In my last post I asked the question: are you ready for an election?
And my readers and I agreed that despite the Trudeau Liberal's golden polls, now was not the time.
Covid is still a major problem, and when it is mostly over, we'll all need a break to recover.
I know I will...
I'm going to need a lot of that, before I'm ready for an election campaign.
And fortunately I should get the time I need because there are two other reasons we almost certainly won't be having a summer election.
One, a bill to make an election safer, one that was obstructed for months by the Cons, has finally cleared first reading.
New Democrats joined forces Monday with the Liberals to cut short initial debate on a bill aimed at ensuring a federal election could be held safely, if need be, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among other things, the bill would allow for a three-day voting period, rather than the usual one day, and make it easier for voters to obtain and cast mail-in ballots. It would also allow Elections Canada more flexibility to conduct mobile polls in long-term care facilities.
But since the desperate Cons could still hold it up further, and the bill has a 90-day implementation period, an election won't be able to be safely held until the fall.
Which is ironic, for right now the Cons are better prepared for a summer election than any of the other parties.
The Conservatives are first out of the gate on several tracks, including fundraising, nominations and digital prep.
The party says it raised a record $8.5 million in the first three months of the year — a windfall more than twice the size of any other party’s last quarter — and nominated 197 candidates so far, including incumbents. It also set up what communications director Cory Hann calls a "state of the art broadcast studio" in a ballroom at the Westin hotel in downtown Ottawa equipped with stage lights, multiple cameras and a massive background screen.
But then there is that other reason we won't have even a late summer election. The Cons don't dare to push for one, because right now, even more than Justin Trudeau, the Cons fear Doug Ford.
New Democrats joined forces Monday with the Liberals to cut short initial debate on a bill
ReplyDeleteWhat happened? Singh had a brain seizure?
I wonder just how much Kenny is a drag as well? I don't see the Liberals taking any seats in Alberta but could the NDP pry a couple loese?
Also just as a marketing ploy, one might be able to lump Ford and Kenny together ans the face of a strong and competent Conservative Party. "After these two do you really want a Conservative Government in Ottawa?"
There was a picture of the errant old fool in shorts. Do you not know how dangerous this is to the heart of a man my age ?
ReplyDeleteSo my guess, then, is that it'll probably be two years to the day, give or take, when the election is finally held. Fine by me, in fact I suggest heading to the polls on the auspicious day of October 19, "because it's 2015". Hopefully to return similar results.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm sure our friendly neighbourhood poll-panicker JSB will be by soon to suggest that the Liberals are headed for disaster because of an incomplete reading of one or two isolated polls months before an actual election. I try convincing him to look at the bigger picture, the range, the averages, the overall landscape -- which includes Dougie Dumpster Fire and Jason Junk Heap -- but he won't listen. I don't think he's a Con himself but he's got a bad habit of driving people nuts. If he actually bothered to check Polltracker he'd find that Grenier says the Liberals only need B.C. to put them over the top. And furthermore, it's May.
Campaigns do matter. Jeff is a shitposting sleazebag but Trudeau is not virulently despised the way Wynne unfortunately was. The Con brand is shit in Ontario thanks to her successor, and the Mavericks are starting to get rowdy in 'Berta because they don't think the QAnon Cons whether Kluless Klutz Kenney or Dumbfuck O'Tool are wingnut enough. If Sloan crosses over to the PPC, that means Max has a seat in Parliament and he'll be invited to the debates. Bring popcorn.
Furthermore, the Cons have now pissed off the entirety of the Quebec National Assembly with their "tearing their shirts" and donning their tin foil hats about Bill C-10. So please inform our resident number-cruncher that Legault has pretty well taken Eric out back of the Tool shed or the outhouse or whatever. More aptly, he took himself out of contention there. Putting up Stepford tradwife Rachael Harder to go ballistic about cancel culture and bully Steven Guilbeault is a surefire way to alienate the culture sector in la belle province.
