they even have their own "elections"!

[jazzfish]

21 days for Dreamwidth, #5

How about when you're not on the computer?
I do very little online when I'm not on the computer.

But seriously. Lately I've been doing a lot of reading, in preparation for the Big Move. (Specifically, reading the first 50-100 pages of books and deciding to purge them. I'm amazed at how many recently have made it past 50 pp only to flame out somewhere in the 90-110 range.) I talk to uilos and with other people I soon won't be seeing very often, I cook, I watch the occasional movie or DVD, I laugh at the cats. In the mornings I go running. And there's gaming, and writers' group, and theatre, and concerts. I keep busy.

---

So, the perky "Canadians" are having an election on Monday. This is reasonably good timing for me: it means I get to find out what the heck is going on with the Canadian political system before I get up there, so I'm not completely lost in the sea of acronyms, weird names, and strange electoral practices.

If you're interested in a reasonably short and entertaining run-down, I recommend Mightygodking's take on the likely outcome (spoiler: most likely, nothing will change!). Very briefly: the Conservatives are just short of a majority. For a couple of weeks it looked like they might be able to flip enough seats in Parliament to squeak out a majority, but thankfully the voters seem to have come to their senses. The Liberals (squishy centre-left party) appear to be coasting and hoping the Conservatives will all just go away. The pinko commie leftists vote for the New Democratic Party but thanks to the travesty that is first-past-the-post voting they don't have many seats in Parliament. There's no left-wing coalition to oppose the Conservatives because the last major party is the Bloc Quebecois, whose separatist agenda ensures that no one else will want to be seen talking to them.

However, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, or to anyone else for that matter, the NDP has been inching up in the polls, to the point where it's barely possible they'll end up with more seats than either the Liberals or the BQ. This would make me intensely happy: they'll have a lot of new MPs who'll get a chance to learn the ropes before the next election, when (in my ideal dream world) they can sweep to a majority, driving the blue menace into the sea. (Or, more likely, herding them all into the prairie provinces of central Canada. Not for nothing is Manitoba Alberta known as "the Texas of the north.")

(I note with mild disapproval that my riding will almost certainly be represented by the Liberal party, although my prospective MP seems decent enough if a bit clueless.)

It will be Interesting to see how things play out on Monday. Interesting for me, anyway.

Comments

[marcmagus]

My Canadian friend recently posted about the elections with a bit of a rundown for those of us who don't know much about their parties, which included the comment, "[The Conservatives are] the most right-wing party in Canada, which traditionally puts them slightly to the left of the American Democrats."

Although she followed up by saying that they've been moving rightwards.

[jazzfish]

Yeah, that's the impression I've gotten about the Conservatives, on both counts. (Also, someone mentioned that they seem to be about five years behind the US Republicans, electoral-tactics-wise. Bleh. I hope they get their heads handed to them in this election.)

(Link?)

[marcmagus]

(Ugh)

(Locked journal, I'm afraid.)

[jazzfish]

Ah, understood.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

A Canadian, Katie West, offers info:

And now the parties in Canada… (http://therealkatiewest.tumblr.com/post/5032259666/and-now-the-parties-in-canada) [But just the five major ones. There are actually 18 registered parties in Canada, one of which is actually a satirical party though.]

http://therealkatiewest.tumblr.com/post/5032267509/stephen-harper-and-the-conservative-party-basic
http://therealkatiewest.tumblr.com/post/5032270646/elizabeth-may-and-the-green-party-platform
http://therealkatiewest.tumblr.com/post/5032275873/michael-ignatieff-and-the-liberal-party-basic
http://therealkatiewest.tumblr.com/post/5032279253/jack-layton-and-the-new-democratic-party-ndp

[jazzfish]

Ah, nice! I'd seen her "difference between american and canadian systems" post (possibly from you?) but wasn't all that impressed.

I stand by MGK's "four and a half parties" assessment, at least until the Greens can get themselves an MP. (Which they might manage to do this time; Elizabeth May is only down about five percentage points in her riding.)

