SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Gaaark (41)
(email not shown publicly)
Linux user. Tries to keep feeding the brain with stuff. Husband and father of a young lady and a younger son who has autism/is autistic... that nut didn't fall far from this nut-tree, I'll tell ya: he gets it honestly. Now if only he'd sleep..............
I believe that God gave us the science, curiousity and intelligence to one day conclusively prove that God does not exist.
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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:12AM (5 children)
So they would like to have an open southern border too? What time's breakfast?
And that's a grand shame that they are declining in popularity. If Canadian society is anything like the US, we need a party that stands up for labor, and not demographic replacement, cultivation of a permanent underclass dependent on handouts, and a new gender per citizen per day.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:56AM
Wow, look, yet another straw man about Democrats. It's fine to disagree with them, but if you can't even address their actual arguments, then you're just a partisan retard.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:00AM (3 children)
We have a long history of accepting American refugees looking for freedom. Conservatives during your revolution, black people escaping being owned, natives who considered us less evil, kids who didn't want to go to Vietnam, Americans looking to leech of our healthcare and so on.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 03 2019, @05:21PM (2 children)
Yeah, I was going to run to Canada once, when I ran away from home. But, they told me that I'd have to go to school up there too. You don't accept just any American refugees!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @05:38PM
School good!
Learn lots.
Stare at girls.
Maybe get diploma, but who care.
Stare at girls.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 05 2019, @01:04PM
Depending on where you're coming from or going to you might have ended up in a better school in Canada. But in Quebec you'd likely have learned French in elementary school, even if you were admitted to an English-language elementary school.
(Score: 1) by NickM on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:29AM (3 children)
Good analysis but did you forget that Trudeau already promised electoral reform and he did not deliver. Instead he sent Stéphane Dion (go read his papers on the p3 voting system [ideefederale.ca])represent Canada in Germany before claiming that reform was impossible. Today he apologized for not making it a priority, it seems a little too late. The NPD promise promise proportial election but they have no chance of forming a majority government. And the Conservatives promise statuquo. Therefore I don't see why your hopeful that you will see a change in the electoral system.
I am undecided on who I will vote for but I am certainly not voting conservative, Sheer is a lizard 🦎
On a different kind of lizard, Rob Ford was caught smoking crack, so your memory is right!
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @03:09AM (2 children)
From the recent polls, I'm holding out for a Liberal minority where they have to go with what the Greens/NDP want in order to pass things, and reform (especially electoral reform) can be inacted.
Yeah: Trudeau could have done something good and lasting for his legacy. Instead, we got marijuana and a future health care problem: start getting rid of cigarettes, but increase the use of joints...smooth move, exlax.
Hell no to Sheer and the Con's!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday September 04 2019, @05:22PM
The present parliament already inacted electoral reform.
Let's hope the next parliament enacts it.
I'd be happy with either proportional representation or riding-by-riding instant runoff. Either would reduce the need for strategic voting.
Riding-by-riding instant runoff would fit more easily into the present system.
Make change slowly. See the effects before making further change. Fewer unintended effects.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday September 04 2019, @05:37PM
We were already smoking weed. Now the government gets a cut of the $$. They can pour that money into health care if they want.
I think that legal weed is a good thing. I think it is easily the best thing he did as PM.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @02:22AM (2 children)
You should vote Green because ... oh wait. You are voting for Green.
I voted Green and instead we got Orange.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @03:10AM
Green is the new Orange!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday September 05 2019, @01:07PM
Voting orange was a way to promote the green party -- the NDP were in favour of electoral reform, and that would have helped the Green's chances in the next election.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @03:01AM (8 children)
I'd write in Tim Moen if I lived there. Hands down my favorite Canadian after Shatner. Even beat out Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @03:33AM (1 child)
Eugene Levy FTW: I want his fecking EYEBROWS!!!!!!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 03 2019, @10:25AM
They are indeed some pretty impressive eyebrows.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @03:44AM (9 children)
He royally fucked up in renegotiating NAFTA. Rather than joining with the US early for some small concessions and shafting Mexico, he decided he was cool and hip and #nevertrump so Trump and Mexico put together a trade deal where they both took concessions from Canada and Trudeau had no choice but sign it.
gg Canada, get raked
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @05:02AM (8 children)
Except, the new NAFTA is barely different from the old one, and some provisions from the TPP are being inserted into it. This is just theater from Trump. His opposition to the TPP was a farce to satisfy gullible idiots.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:15PM (6 children)
You can keep saying that and yet it was different enough to help the US and Mexican economies and hurt the Canadian economy. How much you paying at the grocery store for stables now? Price of meat? Cheese? Veg?
Cope harder. The Canadian leader is even dumber than Trump, its quite an amazing astonishment.
