10.20.2020 12:06 PM

Good thing it’s not during a lethal pandemic or anything, because that would be even stupider

34 Comments

  1. the real Sean says:

    A pandemic election is required in order to conceal the depths of Justin’s corruption. Is this what Liberals signed up for when they accidentally won 5 years ago?

  2. Doug says:

    I thought only significant budget appropriation could be of confidence. The Liberals are playing on ignorance and giving the NDP an out. Worst government ever and worst. NDP leadership ever.

    If O’Toole is truly a leader he would point this out and back Singh into a corner.

    • Doug,

      Normally it’s on supply (money bills) but a government can declare whatever it tables as a confidence measure if it is so inclined.

      • Joseph says:

        If it’s an opposition motion then it’s the height of desperation to make this a confidence motion.
        But so far the liberals have only suggested it could be.
        This sounds like a game of chicken.
        The opposition has nothing to lose.

    • Terence says:

      I don’t care about any of the party leaders. I care about policies. Right now there are finally some good policies on the way from the Liberals and NDP working together. The conservative world view creates misery and hard living for too many. They get us into wars. They cut services and shrink the economy out of economic illiteracy or a cynical Victorian era moralism that is out of touch with 90% of everyone under 80 years of age. Luckily the NDP will back the Liberals. If they don’t they are true morons.

      • the real Sean says:

        I’ve never understood this “get us into wars” thing people believe about the Conservatives…

        Boer War: supported by Liberals
        WW1: supported by Liberals
        WW2: Liberals in power
        Korean War: Liberals in power
        1st Gulf War: Liberals oppose
        Kosovo: Liberals in power
        Afghanistan: Liberals in power
        2nd Gulf War: Liberals oppose

        So 2 of 8 wars Liberals were not in lockstep with Conservatives and 4 of 8 the Liberals were in charge. With the exception of Chretien, seems like Liberals did a pretty damn good job of getting Canada into wars.

    • joe long says:

      Doug

      There are several ways of making a confidence vote.

      a). The bill or motion is expressly worded to make it a confidence vote

      b). The government designated the bill or motion as a confidence vote

      c) budgets, significant money bills, speech from the throne

      https://www.ourcommons.ca/marleaumontpetit/DocumentViewer.aspx?Language=E&Sec=Ch02&Seq=3

      That said, I think Trudeau is spoiling for an election. Assuming Trudeau wins, an election would give the Liberals control of Committees, so the WE business would be ruthlessly stalled. An Election would give the Liberals five years to implement their ‘green’ policies.

      An election would also give the Liberals four years to recover from a second COVID wave. I think they are worried about where they will get the money to provide for a second wave and the economic fallout from a second wave.

      • Walter says:

        An election will give the Liberals nothing.

        It is an ignorant and idiotic electorate, fed by an immoral media, that might give the things you describe.

        • Derek Pearce says:

          Don’t blame the media when Canadians like Liberal policies over Conservative ones. Are the Liberals corrupt? Yes. Do most Canadians still prefer their outlook on society as a whole over the Conservatives’ one? Yes.

          • An excellent summary.

          • Quo Vadis says:

            BS. Every recent election the Liberals have run on a platform of fear mongering and any major policy they may have had they failed to enact. For example under Harper not a peep about abortion rights then who brings up as an issue? This confidence vote was about placing a corrupt government under scrutiny but you, as a voter, would have it otherwise. Enjoy your CERB, obviously worth turning a blind eye.

        • Walter,

          A couple of points: first off, an electorate is generally only qualified as ignorant and idiotic when it happens to be voting for the other guy…

          Secondly, Canadians may not give a shit about the Liberals’ more than apparent corruption but voters need to bear in mind that licence given to a government quickly becomes serial. Call it human nature. Trudeau is laughing at Canadians. He thinks he could pull out a gun on 5th Avenue, etc. Voters have a choice: either agree with the PM’s supposition or throw this government out on its ass.

          As for O’Toole: he can be True Blue all he wants but he’d better be smart enough as leader to know that if he doesn’t offer a reasonably enough progressive alternative in an election, we won’t win. Most Conservatives are sentient enough to concede that.

          • The Doctor says:

            In order to win elections — and certainly in order to win majorities — the CPC needs most Red Tories and some Blue Liberals to vote for it (mostly urban and suburban fiscal conservative social liberals).

            Any CPC leader who doesn’t understand that is an idiot.

            One of the things that Harper never fully appreciated is that he got lucky with the sponsorship scandal. That was a political gift from God. Then he spent a lot of his last term doing dumb unnecessary shit that had the main effect of alienating Red Tories and Blue Liberals — that stupid fucking long form census thing being Exhibit A. And guess what, he lost.

