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mjl08 said:
I always felt that the SNC Lavalin scandal was going to be short-lived. It was too confusing and too boring for anyone other than politicos. As usual, the election will probably come down to the economy. While all the indicators suggest as robust economy, cost of living and a sense of "working more for less" will be Trudeau's biggest test, not SNC.

I also suspect the flirtation with the Greens to plateau, if not slide, in the coming months.
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They just hired toxic Warren Kinsella, so yeah....
 
Andrew Coyne
@acoyne
Leave it to the Tories to turn a legitimate issue — McCallum’s poor judgment, and what it reveals of Liberal thinking on China — into a demonstration of their own immaturity, by means of ham-handed, over-the-top responses like this. What a clown show.
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The CPC seems determined to blow this.
 
BurlOak said:
Lol. What hypocrisy.

It's hard to be worse than Trudeau - but I think May is there.
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Once again.............please stop......for at least the 100th time.

I'm not a fan of Mr. Kinsella and question Ms. May's judgement in involving him.

Nonetheless........to suggest that she has somehow stooped to a moral low you have not previously fallen below is a far worse form of hypocrisy that any politician of which I am aware is guilty.
 
I wonder how he will get any sort of message across on Twitter when he has blocked pretty much everyone.
 
globalnews.ca

Donald Trump’s ‘divisive comments’ have no place in society, Andrew Scheer says | Globalnews.ca

Scheer said he believes people should be free to criticize their governments without having their backgrounds questioned or being told to leave the country.
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca

Scheer standing up to Trump?

EDIT:

Scheer is now attacking healthy eating.

www.huffingtonpost.ca

Scheer: Canada’s Food Guide Is ‘Ideologically-Driven,’ Doesn’t Reflect Science

The Tory leader shared his two cents about the food guide and got some hearty applause from dairy farmers.
www.huffingtonpost.ca www.huffingtonpost.ca
 
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I would agree that the decline of the NDP (Thanks, Singh) has greater ramifications than it seems. I think that Quebec will be the 'swing' province- in Ontario, Ford's antics have slightly poisonsed the well there, meaning that it'll be less neck-and-neck.

Separatists in Canada's Quebec 'potential spoiler' for Trudeau in October poll
By Allison Lampert
July 18, 2019
MONTREAL (Reuters) - Separatists in the Canadian province of Quebec are making a comeback after years in the doldrums and could regain enough strength to endanger Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's bid to retain power in a federal election this October.

The center-left Liberals, now trying to recover from a major scandal over alleged interference by officials in a criminal case, unexpectedly won 40 of Quebec's 78 seats in 2015. They have said they will now need to win at least 12 more Quebec seats to offset losses elsewhere.

To do so, they will have to fend off the Bloc Quebecois, a party that has long pushed for the province's independence.

Polls show the Bloc, which has lost support since the mid-1990s when it was the second-biggest party in parliament, gaining recent momentum as backers who abandoned it for the left-leaning New Democrats in the last two elections show signs of returning.

The Bloc has 10 Quebec legislators and stands a chance of picking up some of the seats the Liberals are aiming for, especially those held by the slumping New Democrats.

That could make all the difference for Trudeau, in a race where every seat will count and where the Liberals are eyeing victories in places they have not won in decades.

A Mainstreet Research survey put support for the Bloc at 19.1% in July, up from 13.3% in March. An Ipsos poll from this week put the Bloc at 22% in Quebec, up from 20% in April.

If the Bloc can grow support to above 20%, the party could potentially spoil the Liberal chances in key ridings (parliamentary constituencies) such as Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot, which was narrowly won by the New Democrats in 2015, said Leger Marketing pollster Christian Bourque.

"The Bloc has the potential to be the spoiler," he said, explaining that it could divert votes away from the Liberals and hand the win to the rival Conservative Party.

To counter that, the Liberals are aggressively chasing some of the 38 Quebec ridings they do not hold by considering candidates including Rejean Hebert, a former cabinet minister from the Bloc's provincial sister party.

They have recruited high-profile progressives such as longtime environmentalist Steven Guilbeault, now bidding to win a Montreal riding the Liberals last held in the 1980s.

