As a progressive in the Conservative stranglehold of Saskatchewan, thank you. (So you know it wasn’t only Liberals reading.) Both the Liberals and the NDP need new leaders before the next election, and they must come from a leadership campaign.
Precisely. Trudeau should have called an election on Nov 7th. Taken his lumps and at least left a government with the energy to work for Canada, like Freeland and Trudeau did in 2017. Stick a fork in these guys they are done!!
As someone who practices idelogical promiscuity, I look forward to Trudeau leading the postnationalists to Mulroneyesque defeat. Trudeau's leadership, his mandarin's predilictions, and his caucus' cowardice put us through 10 years of erasing identity and dialogue, and fostered a festering polarity of woke smoke that belittled and chastised those who built this country and cancelled anyone that dared question the content, context or approach. I don't know what a Conservative supermajority will bring but I am sure that this Canada Day, we will be to celebrate our history while rebuilding our national reputation.
I like that -- ideological promiscuity. Me too. I thought some vague notion of "centre" was my home, and voted with the shifting tides. It was a rude awakening for me, as likely for many others, when this government began to turn on Canada and Canadians (who didn't fall into ideological line). It was an even ruder awakening when so many citizens joined in. So many of us want to celebrate our place in the world and build on it. We can be and do so much more.
Is this “supermajority” talking point an attempt to justify Poilievre Conservative lust for undermining longstanding Canadian institutions and norms? They seem to be just chomping at the bit to Orbanize the Charter, the Supreme Court, the Bank of Canada and the CBC. I guess they’re tired of having their radical agenda stymied by Canada?
Just because something is longstanding doesn't mean it should exist into perpetuity. The CBC has lost its way. If it can survive after losing its excessive funding, then it *should* survive.
As a bare minimum a case for the elimination of longstanding institutions should be based on accurate information. The CBC is one of the lowest funded national broadcasters among peer countries
Hopefully your man will keep some of the good things that the Liberals have achieved and that most Canadians cherish. Let's hope we don't have our own version of the useful idiots and chaos south of the border.
Mr. Butts, you lost me at “Ms. Freeland is basking in the afterglow of an admittedly courageous act of politics.” Up until the point when Trudeau demoted her, Freeland went along with spending my tax dollars as quickly and wastefully as humanly possible, racking up heart stopping debt and inflation, throwing money at ridiculous and sometimes fraudulent pet projects, and most egregiously, setting out to divide Canadians in a breathtakingly cynical play for power during an election no one wanted and which we were promised would never happen during a pandemic. Freeland, in particular, was practically gleeful in freezing bank accounts for people who dared confront her boss on his horrendous, damaging and useless pandemic policies. The Liberal party and their do nothing, say nothing acolytes need to retire to their well deserved banishment in the desert. Trudeau’s MPs are too chicken to force him out by flat out refusing to work with him unless he leaves, so I do not care who their next leader is. It will be a frosty day in Hell before I ever vote Liberal again after the disaster of the last decade.
If Trudeau has an atom of love for this country he would call an election right now. We do not have a working government at a time when we need it most. I consider that a betrayal of the worst sort, and if you retain any influence over him, do us a favour and speak up.
‘Horrendous, damaging and useless” pandemic policies - quite possible you are alive because of those policies and the large percentage of the population that followed them.
No Jefwyn. I am 70. In 2020, I did a cost/benefit analysis on taking an experimental injection against the available provincial dashboards and determined to the best of my ability what my risks were from dying from this virus. I also referred to the available studies regarding the efficacy of masks for preventing virus (spoiler alert: useless). We know now that the distancing mandates were made up and not based on anything that resembled science. We also know that keeping the unvaccinated from sharing space with the vaccinated in restaurants or airplanes had NO scientific data to support the mandates and we know that because of the discovery documentation from a lawsuit brought by former Newfoundland/Labrador premier and last living signatory to the Charter Brian Peckford. I got Covid around Easter of 2023, was uncomfortable for about 5 days then done. Meanwhile I watch my friends and family contracting Covid multiple times even though they were vaccinated. What “saved” me was paying attention to keeping my beautiful immune system supported and allowing myself to handle a short illness to achieve proper immunity, the type our bodies supply free of charge. You need to understand that Justin Trudeau and his team were absolutely aware that there was no scientific basis for the mandates they handed down. None. This information came from his own ministers who had to engage in discovery under oath. They were desperately seeking data after bringing down the mandates on us and were not successful. They knew. This was political. Pure and simple.
