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posted by takyon on Tuesday October 20 2015, @06:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-this-aboot dept.

Canadians voted for a sweeping change in government Monday, giving Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau a majority to end the nearly 10-year rule of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Election returns showed Trudeau's Liberals winning a majority of the 338 seats in Parliament. With 85% of polls reporting, the Liberals either won or were leading in 185 seats. The party needed to win 170 seats for a majority government.

Trudeau, 43, the oldest son of the late prime minister Pierre, will become the second youngest prime minister in Canadian history.

The story is being carried by USA Today and just about every major news outlet. There were some economic takes on the election as well.

takyon: Results at CBC and BBC. DeSmog Canada has an analysis focusing on potential shifts in environmental and science policies:

The Liberal party has taken a strong stance on the war on science in Canada, promising to free scientists to speak publicly about their work. Trudeau has also promised to instate a Parliamentary Science Officer to ensure transparency, expertise and independence of federal scientists. This position will mirror that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In addition to unmuzzling scientists, the party also wants to work collaboratively with the provinces, First Nations and other stakeholders when it comes to ocean management. This is significant in light of the Conservative government's de-funding of numerous marine science programs, including the only research being conducted into the effects of industrial pollutants on marine mammals. The Liberal party has promised to reinstate $40 million of funding for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.


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  • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday October 20 2015, @11:10AM

    by Vanderhoth (61) on Tuesday October 20 2015, @11:10AM (#252241)

    ^ This ^

    That was exactly what I was hoping for. I don't like any of the leaders, but Harper the least. Unfortunately now that there's a Liberal majority for the next 4 years I think we'll be just as bad off. Justin voted in favor of bill C-51 which is a bill for increased "cyber security" so I'm pretty sure that's still going through. I don't know where he stands on the TPP, but I really hope he kills that at the very least.

    It's much easier for those types of things to be done when it's a minority government and parties have to work together to keep up appearances rather than when there's a majority and the ruling party just says, "Fuck it. We have four years, we'll do what we want"

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    "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Tuesday October 20 2015, @11:36AM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Tuesday October 20 2015, @11:36AM (#252245)

    Step one was getting rid of the fascist. Step two is getting the election laws changed so that we can vote for who we want without accidentally re-electing the fascist. Step three is a closer approximation of democracy.

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:22PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:22PM (#252257) Journal

    Yes, i think it's time to start writing the Liberals and let them know how their constituents feel, let them know what WE want.

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    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 2) by aclarke on Tuesday October 20 2015, @06:30PM

    by aclarke (2049) on Tuesday October 20 2015, @06:30PM (#252409) Homepage

    Some links:

    https://www.liberal.ca/liberals-repeat-call-on-harper-to-release-tpp-deal/ [liberal.ca]

    https://www.liberal.ca/statement-by-liberal-party-of-canada-leader-justin-trudeau-on-the-trans-pacific-partnership/ [liberal.ca]

    From the second article:

    “If the Liberal Party of Canada earns the honour of forming a government after October 19th, we will hold a full and open public debate in Parliament to ensure Canadians are consulted on this historic trade agreement.”

    I fully expect them to still pass TPP, but hopefully the details will at least still become more open beforehand. If you wanted TPP repealed, you should have voted Green.

    • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday October 21 2015, @11:37AM

      by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday October 21 2015, @11:37AM (#252681)

      I actually thought about voting green. Three reasons I didn't.

      1) It would have been a wasted vote. I actually like the Green party the most, but I knew nothing about their candidate in my riding and know they don't have a hope in hell of forming even an opposition government. I know, it's a shitty catch 22 for them.

      2) I was afraid there would be too much vote splitting, which would have allowed the conservatives to from another government. There are three left leaning parties for people to vote for, more if you count other parties like the Block. There's only one right leaning party. That gives the conservatives an advantage because 60% of the country is split between three choices. The other ~40% only has one option. That's how the conservatives formed a majority government in the last election with just over 36% of the vote. Still a minority of the country, but united enough to tell the majority what to do.

      3) I wanted the conservatives out BECAUSE of Harper. He said he'd step down if the conservatives lost, which he did. Now they have an opportunity to get a new leader and maybe it'll be someone worth voting for in the next election.

      To be clear, I didn't like ANYONE in this election. The Green Party and the Liberals I disliked the least, in that order, but I voted for who I thought had the best chance of beating the one I disliked the most. I work in Science, had Harper formed another government I'd be lucky to have a job by the next election. We already went through three rounds of layoffs in the last two years. I feel pretty lucky I kept my job. A lot of my co-workers weren't so lucky. Harper hates science because it makes it hard for him, and his friends, to dictate policy when the science tells them something's not a good idea. Like building pipelines and open transportation channels where there could be serious environmental impacts. His solution was just to fire everyone telling him not to do it. Parks Canada, NRCan, and DFO were all hit very hard by layoffs and a lot of fisheries and resource management was handed over to private industry, who are expected to self police. Stock assessments are done every 5 years instead of every year now, so by the time the next one is done our commercial fisheries will probably be on par with the states, which isn't great.

      --
      "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
      • (Score: 2) by aclarke on Wednesday October 21 2015, @12:54PM

        by aclarke (2049) on Wednesday October 21 2015, @12:54PM (#252700) Homepage

        Strategic voting certainly hit the Greens hard this time around. In my riding, the Conservative was going to win regardless, so I could vote Green and at least register that there's continued interest in that party's platform. The local Conservative MP is a good guy, just in the wrong party. He got elected this time by a small margin, so more strategic voting actually could have outed him. In the end though, he does a pretty good job of representing our riding, and can hopefully do a better job now that his party's out of power.

        The two main parties have a strong vested interest in keeping FTTP representation and avoiding any sort of proportional representation. If we could institute some sort of ranked voting system, along with proportional representation in some form, I think our political landscape would look a lot different.

        • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday October 21 2015, @01:48PM

          by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday October 21 2015, @01:48PM (#252721)

          I totally agree with you. That's what I hate most about our election system. You have one vote which picks the person representing you, the party that controls the house and the leader of the country. You might like the guy that represents you, but not the party or the leader, or like the leader but not the party or the person representing you or you might like the party but neither of the other two.

          I really liked the conservative MP in my riding, he was a really nice guy, although I've never voted for him. I tend to vote for a combination of the party and the leader as most MPs will do what their party, and the party leader by extension, tell them first than what's right for their constituency second. I can't stand Harper, so I couldn't vote for the conservative MP in my riding. I assume the other people in our riding don't like Harper either. The conservative MP won by a huge margin in the last election and seemed to be really well liked, but was thrown out for a liberal candidate no one even knew up until 3-4 months ago. The only reason I can think of is because others thought like me and voted liberal just to get Harper out of office.

          The election system is broken, but you're right. It's unlikely anyone will tackle fixing it as the major parties benefit from it, or can at least make it work to their advantage on occasion.

          --
          "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe