The state of social democracy in Canada

[sabotabby]

Tom Mulcair, leader of the federal NDP, voted Liberal in the Quebec election.

Now, granted, politics in Quebec are a complicated proposition that I tend not to analyze beyond shaking my head sadly and slowly, but what the everloving fucknuggets? Yes, the NDP doesn't have candidates in Quebec, but there is Québec solidaire, who seem pretty good, so maybe he could do something other than symbolically castrating himself in front of the entire country. Maybe. I don't know. I'm not a political strategist; I just play one on the internet. But that's cat-trying-to-be-a-bee-and-falling-off-the-couch-level fail.



The silver linings are twofold:

1) I didn't have enough faith in Mulcair in the first place to be disappointed.
2) No matter what I do, politically speaking, it will never be as dumb as this.

Comments

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Unprincipled neocon careerist votes for unprincipled neocon careerist party. More news at 10.

[sabotabby]

Why don't they just get a room?

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

What I don't get is, why was the cat trying to be a bee?

Maybe Chow will do a term as Mayor, then ride in on a white horse to save the NDP and lead it to victory in 2020. One can dream.

[sabotabby]

What I don't get is, why was the cat trying to be a bee?

Exactly. You are a cat. People like you because you are a cat. People like bees for different reasons than they like cats.

(Yes, my silly animated gifs have Deeper Political Meanings.)

Maybe Chow will do a term as Mayor, then ride in on a white horse to save the NDP and lead it to victory in 2020. One can dream.

She needs to get more fluent in French first. It's her tragic flaw.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Now this is just my interpretation, but I read that gif as the bee dressed cat going "my dislike of wearing this can only be expressed by an unfeline pratfall".

[sabotabby]

I feel like the cat, like the NDP, has given up on any sort of principled stand on the matter and has decided to just surrender as quickly and efficiently as possible.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

I do enjoy your gif library, my favorites are fuck this cat and nope octopus.

[sabotabby]

I have a bunch of new ones, but they're mostly cute happy animals and I haven't had much context for those lately.

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

I also feel this. It makes me so sad.

[sabotabby]

I don't care enough about the NDP to be sad. Wait, no, I'm still sad.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

My fantasy: PQ wins, restarts values charter which includes secular calendar names. This will be celebrated the first Thatday of every Smarch.

[sabotabby]

Ahahahahaha.

[culpster.livejournal.com]

This article skips the part where Mulcair calls the Lib a 'social democrat' ROFL.

You can take Mulcair out of the Quebec Liberals etc. Anyway hopefully Marois and Couillard will chase each other around the tree till they both turn to butter.

[sabotabby]

I want them all to die and someone with a brain and a social conscience in charge. Is that too much to ask?

Sadly yes ...

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

... we have to do it ourselves, a brutally hard proposition.

Which is why I periodically remind myself how much fucking worse things were 50, 100, 200 or 400 years ago. People have struggled and struggled and struggled and, maybe not so amazingly, progress has been made.

The tragedy is that sociopaths are so drawn to power instead of something like stamp-collecting or blogging about Doctor Who.

[sabotabby]

Right? Not that I have the energy to seriously commit myself to electoral politics. Even my minor involvement in municipal campaigning is taking a lot out of me.

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

He can't vote for a sovereigntist party (QS) while running for PM of Canada.

What *I* don't understand is why he answered the question at all, though.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

That, and that.

[sabotabby]

It would seem a good time to point out that voting decisions are confidential.

Defensive maneuvre

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

What *I* don't understand is why he answered the question at all, though.

I'll hazard the guess that he answered it in an effort to forestall Harperite accusations of being a closet separatist.

[sabotabby]

Then he's playing right into Harper's hands.

He's obviously not a separatist. Separatists are wrong, but at least they stand for something.

Souverainistes

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

If I'm not dramatically mistaken, I heard one of the QS leaders speak after the last election. She impressed hell out of me and thrilled me by saying she was proud to represent a party that was "feministe et socialiste". But she also said "souverainiste" which put a damper on my enthusiasm.

