What riding are you in? Someone mentioned that you had been campaigning for the NDP. Hope your candidate did well. The forecasted outcome is not what happened. At least we will continue to have the push for vaccines and passports. I was afraid that O'Toole would cancel everything. Quite frankly I prefer a minority government so under the circumstances this might be the best outcome for a unneeded and wasteful election. That money could have been better used to help the homeless. Just listening to Justin's speech now.
Hope all is going well for you.
Love, Aunt Helen
Hi Aunt Helen,
Thanks for thinking about me. I was working in Hamilton West–Ancaster–Dundas. We landed pretty far behind with some minor gains and so did the NDP disappointingly across the board. It's clear that a major shakeup of the party is needed, perhaps not in Jagmeet's leadership, but in the people behind him in the central party. I've heard lots of worrying things from members across the country about how the party has been running as of late, and it seems like it's starting to fall victim to the type of internal (un-democratic) antics seen in the other two parties. A grassroots-led rethink of the party's entire strategy is required. We can't keep letting the same people make the same mistakes that have been made year in and year out for longer than I've been alive. But as I am continually and painfully learning, the left loves to lose.
Minority governments are good, but unfortunately the governing party doesn't see it that way. So be prepared to see a lot more foot-dragging in the following years of the next parliament as we've seen since the beginning of the last one. The modus operandi has always been to keep shooting for a majority until you get it; so what happens in-between is often inconsequential as it isn't the primary focus. I don't think we'll ever see a single party majority ever again, and I sure hope we don't. However we won't see coalitions, as the Liberal party doctrine just won't allow it. It won't be until we achieve proportional representation where multiple parties are allowed to flourish that we will start to see productive majority coalitions.
I wasn't ever afraid of O'Toole and the CPC forming government because in my view they have gone so far off the rails that even if they managed to eke out a plurality of seats, I didn't see Trudeau relinquishing government to them and given the recent form of YF Blanchet and the Bloc, plus a possible good showing from the NDP, they would be sure to make confidence from either without fear of the french contingent possibly switching support back to a party that fails to recognise human-made climate change; something that they are very aware of and have pushed the Liberal government to make great strides on in the last parliament. In fact, from my occassional observations, the BQ critic for the environment has been one of the best parliamentarians and has done a great job of keeping the government to account when it comes to taking concrete measures to attain greater chance at actually hitting our carbon emission reduction targets. Which is why I didn't see them supporting a conservative government. The only party that we should worry about ever supporting a conservative government is the Liberal party. A little fun fact: Justin Trudeau's first vote as a member of the house was a confidence motion supporting Stephen Harper's governement back in 2012, the more you know🌈!
Minority governments are good, but unfortunately the governing party doesn't see it that way. So be prepared to see a lot more foot-dragging in the following years of the next parliament as we've seen since the beginning of the last one. The modus operandi has always been to keep shooting for a majority until you get it; so what happens in-between is often inconsequential as it isn't the primary focus. I don't think we'll ever see a single party majority ever again, and I sure hope we don't. However we won't see coalitions, as the Liberal party doctrine just won't allow it. It won't be until we achieve proportional representation where multiple parties are allowed to flourish that we will start to see productive majority coalitions.
I wasn't ever afraid of O'Toole and the CPC forming government because in my view they have gone so far off the rails that even if they managed to eke out a plurality of seats, I didn't see Trudeau relinquishing government to them and given the recent form of YF Blanchet and the Bloc, plus a possible good showing from the NDP, they would be sure to make confidence from either without fear of the french contingent possibly switching support back to a party that fails to recognise human-made climate change; something that they are very aware of and have pushed the Liberal government to make great strides on in the last parliament. In fact, from my occassional observations, the BQ critic for the environment has been one of the best parliamentarians and has done a great job of keeping the government to account when it comes to taking concrete measures to attain greater chance at actually hitting our carbon emission reduction targets. Which is why I didn't see them supporting a conservative government. The only party that we should worry about ever supporting a conservative government is the Liberal party. A little fun fact: Justin Trudeau's first vote as a member of the house was a confidence motion supporting Stephen Harper's governement back in 2012, the more you know🌈!
As for the cost, I'm not really worried about the price of the election, as to me government spending always comes second to the economic strings the government could be using to eradicate poverty and homelessness. In my ever-growing political view, we won't truly see any progress on those fronts until we see a marked departure from free-market liberalism, or capitalism if you will, and there's just no major party pushing for that despite public opinion polling for it. Also, as a small benefit, it provides a great deal of economic activity when it comes to poll workers and the like– although I'm not too sure if their pay is commensurate.
All in all, it was quite a waste of time, and very tragic when you look at the amount of time, work, and effort that went into the numerous bills that died on the order paper when the first minister went to Rideau Hall. Everything that is going to be accomplished in the next parliament was more than able to be done in the last one. As it always is in Canadian politics, plus ça change, plus la même. I'll always maintain that as long as we remain in our current electoral system we will remain increasingly handcuffed as cynicism between the elected grows. Many of the governmental problems we face today are the same as they were 100 years ago, but now we're stuck with 100 more years of precedence.
I started writing just a short reply that was going to end saying I'd call you and discuss, but I hope this shines a bit of a light on my thoughts on the electon and our current political landscape.
If you don't mind, I think I'm going to publish this on my website, so thanks for giving me a good reason to write.
All in all, it was quite a waste of time, and very tragic when you look at the amount of time, work, and effort that went into the numerous bills that died on the order paper when the first minister went to Rideau Hall. Everything that is going to be accomplished in the next parliament was more than able to be done in the last one. As it always is in Canadian politics, plus ça change, plus la même. I'll always maintain that as long as we remain in our current electoral system we will remain increasingly handcuffed as cynicism between the elected grows. Many of the governmental problems we face today are the same as they were 100 years ago, but now we're stuck with 100 more years of precedence.
I started writing just a short reply that was going to end saying I'd call you and discuss, but I hope this shines a bit of a light on my thoughts on the electon and our current political landscape.
If you don't mind, I think I'm going to publish this on my website, so thanks for giving me a good reason to write.
(The rest I've omitted for personal content)
With love,
Adam
Adam