Oh man. Where to start? Mr. Gurney first calls out the liberals for demonizing O’Toole “as some scary troglodyte”, and then toward the end of his column calls anyone who doesn’t agree with him “corrosive populists”, or – the “dumb conservatives”. What a laugh.
Here is what he does not understand: Politically astute Albertans are starting to ask, "What good has sending Members of Parliament to Ottawa done for us?" The answer is "very little". You may have noticed there is no difference between federal parties on issues of substance. Both parties need to win votes in Ontario and Quebec. Pollsters tell them what's important to those voters, and both parties make the same promises to those voters. There's no benefit in caring about what is important to Alberta if you're a federal politician who wants to be Prime Minister. We think differently than other Canadians, and what we think does not concern anyone campaigning to form Canada's Federal Government. For instance, polls (https://angusreid.org/federal-election-top-issues/) show “climate change” is the most important issue in Quebec and Ontario. In Alberta, it ranks fifth, and “the amount of taxes I pay” is first. Hence, we see policies that hamper our fossil fuel industry, while paradoxically our tax dollars are used to subsidize the manufacture of fossil fuel burning automobiles and airplanes in Ontario and Quebec. It’s comedy gold!
How could this be, you may be asking. Well, Alberta is grossly underrepresented in Parliament. For instance, 4.4 million Albertans elect 34 MP’s, and yet the 2.4 million Canadians who live in Atlantic Canada elect 32 MP’s. This imbalance disenfranchises two million Albertans!
Compounding Alberta's problem are the seat counts for Ontario and Quebec - 121 and 78 respectively. It's no wonder that all major parties vying to form government happily adopt policies harmful to Albertans - we can't vote them out! Canada's Federal Elections are won and lost in Quebec and Ontario. Federal Political Parties must pander to those provinces if they want to form government. It's not personal, but it is politics.
No, Mr. Gurney, we’re not dumb, and we’re not corrosive. We’re just sick of being Ottawa’s colony. I hope Trudeau wins a majority. Maybe that is what it will take to get Alberta to opt out of confederation. Vive le Alberta libre!
I am one of those millions of furious Canadians. Prior to 2015 I was a believer in Canada...now? Now, I am a fervent Alberta separatist. I will go to my grave fighting to remove AB from Canada. Canada has proven itself to be populated by a pathetically uninformed people that have no clue how their incredible standard of living is financed. A population that repeatedly selects a leader that is morally bankrupt. A population that should be ashamed when they look in a mirror. At this point, I couldn’t care less if the rest of Canada slid into one of its bordering oceans. With the exception of Saskatchewan of course.
Amazing how many people forget we already have a Trump - he ‘s called Trudeau - never have I ever so seen so much hate anger in this country - not all are disaffected Conservatives - although the media would have you believe this.
When the Liberals are literally supporting vaccine apartheid, and their leader is literally whipping up hate against 10-20% of the population every time he speaks, it is a little bit late to talk about the Liberals as a bulwark against fascism. O'Toole's problem is that he wouldn't stand against it himself. At the very very least, he should be pointing out that he, and hundreds of thousands of other Canadians, having already had Covid, have immunity far better than the vaccine provides and therefore should not be forced to take it.
If he wants to win as anything at all recognizable as not a Liberal, he has to actually make arguments. For example: the vaccines don't protect against infection, so most people, vaccinated or not, will get Covid over the next year or two. Then he has to fight those arguments out in the press. He can't win by hiding conservatism under a bushel. He doesn't come across as moderate: he comes across as defensive.
The author remains uninstructed by the experience of BC, and one of the three major differences between America and Canada: more than two political parties.
BC does have a viable conservative party: the Liberals. The NDP are a centre-left party here, and the Conservatives are a refugee centre for extremists and diehards. No special reason that the fed Conservatives couldn't just drift off into irrelevance like the BC Conservatives. Parties can change: radically. Austerity-loving Neoliberal warmonger Tony Blair was "Labour", in name.
