News roundup, 28 April 2025

- Polls have already opened in Atlantic Canada. Information about where to watch the results once the polls close can be found here.

- Donald Trump will not shut up about his desire to take over Canada. He'd been a bit quiet about this lately, no doubt being advised about the risk of electing a less friendly government up here, but it seems he can't help himself.

- 11 people were killed and numerous others injured when someone drove an SUV into a crowd at a Filipino community festival in Vancouver on Saturday. The suspect was grabbed by bystanders and held until the police arrived; he has been charged with second-degree murder. The police have dismissed the idea that this was a terrorist attack, and Vancouver mayor Ken Sim stated that the suspect has a significant mental health history, but it's difficult to assess these claims because a publication ban prevents the details from being released.

- The FBI showed up at a Wisconsin courtroom to arrest a man who was in court for another matter. The judge hearing the case, Hannah Dugan, refused to cooperate with them due to the lack of a warrant, whereupon the FBI arrested her as well. Stuff like this does not bode well for judicial independence in America.

- CentreVenture Development Corporation has agreed to fund a study to evaluate the possibility of saving Holy Trinity Anglican Church, which faces possible demolition due to structural issues.

- China has successfully built a nuclear reactor that runs on thorium (more accurately, it runs on uranium-233 which is bred from thorium). It's a small facility, generating only two megawatts, but it's an important proof of concept. Notably, such reactors are much more difficult to weaponize, due to the difficulty of handling uranium-233 to shape it into the kind of structure that can be imploded to make a nuclear explosion.

- Manitoba's Progressive Conservative Party has chosen former CFL star turned MLA Obby Khan as its new leader. Khan will probably poll somewhat better in Winnipeg than opponent Wally Daudrich, though he still probably faces an uphill battle to win the next election.

- The MAGA crowd has created a website, Public Square, which bills itself as "the anti-woke online marketplace" to show Trump supporters which businesses they should be supporting. To their chagrin, the sane crowd discovered the site and has been using it to find out which businesses to boycott.

News roundup, 24 March 2025

- As expected, Mark Carney has called a general election for the 28th of April. Carney is running to replace outgoing Liberal MP Chandra Arya in the Ottawa suburb of Nepean, a riding that happens to be right next door to Pierre Poilievre's. Notably Nathalie Provost, a survivor of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre and prominent gun control activist, is running for the Liberals in the riding of Châteauguay–Les Jardins-de-Napierville, something sure to send Alberta into conniptions. Speaking of Alberta, their premier apparently tried to convince the Trump regime to put tariffs on hold pending the outcome of the election. She vehemently denies that this constitutes asking for the US to intervene in the election though.

- A new poll in Manitoba by Probe Research lends support to the idea that the federal NDP could face a wipeout in the province. In Winnipeg, the Liberals have the support of 54% of decided and leaning voters; the NDP is at 9%.

- Green card holders in the US are being warned against leaving the country for fear that they won't be allowed back in.

- A food bank in BC is benefiting from the boycotting of American produces, as stores unable to sell the products are donating them so as to at least get the tax break for the donation.

- The young man facing terrorism charges over antisemitic graffiti apparently suffers from "global developmental delay" as well as ADHD. Shades of Stevie from Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent.

- The parents of the 6 year old Texas child who died of "freedom freckles" last month are telling people not to vaccinate their kids out of panic, saying that measles still isn't that bad (after all, all their other kids survived) and that the vaccine is somehow worse.

- A 57 year old Florida woman has been charged with aggravated animal cruelty following an investigation to an incident at Orlando's airport in December. It appears that she showed up to board a flight with her 9 year old miniature schnauzer in tow, only to be told that she didn't have the right paperwork to board with the dog. So she did what I assume she figured that any reasonable person would do and drowned the hapless creature in a toilet before going to board her flight. Unfortunately for her she discarded the dog's body along with a collar with her name on it in the garbage in the washroom, where it was found by cleaning staff.