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Indeed, that was via me as well. It seemed a decent summary, based on me having little to no prior knowledge of the Canadian system. :)

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's Alberta that's the Texas of the north - cattle, cowboys, oil, a "we're different and better" attitude... plus some fabulously gorgeous mountains and a lot of snow to make it a little more Canadian. :)

I still haven't figured out a lot of the details of the Canadian system, but the Bloc is surprisingly important (but very confusing). I think it's because they are big enough that the other parties need their votes to get stuff done, but their agenda is basically "we're in Quebec and speak French" so they don't have a lot else going for the rest of the country.

I've been disappointed in the commercials this time around. They remind me a lot more of the political commercials in the US - oversimplifying everything and focusing on who is or is not allegedly going to raise your taxes or ruin your health care. I'm not sure if they are worse than the last election here, or if I just didn't see the commercials last time because I don't watch the right kind of TV. This time, the elections coincide with the NHL playoffs, so we've got CBC on a lot more and are seeing more political commercials.

[jazzfish]

Whoops-- cheerfully corrected! I'd thought the oil was all further east than Alberta.

I think the problem with the Bloc is that they're avowed separatists? So none of the other parties want to be painted as willing to negotiate with people whose stated goal is "leave the Federation."

Also, I seem to have misplaced your email address. If you've some time over the next week to answer some probably simple immigration-related questions, could you email me at jazzfish at warpmail dot net?

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Nope, the oil is mostly in Alberta, from what I understand. That's at least where all the controversy is. (It's mostly in "tar sands" where the oil is mixed with sand in the ground rather than being the kind of oil they pump out of the ground in various other places, so it's pretty much an environmental nightmare to extract it, but it's valuable, so they want to extract it...)

Email sent...

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Also... my impression of the situation with the Bloc is not so much that no one wants to talk to them because they are separatists. Everyone knows that, but everyone also knows that they are a big enough presence in QC that the other parties usually have to at least talk to them when they need to form coalitions.

Even the separatist thing is complicated. Someone explained it to me this way: even though there's been a significant separatist movement among the French-speaking part of Quebec, there are also anglophone areas that don't want to secede, and much more importantly, the First Nations control a lot of the land with valuable natural resources in QC, and *they* don't want to secede. So even if the French did actually secede from Canada and try to make QC an independent, state, the First Nations regions would secede from QC and rejoin Canada, and QC would not be left with much.

So the Bloc officially has a separatist agenda, but it's evolved into more of a "we're looking out for Quebec's interests and want special treatment" agenda, which no one else particularly likes, but since they do get a lot of seats in QC (and they don't run candidates anywhere except QC) everyone else does kind of have to at least talk to them.

I might be wrong - that's just the impression I've gotten living here for the last few years.

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Can't figure out how to edit my comment above... I also meant to say that at the very least, that's all an oversimplification (and not very flattering towards Quebec, which is generally a nice place with a lot of nice people in it... but some very weird politics.)

[jazzfish]

... what a mess. And, thank you! I tried briefly a few days ago to figure out what the Bloc's platform was, and got pretty much nowhere. Hearing from someone who's actually there, and has been for several years, is definitely helpful.

I really hope that I didn't come across as being overly judgemental about Quebec: it seems like a very nice place indee. I don't know nearly enough about it to form anything other than a snap judgement on its politics and how they affect the rest of Canada: I don't even know whether to think separation is a good idea. (I lean towards 'no' by default but I really don't know.)

(I suspect you can only edit comments if you're a paid user. Also, email will be sent tomorrow, and thank you.)

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

I was worried that *I* was coming across as too judgemental about Quebec, not that you were. :)

My theory on separation is that if it were actually a really good idea, they'd probably have figured out how to do it by now, but I really don't know enough about any of this to really know anything, either.

I think that a lot of this stuff is very engrained in society, too - it's hard to understand if you didn't grow up here.

Not a paid user, so that would explain the comment thing.

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

WAMU broadcasts the Canadian news/culture program "As It Happens" weeknights at 11pm, so I get to hear about Canadian issues almost every night. Oddly enough, though, they spend a lot of time talking about events in the U.S.

[jazzfish]

That's... remarkably unhelpful of them. :) Are they being overwhelmed with election news?

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

They spend a little time each night talking about the election, but it's not the focus.