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Doc,

            I kept telling them until 2009 when I left to govern like a minority if they ever got that coveted majority. But Harper was intent from Day 1 to govern as if he already had a majority…hence the necessity of a double trouble of prorogation. So there you go. Harper should have expected defeat in 2015 but he was too all consumed thinking he was to political strategy what a knife is to sliced bread. But believe me, in the final analysis, he was no better than a pretty good strategist. He was way overblown especially in his own mind.

          • Robert White says:

            I wrote to O’Toole and told him to move the right-wing Conservatives to the center-left policy planks of the left so that he has appropriate probability of attaining the political center that Canadians support.

            If he cannot follow basic directions to take back the Blue Liberals like myself he has no business in Parliament other than as a seat warmer and Liberal wannabe.

            I trust that O’Toole is well versed as a lawyer and knows what he has to do to get the right-wing to move to the left lest he wants to be a seat warmer in Parliamentary historiography and the next Conservative to be placed under leadership review.

            RW

          • Ronald O'Dowd says:

            Robert,

            This is getting boring as I’ll repeat it again: the party and its membership have a stark choice of either living by only their blessed principles and dying on a political hill in the next election, or moving to the center and winning power. That’s it right there. The Real O’Toole is a fiscal conservative but a social moderate who embraces the Red Tory tradition of helping others without breaking the bank. That’s who Erin really is, that’s who Peter is, and that’s who I’ve always been and will continue to be. If the membership is capable of bending to some degree, we win the next election. If it’s all about libertarianism and social conservatism, we lose. Laissez-faire means re-electing this unworthy TRUDEAU Liberal government. Pure and simple.

  3. I enjoy these rare times when Warren and I disagree: I don’t think because the U.S. election is constitutionally mandated that that is the only reason why the voting public give the vote a thumbs up. Quite simply, they are prepared to exercise their democratic franchise and I don’t think Canadians are any different. Sure, some will be pissed off if we go into an election but that won’t likely stop intended voters from becoming actual voters. Maybe they return the Liberals and maybe they don’t. JustinFatigueTM and O’Toole’s stump performance will tell the tale. If he’s like Harper was in 2006, the Conservatives win.

  4. Nick M. says:

    A minority government usually makes the case for stability vis-a-vis a majority and calls a snap election. And it usually works.

    This government is making the case that it should not be scrutinized, thus needs a majority government as the reason to call a snap election.

    That is not a good ballot question from a long in the tooth government that has run out of ideas.

    What is so crazy is it has been only Pierre and his committee team that has been scrutinizing the WE scandal, as the rest of the Conservative caucus is questioning them on other matters. Yet this government cries to the media that Pierre Poilievre is distracting the Government of the day from doing its job. Just so bizarre.

    • Andy Kaut says:

      A ‘long in the tooth government that has run out of ideas’?

      Wait. A one year old government that has had which ideas exactly, now? To follow the global herd in shutting down an economy? To use QE since May exponentionally more than any other G7?

      …I’m just not convinced those were ideas unique to them, or even ideas at all. More like defaults.

    • Martin says:

      And the media is selling it. That is the problem.

    • Nick,

      If you are charitably minded, you would call this government the ultimate hypocrites. If not, you would call them collectively a bunch of lying assholes.

  5. William says:

    The opposition wants to create a committee with the express purpose of bringing down the government. It’s perfectly appropriate for the Liberals to make it a confidence vote.

    • Jeff says:

      Bill, where there is smoke there is fire !!!
      Time to call Trudeau’s bluff!!!

    • William,

      Nice try! If this Prime Minister wants to stop the formation of said committee, let him be PROACTIVE and put his balls where his mouth should be: let him go see the GG and drop the writ. Of course, Trudeau won’t do that because he knows they are likely out of power were an election held now. That’s why he won’t drop the writ because he knows he hasn’t got a hope in hell of regaining a majority. These pesky facts are commonly known as reality.

    • Nick M. says:

      By that definition, holding a vote whether to allow question period is a confidence vote.

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Nick,

        Don’t give them any ideas. You know how hard it is for them to come up with something credible in that PMO.

    • Pedant says:

      And you know that how, William? Since when is investigating government corruption not a valid role for the Official Opposition?

      Party before country, as always with you Liberals.

      Putrid party.

  6. Martin says:

    I am still not clear what we would have got if the motion passed. Liberals would have just continued with their filibustering on the new committee. Apparently there is no procedural way to stop it. If they were counting on the media to finally notice, then they can just continue to do what they are doing now. They are no worse or better off.

  7. KarenSwive says:

    Microsoft accidentally made a great Chromebook

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