The moment of truth approaches

Firstly, my apologies for not updating this blog more frequently. Among other things, I've been working on an actual election campaign (hey, you didn't think I was nonpartisan, did you?). But in any case, as you're no doubt aware, there seems to have been a dramatic shift in the last few weeks. The chances of a Conservative majority seem to be greatly reduced, although it's not impossible that the NDP surge could pull enough votes away from the Liberals to push the Conservatives over the top.

Last week, based mostly on poking around on the Election Prediction website, I came up with the following guess as to seat distribution: Conservatives 138, Liberals 67, NDP 59, Bloc 41, Green 1, Independent 2 (André Arthur and Hec Clouthier). However, the NDP could very well do even better, and indeed some seat projections from the latest polls put the NDP firmly in second place in the seat count. In fact, many of the projections have the combined NDP and Liberal seats adding up to a majority. But what then?

My suspicion is that the Liberals would be reluctant to defeat the government and allow the NDP to take power, because this would greatly diminish the Liberals' opportunity to rebuild their party. After all, once the NDP is out of third place they, and not the Liberals, will be seen as the main alternative to the Conservatives. On the other hand, for the Liberals to prop up the Cons once again, they'd have to swallow a lot of pride, and so it's not impossible that Layton will end up in the PMO. We'll know soon enough...

Also interesting is the race in Saanich-Gulf Islands. I have a sneaking suspicion that Elizabeth May will manage to win that seat, which could be the beginning of a slow ascent for her party. On the other hand, if she doesn't win that seat it may be quite some time before the Greens are a significant force.

Elizabeth May shut out of TV debates

I wondered if this was going to happen:

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is once again getting shut out of the televised debates, but she is already rallying her troops for a fight and finding some unlikely allies.

From the Star. Interesting to see who some of these allies are:

New Democrat Leader Jack Layton — who had threatened to boycott if she took part last time — expressed dissatisfaction with the way the decision was made.

“If certain leaders are not invited to participate, I think it is reasonable for them to know why,” Layton said in a statement.

“We’re fine with her in the debate,” he added.

***

Bryon Wilfert, the Liberal incumbent for Richmond Hill and a close confidant of Dion, denounced the decision, although made it clear he was not speaking on behalf of his party.

“I think the networks are wrong,” said Wilfert, who considers May a friend and thought she contributed much to the debate last time.

It's very much to Layton's credit (and Wilfert's, but then he wouldn't have to face her in the debate) to take this stance, especially since he initially opposed her inclusion in the previous debate. The fact is, she did contribute a lot to the debate last time. Now technically, she was on much stronger ground in 2008, thanks to Blair Wilson's having crossed the floor to join her party. Technically, of course, the networks would be consistent with their previous policy if they didn't let her in, since the Greens no longer have a sitting MP, but surely having participated previously should count for something, no? It's worth remembering that the PCs came within two seats of being eliminated in 1993, and it's a safe bet that if Jean Charest and Elsie Wayne hadn't managed to cling to their seats, the PCs would still have been allowed into the debate in 1997.

How will the US midterm elections play out?

They're going to be interesting, that's for sure.

On the surface, things look very bad for the Democrats. The Guardian cites a poll showing the Republicans having the support of 51% of registered voters, compared to the Democrats at 41%. And the Democrats' base is rather demoralized, because a lot of the hopes that led to Obama's election are being dashed. Certainly this could be a good thing, but not if the troops are simply shipped over to Afghanistan... And the healthcare initiative, while perhaps a slight improvement on what there was before, has been pretty mediocre, to say the least. (We'll make you buy health insurance, but won't pay for it unless you're really poor. None of that Canuck crap for you!) And we'll have to see what gets done on the climate front; on a diplomatic level it looks rather mediocre as well (uh... we'll sign an agreement that says we think we should probably do something about this, but not actually commit to anything). But with the grip they've had on the levers of government you'd think the Democrats would have accomplished far more than they have...

