Canadian Politics 2023

[dubsartur]

Presumably the Liberals don't want an election under current circumstances, but nor do the opposition centre-left, so it's unlikely to happen until 2025 unless the Liberals' fortunes reverse or the Liberals start doing badly enough that the NDP/Greens think they can gain by pulling the plug somehow?

I think that orthodox advice would be for the Liberals to wait for the next scheduled election, do things which will have visible effects in Canada over the next two years, and consider switching PMs.  Especially since they already called an early election in 2021.  But basically the PM can do whatever he wants unless the opposition defeat the government in a confidence motion.

I am too tired and too busy to have thoughts on what they are trying to do to the extent that anyone can see that yet.

I don't know the story about parliament you are talking about, but past news stories have said that a number of Eastern European nationalists emigrated to Canada after 1945 without being honest about their activities from 1941 to 1945.  Like many other people with guilty consciences, they want to be called Heroes of the Fatherland and Victims of Communism.  A few German war criminals were able to shelter in Canada too.  So its an ongoing issue. 

Edit: Geman Wikipedia on the SS division and how its members tried to redefine themselves as Ukrainian patriots from 1945 onwards https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/14._Waffen-Grenadier-Division_der_SS_(galizische_Nr._1)

Edit: WaPo on the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar which eyewitnesses say involved at least four people in two cars and two gunmen on foot https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/25/hardeep-singh-nijjar-killing-video/

[Jubal]

I think that orthodox advice would be for the Liberals to wait for the next scheduled election, do things which will have visible effects in Canada over the next two years, and consider switching PMs.  Especially since they already called an early election in 2021.  But basically the PM can do whatever he wants unless the opposition defeat the government in a confidence motion.

Yes, that'd be my expectation. As I understand the Liberals are in a minority so the opposition could force an election but only if they all were willing at the same time, and the left-opposition are unlikely to want to trade a liberal minority for a conservative majority government.

Here's the news of the recent incident with the Ukrainian-Canadian former SS member:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66919862

[dubsartur]

The MP has resigned as Speaker of the House. 

Here is another journalistic account of how members of the Galician SS ended up in Canada http://espritdecorps.ca/history-feature/the-rcaf-officer-who-brought-hitlers-waffen-ss-to-canada  The most similar previous scandal from this government was the time when Justin Trudeau found something nice to say about Fidel Castro when he died (there are a lot more live Canadians who were victims of the Castro regime in Cuba than victims of the Galician SS in Ukraine).

But I am not interested in speculations about stupid self-serving tactical maneuvers like calling an early election given that only one person and his self-appointed advisors have the power to do that.  And I don't like commenting on hot-button issues of daily news on the permanently recorded Internet.

Edit: I think this federal government is limited less by its lack of a solid majority than by its reluctance to decide between opposing interests in the public (and by the occasional clueless statement or act of corruption).  You can't both make housing more affordable and maintain the value of real estate.  They are moving forward on some big policy issues but I don't have the time or energy to figure out what they are and summarize them.

Ottawa journalists used to say that this government is also very centralized with decisions emanating from the PMO, and centralization leads to slow or thoughtless decisions.

I am sure the PM would like to have a majority, but if he had one he would go back to dithering and triangulating and asking the haruspices polls for guidance.

[dubsartur]

The Prime Minister's Office looked at the polls, with the Tories at more than 40% support (enough for a majority), and decided to exempt heating oil in the maritime provinces from the federal carbon tax for the next three years (= until after the next election).  The problems are that the whole point of the tax is to encourage people to stop burning fossil fuels, and that if you make one exception to win a few votes, you will be asked to make others.

OTOH people back in the day said that the carbon tax had been written to exempt many sources of emissions to keep big companies and sectors happy.  So one more exception may not be the end of the world.

[Jubal]

I think similar things will be popping up fast in Western Europe, where governing parties are really struggling with hard rightwing backlash to environmental policies. It's rather depressing.