Favorite thingi have seen him do is when he attended the event for handicap folks and brought along a 20k+ power wheelchair when most people had older and less-good working standard wheelchairs. Way to understand peoples problems!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 03 2019, @01:55PM (2 children)
The Canadian leader is even dumber than Trump
Yeah, well... Who cares? [twimg.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:01PM (1 child)
Yeah: she wants some Canadian meat: some good old Canadian tube steak!
YAAAAAAH!!!!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:26PM
Sing along:
Love is in the air... [twimg.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:00PM
The price of a steak has actually come down: I'm eating more dead cow than before!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @05:25PM (1 child)
You Canucks can buy stables at the grocery store? In the US we have to go out to the countryside to find stables!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @05:45PM
We're alll stables and igloos here. And beautiful women to keep us warm.
--- 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, @01:11PM
The TTP became substantially less toxic when the USA left it.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:12AM (2 children)
I'm cool with whoever Justin Beiber endorses.
Oh, hey, didn't I see a headline about a Beiber marriage? How much do I want to bet that he's a little pussy-whipped fuckwit now? Hailey Baldwin? Never heard of her. Secret marriage? Can't blame her for being embarrassed, really. If she could have found a real man, she wouldn't have kept it secret. Maybe she should have just gone to Canada if she wanted a Canadian.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:18AM (1 child)
Ehh? We sent Beiber down south some time back along with Celine Dion. You get to keep them.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday September 03 2019, @10:49AM
Ha!
Buh.................bye.
HEY! I think I'll form the "Justin and Celine are no longer Canadians " party!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:40AM (6 children)
The only decent party is called Alliance of the North. They are tiny and hopeless because Canadians hate freedom and their own children.
Your next best choice is the Conservatives. I tallied up political platform positions taken. It's like this:
Conservatives: 75% good
Liberals: 33% good
NDP: 29% good
Greens: 0% good
I don't have much hope here. It looks like the future of Canada is to be a base for jihad against the USA. Anybody with a brain will find that their personal economic situation is better in a place without a welfare state, so they will leave unless Canada implements restrictive exit visas to prevent brain drain.
Entropy takes a toll on every great nation. Prosperity can not last forever. People sacrifice to create prosperity, and then they get comfy with it and they get lazy and it becomes politically insensitive to keep up the fight to remain prosperous. Canada is going down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:39PM (1 child)
They are just another Lutheran Reformed offshoot - a particularly Canadian cancer mostly modelled on Pat Robertson's successful religion-based takeover of American politics in the 80s. Socially regressive (not conservative), and racist as fuck. They might as well have a sign out front saying "No Niggers (apply at service entrance)".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:27AM
All non-leftists are slandered as racist. The word is starting to take on a new meaning: non-leftist.
I will now assume that AN does a fine job of caring for people of all races. I'd vote for them based on your reaction alone, since that tells me AN is good for Canada.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snow on Wednesday September 04 2019, @07:03PM (3 children)
There is more to life than money.
Look at this: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/us-news--world-report-top-10-best-countries-in-the-world-in-2019-.html [cnbc.com]
If you think the USA is the land of the free, think again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 05 2019, @05:21AM (2 children)
Any "best country" list that features nordic countries is nonsense. Taxes are horrible, government control of families is oppressive, and Sweden has massive problems with rape and grenade attacks. Yeah, **grenade** attacks, due to recently introduced "diversity". They also get trucks of peace -- that is, driven in to holiday crowds to the sound of Alahu Akbar.
These are generally countries that suppress free speech. You can go to prison for misgendering a tranny or for doing a Roman (Hitler) salute. That isn't freedom.
The right to self-defense is mostly absent. For example in the UK, it is illegal to carry any tool (even pepper spray) for the purpose of defending against crime. That isn't freedom.
So yes, by comparison, the USA is the land of the free.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snow on Thursday September 05 2019, @02:57PM (1 child)
Funny... when I think of oppressive family government control, the first thing that pops into my mind if the USA trying to restrict abortions. Sweeden does apparently have a rape problem, but so does the USA. Rapes per capita is 16(!) times higher than Canada.
You speak of 'trucks of peace' when the USA has near daily mass shootings. The USA has the highest incarceration rate of any first world country.
All you Americans with your guns for 'safety' makes everyone scared so they have to have a gun to be safe. It's a vicious circle that ends in violence and fear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @09:42PM
It's just a matter of human rights.
https://i.redd.it/0g9jzxz9l7l31.jpg [i.redd.it]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by https on Tuesday September 03 2019, @02:47PM
1. Conservatives: Libertarian nazis. Fuck society, and any effort to improve it is your fault.
2. Liberals: Just like the Republicans in the US. Oh wait, see #1.
3. NDP: Trotskyist wannabes on the take; businesses bribe whoever is in power.
4. Greens: Conservatives on twee bicycles.
Offended and laughing about it.