2w ago

I know nearly nothing about Canadian politics. Are liberals really better than conservatives?

It's great that Pierre lost and he probably lost to someone better, but were there better candidates for the common people on the ballot? How are liberals as a whole for Canada? Would another party have been better - greens for example?

I've seen a community about better vote counting system, so it seems Canada is still a first past the post country?

38 comments

Obviously it depends on what you consider "better". Yes we're first past the post, and yes it sucks. The only party who wants to try to change it is the NDP. We'll see if they get a chance to.
The leader of the Liberals, Mark Carney and the new Prime Minister of Canada, has been described as "wicked smart". He has a PhD in economics from Oxford. He led the Bank of Canada through the 2008 financial crisis, a crisis in which Canada fared better than almost all the rest of the world, then he ran the Bank of England (first non-UK person to ever do so I believe) during Brexit, and that probably was also not as catastrophic as it could/should have been for the UK economy. He is an economist and central banker, not a career politician per se. This appears to have appealed to Canadians. He said all the right things, in my view, now we get to see if he can deliver on any of them, especially being limited to another minority government as it looks like at the moment.
Liberals are supposedly centrist, and although the previous government under Trudeau leaned left, and were pulled further left by the fact that they were stuck in an NDP-propped minority, that was the previous government. However under the new leader Mark Carney, most people agree he swings more to the right, although they're still more centrist than the Conservatives, and it still looks like they will probably be propped up by the NDP in a very slim minority.
The Conservatives (formerly Progressive Conservatives, who dropped the Progressive part when they merged with a far-right party called the Reform party) that have a big tent they've continued stretching further and further right over the decades, to bring in some very undesirable people and attitudes, including most recently the antivax convoy protest supporters and the "Maple MAGA" people who want us to become the 51st state. They now also seem to have consumed the People's Party (another far-right splinter group).
I'm biased, but yes I think the Liberals are better than the Conservatives. Canadian political views have been twisted by relentless shifting of the overton window so it's really hard to tell where the political "center" actually is anymore. If you consider what the center was 20-30 years ago, I think the today's NDP (considered both then and now a far-left, working class party) is now pretty close to that.
The Greens are a pretty dysfunctional party kept afloat by a few locally popular, genuine, idealistic candidates with strong integrity, only one of whom appears to have survived the strategic voting purge this election. I don't consider them particularly relevant in Canadian politics at this point. Obviously, they are focused on environmental goals and climate change, which are issues I support although not to the exclusion and detriment of all else. Their proposed plans for actually addressing it tend to be, in my estimation, relatively incoherent, ranging from weak to naive to implausible.
- Thank you. That's a good overview.
  I did hear that Trudeau became unliked and had to step down. Was it just because he was around too long?
  
  I agree with the other two commenters. Also in my opinion, Trudeau had some good policy but terrible PR around it. The "carbon tax" should never had been called a tax from the beginning...most people got more money back, but everyone thought they were paying the tax. And Trudeau grew up in politics on the public stage. He took advantage of his privelige at times and wasn't always careful with the optics of his actions. Too many opportunities for his opposition to criticize him and turn public favour against him.
  
  It was mostly just bad timing, the inflation and cost of living issues got blamed on him despite it being a worldwide issue. He was an easy scapegoat, and the Conservatives just attacked him constantly until he resigned. It was supposed to help them win, but as you can see from the results, it didn't end up working out for them.
  
  When Trudeau came in, it was after a few governments led by Stephen Haper and the conservatives. It was a bleak time for Canada. When Justin Trudeau came, he was a huge ray of hope, plus he carries the Trudeau name. He was gong to be a progressive prime minister and leader of the Liberal party and promised a lot of changes that would make the middle class life so much easier.
  But many problems started to grow in Canada and blew out of porportion. Like the housing crisis, or well established alomost monopolistic companies gouging Canadians on essential services and goods like telecom and groceries. This became worst after the pandemic. And people felt Trudeau's Liberals did too little, too late.
  The middle class suffered a lot while richer Canadians and Canadian corporations thrived by keeping their gouging practices.
  
