For Andrew Scheer it must have seemed like a religious revelation, of the very wrong kind. The kind born in the hell of his own making.
For years he has tried to ignore the subject of climate change, and flagellated the very idea of a carbon tax as only a kooky Con could.
But then, like a Biblical deluge, it started raining, and raining, and flooding and flooding.
And the hapless Scheer was finally forced to admit that climate change is real.
Asked about link between recent flooding and climate change, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer tells reporters "I absolutely accept the conclusions that experts have in this field when people point to climate change causing more extreme weather events." #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/5nuuDCshEN— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) April 29, 2019
But only, as Chantal Hébert points out, after seeing his "climate plan" submerged by the floodwaters.
It is not just huge swaths of ordinarily dry land in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick that were submerged as a result of a severe flooding this past weekend. So was a Conservative plan to belatedly put to rest queries about the tenor of the party’s climate policy.
Which less than six months away from an election could prove costly, even fatal.
Polls show a substantial cohort of voters will not support a party that does not come across as committed to address climate change.
Those same polls report that the environment in general and climate change in particular rank second only to the economy in the current priorities of the Canadian electorate.
Especially since that secret meeting with those Big Oil billionaires and their Koch brother and Trump buddies is sure to come back to haunt him.
As is his broken promise to have a climate plan ready by...um...yesterday.
It’s now been a full year since Andrew Scheer promised he would unveil a climate plan… and he’s putting it off again. Canadians know #ClimateAction can’t wait. https://t.co/F1Gqcg84A0 pic.twitter.com/hODAIlxzsB— Liberal Party (@liberal_party) April 29, 2019
And if or when he finally delivers his "climate plan" it will almost certainly look way too late, totally inadequate, or just plain pathetic...
And to make matters worse for Scheer and his ugly Con gang, waiting for a drier day isn't going to work either.
For as I pointed out yesterday, these days first come the floods, and then come the flames...
Scheer can run, but he can't hide from climate change. Or deny it any longer.
There is no guarantee that the upcoming federal campaign will be free of climate-driven emergencies. One way or another, it will be hard to avoid having a serious conversation about climate change come the next election.
And it will be the issue that destroys him.
Or melts him...
23 comments:
Scheer's Bible-based climate plan will probably suggest climbing Jacob's ladder into the hull of Noah's ark. Or maybe Harper will feed him a script from his Ben Shapiro interview and Andy will declare that the floods were caused by Liberal soyboy tears. Has Kenney blamed the "gay loonies" yet?
It's too bad Gord Downie has passed. He could have sent Scheer a message with a revamped version of one of his biggest hits:
"New Brunswick is Sinking."
And Quebec, and Ontario, and the Atlantic provinces, and... I hope and pray (!) his chances at election...
This is the issue that will sink him. I've already seen right-wing commenters trying to spin the recent spate of Tory provincial victories as some kind of national rebuke of the Federal Liberals. Uh uh. No. At least here in Ontario, it was fatigue after 15 years of Liberal rule combined with Wynne's personal unpopularity and high Hydro rates. It wasn't the cap-and-trade program, it wasn't carbon taxes. The Liberals are still suffering from a poor news cycle in the wake of SNC-Lavalin (it's nice that JWR and Philpott have stayed quiet the past few weeks), but the press loves a story and a rudderless Conservative Party with no climate plan in the midst of a summer full of heat waves and forest fires makes for a juicy story.
Folks might not remember this, but the carbon tax and cap-and-trade plans were the *right-wing* solution for climate change. All the right-wing think tanks were for it as opposed to government investment and regulations. Now that morons like Ford and Co. have painted them as evil socialist cash grabs, they've effectively painted themselves into a corner, left to either straight-up deny climate change (which the voters won't accept) or pretend they have a plan and hope the voters don't notice. The latter worked for Ford because of Wynne's overwhelming unpopularity. I don't see it working on a federal level once the forest fires break out and Justin Trudeau hits the stump reminding people of the stakes of inaction.
-KM
Leger and Mainstreet are trying so, so hard to push Schmeagol ahead in the polls, but everyone knows they stump for the Conservatives and use either IVR or Internet polling, both of which are highly unreliable.
