2025 Federal Election - 28 Apr 25

[QV]

For me it's the move from blind love and devotion to the Carbon Tax to suddenly disavowing and disowning it thats got me scratching my head.

Can a party claim to have principals of more substance than populism when they seemingly flip flop of what were corner stone pieces ?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see the CT go the way of the dinosaurs, but it strikes me as pandering that it was that easily discarded by its creators.

But it’s not gone. In fact Carney has stated “big polluters” a.k.a industry will pay higher.

What carney has done is taken easy recognition of why your costs have up out of play. Costs will go up more as industry transfers the increased carbon tax down to the consumer.

 

[QV]

Poilievre said Trudeau has to go - and the LPC punted Trudeau.

Poilievre said axe the tax - and the LPC got rid of the consumer carbon tax.

Poilievre is doing pretty good. What can he accomplish next?

Pretty good for a guy who a bunch here say doesn’t even have a platform.

 

[IKnowNothing]

If the election is put off until October, Carney will (morally) have to seek a seat through a by-election.

Another interesting dynamic re: the timing of the election call - Carney weighing limiting Poilievre's spend vs. neutering his message. Quick call neutralizes the CPC warchest, but some time in office and visible decisons (during a crisis no less) lets him distance himself from JT and makes it harder for PP to successfully campaign against the ghost of Trudeau.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Another interesting dynamic re: the timing of the election call - Carney weighing limiting Poilievre's spend vs. neutering his message. Quick call neutralizes the CPC warchest, but some time in office and visible decisons (during a crisis no less) lets him distance himself from JT and makes it harder for PP to successfully campaign against the ghost of Trudeau.

I tend to think time isn't Carney's friend.

The last thing he needs is the public learning more about him and the skeletons in his closet before an election.

If I was him I would go now, strike while it's hot. He has momentum right now. That can quickly be squandered.

 

[Kilted]

Excellent point, and you have every right to be scratching your head...

On one day you've got the LPC introducing a carbon tax that gets increased every year, despite NOBODY in Canada wanting it or thinking it's a good idea...

Then the next day, the very individuals who pushed the carbon tax so hard & defended it so consistently all of a sudden just eliminate it...

...

I don't trust Carney at all.

He's an unelected Prime Minister of a supposedly democratic country, who isn't even an elected MP.

Nobody voted for him to be PM. Nobody elected him as an MP.

The LPC (ruled by Trudeau as party leader) didn't even allow 2/3 of the LPC membership to cast a vote, so we can't even say he was elected by the LPC membership, either.

He's chosen to stick with mostly the same cabinet as Trudeau. He serves the same masters as Trudeau (it ain't us, none of us had a chance to vote for or against the guy)

While he may make some surface level changes to things & make some big announcements around those changes (like this carbon tax stuff) in the end nothing is going to really change for us economically.

Why would anything change? The guy who's been Trudeau's economic advisor for the last 4 years just replaced Trudeau as our PM...why would we expect much change at all?


...


From what I'm hearing today, it sounds like he won't be calling an election until October...

If the LPC respected Canada's democracy, they would have specified that any candidate to replace Trudeau would have to be an elected MP.

But they didn't, even though you'd think it would be the lowest possible bar to set in terms of respecting our democracy. But they didn't.

And if Carney respected the concept of democracy, he would have called one today. And my understanding so far today is that isn't going to happen...

(Surely he is well aware he didn't get elected to be PM by the country, elected as an MP by a riding, or even elected party leader in an open & fair vote within the party. Calling an election today would have been the only honest course of action he could have taken really, but no...)

...

Bottom line is...

- This isn't how a democracy is supposed to work, and we all know it.

- The carbon tax isn't gone. It's being rebranded and reconfigured, but it won't be gone

Sure, in the short term there may be some reprieve from it on the consumer side. But it's not going away altogether, and we all know that the corporations hit hardest by this tax will pass that cost down to the consumer one way or another.



My 2 cents anyway

We have never elected a Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is appointed by the GG based on whoever the leader of the party who holds the confidence of the house, which isn't necessarily the party with the most seats. There is also no requirement for that Prime Minister to hold a seat in either house.

 

[IKnowNothing]

If I was him I would go now, strike while it's hot. He has momentum right now. That can quickly be squandered.

I would tend to agree, but like I said- an interesting dynamic. A gamble on himself to deliver a few weeks/ months of solid governance, material policy shifts, and a steady tone during the tariff crisis could quickly leave PP as the unserious "boy who cried Trudeau" if they're seeing Carney deliver something different.

