpose in terms of social services. Those people were elected under the party banner, but in the Canadian system they were elected to be a check on that parties power offer support to the point that the party was a good steward of the citizens trust.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Trudeau didn't have to resign and could not be kicked out, and Freeland quit because of what Trudeau attempted to do to her.

Read up on the situation before providing false info (while simultaneously claiming someone else is unaware)

There are videos of the Liberals going into the highly irregular closed door caucus meeting that lead to the resignation. You can look it up.

Whether the Liberals use the Reform Act to remove the party leader (like the Conservatives did to O'Toole) or if they use other back room means to tell a party leader that their time is done (like the Liberals did to Trudeau) there are tools at their disposal to bring down an unpopular leader, even if they are the PM. If nothing else, MPs could leave the party until the party loses the votes needed to pass a confidence vote and trigger an election (nuclear option).

You can pretend that Trudeau resigned for some other reason but it is pretty obvious that his caucus told him to do it and to his credit he listened to them and moved on. I doubt PP would ever be able to do the same.

But I appreciate you coming out to faceplant on your lack of knowledge on the situation while simultaneously asserting you know better.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by DJones

As I said, use a different electoral system. Pick one out of a hat among developed countries. It would be better than ours. Plenty of lists of democracies out there if you want to read up on them.

I have zero interest in having all decision making being done by what Ontario decided they were in the mood for once every 5 years. Having this system in a country this big and diverse is absurd.

The perception that Ontario runs the whole system is in part because Alberta has prove to be politically useless to ether the Conservatives or Liberals.

I've said this too many times to count, but why would the Liberals ever spend any political capital on Alberta when they know we'll never vote for them?
Why would the Conservatives ever spend any political capital on Alberta when they know we will always vote for them?

Outside of population size, the reason other provinces have more sway than Alberta is because their votes are up for grabs.

What happens when the Liberals piss off Quebec and Alberta? Quebec and Alberta volte Conservative in the next election.

What happens with the Conservatives piss off Quebec and Alberta? Quebec votes liberal, and Alberta votes Conservative in the next election.

If Alberta is irrelevant to Federal politics, it's because we've voted ourselves into irrelevancy.

[#-3]

/\

This, and the idea the "the election is over by the time you get past Toronto" is a misunderstanding of how the elections work. They don't go from right to left, then stop once a party has ~150 seats and it's clear they will form government. A complete attribution error by people who don't understand numbers.

[MarchHare]

Ontario and Quebec combine for about ~60% of Canada's total population and have ~58% of the total seats in Parliament. That seems perfectly fair and reasonable to me. Nobody is seriously advocating giving smaller provinces with less population undemocratic disproportionate representation, are they?

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Ontario and Quebec combine for about ~60% of Canada's total population and have ~58% of the total seats in Parliament. That seems perfectly fair and reasonable to me. Nobody is seriously advocating giving smaller provinces with less population undemocratic disproportionate representation, are they?

Good ahead and try to wrestle away 2 or 3 seats from PEI or 3 seats from Newfoundland to give them proportionate representation with the rest of the provinces and see how well that goes.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Wolven

That is not true. The alternative systems ARE better. A mixed-member proportional representation (MMPR) system would be vastly superior to Canada's current FPTP system that gives 100% of the power to ~35% of the vote.

The problems with the current electoral system in Canada are well documented and long standing (https://www.fairvote.ca/) and it is why the Liberals keep dusting off the promise to get rid of FPTP during elections over the last 100+ years but then when they get elected they never do it.

Everyone should be demanding electoral reform and it is unfortunate that floor crossings are often the only time most Blue/Red supporters get onboard with it.

That does not change the fact we are governed a party based system parliamentary system, which is what the discussion is about. It changes how the MPs are elected, but does not change their role.

Originally Posted by DJones

I have zero interest in having all decision making being done by what Ontario decided they were in the mood for once every 5 years. Having this system in a country this big and diverse is absurd.

A bold take from someone that likely lives in Alberta.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Wolven

There are videos of the Liberals going into the highly irregular closed door caucus meeting that lead to the resignation. You can look it up.

Whether the Liberals use the Reform Act to remove the party leader (like the Conservatives did to O'Toole) or if they use other back room means to tell a party leader that their time is done (like the Liberals did to Trudeau) there are tools at their disposal to bring down an unpopular leader, even if they are the PM. If nothing else, MPs could leave the party until the party loses the votes needed to pass a confidence vote and trigger an election (nuclear option).

You can pretend that Trudeau resigned for some other reason but it is pretty obvious that his caucus told him to do it and to his credit he listened to them and moved on. I doubt PP would ever be able to do the same.

But I appreciate you coming out to faceplant on your lack of knowledge on the situation while simultaneously asserting you know better.

Jesus you are consistently stubborn and dumb.

Trudeau could not be voted out. Period. End of story. Trudeau could have taken Liberals all the way to the ground with him at its head if he wanted to and there's little the party members could have done about it, regardless of how many closed door meetings they had. Only option to oust Trudeau would have been backstabbing the party and voting non-confidence with the CPC forcing an election (as Singh was insistent on propping up the Liberals).