It must have killed Scheer to admit a scientifically proven fact is, in fact, a fact. Just like a proof is a proof because it's proven!
The Cons may be high in the polls now, but they will come back down and the Liberals up, especially after the debates, where the CPC has nothing.
Budget has been balanced with a hefty surplus, debt to GDP dropping, no one is even talking about SNC Lavallin, despite the treasonous Simpsons attempting to stoke that fire.
But Justin must not stop fighting, he must take it to them and hold no punches, because Harper is around the corner...
Furthermore, regarding the "spate of Tory provincial victories" and Dougie getting in on a fluke:
-Oilbertastan is Oilbertastan. The UCP could have run Hitler's shriveled testicle and they would have beaten the NDP. Manitoba and Saskatchewan are similarly stupid and irrelevant, and most Canadians probably couldn't pick secondary stooges Moe and Curly Pallister (or is it Shemp?) out of a lineup even if MacLean's labeled their infamous photograph. Forget it Jake, it's Western Canada. Dixieland North, the Confederacy of Dunces.
-The NB Cons are barely holding on by a thread and only because of some fringe wingnut party that agreed to back the government for 18 months. Higgs himself said he took a picture of the skyline from his office because he didn't expect to keep his job for very long.
-The PEI PCs have completely severed ties with Harper's hate cult and have to govern in coalition with the Greens. Wikipedia even lists their platforms and ideologies as being similar to the PEI Liberals and the premier-designate already said he wants no part of the idiotic carbon tax fight in court. They tend to alternate between Grits and PCs after a few election cycles anyway as a tradition. That bullshit about Trudeau being toxic to the provincial party has no bearing on the federal party's numbers on the island. They're a peaceful people. So peaceful that, in what is perhaps the most Canadian #NotTheBeaverton headline I've seen in a long time, the RCMP had to warn them about causing traffic accidents by being too nice. They'll never vote for the Rebel scum.
-BC Lieberals are Cons. The federal Tru Grits are still competitive out there (Hebert says at least one new poll shows them slightly ahead; Grenier's poll aggregate shows them splitting right now with the Greens and NDP) but there's no massive Con wave out on the coast. The general sentiment toward the cowboy province seems to be of the expected South Park chorus: "Oh my God, you elected Kenney? You bastards!"
-The Cons are finis in Quebec no matter how many Islamophobic bigots they pander to. Hate all the niqabs you want, it's not going to stop your house from flooding and even a crank like Legault knows that.
I too hope you're right about stubbornness on climate change, and coziness with Koch Oil, and partnerships with Tweedle Doug and Tweedle Dumb being the issue that "sinks" (pun intended) Andy Pander's federal Cons once and for all. But you're absolutely right that the narrative about the provincial "blue wave" being the result of a "Trudeau effect" is bullshit on its face. In fact I hope it's the opposite: that the real blue wave (which they cynically co-opted from the US Democrats) is actually the floodwaters themselves and, in addition to racism, the issue that drowns Scheer's chances in October.
Oh, he will. Anybody who thinks he's just going to roll over and die is seriously mistaken. He loves this country and he is not going to quit fighting for it. He's got two big things to hit them on now: the climate and their ties to the alt-right. The economy is (as usual) the #1 issue for bread-and-butter voters and there's no doubt he's going to remind voters of how good they've got it.
The poll tracker has them still competitive, but like you said it takes a lot of garbage polls into account including those Internet ones and Forum. Even if, as Hebert mentioned, Ipsos shows the Cons struggling in B.C., they took a serious hit to their credibility by showing up at that Koch conference laying out "paths to election victory." That's totally unacceptable and corrupt.
I'm going to try and heed Ottlib's advice from the other day and ignore the polls as much as I can. I may even tune out completely until the summer comes because watching this rollercoaster ride from hell is starting to impact my health. And yeah, I'm seriously disappointed in the Simpsons. But even fans say they haven't been good for a long time now and should have packed it up a long time ago. If I wanted to get cartoon characters' steaming pile of hot takes about manufactured media "scandals," I'd just watch the Cons in QP.