Hmm. That said, having now read the wiki link, I'm a little more enthusiastic. But that said, Mulcair voting for a party that talks about sovereignty in any way, shape or form (never mind "socialist") would probably be political suicide. Seeing him vote Liberal sure does beg the question, "Why isn't there a Quebec wing of the NDP?" though, doesn't it?

But it's yet another reason I am seriously looking at sending the Greens some money sooner than later.

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

I think Mulcair said there would be a Quebec NDP by the next provincial election?

I don't really understand the appeal of the Greens.

[sabotabby]

I don't really understand the appeal of the Greens.

You're not 20. ;)

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Re: Greens

Because even the NDP has stopped talking about the environment?

No longer a neo-con beard (I hope)

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I don't really understand the appeal of the Greens.

There are a number of things, not least of which is what frandroid said below, that "even the NDP has stopped talking about the environment", which is the most important issue in the world.

They are also talking a lot about the importance of things like proportional representation and an open internet, just off the top of my head. I also find more to like about Elizabeth May just about every time she opens her mouth. She's that rare politician who actually seems to think when asked a question, and she has a real sense of humour.

All that said, I haven't investigated enough to know whether the Party still harbors a libertarian underbelly, though my impression is that it doesn't.

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

That's fair. I don't like her on abortion and I don't like her legitimizing homeopathy, and I think those two issues are big enough that I feel overall impatience with the party.

Uh oh ...

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

On abortion, unless she's changed her tune recently, she's pro-choice politically, which is good enough for me. The Party platform reads: "Green Party MPs will: Oppose any possible government move to diminish the right of a woman to a safe, legal abortion. We fully support a woman’s right to choose. We will also expand programs in reproductive rights and education to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and expand supports for low-income mothers." (http://www.greenparty.ca/vote-compass/q19)

I've got no defence against the homeopathy accusation, though. (That it's also recognized in Ontario doesn't really cut it, does it?)

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

It's the way she talks about it that makes me uncomfortable:

“If one group of people say a woman has a right to choose, I get queasy because I’m against abortion,” May said at the time, according an audio recording posted online. “I don’t think a woman has a frivolous right to choose. What I don’t want is a desperate woman to die in an illegal abortion.”

I had a giant twitter fight with her about homeopathy, haha:
https://storify.com/audra_williams/green-party-medicine-as-water-tla

[audrawilliams.livejournal.com]

Here is the whole thing. Basically I feel like if you have talked women out of having abortions they wanted, you are my enemy.

… There's been a moral dimension to this debate that's quite complex, and I think deserves respect. So I respect people who say, "I'm against abortion because there is a right to life, and the fetus is sacred."
I respect that, because I think all life is sacred. So, where do I come to thinking we should be able to have - and must have - access to therapeutic abortions in Canada?

It's the other side of a moral dilemma: If we make them illegal, women will die. We know this. It happened for hundreds and hundreds of years, that women would seek out whatever butcher they could find to cause an abortion to happen, and they would die horrible deaths, and the baby would die too.

So I see it as a moral dilemma, and I don't see it as a clear-cut black-and-white.

And I think one of the things I would like to bring to Canadian politics is to show enough respect to the other view, that we could actually have a dialogue about it. Because one of the things that is wrong about polarization is the language becomes a barrier to understanding.

So if one group of people say, "A woman has a right to choose," I get queasy, because I'm against abortion. I don't think a woman has a frivolous right to choose.

What I don't want is a desperate woman to die in an illegal abortion. But I also don't think it's right to say - Well, you see, you end up having this conflict.

What I'd like to do in politics - and I've talked about this in some other settings besides here today, because this is the first time it's come up in London North Centre - what I'd like to do in politics is to be able to create the space to say, "Abortions are legal because they must be to avoid women dying. But nobody in their right mind is for abortions."

I've talked women out of having abortions. I would never have an abortion myself, not in a million years. I cannot imagine the circumstances that would ever reduce me to it.

