Over the years I’ve done a number of posts on Canadian federal elections. This is an index to my penetrating reportage.
Just as a heads-up, I would describe my own political leanings as leftish. But I’m what’s known today as the “old left,” which leaves me without a stable home in terms of a political party. In any event, I think most political systems in the West, if not broken, are in a bad state of disrepair and almost certainly not up to the challenges we face in the twenty-first century.
“I sense a growing divide between public (unionized) and private sector workers both in Canada and the U.S. that could make for a coming split between a party of the state and a party of everyone else. If there is a future for the right it may be here.”
“It didn’t have to be this way. Canada is, in many ways, a conservative (small “c”) country. But the party’s leadership has been hijacked in the twenty-first century by angry freaks. Stephen Harper like Tim Hudak in Ontario, or even Rob Ford in Toronto could have been a more successful, effective political leader if he’d just been moderately reasonable. But being reasonable isn’t what any of these guys signed on for. They preferred to play ideologues and idiots (or actually were ideologues and idiots). Not one of them could be considered, and this is an important quality for a politician, normal. As I also indicated in my earlier post, the same thing can be said of the current Republican field in the United States. The right has spent years pandering to its base. That base now holds it hostage.”
“We’re locked into a nineteenth-century political system, components of which were archaic in the nineteenth century. I don’t like it, but the system is never going to change itself, and indeed will do everything it can to resist any change happening.”
“One observation I’d make is that we are becoming a more regionally divided nation, which I see as being a sort of work-around of the archaic first-past-the-post electoral system.”
“Heaven knows the environment should have been a strong issue to run on this year, but it hasn’t happened. I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will.”
“So there you have it. An election that nobody wanted ending with a result that will make nobody happy. Which will lead, I am sure, to more anger. A forecast of sunny days ahead.”
“The way the election flipped on a dime (if that metaphor makes sense) represents one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history. In fact, for its speed and for the size of the swing it probably is the most dramatic turnaround we’ve ever seen. ”
“But with the results of yesterday’s vote being so close it looks as though the story of the 2025 federal election is just getting started.”
Alex Good 
So, you are Old Left, or OLD Old Left?
Your critics need to know so they can box you up like a Christmas present 😀
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I’m a neo-con. But one of the old Neo-cons. Not like the new-neo-cons of today, who seem to want a king.
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Something old, something new.
I think I’m old old left. And getting older all the time.
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I’m just waiting until a new party emerges to replace one of the old. basically teh same but with a slightly different twist, hence a new name needed.
I’m wondering if Whigs and Torries might make a comeback
Or Federalists and Populists.
Or Monkeys and Zebras!
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Isn’t MAGA basically a new party? It’s not the old Republican Party anymore, at least looking at it from the outside.
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I thought the Tea Party might do just that back in the mid ’00’s, but while there are a core group now, it just never took off.
For me, MAGA will come into its own if it can survive beyond Trump. So we’ll have to wait it out and see. Personally, I doubt it.
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MAGA seemed to me like part of the evolution of the Tea Party, though in some new directions that I don’t think the original TP envisioned. Like the whole cult of personality thing. I think a lot of people are wondering what happens to MAGA and the Republicans once Trump is gone. There’s no clear successor, and in terms of policy so much of what’s been happening, like the tariffs, just seems like an extension of his personality.
I predict . . . a mess!
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I concur with your prediction. And that is why I don’t think we’ll actually see a new party emerge. Cults of personality collapse very quickly once the leader is gone.
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Yep!
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Interesting days to come!
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Interesting enough to make me wish for something a little duller and less stressful.
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I bet. Just been reading about the Vancouver thing,not sure of its election related though.
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Yeah, not much reporting yet on what was going there. For a lot of incidents like that now the news media has started blacking stuff out.
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got a link?
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/livestory/9-dead-others-hurt-after-driver-slams-into-vancouver-lapu-lapu-day-festival-crowd-9.6737566
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Thanks.
Man, they really aren’t saying anything, are they?
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They really aren’t. Which is fine if they’re waiting for the police. But the police don’t say much anymore either. And the thing is, this is all they had on the CBC news this morning. But they were just talking because they didn’t have anything to report.
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The suspect’s name is something basic I would expect. I can understand holding off on motive, etc, but a flipping name? Come on…
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What the police are saying is that they don’t want to release the name until he’s been charged. The media aren’t usually so deferential but I’ve noticed this is something that is changing.
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Alex has posted one.
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Got it…
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I guess I’m whatever you want to call me. The first time around, I derided Trump as completely unfit for the office. I came to that conclusion by actually watching his rallies. The guy was a moron. Now I believe that’s all been turned upside down, and what I had failed to realize was that the determinants of fitness have radically changed. Business as usual was going to be the death of America, or of any America that I wanted to be a part of. I don’t like everything I see, but as Julie Andrews so wisely reminds us, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”
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I think the world, not just America, is facing huge challenges and problems, in part due to a sclerotic political and economic system. I just can’t see Trump as any kind of solution (or medicine). You can always hope something good comes out of all this, but I’m just not a hopeful guy.
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I understand. But I think something good has ALREADY come out of it, with the revelation of all the waste and fraud in government. Who honestly believes that if Kamala had been elected that anything would have been done about it? Or that we’d ever have been exposed to it? Oh, no, things would have gone on just as before, rotting the country from the inside and all us poor slobs not knowing a damn thing about it. My worry is that it’s happened too late, or that our famously short attention spans will prevent what’s been begun from being seen through to the end. And actually that’s just one of the good things that have already happened or begun happening. Look at the U.K. I really wonder if their Supreme Court would have ruled as it did if Kamala had become president. And just the fact that that’s even a question on a matter so patently obvious is indicative of how badly change was needed. “Sclerotic” describes the old, business as usual system, not this wacky new reality where everything’s in play.
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I think it’s understood there’s a lot of waste in government. But stuff like the DOGE cuts really were dumb in the sense that they made cuts to programs that actually made money or that otherwise will end up costing everyone more.
I think significant reform is necessary but is unlikely to happen. Instead it’s just been breaking things in a reckless manner. On the culture war front (the war against woke and DEI and the like) I wish that could all just be shut down by ignoring a lot of it instead of playing it up so much.
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I took out a line in my response about how, yeah, we all know there’s waste and fraud in government, but….I took it out because, no, we really didn’t realize how bad it is or how it works or how much it’s costing us. And we never would have without DOGE. Hell, even Elon admits DOGE isn’t going to be perfect, but it’s a start that never would have happened without him (and Trump). (You probably know that Obama set up his own “DOGE” led by Biden. What did that accomplish? Exactly nothing. In fact, the waste and abuse just got worse.) No, Cuban was going to be Kamala’s billionaire, and Cuban would evidently sell his soul for power. (I’m convinced that’s why he sold the Mavericks. And look how that turned out. : -)
As for woke, I think it’s interesting seeing it combined with “ignoring” it. It’s so deeply entrenched that challenging it has to go all the way to the Supreme Court. How can anyone ignore that? Some people, I imagine, would like to pretend it doesn’t exist because it’s embarrassing, but then they should ask themselves what it means that one party has embedded something so shameful that deeply into their policies and into law.
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None of the woke or DEI stuff has ever impacted me directly. And I’ve only known a couple of transpeople and had no problem getting along with them. So personally I’ve never seen it as that big a deal. But I do understand how much it must bother people who are affected by it in their workplace or some other way.
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