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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   29588 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 17, 2025

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A brief primer on the forthcoming Canadian federal election

I say brief in an attempt by myself to keep this short. The newly sworn-in Mark Carney has asked the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and call an election for April 28. This was as an anticipated reaction to the recent swings in polling so it's not exactly a surprise, but it's still short notice and parties are rushing to fill out their candidates and get their campaign in action.

The big story in all of this is the massive collapse in Conservative polling support, which is what prompted the election call as the Liberals hope to capitalize. The Liberals have been in power for ten years now, and were up until Justin Trudeau's resignation in December seemingly cooked. The Conservatives were on the verge of outright majority support in the polls, Liberal support was in the high teens, almost every ironclad safe Liberal seat was up for grabs, and it seemed possible - if not necessarily probable - that the Liberals might be reduced to a mere handful of seats nationwide. Now, as the election kicks off, polls suggest something between a comfortable Liberal minority to a majority government. What happened?

For general context: Canada has four major political parties, three national (progressive NDP, centrist Liberals, centre-right Conservatives) and one regional (Bloc Québecois). There are also two minor parties, the environmental Greens and libertarian/populist People's Party. Canadians are in general not partisan: it's very natural for support to shift between parties, and your average Canadian will have voted for 3 different federal parties by the time they hit middle age. What's unprecedented is the degree of the swing in support towards the Liberals, not that it never happens; in 2015 Justin Trudeau entered the 5 week election campaign thoroughly in third place but ended up winning a majority.

I think there's three major factors, and they are all individuals rather than larger undercurrents. The first is obviously Donald Trump. Never has one man done more for Canadian pride and unity. Canada of course is heavily intertwined economically and culturally with the United States, and the actions of the Man Down South has put everything in a bit of a frenzy. For once we are actually seeing meaningful progress towards dismantling inter-Canadian trade barriers, to building new nationwide infrastructure, and indulging in a bit of national pride which has been treated as rather disdainful the past decade. It also goes without saying that Trump's antics are repulsive to most Canadians, and you could not do worse as an advertisement for conservatism to Canadians. It does not help that there's a very fringe and annoying portion of MAGA Canadians, or that the federal Conservatives have done an agonizingly slow job of voicing meaningful denunciations to Trump's tariffs and annexation threats. (By comparison: Doug Ford whipped about quick and used the bully pulpit very effectively, and won his Progressive Conservatives another majority in Ontario).

Pierre Poilievre, the federal Conservative leader, is the second factor. To put it simply: he is not an inspiring candidate to most Canadians. He has spent the past two decades in Parliament (he has never worked outside of politics; he became an MP more or less immediately after graduating university) as the attack dog, and he has kept up that spirit as party leader. He has incessantly and somewhat annoyingly been fixated on Justin Trudeau and the carbon tax for the past few years, ever eager to get in a dig. The problem: Justin Trudeau is gone, and so is the consumer carbon tax (Carney axed it on his first day as PM). Poilievre was never a popular individual, but up against an even less popular leader in Trudeau and his generally maleffective ministry Canadians would have grumblingly voted for him. Now suddenly he is very much the dog who caught the car. The things he has been harping about for years are gone, and he has not shifted his message an iota since the start of Trump's upheavals. The old tricks are simply not working anymore. I think if the previous Conservative leader Erin O'Toole were still leading things they would still have a comfortable lead. He was much more palatable to the average Canadian and far less vulnerable to the changing of the winds. Poilievre's combative nature has put them in a real bind because even if they win the most seats it's hard to imagine them forming government: the things I hear from insiders suggest people just hate working with him, and he's done his best to piss off all the other parties.

And that is particularly damaging because of the third factor, Mark Carney. He might be the most qualified individual to have ever become Canadian Prime Minister; he was appointed to lead the Bank of Canada during the Great Recession under the previous Conservative government, and was subsequently the first non-Briton to head the Bank of England. In a time where there are suddenly great questions about the economic future of the country, he is exactly the type of person voters look to. (Whether he will lead the country effectively remains to be seen.) I've often said that in times of turmoil even the most dysfunctional of democracies will pick boring bankers as leaders, but I was imagining this to be the case in 2029: I really did not see this polling turnaround coming. I think everyone misjudged Trump's capacity for havoc. Poilievre's partisan nature and lack of experience are very stark in comparison to Carney who at least so far is setting a more centrist sort of tone in his messaging and is soliciting notable from both the Conservatives and NDP to run for the Liberals in this election.