The funny thing is, though, in situations like this your enemy can be your best friend. The Republicans are actually in a rather bad state right now. David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars (h/t jblaque via Twitter) has pointed out that when teabaggers contest Republican nominations, it's become common for the loser to refuse to endorse the winner. Not to mention, when teabaggers are running in swing districts, they're less likely to win over the moderates. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of polling numbers change in the US once the summer's over. Hopefully that will change in Canada, too, before the likes of Harper, Ford et. al. win any more elections.

The UK election

Well, as we know the British election resulted in what the Brits call a "hung parliament". Myself, I prefer the more value-neutral term "minority parliament", but that's just me. (Interestingly, the British expression is not known to have been used before 1974, according to this article). Now Nick Clegg has said that he'll give the Conservatives the first opportunity to make a deal with him, given that they won the most votes as well as seats. However, one of Clegg's demands is electoral reform, something that the Conservatives are very leery of, so Brown may yet get the chance to hold onto power. Gwynne Dyer has a pretty good summary, but there is something in his article that I take issue with:

Clegg is talking to Conservative leader David Cameron first, since his party got the largest number of seats and votes, but Cameron’s best offer is "an all-party committee of inquiry on political and electoral reform". He cannot offer more, because his own party won’t let him.

This does not make a lot of sense politically, since Labour, not the Conservatives, is the greatest beneficiary of the current voting system. But there I go again, expecting rational self-interest to determine political choices. The real reason that the rank and file of the Conservative Party hate the idea of change—any kind of change—is because they are conservative.

While I agree with Dyer that Cameron won't be able to offer more, I don't agree that Labour is the biggest beneficiary of first past the post. In terms of seat count alone, Labour does indeed benefit more than the Tories do, but in order to successfully govern under PR a party has to have potential coalition partners. Both might have a shot at the support of the Lib Dems, but under PR there'd be other parties represented in the House as well. And I suspect that Labour's base would be a lot less uncomfortable with them forming a coalition with, say, the Greens than rank and file Tories would be about a coalition with the BNP or UKIP.

Winds of change blowing in Nova Scotia

In a big way:

A new poll, to be released shortly, predicts an NDP majority with 30 seats or more.

The poll conducted by Nova Insights Market Research & Consulting of Kentville places the NDP well in the lead with the support of 45% of likely voters, followed by the Progressive Conservatives at 25%, Liberals at 24%, and Green Party at 4%.

The initial release suggests these numbers predict "with certainty" an NDP majority.

Nova Insights calculates the NDP is on track to take 30 seats with the possibility of up to four more in ridings which are considered too close to call.

Source.

BC election post-mortem

Not only did Gordon Campbell win a third straight majority, the STV referendum was soundly defeated as well. Last time around it should have won, coming very close to the required 60% of the vote, but this time it failed to crack 40%. I don't know what went wrong there. My initial thought was that maybe this time STV supporters didn't bother to vote, but turnout is only down about 8% from the 2005 election. Go figure.

The one bright spot, such as it is, is the fact that there is now a precedent for a government introducing a carbon tax and winning reelection afterwards. I certainly understand the objections many leftists have towards a carbon tax; it is, afterall, an unavoidably regressive form of taxation. My response to this would be to say that instead of balancing it with lowered income taxes, which is the usual approach to this, we should use a carbon tax to replace the sales tax. Then at least you're replacing a regressive tax with another, rather than replacing a progressive tax with a regressive one. Sure, implement cap and trade as well, but I don't think we can afford to go on without every available tool to reduce our emissions.

Critics of carbon taxes also raise the point that if a carbon tax actually works, the government soon loses revenue (since people buy less of items subject to the tax). Now being the pinko commie bastard that I am, I'd say replace declining carbon tax revenue with a hike to the upper income tax brackets, but that's just me.

Well, it's over...