The other two differences are that (1) Canada has no meaningful Evangelical Christian base to build a fascist party with, and (2) Canadians, statistically, love immigrants *much* more, with 78/20 polls for "immigation is good for the econmy". (Similar question for Americans in 2017 had 49% agreement)
Also, 40% of the nation either ARE immigrants or their children, and a vastly higher amount of the other 60% work with immigrants, have them next door, or their kids have friends in class. The American experience is that more people who don't have immigrants near them in life are the anti-immigrant voters, and Canada has only a fraction as many non-immigrants with no immigrant friends or colleagues.
Canada is also much leaner in anti-gay, anti-abortion idealogues. All told, it would be hard to break out of the single-digits as a "culturally" conservative party.
From that perspective, this reads like a kind of fearmongering: "Vote for the moderate conservatives, or the Fasicsts will devour us all in five years, just like Trump devoured the GOP". It's like threatening communist takeover if we don't vote Liberal to keep out the NDP.
All that said, I would bet cash that the voting patterns will reveal that O'Toole's leftward lean will gain votes, and cost none. That the PPC raided on a percent or two off the Conservative vote, but the Conservatives were able to pull more than that away from Liberals. That analysis will keep the Conservatives noses clean of fascist snot for a few more years, at least.
Meh. This isn't America. We're not locked into a two-party system. Quebec has shown us that a regional party can be important (obviously -- the English debate prominently featured a bellyaching French Canadian nationalist running in a single province).
I think the small c conservative movement in Canada would be better off hiving in two. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the BC interior could have a neo Reform Party, and Ontario and Atlantic Canada could get whatever milquetoast Red Tory strikes their fancy. And they could occasionally form coalitions.
Strategically speaking, the Conservatives, whenever they win a majority again (2040?), should enact the Liberal pledge of eliminating FPTP. But instead of ranked choice ballots, they should put in proportional representation. This would mean the Liberals would until the end of the time be constrained to a minority (and Andrew Scheer incidentally would have won the most seats in the last election had some kind of national PR been used).
That said, this kind of reform would no doubt give Matt Gurney the vapors since it could mean that the PPC would capture something like 30 seats if their 10 percent support holds out on election day. Like Layton's Orange Wave in Quebec, those seats would almost certainly be filled with dramatically unqualified MPs. No one said democracy was supposed to be pretty!
There is a lot to what you say, I have a hard time with the idea that our democracy depends on the survival of a big tent. I've thought that we might be better served with smaller parties that force people to cooperate to form governments.
Moderates are now the Liberals that have been shed from the new progressive Liberal Party of Canada that does not stand for Liberty of any kind. They should be made to change their name.
Well, thanks Matt. If I wasn't feeling politically homeless before I certainly am now. I've traditionally floated between the Liberals and the NDP but that changed in the last 18 months. I'd always thought of the Liberals as being on the right side of issues like free speech and women's rights. I was so unbelievably wrong!! As far as I'm concerned, the Liberals have become the fascists they claimed to be fighting. Their Internet censorship bill, C10, should have more people worried. The 'elites' have a special knack for claiming they are fighting for your safety, but it's usually a cover for silencing dissenting voices. The CPC also seem willing to stand up to the CCP (here's hoping it's not just talk).
Meghan Murphy and Dr Jordan Peterson tried to warn us about the consequences of Trudeau's Bill C16. Because of this bill, the boy who raped and murdered Nina Courtepatte on an Edmonton golf course, was transferred to Fraser Valley Inst for Women. He got kicked out but is trying to get back in. He now claims he is a transwoman. There are, sadly, more examples of male sexual abusers serving time in women's prisons. This is wrong on so many levels!
We also now have biological men taking over in women's sports. Frankly, the number of mediocre male athletes who transition and become elite female athletes tells us all we need to know. Linda Blade, of Alberta, has been fighting this for years and just released a book, "Unsporting...". In Florida, a man who served in the US Special Forces for years now claims to be a woman and is an MMA fighter. Here's a clip of him beating up a woman and people are cheering him on. Where do we draw the line???!! Or is there even a line?
At least with the CPC, I believe we can actually start to openly talk about these issues. Leslyn Lewis is more than willing. It's conservatives like her that caught my attention.