The only other thing to add is the real loser in all this might be the NDP. They had helped prop up the Liberals for the past few years and for the last two were generally polling ahead of them. But now the tent is collapsing and all their support is shifting to the Liberals instead. I very much dislike their leader Jagmeet Singh and will not be sad to see him go, but it looks likely that the NDP will lose official party status. It's a long long fall from where they were ten years ago, when they entered the 2015 campaign looking likely to form their first government.

My personal opinions are as follows: part of me wants to see the Liberals win a majority because it would be very funny, and I quite strongly dislike Poilievre and would find it simply embarrassing if a man like that were the leader of my country. We've been through ten years of Trudeau making a mockery of us and do not need any more nonsense. The other half of me finds it a bit galling that the Liberals might escape ten years of misrule and divisive politics without punishment. They are for better or for worse the natural ruling party of Canada (and the one I am most closely aligned with, ideologically) and that means they are the experts at shifting with the public, but it means they also can get arrogant and complacent and that begets all kinds of nonsense and corruption. So I guess I'm hoping for a small Liberal minority that chides the Liberals and forces them to do a better job.

How much of it is due to conservatives/trump vs just dumpstering trudeau working very well?

Coming on the heels of the Biden-Harris switch, I really didn't expect a Trudeau-Carney switch to do much better (and the election hasn't happened yet so I guess I shouldn't speak too soon). Basically nobody knew who Carney was before he ran. He did really well in his election but partly because no other candidate was really given the time of day. Whether it was the media or the party, he was essentially chosen before the voting.

But Canadian politics is not American politics, and here we are. For all that Trump seems to dislike Poilievre, a lot of Canadians see Poilievre as Trump-lite, so the more Trump acts out against Canada, the worse the Conservatives are going to do.

Harris was a weak candidate, though, between being Californian and her race/sex being the things that got her the candidacy.

She was, which was made worse by the way they switched. But she had name recognition and more of a political record than Carney does.

New thing that might possibly hurt the conservatives even more is the recent Breitbart interview by Danielle Smith (premier of Alberta).

In it she says

So I would hope that we could put things on pause is what I’ve told administration officials. Let’s just put things on pause so we can get through an election,”

Notice that it's "on pause" for why people are pointing this out as a failure and

but I would say, on balance, the perspective that Pierre would bring would be very much in sync with, I think…the new direction in America,”

So at a time when Trump is upsetting Canadians so much that it's pushing for a resurgence in support for the liberals, the CPC's public strategy seems to be digging the grave even deeper. Meanwhile the liberal party has done a fantastic taking the sails out of Pierre's campaign by replacing Trudeau and cutting the carbon tax.

There's a very high chance that the conservatives have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory here and it's almost entirely thanks to Donald Trump and his aggressive rhetoric and trade wars on Canada, and a strong showing by the Liberals to capitalize on this effectively.

Meanwhile the liberal party has done a fantastic taking the sails out of Pierre's campaign by replacing Trudeau and cutting the carbon tax.

They have not cut the carbon tax when producing goods, only when consuming them. So the price of gas will drop a bit (and as the US shows, this is important enough for them to draw down their strategic reserves for) but that's about it.

All the Liberal party has to do for Easterners is be "their guy" (and being a fresh face doesn't hurt) if they perceive they're under some kind of threat. Only if they're not will they consider voting for what is, from the Eastern perspective, a foreigner.

Also,

the CPC's public strategy

Danielle Smith is not CPC nor federal, nor is her provincial party named the same way. Canadian politics work a little differently.

Danielle Smith is not CPC nor federal, nor is her provincial party named the same way. Canadian politics work a little differently.

I mean, if you're concerned with Canadian unity, it's arguably more alarming that the premier of Alberta is doing this.

PP will understandably be tossed out if he should lose this election and the CPC will likely overcorrect. Any tensions with Smith or the (continued) perception of diverging interests between Alberta and other provinces can't be erased or fixed so easily.

Yeah you're right she's UCP, but they're working in tangent with the CPC. After all her whole interview was about supporting Pierre.

After all her whole interview was about supporting Pierre.

It would be easier for AB to get policy goals accomplished were its people represented in the Federal government, something they haven't been for a long, long time now. Liberals don't listen to anyone outside of Toronto, and it shows.

But I don't think there's a future for Reform parties in this country and yet another CPC loss/Eastern aggression + economic cataclysm might start convincing people of that.

Eastern aggression What do you mean by that?

I think they're referring to the general disdain at the root of Liberal decisions. I can't point to any explicitly discriminatory laws, but the differences in impact are pretty clear.

