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"Without balls..."
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Yes it's only one poll, and yes it's only halfway through the mandate, but Liberals should be worried by last week's Ipsos survey, for two reasons:
First, the Conservative coalition that sustained Stephen Harper's governments appears to be realigning.
Second, the agenda may be shifting away from social issues and toward economic management, which is good for Conservatives and bad for Liberals.
This does not mean the Tories are favoured to win the next general election. But it does mean that a prior assumption – that the Liberals were unbeatable – no longer holds. This is a whole new political ball game.
Up until last week, all Ipsos polls showed the Liberals and the Conservatives more or less where they were on election night. The Omar Khadr affair, Andrew Scheer becoming Conservative leader, Jagmeet Singh becoming leader of the NDP – nothing seemed to move the needle.
And so it came as something of a shock when Ipsos reported that Liberal support had suddenly swooned to 33 per cent, while the Conservatives had surged to 38 per cent, with the NDP earning the support of one voter in five.
The pollster was in the field as the fallout from Mr. Trudeau's India trip splashed across people's screens, suggesting strong public disapproval of the Prime Minister's performance.
But was this simply a bad week that the Liberals will get over, or a tipping point? It's far too soon to say. But what is interesting about the poll is where the Liberals are doing badly.
In the Prairie provinces, support for the Grits has tanked. If an election were held tomorrow, the party would lose half a dozen seats or more in that region.
Melanee Thomas, a political scientist at University of Calgary, believes that the 2015 election represented "the absolute high water mark" of support for Liberals in the Prairie provinces, where anti-Liberal sentiment is broad and deep. "The only place the party can go is down."
Alberta voters, especially, blame the federal Liberals for the lack of progress in getting pipelines built, she said.
The Conservatives are also seven points ahead of the Liberals in Ontario. This could be crucial.
Stephen Harper's conservative coalition consisted of voters in the Western provinces and in the 905 – the band of suburban cities surrounding Toronto. The Ipsos poll suggests that coalition may be re-emerging.
"If I were the Liberals I would be worried about their support in Ontario," says Henry Jacek, a political scientist at McMaster University in Hamilton. "I do think that the shift in public opinion is substantial and started even before the India trip."
Support for this government rests very much on the personality of the Prime Minister, he believes. If Mr. Trudeau's public image is shifting from charismatic to cartoonish, the Liberals could be in serious trouble.
Or not. A Nanos poll released Tuesday shows the Liberals maintaining a narrow lead over the Conservatives.
But as my colleague Bill Curry reports, internal government surveys show that voters are worried about the chronic deficits run up by the Trudeau government.
And with the NAFTA talks dragging on inconclusively, compounded by President Donald Trump's threat to slap tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum exports, protecting the Canadian economy could become the most important issue facing the country.
Peter Graefe, also of McMaster, observes that "in terms of long-term issue ownership," economic issues "probably play to the strengths of the Conservatives."
Beyond that, Prof. Graefe suspects that less affluent and well-educated Ontario voters may be losing patience with a Liberal government that focuses on progressive social issues, "but which is in some ways disconnected from actually dealing concretely with the lived realities of important segments of the Ontario population, where the economic growth has been positive but small for a decade, and people don't really feel a sense that much is changing."
To their credit, Mr. Trudeau's team has made protecting free trade with the United States a top priority. But Finance Minister Bill Morneau's 2018 budget focused more on gender, environmental and Indigenous issues than on economic fundamentals.
Are the Liberals chasing the wrong priorities as the Canadian economy confronts American-generated headwinds?
We'll see. But politicians and political watchers should pay heed to the Ipsos poll, while we wait to learn whether this shift is temporary, or something big.
Quote: (02-24-2018 04:07 PM)Praetor Lupus Wrote:
I'm sure Canadians don't want my pity, but...
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Quote: (03-06-2018 10:52 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:
Quote: (02-24-2018 04:07 PM)Praetor Lupus Wrote:
I'm sure Canadians don't want my pity, but...