Yeah but he is not out making the floods worse by filling sandbags. He just sandbags
Cons love emotional issues they can leverage, but try as they might climate change is not one of them. Unlike other issues there is no leverage in it for them so they will pull any number of ploys to move the agenda to a subject they have leveraged into domination. As an example lets explore the crappy diaper waste that Canada shipped to the Philippines as recyclables some six years ago. Pretty mundane and although the Cons might argue that the supply company broke the law and has now disappeared so Canadians are not responsible, most people would agree that as a country we have a responsibility to work out a mutually agreeable solution and take it back if necessary, few would gain support for dumping it in the ocean under the cover of darkness. Not much fear, anger or patriotic emotional mileage, just the everyday work of a rational responsible government.
Now lets transition to toxic Canadian citizens who joined or followed their partners to an ISIS dominated territory. Suddenly the rational has been confounded by several layers of emotional leverage. The hazardous material moved of its own free will and if we bring them back they will murder us in our sleep, so dump them into the ocean if the host country does not want to keep them is the battle cry. Basically the same problem as soiled diapers but any government that tries to work out a sensible solution is the number one enemy of the people. Its all about illogical emotional leverage and the Cons love it for the life blood it is.
Similar to soiled diapers climate change is not a sexy subject that can be emotionally levered into something that works in their favor so expect a lot of downplaying, false testimony, littered with easy to renege capitalistic and legislative promises in their strategy. May the light shine through the bullshit and the real issues rise to the surface.
RT
you did make me laugh, with your first line. thanks.
I would suspect some of the religious right don't care about climate change because they either believe God won't let that happen to them or when the end of days comes, they will participate in the "rapture" and the rest of us heathens, well, we're toast.
I do recall reading Harper belonged to a religion, which believed the bible was inerrant and the end of days imminent. If you believe that, why care about climate change. Its like those suicide bombers. Me, I'm an atheist so I'd like to live as long as I can and have all those little kids you see going to school have long lives also.
Jackie Blue, again I would remind you saying negative things about the people in Sask. and Man. is divisive. They're not dumb or irrelevant. Sask. was the first province in Canada to implement government health care. Tommy Douglas went for it, Doctors went on strike, the government brought in other doctors, a couple of people died, and then the doctors backed off.
Back in the day the prairies is where the CCF/NDP started. there are still a lot of socialists there. However, they view things differently because its different from the urban places in Canada. They have parties which aren't like other parties. Yes, they're part of the law suit against the carbon tax, but they don't see themselves as contributing to the problem. We might want to remember, they provide all the wheat which feeds us and others around the world.
Sask, has done some really cool stuff over the decades. I can remember a time when wheat farmers weren't making any real money, so their kids were permitted to pay their tution in wheat instead of money at the university.
Canada is such a huge country, with so few people, only 36 million, it really varies province by province, but those Prairie people are really solid and have contributed to this country in meaningful ways.
Manitoba switches between the NDP and Conservative parties when it comes to provincial politics. Some provinces in Canada, switch every few years. Its the same people voting. they usually just want change. Manitoba also has a large Indigenous population. Winnipeg, Manitoba had Canada's first Ballet company. they're still world class, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It the only major city in Canada, which seeing they got flooded regularly, built a spill way in 1968, which diverts water around the city so it doesn't flood and has saved the province $30B since. those people aren't dumb. they just don't agree with a lot of us right now.
We don't know how the people of Sask, and Manitoba. will vote come election time. Lets be nice. Come to thing about it a number of former cabinet ministers for Liberal federal governments used to come out of the Prairies . .Lloyd Axworthy springs to mind. He switched between the NDP and federal Liberals. He was a Cabinet Minister with Chretien and has been a Liberal as far back as Pearson.
You have to know Prairie people Where I grew up a lot of the kids, parents were from the Prairies and left during the depression, went to WW II, came back and eventually settled in B.C. They'd go back to the Prairies each summer.
The Parties is where a majority of our Metis population comes from.
