For years I dreamed of a mighty progressive coalition that would unite to topple the increasingly sinister Stephen Harper.
And I will never forget how happy I was to see progressives of all colours marching together after the would be dictator prorogued Parliament.
Or forget how much I hoped it would encourage the left to unite. Finally.
So although I'm voting for Justin Trudeau's Liberals, and believe he deserves another majority.
I could live with this.
A Liberal-NDP coalition.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he would try to form a coalition government with other parties if the Conservatives win the most seats in the election, but fail to secure a majority.
Asked by reporters on Sunday whether he'd work with other parties, including Justin Trudeau's Liberals, Singh replied: "Oh absolutely, because we're not going to support a Conservative government."
Except for two things:
One, Singh is only saying that to make it easier for Liberal voters to switch to the NDP, even though he has no chance of forming a government.
And his suggestion that it's safe to vote for the NDP in every riding could exacerbate the danger of vote splitting.
And lead to disaster in many ridings like this one...
Where encouraging people to vote for the NDP means re-electing the hideous Lisa Raitt.
And if the progressive vote is fragmented enough, could result in an Andrew Scheer government.
Also, speculating about a coalition government will give the Cons a chance to demonize that option just like Stephen Harper did back in 2009.
And allow the ugly Con gang to make the last few days of the campaign all about coalitions, instead of all their other crimes against Canada. As Scheer is already doing.
Justin Trudeau is planning to form a coalition gov't with the NDP – so he can remain Prime Minister.— Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) October 14, 2019
But it’s the coalition you can’t afford.
Only a Conservative majority gov't can stop Trudeau and the NDP from scheming together to take even more money out of your pockets. pic.twitter.com/3HN6qGVPax
While making Singh look weak and indecisive.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh appears to be stepping back from the idea of putting together a formal coalition government as the federal election campaign heads into its critical final week.
And the bottom line?
Jagmeet Singh may have earned himself a place in the next Canadian government, but now is not the time to talk about coalitions.
Now is the time to focus on all the reasons the ugly American Andrew Scheer must not be allowed to become prime minister.
Now is the time to remind Canadians that Scheer is a creepy religious fanatic, a racist, a misogynist, and a vile homophobe, who is ready and willing to dismember our medicare system, and everything good about this country.
As well as a time to remind them that Justin Trudeau is the only leader who can defeat him...
And now it's up to you. Get out there and vote.
And help save the country we love so much...
And I guess no one still remembers that the present Conservative party was also originally a coalition, between the Reform party and the Progressive Conservatives.
ReplyDeleteI'll say one thing for certain. This election is certainly an education in parliamentary procedure and Canadian history. Someone brought up a comparison of the 1925 election where William Lyon Mackenzie King won fewer seats but formed government nonetheless. And there are cons howling all over Twitter in disbelief that Trudeau having first crack at forming government simply because he is the incumbent is actually the law and not just a "Gerald Butts power grab." The Scheer ignorance abounds.
ReplyDeleteWorth noting though that Singh is a flip-flopper who walked back his coalition talk either because the purity party brass got mad at him for "selling out" to "neoliberals" or because he's just an unserious candidate and an attention seeker. At least Scheer closed the door to working with the Bloc but who can really believe a word he says?
The one thing I hope for is that this lights a fire under voters and encourages the urgency of strategic voting. I'm still hoping for a miracle that works out in Trudeau's favor because anything else would be disastrous. The minor silver lining thus far is that Scheer is so hated by everyone else in Parliament he would be unlikely to win confidence of the House. But that's not any reason to get complacent because we know cons cheat to win. History lessons aside, what a Westminster dog show this election is turning out to be!
A Saskatchewan reformatory genius called Garnett Genuis has just spoken about the hidden filth behind Sheer-insolence's feeble win at the Neanderthal convention. He sent out a video of him saying that a vote for the NDP would ruin " their plan " to reopen the abortion debate. Sheer-arrogance made a deal to beat MadMax, then he lied about it.
ReplyDeleteJust this morning , in Quebec, he lied about it again and again. Some christian. Opus Die you heathens must recognize only 9 commandments. Anything to take rights away from those pesky wimmen.
