New popular vote totals from AP:

• Clinton 65,124,828 (48.2%)

• Trump 62,652,263 (46.3%)

• Johnson 4,457,409 (3.3%)

• Stein 1,429,050 (1.1%)

 

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One in Ottawa, one in Toronto.

The federal one:

The government should develop a proportional voting system and hold a referendum to ask Canadians whether they want a new system, a special parliamentary committee says.

The special committee on electoral reform also recommends Elections Canada conduct a public awareness campaign on the current first-past-the-post system and a new one.

The Liberals, in their own report, however, recommend a further engagement process on the federal voting system that “cannot be effectively completed before 2019.”

“We contend that the recommendations posed in the Majority Report regarding alternative electoral systems are rushed and are too radical to impose at this time,” stated the five Liberal members of the committee in a statement.

The Ontario one:

Ontario has passed a sweeping set of campaign finance reforms to clamp down on cash-for-access fundraising, end corporate and union donations, impose tighter caps on individual contributions and put restrictions on SuperPAC-style third-party advertisers.

The Election Finances Act – which was prompted by a Globe and Mail investigation into pay-to-play fundraising – passed its final vote in the legislature Thursday morning with all three parties voting in favour.

The new law leaves a handful of loopholes, but still represents the most substantial campaign finance reform for the province in a generation. It takes effect Jan. 1, 2017.

It will prohibit all provincial politicians, candidates and senior political staffers from attending fundraising events; ban corporations and unions from donating; cap donations from individuals at $3,600 per political party annually, down from more than $30,000 under the current system; and third-party advertisers wishing to influence elections, who currently face no spending restrictions, will be capped at spending $100,000 during a campaign period and $600,000 in the six months prior.

Both of these reforms are huge, historic and – sorry, Tories and Dippers – mostly to the credit of the Grits.

The federal one sees the Trudeau Liberals acknowledging what some of us have said for quite some time – a change to democracy needs to be democratic.  It can’t be rushed.  And it can’t be legitimized by four vague sentences in the Liberal election platform.

The Liberals have accepted that, and are now saying this can’t be rushed.  It is the New Democrats and the Conservatives – with the majority on the committee – that are now trying to push through an ill-defined referendum.  Shame on them.

The Ontario political finance reforms – soon to be matched by Alberta, New Democrat friends out there tell me – are equally significant.  They approximate what my boss Jean Chretien did in 2003 – but they actually go a bit further.

The reforms allow partisans like me to appear at fundraisers (and I have done that for years, from B.C. to Ontario, and I will continue to happily do that for candidates and causes I like), but not anyone else in day-to-day politics.  That’s big.  Also big: the third party election spending stuff.  So long, Working Families.

Whenever a politician does something that is directly against their own self-interest, they should be applauded.

I therefore applaud the Trudeau Liberals and the Wynne Liberals.  It’s a good day for democracy, Canada.

 

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Son Four and I were listening to CBC radio on the way back from the Raps game (we beat the Grizzlies, but kind of didn’t deserve to), and some brilliant feminist gamers were on. One said that the Number One Internet Troll had just won the election. “That’s it,” I said to my boy. “He’s President Troll.”

Oh, and he’s 2.5 million votes behind my candidate, by the way. I bet that news gives him a heart attack. 

President Troll. That's it. The number one Internet troll is going to be president.

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) December 1, 2016

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A Klaus Nomi tree decoration.  I have lived long enough to see it all.

Click Klaus to see even more, passed along to me by my hipster daughter. Ho ho ho.

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Putting your family in charge of your businesses is the very definition of conflict of interest, you moron. #uspoli @realDonaldTrump

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) November 30, 2016

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There’s this take on pipelines, as related by the Ventures:

 

And there’s this take which I would have related on CP24 if they hadn’t cancelled to talk about the Ontario Auditor-General’s report instead:

• pipelines are safer than transporting via rail, cf. Lac Megantic
• pipelines have 500 per cent fewer accidents/spills than the alternatives, cf. this
• our economy is in big trouble without ’em, cf. this op-ed
• as long as we have oil and gas in everyday life, we need ’em, cf. this website
• this ain’t about politics – New Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives all agree we need ’em, cf. this

Does that mean every proposed pipeline should be approved? Of course not.  Trudeau appropriately turned down Northern Gateway, just as the Dakota Access Pipeline should be (but won’t be, by a racist president-to-be).

Oil is being transported via rail right through Toronto neighbourhoods, including two blocks from my house, several times a day.  I’d like that to stop, thanks.

Oh, and good luck in getting the Ventures lick out of your head.  It’s a keeper.

 

 

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A dishonest non-entity who is running for the Conservative Party leadership has a strategy: to yank every fire alarm she comes across.  Her latest stunt? Kill the CBC.

She’s lying, of course.  She was previously in power for many years, and did nothing – absolutely nothing – about the CBC.  In fact, she made certain to appear on CBC as often as possible – more than most of her colleagues.  She’s lying.

So, I won’t even dignify her, or her proposal, by using her name.  But I give her credit: she’s got the mouth-breathing types braying and screeching about the CBC.  Again.

Now, back when Sun News Network was around, I used to go on there all the time to say how much I loved the CBC.  My objective was to give my pal Brian Lilley the vapours, and I think I succeeded.

But, like it or not, the “whither the CBC” debate is upon us, again.  So, I thought I’d stake out my own position.  Here, then, is my ten-point list about why I adore the CBC.  Clip and save.

