Canadian Politics

[Haganham]

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau China has released Kovrig and Spavor.

In completely and totally unrelated news, Meng Wanzhou has come to an agreement with the US government regarding "misleading financial information" which led to charges being dropped and for her extradition trial to come to an end.

I guess china's hostage diplomacy has worked then.

[Vikanias]

Well the Micheals are back, 1,019 days of staying in China, well the good is that they are back.

[Czervenika]

What a fucking piece of shit. Bertie is well and truly Far Northern Texas.

Yea I hate it here. I'm leaving as soon as I'm financially stable enough to do so. Worst political climate in all of Canada.

[Luziyca]

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau China has released Kovrig and Spavor.

In completely and totally unrelated news, Meng Wanzhou has come to an agreement with the US government regarding "misleading financial information" which led to charges being dropped and for her extradition trial to come to an end.

Just another day at the office. Good to see Kovrig and Spavor are free though...

It is good that this saga ended in a way that benefitted Kovrig, Spavor, and Meng Wanzhou, especially now that Kovrig and Spavor are back home.

I definitely think Kovrig and Spavor were detained in retaliation for us detaining Meng Wanzhou, and I do think Canada needs to carefully examine why it is such an American lackey that whenever the Americans tell us to jump, we say "how high" and then jump higher than what the Americans want us to do, given that we detained Wanzhou because the Americans wanted us to extradite her to the United States.

[Bear Stearns]

Just another day at the office. Good to see Kovrig and Spavor are free though...

It is good that this saga ended in a way that benefitted Kovrig, Spavor, and Meng Wanzhou, especially now that Kovrig and Spavor are back home.

I definitely think Kovrig and Spavor were detained in retaliation for us detaining Meng Wanzhou, and I do think Canada needs to carefully examine why it is such an American lackey that whenever the Americans tell us to jump, we say "how high" and then jump higher than what the Americans want us to do, given that we detained Wanzhou because the Americans wanted us to extradite her to the United States.

Canada is an integral part of the rules-based international order upon which our democratic institutions are rested. To oppose this is to spread Russian misinformation and white supremacy.

[Immortan Khan]

Just another day at the office. Good to see Kovrig and Spavor are free though...

It is good that this saga ended in a way that benefitted Kovrig, Spavor, and Meng Wanzhou, especially now that Kovrig and Spavor are back home.

I definitely think Kovrig and Spavor were detained in retaliation for us detaining Meng Wanzhou, and I do think Canada needs to carefully examine why it is such an American lackey that whenever the Americans tell us to jump, we say "how high" and then jump higher than what the Americans want us to do, given that we detained Wanzhou because the Americans wanted us to extradite her to the United States.

There was no legal basis to deny arresting her and extraditing her when it happened. Why should we be a vassal of China over the US?

[Luziyca]

It is good that this saga ended in a way that benefitted Kovrig, Spavor, and Meng Wanzhou, especially now that Kovrig and Spavor are back home.

I definitely think Kovrig and Spavor were detained in retaliation for us detaining Meng Wanzhou, and I do think Canada needs to carefully examine why it is such an American lackey that whenever the Americans tell us to jump, we say "how high" and then jump higher than what the Americans want us to do, given that we detained Wanzhou because the Americans wanted us to extradite her to the United States.

There was no legal basis to deny arresting her and extraditing her when it happened. Why should we be a vassal of China over the US?

Because Chinese foreign policy at least isn't just bomb a country to smithereens and slurp up all its natural resources. It actually gives a damn about helping others rise up economically, by investing in infrastructure that helps countries develop their economies, even if we accept the argument that this is all just for China's own benefit.

Plus, Canada being a vassal to China instead of the United States would allow for Canadian culture to be more protected, given that since China is an ocean away from us, it is relatively unlikely that their political and cultural trends would influence Canada in quite the same way that America's does, by account of a significant language barrier (whereas Americans and Canadians, for the most part, speak the same language) and distance.

[Bear Stearns]

There was no legal basis to deny arresting her and extraditing her when it happened. Why should we be a vassal of China over the US?

Because Chinese foreign policy at least isn't just bomb a country to smithereens and slurp up all its natural resources. It actually gives a damn about helping others rise up economically, by investing in infrastructure that helps countries develop their economies, even if we accept the argument that this is all just for China's own benefit.