Silly comment. Sixty thousand people died in Canada as a result of Covid; nine hundred thousand in the U.S. Obviously their immune systems didn't work as well as yours. But I guess that's their problem. Right?
Hufin, you and I could argue all day long about this subject. You bring me data, I bring you data. It would not make any difference because we simply believe different things and we view health differently in all likelihood. It doesn’t matter and I am happy to have you do what you think is best for you in all aspects of your life. I feel the same way about my right to make my own decisions about my health. What I do not accept was being made a second class citizen by my own government for exercising my bodily autonomy, particularly when the so called basis for stripping those rights away was utter B.S. and instead predicated on some politician’s desperation to retain power.
That was the whole point of these vaccines: to do well in spite of being infected once, twice or whatever times. The anti covid vaccines were never intended to prevent being infected, but to ready the immune system to better deal with the virus.
As to being "experimental", those MRN vaccines had been already used in different species with much success .. for at least ten years before the pandemic.
As to being experimented upon; precisely the fourth phase of the experimental protocol is to inoculate larger portions of the target population at risk of being infected. By the time the vaccines had being distributed all over the world, over 15 millions Chileneans had already been inoculated and less than .1% died because of the vaccines. Yes, new vaccines cease to be "experimental" only after many years of being out there. It is the fourth phase. No surprises here.
JCM, you are correct about one aspect of the vaccines in that they were never TESTED for whether they prevented transmission, something that was certainly not revealed to the public until years later. But go back to statements that were made at the time by the likes of Fauci who declared that once a person was “fully” vaccinated the Covid infection would stop with that person. By February 2021, mere months after large numbers of people were supposedly fully vaccinated, breakthroughs were already occurring. There has been a concerted effort to rewrite history here to say that these vaccines were only meant to lessen symptoms. The narrative had to change to match the reality that became too evident to deny. Given the ferocious propaganda put out by our institutions, it isn’t too hard to imagine that government and public health officials who pushed this nonsense so hard needed to find a way to back away from accountability. I don’t know about you, but I don’t appreciate being gaslit. Not surprising, but equally, not acceptable.
Thanks for affirming there is no natural governing political party and your belief that there is always time for democracy. Appreciate your thoughts given your intimate knowledge of the 2 players. Thank you.
A leadership race before an election may be in the Liberal party’s best interests but it is *not*in Canadians’ best interests. An election asap is the only way to move forward with a decisive mandate. A leadership race on Canadians’ time, run while the country languishes and no business occurs, is one of many reasons they will be defeated during an election. With no thought to the wellbeing of Canadians, and only thought for their own jobs and survival, the LPC will deserve oblivion.
Thank you for this insightful analysis. I’m also a reader of Ian Brenner. With you now part of the Eurasia group, you’re a staple in my information sources. Post media has destroyed local papers. I look elsewhere to be informed.
As a Conservative supporter I read all of the way through, for give us credit we do take interest in what the so-called “progressives” are thinking today. You said one universal truth. “If something is true, then it is true everywhere.” It is true that the Liberal Party is primarily interested in power and its own best interests. Was true in “Adscam”, was true in 2011, is true today, will be true tomorrow and into the future. A new leader will not change the DNA. I did like the hockey analogy, but the Liberals still have minor hockey players to chose from.
All of Trudeau and Freeland’s giveaways may be great in theory, but have driven the country into deep debt because while they were giving away they were also discouraging real investment in the economy which ultimately pays for those giveaways.
When Trudeau took over Canada's debt was $612 billion. Now its $1,236 billion as of March 2024 and on its way to $1,300 billion. That's 1.3 Trillion. It took Canada 130 years to accumulate the first $600 billion and only 9 years for Trudeau to double it. Quite an accomplishment.
