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We have an election coming in October.
The main choices are (I'm not going into Quebec's BQ party: it is just provincial to Quebec)
1. Conservatives: like the Republicans in the US
2. Liberals: like Democrats
3. NDP: historically a workers/union party (more liberal than the Liberals)
4. Greens: you know them (more or less the new kids on the block)
Current polls, with a month and a half-ish to go show Liberals winning, possible majority.
Conservatives a close second and NDP and Greens close third and fourth.
The NDP and conservatives are sliding down in support, the Liberals and Greens going up.
The Conservatives are sliding, the rumour is, because of the Doug Ford effect. Remember his brother Rob Ford who went down to the States and did the talk show route and entertained everyone with his goofiness/salesmanship, etc? He was then mayor of Toronto and coke user (if memory serves....errrr...it probably doesn't).
Doug is just as goofy: he has a way of pissing off his own party members with his silliness.... And he has pissed off enough people in Ontario (with his Conservative cuts and buffoonery) that it is making people across Canada wary of voting Conservative.
The NDP have a leader who seems oddly not really a leader: he doesn't seem to be making much of an impression and his party is declining in popularity.
The Greens have been on the rise for the last, say 15ish years?, slowly supplanting the NDP as the third party of choice. They seem to have great momentum, probably as the other parties have been ignoring the environment.
Both the conservatives and the liberals have been pandering to the oil industry (and I totally get the need for oil, but not while ignoring green alternatives) and the Liberals have tried to help Alberta get their oil to market but not successfully and at great cost.
I can't say that the Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, fills me with confidence, but the Conservatives....
Just to own up (can't think of the proper phrase): I will, unless something weird happens, be voting Green AGAIN. I'm voting for the future (and a chance to have political upheaval): I think my daughter is in a good relationship and we will probably be having grand kids. I'm voting for THEIR future...and HOPEFULLY a change in the electoral process.
Breaking news:
Pierre Nantel has just crossed the floor from the NDP to join the Green party.
Good news? Who knows,but could mean the momentum is with the Greens.
WOW!
The Greens just picked up ANOTHER 14 candidates from the NDP (all from New Brunswick). 14 people crossed the floor. Democracy in action!
They are now the #3 party for the number of candidates running for office.
The NDP now we only had the candidates they SHOULD be running.
A coup in the works?
(Score: 4, Informative) by dry on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:15AM (5 children)
No write ins here, plus the last Conservative government made it much harder for fringe parties/candidates to run. I used to regularly vote for the Rhinoceros Party, both incarnations as they had some good promises such as, not to keep any of its promises if elected, moving to the snow standard (we'd be rich until summer), repealing the law of gravity, tearing down the Rockies, eliminating unemployment by eliminating Statistics Canada, support higher education by building taller schools and so on. They were a bunch of Marxist-Lennonist's, especially liking Groucho.
They did place 4th in one Federal election and came in 2nd in a few ridings, which did embarrass which ever main party came in 3rd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Party [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @10:27AM
That, my friend, is fucking brilliant. I have newfound respect for you hosers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @10:46AM (1 child)
Yuuuuup!, I think you don't hear about them much anymore because politics has gotten sillier than them lately, lol.
Haven't heard from the Pirate party either... Probably the media don't want us to hear about them.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Wednesday September 04 2019, @03:32AM
A lot of it is Harper increasing the fees to run a candidate to something like $1000. Multiply that by 338 and the fringe parties can't afford to play.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @05:42PM (1 child)
The media seems to keep moving the goal posts: the Green party keeps getting excluded from debates by the goal moving every time they meet a ...what's the word... a goal ?
Every time they meet an expectation, the expectation is increased.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 05 2019, @01:10PM
Elizabeth May is one of the more intelligent and aware party leaders we have in Canada.
In debates she almost always trounces her opponents with facts.
The only reason her party doesn't get more votes is that everyone expects her to lose, so it would be a wasted vote.