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Blanchet's attack on Scheer and his claim that Scheer was basically willing to abandon 3400 Quebecers was pretty good.
I missed the debate, but I don't see why 'we had to be corrupt, or we else SNC would've collapsed' rings true at all. I highly doubt SNC is so unstable that investigating corruption charges would bring it under, but it certainly sounds like a tacit approval of corruption- a too big to fail, if you will. But it creates a false dilemma of 'you must pick corruption or jobs'. How about both? We can have two things, lo, even three. But four is too much and five is right out
I think the worst part is that I have zero faith any party would've handled it differently in an election year. It's possible the NDP would have, but where the news would've been all about how they lost these jobs, specifically in Quebec (which is an important province in the elections), it seems it would be a great way to throw away your chances. I don't like having the choices that I can make be between people who have done a bad thing, to other people who would've done that same bad thing but also criticize them for doing that bad thing.
And before anyone says the conservatives would've... nah. Don't even bother with the intellectual dishonesty. They're pro-corporation through and through. They would've bent the knee, like they have so many times in the past.
100% this there was a common good argument for the actions taken, but it was done very incorrectly. There were better ways to do it, in essence the really big mistake Trudeau made there was appointing a justice minister who held firm to her principles and wouldnt fall in line. So its both good (+ Show Spoiler +
in that he appointed people who arent shills, which is like a very very minor positive takeaway)
and bad look for him (mostttlyyyy bad).
The same scenario in a conservative Govt no one wouldve batted an eyelid.
The Liberals and Trudeau have failed on alot of stuff. Alot of their was their own doing as someone mentioned by talking a big game. But some like the electoral reform thing was just flat out a dishonest U Turn.
Any decent opposition should have been able to wipe the floor with them with all the ammo they had. So this turned out pretty ok for him.
Blanchet's attack on Scheer and his claim that Scheer was basically willing to abandon 3400 Quebecers was pretty good.
I missed the debate, but I don't see why 'we had to be corrupt, or we else SNC would've collapsed' rings true at all. I highly doubt SNC is so unstable that investigating corruption charges would bring it under, but it certainly sounds like a tacit approval of corruption- a too big to fail, if you will. But it creates a false dilemma of 'you must pick corruption or jobs'. How about both? We can have two things, lo, even three. But four is too much and five is right out
I think the worst part is that I have zero faith any party would've handled it differently in an election year. It's possible the NDP would have, but where the news would've been all about how they lost these jobs, specifically in Quebec (which is an important province in the elections), it seems it would be a great way to throw away your chances. I don't like having the choices that I can make be between people who have done a bad thing, to other people who would've done that same bad thing but also criticize them for doing that bad thing.
And before anyone says the conservatives would've... nah. Don't even bother with the intellectual dishonesty. They're pro-corporation through and through. They would've bent the knee, like they have so many times in the past.
I'm kind of surprise how little the conservative/NDP used the SNC scandal in both debate, I feel like up to now they almost avoid it (except when Andrew Sheer use it to try to say it makes Trudeau an anti-feminist) I may be totally wrong on it but I think they overvalue by a long shot the interest of Québécois to protect SNC Lavalin. Sure the threatening of jobs in Québec would be a line used to respond to them, but we basically had non-stop corruption scandals in the construction sectors (who have lead to actual real change) and SNC is shady as fuck as a company in general. I think there is a real opportunity for the opposition, and especially the NDP, to jump on what has been the biggest scandal of Trudeau tenure as PM without losing to much vote in Québec, defeating corruption was one of the angle of attack of the current PM in Québec and I don't think that many people are gonna cry over an engineering firm at this point.
I could be wrong but it's my guts feeling, in the same vein I also think there's a lot to gain attacking mining company if your the NDP, they play it too safe.
