Canadian Issues

Politics and policies in Canada can be very instructive to those of us in the United States.

Canada has a convoluted electoral system that rivals the US Electoral College in invalidating votes. See First-past-the-post cheats voters in every province and references below.

Canada has 23 political parties, but the major national ones are below.

Conservative - roughly equivalent to the US Republican Party and in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
Liberal - roughly equivalent to the US Democratic Party in pretending to be different, but also in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
New Democratic Party (NDP) - roughly equivalent to the US Democratic Party in pretending to be different, but also in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
Green Party - Takes climate change and the required steps to fight it seriously.

Experience shows the Liberals have - like democrats in the United States - betrayed all of its election promises and give the multi-national corporations all they can grab through raping the country of its resources.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) was particularly disappointing because they abandoned their principles in both 2015 and 2019 to be more like the Conservative and Liberal Parties.

What happened? In 2015 and again in 2019 how could the NDP lose given the disastrous policies of the conservatives and the liberals plus the generation of building up its strength?

2015:

Alan Maki pointed out, "The proof is the fact that Mulcair blew the election by trying to define the NDP as a social democratic party on par with Tony Blair and the Labour Party. And he went even beyond and to the right of social democracy in trying to link arms with the Democrats and Obama."

In 2015 Mulcair, the NDP leader, sold out and is as big a traitor as Obama or Clinton to his stated ideals. He tried to censor anybody questioning Israeli war crimes, changed the policy developed over decades on the NDP website, backed down on women’s rights, refused to challenge war policy, firmly backed the Tar Sands Pipeline which environmentalists say is “game over” for stopping climate change (see reference 31), and took anti-environmental stands which included trying to get a long standing NDP environmentalist removed from the Party for speaking the truth. There was no real reason to vote for the NDP because there was no major difference between the NDP and the Liberal Party. Indeed the NDP repeatedly and deliberately painted itself to the right of the Liberal Party. That was a shame because the NDP had been fighting the good fight for a generation and had briefly surpassed the Liberal Party only to sink back into obscurity. There just is no excuse in limiting press access, NDP candidate Alex Johnstone having to apologize for her ignorance about Auschwitz, or any of the other antics documented below under references.

(In 2015 the Green Party just maintained its one elected member.)

2019:

In 2019 the NDP repeated its mistakes when Jagmeet Singh continued his love affair with LNG terminals and was unsure whether to keep Trudeau's disastrous decision to back Trudeau's expensive purchase of a pipeline because it was "complicated" and said he would study the issue. In 2019 there is no excuse for not recognizing the dangers of climate change.

What danger does this illustrate going forward? Trying to be too much like the opposition guarantees you will lose. President Truman once said, "A republican beats a democrat pretending to be a republican every time." Witness how after the huge electoral victory of 2008 the democrats bragged who and how many they killed, how many countries they bombed, and how they are balancing the budget with hard decisions on social security. How is that working out for them? I suggest not too well in losing both houses of congress and the presidency.

I will continue to document below how the Canadian Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party - much like the Democratic Party in the United States - have sold out. Trudeau's treasonous about face on the environment is shameful. The bitter irony is the NDP in 2015 and 2019 could have made a real difference had they not turned their backs on half a century of building only to change to be more like their opposition.

Here are the 2019 results.

Conservative - Up slightly in total votes, 34%.

Liberals - down 5 points and lost over 20 seats.

New Democratic Party NDP - 16% lost 18 seats. The leader gave requirements for a coalition government with the Liberals and climate was nowhere to be found.

Green Party - up from 3% and one seat in 2015 to 6.5% and 3 seats in 2019

Conclusion:

Proactive changes made before climate change consequences are much preferable, but - as with many other countries - the consequences of climate change will force reactive changes. Canada leads the United States on many issues and could serve as an excellent example, but the 2019 results are not encouraging.

References:

1-Is Tom Mulcair a closet Tory from Israel to Thatcher – Seven Reasons Critics Say NDP is Too Conservative

2-NDP Policy Manual Removed from Party’s Website

3-Womens’ Issues Invisible This Election

4-Thomas Mulcair is Cracking Down on Pro-Palestinian Sentiment in the NDP

5-In Our Politics Telling the Truth Gets You In Trouble

6-Catastrophe: The NDP lost because it deserved to

7-Delusion continues to rule the day in Mulcair NDP

8-'Absolutely adorable': John Oliver skewers Canadian politics, no-holds barred

9-Justin Trudeau Is Bringing Stephen Harper’s Emissions Plan to the Paris Climate Talks

10-NDP angst goes public as MPP Cheri DiNovo calls for Tom Mulcair’s head: Walkom - Toronto MPP Cheri DiNovo has voiced publicly what many New Democrats are saying in private: Tom Mulcair must go.