You base your opinions on what you read, but you don't live here. You don't know the people. So please don't be so divisive about Canadians. yes, some of them are jerks, but the majority are good solid people. If you remember Humbolt, Sask. when the bus carrying all those hockey players died or were injured.
the Cons are "finis in Quebec", omg, how often some one has said some party is dead in Quebec hasn't watched Quebec politics. Yes, there are people there who are Islamophobic, but certainly not all and again its not nice to slam the Quebecers. The issue of religion, language and climate change are all very separate in the eyes of many in Quebec.
From time to time in our history, we've had provincial governments being governed by one party and the other is governing federally. We have a democracy in Canada. This isn't the U.S.A. Its not that the U.S.A. style of politics hasn't reached us or that political strategists aren't using American tactics, but I like to keep it Canadian and that means not slamming more of my 'fellow/sister' Canadians. Now when it comes to Ford, and Schmeer, go for it, but the regular old Canadian, lets be a tad more open minded. its a democracy and this time, I might just bet a bottle of wine we're going to see a lot of Green politicians get elected. people want a change and that is where many will park their votes. they'll take votes from all major parties.
We will be voting in Nanaimo this coming week for an M.P. By the way of signage, I'd suggest its between the Greens and the NDP. This has usually been a Green riding, but the Liberals aren't doing badly and they're more Liberal signs up than I'd expected. It ought to be fun.
No plan Andy has no carbon reduction plan because the most effective ones, a tax or cap and trade are/were already used by the Liberals. He's backed himself into a corner with no way out. He cant accept the Liberal plan because he'd look like an even bigger idiot than he already is. He's picked this hill to die on and come October and with more idiocy coming out of Queen's Park, Ontarians will be the deciders on who wants a future for our children and theirs. I believe they will make the right choice.
JD
No plan Andy has no carbon reduction plan because the most effective ones, a tax or cap and trade are/were already used by the Liberals.
KM said:
Folks might not remember this, but the carbon tax and cap-and-trade plans were the *right-wing* solution for climate change. All the right-wing think tanks were for it as opposed to government investment and regulations.
Is it just me or does the Liberal carbon-tax plan sound like Obamacare North? A Republican (Conservative) plan that only became evil communism when a hated Democrat (Liberal) did it!
Lol @ Jackie for naming off all the provinces that voted Conservative and trying to trivialize them. If they voted Liberal you'd be congratulating them on how morally superior they are. Typical American progressive, shades of 2016.
Other than BC (which is pretty much a Con operation anyhow) are there any provincial Liberal governments left? Maybe NFLD and NS but they are so small and insignificant in the next election I can't be bothered to check.
The situation must be desperate as we now have MacLeans the pro con rag imploring the Smearmongel to change his political strategy on climate change. Funny how that works, the bigger the whoppers people swallow the bigger they get. Seems the Canadian Cons completely handed over their propaganda strategy to their US gurus. After all if the US voters swallowed anti climate rhetoric and dropping out of the Paris accord there is no reason why it would not work with America's dumber cousins.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics/its-time-for-andrew-scheer-to-get-serious/ar-AAAKyOk?li=AAggNb9
RT
There’s a new right wing website called the ORCA — claiming to be about ‘democracy’ and changing the channel on the mainstream in BC social media. Their contributors are Gwyn Morgan from oil patch, Rex Murphy, Christie Clarke and on and on — her speech writer is one of the founders of this new right wing site that they dare call the ORCA and wash it in green and blue colours and make in look like a progressive site — pure manipulation! They all push policies that will ensure the extinction of our west coast orca pods yet in Orwellian fashion they call themselves ‘The ORCA’. This is beyond EVIL. Sickening — one needs to out these people now! I wonder at starting a petition to shut down using the name Orca or just outing them for the right wing climate change deniers they are.
Furthermore — who is funding these people????? Oil industry??? Please look into this everyone. We need to get out front of this. Rex’s first article is slamming Trudeau for daring to try and protect the environment — the cranky old man is at it again. Our poor Orcas — under threat, starving and these right wing loons use them to wash their site and pass it off as something it’s not. There are no words to describe my disgust over this new site — it is obvious from the website it is well funded.