Plus, Canada being a vassal to China instead of the United States would allow for Canadian culture to be more protected, given that since China is an ocean away from us, it is relatively unlikely that their political and cultural trends would influence Canada in quite the same way that America's does, by account of a significant language barrier (whereas Americans and Canadians, for the most part, speak the same language) and distance.

I wish Chinese culture influenced Canada more. Imagine if Canada started banning effeminate men. Half of your government would be imprisoned.

[Immortan Khan]

Because Chinese foreign policy at least isn't just bomb a country to smithereens and slurp up all its natural resources.

Because they aren't in a position to do that yet, that's why. Given their hostile moves against their neighbors, hostage diplomacy, and their own internal responses to dissent, at best we can expect them to be no different.

It actually gives a damn about helping others rise up economically, by investing in infrastructure that helps countries develop their economies, even if we accept the argument that this is all just for China's own benefit.

Is this why they make deals that allow them to basically create their own treaty ports? Fly in Chinese workers to build that infrastructure instead of locals? I can easily point to the times the US has helped other countries economically.

Plus, Canada being a vassal to China instead of the United States would allow for Canadian culture to be more protected, given that since China is an ocean away from us, it is relatively unlikely that their political and cultural trends would influence Canada in quite the same way that America's does, by account of a significant language barrier (whereas Americans and Canadians, for the most part, speak the same language) and distance.

I've seen you argue before that Canadian culture, especially in English Canada, is basically just an extension of American culture. If there is basically no Canadian culture, then there is nothing really to defend. If anything being allied with people who are culturally more similar to us is a better bet than those who are culturally alien to us. This isn't even getting into the Confucius Institute nonsense or how China is targeting the families of Canadians with imprisonment in China if they don't do their bidding.

[Nilokeras]

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau China has released Kovrig and Spavor.

In completely and totally unrelated news, Meng Wanzhou has come to an agreement with the US government regarding "misleading financial information" which led to charges being dropped and for her extradition trial to come to an end.

Yeah fine whatever. It's far more interesting how the media kept the 'these are just two innocent guys plucked randomly off the street' narrative going considering how they were both such obvious intelligence assets. Spavor is a major go-between between Western players and North Korea and Kovrig is a former diplomat turned NGO ghoul. There are plenty of things to criticize China about that are actually important - doing the entirely proportional thing in a crisis and grabbing two spies in response to a politically motivated arrest is not one of them.

[Luziyca]

Because Chinese foreign policy at least isn't just bomb a country to smithereens and slurp up all its natural resources.

Because they aren't in a position to do that yet, that's why. Given their hostile moves against their neighbors, hostage diplomacy, and their own internal responses to dissent, at best we can expect them to be no different.

Since the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, China has been involved in zero wars. In the same time period, excluding multinational interventions organized by the UN, America has been involved in at least five wars, if we only consider the invasions of Grenada and Panama, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War and the Iraq War as, well, actual wars. If we count all military conflicts America has been involved in, they were involved in twenty, whereas China has only been involved in three (the Sino-Vietnamese conflicts from 1979-1991, the 2020-1 skirmishes with India, and the Northern Mali conflict). Of course, if we narrow the focus to just the 21st century thus far, China would've been involved in two military conflicts whereas the Americans were involved in nine military conflicts (of which three were against ISIS).

That being said, this century is still young, and I do expect that as American influence declines, China will step in to fill that void, and who knows, maybe they'll be slightly more bellicose down the line, particularly against the South China Sea and the Chinese province of Taiwan that is currently controlled by their own independent authorities.

It actually gives a damn about helping others rise up economically, by investing in infrastructure that helps countries develop their economies, even if we accept the argument that this is all just for China's own benefit.

Is this why they make deals that allow them to basically create their own treaty ports? Fly in Chinese workers to build that infrastructure instead of locals? I can easily point to the times the US has helped other countries economically.

And when was the last time American money has gone into investing in infrastructure in other countries (beyond Iraq and Afghanistan), that benefitted those countries? I suspect probably around the end of the Cold War, before America realized that there's no need to build infrastructure in other countries since there's no need to swing them over to their side.