So can't we then have a different kind of conversation? What kind of programs and strategies do we need to have to reduce the number of legal abortions that take place? Instead of having this rather polarized and, you know, really, futile debate that only fuels divisions and makes both sides feel as they're, you know, in some form of battle …

[sabotabby]

This right here is why I'd never vote Green.

Well, that and the strong whiff of libertarianism and woo I get from them, which is not unrelated.

[sabotabby]

Is it any worse than voting for the opposition? (I guess it is to me, since Quebec is never actually going to separate, so it's the equivalent of voting for a party that has good policies but also believes that the world is run by lizard people.)

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

That must have been Françoise David.

Because the NDP has always been a United Church party with no connection to francophones in Québec; at the time of its creation, many Québec progressives were part of the Catholic workers movement. That movement has passed, however the NDP's lack of interest in Québec remained a self-fulfilling prophecy until Layton started to seriously court the province. Québec's progressive movements have also often been intensely sovereigntist (definitely the labour unions, for one), which was a tough circle to square. Layton was able to do that, and that has the results you see today. Respect sovereigntists, and you'll get respect back. What a novel idea! It worked for the Prime Minister that won the most seats in Canadian history... Maybe not a coincidence that Layton's father served him.

Anyway, if Mulcair launches a Québec NDP, he'll make many enemies among the progressive activists that support him federally. All it would do is undercut Québec Solidaire and the Québec Liberal party, leaving more way for the CAQ and the PQ. There's no space for another party in Québec right now in the FPTP system.

David? I think so, yes

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Respect sovereigntists, and you'll get respect back.

Mulrooney's "respect" for the sovereigntists looked a lot more like "sucking up" than respect to my eyes. And further, said sucking up very nearly led to a Oui vote for whatever flavour of independence by another name Parizeau was offering and, further, led to the destruction of the federal Progressive Conservative party.

The problem, from a Canadian federalist point-of-view, with making common-cause with separatists is that, well, they are separatists. They don't want compromise, they want an independent Québec.

There's no space for another party in Québec right now in the FPTP system.

Maybe so, but if not now — when?

Mind you, I personally don't much give a damn what the NDP does anymore, since they're about as social democratic as Tony Blair's "New Labour" nowadays ...

(If I had been still leaving in Quebec on Monday my vote would probably have gone Québec Solidaire, for whatever it's worth.)

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

Why not vote for QS?!

[sabotabby]

A few people raised the good point that he can't be seen as supporting separatism. But he could have voted QS and refused to answer the question, like someone with principles.

[slantedtruth.livejournal.com]

I agree with the point up there about mulcair not wanting to associate with sovereignty, and the QS were pushing secession hard this election. Also, they were weak on the charter, proposing a counter, dimmed down version rather than opposing it, making a lot of us wonder about how 'inclusif' they really are. I've been QS since day one
But didn't vote for them this election (though I'm in kadir's rising, so it was just a protest vote)

[sabotabby]

I don't know much about them, but they seem the best of a bad lot. Pity about the separatist thing.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

Oh pooooor kitty! See that's the difference. The kitty is still adorable, if bumbling. (A bumble bee, eh?)

The human is just stupid as fuck.

[sabotabby]

And he was handed the reins to a party that was turning its fortunes around and beginning to kick some ass. Totally squandered it.

[wlach.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I consider myself fairly progressive and didn't feel I could support QS. Although progressive in some ways, I can't really get behind anyone who thinks the solution to Quebec's problems is to form a seperate country. That way lies ethnic nationalism and charters of values and telling people they can't work for the government because they wear a hijab. My francophone friends think differently and tell me that QS just believes that sovereignty is the only way of creating a just society within Quebec, but I don't believe them after the last two years.

Depending on your point of view, there are some not completely horrible people in the Quebec Liberal party though, yes, it is on the whole a classic neo-liberal party. I still prefer them over the outright racism and xenophobia of the PQ. I personally voted Green without much enthusiasm.

[sabotabby]

That makes sense. I guess for me separatism doesn't ping very high, as it's never going to happen. I might feel differently if I lived in Quebec, though.