Conquer Club

Hey, so it's been a while since I've posted on here but I feel like talking about politics without annoying my friends who aren't as hardcore into politics so here goes!

Any other Canadians on here who are following the leadership races in the Conservative or NDP parties? I've been following the Conservative race pretty closely and am a Scheer/Bernier fan. For those who aren't familiar, here's a discussion (can hardly call it a debate, unfortunately) from yesterday with the 4 top contenders for leadership:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/conserva ... -1.3353903

Most likely, one of those 4 will become leader and have a significant chance at becoming Prime Minister in the near future (judging by Canada's historical rotation of leadership between the Conservatives & Liberals).

As for the NDP race, I haven't taken the time to check it out too closely yet but from a quick glance at the field, it seemed to me that they were all pretty far left. I think the party made a mistake in dumping Tom Mulcair. But hey, I'm open to learn more about this if anyone here is an NDP supporter!

I'm not an NDP supporter in the general sense, but last election I did vote NDP as the least of three evils. Mulcair was, I think, a genuinely good guy, and I TOTALLY agree with you that they made a mistake dumping him.

I haven't been paying much attention to the Conservative race. I just know I don't want Trump Junior to win. I've hated him long before he entered politics. Ever since I saw him on Dragons' Den, sneering at people and gratuitously insulting their ideas, I've wanted to punch his face in. Now that he's in politics, he's learning to smile, but the smile is fake. Underneath, that nasty sneer is trying to leak through.
https://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_meyer_how_to_spot_a_liar/transcript?language=en
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2051177,00.html

As for the others, I don't have a strong opinion, so I won't pretend that I do...

It would be quite nice if Trudeau got evicted. What are the chances of that happening?

I'm gonna vote for grant fuhr.

mrswdk wrote:It would be quite nice if Trudeau got evicted. What are the chances of that happening?

Quite a bit less than the Sun veering off course and taking us all out I suspect. We couldn't get rid of his dad, and he is much more pleasant.

He's a suck up and therefore a phony.

Definately!

but he's quite handsome. honestly tho, his voice is beginning to wear on me - not as bad as trump's voice, mind you, but still...totally voting for fuhrsies...

mrswdk wrote:He's a suck up and therefore a phony.

All politicians are phoneys. Dishonesty is the number one requirement for political office. Nonetheless, some politicians cause more harm than others. So far, Trudeau the Younger hasn't done anything to piss me off.


Anyway, this is all a digression. This thread is not about a general election, it's about the leadership races in the Conservative Party and NDP.

Dukasaur wrote:I'm not an NDP supporter in the general sense, but last election I did vote NDP as the least of three evils. Mulcair was, I think, a genuinely good guy, and I TOTALLY agree with you that they made a mistake dumping him.

I haven't been paying much attention to the Conservative race. I just know I don't want Trump Junior to win. I've hated him long before he entered politics. Ever since I saw him on Dragons' Den, sneering at people and gratuitously insulting their ideas, I've wanted to punch his face in. Now that he's in politics, he's learning to smile, but the smile is fake. Underneath, that nasty sneer is trying to leak through.
https://www.ted.com/talks/pamela_meyer_how_to_spot_a_liar/transcript?language=en
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2051177,00.html

As for the others, I don't have a strong opinion, so I won't pretend that I do...

I agree, I actually would've chosen Mulcair over Trudeau in the last election...unfortunate that they dumped him simply because he couldn't match Jack Layton's magnetism.

Yeah, I'm no fan of O'Leary either. What he says is often true but when he says it in such an abrasive way and when you know his guiding principle is the almighty dollar, it's hard to have a lot of respect for him. Still, at least he understands budgets and the impact of paying $25 billion/year on interest payments alone. Trudeau is just an unserious person.

2dimes wrote:

mrswdk wrote:It would be quite nice if Trudeau got evicted. What are the chances of that happening?

Quite a bit less than the Sun veering off course and taking us all out I suspect. We couldn't get rid of his dad, and he is much more pleasant.