Scheer tried to attack using the SNC scandal in both the debate last night and the French language TVA debate last week, but Trudeau and Blanchet would team up and attack him for doing so, and the argument they used was one that had shown to be quite popular in Quebec (the argument being they were protecting thousands of jobs). If I remember right, Singh did hop in during the TVA debate last week to say that he disapproved of how Trudeau handled the issue, but I guess for this debate having seen how they attacked Scheer, Singh probably didn't want to open himself up to the same attacks, especially when the NDP's survival depends on a fair number of seats in Quebec. Quebec is also crucial to either the Liberals or Conservatives winning the election, so upsetting voters there is not something either party wants to do, and outside of Quebec most people have made up their mind on the scandal anyway. The Conservatives probably identified that bringing up the scandal too much wasn't worth the risk of losing even more support in Quebec (the Conservatives are sitting in third there last I saw, and the Bloc has been gaining on them).
What I don't understand is why this argument that they were protecting thousands of jobs is never challenged. It's been proven false multiple times and SNC's own Neil Bruce (former CEO and President) has said he never spoke to Trudeau about any job losses. It's one thing that actually makes me a little bit upset that the farce is repeated so many times. I guess repetition will make it true or something. I believe Elizabeth May also dug into the job loss angle and got a straight forward answer that no jobs were at risk during the whole scandal as well so idk why she didn't bother to bring it up herself. All in all very disappointed whenever that is used as a defense.
Plus everything behind the scenes that came from Reybould, it wasn't the job loss so much as the votes that was the main concern. They should really lean on some of the very damning quotations that came the former AG as their main ammo. I thought it was going to be something that finally bring down Teflon-Trudeau, but man was I wrong.
I think part of the problem of referencing JWR is that JWR hurt her own reputation pretty badly by releasing the recording of the phone call between her and Wernick; the one she acknowledged she didn't tell him was being recorded (why this is a problem should be pretty obvious). I seem to remember after this happened the sentiment towards her shifted quite a bit and people began to trust her and some of her evidence a lot less. The scandal definitely took a weird turn after that and seemed to die off much more quickly than I figured it would. Though I suppose the Cons or NDP could have pointed out Trudeau had bad judgment by appointing somebody who seems untrustworthy to that high of a position.
I ultimately do think the Conservatives and the NDP just didn't want to poke the bear in Quebec by bringing SNC up too much. The job protection excuse was poor, and they could have attacked it, but it would have been risky to do so, and likely wouldn't have gained them much since many made up their mind on that scandal months ago.
edit: to be clear, 338Canada's projections for Quebec show why I think this. Note how many NDP seats there are. Note how many are considered toss-ups or lean BQ/Liberal based on all available polling. Same with the Conservative seats. The argument the Liberals and BQ have been making on SNC, no matter how bad it is, has been working well in Quebec. It would be suicide for the NDP to risk these seats as they can't afford to lose many of them if they want to keep the 12 seats required for them to maintain Official Party Status. Likewise, the Conservatives may be dominating in the prairies but they can't win without Quebec and Ontario, and they are already not polling great in Ontario so it would be even riskier for them to gamble what they have in Quebec.
That Quebec projection should also give insight into why Trudeau and Blanchet seemed rather friendly to each other. It was in both their interest for each to do well since the BQ tends to gain at the expense of the Conservatives, and the Liberals at the expense of both the Conservatives and NDP, but not so much the Bloc.
On October 08 2019 09:49 Ben... wrote: Ultimately, thanks to the FPTP system my vote doesn't matter so I just keep track of this stuff for the horse race aspect of it and let it fuel my hatred of the Conservatives. The Conservative candidate in my riding has over 50% in all polling I've seen with the rest split evenly between the NDP and Liberals.
I'll probably end up protest voting Green or voting NDP again. Either way it doesn't matter. I wish we had proportional representation. Still unhappy the Liberals didn't go through with any electoral reform.
My riding has been 45-50% Conservative for a while too. Our system honestly sucks lol.
Justin Trudeau can get Obama to endorse him for Prime Minister but he can't get Hazel mccallion's endorsement. Hazel was a big help in Ontario for the Liberals last election and they timed her announcement perfectly. Every riding in 905 and west Toronto is up for grabs right now. An endorsement from the normally right wing conservative Mccallion would be huge but it doesn't look like its forthcoming.
Watching Trudeau slide and Singh surge this looks somewhat like the David Peterson// Bob Rae dynamic in the 1990 Ontario election. Rae had a huge surge just before election day. Peterson fell apart stretching his credibility with desperate descriptions of the NDP policy platform like "cockamamie socialism". Rae ended up winning. I can't see Singh becoming PM but he sure can derail the Liberals.