Miss you on Twitter. Agree with your POV. Democrats totally missed the fact that the regular guy is just struggling to buy groceries these days. Instead they forged ahead with their mightier than thou/we're better than them campaign. As a life-long Liberal, I'm afraid that's what's happening here and history will repeat. Let's fairly elect a leader who has a chance to right this ship. P.S. miss your tennis commentary most of all!
Quite so. The Trudeau II era, and the dramatic and illusionary public persona of Justin Trudeau, both of which you were a primary architect of, may be viewed later in our history as the dead cat bounce of the Liberal Party of Canada. That's an impressive accomplishment to resurrect a brand that, it turned out, was only Mostly Dead prior to 2015. Perhaps you should adopt the name ‘Miracle Max' as your soubriquet - you definitely earned it.
So Gerald-Max - I implore you, for the sake of our country, please don't take that job again. Let the Again Mostly Dead Liberal Party finally die, as it so richly deserves to, along with the current Mostly Dead NDP and Mostly Dead Green Party.
Perhaps, out of the fertilizer that remains of these three zombie parties, the seeds of a new and credible single progressive alternative will germinate and thrive as a counterpoint to the CPC and Bloc in Canada. The Progressive Party.
Extensive polling in Canada has repeatedly and unequivocally demonstrated that the Conservatives and the right always perform best under a 2-party scenario. Polling re: potential unions of the Green/NDP/Liberals or NDP/Liberals has shown that Conservative performances would improve and that their chances of forming a majority government would also rise.
Many on the left (who have no understanding of what it means to be a Liberal or a centrist) are under the mistaken delusion that they can "add" the Liberal vote to the NDP and Green tally to arrive at a future performance figure.
What that simplistic analysis misses, is how many right-of-centre Liberals would never vote for an amalgamation of parties on the left.
Then two-or-three party scenario would be fine from my own point of view, assuming that at least the Progressive Left in a strong Official Opposition role could keep the Conservatives from succumbing to their own worst instincts.
We would also need Senate and Supreme Court reform to avoid the pork barreling.
The cons died in 1993 but we're revived by reversing a split. The Libs will survive but need to corral ALL progressives in the country as a start. The NDP is now known as the party that elects conservative govts
Yes, corral the progressives. JT has never understood how intolerable the draconian DEI and identity politics has been for formally tolerant, easy-going Canadians.
I reside in a part of Canada that has very little time for the ever blurred lines between what is good for the nation and what is good for the LPC.
These blurry lines have bubbled up to the surface with a galling Liberal leadership race that may be launched in the new year. Galling because Justin Trudeau has ignored the warning signs of his political demise for two elections and squandered every single opportunity to resign on his own terms and with the dignity that should be afforded to a Prime Minister. Canadians are just supposed to suck it up and pay for his dithering? I don’t think so.
Parliament is scheduled to return days after the inauguration of Team Orange and chances are we will have a proroguing of Parliament. At the worst possible time. Why? So the LPC can postpone its election day humiliation that is about to happen and la-di-dah for the summer to run a self serving leadership campaign.
This is going to end badly. We need a strong government in place with a clear mandate to govern for the best interests of Canadians and especially workers who could find themselves unemployed with a stroke of a Presidential pen. Justin Trudeau should do Canada a huge favour and dissolve Parliament, call an election and take his message to the people and seek his mandate. Anything else is an affront to democracy and a selfish attempt to buy time (and votes). Enough already.
Did you really write that this feckless son of wealth has an appetite for hard work? The guy whose only accomplishment before he entered politics was to be a failed drama teacher? Why you still show your face in polite company after defenestrating the first female indigenous minister of justice is beyond me.
Liberals in the UK won over half of elections from the 1850s to 1918, and then never again. An unstoppable force of reformists who over time, stopped being able to read the mood of the country and is today mainly interested in its internal affairs. An active expression of Duverger’s Law.