I swear though, if they're seriously so desperate as to detonate a phony sex scandal about Trudeau, as the other day's cryptic Con and that guy from Reddit (same person?) were hinting, they deserve to lose so many seats as to make 1993 look like a Tory supermajority.
"Among other things, the bill would allow for a three-day voting period, rather than the usual one day, and make it easier for voters to obtain and cast mail-in ballots."
ReplyDeleteI believe that mail-in ballots should become a permanent fixture of our elections due to our geography and mobility for many but mainly because complacent Liberals who normally wouldn't vote would most certainly do. It was clearly the difference for Joe vs Chump and here it would almost guarantee a majority. Con voters in their perpetual rage would crawl through their own drool to go and vote so I don't see any advantages to MIB for them. So, it's no wonder the tool crew is stalling the bill. They're envisioning their fates becoming that of Trump's and lest we forget, they only do what's best for them, not us.
POS Peter Kent seems to forgot two other words as to why they were shut out of the GTA. Andrew Scheer. Also, bringing the equally bigoted homophobe, Jason Kenney in to campaign was a brain fart extraordinaire in the most diverse city in the country. Duh!
So with the tool's likability even worse than Scheer's, I think it wont matter what the head murderclown does now. The Con's handling of the pandemic has given Canadians ample evidence that voting Conservative is truly hazardous to your health.
JD
In a Dunning Kruger alt universe where what you think you know is the only thing that matters populist Cons would make awesome leaders. Unfortunately we live in an unforgiving reality where ignorance is deadly.
ReplyDeleteBritannica.com:
"Dunning-Kruger effect, in psychology, a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general. According to the researchers for whom it is named, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger, the effect is explained by the fact that the metacognitive ability to recognize deficiencies in one’s own knowledge or competence requires that one possess at least a minimum level of the same kind of knowledge or competence, which those who exhibit the effect have not attained. Because they are unaware of their deficiencies, such people generally assume that they are not deficient, in keeping with the tendency of most people to “choose what they think is the most reasonable and optimal option.” Although not scientifically explored until the late 20th century, the phenomenon is familiar from ordinary life, and it has long been attested in common sayings—e.g., “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”—and in observations by writers and wits through the ages—e.g., “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” (Charles Darwin).
In the studies reported on in their paper “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” (1999), Dunning and Kruger tested the abilities of four groups of young adults in three domains: humour, logic (reasoning), and grammar. The results supported their predictions that, as compared with their more competent peers, “incompetent individuals…will dramatically overestimate their ability and performance relative to objective criteria”; that they “will be less able…to recognize competence when they see it” (whether their own or someone else’s); that they “will be less able…to gain insight into their true level of performance” by comparing their own performance with that of others; and, paradoxically, that they can improve their ability to recognize their own incompetence by becoming more competent, “thus providing them[selves] the metacognitive skills necessary to be able to realize that they have performed poorly.”
RT
You'll never believe this, Simon. The COVID elections bill and another bill to combat fake news during elections is being held up at committee by -- get this -- the CoNDP and even Bloc still chasing the white whale by... investigating WeGhazi. Head. Slam. On. Desk.
ReplyDeletehttps://ipolitics.ca/2021/05/12/bill-to-hold-a-safer-pandemic-election-caught-in-committee-filibuster/
Dale Smith wrote about this committee constipation at Routine Proceedings
http://www.routineproceedings.com/2021/05/06/roundup-proc-needs-to-grow-up/
-- and had a more detailed piece at Loonie Politics. While I don't agree with him about prorogation, he's 100 percent on target that the feckless opposition are being "partisan dicks."