11-Trudeau spurns NDP votes he once courted

12-Canada’s unions hail Mulcair in run-up to NDP leadership vote

13-Harper 2.0? Trudeau Says Canada Needs More Tar Sands Pipelines

14-NDP convention promises same old, same old - Unless you are organized labour, or are still spouting the catechisms of the 60s, it appears the NDP is not ready to listen

15-Thomas Mulcair loses bid to hold on to NDP leadership - A leadership race in the party’s future as Mulcair is pushed out at a contentious Edmonton convention.

16-Let's get real about the Leap Manifesto: it's not a job killer

17-Justin Trudeau approves $36-billion LNG ‘carbon bomb’ on B.C. coast

18-Canada is Only Half Back My Friends

19-Green Party of Canada Adopts Endorsement of Sanctions Against Israel - Diana Ralph and Dr. Tarek Loubani discuss its significance for the future of the solidarity movement in Canada

20-Justin Trudeau’s giant corporate giveaway: A privatization spree in Canada could cost regular people billions, erode democracy and undermine the fight against climate change

21-Trudeau ‘very pleased’ Trump approved Keystone XL pipeline

22-Philip Cross: How Elizabeth May taught conservatives never to trust green activists

23-The Climate Hypocrisy Is Glaring. It’s Outrageous

24-If Saskatchewan Can Build a Geothermal Power Plant, Why Can’t B.C.?

25-Stop swooning over Justin Trudeau. The man is a disaster for the planet. (Donald Trump is a creep and unpleasant to look at, but at least he’s not a stunning hypocrite when it comes to climate change.) by Bill McKibben

26-Justin Trudeau – Climate Warrior or Climate Pretender

27-Hurricanes, floods, and wildfires haven't changed Justin Trudeau's mind on Kinder Morgan pipeline

28-John Ivison: How Justin Trudeau is governing like Harper - Trudeau's control of security committee membership belies Liberal promises about respect for parliament

29-Revolted Rabble Rousers: United For Truth In Canada (Facebook Page)

30-Those Trans Mountain employment numbers? They're bogus.

31-Dembicki, Geoff Are We Screwed? How a New Generation is Fighting to Survive Climate Change, p. 106, Bloomsbury Publishing Place, 2017.

32-Is Trudeau Quietly Turning His Back On Fixing Canada’s Environmental Laws?

33-Big Oil and Gas Helped Shape BC’s Climate Plan - Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Encana, Imperial Oil, Shell Canada, Suncor, Teck and Woodfibre Energy among the fossil fuel heavyweights invited by the BC government for secret meetings to craft the province’s climate change strategy.

34-Is Trudeau Quietly Turning His Back On Fixing Canada’s Environmental Laws?

35-Ottawa's climate change strategy is largely imaginary

36-REPORT: Trudeau Planning To Suppress Debate As Parliament Returns

37-Stephen Gordon: 'Middle class' Canadians don't understand how upper class they are - The most remarkable feature of the Liberals' Middle-Class Tax Cut is that it doesn’t help people with median incomes

38-The Trudeau Liberals broke 35 promises halfway through their term

39-Elizabeth May bullying accusers express doubt about party probe and call for changes before they agree to participate

40-Greens accuse NDP of lacking courage needed to kill Site C dam

41-New Democrats Brush Off Poor Performances

42-Tackling Climate Change = Less Oil Consumption = No New Pipelines

43-That Pipeline Is Going To Get Built….Not

44-Three former Green Party staffers accuse Elizabeth May of workplace bullying

45-To govern, NDP has to ‘set aside our activism and start being better administrators’: Horgan

46-Trudeau approves dumping mine waste into two fish-bearing creeks in British Columbia

47-Trudeau Gets “D” for Dismal On 2017 Climate Report Card

48-Why Canada’s Climate Plan Can’t Be Traded For Kinder Morgan

49-Massive Gap Between Canada’s Emissions Projections And Paris Targets

50-Pipelines in the Era of Climate Change

51-Why the American Left Failed, and What Canadians Can Learn - Prophetic book argues progressives abandoned fight for workers in favour of culture campaigns.

52-From Trudeau to Crudeau – How It Happened

53-'Immense Moral Cowardice': Trudeau Trashed for Government Purchase of Climate-Killing Kinder Morgan Pipeline

54-At the U.N., Trudeau Opposes an Investigation into Israel’s Shooting of Unarmed Civilians – Including a Canadian Doctor. This week, courtesy of Justin Trudeau, the world witnessed one of the swiftest and most cowardly flip-flops in Canadian political history.

