Montreal City Weblog

Kate 13:12 on 2024-09-04 Permalink Reply  

• Tim S. 17:58 on 2024-09-04 Permalink

  Granted I’ve chosen a side here, but I hate that framing. The NDP’s goal wasn’t to “prop up” Trudeau, it was to make specific, concrete gains. Others will decide if they achieved that or not, but not everything’s a Trudeau referendum.

• Kate 20:36 on 2024-09-04 Permalink

  Fair enough, Tim S. But I would submit that the NDP went into the arrangement knowing they had the balance of power and were propping up the Liberals.

• Tim S. 21:51 on 2024-09-04 Permalink

  Sure – but propping up their opponents, the Liberals, was the cost, not the goal.

• Ephraim 22:15 on 2024-09-04 Permalink

  @Kate – What choice do we really have anymore? Let’s be realistic, we have had very few majority governments in the last few years. Odds are the next government will again be a minority government of some sort. There are so many people at the extremes that the only realistic government today is actually National Unity and yet… it doesn’t happen. And the problem with that can be seen in many other countries. The majority of our neighbours are very much in the centre and yet they are allowing the extreme right push an agenda that doesn’t suit them. The same is true of Alberta… is there any other place in Canada where Abortion Rights are still a discussion? LGBTQ rights?

• dhomas 23:48 on 2024-09-04 Permalink

  I’m going to wade into territory that is outside the scope of the blog (i.e. not Montreal content), but I think this affects all Canadians, including Montrealers.

  I’m a little disappointed that the NDP allowed themselves to be goaded into this by PP. To me, it smells a bit of desperation on the CPC’s part. I think (hope?) people are starting to see through PP’s soundbite-worthy rhetoric filled with no solutions other than slogans and vitriol towards his opponents. The polls seems to indicate that he’s somewhat losing momentum, compared to earlier this year. The CPC might be worried that their campaign won’t have the stamina to retain that momentum all the way through to a 2025 election, so they want an election now while they have “les conditions gagnantes”.

  I think Magali Picard in this interview pretty much summed up my view on PP:
  https://cultmtl.com/2024/09/pierre-poilievre-is-a-clown/

  So, now we go full circle and get back to Montreal and clowns. 😀

• Joey 01:35 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  @dhomas you sure? According to 338 (https://338canada.com/polls.htm), the CPC has been steady around 42% – basically their peak – all year. A year ago today they were at 39%. If they hold steady, they’ll easily pass 200 seats.

  @ephraim it’s far from a done deal but the overwhelming odds right now are a PP majority government

• walkerp 07:59 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  It’s amazing to me how many people are absolutely buying in and reinforcing this narrative that the Cons are somehow going to dominate the next election. The only evidence of this are polls, which have become less and less reliable in the 21st century. And oh yeah, one lost by-election which somehow represents total failure for the Liberals and that Trudeau must step down immediately.
  The CBC is the absolute worst, just parroting this narrative as a truth in multiple news articles on any given day. Honestly, it makes me feel that the Cons propaganda strategy of focusing entirely on Trudeau as an individual and making up cute negatives phrases is actually working.

  I don’t think the NDP caved into PP’s little rhetorical ploy either. I think they saw that the deal was not helping their polling numbers and also were probably genuinely fed up with the Liberals backtracking and undercutting on the deal and probably many other factors and decided it makes sense for them to be able to continue to negotiate with them but on a per-legislation basis rather than this deal. It may give them more leverage, especially as the Liberals try to push more pork out to the people in the coming months.

• steph 08:15 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  I’ll believe the narrative and hope we don’t rush into an election any time soon. Despite the current polling numbers, this armchair pundit thinks if we leave PP keep punching air for another 12 months, he’ll lose all his steam and the poll numbers will swing back.

  The NDP must think they know something we don’t. They’ll have my vote regardless of the timing, but “lesser of two evils” will keep prevailing in this electoral system that we have.

• Kate 09:36 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  CTV is emphasizing how there are no images of Trudeau on campaign posters in the Sud‑Ouest byelection, although rather undermining this with a photo of a Craig Sauvé poster that doesn’t include Jagmeet Singh either.

• jeather 09:59 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  I don’t think the NDP wants an election now any more than the Liberals do.

  The truth is that the NDP has been incredibly silent about what they’ve done as part of teh agreement, so it looks like everything is due to the Liberals.

• Kevin 10:31 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Whenever I feel the need to argue with someone who is angry at a government, I ask them to list what specific items they are upset about. I then point out how the people they are angry with have absolutely nothing to do with those issues.

• Uatu 16:32 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Sellout Singh – wow so clever, PP. This wannabe Trump trying to make his own lying Hilary meme.

• Ian 20:30 on 2024-09-05 Permalink

  Well Singh is a sellout, sure, but it’s not li’l P.P. is going to move the dial further left of centre. I’m not sure what his point is.

• Joey 12:26 on 2024-09-06 Permalink

  I suspect that the NDP is less optimistic about the upcoming by-elections (the Manitoba one should be an easy hold and Craig Sauve is supposed to make waves in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun) and decided to fast-track the eventual project to distance themselves from the Liberals. I do not think they ‘took Poillievre’s bait’ here.

  It’s interesting that Singh hasn’t had to explain which aspects of the agreement weren’t met – the deal between the two parties was quite broad with a lot more aspirational rhetoric than policy commitments, and the Liberals can certainly say they’ve made significant progress on many of the priorities (dental care, pharmacare, etc. – even if the programs are, shall we say, somewhat mild in scope, the expected progress has reasonable been made). Which explains, I think, why nobody really thinks an election is actually imminent.

  Will Singh and the NDP be able to create distance between themselves and the Liberal Party? Possibly, though that doesn’t help when the two parties are competing for third place and are going to be celebrating mutual achievements in the campaign.

  As for PP, there is a lot of wishful thinking going on here. I suppose Trudeau figured that a second Trump presidency would scare Canadians straight. That may still happen, but it’s a lot less likely than a couple of months ago. Maybe the hope for the Liberals now is that a Harris presidency will start a wave of left-of-centre wins globally. I wouldn’t bet on it. The Conservatives have built a huge lead in both polls and money, and they are making inroads in places that are essential to any kind of LPC victory. Moreover, Angus Reid has Trudeau at 67% unfavourable/28% favourable, which I think is a nadir for him. Yes, PP is at a net -12 unfavourable, but he’s got the lead; it’s hard to imagine Canadians adopting dramatically different views of JT at this point in his career. With Trudeau at the helm, the distance between the Liberals floor and ceiling seems pretty small…

• Tux 18:57 on 2024-09-06 Permalink

  I just wanted to mention that any mention of PP’s “rising popularity” or “good poll numbers” is automatically suspect as he has been using astroturfing firms to post fake positive comments about himself.

  https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-rally-kirkland-conservative-bots-1.7287901

• Joey 23:33 on 2024-09-06 Permalink

  You got me.

  I assure you, I am in no way thrilled that our next PM – likely with a big majority of MPs behind him – is most likely to be PP.