Actually the odds aren't too bad--the Conservatives are within striking distance (39% Lib to 34% Con)--and that's with the current leaderless party http://www.threehundredeight.com/p/canada.html

Dukasaur wrote:

mrswdk wrote:He's a suck up and therefore a phony.

All politicians are phoneys. Dishonesty is the number one requirement for political office. Nonetheless, some politicians cause more harm than others. So far, Trudeau the Younger hasn't done anything to piss me off.

None of the broken promises bother you? Even the ones that were major parts of his campaign platform?
-Minor deficits of $10 billion (now tripled, with no end in sight til at least mid-century)
-Ending first-past the post elections
-Bringing in 25,000 refugees by the end of the year (and anyone who didn't commit to this unreachable timeline was cold-hearted or racist)
-Maintain current defense spending levels
-Reducing the small business tax rate to 9%
-Immediately adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
-Dropping out of the F-35 program
etc.
Not saying these were good or bad--my views on them vary--it's just the fact that there's already a list of fairly major broken promises. Oh and for the record, here's the fulfillment rate of Harper's promises during his last period in government.

Ray Rider wrote:Yeah, I'm no fan of O'Leary either. What he says is often true but when he says it in such an abrasive way and when you know his guiding principle is the almighty dollar, it's hard to have a lot of respect for him. Still, at least he understands budgets and the impact of paying $25 billion/year on interest payments alone. Trudeau is just an unserious person.

2dimes wrote:

mrswdk wrote:It would be quite nice if Trudeau got evicted. What are the chances of that happening?

Quite a bit less than the Sun veering off course and taking us all out I suspect. We couldn't get rid of his dad, and he is much more pleasant.

Actually the odds aren't too bad--the Conservatives are within striking distance (39% Lib to 34% Con)--and that's with the current leaderless party http://www.threehundredeight.com/p/canada.html

Dukasaur wrote:

mrswdk wrote:He's a suck up and therefore a phony.

All politicians are phoneys. Dishonesty is the number one requirement for political office. Nonetheless, some politicians cause more harm than others. So far, Trudeau the Younger hasn't done anything to piss me off.

None of the broken promises bother you? Even the ones that were major parts of his campaign platform?
-Minor deficits of $10 billion (now tripled, with no end in sight til at least mid-century)
-Ending first-past the post elections
-Bringing in 25,000 refugees by the end of the year (and anyone who didn't commit to this unreachable timeline was cold-hearted or racist)
-Maintain current defense spending levels
-Reducing the small business tax rate to 9%
-Immediately adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
-Dropping out of the F-35 program
etc.
Not saying these were good or bad--my views on them vary--it's just the fact that there's already a list of fairly major broken promises. Oh and for the record, here's the fulfillment rate of Harper's promises during his last period in government.

Yeah, now that you mention it, that's quite an impressive list of broken promises.

I guess saying he hasn't done anything to really piss me off reflects the fact that I didn't have high expectations from him to begin with. All those promises went in one ear and out the other with me. But yeah, if someone was a true believer I would expect him to be hopping mad now.

Campaign trails are where promises are made to be broken.
If they are PM and start handing out promises, those are the ones that I look at and feel really matter.

Dukasaur wrote:

Ray Rider wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:All politicians are phoneys. Dishonesty is the number one requirement for political office. Nonetheless, some politicians cause more harm than others. So far, Trudeau the Younger hasn't done anything to piss me off.

None of the broken promises bother you? Even the ones that were major parts of his campaign platform?
-Minor deficits of $10 billion (now tripled, with no end in sight til at least mid-century)
-Ending first-past the post elections
-Bringing in 25,000 refugees by the end of the year (and anyone who didn't commit to this unreachable timeline was cold-hearted or racist)
-Maintain current defense spending levels
-Reducing the small business tax rate to 9%
-Immediately adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
-Dropping out of the F-35 program
etc.
Not saying these were good or bad--my views on them vary--it's just the fact that there's already a list of fairly major broken promises. Oh and for the record, here's the fulfillment rate of Harper's promises during his last period in government.

