Is Shirley MacLaine still available?

rude

>>75525
Who?

Meh he's fine. I hellza liked Stephen Harper and am sad to see him go, but for the most part I'm indifferent to politics. At the beginning of the election I hellza disliked Trudeau because in all his debates and public appearances he seemed very mechanical in his gestures, awkward even. Over the course of the campaign he seems to have become much more comfortable and confident. Given the short time of the campaign, he's improved quite considerably. He's inexperienced in legislation though, so I expect the first year or two of his Liberal majority to be pretty rocky. If Trudeau improves as well in legislation as he did at public speaking, things will probably be fine though.

Oh he pledged to legalize marijuana in all of Canada too, so that will be fun I guess.

I wonder how many people were fapping while watching him talk about politics on TV.

Justin TRUEdeau seems like a cool guy, eh pledges to legalize weed and doesn't afraid of anything.

(USER WAS FOUND RUMMAGING THROUGH THE WASTES OF 2007)

I didn't like him initially because over the last few years he was a weak public speaker (any time I heard him interviewed every other word was "uuuuuhhhhh") and I am generally not a fan of the Liberal Party. His conditional support of C-51 was off-putting as well.

That said, he grew on me over the course of the election. It was kind of funny because normally I'd skew toward being an NDP supporter but Trudeau basically ran an NDP campaign while the actual NDP ran a Liberal campaign. Like, the NDP was claiming they'd balance the budget while Trudeau was like "fuck that, we'll run a deficit for 3 years and invest a bunch of money in infrastructure and housing for remote aboriginal communities" which is a total NDP thing.

I liked his conditional support of the TPP. Mulcair's blanket rejection of it seemed reactionary.

I'm generally not a fan of the Liberals. Last time they were in power, there were some corruption issues (sponsorship scandal and some conflict of interest stuff with Paul Martin). But overall I like Trudeau and anything is better than a Conservative government. Harper's refusal to engage with media (constantly inviting photographers for photo-ops but refusing to take questions from journalists or screening questions ahead of time) among myriad other accountability and transparency issues, a doubling down on Canada as a resource economy largely dependent on the tar sands (how's that turning out, 35,000 people who have lost their jobs?), gutting our public broadcaster, signing onto TPP in secrecy, not to mention all the times he prorogued parliament when he was heading the minority government years ago... Fuck that d. I'd rather have a hippo in a tophat for Prime Minister instead of Harper, so I'm happy with Trudeau.

>>75545
As an American I would like to know what the difference between the NDP and Liberals are. Reading Wikipedia they appear to basically be the same party but there's a reason why they're separate I guess. Multi-party systems often have parties that have most of the same positions but still consider themselves different enough to be separate, it's a little strange.

>>75547
In simple terms Liberals are moderate whereas the NDP lean toward the left of the political spectrum. The NDP use anti-corporate narratives and suck the cocks of unions. The Liberals are all about balance, moderation, and responsible, proven policy.

However, I prefer the Conservatives who are for small government, less tax, and more freedom.

>>75545
Canada not participating in the TPP would be disastrous for our country. It's an historic trade agreement which would open up 40% of the world's economy to freer trade which benefits consumers and corporations all around the pacific. The only thing people whine about is the supposed dispute resolution mechanic which no one knows about because the text of the bill hasn't been published. Even if all the anti-corporate bullshit is true I still think it would be great to have international corporate tribunals. Corporations should rule the world. If you're against the TPP you're an idiot.

>Corporations should rule the world.

YES

>>75550
>more freedom
>Conservatives
It is only possible to believe this if the only thing you have read over the last 9 years is the Conservative Party's website.

>>75547
NDP: democratic socialists
Liberal: Center/moderate party that balances the NDP's focus on infrastructure and social services with the Conservative focus on business and trade.

On paper, the LIberals sound like the best party and they very well could be, all things considered.