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I actually don't see the big deal with Trudeau in India dancing to music. He's not even that bad, dances quite well too (compared to your average Indian, perhaps not your average Bhangra dancer) - someone definitely taught him some moves.
Dance is a big part of Indian culture. You can even see it play out in the US/Canada, with seemingly every other South Asian college kid being part of a Bhangra/Raas/Fusion/Classic/Bollywood dance team.
Dance is everywhere - you can't be a Bollywood actor if you can't dance for shit, tons of religious events invoke dancing (e.g. Garba/Raas), not to mention the massive amount of dancing that happens at weddings. Damn, Indian people dance at cricket games too.
So I can't imagine most of my relatives in India being offended by his dancing. Guys like Paul Joseph Watson don't know what they're on about. The music that's being played is bharaat music, you're supposed to dance on it. Literally when that music plays and nobody is dancing, something's wrong. That's literally how every groom walks into his wedding.
I remember when Bush Jr. went to India and tried playing cricket.
I thought it was all in good fun.
I don't know who the Indians are who genuinely seem upset by Trudeau's behavior, must be the same type of crowd that was upset that Scarlett Johansson was cast in Ghost in the Shell, meanwhile actual Japanese people didn't give a fuck a white girl was cast instead of a Japanese one.
I get he does comes across as try-hard in the West. But I do think most people in India actually appreciate the effort in trying to learn the culture (even if it is just dressing/dancing).
The inviting of Khalistan terrorists was really the big fiasco.
Quote: (03-06-2018 10:52 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:
I actually don't see the big deal with Trudeau in India dancing to music. He's not even that bad, dances quite well too (compared to your average Indian, perhaps not your average Bhangra dancer) - someone definitely taught him some moves.
Quote: (03-07-2018 12:49 AM)Laner Wrote:
It was the 'try hard' tipping point coming to a point. He reached full retard now, no more acts to play and no more cultures to pander to. The dressing up, the dancing, the ignorance for bringing terrorists to India, for having assassins in his cabinet, for boasting about letting 3 million immigrants - 40% of which will be "refugees" - is the real danger here. He is plainly a puppet, and he is not smart enough to even understand this. The teenagers are calling him a "lolcow" and they are right. Now that I see this, I almost feel bad for him.
Quote: (03-07-2018 10:16 AM)Aurini Wrote:
An Indian lady at Church told me that the real reason for this trip was to shore up support from Sikhs in Toronto. Yes, the Prime Minister is spending Canadian money, and bruising our relationship with India, to make sure that a particular demographic in his base will continue to vote Liberal.
Disgusting.
Quote: (03-07-2018 12:08 PM)Laner Wrote:
Quote: (03-07-2018 10:16 AM)Aurini Wrote:
An Indian lady at Church told me that the real reason for this trip was to shore up support from Sikhs in Toronto. Yes, the Prime Minister is spending Canadian money, and bruising our relationship with India, to make sure that a particular demographic in his base will continue to vote Liberal.
Disgusting.
This fact is pretty apparent for all Canadians to see. We have a Sikh as leader of the NDP - the very party that Troolander has been told to pander to. The Indian trip was sabotaged from inside, I am sure of it. How else could his handlers have been so stupid.
Quote: (03-26-2018 04:08 AM)villageindian Wrote:
An update after his recent international visits...
Quote: (03-06-2018 07:19 AM)WeekendCasanova Wrote:
Justine is a limp-wristed Liberal sycophant.
His antics are getting harder, and harder to watch.
His fervent distaste for Canadians (read - white people) is palpable, and keeps getting more and more venomous.
I've never seen such an incompetent head of state. If you've watched his responses, or speeches at the House of Commons, you'll realize just how ridiculous and unqualified he truly is.
And here's the kicker -
Most women in Canada still say "but he's attractive" as their reason for voting.
Yet they're unaware at how truly awful he is, and the destruction he's causing within Canadian culture.