... and surprisingly little has changed as far as the big picture goes. The Liberals got another shitkicking, yet the Tories remain scary to enough people (fortunately) that they weren't able to capitalize on it as much as they'd hoped. Some highlights:

Jack Harris took St. John's East with almost 75% of the vote! I suspect he's going to be a prominent figure in the party for some time to come. Especially nice given that Newfoundland has not traditionally been fertile ground for the NDP.

Elizabeth May failed to take Central Nova (or any other seat, for that matter). Whether she will live to fight again remains to be seen, but I suspect she will.

Once again, it took the Bloc Quebecois to save Canada from destruction. Happily, Thomas Mulcair held on to Outrement, which I believe makes him the first New Democrat to win a seat in Quebec in a general election. Contrary to what was said at a rally last week, though, he is not the first to win a seat in the province; Phil Edmonston did it in 1990. Unfortunately we didn't pick up any other seats in the province, though.

Disappointingly, Gerard Kennedy made one of the few Liberal gains this time round, at the expense of Peggy Nash. I suspect when the knives come out for Dion, one of them will be wielded by him.

Waterloo Region has turned solidly blue! This is a bit of a shock; although some had suggested that Karen Redman might be in trouble in Kitchener Centre, few could have predicted Andrew Telegdi's defeat in Kitchener-Waterloo. I'm happy to see Telegdi go, by the way, but not happy to see who has beaten him. And I would love to have seen his concession speech; I imagine him being bitter and angry.

The orange wave has swept northern Ontario, except for Kenora. This is not a surprise; the biggest surprise is that it hasn't happened for so long.

Shelly Glover slapped the cuffs on Ray Simard in St. Boniface. Niki Ashton has picked up Churchill, and can probably look forward to carrying her family dynasty for some time to come. She's one of those people who remind you of how little you have achieved (unless, of course, you were an MP by the age of 26).

Nettie Wiebe didn't quite make it in Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar. A pity; she'd have made a fine MP (and agriculture critic!) Better luck next time. Things turned out a lot better in Edmonton-Strathcona; let's hope that Linda Duncan represents the start of a trend rather than a fluke.

Turncoat Ujjal Dosanjh held onto his seat in Vancouver South. He bleated to the media about how evil the NDP is for actually daring to contest an election, and blames us for the Tories forming another government. Gee, it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that his party sucks, could it? The turnout was low across the country (below 60%); many pundits are saying this is the result of prospective Liberal voters staying home. Maybe next time they'll actually find someone else to vote for? Like, say, the NDP?

So what does the future hold? Well, as hinted at above, I suspect that Dion is finished. I predict that by this time in 2011, Michael Ignatieff will be prime minister. You heard it here first.

Politics in the Internet age

We've heard a lot of dumbass gaffes by politicians of late. From Lee Richardson's comments about immigrants, to John Shavluk's anti-Semitic rants, to Simon Bédard advocating use of force against Mohawk protesters, to the NDP's own Andrew McKeever's appalling rants, none of the four national parties has escaped. Warren Kinsella has this to say about it:

• LOSERS: Blogging politicos! In the past three days, I’ve been interviewed half-dozen times – by the CBC, by the Hill Times, by many others – about idiots like Ryan Warawa. Why are so many gaffes happening to so many supposedly-smart political people, journalists want to know. My answer: everyone, me included (cf. Cookiegate) says stupid things. All of the political parties have gotten into trouble with naked or idiotic or extremist or acid-dropping candidates in the online campaign. All of them! Why? Three things: (a) Google (b) the popularity of blogs and (c) the unique loudmouth culture of politicos. Taken together, those three things are lethal. And the gaffes aren’t over, either – not by a long shot.

To avoid this kind of thing in the future, parties should probably endeavour to find candidates well in advance of elections so they can be properly screened. Live and learn, I guess...

WTF is with the US??