"The party is doing very well in Quebec," Guilbeault said by phone. "It has attracted 50,000 new members since 2015, and I suspect this will go up significantly between now and the election."

Liberal Party spokesman Braeden Caley confirmed the importance of Quebec in the election.

"We absolutely have a growth strategy in Quebec and it will continue to be a big focus of the campaign," Caley said, adding the party had made a major investment in a provincial ad campaign.

An added challenge is that the Conservatives, who polls show have a chance of winning the October election, are looking to add to the 11 Quebec seats they hold.

Quebec politics has become much more fluid in recent years and old-style alliances can no longer be taken for granted.

The Quebec Federation of Labor, the province's largest labor union, supported the Bloc in 2011 but is no longer backing any one party.

"It's possible that in certain ridings we'll support the Liberal Party," said federation President Daniel Boyer. He added that the Bloc was "the big unknown in the election."

The Bloc is being underestimated and could pose a surprise, especially if new leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, who took over in January, wins the French-language leaders' debate, Boyle said.

Support for Quebec independence has waned in recent years, compared with 1995, when the pro-sovereignist side only just lost a referendum on splitting from Canada.

Bloc leader Blanchet said in an interview that voters who defected in previous elections were fed up with the New Democrats and Liberals.

"Many people will want to return to the Bloc," he predicted.
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ca.news.yahoo.com

Separatists in Canada's Quebec 'potential spoiler' for Trudeau in October poll

Separatists in the Canadian province of Quebec are making a comeback after years in the doldrums and could regain enough strength to endanger Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's bid to retain power in a federal election this October. The center-left Liberals, now trying to recover from a...
ca.news.yahoo.com ca.news.yahoo.com

Interesting take from Reddit:
The average French-Canadian is not particularly federalist, socially liberal and against religion in the public sphere. What are their choices?

Trudeau, a politician with the Quebec authenticity of a Chinese knockoff at a First Nations Arts and craft faire, who lacks the drive or the humility former popular politicians like Chrétien, Bouchard, Parizeau, Lévesque or even current Premier Legault have. Not a good track record on keeping promises or adapting quickly, a contrast to the current very popular CAQ government who has an excellent one so far.

Scheer, almost a parody of the average good Christian Conservative, leader of a party staunchly against the arts, science, women's rights and that is drenched in oil money. Charisma of a pancake on a good day, surrounded by 'muh equalization payments' whiners who aren't too keen on Quebec in general. No current rock star among the few MPs he has in the province.

Singh, leader of a party that did nothing to cater to the population that gave them their biggest victory. The NDP is still very much a ROC-exclusive party that promotes an almost zealous multiculturalism, a concept not particularly popular here opposed to interculturalism. This is exemplified by his traditional Sikh attire; it just won't fly.

Bernier, who so far has only succeeded in recruiting the political equivalent of white trash.

May, leader of a party with no real presence in Quebec and who doesn't really speak the language in a way that can be easily understood.

When all else fails, lots of people will just park their votes with the Bloc as it at least tends to generally represent the values of Quebec.
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Or not vote at all... Quebecers are not known to vote in large numbers when they feel uninspired.
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Separatist is just a pejorative term for a group of pro-Quebec voters.

The Bloc Quebecois didn't attract legitimate voters who wanted separation. They attracted voters who wanted Quebec to be more sovereign. These are the same Quebec voters who turned up in droves to vote for Brian Mulroney through the 80s.

These voters have always been more on the tribalist side. The new CAQ Party has basically swallowed up these voters in Quebec... completely killing the PQ. Separatism isn't the goal of these voters so the name just doesn't fit.

Trudeau was largely unaffected by these voters in the last election because their support was split up between the BQ, the NDP and the CPC. Now it appears that in many ridings these voters are coming together for the Bloc Quebecois. Nowhere near their levels in the 90s.... but enough to matter.
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Though one thing that probably *has* changed from the days of Bloc supremacy is that it has more of a CAQ-echoing rural/suburban-belt base now. By comparison, the old Duceppe-iste urban strongholds have likely gentrified out of reach--and oddly enough, I can picture the NDP even under Singh retaining some sort of urban-rump buoyancy in central Montreal, largely as an echo of broader "cosmopolitanizing" urban trends as well as of provincial Quebec Solidaire representation...
 
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