Federal Election

[Parrothead]

Harper called the election two weeks ago. We cast ballots mid-October (19th). It will be the longest campaign period we've had since the late 1800's (IIRC), it runs a total of 77 days, I think. They have to be a minimum of 37 days. There's been one debate so far, who won depends on who is asked. Harper did enough to keep his ground, Mulcair (NDP) was shaky early, but recovered, low expectations for Trudeau (Liberals) meant he'd do good (he did have a couple of good exchanges). Even Green Party leader Elizabeth May, came across concisely and knew her material.

Not really pleased with any of the choices, I'll likely hold my nose and stick with the Conservatives. The other choices for me are just too scary to contemplate.

[brite]

Pikers... We don't vote until November 2016... and we started out election season 6 months ago!

[Parrothead]

I voted in an early poll on the weekend. Election is Monday, still somewhat close in the polls, likely headed towards a minority gov't. LIberals and NDP have already stated they will not support a Conservative minority. Been a weird campaign, Ontario's Premier (Liberal), has been vocally supporting federal Liberals, usually provincial leaders have remained quieter. She is the only provincial leader openly campaigning for a federal counter-part. Last time I remember a provincial leader being so vocal, was Newfoundland's premier (Danny Williams) being openly anyone but Conservatives, a few elections ago.

I'm going to guess Game 3 between the Blue Jays and KC, being played in Toronto, on election night will get a higher viewer draw, than election results.

[geonuc]

Seems the good folks to the far north of me have changed course.

[SciFiFisher]

So... does this mean you will have a deadlocked parliment and won't be able to get any legislation done? That's what happened when we elected a "Liberal" for president in 2008. Oh, and don't forget to shut down the government a couple of times.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Hmmm that doesn't usually happen on a Government that uses the Westminster System

[Parrothead]

Liberals won a majority, so Trudeau will be PM for the next 4 - 5 yrs, at least. Should be interesting.

Some of his promises included:

Massive infrastructure spending over the next 10 yrs.
Running "modest" $10b deficits for the next 3 yrs.
Pulling Canada out of bombing Syria.
Introducing a Carbon Tax, investing in green energy.
Buying next gen CF-18s instead of F-35s, then spending any savings on the navy.

During the foreign policy debate, IIRC, Trudeau said he'd tell Putin off, to his face. Uhm, there's a G-20 meeting coming up
I hope he doesn't commit the country to unrealistic goals, at the upcoming climate conference in Paris.

The electorate spoke, I just hope there isn't a real bad case of buyer's remorse, coming up. The provincial Liberals have already introduced some green energy initiatives which have us currently in the middle of a 42% over 7 yrs. raise in energy costs. We buy energy from renewables first, under legislation. The cost is approx. 80 cents per KWh, much of it gets sold cheaply to other jurisdictions, as it is mostly generated in off-peak hours.

The Conservatives still won just over 100 seats, not bad for a party that had been in power for 10 years.

We'll see how things go, with time.

[Cyborg Girl]

Just to play devil's advocate...

Some of his promises included:

Massive infrastructure spending over the next 10 yrs.

Good. Here in MA people don't like spending on infrastructure, and it sucks - the roads are bad, the bridges are in disrepair, and the rails were futzed for months after last winter's blizzard. Thousands and thousands of people were unable to commute. The costs were through the freaking roof.

Running "modest" $10b deficits for the next 3 yrs.

Not sure how your economy's doing, but depending on that deficits may not be seen as a priority. Several economists might back me on that, for largely pragmatic reasons.

(As for deregulation, Bill Clinton tried that. It got us the Collapse of 2007. And as for austerity... well, look at Europe.)

Pulling Canada out of bombing Syria.

Syria is *hugely complex, and I can't presume to know much about the situation on the ground. Here, though, there's a lot of debate about whether e.g. a no-fly zone would be more helpful.

Introducing a Carbon Tax, investing in green energy.

I suppose that, given the Canadian oil export business, this may look like shooting yourselves in the foot. I see it as planning ahead. Your oil won't last forever either.

Buying next gen CF-18s instead of F-35s, then spending any savings on the navy.

Hmm. I don't know much about the state of Canada's navy. F-35s, uh... I know they're expensive and IIRC kind of kludgey. I don't keep up much on military matters.

It may be a matter of priority again, though. If you're pulling out of Syria, and not inspecting foreign fighters to appear in your sky any time soon... well.

During the foreign policy debate, IIRC, Trudeau said he'd tell Putin off, to his face. Uhm, there's a G-20 meeting coming up

Okay, that smacks a little of cowboy diplomacy. I can understand the sentiment though, Putin is a total antidemocratic shit.

Edit:

We'll see how things go, with time.

That was my thought, the first time Bush Jr. was elected. Didn't turn out too well.

[Parrothead]

From the list, the only one I agree with is the fighter jets.

The carbon tax, my issue being the prov. Liberals are entering into a cap and trade with Quebec and California, the possibility of being dinged twice is worrisome. Federally moving towards green energy, is worrisome, due to how badly the provincial Liberals have handled it. Biggest issue will be, how/where does the money raised go? Many times any new fee/tax ends up in the black hole known as "general revenues".

Trudeau also wants to change the voting system, scrap "First Past The Post" with a "ranked ballot" system. I prefer the system we have, even though gov'ts tend to win a majority with just under 40% of the popular vote.

Infrastructure spending - while needed they push these ideas to create jobs, but jobs are only temporary. Depending on what infrastructure, it is a shared thing. Costs will be spread between feds, provinces and municipalities. Taxpayers will get dinged with extra taxes, at each level, to pay for these expenditures. Needless to say, any spending will be years down the road, as any new projects will have to go through environmental assessments. These will lead to territorial battles, eg. building an oil pipeline from Alberta east, Ontario and Quebec have said they will be against it, if Alberta doesn't do something about lowering their ghg emissions.

[Parrothead]

Federal Liberals brought down their first budget a couple of weeks ago. They campaigned on running deficits in the range of $10b/yr for the first couple of years, bringing the budget back into balance for the next election cycle. Projected budget deficit for the fiscal year: $29b. They are then projecting future deficits in the range of $24b, $18b, $14b and no plan for bringing it back into balance. If interest rates go up in the near future, us canucks will really need to hold onto our wallets.

[Thumper]

That's just billions with a little b, right?

[Parrothead]

Yeah, billions with a little b.

The parliamentary budget chief already has remarked that the budgeting seems to be done according to "worst case scenario", so when the actual numbers come in, they can claim they performed better than expected. This seems to be the norm for all of our federal gov'ts for the past 20 yrs.