I do think that locals should be involved in building infrastructure, and that as much as possible we don't import workers from elsewhere to do the job (looking at you, Gulf States), and I'd argue it might not be a great idea to sell off major assets to other countries like the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, even if the Sri Lanka navy has planned to move their base of operations to Hambantota, even if I haven't heard much of that since.

Plus, Canada being a vassal to China instead of the United States would allow for Canadian culture to be more protected, given that since China is an ocean away from us, it is relatively unlikely that their political and cultural trends would influence Canada in quite the same way that America's does, by account of a significant language barrier (whereas Americans and Canadians, for the most part, speak the same language) and distance.

I've seen you argue before that Canadian culture, especially in English Canada, is basically just an extension of American culture. If there is basically no Canadian culture, then there is nothing really to defend. If anything being allied with people who are culturally more similar to us is a better bet than those who are culturally alien to us. This isn't even getting into the Confucius Institute nonsense or how China is targeting the families of Canadians with imprisonment in China if they don't do their bidding.

Even though Anglo-Canadian culture is an extension of American culture, and there is objectively not a lot of difference between English Canada and the United States, us Anglophone Canadians still feel like we have some tenuous link that makes us Canadian, however weak that link would be.

And I think so long as us Anglophone Canadians believe that there is something that makes us different from Americans, even if it's just a subpar coffee chain (that makes good donuts) and hockey, I think it is worth building up our culture to be more distinct from American culture, and worth fighting to protect our culture from further and excessive Americanization.

This is why China is our best bet, given that the geography of China vis-a-vis Canada, in conjunction with the language barrier, means that we're not as likely to become completely Sinicized the way we are Americanized.

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau China has released Kovrig and Spavor.

In completely and totally unrelated news, Meng Wanzhou has come to an agreement with the US government regarding "misleading financial information" which led to charges being dropped and for her extradition trial to come to an end.

Yeah fine whatever. It's far more interesting how the media kept the 'these are just two innocent guys plucked randomly off the street' narrative going considering how they were both such obvious intelligence assets. Spavor is a major go-between between Western players and North Korea and Kovrig is a former diplomat turned NGO ghoul. There are plenty of things to criticize China about that are actually important - doing the entirely proportional thing in a crisis and grabbing two spies in response to a politically motivated arrest is not one of them.

I agree that it is interesting that they have kept pushing that narrative, yeah, given that Spavor and Kovrig do absolutely reek of "intelligence asset." And I do think that if you're going to do a tit-for-tat response of arresting someone to extradite to the United States, it'd make sense to arrest some Canadian citizens who have ties with the American government.

Given that their release definitely is reminiscent of spy swaps back during the Cold War, where the Americans release a Russian spy or two in exchange for a couple American spies captured by the Soviets, I do think that there has to be some sort of connection between the Spavor and Kovrig case and the Wanzhou case.

[Slavuja]

As someone with family in Serbia, China's closest ally in Europe, you don't want to be a vassal of China. Unless you're willing to sacrifice environmental protections, accept Chinese corporations and workers in your country to harvest natural resources, and see a one-party state arise. The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, always goes around talking about the great brotherly bond between China and Serbia and his praise for China coincides with a whole lotta democratic backsliding. He's got 92% of the congress in Serbia now, more than even the CCP does in China. Look up Hesteel, Zijin Mining, and Linglong Tire Co. and you'll find plenty of environment and human rights related scandals in Serbia. It's naive to think that just because China is geographically further from us that we'd be less influenced as their vassal.

As for what less-influential countries should do, I think it's best to balance between the major powers as much as possible. Canada should have really been sure that the US would back us if we were to arrest Meng Wanzhou, it was irresponsible to just assume they'd have our backs - especially considering the way Trump treated US allies. On the other hand, allying with China is a ridiculous policy for a democratic country since relations with China work as such: China support the government of any friendly country as long as that friendly country does nothing against the interests of China. Inevitably that leads to a loss of democracy down the road.

