• sweetgemberry@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I’m not Canadian, would anyone be willing to explain who these parties are and how the polls are looking, please? I suppose I could look it up but would rather some personal perspectives.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 hours ago

      To add on for completeness, the Bloc is like the Quebec party, that wants more stuff and independence for Quebec. The Green party is self-explanatory.

    • Franklin@lemmy.ca
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      16 hours ago

      Liberals (red) are sort of like our democrats who are the incumbent have been trending up. Conservatives (blue) are like Republican light are trending down NDP (orange) is more left leaning are down slightly

      This change is most likely due to the recent threats from America and the perception that Pierre Poilievre leader of the conservative party is seen as been cozier with US interests.

      • sweetgemberry@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Thanks for explaining this. It’s interesting to see how US politics are affecting Canadian vote shares. Is that a common thing or is it an isolated event given what’s going on in the US at the moment?

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          15 hours ago

          It’s interesting to see how US politics are affecting Canadian vote shares. Is that a common thing or is it an isolated event given what’s going on in the US at the moment?

          Allow me to illustrate with a quote from former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau:

          “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt,”

          That was part of a speech he gave at the Washington press club in 1969.

    • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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      16 hours ago

      Liberals (red) are the incumbent party, they’re fairly centrist but have implemented some watered down progressive policies in recent years because the orange NDP (New Democratic Party) have been helping keep their minority government in power. For example they’ve begun to roll out an expansion of our health care to include dental and pharma coverage. There are some progressive ideas in the fringes of the Liberal party as well, like UBI, which is supported by one of the (unlikely) party leadership candidates to take over after Trudeau. They are generally pro business but not at the expense of all other considerations.

      The NDP are progressives, they tend to advocate for things like wealth taxes and reducing the tax breaks on capital gains compared to income in order to fund more social programs and expand existing government services. They advocate for universal pharma, dental, and mental health care for example, as well as recently adding permanent sales tax removal from more essential products like a wider variety of foods and diapers into their platform. They are also pro union. You can think of them as social democrats.

      Blue are the Conservatives. They have been shifting more and more right and especially since the pandemic have begun to cater to the fringe right wing opinions in Canada. Their current leader is a populist and culture warrior, bringing things like gender ideology into our political discourse and aligning with folks like Jordan Peterson. Against Trudeau he has had a commanding lead in the polls for a very long time, and “FUCK TRUDEAU” has been the message and the banner of that party for years. They’re losing their lead steadily as (in my opinion) people are seeing the outcomes of that kind of politicking in the USA, and are unifying in the face of American threats. Their divisive politics are not effective anymore and they’re scrambling to find a new message, so far they’ve just been comparing the prospective Liberal leadership to Trudeau and trying to recycle their old message.

      Cyan is the Bloc Quebecois, a party that is essentially a Quebec Nationalist party. They tend to be fairly progressive on policy, but are concerned with Quebec issues and sometimes get into conservative territory in some of their ideology, with protectionist and anti-immigrant ideas. They ebb and flow in Quebec but don’t really exist much elsewhere, but Quebec has a lot of population and a lot of seats in Parliament so they can be the third largest party often.

      Green are the green party, they’re generally socially progressive but surprisingly conservative in economic policy at times. They’re never really a major contender in terms of seats, but they often split votes across Canada and can decide the outcome of dozens of seats by taking votes from socially progressive conservatives or from other progressive parties.

      The major thing to note here is how much the Conservatives are falling in the polls. They had an insurmountable lead before Trump’s reelection and before Trudeau announced his intent to resign. NDP is collapsing as well as people are in full strategic vote mode to deny a Conservative majority.

      If you’re not familiar with parliamentary politics, a majority is not unlike having a majority in Congress but with the added aspect that the Prime Minister is not directly elected by the people but is instead elected by Parliament. So a minority government can be challenged and a new election called by a vote of no confidence from the majority of Parliament, and a coalition of parties can run the country even if they individually don’t hold the most seats.

      • sweetgemberry@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. It reminds me a lot of UK politics, even the way the parties are aligned and in their vote shares. It looks quite similar to the polls leading up to the labour win in the last election. I’m wishing the best for a good outcome for Canada. Hoping this trend continues and they push populist politics out of the country.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          15 hours ago

          It reminds me a lot of UK politics,

          The Canadian system was initially modeled on the UK system (similar to most commonwealth countries)

        • leftytighty@slrpnk.net
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          15 hours ago

          Happy to help, awareness of global politics is becoming crucial and we Canadians will need a lot of help so the least I can do is educate others about our politics.

          I agree, learning about the UK system and watching the recent election I was noticing how similar things are both in terms of public opinions but also the mechanics of it all.

          I hope we will continue to grow closer together, Canada needs the Commonwealth and/or Europe now more than ever.

          The good news is, even if Conservatives win (hopefully just a minority…) what I’ve seen from fellow Canadians this year so far has been inspiring. Stores are adjusting their supply chains to bring in more domestic and non-American international goods due to changes in demand, the number of Canadians crossing the border into USA has plummeted compared to past years, and our military is hitting recruitment targets lol.

          I’m too leftist to be too happy about that last point, but it’s a sign that we’re not going to take the bullying. A Conservative defeat would be inspiring, and I might even let myself feel hopeful at that point.