55-Canadians Now The Not-So-Proud Owners Of Very Own Pipeline

56-Climate Change – Canada Doubling Down on a No-Win Bet

57-Canada Is Ready to Demonstrate the Power of Its Geothermal Resource

58-Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline: 9 Reasons We Shouldn’t Be Buying The Pipeline or The Spin

59-Ontario Politics – What Voters Need To Know

60-Stop swooning over Justin Trudeau. The man is a disaster for the planet

61-The Last Nail In The Kinder Morgan Coffin

62-‘The great Canadian bailout’: Canada’s pipeline purchase clashes with vow to end fossil fuel subsidies

63-The Political Risk Of Falling Short On Climate And The Environment

64-Kinder Morgan just told its shareholders how it persuaded the Trudeau government to pay billions for a pipeline no one else wanted to buy

65-Trudeau committed to building Trans Mountain despite new legal challenges

66-Where is Canada’s Climate Leadership?

67-Sweden Is What Happens When Liberals Let The Far-Right Set The Agenda Though this is not in Canada, it illustrates what happens when the NDP of Canada or the Democratic Party of the United States abandon their base in a vain attempt to get more votes. It does not work.

68-Canada Is Doubling Down on Fossils

69-Canada’s Massive Fossil Fuel Subsidies Equal $100 Per Person

70-Kevin Taft on the stories the Alberta government and oil industry don’t want to tell

71-#LetsTalkClimate With Climate Minister McKenna

72-The politics of LNG: why Justin Trudeau and John Horgan could be putting their careers on the line today (Trudeau's federal Liberals and Horgan's NDP have betrayed their base.)

73-Where Are Canadian Fossil Fuel Subsidies Coming From and Going To?

74-Corporate and personal income tax as % of federal government tax receipts

75-Canada’s Climate Hypocrisy Peaked in 2018

76-Trudeau government fails to take bold action at COP24 to avoid climate breakdown

77-Justin Trudeau’s grand bargain with Big Oil exposed in Donald Gutstein's The Big Stall

78-Pipeline battle puts focus on Canada's disputed right to use indigenous land The territory of the Wet’suwet’en in British Columbia was never ceded by treaty and hereditary chiefs say they retain authority

79-Anti-pipeline activist Steven Guilbeault wants to change things inside Trudeau government

80-Climate Damage From Trans Mountain = 34 Million More Cars On The Road

81-How 'serious' is a climate plan that relies on pipelines?

82-Indigenous and first-time voters split, new Canadians still prefer Liberals: CBC News poll

83-Mercury poisoning, Muskrat Falls and Canada's toxic divide

84-The ‘Moderate’ NDP Hasn’t Worked. Let’s Resurrect the Regina Manifesto - The CCF-NDP has buried its radical roots, and in the process become irrelevant.

85-TMX board approved additional $5M in future bonuses for federally owned project

86-Trudeau faced with Attawapiskat protest in appearance at teachers’ federation event

87-Canada election: Charity confused against climate change ads

88-Justin Trudeau's government goes ka-boom: A scathing report on Trudeau's handling of a corruption inquiry shredded his credibility and chances for re-election.

89-Trudeau government seeks judicial review of tribunal decision to compensate First Nations kids

90-Singh leaves door open to support for government pipeline ownership

91-B.C. LNG creates tension for federal NDP and its climate accountability plans

92-Jagmeet Singh won't support the Conservatives, but could Liberals prop up an Andrew Scheer minority government?

93-Trudeau Gets a Second Chance, but Now Faces a Daunting Task Singh saves NDP from disaster, future uncertain for Scheer, and Canada is a fractured country.

94-Green Party wins historic 3 seats in election dominated by climate change

95-NDP Post-Election Wrap Up: Parkdale/High Park

96-The NDP's election disaster shows again the need for something new on the left

97-Canada’s NDP Looks Like the US’s GOP: Voter Disenfranchisement in the Parkdale-High Park Riding

98-Ottawa’s Decision to Let China Supply Subsidized Steel for LNG Plants Costing Canadian Jobs Feds unjustly enrich China, LNG owners at the expense of Canadian workers.

99-What the Canadian election results would have looked like with electoral reform

100-10 things you need to know about the massive new oilsands mine that just got a green light

101-Canada Pension Plan investments rely on oil and gas companies overshooting climate targets, new report reveals

102-Exxon, Chevron get lift from Canada tax cut worth US$700 million

103-It’s the 2020s And We’re In A Climate Emergency. OMG

104-Freeland Pushes for Quick Vote on Trade Deal with Big Concessions to Fossils

105-Derailed train in Saskatchewan released 1.5 million litres of oil: TSB