Stop doubling down and tripling down all the time when wrong while resorting to attacks and inform yourself.

https://liberal.ca/documents/

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/why...o-fire-trudeau

Specifically 44. Election

[#-3]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Good ahead and try to wrestle away 2 or 3 seats from PEI or 3 seats from Newfoundland to give them proportionate representation with the rest of the provinces and see how well that goes.

Lets honestly play this out, you actually go to 100,000 and round up for the smaller places, then spread the big 4 evenly with the rest.

take away;
2 from PEI,
1 from NFLD,
2 from NB,
1 from NS,
2 from SaK

add
3 to Ont
1 to Qc
2 to BC
2 to AB

Does the seat total change for any party by more than 1?
I know this is a particularly unique parliament in that one party basically hit 50% on the nose. But in this worlds I think the LPC lose 5-6 seats in the change, and they probably pick 3 in Ont, 1 in Qc and 1 in BC, maybe a 1 seat change in 90% of scenarios.

The point being made was that Ontario is already the least represented province, so we shouldn't be complaining about their level of representation in relation to Albertas.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

The perception that Ontario runs the whole system is in part because Alberta has prove to be politically useless to ether the Conservatives or Liberals.

I've said this too many times to count, but why would the Liberals ever spend any political capital on Alberta when they know we'll never vote for them?
Why would the Conservatives ever spend any political capital on Alberta when they know we will always vote for them?

Outside of population size, the reason other provinces have more sway than Alberta is because their votes are up for grabs.

What happens when the Liberals piss off Quebec and Alberta? Quebec and Alberta volte Conservative in the next election.

What happens with the Conservatives piss off Quebec and Alberta? Quebec votes liberal, and Alberta votes Conservative in the next election.

If Alberta is irrelevant to Federal politics, it's because we've voted ourselves into irrelevancy.

This is the biggest misunderstanding that the 'Bertans flirting with the separatists have about Quebec. They think that Quebec has power federally because they threaten to separate, and now these dumdums think that if we have a referendum it will give Alberta similar leverage.

But the truth is that this referendum will be all harm and no benefit. The only way Alberta will gain similar leverage to Quebec is if Alberta learns to put their vote up for grabs to any party willing to make promises to Alberta. If Alberta really wanted to copy the Quebec model we would need to have a party (the West Party) that we vote for by default and then switch our votes to the Liberals / Conservatives / NDP when they make promises that help Alberta.

But, like you said, Albertans are not smart enough to do that. The NDP could roll in here and lay down the biggest, bestest Pro-Alberta platform that we have ever seen in the history of our province and people will still say "ew, Orange" and vote blue.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Good ahead and try to wrestle away 2 or 3 seats from PEI or 3 seats from Newfoundland to give them proportionate representation with the rest of the provinces and see how well that goes.

'Bertans never complain that Newfoundland & Labrador and PEI are slightly over-represented in Parliament. Rather, they always whine that voters in Quebec and Ontario mostly decide who forms the government even though those two provinces have pretty much exactly the proper amount of representation by population. Indeed, they are actually slightly under represented based on their share of Canada's total population.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by #-3

Lets honestly play this out, you actually go to 100,000 and round up for the smaller places, then spread the big 4 evenly with the rest.

take away;
2 from PEI,
1 from NFLD,
2 from NB,
1 from NS,
2 from SaK

add
3 to Ont
1 to Qc
2 to BC
2 to AB

Does the seat total change for any party by more than 1?
I know this is a particularly unique parliament in that one party basically hit 50% on the nose. But in this worlds I think the LPC lose 5-6 seats in the change, and they probably pick 3 in Ont, 1 in Qc and 1 in BC, maybe a 1 seat change in 90% of scenarios.

The point being made was that Ontario is already the least represented province, so we shouldn't be complaining about their level of representation in relation to Albertas.

Let's just look at the most recent results from the redistribution exercise that was based on 2021 census numbers (when the next census is released we can talk about what should happen in the next redistribution.)
https://redecoupage-redistribution-2...o/index_e.aspx

BC has 13.68% of the population. At 343 seats they are 3 seats (maybe 4 if you want to round up) short of proportionate representation.

Alberta has 11.66% of the population and they are 3 seats short of proportionate representation.

Ontario is 11 seats short.

A big part of the problem is that some provinces get additional seats gifted to them based on existing clauses instead of just straight population. The provinces with the large populations and which are the major economic drivers in Canada are getting screwed.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by DJones

As I said, use a different electoral system. Pick one out of a hat among developed countries. It would be better than ours. Plenty of lists of democracies out there if you want to read up on them.

You’re being way too vague here and it also kinda feels like you’re moving the goalposts now. I asked that you to clarify which countries you considered to be democracies now you’re saying to pick developed countries. Our system isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s kinda hard to have a constructive discussion about how to address it without having a clear goal in mind. Assuming that taking any system used by other countries with completely different geographic, economic and demographic issues is going to guarantee an outcome to me seems a little overly optimistic. The same way that to me saying anything is better than what we currently have is a little overly pessimistic.