I suspect Sheer-malevolence has another secret plan to deal with same sex marriage.
I suspect that Sheer-malevolence
Oh and P.S. I want to also recommend 338Canada.com as a source for strategic voting info as well as VoteWell.ca which simplifies that data into a handy tool that you can use to select your riding and choose the best non-Con to vote accordingly. Please share far and wide!
ReplyDeleteABC, everyone, ABC!!!
Scheer is smelling his upper lip. The cons are a coalition party. The only party containing extremes like separatists or white and christian nationalists. Proves they'll stoop to anything for power. Like separatists and nationalists in the same party. Thats why they are more accurately called christian 51st staters. I'd to have a center left coalition. Why should the 1/3 right get to run the show on the 2/3 majority. they belong in the opposition! It would be a worthwhile exercise and make for some interesting canadian politics. The BC NDP/Green coalition has been a big improvement. The BC Liberals are a coalition also. That show Borgen is over on PBS so this is a new one I could watch.
ReplyDeleteI LOATHE the Conservative argument that there's something wrong with a minority government. In fact, I think they use the word 'minority' as a threat that their base is horribly afraid of: the end of their existence.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the idea that Canada might have a minority government this time next week. Whether it's the Bloc, NDP or maybe even the Greens holding the key to power, it won't be a union with the Conservatives. At least, let's hope not: I won't vote for the NDP again because they had an opportunity to work with the Liberals and brought us 10 years of Harper instead.
And if there IS a minority government, I will encourage everyone to push for electoral reform BEFORE another election is called but THAT'S what Trudeau promised me in 2015 and that's what we're going to get. Just not the way he wanted.
It's time for change. Bring it on!
The Bloc is a wild card. Scheer is a Brexiteer and a provincialist who says two different things in English and French anyway. He also hates minorities as much as they do. He could make some small concessions to them like staying out of the Law 21 fight and whatever that tax reform thing was. Blanchet won't give a shit what the western Duplessis does to English Canada as long as it doesn't apply to Quebec. He's a walking asterisk. He's only there for Quebec and it would be political suicide to sign on anything with the son of Pierre Trudeau. I mean really does anyone think Legault's foot soldier would partner up with a Trudeau and a guy wearing a turban?
DeleteHave you ever truthfully faced up to the reality that if the Conservatives are so disgusting and dangerous (and they are) that Trudeau should have fulfilled his explicit campaign promise to end our archaic FPTP elections?
ReplyDeleteAre you going to quit with the nonsense that some minority opposition MPs on that committee had the power to prevent Trudeau's majority government from doing anything that it wanted to?
Do you honestly believe Justin's twaddle about how the lack of consensus is what doomed electoral reform? (As opposed to his being able to spend $4.5 billion on a pipeline opposed by millions of Canadians?)
I'd be interested to read what you and your lunatic co-blogger have to say to this.
If I'm the lunatic you're referring to, then yes, I absolutely think this Faustian bargain coalition bullshit is a really stupid and ham-fisted way to force ad-hoc prop-rep up Canada's ass whether anyone wants it or not. It's populist pandering and disruption. I don't think Justin's concerns about extremists having a foothold in Parliament were "twaddle" either. How's PropRep working in Germany to keep the AfD from throwing a spanner in the works? How are things in Israel or Italy these days? But go ahead and have a wank over your single-minded fixation as though changing the electoral system would have done SFA to stop entryism or keep extremists out of power.
DeleteFor that matter, the NDP pose just as much of a threat to stability of governance. They are a wholly irrational left-populist band of ragtag revolutionaries completely ignorant of the realities of policy or governing because they've never actually formed government and never will. They spread lies on social media, engage in class warfare, and harass women just like their Bernie Bro equivalents or the Corbynista cult. If the Greens are Cons with composters the Dippers are Cons with a hammer and sickle. Their purity policing is evidence of that.