Canada is supposed to be the exception to this law, in particular the vast area we occupy is supposed to amplify regional differences favour “small parties” that take on locally popular but nationally less popular positions (ie the bloc). The persistence of the NDP and Liberals as political institutions with overlapping mandates should be something that eventually collapses if this law holds. It didn’t after 2011, but what happens if 2025 is 2011 redux with no saviour in waiting?
It’s an important choice. If the Liberals draft a Sinclair and the NDP draft an Atlee, then the red team might never see another playoff game.
The Liberal Party in the UK was fatally wounded due primarily to the aftermath of a Union with the Conservative Party during WWI.
In Canada, the two parties also joined forces during the First World War, but most leading Liberals returned to the fold after 1918. Regardless, many Liberals who joined Borden's National Government later formed their own Party (The Progressives) and then, slowly but surely, leaked back into the Liberal Party of Canada throughout the 1920s.
In England, the leading Liberal light, Winston Churchill, stayed with the Tories after WWI. A weakened Liberal Party never recovered, given the parallel rise of the British Labour Party throughout the 1920s and 30s.
After the results of the Biden/Harris handover I daresay there's less folks ready to tell you why you're so wrong about the need for a real leadership contest.
As a progressive in the Conservative stranglehold of Saskatchewan, thank you. (So you know it wasn’t only Liberals reading.) Both the Liberals and the NDP need new leaders before the next election, and they must come from a leadership campaign.
Actually they don’t need new leaders, the ones they have need to go down with the ships they’ve sunk. New leader can rebuild from what’s left.
What Canada most needs right now is an election and a government with a strong mandate to manage the coming tsunami Trump will unleash.
Precisely. Trudeau should have called an election on Nov 7th. Taken his lumps and at least left a government with the energy to work for Canada, like Freeland and Trudeau did in 2017. Stick a fork in these guys they are done!!
As someone who practices idelogical promiscuity, I look forward to Trudeau leading the postnationalists to Mulroneyesque defeat. Trudeau's leadership, his mandarin's predilictions, and his caucus' cowardice put us through 10 years of erasing identity and dialogue, and fostered a festering polarity of woke smoke that belittled and chastised those who built this country and cancelled anyone that dared question the content, context or approach. I don't know what a Conservative supermajority will bring but I am sure that this Canada Day, we will be to celebrate our history while rebuilding our national reputation.
I like that -- ideological promiscuity. Me too. I thought some vague notion of "centre" was my home, and voted with the shifting tides. It was a rude awakening for me, as likely for many others, when this government began to turn on Canada and Canadians (who didn't fall into ideological line). It was an even ruder awakening when so many citizens joined in. So many of us want to celebrate our place in the world and build on it. We can be and do so much more.
Pierre would be proud of you.
Is this “supermajority” talking point an attempt to justify Poilievre Conservative lust for undermining longstanding Canadian institutions and norms? They seem to be just chomping at the bit to Orbanize the Charter, the Supreme Court, the Bank of Canada and the CBC. I guess they’re tired of having their radical agenda stymied by Canada?
Just because something is longstanding doesn't mean it should exist into perpetuity. The CBC has lost its way. If it can survive after losing its excessive funding, then it *should* survive.
As a bare minimum a case for the elimination of longstanding institutions should be based on accurate information. The CBC is one of the lowest funded national broadcasters among peer countries
https://site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/documents/vision/strategy/latest-studies/Nordicity-analysis-of-government-support-for-public-service-broadcasting-april-2020.pdf
The first Pierre would I'm pretty sure. As much as I despised the old coot he loved and appreciated his country.
Hopefully your man will keep some of the good things that the Liberals have achieved and that most Canadians cherish. Let's hope we don't have our own version of the useful idiots and chaos south of the border.
He won’t. He’s in the pay of the same crowd of “ chaos agents “ that are about to disassemble the US government.