In defense of Chinese allies, relationships with China can be fruitful if you're not in a financial position to be worried about democracy, the environment, etc. - Chinese investments can build a lot of infrastructure projects that are mutually beneficial. It's a hell of a lot easier to just take on debt you know you can't repay than to build a productive economy up from the ground. So in that aspect, many struggling countries have seen many benefits from friendly relations with China. As a developed country, that isn't a concern for Canada. I do agree that overdependence on the US has stung us one too many times though, which is why I think it is more prudent to figure out a better balance rather than outright doing a foreign policy U-turn.

[Czervenika]

I mostly just want Canada to stop trying to emulate the US. Even our right-wing movement doesn't have its own unique identity. It's just Trump supporters who happen to live in Canada. They hold pretty much all the same views that Trump supporters in the US do. There's even Trump banners and slogans at all the right-wing rallies here.

[Outer Sparta]

I mostly just want Canada to stop trying to emulate the US. Even our right-wing movement doesn't have its own unique identity. It's just Trump supporters who happen to live in Canada. They hold pretty much all the same views that Trump supporters in the US do. There's even Trump banners and slogans at all the right-wing rallies here.

Ted Cruz is from Alberta, so we already have a Canadian-Cuban in the US who's a huge MAGA supporter like the rest of the GOP. If immigration policies prevented Cruz from going to the US, then he'd be the right-wing face of Canada and perhaps try to go after a Conservative seat in Calgary or something.

[Czervenika]

I mostly just want Canada to stop trying to emulate the US. Even our right-wing movement doesn't have its own unique identity. It's just Trump supporters who happen to live in Canada. They hold pretty much all the same views that Trump supporters in the US do. There's even Trump banners and slogans at all the right-wing rallies here.

Ted Cruz is from Alberta, so we already have a Canadian-Cuban in the US who's a huge MAGA supporter like the rest of the GOP. If immigration policies prevented Cruz from going to the US, then he'd be the right-wing face of Canada and perhaps try to go after a Conservative seat in Calgary or something.

Yes, born in Calgary. We don't want him, though, or at least I don't. Lol.

[Quebec and Shingoryeo]

[*]Kenney's mistakes over the last few months certainly accumulated with huge gains for both Liberals and NDP in Alberta. Edmonton Strathcona wasn't going anywhere else for NDP anyway, but gaining Griesbach is always a +. Kicking Diotte out is also a plus. Calgary Skyview's a good case of how if you campaign well and sustainedly so, you will be able to turn things around. It looks like things may have turned around for the best in Edmonton Centre - it does have a past history of Liberals being elected there with McLellan and then Boissonnault round 1. Even in 2019, Edmonton Centre's stayed somewhat close. Always a plus.

Skyview is in Calgary's Northeast I believe, which is home to large immigrant populations primarily of Southeast Asian descent. Based on that it kind of makes sense why they would lean away from voting Conservative. I know it may be a bit of a stereotype, but many see conservatives as not being the most immigration friendly. I'm sure the explanation for the riding going Liberal this time around is more nuanced than that, though. I just know my Calgary riding is very white and heavily Conservative voting (I felt my NDP vote was rather useless).

That is nowhere near what's on my mind, especially considering how CPC often performs well in ridings with strong South/East Asian immigrant presence. It's like with UK - you aren't going to see a party with very few POC members and other 100+ POC members.

It's not as much about immigration, but also on good work by the challenger, though Chahal is now in a major trouble with Elections Canada...

Few thoughts:

• A minor remark - CPC gains in Atlantic Canada and NDP/LPC gains in Prairies always a plus for regional representations. The latter especially so, given that LPC was without a cabinet minister from AB/SK (there were 2 in MB, where LPC held 4 seats in Winnipeg area).
• CPC doing well on Atlantic Canada, especially after its dismal performance there for 2015 and 2019, does indicate the significance of how provincial politics play out there. Not a lot of surprises if you look at it closer - Atwin's 2019 victory was a close one over CPC candidate in a three-way riding back then, South Shore's been mostly blue aside from 2015-21 run by Bernadette Jordan, NB being divided into two with Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John being in-between. Atlantic Canada's been dealing with COVID-19 well in general, and the recent change of provincial government in Nova Scotia, where the questions were focused on housing and health policies, indicate that it is not impossible for CPC to do well in Atlantic Canada. Now the question is whether they can sustain it under a relatively more moderate CPC.
• LPC underperformed, but that's to be expected especially after how the English-language debates went. Keep asking Blanchet same questions will only get more people to vote for BQ instead of possibly swaying to other three parties generally in contention. This probably affected LPC lot more than other two, considering that their chance of going for a majority usually lie on how they well they do in QC and Atlantic Canada. It is also to do with how they underperformed in Atlantic Canada, but that's already discussed right above.
• Saskatchewan unfortunately stays blue and only blue. Nothing surprising given the results from last Provincial election.
• Kenney's mistakes over the last few months certainly accumulated with huge gains for both Liberals and NDP in Alberta. Edmonton Strathcona wasn't going anywhere else for NDP anyway, but gaining Griesbach is always a +. Kicking Diotte out is also a plus. Calgary Skyview's a good case of how if you campaign well and sustainedly so, you will be able to turn things around. It looks like things may have turned around for the best in Edmonton Centre - it does have a past history of Liberals being elected there with McLellan and then Boissonnault round 1. Even in 2019, Edmonton Centre's stayed somewhat close. Always a plus.
• Ontario stays largely the same. CPC couldn't really break through the GTA this time either, and such is life. Now whether this will affect 2022 Ontario Elections or not remains to be seen, but with how unfamiliar Canadian politicians are to the idea of coalition, voters will have to decide if they wanna go nonstop and bet all-in on NDP or Liberals. Probably the best way to go with it is to go 'ABC' as if it's 2015 Federal again.
• While gaining a bit more than last elections, NDP needs to recalibrate and recalculate what is next. It is good we have leadership group that knows how to engage public, but you need more work on policies. Being on TikTok all the time won't do that. NDP also needs to outdo LPC on the recruitment part - I know the party can do it, the party has done so well in past, but don't expect to go further if you aren't getting the likes of Freeland's or Carney's or even van Koevedren's on board.
• Greens did gain Kitchener, but it means little unless they can ensure that the party's not gonna implode any other day.

The Vancouver area ridings had some gains to the Liberals from the Cons. Cloverdale-Langley City, Stevenson-Richmond East, and if Richmond Centre holds for rookie candidate Wilson Miao, then that would make it three.

Oh, absolutely. I have noticed them. It's just I tend to leave behind BC a bit because I'm not as familiar with Western Canada in general, especially compared to Ontario/Quebec/Maritimes.

[Nilokeras]

I mostly just want Canada to stop trying to emulate the US. Even our right-wing movement doesn't have its own unique identity. It's just Trump supporters who happen to live in Canada. They hold pretty much all the same views that Trump supporters in the US do. There's even Trump banners and slogans at all the right-wing rallies here.

This is a misguided view of the Canadian right. If anything, we are a net exporter and source of right-wingers to the US. Stephen Crowder, Gavin McInnes and Faith Goldy are all Canadians. Rebel News is by far the most successful and long lasting of all the right-wing splinter media projects like BNN and OANN. This argument reeks of the typical small-l liberal view that the Canadian political landscape is incapable of producing its own reactionaries and that its all down to American influence bleeding through - when in reality we have just as deep of right-wing roots as anywhere else.

[Czervenika]

I mostly just want Canada to stop trying to emulate the US. Even our right-wing movement doesn't have its own unique identity. It's just Trump supporters who happen to live in Canada. They hold pretty much all the same views that Trump supporters in the US do. There's even Trump banners and slogans at all the right-wing rallies here.

This is a misguided view of the Canadian right. If anything, we are a net exporter and source of right-wingers to the US. Stephen Crowder, Gavin McInnes and Faith Goldy are all Canadians. Rebel News is by far the most successful and long lasting of all the right-wing splinter media projects like BNN and OANN. This argument reeks of the typical small-l liberal view that the Canadian political landscape is incapable of producing its own reactionaries and that its all down to American influence bleeding through - when in reality we have just as deep of right-wing roots as anywhere else.

Believe me, in Alberta most of the reactionaries are just American wannabes. There's a reason why I see endorsements around here for Alberta being the 51st state.

[Nilokeras]

The Vancouver area ridings had some gains to the Liberals from the Cons. Cloverdale-Langley City, Stevenson-Richmond East, and if Richmond Centre holds for rookie candidate Wilson Miao, then that would make it three.