But as you said, momentum can easily be squandered, and that's a pretty easy needle to miss threading- with the added risk of governing without a personal mandate.

Hopefully he calls it in the next two weeks

 

[brihard]

Hopefully he calls it in the next two weeks

I’m pretty confident he will. He’s be a fool not to grab the opportunity at what will probably be peak levels of support- exactly what the CPC didn’t have the opportunity to force from last summer onwards. Drop the writ now, before Poilievre really has time to recalibrate his campaign and messaging.

 

[Remius]

I would tend to agree, but like I said- an interesting dynamic. A gamble on himself to deliver a few weeks/ months of solid governance, material policy shifts, and a steady tone during the tariff crisis could quickly leave PP as the unserious "boy who cried Trudeau" if they're seeing Carney deliver something different.

But as you said, momentum can easily be squandered, and that's a pretty easy needle to miss threading- with the added risk of governing without a personal mandate.

Hopefully he calls it in the next two weeks

Pretty sure he will.

Current polls are favourable, limit the CPC spending and messaging, Trump is still doing Trump stuff.

This is the limit and best conditions he will get.

Latest from Mainstreet and liaison. There is another EKOS poll out but it’s will give some people a seizure as it is quite the outlier right now lol, i’ll refrain from posting it.

338Canada | Mainstreet Research federal poll, March 2025

338canada.com

338Canada | Liaison Strategies federal poll, March 2025

338canada.com

 

[brihard]

Pretty sure he will.

Current polls are favourable, limit the CPC spending and messaging, Trump is still doing Trump stuff.

This is the limit and best conditions he will get.

Latest from Mainstreet and liaison. There is another EKOS poll out but it’s will give some people a seizure as it is quite the outlier right now lol, i’ll refrain from posting it.

338Canada | Mainstreet Research federal poll, March 2025

338canada.com

338Canada | Liaison Strategies federal poll, March 2025

338canada.com

Yeah good call. The Ekos one is bananas, it would be farcical if they hadn’t just identified the major trend a week or two ahead of everyone else.

338’s added the Mainstreet, Leger, and Liaison polls to its list. Liaison seems to be very infrequent so I’m ignoring it, but the others continue to show the same trend when comparing within the same polling firm across successive polls.

Canada polls | 338Canada

338canada.com

 

[Halifax Tar]

I would tend to agree, but like I said- an interesting dynamic. A gamble on himself to deliver a few weeks/ months of solid governance, material policy shifts, and a steady tone during the tariff crisis could quickly leave PP as the unserious "boy who cried Trudeau" if they're seeing Carney deliver something different.

But as you said, momentum can easily be squandered, and that's a pretty easy needle to miss threading- with the added risk of governing without a personal mandate.

Hopefully he calls it in the next two weeks

If he is willing to take that gamble he's a bad gambler. He has a tired, controversy ridden, weak minority government and party.

It's only a matter of time before this group losses the winds in its sails.

Time is not a friend of the LPC right now.

 

[Kilted]

Yeah good call. The Ekos one is bananas, it would be farcical if they hadn’t just identified the major trend a week or two ahead of everyone else.

338’s added the Mainstreet, Leger, and Liaison polls to its list. Liaison seems to be very infrequent so I’m ignoring it, but the others continue to show the same trend when comparing within the same polling firm across successive polls.

Canada polls | 338Canada

338canada.com

They have the Liberals leading in Alberta, I'm not sure how accurate it could be.

 

[brihard]

They have the Liberals leading in Alberta, I'm not sure how accurate it could be.

Yeah, and Frank Graves himself made a comment to the effect that that was likely a result of small sample size within that province, and that another survey method they also ran didn’t show the same.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1900668989442764802

 

[MilEME09]

But it’s not gone. In fact Carney has stated “big polluters” a.k.a industry will pay higher.

What carney has done is taken easy recognition of why your costs have up out of play. Costs will go up more as industry transfers the increased carbon tax down to the consumer.

Even if Pierre came to power and got rid of the entire carbon tax today prices won't go down. Industry will find some excuse to keep prices the same. It will end up just being another shell game by hiking using fees or something else to make up the lost revenue. Conservative politicsns lately love to do that, Smith for example just gave AB a tax cut but is also taking a bigger amount of property tax, canceling out that cut.

