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It will be interesting to see how long Trudeau's campaign of openness and media cooperation will last for. As the Harper era shows, it can be politically advantageous to severely limit and control the flow of information. From what I've read about him, Trudeau's senior aide and closest confidante Gerald Butts shares many of the same aggressive attributes as Harper spinners like Jenni Byrne and Kori Teneycke.
 
I would assume that he wants to be the opposite of Harper, just like how Tory tried to be the opposite of Ford.
 
Skeezix said:
I'm not sure why this is funny. Did anyone think Trudeau meant he would engage him in physical battle? What is it about Harper that makes him seem more likely to take Putin in a fist fight? The lego hair? His dad paunch? Ironically, Trudeau is a boxer, and actually worked as a bouncer, so if I had to bet, I'd bet on him over Harper or Mulcair.

What Trudeau clearly meant was that under the Liberals, the Government of Canada would stand up to Russia (to the extent that Russia cares what Canada thinks, I presume). There is nothing in Trudeau's political career which suggests that he backs down from fights (of the non-physical type) - in fact, quite the opposite (he picked a riding that was hard to win, he has doggedly and determinedly withstood years of attacks, etc.) Is there something in the Liberal foreign policy platform which suggests that they would cave into Russia?
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I don't mean to sound sarcastic but you couldn't have found two worse guys for a street fight: Mulcair and Harper - they're both a bit overweight and completely out of shape. Since we're on the Game of Thrones Mulcair fighting Putin would be like Sansa Stark arm wrestling the Mountain :). You might as well have put my grandma and Steven Hawking to face him :). In a fight I would pick the KGB judo master over the boxer/bouncer. I have experience in martial arts (black belt 1st degree in Shotokan karate) and I have to say that judoists are very hard to take down for boxers because they keep low and use your inertia against you; the objective is not to beat the crap out of the opponent but rather to pacify/disable him. Even though Trudeau is 19 years younger I would still bet on Putin (didn't I mention KGB?) but to be fair he would have the best chance out of all three (since the other two have no chance).

Nonetheless I didn't mean a physical fight in my original post. My question is: what could Trudeau possibly do to "stand up" to Putin over issues like Ukraine, Syria etc? Military force? Nobody wants WW3. Sanctions? They have proven ineffective as a means of political pressure not just against Russia but also against its pseudo allies like Iran. All I can think about is him uninviting Putin to the G8 slumber party but since they've already done that, he's out of options. Russia is a country full of natural resources and they don't really need to have the West's approval; they have the Shanghai Cooperation Organization where they don't hear any holier than thou preaching and Putin has a number of deals going with other emerging markets (China - SCO member, India - SCO observer, Brazil etc). The point is that Trudeau's words were completely empty; he may "condemn Russia's shameful occupation of Crimea " but what will that do? He can bark all he wants but he isn't going bite, just like Harper didn't.

And for the record I liked Jon Snow and Trudeau has charisma (though not my choice for PM). On the plus side whenever I tell my German friends on how their chancellor is not worth a sack of potatoes, they can't say anything about our PM since I can say how he beat the crap out of a corrupt senator. :cool:
 
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If seats were allocated based on a form of proportional representation:

Liberals — 134

Conservatives — 108

New Democrats — 67

Bloc Québécois — 17

Greens — 12



For comparison, the actual elections results are:

Liberals — 39.5% of the vote, 184 seats (54.4% of the Commons)

Conservatives — 31.9%, 99 seats (29.3% of the Commons)

New Democrats — 19.7%, 44 seats (13% of the Commons)

Bloc Québécois — 4.7%, 10 seats (3% of the Commons)

Greens — 3.4%, one seat (0.3% of the Commons)


http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news...reform-looms-for-canada-trudeau-promises.html
 