Yeah, now that you mention it, that's quite an impressive list of broken promises.

I guess saying he hasn't done anything to really piss me off reflects the fact that I didn't have high expectations from him to begin with. All those promises went in one ear and out the other with me. But yeah, if someone was a true believer I would expect him to be hopping mad now.

No expectations=no disappointment I guess.

IcePack wrote:Campaign trails are where promises are made to be broken.
If they are PM and start handing out promises, those are the ones that I look at and feel really matter.

To you and Dukasaur then, what's the point of voting for one party over another then? Seems rather pointless if their words are meaningless before gaining leadership and it's too late afterwards. On the contrary--in my opinion, their promises are only worthless if we expect them to be worthless and don't hold them to account for broken promises. That's why promise trackers like this one for Harper or this one for Trudeau are important.

Ray Rider wrote:To you and Dukasaur then, what's the point of voting for one party over another then? Seems rather pointless if their words are meaningless before gaining leadership and it's too late afterwards. On the contrary--in my opinion, their promises are only worthless if we expect them to be worthless and don't hold them to account for broken promises.

It's a good question. I guess my answer would be first of all, that while I expect all politicians to be dishonest, I don't expect them all to be dishonest to the same degree or about the same things. So there are differences.

In a lot of areas, though, you can safely discount anything the politicians say. For instance, the realpolitik is that Canadian business is so hopelessly dominated by American exports that we cannot afford to seriously piss off the Americans. On the other hand, the voters expect a Canadian politician to make symbolic noises about how we chart an independent path and will tell the Americans what's what. So in this area, you can pretty much expect the same from all parties. They'll talk about our independent path, and then quietly do whatever Uncle Sam tells them in any area that really matters.

The F-35 is probably typical in this regard. I would love nothing more than to have us buy more cost-effective planes from Europe. The realpolitik, though, is that there's a groundswell of protectionism in the U.S., and investing the Uncle Sam's current pet project may be saving thousands of Canadian jobs. It's a shame, but it probably would happen regardless of who was in power. So, although I briefly heard something about Trudeau talking about no F-35, I ignored it, because I knew that other forces would settle this deal regardless of intent.

Ray Rider wrote: That's why promise trackers like this one for Harper or this one for Trudeau are important.

There's a couple things I noticed while reviewing those links. First of all, there's an obvious bias on this site. Reviewing Harper's fullfilled promises I find, "subject prisoners to mandatory drug testing" "lay charges against prisoners who fail drug tests" and "deny parole to prisoners who fail drug tests" credited as three separate fulfilled promises, when really they are all one program. It's a little bit of resume padding to credit these as three different promises. But, small matter.

What is interesting is that you cite these as evidence of your fondness for Harper and your animus for Trudeau, but in fact, these numbers show the opposite of what you see in them. Harper's 21 of 140 promises broken represent a "breakage" level of 15%, while Trudeau's 30 broken promises of 228 represent a breakage level of 13.5%. I don't want to get painted here as Trudeau's champion against Harper (I neither love nor hate either of them to any great degree) but I did want to point that out to you. Maybe your pre-existing notions are colouring your perceptions even when the numbers are right in front of you.

Dukasaur wrote:

Ray Rider wrote:To you and Dukasaur then, what's the point of voting for one party over another then? Seems rather pointless if their words are meaningless before gaining leadership and it's too late afterwards. On the contrary--in my opinion, their promises are only worthless if we expect them to be worthless and don't hold them to account for broken promises.

It's a good question. I guess my answer would be first of all, that while I expect all politicians to be dishonest, I don't expect them all to be dishonest to the same degree or about the same things. So there are differences.

In a lot of areas, though, you can safely discount anything the politicians say. For instance, the realpolitik is that Canadian business is so hopelessly dominated by American exports that we cannot afford to seriously piss off the Americans. On the other hand, the voters expect a Canadian politician to make symbolic noises about how we chart an independent path and will tell the Americans what's what. So in this area, you can pretty much expect the same from all parties. They'll talk about our independent path, and then quietly do whatever Uncle Sam tells them in any area that really matters.