  • COVID vaccines were distributed to the provinces proportional to (total) population. The Federal government is responsible for providing healthcare to Treaty Indians, while Provincial governments are responsible for providing healthcare to the rest of their residents. The feds assigned a larger-than-proportional number of the doses to go to them (which is probably appropriate given the risk factors) from their province's stock, and as a result non-Native Manitobans got worse access than non-Native Ontarians due to that province's larger Native population.
  • They wanted to increase affordability, so they cut the carbon tax for some home heating. Specifically, for home heating oil which is (almost) exclusively used in the East, while the West uses natural gas. When asked about it, a Liberal MP said that Westerners should elect more Liberals if they want to benefit from the government. This is the clearest example IMO. (Saskatchewan decided that it wanted that tax exemption too, so it stopped collecting/paying the carbon tax on all home heating. I just checked and haven't seen any news about it since then, so it sounds like it worked.)
  • Equalization payments are above 100% of "equal" because the Liberals maintained a Harper-era law that reduced equalization amounts (at the time. Then circumstances changed and the formula gives a different result). Instead of the "have" provinces mostly in the West bringing the "have-not" provinces up to their own level of economic prosperity and services, they're forced to push them above their own levels by a few billion dollars.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but Liberal+BQ is the most probably governing coalition, and liberals might win an outright majority?

We don't really do the Euro-style coalition thing. A minority government has to scare up enough votes from the other parties to pass any given piece of legislation (or any non-confidence motion that the other parties might be able to force). But it isn't as formal, and in practical terms, it isn't necessarily the same party all the time. In this case, for a long time Singh and the NDP could mostly be counted on to support the Trudeau Liberals and several of the thousand cuts they died of took the form of Singh withdrawing that support.

No, Liberals + BQ would actually be a huge sea change in Canadian politics. The Bloc Québécois are effectively in a cordon sanitaire. The national parties are not supposed to vote with them, and any legislation which could only pass through their support is withdrawn instead.

I would actually expect a joint caretaker-ish Liberal-Conservative government over cooperation with the Bloc.

Though if the Liberals are that close to a majority, the NDP support is probably enough to form a government.

No? The Bloc has voted with and propped up minority governments before many many times. The PPC is being kept out.

I don't think they have. At least, they never voted for legislation where their votes were the difference between success and failure. Possibly they've not voted for a non-confidence in a minority government, which I suppose counts. But the governing parties don't cut deals to ensure their vote in such situations, the way they do with other parties.

They came close in 2008-2009, potentially Lib-NDP-Bloc. But that government never actually formed, the Conservatives stayed as minority government.

If you have an example, I'd be happy to see it.

A Liberal + BQ government is not meaningfully distinguishable from a Liberal majority.

The big potential difference is on immigration. The Bloc (besides the PPC) is the only federal party that is immigration-skeptic.

[O'Toole] was much more palatable to the average Canadian and far less vulnerable to the changing of the winds.

Lol, lmao even. That flip-flopping is part of what cost them the election in '21- on the right flank, it's worth noting.

So I guess I'm hoping for a small Liberal minority that chides the Liberals and forces them to do a better job.

The last 6 years suggests this will not happen.

The only other thing to add is the real loser in all this might be the NDP.

Yeah, polarization (an American cultural import) means the Western Socialists are no longer viable. The Bloc is the same way when the people of Quebec get scared the rest of the country's going to take away their toys, which is why the Liberals are doing that well in the polls in the first place.

The other half of me finds it a bit galling that the Liberals might escape ten years of misrule and divisive politics without punishment. They are for better or for worse the natural ruling party of Canada

Upper Canada, its interest party, and those who voted it in have done nothing but destroy the future of this country and its culture without consequence, and I hope the trade war they (and it is exclusively they) are insisting we wage destroys it forever. Fortunately, the manner in which they will wage it has a higher likelihood of doing that.

One thing that annoys me a lot is that I don’t even think Poilievre was slow to denounce the tariffs or other Trump policies (I recall seeing articles about him denouncing them the day they were announced) - I feel like the internet (generously aided by what was probably an advertising blitz for Carney) decided to ignore it.

One thing that happens in Canadian politics is that as a conservative, you do not have any of the leeway granted to a LPC or NDP candidate. Most donations to the LPC are close to the donation limit, and they facilitate the largest transfer of wealth out of the middle class? Well obviously the CPC is the party of neo-feudalism and big business. LPC candidate literally raised from birth to be prime minister with a multi-million trust fund while the CPC candidate was adopted and raised by a middle class family? Clearly the CPC candidate is the elitist.