Sorry bub but the Cons are just as disgusting and dangerous as the disingenous hypocrite Dippers or any other lunatic-fringe minority party. If their policies were actually scrutinized and this election wasn't just a popularity contest rife with vile, high-school-level character assassination, they'd be polling in competition with Mad Max. But that requires a media willing to actually do their job. They didn't in 2016 and they're not doing it now. PropRep, ranked ballots, coin flips or whatever form of political competition you could change FPTP to aren't a panacea for any of that. The fault is not in our parliamentary systems but in ourselves.
Ending FPTP was the NDP's issue. Should we have a divisive referendum, or not? The MSM didn't really report on what went on at the committee level regarding ending FPTP. This was not Trudeau's call. The NDP screwed it. Do some research.
DeleteAlso, ending FPTP didn't necessarily meaning adopting Mixed Member Proportional. There are other voting methods.
UU
Yes Shecky, you are very much the lunatic I was speaking of. And your reply was a beautiful exhibition for why I refer to you as such.
DeleteI won't deal with your unhinged tirades against any and all parties that are not the Liberals. And I won't indulge you in your ridiculous pretense of being a US-American Hillary-Democrat.
I'll simply remind you that you are hysterically shrieking that any vote that isn't for the Liberals is a vote for the Conservatives. And that the blame for Canada being in danger of accidentally electing a Scheer majority is Canada's FPTP system which Trudeau cynically decided to keep.
And the reason that Canadians aren't pushing each other out of the way in a mad rush to vote Liberal this election is because their neo-liberal policies are a failure, their environmental policies are mostly cynically delivered rhetoric, and progressives are disgusted with their betrayal of the First Nations, and their toadying up to Trump on foreign policy.
Pretty much the same reason that US voters rejected your heroine HRC and will reject the demented Biden. They're tired of being lied to. People aren't obligated to vote for whatever garbage that's thrown at them.
"Shecky"? Wow, there really is an anti-semitism problem among the Corbynistas isn't there? Your Susan Sarandon "heightening the contradictions" bullshit gave us babies in cages and Nazis on the rampage. If you think that's me being a lunatic, fine, anyone who isn't angry and driven mad over the past four years of Trumpian horror is a cold-blooded sociopath, which I can see that you are. Why don't you just let your inner brogressive fly and call me hysterical. "Your heroine HRC." FYI, I am an American Democrat and proudly so. But I suppose if I was a Canadian Liberal you'd be saying I voted for Trudeau in 2015 because I thought he was cute. That's the core of it isn't it? He's everything you basement-dwelling NEETs will never be, and for that matter, so is she. Crab mentality is a sickness with you people. Tall poppy syndrome to the pathological extreme. And you bring everyone down in the process. You're the equivalent of a right-wing rapture cult.
Delete"Justin didn't do electoral reform" is the new "Hillary rigged the primaries." We see you and we know exactly what you're up to. The fact that you call accomplished and pragmatic leaders who don't check all your impractical purity boxes "demented" "garbage" speaks volumes about your maturity levels. You're as much a threat to democracy as your mirror images on the right. You engage in class warfare and the politics of envy, a similar dehumanization tactic as conservatives who blame immigrants and uppity women for their plight. You just blame "neoliberals" whatever the fuck that even means. You don't think I know about horseshoe theory? How you want to play the "long game" of destroying the sensible middle so you can increase polarization and force centrists to "bend the knee"?
Get lost, Bernie Bro. DipperCon. You fucking shit-disturbing terrorist and your long march of the mental institutions. If you think I'll let you and the rest of your Red Rose Tea Party cult of Khmer Rouge 2.0 wannabes break my glasses and crush my spirit for the "revolution" you're sorely mistaken. Talk about a coalition! Cozying up with the fascists to own the neolibs!
Sorry but there is no magic bullet that fixes our electoral system by changing how voters are represented. Although each one is different all of the popular systems have a weakness that can be exploited by the unscrupulous. Proportional representation encourages a myriad of special interest parties that leads to a coalition of secret backroom deals. In addition the real threat to democracy is that certain parties once in power attack and corrupt our democratic institutions so that it makes it easier for them to be elected the next time around. This is why Harper had a real hate for the supreme court and why Scheer has a plan to circumvent it. Proportional representation won't fix this and as long as the emotionally challenged get a daily dose of virtual mind candy probably nothing will but the hard intrusion of reality. I see no evidence the Liberals have tried to defund or destroy our key institutions other than move them into a more compassionate and inclusive direction. Not fast enough for some and totally in the wrong direction for the Reformacons who now believe they can succeed where Harper failed.