One giant shell game and no matter who's in power we all lose

 

[Furniture]

Might be that he’s simply shifted from seeing it through a policy lens to seeing it through a politics lens. It’s one thing to advocate a policy as an outsider, from a mathematical standpoint. It’s different once you’re in the hot seat having to pick your battles and be selective about what you choose as a battle, when, how hard you push a given issue, how much political capital it consumes, and what the opportunity cost is. He likely recognizes the political need to discard the policy if he intends to win an election.

Sounds like a lot of rationalizing...

The LPC folks saying they oppose the carbon tax today were the ones 12 months ago defending it, saying PP and the CPC hated the environment...

You can't square that because a new PM was anointed by a watery tart lobbing a scimitar at him...

The LPC have zero credibility on the carbon tax file, and will backpedal as fast as they can if elected again. Just like they did on electoral reform (good call in my opinion), and other promises. If Canadians fall for the LPC shenanigans again, we deserve the economic ruin it will continue to bring to most.

 

[RangerRay]

Many of you are making a mistake thinking the LPC as an institution care about principle or policy. They’re a brokerage party whose only concern is gaining and maintaining power.

The other parties, whether you agree with them or not, have some ideological principle to base their electoral objectives on. The LPC will adopt and just as quickly jettison a policy if it means maintaining power. They may get an idealistic leader, but will usually get rid of them if they become a liability. Trudeau stuck around past his best before date because he managed to get a personality cult going around him.

 

[CBH99]

We have never elected a Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is appointed by the GG based on whoever the leader of the party who holds the confidence of the house, which isn't necessarily the party with the most seats. There is also no requirement for that Prime Minister to hold a seat in either house.

True. Fair enough.

Boy we need to do a real review of our system, how it works, what we want from it, and how we want it to function, when all of this is behind us...

 

[CBH99]

Many of you are making a mistake thinking the LPC as an institution care about principle or policy. They’re a brokerage party whose only concern is gaining and maintaining power.

The other parties, whether you agree with them or not, have some ideological principle to base their electoral objectives on. The LPC will adopt and just as quickly jettison a policy if it means maintaining power. They may get an idealistic leader, but will usually get rid of them if they become a liability. Trudeau stuck around past his best before date because he managed to get a personality cult going around him.

All good points.

But one of the reasons Trudeau stuck around so long was because early in his tenure as party leader, he had some of the party's bylaws changed which made it impossible for the party to replace him.

So yes, he absolutely had (and probably still does) have a personality cult around him.

But he (or more likely his masters/political advisors) did some sneaky things shortly after being elected which effectively protected him from being ousted or replaced unless by his own choosing.


...


I'm pretty far out of my lane here, but wouldn't it make sense if each federal political party had the same bylaws & operating regulations?

Would it matter that much?

 

[Kilted]

True. Fair enough.

Boy we need to do a real review of our system, how it works, what we want from it, and how we want it to function, when all of this is behind us...

It's the same system that the majority of the English speaking world uses. The only thing that upsets me about it is how ignorant the majority of Canadians seem to be about how our government works.

As far as changing anything, our constitution is so hard to change, it's basically written in stone. I wouldn't waste time even thinking about it.

I support the Westminster System. Having a directly elected Head of Government can lead to situations like we have south of the border right now. In our system the PM does at least eventually answer to his party, and can be removed much easier.

 

[Good2Golf]

In our system the PM does at least eventually answer to his party, and can be removed much easier.

That’s not the case with the LPC. Trudeau and his cabal insulated the party leader from members action via party constitutional reform neutering. The leader cannot be removed unless a chain of events happen that result in a leadership endorsement ballot at, or prior to a national convention, which would only be triggered after a loss of government confidence in a national general election (hence why the Trudeau-Singh dance lasted so long…)

https://www.liberal.ca/legacy-uploads/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/constitution-en.pdf

 

[Remius]

That’s not the case with the LPC. Trudeau and his cabal insulated the party leader from members action via party constitutional reform neutering. The leader cannot be removed unless a chain of events happen that result in a leadership endorsement ballot at, or prior to a national convention, which would only be triggered after a loss of government confidence in a national general election (hence why the Trudeau-Singh dance lasted so long…)

https://www.liberal.ca/legacy-uploads/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/constitution-en.pdf

And yet they still managed to get him to step down.

MPs can just decide to turn on their leaders if they really wanted to without needing any party mechanism.

The system allows for it absent any party mechanisms (party mechanisms being their own thing).