It’s really frustrating how little people seem to react to the facts on their own. Someone who votes for Carney because he doesn’t care for Poilievre is infinitely more palatable to me than someone who votes for Carney because Poilievre is secretly in the pocket of big business.

One thing that happens in Canadian politics is that as a Reformer, you do not have any of the leeway granted to a Big City Interest candidate

Don't think I have to say anything more than that, really. There are no checks and balances to prevent them from screwing up the rest of the country like there are in the US, which is why this divide is permanent in a way it really isn't there. It's the same problem all one-party states suffer from.

It’s really frustrating how little people seem to react to the facts on their own.

At this point I don't think there's any compromise.

Canada is hardly a one-party state. Sure, the Liberals have been in charge for almost ten years, but before that the Conservatives were similarly in charge for almost ten years.

But I agree that Canada just doesn't have the same checks and balances as the US, either for offices or for individuals. The only thing keeping a PM from being in office for life is that eventually something bad will happen that they'll have to take the blame for. I do wonder how much that's uniquely Canadian vs just being a feature of parliamentary systems.

I do wonder how much that's uniquely Canadian vs just being a feature of parliamentary systems.

Uniquely Canadian is an oxymoron. Also, this is a design feature of Parliamentary systems.

Canada is hardly a one-party state.

Canada in 2006 was not as harshly divided urban/rural as it is now. The ultimate problem is that one specific hyper-urbanized area is able to dominate Canadian politics to the detriment of everyone else, so if it votes as a bloc (and it does far more often than not) for any variety of reasons there aren't any moderating factors (no law, no bill of rights[1], no separation of powers) to slow them down.

Actually, that's another design feature of Parliamentary systems, since the entire reason that system exists is to let London do exactly that to the rest of England. You don't vote for an MP and who they are is irrelevant (again by design- wouldn't want individual members being accountable to the public or anything); you vote for a party and that's it.

[1] Before you say "but the Charter", I will remind you of Section 1, which exists to nullify the entire thing and make it more of a polite suggestion than anything that can be used to defend oneself against government overreach.

Could you elaborate on this ? Do you mean the GTA ?

25% of Canada's population lives inside of Greater Toronto and Greater Montreal. Ofc they get to decide regional and national outcomes.

  • Greater Toronto controls Ontario.
  • Greater Montreal controls Quebec
  • BC / Vancouver are wild cards
  • Greater Montreal + Greater Toronto control national politics because they have more people than all the remaining provinces combined (Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland)

For all intents and purposes, the nation of Canada is one consequential urban corridor containing 50% of its population (Quebec City -> Toronto). The remaining Russia sized mass doesn't get a say, because it is the minority. That is how it should be. For comparison, the Boston - NYC - Philly - Baltimore - DC corridor only contains 14% of Americans.

the nation of Canada is one consequential urban corridor containing 50% of its population (Quebec City -> Toronto)

Which is why it should be its own country. They have very little in common with those outside there and everything they do is destructive to those outside of it.

That is how it should be.

The Conservatives were on the verge of outright majority support in the polls, Liberal support was in the high teens, almost every ironclad safe Liberal seat was up for grabs, and it seemed possible - if not necessarily probable - that the Liberals might be reduced to a mere handful of seats nationwide

There was a period of time where the polling was showing that the Bloc Quebecois was going to be the second-largest party and therefore the Opposition, which would have been even funnier than this Liberal comeback.

They have been official opposition before, after their first election in the 90s, which is kinda crazy to think about. As much as Republicans and Democrats accuse the other of destroying democracy/America, neither actually has the literal stated objective of leaving the country.

I think you nailed the tale of three personalities on this change in the winds in Canada. The intra-west vibe shift toward the right has clearly happened in Canada, perhaps more than other places, but it is being parsed through our electoral system with unusual results. The Liberal Party is a non-ideological chimera which is optimized fully for power. This is why, for example, they have the slack to enable constant corruption. Trudeau capitalized on a woke vibe shift back in 2015 and lurched the party to the left and now its lurching back to the right. Canada's other parties are ideological and this puts them at a huge relative disadvantage. The NDP are controlled by unions and woke college students and so can't pivot from leftism in any way. The Conservatives contain multitudes but their leadership keeps them solidly center-right out of fear of the electorate. This gives the Liberals room to maneuver and their natural governing status allows them to attract high-quality candidates who just want competently run centrist globalism. Add their extremely efficient distribution of voters and constant pandering to Quebec and you have a recipe for success.

And kudos to Mark Carney who saw all of this months ago. Everyone thought whoever took over for the Liberals was just taking Trudeau's bullet for him, but Carney saw that the hatred for Trudeau masked ambivalence about Poilievre. And now we're probably headed for a Liberal majority.