DeleteRT
Anti-Semitic? See? I told you that you were insane! Instead of calling you "Jackie Blue" I call you "Shecky Greene." Because he was a comedian and you're a joke.
DeleteBut it's par for the course that you raise the Corbyn as anti-Semite smear. Typical of the vicious sorts of character assassination that you "moderate centrists" engage in as you desperately flail about trying to de-legitimize any opposition to your failed agenda.
Finally, you imbecile, Justin DIDN'T do electoral reform. That's a fact. Just like the fact that Hillary DID rig the primaries. That's why the odious Debbie Wasserman Shultz had to resign. You're so far gone you don't even know what's a lie anymore and what's a historical fact.
And, no, you're not a US-American. You're a Canadian and a paid Liberal Party shill. Own it.
RT,
Oh well, if all electoral systems have their problems then I guess that you, Simon and Shecky won't mind if people vote for the party of their choice then, regardless of fears of vote-splitting.
Or are you afraid of an electoral system that could give the anti-Democratic Conservatives a majority government that would allow them to do what they already did the last time they got a majority? (Stole it actually.) The very thing you claim to fear is what our FPTP produces.
Wow thwap, your anger is highly misplaced. The NDP has been in existence for some 70 years. That is plenty of time to adjust to the FPTP system of voting but they have failed again and again. That is on the NDP, it is not on the Liberals and/or the Conservatives or the voting system!
ReplyDeleteSo, since they cannot win with the current system they push to change the system saying it is "more democratic." What bullshit.
Here is a little fact for you. All voting systems have their advantages and disadvantages. None are more democratic that the others. They are all designed to elect governments in a democratic fashion and they all do it. It would not bother me one bit to be rid of the FPTP system but it still exists so the NDP can either accept and adjust to that reality or they can continue to be the perennial third party.
So here a little piece of advice for NDP and/or Green partisans like yourself. Tell your leaders to get their heads out of their asses and take the elections they fight seriously. I have been observing Canadian politics for 35 years and with two exceptions the NDP has never put together an election campaign and an election platform that could be taken seriously by a sufficient number of voters to elect a government. Those two exceptions were the NDP lead by Jack Layton and Mr. Mulcair. Those were two NDP leaders that had finally figured out the FPTP system and I have no doubt that if Mr. Layton would have lived to 2015 he would have given the Liberals a serious run for their money in replacing the Harper government. Unfortunately for the NDP he did not survive and Mr. Mulcair lacked the charisma to build on what Jack Layton created.
Now you have Mr. Singh in charge, who is certainly likable but not a credible choice in the eyes of most Canadians for leading the country. Just listening to him on the hustings and reading the NDP Party platform (I have read them all) exposes the glaring contradictions in their plans for Canada and in some cases a glaring misunderstanding of how to govern a country as geographically large and as diverse as Canada.
For decades the NDP leadership has been too stupid, too lazy or too hidebound to embark on the long-term project of convincing Canadians that they can be trusted with government. They had one spark of hope during the beginning of this decade but then they defaulted back to the way they were from the beginning of their history and NDP partisans refuse to acknowledge that blaming everybody and everything else but themselves and their party.
For decades the NDP leadership has been too stupid, too lazy or too hidebound to embark on the long-term project of convincing Canadians that they can be trusted with government. They had one spark of hope during the beginning of this decade but then they defaulted back to the way they were from the beginning of their history and NDP partisans refuse to acknowledge that blaming everybody and everything else but themselves and their party.
Deletehttps://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/thebigdebate/2019/10/15/should-progressive-voters-vote-strategically.html
"Are you a progressive or a partisan?"
Toronto Star article weighing the pros and cons of strategic voting.
The "pro" side comes from a political consultant who urges voters to be selfless and think of country over party.
The aptly-termed "con" side comes from a likely Dipper who is butthurt that she lost to Chrystia Freeland in 2015.