Which is probably down to a lot of different factors. The Tories have been consistently weak on racism, and all of those ridings have large Asian populations in a city that is the anti-Asian hate crime capital of the world. Disillusionment on that front is probably a factor. There's also, probably most importantly, the long tail of demographic shift as the insane rental and housing prices of the left-leaning urban ridings in Vancouver caused young mostly left-leaning voters to drift to the affordable housing present in those ridings. All of them experienced massive shifts to the BC NDP in the last provincial election, and this seems to be the federal reflection of that trend.

[Nilokeras]

This is a misguided view of the Canadian right. If anything, we are a net exporter and source of right-wingers to the US. Stephen Crowder, Gavin McInnes and Faith Goldy are all Canadians. Rebel News is by far the most successful and long lasting of all the right-wing splinter media projects like BNN and OANN. This argument reeks of the typical small-l liberal view that the Canadian political landscape is incapable of producing its own reactionaries and that its all down to American influence bleeding through - when in reality we have just as deep of right-wing roots as anywhere else.

Believe me, in Alberta most of the reactionaries are just American wannabes. There's a reason why I see endorsements around here for Alberta being the 51st state.

I'm from the BC interior, in the riding that produced Stockwell Day. I am as intimately familiar with reaction in Canada as you are. You're being overly simplistic and drawing the wrong conclusions. Fringe Wexiteers do not represent the entirety of the right wing.

[Outer Sparta]

I mostly just want Canada to stop trying to emulate the US. Even our right-wing movement doesn't have its own unique identity. It's just Trump supporters who happen to live in Canada. They hold pretty much all the same views that Trump supporters in the US do. There's even Trump banners and slogans at all the right-wing rallies here.

This is a misguided view of the Canadian right. If anything, we are a net exporter and source of right-wingers to the US. Stephen Crowder, Gavin McInnes and Faith Goldy are all Canadians. Rebel News is by far the most successful and long lasting of all the right-wing splinter media projects like BNN and OANN. This argument reeks of the typical small-l liberal view that the Canadian political landscape is incapable of producing its own reactionaries and that its all down to American influence bleeding through - when in reality we have just as deep of right-wing roots as anywhere else.

Don't forget right-wing politicians like Ted Cruz, a Canadian-Cuban who hails from Alberta and is a Texas senator. Then again, Texas and Alberta are quite alike.

[Shrillland]

This is a misguided view of the Canadian right. If anything, we are a net exporter and source of right-wingers to the US. Stephen Crowder, Gavin McInnes and Faith Goldy are all Canadians. Rebel News is by far the most successful and long lasting of all the right-wing splinter media projects like BNN and OANN. This argument reeks of the typical small-l liberal view that the Canadian political landscape is incapable of producing its own reactionaries and that its all down to American influence bleeding through - when in reality we have just as deep of right-wing roots as anywhere else.

Don't forget right-wing politicians like Ted Cruz, a Canadian-Cuban who hails from Alberta and is a Texas senator. Then again, Texas and Alberta are quite alike.

I've always said that they make a perfect title for a particularly bad romance novel, "The Lone Star and the Wild Rose."

[Czervenika]

Don't forget right-wing politicians like Ted Cruz, a Canadian-Cuban who hails from Alberta and is a Texas senator. Then again, Texas and Alberta are quite alike.

I've always said that they make a perfect title for a particularly bad romance novel, "The Lone Star and the Wild Rose."

Lmao don't even put this image in my head. The last thing I needed to imagine was erotic fiction about Albertan and Texan politicians.

[Luziyca]

Annamie Paul is stepping down as leader of the Green Party, saying that "she can't bear to go through a fractious leadership review, a process that was formally launched Saturday by members eager to replace her after the party's poor showing in the 44th general election."

I wish her the best in all her future endeavours, whatever it may be.

[Czervenika]

Annamie Paul is stepping down as leader of the Green Party, saying that "she can't bear to go through a fractious leadership review, a process that was formally launched Saturday by members eager to replace her after the party's poor showing in the 44th general election."

I wish her the best in all her future endeavours, whatever it may be.

I saw this coming from about a mile away.