saxitoxin wrote:My conservative canadian cohorts in Alberta really really don't like the Carney guy.
As goes Alberta, goes ... Alberta.
I'm calling the election for Carney. Pierre had it in the bag until Trudeau resigned and Trump started running his mouth about Canada. Those two things are enough to keep the Liberals in power for another five years, IMO.
It does seem that way, but there's still eight days left and the Liberal lead in the polls has been dwindling. The Conservatives have a legendary ground game, though. They can usually turn out more voters, percentage-wise, than their support would indicate.
I think this could be a nail-biter.
mookiemcgee wrote:My conservative canadian cohorts in Alberta really really don't like the Carney guy. Given the massive changes in the political winds over the last 4 months it's probably hard to judge politians based on positions they have held for 20+ years though... basically all politicians are having to change their plans/beliefs with the US abdicating it's role as friend and leader of western alliances.
Yeah, it's been a dramatic shift.
I actually do like Carney, as an individual. I won't vote Liberal, though. After 10 years of spending money like drunken sailors, the Liberals have run out of runway, fiscally speaking. Regardless of who wins the election, they'll be treading water just to pay the interest on the debt. It will be a dismal time. Trudeau squandered the boom years and could have done so many good things. Instead, he catapulted money in so many stupid ways, I can't count them all. I think the Liberals deserve to be punished with a humiliating defeat, although with the developments in the last few months they won't get it. I can still hope for a marginal defeat for them. The polls are just close enough that a narrow Conservative victory is still possible.
I'm a card-carrying Green Party member and my default position would be to vote Green, but the last few years in Canadian Green politics have just been a catastrophic shitshow, and I'm not sure I can in good conscience vote for my own party.
Hoping for a Liberal defeat, it would seem simple to just vote Conservative, but small-c conservatives in general, and Big-C Conservatives in particular, turn my stomach. I have considered voting for them this time, though.
What makes it interesting is that I live in a riding where they just might have a chance. I'm in Niagara South, which until recently was Niagara Centre and solidly left-wing (Liberal federally and NDP provincially). Under the new boundaries, however, the solidly conservative Town of Fort Erie has moved from Niagara Falls riding to the new Niagara South, which actually gives the Conservatives a fighting chance here. Most ridings are won by blowouts and one person's vote means nothing, but I may actually be in that rare time and place where it's a recount-level riding and voting for the assholes may make a difference.
So you see my conundrum.