Mr. Butts, you lost me at “Ms. Freeland is basking in the afterglow of an admittedly courageous act of politics.” Up until the point when Trudeau demoted her, Freeland went along with spending my tax dollars as quickly and wastefully as humanly possible, racking up heart stopping debt and inflation, throwing money at ridiculous and sometimes fraudulent pet projects, and most egregiously, setting out to divide Canadians in a breathtakingly cynical play for power during an election no one wanted and which we were promised would never happen during a pandemic. Freeland, in particular, was practically gleeful in freezing bank accounts for people who dared confront her boss on his horrendous, damaging and useless pandemic policies. The Liberal party and their do nothing, say nothing acolytes need to retire to their well deserved banishment in the desert. Trudeau’s MPs are too chicken to force him out by flat out refusing to work with him unless he leaves, so I do not care who their next leader is. It will be a frosty day in Hell before I ever vote Liberal again after the disaster of the last decade.
If Trudeau has an atom of love for this country he would call an election right now. We do not have a working government at a time when we need it most. I consider that a betrayal of the worst sort, and if you retain any influence over him, do us a favour and speak up.
‘Horrendous, damaging and useless” pandemic policies - quite possible you are alive because of those policies and the large percentage of the population that followed them.
No Jefwyn. I am 70. In 2020, I did a cost/benefit analysis on taking an experimental injection against the available provincial dashboards and determined to the best of my ability what my risks were from dying from this virus. I also referred to the available studies regarding the efficacy of masks for preventing virus (spoiler alert: useless). We know now that the distancing mandates were made up and not based on anything that resembled science. We also know that keeping the unvaccinated from sharing space with the vaccinated in restaurants or airplanes had NO scientific data to support the mandates and we know that because of the discovery documentation from a lawsuit brought by former Newfoundland/Labrador premier and last living signatory to the Charter Brian Peckford. I got Covid around Easter of 2023, was uncomfortable for about 5 days then done. Meanwhile I watch my friends and family contracting Covid multiple times even though they were vaccinated. What “saved” me was paying attention to keeping my beautiful immune system supported and allowing myself to handle a short illness to achieve proper immunity, the type our bodies supply free of charge. You need to understand that Justin Trudeau and his team were absolutely aware that there was no scientific basis for the mandates they handed down. None. This information came from his own ministers who had to engage in discovery under oath. They were desperately seeking data after bringing down the mandates on us and were not successful. They knew. This was political. Pure and simple.
Silly comment. Sixty thousand people died in Canada as a result of Covid; nine hundred thousand in the U.S. Obviously their immune systems didn't work as well as yours. But I guess that's their problem. Right?
Hufin, you and I could argue all day long about this subject. You bring me data, I bring you data. It would not make any difference because we simply believe different things and we view health differently in all likelihood. It doesn’t matter and I am happy to have you do what you think is best for you in all aspects of your life. I feel the same way about my right to make my own decisions about my health. What I do not accept was being made a second class citizen by my own government for exercising my bodily autonomy, particularly when the so called basis for stripping those rights away was utter B.S. and instead predicated on some politician’s desperation to retain power.
That was the whole point of these vaccines: to do well in spite of being infected once, twice or whatever times. The anti covid vaccines were never intended to prevent being infected, but to ready the immune system to better deal with the virus.
As to being "experimental", those MRN vaccines had been already used in different species with much success .. for at least ten years before the pandemic.
As to being experimented upon; precisely the fourth phase of the experimental protocol is to inoculate larger portions of the target population at risk of being infected. By the time the vaccines had being distributed all over the world, over 15 millions Chileneans had already been inoculated and less than .1% died because of the vaccines. Yes, new vaccines cease to be "experimental" only after many years of being out there. It is the fourth phase. No surprises here.
JCM, you are correct about one aspect of the vaccines in that they were never TESTED for whether they prevented transmission, something that was certainly not revealed to the public until years later. But go back to statements that were made at the time by the likes of Fauci who declared that once a person was “fully” vaccinated the Covid infection would stop with that person. By February 2021, mere months after large numbers of people were supposedly fully vaccinated, breakthroughs were already occurring. There has been a concerted effort to rewrite history here to say that these vaccines were only meant to lessen symptoms. The narrative had to change to match the reality that became too evident to deny. Given the ferocious propaganda put out by our institutions, it isn’t too hard to imagine that government and public health officials who pushed this nonsense so hard needed to find a way to back away from accountability. I don’t know about you, but I don’t appreciate being gaslit. Not surprising, but equally, not acceptable.