It isn't about policy or even reputation, it's ultimately about culture, tribalism and identity. The Liberals are culturally the political expression of the Laurentian Consensus and those who want their kids to be one of the Central Canadian elites. Atlantic Canada voted for whoever gives them the most resources to continue their lifestyles. The Conservatives are culturally an expression of the Prairies, warts and all. The Liberals are only competitive in immigrant majority ridings of the South Asian persuasion there.
Matt you're a few years late to the party on this issue. Scott Gilmore did a Cross Country Tour lamenting the demise of the CPC in 2017 https://www.macleans.ca/politics/changing-the-future-for-canadas-conservatives-one-dinner-at-a-time/. I live out here on the Left Coast and attended his session in Vancouver. By his own admission he's very much removed from the reality of what people are experiencing outside of the Ottawa/Ontario bubble, and what you've expressed here leaves no doubt that your own experience is similar to Gilmore's. I have two kids who just reached voting age and I can assure you the up and coming voters in this country have had just about the same amount of tolerance for political b.s. that the Libs/Greens/NDP keep harping on that many of us older folks roll our eyes at. Their priorities are the same as ours: jobs, hoping to afford a house, and clean up the planet. Many of these "kids" work in the Hospitality Sector and are fed up with entitled older folk who walk around without their masks on demanding service. So despite your wringing of the hands of the lack of accountability in Ottawa in keeping the Libs in check, this crap has been going on for a long time, and yet there are many, many of us who are not interested in jumping ship just because some statisticians/pollsters are going out of their minds due to the jump in PPC numbers.
Relax.
I'm all for accountability and have spent a great deal of energy and advocacy doing just that in the public school system. The woke madness/right wing nutbar groups have their days numbered. Young people won't tolerate it. Get out more and talk to them.
I disagree. I think the moderates are just propping up and validating the wing nuts. Let them unmask themselves, join the PPC, then we know where they are and who to ignore.
"dudebros" I think not, instead they are vigilantes looking for a home, for someone to carry them across the threshold and they think O'Toole is that guy, they may be right. The price to find out is far too high more Jason kenney anyone?
Oh man. Where to start? Mr. Gurney first calls out the liberals for demonizing O’Toole “as some scary troglodyte”, and then toward the end of his column calls anyone who doesn’t agree with him “corrosive populists”, or – the “dumb conservatives”. What a laugh.
Here is what he does not understand: Politically astute Albertans are starting to ask, "What good has sending Members of Parliament to Ottawa done for us?" The answer is "very little". You may have noticed there is no difference between federal parties on issues of substance. Both parties need to win votes in Ontario and Quebec. Pollsters tell them what's important to those voters, and both parties make the same promises to those voters. There's no benefit in caring about what is important to Alberta if you're a federal politician who wants to be Prime Minister. We think differently than other Canadians, and what we think does not concern anyone campaigning to form Canada's Federal Government. For instance, polls (https://angusreid.org/federal-election-top-issues/) show “climate change” is the most important issue in Quebec and Ontario. In Alberta, it ranks fifth, and “the amount of taxes I pay” is first. Hence, we see policies that hamper our fossil fuel industry, while paradoxically our tax dollars are used to subsidize the manufacture of fossil fuel burning automobiles and airplanes in Ontario and Quebec. It’s comedy gold!
How could this be, you may be asking. Well, Alberta is grossly underrepresented in Parliament. For instance, 4.4 million Albertans elect 34 MP’s, and yet the 2.4 million Canadians who live in Atlantic Canada elect 32 MP’s. This imbalance disenfranchises two million Albertans!
Compounding Alberta's problem are the seat counts for Ontario and Quebec - 121 and 78 respectively. It's no wonder that all major parties vying to form government happily adopt policies harmful to Albertans - we can't vote them out! Canada's Federal Elections are won and lost in Quebec and Ontario. Federal Political Parties must pander to those provinces if they want to form government. It's not personal, but it is politics.
No, Mr. Gurney, we’re not dumb, and we’re not corrosive. We’re just sick of being Ottawa’s colony. I hope Trudeau wins a majority. Maybe that is what it will take to get Alberta to opt out of confederation. Vive le Alberta libre!
