KCCCC Day 48: old stock

— 09.19.2015 09:31 AM

  

  • What is “old stock” anyway? Well, when I was a teenager in Calgary, it was this. You’d drink it to get wasted faster. 
  • Before that, in Quebec, it was something you heard all the time. I’d hear older Anglo friends of my folks saying it about themselves. When you hear francophones calling themselves “pure laine,” which they still do about a million times a day, that’s what they mean.  Old stock. 
  • Is it racist? Was Harper wrong to say it? In Quebec, it sure ain’t. It’s part of the lingo. Everyone says it, so perhaps folks in the rest of Canada are saying seven million Québécois are racist. To me, then, it isn’t racist – and you might say I know a little about real racism – it’s just one of those sayings that we probably shouldn’t use anymore, mainly because it isn’t very accurate. After all, the only folks really entitled to call themselves “old stock” are these guys.
  • So, in closing, a message to Justin Trudeau. Apparently you are super upset Stephen Harper said that. But I’d recommend you stop being being so wound up about it – because, as you know, there was another politician who used the phrase long before Stephen Harper did, as seen in paragraph five. Namely, um, you.

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KCCCC Day 47: when a newspaper runs a TV debate

— 09.18.2015 08:31 AM

  • This is going to be a long post, because I’ve decided to embed some of my tweets from last night.  I will do two or three on each protagonist – the leaders, the moderator, the format, the pundits, and the aftermath.  Got a comment at the end of it? Make it!

THE GLOBE’S DEBATE

TOM MULCAIR

 

STEPHEN HARPER

JUSTIN TRUDEAU

THE RESULT AND OTHER STUFF


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CTV came up with a poll, so I did too

— 09.17.2015 06:19 PM

Apparently intent on repeating that little mid-campaign incident back in 2008 – you know the one, it led to Senator Mike Duffy – CTV is back at it again.

They’ve aggressively publicized a poll, mere hours before a crucial debate, saying that Justin Trudeau is way, way behind in his home riding of Papineau.

Now, you may have noticed that I don’t really linger by the phone, waiting for Justin Trudeau to call. We’re not close. There’s a reason for that.

But he – and, more particularly, CTV’s viewers – deserve better than this “poll,” this heap of horseshit, that was

[Wait for it.]

PAID FOR BY THE NDP.

That isn’t the only problem with the poll. Here are a couple others, which you can check out yourself in the poll’s “methodology.”  Specifically, check out the weighting.

  • Look at what percentage voted Liberal in 2011, versus the number of people who voted NDP in 2011 in this sample.
  • If the poll was done properly, they would have sampled 28 per cent 2011 New Democrats as opposed to the 38 per cent they included in this sample.
  • Similarly, they would have included somewhere near 38 per cent 2011 Liberal voters, as opposed to the 14 per cent that they put in the sample here.
  • If anything, this poll shows that NDP voters are coming over to the Liberal column, not vice versa.

Anyway.

I think it’s appalling that CTV (who I like) has done this to Trudeau (who I, well, you know).  It’s appalling that viewers and voters have been let down in this way.

So my dog, Roxy, has commissioned a poll, too.  Here it is.  Vote early, vote often.

[polldaddy poll=9083296]


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KCCCC Day 46: the politics of division

— 09.17.2015 09:20 AM

  •  Here is a CITY-TV video from yesterday on the niqab ruling: 

  • TV being TV, quite a bit of what we talked about ended up on the cutting room floor. But here is a quick summary.
  • One, this is classic writ-period dog whistle politics.  And, sadly, it works.  For the Conservative core vote, it is red meat.  It angers them, and gets them out to vote for the only option that favours “cracking down” on the niqab.  In that way, it’s like the refugee thing.
  • Two, there is no downside for the Tories on this.  They know – they absolutely know – that they are going to lose at the Supreme Court of Canada.  They are counting on it, in fact.  The Department of Justice has repeatedly advised them that they cannot win.  But they press on, regardless, because – at the end – it permits them to say: “See? See? Those unelected liberal judges are attempting to impose their will again.  We’re the only party that opposes judge-made law.”
  • Three, it’s a classic wedge.  It divides progressives: some feminists are okay with the niqab, some are vehemently against it.  Some classical liberal free expression types are wholly for it, other liberals see it as the beginning of the end of civilized society.  Politically, too, it divides: in 2011, Michael Ignatieff was with Stephen Harper on the issue.  In 2015, Justin Trudeau is against him.  And so on and so on.  The conservative monolith is united, however: they’re against it.  They’ll  vote for the anti-veil party.
  • Bottom line? For the Conservatives, it works.  It gets them votes, whether they win in court or not.  But – as I’ve written before – it’s wrong for religions to dictate to governments.  And it’s wrong for governments to dictate to religions.

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