Thanks for affirming there is no natural governing political party and your belief that there is always time for democracy. Appreciate your thoughts given your intimate knowledge of the 2 players. Thank you.
Thanks Leah!
Trudeau and Freeland are not to be applauded or commended in any way.
Both were and are unfit rookies that were influenced by the likes of Klaus Schwab and other dangerous champagne socialists.
They took a well functioning country and turned it into a ….
"...the economy sucked for regular people, and government could help the middle class with measured and thoughtful policy..."
10 years later, the economy sucks even more for regular people.
The socialist redistribution policies have sucked badly.
Better to leave money in the pockets of hard-working Canadians.
We earn our money, we know what to do with it.
We don't need the tax man's lectures & coercions.
As Mr. Butts said, Canadians are wise! We will thrive under a humble government's trust & respect for its electorate.
Socialist redistribution only works for everyone if the pie keeps getting bigger.
The Trudeau liberals shrank the pie, but made it feed way more people. No small wonder we are all worse off today than we were in 2015.
Well written and quite accurate. Couldn't agree more on having a leadership convention. Democracies are only strong if all parties are strong.
I also agree with a leadership convention -- AFTER an election. Do it on their own time.
A leadership race before an election may be in the Liberal party’s best interests but it is *not*in Canadians’ best interests. An election asap is the only way to move forward with a decisive mandate. A leadership race on Canadians’ time, run while the country languishes and no business occurs, is one of many reasons they will be defeated during an election. With no thought to the wellbeing of Canadians, and only thought for their own jobs and survival, the LPC will deserve oblivion.
…and that goes back to “if something is true then it is always true” applying to the LPC.
Thank you for this insightful analysis. I’m also a reader of Ian Brenner. With you now part of the Eurasia group, you’re a staple in my information sources. Post media has destroyed local papers. I look elsewhere to be informed.
As a Conservative supporter I read all of the way through, for give us credit we do take interest in what the so-called “progressives” are thinking today. You said one universal truth. “If something is true, then it is true everywhere.” It is true that the Liberal Party is primarily interested in power and its own best interests. Was true in “Adscam”, was true in 2011, is true today, will be true tomorrow and into the future. A new leader will not change the DNA. I did like the hockey analogy, but the Liberals still have minor hockey players to chose from.
All of Trudeau and Freeland’s giveaways may be great in theory, but have driven the country into deep debt because while they were giving away they were also discouraging real investment in the economy which ultimately pays for those giveaways.
Harper ran up 127bb of new debt and did not have a pandemic to deal with. The 2008 banking crisis was minor in compsrison
When Trudeau took over Canada's debt was $612 billion. Now its $1,236 billion as of March 2024 and on its way to $1,300 billion. That's 1.3 Trillion. It took Canada 130 years to accumulate the first $600 billion and only 9 years for Trudeau to double it. Quite an accomplishment.
Check the deficits between 2016:and 2020.
Miss you on Twitter. Agree with your POV. Democrats totally missed the fact that the regular guy is just struggling to buy groceries these days. Instead they forged ahead with their mightier than thou/we're better than them campaign. As a life-long Liberal, I'm afraid that's what's happening here and history will repeat. Let's fairly elect a leader who has a chance to right this ship. P.S. miss your tennis commentary most of all!
Aw, thanks Maureen!
Quite so. The Trudeau II era, and the dramatic and illusionary public persona of Justin Trudeau, both of which you were a primary architect of, may be viewed later in our history as the dead cat bounce of the Liberal Party of Canada. That's an impressive accomplishment to resurrect a brand that, it turned out, was only Mostly Dead prior to 2015. Perhaps you should adopt the name ‘Miracle Max' as your soubriquet - you definitely earned it.
So Gerald-Max - I implore you, for the sake of our country, please don't take that job again. Let the Again Mostly Dead Liberal Party finally die, as it so richly deserves to, along with the current Mostly Dead NDP and Mostly Dead Green Party.