I am one of those millions of furious Canadians. Prior to 2015 I was a believer in Canada...now? Now, I am a fervent Alberta separatist. I will go to my grave fighting to remove AB from Canada. Canada has proven itself to be populated by a pathetically uninformed people that have no clue how their incredible standard of living is financed. A population that repeatedly selects a leader that is morally bankrupt. A population that should be ashamed when they look in a mirror. At this point, I couldn’t care less if the rest of Canada slid into one of its bordering oceans. With the exception of Saskatchewan of course.
Amazing how many people forget we already have a Trump - he ‘s called Trudeau - never have I ever so seen so much hate anger in this country - not all are disaffected Conservatives - although the media would have you believe this.
When the Liberals are literally supporting vaccine apartheid, and their leader is literally whipping up hate against 10-20% of the population every time he speaks, it is a little bit late to talk about the Liberals as a bulwark against fascism. O'Toole's problem is that he wouldn't stand against it himself. At the very very least, he should be pointing out that he, and hundreds of thousands of other Canadians, having already had Covid, have immunity far better than the vaccine provides and therefore should not be forced to take it.
If he wants to win as anything at all recognizable as not a Liberal, he has to actually make arguments. For example: the vaccines don't protect against infection, so most people, vaccinated or not, will get Covid over the next year or two. Then he has to fight those arguments out in the press. He can't win by hiding conservatism under a bushel. He doesn't come across as moderate: he comes across as defensive.
The author remains uninstructed by the experience of BC, and one of the three major differences between America and Canada: more than two political parties.
BC does have a viable conservative party: the Liberals. The NDP are a centre-left party here, and the Conservatives are a refugee centre for extremists and diehards. No special reason that the fed Conservatives couldn't just drift off into irrelevance like the BC Conservatives. Parties can change: radically. Austerity-loving Neoliberal warmonger Tony Blair was "Labour", in name.
The other two differences are that (1) Canada has no meaningful Evangelical Christian base to build a fascist party with, and (2) Canadians, statistically, love immigrants *much* more, with 78/20 polls for "immigation is good for the econmy". (Similar question for Americans in 2017 had 49% agreement)
Also, 40% of the nation either ARE immigrants or their children, and a vastly higher amount of the other 60% work with immigrants, have them next door, or their kids have friends in class. The American experience is that more people who don't have immigrants near them in life are the anti-immigrant voters, and Canada has only a fraction as many non-immigrants with no immigrant friends or colleagues.
Canada is also much leaner in anti-gay, anti-abortion idealogues. All told, it would be hard to break out of the single-digits as a "culturally" conservative party.
From that perspective, this reads like a kind of fearmongering: "Vote for the moderate conservatives, or the Fasicsts will devour us all in five years, just like Trump devoured the GOP". It's like threatening communist takeover if we don't vote Liberal to keep out the NDP.
All that said, I would bet cash that the voting patterns will reveal that O'Toole's leftward lean will gain votes, and cost none. That the PPC raided on a percent or two off the Conservative vote, but the Conservatives were able to pull more than that away from Liberals. That analysis will keep the Conservatives noses clean of fascist snot for a few more years, at least.
Meh. This isn't America. We're not locked into a two-party system. Quebec has shown us that a regional party can be important (obviously -- the English debate prominently featured a bellyaching French Canadian nationalist running in a single province).
I think the small c conservative movement in Canada would be better off hiving in two. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the BC interior could have a neo Reform Party, and Ontario and Atlantic Canada could get whatever milquetoast Red Tory strikes their fancy. And they could occasionally form coalitions.
Strategically speaking, the Conservatives, whenever they win a majority again (2040?), should enact the Liberal pledge of eliminating FPTP. But instead of ranked choice ballots, they should put in proportional representation. This would mean the Liberals would until the end of the time be constrained to a minority (and Andrew Scheer incidentally would have won the most seats in the last election had some kind of national PR been used).
That said, this kind of reform would no doubt give Matt Gurney the vapors since it could mean that the PPC would capture something like 30 seats if their 10 percent support holds out on election day. Like Layton's Orange Wave in Quebec, those seats would almost certainly be filled with dramatically unqualified MPs. No one said democracy was supposed to be pretty!