Like my friend atomicat, I initially thought McCain's selection of Palin as his running mate was good news for those of us who want McCain to lose. After all, she seems totally out of her depth, a major liability on the campaign trail. But is she? This Huffington Post article by Adam McKay seems to suggest otherwise:

"Stop saying that!" my wife says to me. But this is not a high school football game and I'm not a cheerleader with a bad attitude. This is an election and as things stand now, we're gonna frickin' lose this thing. Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.

Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We're coming off the worst eight years in our country's history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R's have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we're going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That's not odd as a difference of opinion, that's logically and mathematically queer.

How can this be? McKay thinks he knows:

So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It's the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on...I'm not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox...I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that's the 51% advantage.

Think this is some opinion being wryly posited to titillate other bloggers and inspire dialogue with Tucker Carlson or Gore Vidal? Fuck that. Four corporations own all the TV channels. All of them. If they don't get ratings they get canceled or fired. All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear. Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate. The end.

So one side can lie and get away with it. Now let's throw in one more advantage. Voter caging and other corruption on the local level with voting. Check out the article here on HuffPost about Ohio messing with 600K voters. If only five thousand of those voters don't or can't vote that's a huge advantage in a contest that could be decided by literally dozens of votes. That takes us to about a 52 to 48% advantage.

I'm not even getting into the fact that the religious right teaches closed mindedness so it's almost impossible to gain new voters from their pool because people who disagree with them are agents of the devil. I just want to look at two inarguable realities: A) we have no more press and B) the Repubs are screwing with the voters on the local level.

The last paragraph is rather interesting, because McKay here alludes to an even deeper problem that America suffers from -- and then proceeds to ignore it (perhaps it's too scary for him to want to think about). It's scarier than the simple fact that the press isn't doing its job, because it means that a lot of people simply will not be educated into a better understanding of the issues. After all, we're talking about a country where being dumb, or at least ignorant, is seen as a virtue by a sizeable chunk of the population.There's a story I've heard (though I haven't found confirmation anywhere) that says that Bill Clinton, who is fluent in German, made use of that skill in casual conversations with Helmut Kohl at some international conferences. What's shocking, though, is that Clinton's handlers felt the need to keep this fact from the public. Yes, it was feared that being seen to be fluent in a foreign tongue was bad for the president's image. Just think about that for a moment. Then think about the Palin gaffes that have been covered by the media, and the fact that McCain went up in the polls after selecting her, in spite of this.

Yes, in America, ignorance is strength.

Canadians almost as dumb as Americans: poll

Many years ago, a friend of mine was running for the presidency of our university's students' association. He ended his campaign speech with a statement to the effect that he was "counting on the intelligence of the electorate". He soon got a slap in the face from reality, finishing at or near the bottom of a fair-sized field of candidates. It seems that at the national level, betting on stupidity is a good bet as well:

Canadians would vote for the Conservatives in a federal election and believe Stephen Harper and Jack Layton would make better prime ministers than Stéphane Dion, according to a new poll sponsored by CBC News.

The survey, conducted by Environics between Friday and Tuesday, found that 38 per cent of Canadians would vote for the Conservative party if an election were held immediately.

By comparison, 28 per cent would vote for the Liberal party, 19 for the NDP, eight for the Bloc Québécois and seven for the Green party.

Even when undecided voters were asked to reveal whom they were inclined to vote for, the Conservatives still kept the lead: Conservatives (33 per cent), Liberals (24), NDP (16), Bloc (7), Green (6).

From the CBC. And this is dangerously close to majority territory for the Tories. Particularly puzzling is this:

The NDP, along with the Greens, were also considered strong when it came to the environment — Liberals got 21 per cent of the vote, with the NDP, Greens and Conservatives tied with 20 per cent.

Go figure -- people see the Cons as equal to the NDP and Greens on the environment. What the hell are they thinking? Oh yeah, I forgot -- they're thinking about what's happening on Canadian Idol.

On the other hand, the campaign hasn't actually started yet, and it's possible that these numbers will start to shift once things get going and people are forced to notice what's going on, even if on a superficial level. Let's hope so, anyway.