Perhaps, out of the fertilizer that remains of these three zombie parties, the seeds of a new and credible single progressive alternative will germinate and thrive as a counterpoint to the CPC and Bloc in Canada. The Progressive Party.
Extensive polling in Canada has repeatedly and unequivocally demonstrated that the Conservatives and the right always perform best under a 2-party scenario. Polling re: potential unions of the Green/NDP/Liberals or NDP/Liberals has shown that Conservative performances would improve and that their chances of forming a majority government would also rise.
Many on the left (who have no understanding of what it means to be a Liberal or a centrist) are under the mistaken delusion that they can "add" the Liberal vote to the NDP and Green tally to arrive at a future performance figure.
What that simplistic analysis misses, is how many right-of-centre Liberals would never vote for an amalgamation of parties on the left.
Interesting perspective.
Then two-or-three party scenario would be fine from my own point of view, assuming that at least the Progressive Left in a strong Official Opposition role could keep the Conservatives from succumbing to their own worst instincts.
We would also need Senate and Supreme Court reform to avoid the pork barreling.
Well said.
The cons died in 1993 but we're revived by reversing a split. The Libs will survive but need to corral ALL progressives in the country as a start. The NDP is now known as the party that elects conservative govts
Yes, corral the progressives. JT has never understood how intolerable the draconian DEI and identity politics has been for formally tolerant, easy-going Canadians.
I reside in a part of Canada that has very little time for the ever blurred lines between what is good for the nation and what is good for the LPC.
These blurry lines have bubbled up to the surface with a galling Liberal leadership race that may be launched in the new year. Galling because Justin Trudeau has ignored the warning signs of his political demise for two elections and squandered every single opportunity to resign on his own terms and with the dignity that should be afforded to a Prime Minister. Canadians are just supposed to suck it up and pay for his dithering? I don’t think so.
Parliament is scheduled to return days after the inauguration of Team Orange and chances are we will have a proroguing of Parliament. At the worst possible time. Why? So the LPC can postpone its election day humiliation that is about to happen and la-di-dah for the summer to run a self serving leadership campaign.
This is going to end badly. We need a strong government in place with a clear mandate to govern for the best interests of Canadians and especially workers who could find themselves unemployed with a stroke of a Presidential pen. Justin Trudeau should do Canada a huge favour and dissolve Parliament, call an election and take his message to the people and seek his mandate. Anything else is an affront to democracy and a selfish attempt to buy time (and votes). Enough already.
Did you really write that this feckless son of wealth has an appetite for hard work? The guy whose only accomplishment before he entered politics was to be a failed drama teacher? Why you still show your face in polite company after defenestrating the first female indigenous minister of justice is beyond me.
Liberals in the UK won over half of elections from the 1850s to 1918, and then never again. An unstoppable force of reformists who over time, stopped being able to read the mood of the country and is today mainly interested in its internal affairs. An active expression of Duverger’s Law.
Canada is supposed to be the exception to this law, in particular the vast area we occupy is supposed to amplify regional differences favour “small parties” that take on locally popular but nationally less popular positions (ie the bloc). The persistence of the NDP and Liberals as political institutions with overlapping mandates should be something that eventually collapses if this law holds. It didn’t after 2011, but what happens if 2025 is 2011 redux with no saviour in waiting?
It’s an important choice. If the Liberals draft a Sinclair and the NDP draft an Atlee, then the red team might never see another playoff game.
The Liberal Party in the UK was fatally wounded due primarily to the aftermath of a Union with the Conservative Party during WWI.
In Canada, the two parties also joined forces during the First World War, but most leading Liberals returned to the fold after 1918. Regardless, many Liberals who joined Borden's National Government later formed their own Party (The Progressives) and then, slowly but surely, leaked back into the Liberal Party of Canada throughout the 1920s.
In England, the leading Liberal light, Winston Churchill, stayed with the Tories after WWI. A weakened Liberal Party never recovered, given the parallel rise of the British Labour Party throughout the 1920s and 30s.
After the results of the Biden/Harris handover I daresay there's less folks ready to tell you why you're so wrong about the need for a real leadership contest.