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ysi6qfdCVJUJ:https://looniepolitics.com/commons-committees-are-in-crisis-because-mps-are-partisan-dicks/&client=firefox-b-1-ab&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0
[W]e are in a hung parliament and opposition MPs hold the majority on committees, and can largely get their own way. That’s why so many committees are now being bogged down in interminable studies on “scandals” that have long since played themselves out, or trying to find new avenues into existing ones that stretch the mandate of that committee to its limits. And because there is so little legislation actually moving in the House of Commons (thanks again to procedural delay tactics that the Conservatives have largely been engaged in), it means there is little legislative work for these committees, which allows them to spend more of their time on these “investigations.” Add to that, the farce that is the Health committee’s study of the pandemic responses, having requested more documents than they could ever possibly examine over the course of this parliament – and gobbling up the resources of the Commons’ law clerk to do the redactions that the public service should be doing – is showcasing how the system is being abused out or that same partisan dickishness.
This is also partly why the Procedure and House Affairs committee has devolved itself into a Liberal-led filibuster for the past forty-some sitting hours (which are broken up into small chunks because of the limits of hybrid meetings) because the Liberals are trying to push back against a massive overreach by opposition parties when it comes to the study of the government’s prorogation report ...
[T]he opposition members on the committee also not only wanted to hear from his chief of staff (which is problematic because calling staffers to committees violates the constitutional norms of ministerial responsibility), but also from the Kielburger brothers and the couple in charge of Speaker’s Spotlight, as though they have anything meaningfully to contribute to the prime minister’s personal decision to invoke his prerogative.
The Liberals are the only party that's actually trying to do work for Canadians, while the opposition is caught up in their pathological obsession with owning the Libs and prosecuting (persecuting) Trudeau. This parliament needs a good laxative election that clears the impacted bowels and returns a Liberal majority government, because the opposition is full of merde.
jrkrideau....I guess Singh must have received the latest polls, and decided that he better not have an election right away. As for the situation in Alberta, I think both the NDP and the new Maverick Party could steal some seats from the Cons. And of course in Ontario
ReplyDeleteBubba Ford is doing the O’Toole Gang so much damage they’re trying to hide him from reporters. I’m starting to believe that the fall of Trump is the harbinger of many good things...
Hi Rumleyfips...I think the sight of O’Toole running through the woods in a pair of skimpy shorts is enough to scare anybody. However since all O’Toole does is one photo op after the other, I strongly suspect that O’Toole only really ran about 50 metres before collapsing a a puddle of sweat. If I was his doctor I’d recommend against it...😉
ReplyDeleteHi Jackie.....I would love a Liberal majority, but I find knowing that the Liberals are going to win the election very relaxin. I am also hoping that Mad Max can do the Liberals a favour by stealing some votes from the Cons. According to some polls the People’s Party has been going some ground thanks to the support of the anti-mask crazies. I don’t know how far that will go but Bernier is even looking for votes in Toronto so I’m switching my support from the Christian Heritage Party to him...😉
ReplyDeleteHi JD....apparently that voting bill is only good until the end of the pandemic. But I believe that anything that makes voting easier is a good idea and should become established practice. As you point out, the Cons are the most reliable voters, so making voting easier will help our side most of all. What I find absolutely disgusting is that the Cons were playing voter suppression games again, by trying to use fear to discourage people from voting. Our shabby media should have noticed that, but once again they failed us..l
ReplyDeleteHi RT....I find that Darwin quote about ignorance begetting confidence deeply disturbing, especially since that ignorance is all around us, and getting in the way of our battle against Covid. As for the Dunning-Kruger effect, the Trump years were a stunning example of millions of people using their ignorance as a weapon. I used to scream with laughter when I saw those Trumplings mouthing off, but not any longer. Now the ignorant are literally threatening our lives. And unfortunately our Con governments have done a really poor job of educating them, so we have the blind leading the blind...l
ReplyDeleteHi Jackie....Dale Smith is the best reporter on the hill, and the only one to report on the way the opposition has been obstructing one bill after the other. It’s utterly disgraceful, especially during a pandemic, but at least it makes it even clearer why me must try to get a majority. One can argue that it’s no longer a matter of procedural efficiency, it’s a matter of survival....
ReplyDelete