Its going to be interesting to see if Trudeau cracks under the pressure of a late surge the way Peterson did in 1990.
My riding is 50% Conservative at the moment. Looks like I may meme vote PPC or something since whether I want the Conservatives to lose or win it doesn't really matter lol
Well I said meme vote. I have a feeling you missed that
I don't like a single thing about the PPC. I'm just joking at the idea of casting a meme vote towards them because it literally doesn't matter in my riding. With that being said it's mostly a joke and I will probably vote seriously even though it's futile.
On October 17 2019 08:37 TheEmulator wrote: My riding is 50% Conservative at the moment. Looks like I may meme vote PPC or something since whether I want the Conservatives to lose or win it doesn't really matter lol
I'm also in the prairies and my riding went from the Conservative person having 50%+ to them having low 40% and the NDP candidate actually having a chance now if the NDP numbers here continue to climb like they have been. I'd definitely recommend keeping an eye on things if you're in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. If you're Alberta then joke vote away since the Cons haven't lost support there like they have practically everywhere else.
I agree with the post above about outcomes. Conservative majority is my nightmare scenario. Fuck all will be done on the environment if they have a majority and we'll get austerity measured to death like Ontario and Alberta are right now.
On October 17 2019 10:20 Ben... wrote: I agree with the post above about outcomes. Conservative majority is my nightmare scenario. Fuck all will be done on the environment if they have a majority and we'll get austerity measured to death like Ontario and Alberta are right now.
Austerity in Ontario? LOL. the Teacher's are the 2nd highest paid teachers on planet earth with the average teacher salary higher than the average lawyer salary. Meanwhile, they are sitting on a $200 Billion pension fund. ... that is Billion with a B pension fund. Every retired teacher is given handy tips on how to keep their retirement salary just under $100,000 a year so they don't appear on teh Sunshine list. "retired" is after 32 years of work so there are plenty of "retired" teachers under 60 making $99,000 a year. The average ontario teacher makes $83,500.
What Ford should be doing is running the province the way Mike Harris did. Unfortunately, Harris is 100 times smarter than Ford so I don't think he can pull it off. Furthermore, the province is $375 Billion in debt. When Mike Harris took over the province was only about $40 Billion in debt and Harris paid it all off after 6 years.
Any how, first thing I'd do is cut teachers' salaries and tell them they can use up $10 Billion of that $200 Billion pension fund to make up for the difference if they want to keep their take home pay the same.
On October 17 2019 08:37 TheEmulator wrote: My riding is 50% Conservative at the moment. Looks like I may meme vote PPC or something since whether I want the Conservatives to lose or win it doesn't really matter lol
I'm also in the prairies and my riding went from the Conservative person having 50%+ to them having low 40% and the NDP candidate actually having a chance now if the NDP numbers here continue to climb like they have been. I'd definitely recommend keeping an eye on things if you're in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. If you're Alberta then joke vote away since the Cons haven't lost support there like they have practically everywhere else.
I agree with the post above about outcomes. Conservative majority is my nightmare scenario. Fuck all will be done on the environment if they have a majority and we'll get austerity measured to death like Ontario and Alberta are right now.
Yea I just checked today and NDP is currently swinging a bit in my riding, but it's mostly just been a Liberal/NDP swap with Conservative still staying around 50%. At the moment my riding is (give or take a few percent):
50% Conservative 33% NDP 11% Liberal 6% other
Generally speaking Lib/NDP are in opposite places for us (in the past ofc). I feel like our best case scenario would be all the Liberal voters flipping last minute to NDP. Technically it still wouldn't be enough, although I feel that kind of pressure could sway some of the anti Trudeau Conservative voters to come back left for the NDP.
and we'll get austerity measured to death like Ontario and Alberta are right now.
Why would we need austerity measures? Just a short time ago, Trudeau deliberately started running deficit budgets. Even supposing Scheer would be bold enough to roll them back, why would going back to pre-Trudeau levels suddenly be considered austerity? Does increased spending so quickly convert into structural deficits?
EPT