Mislav said:
The point is that Trudeau's words were completely empty; he may "condemn Russia's shameful occupation of Crimea " but what will that do? He can bark all he wants but he isn't going bite, just like Harper didn't.
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I still don't understand your point. Now it seems you are talking about the capacity of the Government of Canada to stand up to Putin. Why is Canada's alleged incapacity somehow linked to Trudeau? Why were Harper's words similarly not empty/hilarious when he took the same hard line stance? If they were empty/hilarious, why are you focusing on Trudeau? What alternative position are you advocating? What do you expect Trudeau to say instead? Lots of Canadians, particularly Canadians of Ukrainian descent, expect Trudeau to say that he will maintain the hard line, regardless of whether or not it impacts Putin. Is Canada supposed to retreat from from the world? Do we simply roll over, or should we stand up for what's right, ideally in a multilateral situation? I'm simply baffled by your "LOL" comment. I don't see why any of this is humourous, or why Trudeau's comment is worthy of mocking.
 
Besides, standing up can mean many things - it could be direct confrontation through the threat/building up of force; it could be a war of words; and it could also be building up multilateral arrangements that can tie Putin down like Gulliver.

AoD
 
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Restoring the mandatory long-form census in time for the 2016 survey is doable, say two former chief statisticians of Statistics Canada, but the incoming Liberal government will have to move swiftly to make it happen. The return of the long form, promised by Justin Trudeau during the election campaign, would yield vastly more reliable data and cost less than running another national household survey, the former heads of the agency say.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...icle26922071/?click=sf_globefb&service=mobile
 
Skeezix said:
I still don't understand your point. Now it seems you are talking about the capacity of the Government of Canada to stand up to Putin. Why is Canada's alleged incapacity somehow linked to Trudeau? Why were Harper's words similarly not empty/hilarious when he took the same hard line stance? If they were empty/hilarious, why are you focusing on Trudeau? What alternative position are you advocating? What do you expect Trudeau to say instead? Lots of Canadians, particularly Canadians of Ukrainian descent, expect Trudeau to say that he will maintain the hard line, regardless of whether or not it impacts Putin. Is Canada supposed to retreat from from the world? Do we simply roll over, or should we stand up for what's right, ideally in a multilateral situation? I'm simply baffled by your "LOL" comment. I don't see why any of this is humourous, or why Trudeau's comment is worthy of mocking.
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If Chrystia Freeland is assigned anything at all to do with international relations, we may see Trudeau stand up to Putin sooner rather than later.
 
the lemur said:
If Chrystia Freeland is assigned anything at all to do with international relations, we may see Trudeau stand up to Putin sooner rather than later.
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With someone like Putin one requires more strategy than empty war of words - talking tough frankly is more for our domestic consumption. It doesn't mean we should roll over - but we need to consider the adversary more carefully.

AoD
 
If seats were allocated based on a form of proportional representation:

Liberals — 134

Conservatives — 108

New Democrats — 67

Bloc Québécois — 17

Greens — 12



For comparison, the actual elections results are:

Liberals — 39.5% of the vote, 184 seats (54.4% of the Commons)

Conservatives — 31.9%, 99 seats (29.3% of the Commons)

New Democrats — 19.7%, 44 seats (13% of the Commons)

Bloc Québécois — 4.7%, 10 seats (3% of the Commons)

Greens — 3.4%, one seat (0.3% of the Commons)
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probably explains why we are hearing a lot less calls for proportional representation post 2015 election than I recall hearing post 2011 election. :)
 
TOareaFan said:
probably explains why we are hearing a lot less calls for proportional representation post 2015 election than I recall hearing post 2011 election. :)
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I think it's just as likely we're hearing less calls for proportional representation because Trudeau has promised electoral reform.
 
Videodrome said:
Also, would this count as a failure for Lynton Crosby?
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He distanced himself from Harper so fast - even before the election - it's almost like he was never here.

He said something in early October about a woman wearing a veil being attacked and how since Canada and Australia were both diverse societies we should 'embrace other cultures or f*** off'. Not exactly what Harper was aiming for on the niqab issue. Then right after the election he said Canadians weren't as gullible as Brits, suggesting that the plan to have voters fall for Harper didn't work.
 
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