The specifics of my view of all of this is similar to yours, except I'm a conservative so it blackpills me (even more) about the country. My top issues are immigration, DEI, crime, and housing prices and the Liberal failure on those files is so complete that a rational people would electorally annihilate whosoever did it to them forever. Carney's ideas on these files are either non-existent or the same the previous government. As ever in Canada, the boomer cohorts will sail merrily on with a little anti-Americanism and economic and social mediocrity until the end of time.

The one bit of solace I take from this is the Liberals have moved sharply right virtually ensuring a more conservative country going forward. The NDP have been obliterated and I think its an open question whether the party continues to live on. What I'm really opening for is that we may get an Overton expansion to the right, a CPC re-absorption of the PPC, and open calls for very low levels of immigration and the end of DEI/affirmative action. Anything that puts those ideas into the mainstream is a win.

In terms of first-world government competence (from a right-wing perspective), I rate Trudeau's Liberals as delivering 3/10. Nothing cataclysmic happened but on virtually every file things got worse, often much worse. I am confident that Carney's Liberals will be more like 6/10. They'll steer the ship capably toward a destination that is okay, not great. I am already lamenting that we wont get a confident and high-agency conservative government with a large majority to reverse the damage liberalism has wrought.

The NDP have been obliterated and I think its an open question whether the party continues to live on.

The NDP has lost official party status before and been just fine. Hell, there was even talk that the Liberals were close to collapse after coming in 3rd to the NDP in 2011, only for the Liberals to take everything in 2015. Singh is done, but then again, it's 36 days until the election, and 36 days ago everyone was sure the Conservatives would have the next government.

My top issues are immigration, DEI, crime, and housing prices and the Liberal failure on those files is so complete that a rational people would electorally annihilate whosoever did it to them forever. Carney's ideas on these files are either non-existent or the same the previous government.

My top issues are basically identical to yours, but wouldn't it be fair to levy this criticism at Poilievre as well? From what I can tell, Poilievre is as wishy washy as Carney. Really, only Bernier is serious about tackling immigration, although I wonder if people can pressure Carney to get tough on immigration.

A close reading of statements and actions tells me that Carney is much more bullish on immigration than Poilievre. Carney appointed the founder of the century initiative as an advisor and is inheriting much of the same team as his predecessor. The current immigration targets which Carney has said nothing about are 395,000 falling to 365,000 per year.

Poilievre has been cagey but clearly wants numbers down. He has said good things about Harper’s system which was 200,000-250,000 per year and he has also said the number of immigrants will not be greater than the number of housing completions the year before. We are on track for housing completions to fall well below 200,000 in the next few years.

So there is daylight there, but I agree the Overton window has not moved sufficiently far towards the correct number which is less than 100,000 indefinitely.

How will this likely play with the western Canada/rest of the country tensions?

Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta, had a meeting with Carney last week that went terribly and ended with her issuing a number of demands which certainly wont be met by Ottawa. I'm not sure my mental model of Alberta - Ottawa relations. Carney will almost certainly represent a lowering of the heat relative to Trudeau, but Albertans were about to confidently have their champion and that is now ripped away from them. When a people who see themselves as victims have their hopes dashed is when they are most dangerous (see Blacks after Civil Rights).

and ended with her issuing a number of demands which certainly wont be met by Ottawa

It wouldn't have mattered what she said

Carney will almost certainly represent a lowering of the heat relative to Trudeau

lol, no

but Albertans were about to confidently have their champion and that is now ripped away from them. When a people who see themselves as victims have their hopes dashed is when they are most dangerous

One can only hope.

What I'm really opening for is that we may get an Overton expansion to the right, a CPC re-absorption of the PPC, and open calls for very low levels of immigration and the end of DEI/affirmative action. Anything that puts those ideas into the mainstream is a win.

If there's anything that's going to happen in that regard, it's going to be provincially.

I am already lamenting that we wont get a confident and high-agency Western government with a large majority to reverse the damage Big City Easternism has wrought.

What distinguishes Big City Easternism from standard progressivism in your view?

All of the nastiness of American progressivism, none of the checks and balances that keep it mostly talk.

I guess you could add regional looting which is enabled by our system and which the U.S. doesn't have.

The US doesn't maintain a public list of have and have-not states, but I'd venture that most members of Congress see it as their sacred duty to get as much money as possible redirected from the rest of the country to their state, and preferably to their district. The US is just better at hiding the fact that the regional looting has any costs to anyone.

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