Canadian Election # 45

[dewline]

So.

The writ's been dropped.

Let's go.

I'm gonna vote because my life depends on it.

And because your lives do too.

Comments

[mtbc]

Makes sense, I like him but Carney's unlikely to be as popular later as he is right now so I guess we expected this. Absolutely, go vote!

[dewline]

Oh, I absolutely want a supply-and-confidence agreement with the NDP reining him in as it did Justin Trudeau. Or the Greens. If a Liberal majority is what it takes to successfully ride out Trump and Trumpism and still have Canada be a liberal democracy afterwards, though, I'll take that medicine.

[sabotabby]

Yeah same.

[kathleen_dailey]

Also same, and this time, and for the first time, I'll be voting Liberal. It's hard to believe I typed those words. I've worked for and voted for the NDP all my life, but needs must when the devil drives.

[sabotabby]

The blow is softened for me a little bit in that my local Liberal MP is amazing and has basically represented our riding as I would expect a principled NDPer to do. So I have no qualms about voting for him and actually look forward to telling him exactly why I'm voting Liberal for the first time in my life.

[dewline]

I'm reading this and listening to a piece from the Space: 1999 Year One soundtrack, composed by Barry Gray for the last episode of that season, "The Testament of Arkadia".

The timing is...accidentally impeccable to the artistic side of my brain right now.

My own MP is Marie-France Lalonde, and she was one of the team that was working with Kathleen Wynne on that UBI test-run before Ford got elected Premier the first time. She still harbours hopes of something like it on a national scale, I think. If I get a chance to speak with her directly, it's something I want to revisit. Imperfect as CERB was, it was a much larger test case for UBI and I think it worked as well as we could have hoped for.

[kathleen_dailey]

my local Liberal MP is amazing and has basically represented our riding as I would expect a principled NDPer to do

I wish I could say the same. In keeping with my riding's recent practice of electing an MP who came to politics not from law or government or public service but from entertainment/popular culture/media, Evan Solomon is evidently going to be the candidate in this election. I know very little about him except his name, since I never paid much attention to any of the talk shows he was on or the columns he wrote. In fairness, I need to do more research, but sheesh ...

Sigh. In any normal year, I'd be looking at Samantha Green (although her campaign bumph reads more municipal/provincial than federal), but then this year is abnormal in the extreme.

[dewline]

I actually got to see and speak with Solomon once back when he was a practicing journalist, and at the time he was actually competent at that work so far as I was able to tell back then. There was this talk held at Carleton University once, and I need to recheck whatever records I still have about the timeframe and topic(s)...

And I just found something. A quick letter to the editor at CBC's Power & Politics dated 19 September 2012. He was moderating a panel about 1984, journalism, and so forth earlier that night.

"I was at the discussion at Carleton University re: _1984_ tonight and
while I learned a lot...there was one concern I have with Mr.
Solomon's closing remarks.

I don't think that apathy is the main threat to a healthy Canadian
body politic at this point. Rather, it's exhaustion. If you're
juggling thirty or forty different things every day as it is,
cognitive exhaustion is going to be as real as the physical kind. And
as dangerous to a democracy, I fear."

[kathleen_dailey]

I actually got to see and speak with Solomon once back when he was a practicing journalist, and at the time he was actually competent at that work so far as I was able to tell back then.

Here's hoping that his competence will endure in the parliamentary setting. And you're so right about exhaustion being the main threat. It's very hard to cope productively and proactively with the constant low-level (or not so low-level) political anxiety that we're living with right now.

[sabotabby]

Oof, I'm sorry.

[em_h]

Almost certainly same here, and the Liberals haven't even named a candidate in my riding yet.

[em_h]

The people across the street from me have just hung a MASSIVE Chrystia Freeland sign on their fence, but unless Freeland is attempting to run in two ridings at once, they are under a false impression. (Where did they get it? I wonder).

[dewline]

Maybe they're fans of her in particular, regardless of the riding? I'm sure Elections Canada will have something to say about the sign placement. That aside, I don't fault anyone wanting her political career to continue right now.

[kathleen_dailey]

That's so weird--although years ago, when I lived in the east end, I had people from the next-door riding ask if they could put a sign on my lawn, so who knows what kind of befuddlement prevails!

[andrewducker]

Good luck!

[dewline]

As a country, we are going to need that! Thanks much!

[thewayne]

I heard about the Mike Myers hockey video that he did!

Elbows up!

And I'm quite impressed by Greenland's MAGA hats - Make America Go Away!

[extraarcha]

Thanks for posting about the Canadian MAGA hats.
I got one of my rare big laughs.

Now if someone can read me in on what a Canadian "riding" is that is getting chatted up (above)? I don't get anything on a web search on that?

Visiting Canada has always been a good thing. I'm hoping "the Mistake Who Got Voted In" doesn't ruin that.

[dewline]

A "riding" in Canadian Political English is an electoral district at either the provincial or federal level. Federally, Canada is currently divided into 343 such districts, and to form a majority government, a federal political party must have at least 172 candidates who've won in their respective districts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Canadian_federal_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Canadian_federal_election#/media/File:Canada_Election_2025_Results_Map.svg

[thewayne]

A riding is effectively an election district or constituency. :-)  No idea what the origin of the word is, perhaps the distance that a man on horseback can easily cover in a day?  Just a SWAG.

[dewline]

That's pretty much how it started in UK/English practice, if memory serves. The slang stuck despite the change of methods of getting around the local countryside.