The Conservative Party has become increasingly regressive over the years, the NDP generally function best holding the swing of power in the Official Opposition, and the Liberals have a history of corruption and conflict of interest relating to private business but generally have a nice balance of lefty social programs like the NDP while being friendlier to trade and economic interests than the NDP and being much friendlier to the poor, Aboriginal, and environment than the Conservatives.

>>75550
>>75558
Thanks that's more helpful. It's not hard to figure out what the Conservatives are for, but I always assumed that the Liberals were the farther-left party due to their name and affinity for red. Is the corruption the reason why the Liberals collapsed after being on top for so long or was that other reasons? Normally I would just google it but I want real talk.

>>75563
The politics of Canada are usually characterized like this:
The Liberals rule for a while, then they fuck up or make idiots of themselves.
Then the Conservatives rule for a while, then they fuck up or make idiots of themselves.
Repeat for all of Canadian history.

This time around though the Conservatives actually didn't fuck up that much, just the whole anti-Harper campaign got so much traction it eroded a lot of their support.

>>75564
I know anti-Harper sentiment has been a thing, but I can't figure out what he did to make people personally dislike him.

I can see how there would be people that disagreed with his politics, but that doesn't support the narrative of "the Tories didn't fuck up that terribly much, but they lost anyway because everyone thought 'fuck you, Steve.'"

>>75565
The anti-Harper narrative was a political strategy constructed by the opposing parties specifically for the purpose of getting the Conservatives out of office. It was nothing more than a tactic to manipulate voters.

From what I've seen I'd say it started with that oh-so easily manipulated vocal minority: left wing hippy environmentalists. Because Canada's exports are like 30% oil and 10% mining, Harper was never for much environmental protection laws. So the hippies already had cause to hate him, but the political parties used this loud minority as kinda their grassroots. From there they started to spread a lot of outrageous lies about Harper, firstly that he loved corporations at the expense of consumers (which is absurd for many reasons but hey, most hippies are anti-corporate fuckheads too). Then all this other stuff about how he hates Muslims, signed the evil TPP in secret, that Bill C-51 is some 1984 demon-law, and all this other false information that built on the already existing narrative. It worked well.

In reality the niqab issue was only regarding the two minutes or so when people are expected to swear citizenship, the TPP will benefit the entire world and no one knows the exact text of the bill (everything is hearsay at this point), and Bill C-51 is a fucking baby law compared to the PATRIOT Act. Other than being poorly written (I've read most of the bill myself) there's nothing evil or Orwellian in the bill.

I don't fault the parties for all this nonsense though. Politics is a game with winners and losers. A strategy is only as ballza or bad as it is effective. Harper was outmaneuvered this time around. But I do find fault with voters for being so easily manipulated by so much lies and bullshit.

does /b/ have a Stephen Harper version of this?

>>75565
>I know anti-Harper sentiment has been a thing, but I can't figure out what he did to make people personally dislike him.
A lot of it has to do with a lack of governmental transparency, particularly his blatant contempt for media and journalists. He would frequently attend events where he would not be taking questions, only having his photo taken; he would have press conferences where he would read a prepared statement and then take no questions; he would have "press events" where only photogs were invited, no journalists...

He took a very aggressive stance against the CBC that resulted in massive cutbacks and layoffs. For all its flaws and bloating, the CBC is a public broadcaster that, though gov't funded, was frequently critical of government, regardless of the party in power.

There were other issues, like scientific studies and research on arctic warming or the toxicity of groundwater around the tar sands having to be filtered through and essentially approved by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) before publishing, which was effectively like requiring facts to have government approval before they would be shared with the public.

There was also the massive push to make Canada's economy dominantly centered on tar sands oil production, which, as a result of the downturn in oil prices, has since lead to tens of thousands of layoffs.

But yeah, I am from the prairies and know quite a few people who generally self-identify as Conservative but were not happy with Stephen Harper's leadership, his relationship with media, his transparency to voters, and a pattern of undemocratic leadership decisions.