Canada Votes

Matthew Hayes

St. Thomas University (Canada)

The 2019 federal election results suggested a majority of Canadians preferred a minority government, but the one they got was different than the one they voted for.

As in past elections, our first-past-the-post electoral system distorted the electoral preferences of Canadians.

Canada pays a price for this distortion. Not only is the will of the people not reflected in our Parliament, but certain regions — such as Alberta, where 30 per cent of the population didn’t vote Conservative — will not be represented in government at all. In a proportional representation (PR) electoral system, the Liberals would have won 10 seats in the three Prairie provinces, and the NDP as many as nine.

No doubt, there are other reasons why people don’t vote, but one is that they don’t feel that their vote will make any difference. In a first-past-the-post system, if you are an NDP voter in a riding where the overall NDP vote is marginal (say, less than 10 per cent), you may feel like voting doesn’t count for much.

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NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will get rid of the First Past the Post voting system and replace it with a system of Mixed-Member Proportional Representation if elected.

He said that enacting this electoral reform would be a requirement of any support in a minority government.

https://twitter.com/CandaceShawNDP/status/1178023356018262016

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May won’t tell her candidates to oppose Quebec’s ban on religious symbols for some public-sector employees — a position the National Council of Canadian Muslims says is “unacceptable.”

While May made her disapproval of the law clear in April by openly condemning it, she has not made it mandatory for the party’s candidates to do the same.

At a town hall on Friday, Mustafa Farooq, executive director of the Muslim advocacy group, called out May on the decision to allow candidates to support the ban.

During an exchange, Farooq asked: “Ms. May, I’m asking you very clearly, will you tell your candidates that they have no business policing what Canadians or Quebecers wear?”

May responded by explaining that the Green Party structure is “very different” than other parties. Unlike other parties, May said, she does not dictate what members have to support or how they have to vote on issues.

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To clarify, she is personally very opposed to both reopening any conversation on abortion, and she is opposed the Bill 21 (the bill bans public sector works like bus drivers and teachers from wearing religious symbols). What she is saying is that, as party leader, she will not stop the MPs in her party from having their own opinions on issues or voting on / presenting bills that are not strictly in line with party policy.

This is a good stance to have in a robust democracy. MPs should act in ways that represent their constituents, not just their party. Parties like the Liberals and Conservatives have party whips who's job it is to control their MPs and make them vote with their party either for or against legislation.

"Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says he will not endorse a political party in the federal election despite holding a Conservative Party membership.

"I won't be endorsing parties in the federal election," he said Thursday. "I will be, however, commenting on policy from time to time as the platforms are unveiled and how that policy will affect us here in the province of Saskatchewan. And I'll be commenting on policy, not party.'"

This is interesting as it is a hit to Andrew Scheer that a premier of his own party won't endorse him.

As per usual, Doug Ford was talking out of his ass yesterday when he falsely claimed that asylum seekers are delaying other immigration applications:

[…]

All told, the study concluded, nearly 300,000 Canadians were directly employed in clean energy in 2017, nearly 100,000 more than Statistics Canada data said worked in mining, quarrying, and oil-and-gas extraction. There are 7.5 times as many people working in clean energy as in forestry and logging.

Smith said the goal of the report is to show Canadians just how big a piece of the economic pie clean energy represents.

“We were surprised to find how big the sector is,” she said. “What we found is that we’re missing more than half the picture when we talk about energy in Canada. We think of oil and gas, we think of pipelines, we think of Alberta, and we are missing this clean-energy sector which is in every province across the country.”

The study concluded clean energy accounted for about three per cent of Canada’s GDP in 2017, or around $57 billion. It grew almost five per cent annually between 2010 and 2017, outpacing the 3.6-per-cent growth of the economy as a whole.

By comparison, oil and natural gas contribute about six per cent of Canada’s GDP; agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting account together for about 2.1 per cent and the hotel and restaurant industry 2.3 per cent.

Jan Simpson is the new National President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). She is now the first Black Women to lead a National Union in Canada.

This will not just kill the $15/hour minimum wage.

It will kill pay equality for temporary workers.

It will kill fairer scheduling rules for workers.

It will kill the guarantee of 3 weeks pay vacation after 5 years with the same employer.

It will kill the provision to provide personal emergency leave to all employers.

It will kill the provision of unpaid leave to take care of a critically ill family member.

It will kill a leave of absence for victims of domestic violence or rape.

It will get rid of the 2 days paid sick days.

Source:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/plan-fair-workplaces-and-better-jobs-bill-148

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Doug Ford is apparently for the people. 

It seems Doug Ford only cares if you’re a rich donor to his campaign.

If you’re a woman who has been raped or beaten by your husband and need time off work? Tough luck.

If you need to take care of an ailing family member? Tough luck.

If you have a personal family emergency and need time off work? Tough luck.

Is your employer giving you unreasonable hours at work? Tough luck.

Are you being paid unfairly as a temp worker? Tough luck.

Premier Doug Ford’s decision to scrap Ontario’s basic income pilot project was made before any results could be gleaned from the program, making it impossible to determine whether it was a success.

That’s the opinion of at least one researcher who was on the academic team assembled to study the results of the three-year, $150-million program that launched last year.

Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod said the government decided to end the program after being informed by ministry officials that it was failing to help people become “independent contributors to the economy.”

But the researcher who spoke with CBC, who did not want to be identified because the team is bound by confidentiality restrictions, said there is simply no data.

“There’s no conceivable way that they were told the project wasn’t working. We just don’t have any data to know whether it was working or not.”