1. The CBC is one of the few things I pay the government for that I like.
2. The CBC is one of the only things I pay government for that isn’t subject to taxes and user fees after the fact.
3. The CBC goes where the private sector folks don’t, and won’t (ever).
4. The CBC is the only institution – and I include government in this sweeping generalization – that provides Canadians with a true sense of the rest of the country.
5. The CBC does mostly good shows – personally, I think the morning radio side of the business is really, really good.
6. The CBC is popular – it cleans up with the aforementioned morning radio shows in just about every market, for instance, because everyone agrees their product is simply a lot better than the competition.
7. The CBC is giving us solid news coverage when the self-bonusing bastards at Postmedia, et al. are closing up shop everywhere.
8. The CBC is particularly needed when we are more at risk at being swamped by the cultural juggernaut to the South than ever before.
9. The CBC’s supporters, like Friends of the CBC, have done the polling – and the research shows the vast majority of Canadians value the CBC (and particularly its local content), big time.
10. The CBC provides value – and, apart from health care and the CBC, I don’t feel like I get much back anymore.

Now, various assholes will say I’m saying all this stuff because I’m a writer for CBC.  Well, I’m not.  (I did one thing for them, and I don’t presently plan to again – among other things, I get more than 3.5 million visitors on this wee web site every year, inter alia.)

Anyway.  The CBC is here to stay, dishonest CPC leadership candidates notwithstanding.  Because, basically, there’s more of us than there are of her.

 

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From InFocus at York University:

Neo Nazi Publication “Your Ward News” appears at York University; Administration Promises Action

Students from the Israeli Students Association (ISA), a CAMERA-supported group, recently discovered copies of the virulently anti-Semitic Your Ward News being distributed on official newsstands throughout York University. The publication was found in highly-frequented areas on campus such as Central Square.

Your Ward News is a neo-Nazi publication that has been accused of spreading “racism, homophobia, misogyny, and anti-Semitism”. This past June, after years of campaigning by an anti-racist coalition called “Standing Together Against Mailing Prejudice” (STAMP), the Canadian Minister of Public Services and Procurement Judy Foote prohibited Canada Post from delivering Your Ward News.

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Society has become more understanding of mental illness. But what if the mentally ill person is about to become #POTUS? What then?

— Warren Kinsella (@kinsellawarren) November 29, 2016

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Grateful, relieved, happy. 

That’s what not a few of us felt when Donald Trump “won.” 

(I put “won” in flying quotes because, as various experts have now noted, there’s an excellent chance that the bilious billionaire actually lost the presidential race, but “won” because industrious Russian hackers nudged 100,000 votes in three states towards him. In that way, Trump – who is now more than TWO MILLION VOTES behind Hillary Clinton nationally – “won” the state-by-state Electoral College. But we digress.)

Nobody who is sane was in any way grateful, relieved or happy when Trump “won,” naturally. Anyone with the slightest stake in the present was variously outraged, mystified and/or scared shitless. We still are, on a global scale. 

But, nationally, at least, I suspect most Canadians were happy. Because (a) we live in Canada, and (b) because Justin Trudeau is Prime Minister. 

If you live in Canada, you are generally always happier than our American friends. We have a better quality of life, we have free health care, we have better public schools, we have safer streets, we have better regulation of banks and industries, we have much better relationships with our fellow citizens – whatever their race, religion or sexual orientation. Up here, everything is just way better – hockey now regretfully excluded. Every Canadian knows that. 

But, in the past three weeks, we have been made better by Justin Trudeau running things, too. It’s the truth. 

It is also true that I have not always been wildly enthusiastic about the way the newly-minted Prime Minister does things. Having had the privilege and honour of working for the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien for quite a few years, I learned the value of the following things:

• always undersell and over-perform 

• always be in the papers as little as possible

• always treat taxpayer dollars like they are precious things, because they are 

The Trudeau guys have a different way of doing things. The selfies, the media focus, the tendency to be slightly-less-than-parsimonious, the frequent use of adjectives when describing what they were elected to do. I’m not used to that style of governing, at all, and I don’t particularly like that style of governing. I have often said so, Liberal Party membership card notwithstanding. 

But now? Now, after Trump? Now, when the world is about to become decidedly more nasty, more brutish, more short?

In Trump World, I now feel like kissing the ground upon which Justin Trudeau walks. I feel like giving voice to heavenly hosannas and hallelujahs. I feel like dancing, to quote Leo Sayer, circa 1976. 

Trudeau, whatever his shortcomings, is a giant on the world stage when compared to the sausage-fingered, sphincter-mouthed, combed-over, racist/sexist/arguably fascist Human Cheeto to the South. 

Justin Trudeau is everything Donald Trump is not: Likeable. Sane. Decent. Smart. Democratically elected (see: industrious Russian hackers perverting democracy in three states, above). 

Will we Canucks be safer in the coming Dark Times? Probably not. Trump is the best recruitment tool ISIS has ever had. Will we benefit economically? Don’t be ridiculous: Trump’s trade policy is more protectionist than North Korea’s. Things are about to get way worse, and everyone will feel it. 

But Canada, as several Americans recently told me, is a much better place to be until Trump is indicted. During the campaign in which she would get TWO MILLION VOTES more than her vile opponent, my wife and I volunteered for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, Maine and at her Brooklyn headquarters. Over and over, our fellow Team Clinton members would say to us: “If Trump wins, can we move into your basement? Oh, and PS: Justin Trudeau is awesome.”

Well, folks, we can reveal that there are now several million American refugees down in our basement, stacked like cordwood. All clutching Team Trudeau campaign buttons. 

They are grateful, relieved and happy that Justin Trudeau and Canada both still exist. 

Like I am. And like you should be, too. 

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