Seems pretty clear where the conflict of interest LIES.
Ottlib,
DeleteTry this on for size: I don't necessarily want, or expect the NDP to become the government party. I recognize that more Canadians vote Liberal than NDP. But I would like the ideas and aspirations of myself and other more social-democratically minded people to have an impact proportionate to our numbers.
And remember: The original blog post we're responding to is, again, wailing about how vote-splitting among progressives might produce a Conservative government. The majority of Canadians reject "conservatism." But our electoral system prevents us from voting for who we want and forces about a quarter (or a third) of the electorate to vote AGAINST something rather than FOR something.
Lemme give you a dose of common sense and a virtual thwap upside the head. How the fuck do you know for certain what country I'm from? Perhaps you expect me to post a PDF of my Kenyan birth certificate? Oh, now I'm a paid Liberal Party shill. Yes, that's right, that's me, I'm Katie Telford in disguise writing op-eds for George Soros and the foreign-funded environmentalists. How do I know you're not from Moscow and just have better English than most of the other Cozy Bear trolls? Are you a paid Republican Party shill? Can you tell me the exchange rate between loonies and rubles these days? Or are you a very Canadian shit disturber paid by the word to write for Ezra Levant?
DeleteOh and P.S. to our comrade above.
ReplyDeletePurity populist prick Singh talks a good game about Trudeau being one of those rich out-of-touch elites who never had to struggle and only cares about his rich friends. He drives a Mercedes and went to, taught at, private schools.
Well, it turns out Jaguar drives a BMW and went to an expensive private school in Detroit. Another American, how about that! Champagne socialist much? But he's "in it for you"!
Just noting the NDP have won several provincial elections, in BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the Maritimes. But they have never come within shouting distance of forming a national government, perhaps due to as much to happenstance (Jack Layton dying, Tommy Douglas unable to get a federal seat, etc) as to poor policies. So they do have some experience with governing, though it is regional rather than national.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see thwap. So now we mild-mannered pinkos are the Khmer Rouge! Jackie has misnamed Jagmeet so many ways that she is scarcely placed to complain. What is "anti-semitic" about Shekkie? Shykie (as in Shylock or Sheister)could be, but that's not what he wrote.
ReplyDeleteI voted on Friday. For Alexandre Boulerice, in a riding where now all our levels of government are held by left parties. The only serious contender here is the Bloc.
Again for our Bernie Bro troll comrade. Call me a lunatic if you must. Here's yet another piece blasting the purity protest Dippers for their hypocritical stance (Singh called for strategic voting to defeat Harper in 2015, but has done a full 180 now that fame and the militant drive from his own party to collapse the middle, take revenge on Trudeau, and "heighten the contradictions" has gone to his head).
ReplyDeletePaywalled, hopefully this shows up.
https://web.archive.org/save/https://looniepolitics.com/ndp-condemning-strategic-voting-is-self-righteous/
Still another from G&M lamenting Yeats' axiom about things falling apart and the center struggling to hold. Trudeau's centrism needs to hold up in the face of untenable populist extremes being offered by the Cons (Donald Scheer) and NDP (Jagmeet Sanders). Splintering the left only aids the right.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-justin-trudeau-liberals-federal-election-climate-trade/
Charles Adler has even been pleading with the purity ponies not to cast protest votes and return a result like the USA in 2016. When even he doesn't want to see a vote split elect a far-right asshole, how am I the lunatic? How is rational pragmatism, condemning a hypocritical pied piper, and going to war with the army you have rather than the unicorn cavalry you want, "Loonie Politics"?
I don't know whether I'm a dippy purity pony or a bloodthirsty Khmer rouge murdering people with glasses who can read (like me). I'm actually a small black cat, and a veteran of labour, social and environmental movements. Why do you get away with calling peaceful people to your left mass murderers, of all things? We support imperialist war a hell of a lot less then Hillary did.
ReplyDeleteAs for the hammer and sickle, it and several variations are longstanding symbols of labour-farmer movements in many countries. The reason many of us leftists avoid it nowadays is associations with Stalinism.