[dubsartur]

Last year Macleans had a post on the lost young man who deliberately ran over a family of Moslems in Ontario https://macleans.ca/longforms/an-act-of-evil/  They talked briefly about how terrible people use the Internet, social media, and old media to rile up people to violence (or just fill them with resentment of others).  Just remember how people like the John Birch Society used pamphlets, or the old fascists and communists and Hutu Power used radio and newspapers.

The Power groups believed that the national radio station, Radio Rwanda, had become too liberal and supportive of the opposition; they founded a new radio station, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). The RTLM was designed to appeal to the young adults in Rwanda and had extensive reach. Unlike newspapers that could only be found in cities, the radio broadcasts were accessible to Rwanda's largely rural population of farmers. The format of the broadcasts mirrored Western-style radio talk shows that played popular music, hosted interviews, and encouraged audience participation. The broadcasters told crude jokes and used offensive language that contrasted strongly with Radio Rwanda's more formal news reports.[105] Just 1.52% of RTLM's airtime was dedicated to news, while 66.29% of airtime featured the journalists discussing their thoughts on different subjects.[106] As the start of the genocide approached, the RTLM broadcasts focused on anti-Tutsi propaganda. They characterized the Tutsi as a dangerous enemy who wanted to seize the political power at the expense of Hutus. By linking the Rwandan Patriotic Army with the Tutsi political party and ordinary Tutsi citizens, they classified the entire ethnic group as one homogeneous threat to Rwandans. The RTLM went further than amplifying ethnic and political division; it also labeled the Tutsi as inyenzi, meaning non-human pests or cockroaches, which must be exterminated.[107]

Doesn't that sound a lot like many popular vlogs and podcasts and far-right talk shows today?

Edit: also a longform piece on a Canadian guru who has been discovering that his disciples' spiritual path goes through his bed since the 1990s https://macleans.ca/longforms/john-de-ruiter/ (namedrop of the Aga Khan Foundation which the P.M. got in trouble with)

And the US government has accused the Indian government of trying to arrange the murder of Indian citizens in the USA and Canada https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-unseals-indictment-sikh-killings-1.7043428

[dubsartur]

Someone leaked the Intercept a document from last April in which the Indian government tells its consulates to take "concrete measures" against a list of supposed Sikh separatists in the USA and Canada.  Hardeep Singh Nijjar was on the list. https://theintercept.com/2023/12/10/india-sikhs-leaked-memo-us-canada/

The new Speaker of the House is in trouble for recording a video in praise of an outgoing Ontario Liberal official in November, thereby engaging in partisan activity while holding a non-partisan office.  The Liberal Party of Ontario is strictly speaking not the same party as the Federal Liberals.

[dubsartur]

Another example of how Canadian journalists are bad at seeing the story when it is right in front of them.  In 2018, when the previous US administration tried to have a Huawei executive extradited from Canada to the USA, the CCP arrested two Canadians on espionage charges, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.  They were released in 2021 after.  Paywalled sources now report that in November Spavor sued the government for having Kovrig pass on information from his activities in North Korea to Canadian intelligence, causing the Chinese government to think he was a spy.  And apparently Spavor goes jet-skiing with Kim Jong-Un! So you have a probably wealthy guy whose main activity is trade and tourism with North Korea and it gets presented as a faceless story about a political pawn.  Talky Canadians often overlook Canadian characters, thinkers, and drama to focus on US personalities, thinkers, and drama. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Spavor

There is even some hockey hooliganism.

In 2017, during a qualifying match between the North and South Korean women's ice hockey teams for the 2018 Winter Olympics, Spavor was assaulted by South Korean security officials as he tried to display the North Korean flag.

AFAIK Canada does not have an agency for foreign intelligence.  CSIS is more counterespionage and the RCMP had those responsibilities hived off after some of their scandals.

Although this government engages in multiple military operations overseas, the Canadian Forces are not in great shape with 150 year old problems (procurement which is very slow and expensive), 30 year old problems (sexual assault and harassment), and a new problem (lack of personnel and senior officers who do things like shooting ducks on a suburban canal and smuggling firearms).  Well regarded minister Anita Anand was recently moved from the Minister of Defense to President of the Treasury Board which suggests that the PM is not interested in changing things.