There is a lot to what you say, I have a hard time with the idea that our democracy depends on the survival of a big tent. I've thought that we might be better served with smaller parties that force people to cooperate to form governments.
Moderates are now the Liberals that have been shed from the new progressive Liberal Party of Canada that does not stand for Liberty of any kind. They should be made to change their name.
Well, thanks Matt. If I wasn't feeling politically homeless before I certainly am now. I've traditionally floated between the Liberals and the NDP but that changed in the last 18 months. I'd always thought of the Liberals as being on the right side of issues like free speech and women's rights. I was so unbelievably wrong!! As far as I'm concerned, the Liberals have become the fascists they claimed to be fighting. Their Internet censorship bill, C10, should have more people worried. The 'elites' have a special knack for claiming they are fighting for your safety, but it's usually a cover for silencing dissenting voices. The CPC also seem willing to stand up to the CCP (here's hoping it's not just talk).
Meghan Murphy and Dr Jordan Peterson tried to warn us about the consequences of Trudeau's Bill C16. Because of this bill, the boy who raped and murdered Nina Courtepatte on an Edmonton golf course, was transferred to Fraser Valley Inst for Women. He got kicked out but is trying to get back in. He now claims he is a transwoman. There are, sadly, more examples of male sexual abusers serving time in women's prisons. This is wrong on so many levels!
We also now have biological men taking over in women's sports. Frankly, the number of mediocre male athletes who transition and become elite female athletes tells us all we need to know. Linda Blade, of Alberta, has been fighting this for years and just released a book, "Unsporting...". In Florida, a man who served in the US Special Forces for years now claims to be a woman and is an MMA fighter. Here's a clip of him beating up a woman and people are cheering him on. Where do we draw the line???!! Or is there even a line?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtmDMvC5qIg&list=WL&index=21&t=18s
At least with the CPC, I believe we can actually start to openly talk about these issues. Leslyn Lewis is more than willing. It's conservatives like her that caught my attention.
It isn't about policy or even reputation, it's ultimately about culture, tribalism and identity. The Liberals are culturally the political expression of the Laurentian Consensus and those who want their kids to be one of the Central Canadian elites. Atlantic Canada voted for whoever gives them the most resources to continue their lifestyles. The Conservatives are culturally an expression of the Prairies, warts and all. The Liberals are only competitive in immigrant majority ridings of the South Asian persuasion there.
This isn't going to change anytime soon.
Matt you're a few years late to the party on this issue. Scott Gilmore did a Cross Country Tour lamenting the demise of the CPC in 2017 https://www.macleans.ca/politics/changing-the-future-for-canadas-conservatives-one-dinner-at-a-time/. I live out here on the Left Coast and attended his session in Vancouver. By his own admission he's very much removed from the reality of what people are experiencing outside of the Ottawa/Ontario bubble, and what you've expressed here leaves no doubt that your own experience is similar to Gilmore's. I have two kids who just reached voting age and I can assure you the up and coming voters in this country have had just about the same amount of tolerance for political b.s. that the Libs/Greens/NDP keep harping on that many of us older folks roll our eyes at. Their priorities are the same as ours: jobs, hoping to afford a house, and clean up the planet. Many of these "kids" work in the Hospitality Sector and are fed up with entitled older folk who walk around without their masks on demanding service. So despite your wringing of the hands of the lack of accountability in Ottawa in keeping the Libs in check, this crap has been going on for a long time, and yet there are many, many of us who are not interested in jumping ship just because some statisticians/pollsters are going out of their minds due to the jump in PPC numbers.
Relax.
I'm all for accountability and have spent a great deal of energy and advocacy doing just that in the public school system. The woke madness/right wing nutbar groups have their days numbered. Young people won't tolerate it. Get out more and talk to them.
Time to start at the bottom and work the way to the top. CPC has been too bad for to long. There is no hope for CPC in my foreseeable future.
I disagree. I think the moderates are just propping up and validating the wing nuts. Let them unmask themselves, join the PPC, then we know where they are and who to ignore.
"dudebros" I think not, instead they are vigilantes looking for a home, for someone to carry them across the threshold and they think O'Toole is that guy, they may be right. The price to find out is far too high more Jason kenney anyone?