The F-35 is probably typical in this regard. I would love nothing more than to have us buy more cost-effective planes from Europe. The realpolitik, though, is that there's a groundswell of protectionism in the U.S., and investing the Uncle Sam's current pet project may be saving thousands of Canadian jobs. It's a shame, but it probably would happen regardless of who was in power. So, although I briefly heard something about Trudeau talking about no F-35, I ignored it, because I knew that other forces would settle this deal regardless of intent.

Hmm fair enough. I would still maintain that if a promise isn't possible to fulfill--and that is known at the time the statement was made--it shouldn't be made in the first place and politicians who do so should so willfully should be held to account. But maybe I'm a little less cynical of politicians and try to hold them to a higher standard as a result.

Dukasaur wrote:

Ray Rider wrote: That's why promise trackers like this one for Harper or this one for Trudeau are important.

There's a couple things I noticed while reviewing those links. First of all, there's an obvious bias on this site. Reviewing Harper's fullfilled promises I find, "subject prisoners to mandatory drug testing" "lay charges against prisoners who fail drug tests" and "deny parole to prisoners who fail drug tests" credited as three separate fulfilled promises, when really they are all one program. It's a little bit of resume padding to credit these as three different promises. But, small matter./quote]
Sure, some promises can be interpreted in different ways. I believe the new Trudeau Metre is crowd sourced and thus will (hopefully) have less bias.

What is interesting is that you cite these as evidence of your fondness for Harper and your animus for Trudeau, but in fact, these numbers show the opposite of what you see in them. Harper's 21 of 140 promises broken represent a "breakage" level of 15%, while Trudeau's 30 broken promises of 228 represent a breakage level of 13.5%. I don't want to get painted here as Trudeau's champion against Harper (I neither love nor hate either of them to any great degree) but I did want to point that out to you. Maybe your pre-existing notions are colouring your perceptions even when the numbers are right in front of you.

Trudeau is only a year and half into his term and is, as you mentioned, already at a similar broken promise ratio to Harper. Unless you think he will complete all 150 remaining promises in 2.5 years, it will not be possible to fulfill as many promises (by percentage) as Harper. But that's getting into the weeds and somewhat beside the point.

In some ways I'm similar to you in that I don't expect politicians to fulfill all their promises. It would be unrealistic to, given the western democracy in which we live where governments are not dictatorships with total authority. But I do expect them to follow through on their major campaign promises, especially the ones that sway elections which they hold to in spite of in-depth critique by the other parties and which are reiterated numerous times with great fanfare by the party promising them. For example, the Liberal promise to put $25 million towards the National Film Board hardly was so minor it hardly registered in the news when promised or broken and nobody would argue it was a major campaign issue or swayed the election. However most of those 6 broken promises I listed earlier were some of the biggest promises of their campaign, used to distinguish themselves from the NDP & Conservatives, were repeated ad-nauseum through the news, and no one would disagree that they swayed the election (large numbers of people voted for or against them based on those promises). So for those to be broken in such short order shows a high level of dishonesty, in my opinion.

In contrast, if you look at the broken promises from the Harper government, there are only two broken promises that were major campaign issues--the F-35 purchase and Senate reform (again, as you mentioned, depending on how you group the promises since they list 4 separate senate promises which were actually all related). Of those two, you'll remember that the Supreme Court shut down the government on Senate reform (TBH I agreed with the Supreme Court that a major change like that requires a referendum--which the Conservatives should have attempted!) and the F-35 purchase was still in process, likely to have been completed during a second term if they had been reelected (as you mentioned, the merits of which are debatable). All in all a pretty good promise fulfillment record in my opinion. I doubt you'll have even heard of most of the other unfulfilled promises.

Trudeau has to go. Being dumped isn't good enough. He was the closest Prime Minister to ever bringing in election reform and because his own nazi system wouldn't work he scrapped the whole thing. Until Ottawa agrees to Proportional Representation, they de facto agree to me slitting their throats one by one while they sleep.

Trudat.