I have zero interest in having all decision making being done by what Ontario decided they were in the mood for once every 5 years. Having this system in a country this big and diverse is absurd.

I’m not sure I understand what it is you’re looking for. Unless you’re suggesting we look at ridings being determined by land area instead of by population Ontario seems like an odd example to use.

In the last election Ontario only had 36%(rounded up) of the total seats in the house with a population that is roughly 39% of the country. Alberta had 11%(rounded up) seats with a population that is roughly 12% of the country. Meanwhile Alberta on average has roughly 4000 more constituents per riding.

In 2006 Ontario voted in more liberals seats than they did for the conservatives and NDP combined and yet the conservatives won a minority government.

In 2008 Ontario voted in more liberal and NDP seats combined than they did conservative seats and yet the conservatives won a minority government.

In 2011 Ontario voted in 73 conservative seats compared to 33 combine liberal and NDP seats, and yet the conservatives only won a majority government by 11 seats.

In 2015 Ontario voted in 80 liberal seats compared to 41 combined seats for the conservatives(33) and NDP(8) combined and yet the liberals only won a 14 seat majority with the conservatives not having less than half of their seat total despite Ontario “deciding” they should.

Almost identical results in 2019 and yet the liberals lost their majority while the conservatives saw their total number of seats in the house increase by over 20%.

In 2025 Ontario voted in fewer liberal seats and more conservative seats than in both the 2019 & 2021 elections, and yet overall the liberals ended up with more seat than in either of those previous two elections..

I can understand you being frustrated but blaming (insert province) based on rhetoric serves no purpose and is only going to make you even more frustrated.

Do you think doing so is good for you or is it good for the politicians serving up that rhetoric to you while claiming they’re going to fix it when you vote for them? Who wins when they don’t hold up their end of a bargain that realistically they never could?

How did we go from me saying that we should vote for the representative not the party, to you disagreeing and saying an MP voting against their party can’t be done, to me explaining that it clearly can, to you saying that you’re tired of the province with the most seats calling all the shots when by default their seat count gives them the most influence over political parties?

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Jesus you are consistently stubborn and dumb.

Trudeau could not be voted out. Period. End of story. Trudeau could have taken Liberals all the way to the ground with him at its head if he wanted to and there's little the party members could have done about it, regardless of how many closed door meetings they had. Only option to oust Trudeau would have been backstabbing the party and voting non-confidence with the CPC forcing an election (as Singh was insistent on propping up the Liberals).

Stop doubling down and tripling down all the time when wrong while resorting to attacks and inform yourself.

https://liberal.ca/documents/

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/why...o-fire-trudeau

Specifically 44. Election

What are you even trying to prove here? Here you are saying Trudeau could not removed from leadership, unless the Liberal caucus voted against him, in which case he could be removed from leadership...

Your understanding of the situation is referencing irrelevant documents and American newspaper opinion sections (not even their attempt at factual news, just an opinion piece) instead of being informed as to what events actually transpired. It is like you keep going back to AI to have it tell you what you know instead of actually watching events or listening to another human being report on them. If you want to seem as educated as you claim to be, maybe you should try reading wikipedia instead of NP.

CPAC had coverage of the Liberal caucus dodging the media that was waiting at the door so they could have the big "closed door" meeting. Unlike you, I actually watched the coverage. I thought it was funny as the press figured out what was happening and they managed to shift position from the door and get some footage of inside the room before the Liberal MPs caught on and closed the curtains.

Also, let us not forget what Singh actually said. Not really what a normal person would call insistent propping up.

In the end, Trudeau's resignation came a few weeks later, after the holidays, but it was set in motion that day regardless of what you think.

Now, if you want to say that Trudeau's resignation was entirely self-motivated because you think he is a great guy and an exceptional leader who understood what was best for the country... well, I don't want to take that away from you.

Otherwise, you are saying something that did happen, couldn't have happened, because some opinion piece on the Republican Post told you so. Hilarious.

[Firebot]

Quadruple down on stupidity and even validating your intentional ignorance by refusing to read facts because you don't personally like the source, even rejecting the Liberal's own constitution - quite impressive

Trudeau could not be voted out as party leader of the Liberal party while PM. Period. Stop saying he could be voted out. If he did not voluntarily resign as he did (peer pressure or self-reflecting epiphany), there is no voting mechanism to out him in the Liberal constitution. What is so hard for you to understand this?

You have an incredibly poor understanding of parliamentary rules, party constitutions and politics in general, yet continuously pretend you do while deliberately avoiding informing yourself to improve that understanding. Mentioning the Reform Act without understanding it is an example of this.

[PepsiFree]

A lot of name calling for what amounts to two people talking past each other while having the most minor of disagreements because one is talking about technical procedure and the other is talking about practical function.

It’s also very boring.

[Blaster86]

Two people who have no stake in the Liberal party viciously arguing about the Liberal party.