Evening Star

What "ownership" means in an organized capitalist society, though, is that the state grants, recognizes, and protects certain rights of yours in relation to a piece of property. It is not a meaningful concept otherwise. And so it is by the same token fair for the state to place certain conditions on this, including e.g. the requirement to pay taxes.

Thanks, WIP. I tried to make this point before on a similar thread.

Yeah, the two situations aren't at all comparable, you're right. No one is pre-judging Harper at this point: He has been PM for five years! We know what he's like in the role. Brosseau was elected to the House less than two weeks ago. Parliament has not even resumed yet. So we have no knowledge yet of how she performs in the job and no basis for judging her competence.

I've never painted Harper that way. My posts should attest to that. And what qualifications would you like us to establish before someone can run for MP, in order to ensure that we only get the best and brightest, if simply being chosen by one's constituents is insufficient? A graduate degree from a highly ranked institution perhaps? A list of publications or business achievements? How many sitting MPs would qualify?

She's co-manager of Oliver's actually, not just someone who works at the bar. It's a campus pub but afaik, she's not a Carleton student but a 27-year-old mother. She's managing a small business to make a family work: nothing for anyone to scoff at, least of all a conservative. She's already visited her riding and spoke French well enough to communicate with her constituents, who received her well.

How is this theoretical?? Her constituents ticked the box next to her name, right?

Oh sure, francophone Ottawans usually do speak good English, no doubt.

Oh, I had no idea.

I thought this is already the case? At least in Ontario, everyone is required to take French in school. Or do you mean that immersion should be required for everyone?

And, more generally, if a party has no ideological principles and just stands for staying in power by pandering to people, it is bound to attract unprincipled, power-hungry personnel, which will lead to corruption. So I do think it is important for Liberals to know what they stand for if they want to remain viable.

I'm not sure about this, actually. I don't think most people necessarily have a deep knowledge or strong understanding of political issues. I think what people are looking for is someone who knows more than they do who can make them believe - who can explain the issues to them and sell them on a solution that makes sense to them. And so we do want to feel that these leaders are actually sincere about what they tell us.

But in the House, their voting record was much closer to CPC-lite. I'll repost something I wrote on a different forum:

Tbh, I didn't really think Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau was considered an English-Canadian either...

But I think that the Liberals did stand for identifiable ideological principles and policy approaches at least in the St Laurent, Pearson, and Trudeau eras. (The Trudeau Liberals were, for example still trying to emulate European social democracy in the early 80s, when the tide had turned in the US and UK. I don't think they "simply governed based on what is popular and what would get them elected".) You've even referred to them as a 'leftist party' more than once. It is more recently that there is no real sense of what they stand for other than winning power. This is different from having ideological principles and being willing to compromise them - as Harper does. Is Justin Trudeau really seen as English-Canadian?

That does make sense. However, a party with no real principles other than achieving and maintaining power seems likely to be a magnet for corruption and dishonesty...

I grew up in Ottawa, actually. Even on the ON side, though, there is a really significant francophone population in the east end of the city.

I was responding to a specific comment of cybercoma's. I explained this in post 135.

(We completely agree about that.)

Sure. However, the Constitution was opened (by a Liberal leader from Quebec whose support was heavily based in Quebec) and important amendments were made in 1982, even if it wasn't exactly a matter of setting the system.

#1 is fine and if I understand #3, I think I agree with it. #5 is definitely more than I could stomach, you're right, and I'd really need to be sold on #4 or #2. So I'm not completely sure we can reach agreement on this after all... I don't completely agree that the system was set by English Canadians, if you consider the role that French Canadian Liberals played in 1982.

I do think there's a pretty blatant 'us vs them' attitude in the way he framed the situation. The complete transcript of the speech and a translation are available here (and I don't buy the interpretation of the person who hosts the site): http://money-and-the-ethnic-vote.co.tv/ Who could he be referring to by "us" if 60% of "us" voted "Oui" and were beaten by "money and the ethnic vote"?

Benz, maybe you've mentioned it upthread, but what sort of arrangement would you prefer? I lean towards the Trudeau view of federalism but I'm open to other ideas if they will ultimately be more satisfying for the whole country. (Our federation seems relatively decentralized already to me.)

The francophone population in Ottawa (especially if you include the whole Natl Capital Region) is certainly significant enough to warrant bilingual services in any circumstance, even if only on the grounds of good customer service.

Yeah, even prominent Conservatives lost their seats in QC.

Here's the thing, though, and I wanted to say something about this on the "Liberalism" thread too - I actually agree with many of the criticisms people have about the NDP: They can be too beholden to unions; They don't always seem to have a clear plan for wealth generation as opposed to redistribution, even compared to Nordic social democrats; Their policies regarding Quebec do concern me; They don't always seem to have as great a sense as the Liberals on how to support research and innovation. I would actually prefer my 'Platonic ideal' of the Liberal Party to the existing NDP: basically, a Liberal Party that actually believed in the platform they just ran on and seemed to genuinely stand for social liberal principles. So maybe this is what an ideal 'Liberal Democratic' party would be. However, I have little faith that the actually existing Liberal Party and actually existing NDP could effectively merge into this party. (And the reality of the LPC seems pretty far removed from this, although it could change.) I would almost expect that it would be more likely for the NDP to shift in this direction (unless they actually turn into some kind of monster focused on reopening the Constitution.)