I almost feel sorry for Mr. Scheer. Part of his base is made up of the most reactionary elements of Canadian society. They are not a large group of people but they are not an insignficant number either and they always seem to be angry and have a pathological insecurity about the political class not paying attention to them. The result is they constantly need to be stroked by the Conservatives to keep them happy and quiet.
Unfortunately, that leads to problems because the only way the Conservatives can win is to attract more centrist voters. So they have to walk a fine line with keeping the more reactionary elements of their base happy while not alienating centrists. It is very difficult at the best of times. Stephen Harper only managed to find the sweet spot once in five attempts.
These are not the best of times for Mr. Scheer. He is on the wrong side of a very important issue to many Canadians, including those that might be inclined to vote Conservative. Then he has to worry about Maxime Bernier. Mr. Bernier knows he cannot win the election so he will not be trying to do so. His goal is to achieve electoral credibility. If he can win two or three seats and gain 5% of the vote nationally he will achieve that goal and if, in the process, he can shaft the political party be believes shafted him it would be icing on the cake. He is not going to do that going after Liberal and NDP voters. His only avenue to achieving that goal is to go after Conservative voters in Ontario and Quebec. The most reactionary segment of the Conservative base would be an obvious target for someone of Mr. Bernier's political ideology.
So Mr. Scheer is in a tough spot. He will eventually have to pivot from stroking the reactionaries in his base if he wants to appeal to the broader electorate. But as soon as he does that Mr. Bernier will probably exploit the opening, potentially syphoning off a significant number of votes from the Conservatives in close races in the Canadian heartland. Then again if Mr. Scheer does not pivot and attempts to keep his base happy he will suffer the same fate as Stephen Harper, who did not make the pivot in 2015.
Like I said I ALMOST feel sorry for Mr. Scheer.
Andy has a plan, sell more ethical oil to the world. This is a moral charge against climate change.
Hi Jackie, no it's not just you. Hypocrisy knows no bounds when it comes to these idiots. Whatever narrative suits their never-ending quest for power is okay, even if the planet's very existence is at stake. Sad and pathetic.
JD
Gwyn Morgan? Gee, that name sounds familiar... isn't that one of Harper's buddies and the onetime CEO of a certain "beleaguered" engineering firm in Québec?
Justin Trudeau never had a chance. This man wanted to do better for his country and has been absolutely crucified for it by the enemy within. Poached, well, like a whale. Ahab Harper drove the whole country mad in his obsessive pursuit of revenge. I wonder if Iggy is glad he never got the top job. Harper's comrade Viktor Orbán shut down the Soros-sponsored university he's dean of in Budapest. Someone needs to investigate that IRL Bond villain son of a bitch and blow open the IDU.
I haven't heard of this site, The Orca, but it sounds like yet another Canada Proud Boys operation. You're absolutely right, it is Orwellian and beyond evil. The love of money is the root of it all.
Dear Canada, I would therefore like to apologize on the behalf of the United States for my country inventing one of the most destructive and yet bloodless weapons of mass destruction the world has ever known: the Internet. We just weren't ready.
1/
I know you're being facetious, but I could never muster an ounce of even remote sympathy for Andrew Scheer. He started his career with the insinuation that Lorne Nystrom was either a sympathizer of child pornographers or a pedophile himself. He had no policies then and has none now. He won based on pure hatred of the other guy. The other guy now is Justin Trudeau, who I obviously do feel a great deal of sympathy for. What is happening to him is breaking my heart, and not just because "he is cute" but because he is a fundamentally decent human being, and I have personal experience in my own family with people whose lives have been ruined by an orchestrated campaign of lies and ad hominem destruction. More than sympathy, I feel EMPATHY for what he is going through. I know people personally who have been through it just the same.
First off, as a young MP, he told the Liberals on repeated occasions that he did not want to run for the leadership because he wanted to spend more time gaining experience in Parliament and looking after his young family. In fact, he told the party even earlier than that that he did not want to get involved with politics at all, and found it distasteful that they would approach him to ride the media attention after his father's funeral towards a political career. But they were a mess, they were desperate, and they bet the farm on the prodigal son. So he reluctantly threw his hat in the ring, and he won -- fair and square. Little did he know he kicked a hornet's nest.