  There was also a dose of homophobia regarding Trudeau that has to be acknowledged. He's a self described feminist, he is LGBT positive and has shown up for all the Pride parades and even Canada's Drag Race, and has been photographed with drag queens, etc etc. He has practiced yoga. He also comes off as sort of foolish at times. So the nastier conservative faction who hate any sense of a man being perceived as effeminate call him homophobic slurs and that's probably a LOT of the reason many of them didn't like him. He's also super good looking, and I think that makes them resentful.
- Their proposed plans for actually addressing it tend to be, in my estimation, relatively incoherent, ranging from weak to naive to implausible.
  This was the first part I felt strongly that I disagreed with. Did you read the platforms the parties prepared? Liberals was lackluster with few concrete numbers or stats. I couldn't even find a solid platform on the NDPs website, just links to their various proposed initiatives, though at least they provided a costed estimate for their plans, unlike the other two main ones. The conservative 'platform' was a ridiculous mix of 'blank the blank' slogans and attacks against the liberals with very very few ideas and even fewer concrete steps for how to achieve it.
  The green platform was the only one I read that had concrete numbers (ie proposed wealth tax of X% for Xmillion, y% for Ymillion, etc) and explained their goals without restorting to attack ads. I get its probably not something 90% of voters look at, but fuck people, come on. Their posted platform should be the thing they are held to and asked about, and the less people look at them, the easier it is for parties to avoid posting them or posting bland, non-concrete things they can then weasel out of later.

When Liberals rob everyday people to give to the rich, they do it while smiling at you. When Conservatives rob everyday people to give to the tich, they do it while simultaneously robbing you of rights and yelling slurs at you.
So yes, Liberals are better. It doesn't mean they're the best, or even good, but they are certainly less bad.
- Since the best is pretty much never an available option when it comes to voting or politics in general, "less bad" is almost always a worthwhile choice.
  (and, really can you get any group of people to ever agree on a single "best" anyway)
  
  There surely is better than Liberals...
- That's what I thought. Thanks.

Regardless which party people would normally support, I think that Mark Carney is generally seen as the right person in the right place and time for dealing with Trump.

Canada is still first past the post.
"Better" depends on what you're talking about.
They promised similar things: tax cuts, more housing. IMO it's fair to say that the Liberals said more about their policies (although I only looked at the Conservative housing platform).
They're both pretty corporate. I don't think either of them will shrink the growing disparity between rich and poor, or do anything to mitigate climate change.
- but were there better candidates for the common people on the ballot? How are liberals as a whole for Canada?
  From your response, I gather that it seems like the answer would be "not really but at least they aren't pro Trump". Unfortunately, quite common around the world.
  
  Yeah. They're both establishment/status quo parties, that aren't going to address root causes of problems. The Liberals may make minor improvements, but it's still the path to oligarchy and climate crisis.
  The Liberals are definitely better than the Conservatives, but only by degrees.
- or do anything to mitigate climate change.
  In Carney's book he repeatedly makes that case that climate change is a threat that needs to be prioritized in government action as well as corporate action (using a regulatory framework that pushes stubborn companies in a more sustainably green direction)
  Meanwhile the last 2 CPC policy conventions have voted agasint even acknowledging the reality of climate change.
  Those are not the same.
  
  The key is action. As a society, we made the "case that climate change is a threat that needs to be prioritized in government action" since at least the Kyoto protocol, which was almost 30 years ago. Since then, we've repeatedly missed our own targets, and failed to significantly reduce our emissions.
  I really like that Carney admits climate change is a thing, but it isn't gonna matter to my kids. His organizations need to do something about it. From what I've read, the Glasgow Alliance was ineffectual at best, and a marketing exercise at worst.
  The proof will be in Carney's actions over the next few months. I hope he's able to put his words into action, but I'm not holding my breath.

Liberals and Conservatives are both corporate whores, the libs just claim to not be as enthusiastic about the whoring. One of the first things Carney did was to turn his back on fighting global warming/climate change. He is painted as the best person to fight tRump and the tariff crap, but all that shit is temporary. Extinction is forever, and global warming is the extinction level event of our lifetime.
But the banks and corporations are happy with him so I guess that is all that matters.

Yes. but they are more similar then different. Both parties suck up to private corporations. The conservatives suck much more though. So liberals are the lesser of two evils. The conservatives are significantly worse if you are a person of colour, Indigenous, a woman, or middle class, working class, or poor. Or a student, a healthcare worker, an education worker.

If you are interested in meaningful change to improve the quality of your grandchildren's entire lives... no, exactly the same.

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