2/
I really don't think Trudeau expected the level of malice that would be thrown at him -- let alone the betrayal from within by the two who shall not be mentioned, who spit in his face to get their 15 minutes and burn their party to the ground after he gave them the opportunity of a lifetime -- or the populist irrationality and stealth cyber-ratfuckery that would spring up all over the world, leading to Trumps and Brexits and other destabilizing catastrophes. He has sacrificed so much and been used and spit out. He has not led the "charmed life" his haters spout off in jealousy about. He lost his brother in an awful tragedy. His mother suffered a mental breakdown. His parents' relationship was dysfunctional and at times escalated to physical arguments. He loved his father but had a conflicted relationship with him. He worried that he would be responsible for looking after his mother after his father was gone. I can't even imagine what he must be going through right now, being at the center of a horrific smear campaign and nightmarish election cycle that is likely to prematurely torpedo his political career, and has damaged his good name, his public reputation and the legacy his father worked so hard to build.
He is routinely berated, mocked, insulted, threatened, harassed, and forced to wear the blame for things that are not his fault. To carry the cross, as it were, a cross not of his own making, cut from a maple tree rotted with bitter sap. He has become a national pariah and the most hated man in his own country. He has been called everything from a sexual predator to an abuser of women to a terrorist sympathizer. The latest Con attack ads are comparing him to "scandal-ridden" Donald Trump. JWR compared him to Nixon. Michelle Rempel called him Harvey Weinstein after Warren Kinsella dug up salacious trash to hit him with. CanProud trolls are trying to label him a pedophile by manufacturing rumors about his teaching career. His wife and young children, his surviving brother, and even his ailing mother have faced the most vicious attacks from psychotic Internet trolls, political adversaries, and the savage vultures in the tabloid-quality media who make themselves the story and publish filth out of pure jealousy and a greed-driven quest for subscriptions and ad revenue. I wouldn't doubt that there are moments when he regrets following in his father's footsteps into the family business at all. Like Michael Corleone, "every time I try to get out, they keep pulling me back in."
What I want to see is for Justin Trudeau to redeem himself after this clusterfuck of a character assassination. He will never convince everyone that they were wrong about him. But if Bush can kill people in an oil crusade and go on to sell dog paintings, and Mulroney can have his brown envelope moment and go on to chair a weed company and give a eulogy at Pappy Bush's funeral, Justin Trudeau far more so deserves to make a public comeback. Perhaps it will take Canada having to suffer through the barrel of its own Trump to see it. He might not be such an astute politician. Maybe that's a compliment, considering the sliminess that one has to embrace in order to really thrive in the political world. But he is by no means the caricature being made of him. His "brand" is who he is, whether people want to believe it or not. He has always been the nicest guy in the room.
B.C. has an NDP government supported by the Greens. Its not a "con" operation, in my opinion. A. 9:01 a.m. if you believe the B.C. government is a Con operation, please provide some evidence/facts instead of just making statements.
As to writing off NFLD and NS, you're doing what you're accusing Jackie Blue of doing, more or less. Your statement regarding the two provinces are dismissive of those provinces, which really doesn't do much for Canadian unity.
Having watched more than one election come down to a few votes, never be un kind to small towns or provinces, they may provide the necessary MP to keep a more progressive government in office. In the last provincial election, in one riding the NDP won, by 9 votes. Every vote counts, every MLA or MP counts as does every province in this country. Trying to write off some is so un Canadian. NFLD certainly wasn't insignificant during World Wars and they weren't insignificant during 911 when Gander, NFLD accepted 6K people who couldn't fly into the USA and housed them for 5 days.
Jackie Blue, Trudeau also has something else going for him: those cheques which go out every month to families with children. they make a big impact. It has reduced child poverty in this country. All the Conservatives ever did was hand out "tax credits" that only helped those who already had more than those living under the poverty line.
the economy is always a big thing anywhere, but what defines Canadians is our health care system. its considered the biggest thing in the country, accomplishment wise. Ford is killing health care in Ontario. I've got a feeling Kenney will do the same in Alberta. If the cons are making a mess of health care, people will be more inclined to vote Liberal.
Post a Comment