Hilarious… so the req is to have someone in the house (or 4% vote share nationally), and run candidates in most ridings. They’re getting cut because the elections folks think they are in violation of the latter there.
While still allowing the Bloc to participate. A party that’s never run a candidate outside of Quebec. A party where every second of time they’re givin on a national stage, only speaks to one province’s interests, in a ‘national’ debate. Who’s been in pretty well every national debate for decades now.
I certainly agree that it’s very questionable to have an explicitly regional party in the federal debates, but for clarity’s sake, the criteria are 2/3 of the following:
having at least one sitting MP who’s been elected as a member of that party
having at least four per cent national support in opinion polls
running candidates in at least 90 per cent of all ridings
After pulling the candidates, the Green Party only meets one of these criteria (the first).
Those requirements are designed to allow Quebec’s provincial party a seat at the table, while impeding access for parties such as the Greens and Peoples. They’re basically an example of institutional discrimination that came in fairly recently, with a pretty explicit target/goal.
I have much less interest in sitting through a debate between 4 people, when 1/4 of the time will be dedicated to a guy talking about one province’s interests, and where that party doesn’t even run outside of that province. Guess I’ll just wait for my media bubbles to give me the highlights and hope that it’s not too biased.
I have much less interest in sitting through a debate between 4 people, when 1/4 of the time will be dedicated to a guy talking about one province’s interests, and where that party doesn’t even run outside of that province.
I know you might not interest in listening, but at the time the writ was drawn up, he had 33 seats, which was over 10% of the total. If a party can muster 10% of the seats, they almost certainly should be included in the debate!
That’s nice, but I don’t really care. They aren’t a national party, nor are they interested in being a “Canadian” national party. Giving them a platform to debate on the national level is in part why they’re able to maintain their seat count – it’s the same sort of pageantry that drives dictators to covet meetings with democratic leaders, to trick people into thinking “Oh, they’re basically the same”, when they’re very much not.
The peoples party, and the greens, even if they’re super fringe in nature, have more merit for being included in the debates in my view. I’d watch (well, listen to) those debates. I won’t bother watching the bloc get up and do its stupid bloc crap. There’s talk in the media again about western alienation / succession, and Quebec / Canada’s approach to Quebec compared to its handling of Western interests is a big part of what fuels that sort of resentment. The bloc is basically Quebec just giving the entire country a giant middle finger, which is a wonderful way to show support for the country as a whole…
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Greens. I voted for Mike Morrice twice and would have voted Aislinn Clancy if I hadn’t already moved. I would love to see the Greens on the debate stage, but they knew the rules and chose to fall out of line with them.
I’m also not sure why you think if a party isn’t national, that they don’t count. At the time the election was called, the BQ represented 10% of Canadians. Do you think those voices shouldn’t count? Do you think nationalism and patriotism should be a prereq to get into the debate? I’m really trying to figure out where your argument lands because it sounds like you are against dictators, but also want to dictate specifically who can and can’t be on the debate stage which would be the actions of a …
Yawn. I think national parties should be highlighted on the national stage: I don’t think the metrics provided by the TV consortium for who gets to participate properly captures what a national party is. I think rules/requirements that specifically carve out a ‘system’ that enables one niche interest from one part of the country, to masquerade as a ‘national’ party, is disingenuous and insulting to everyone outside of that niche – especially as the ‘rules’ were clearly structured to preference/enable the blocs participation. That % threshold of the voting public is a lot easier for a separatist movement to hit in Quebec, than it is in the West due to population density – its basically tailor made for them, and provides a ‘structure’ to block other regions doing the same / getting the same preferential treatment for their ‘niche’ interest parties. At least the PPC and GPC are interested in the country as a national body, and in governing/contributing to the national interests.
They should just change the format. Do an hour long unedited interview with each candidate, with pre defined topics / identical questions, to allow leaders to get their talking points out in a more ‘user friendly’ conversational way. Allow as many leaders as they want to sit for an interview, post them all on third party news sites to allow them to generate some ad revenue for providing the interview services/hosting (with requirements to host all qualifying candidates to mitigate news agency bias). Let voters watch whichever clips they want. Hell, have local news agencies do similar with the local candidates, so that you can see your person speak on topics of import, and how they would represent your region on those fronts.
They all just try to say their sound bites anyway. And few voters are realistically going to suddenly support a different party based on a one night zinger.
It’s not because you don’t like the party that it should not get visibility. You can’t be for democracy and against giving visibility to a party that represent a non negligeable percentage of the population. If that party is gaining such popularity, maybe there is an underlying issue that drive it, like why one province did not get to sign the constitution 🫣
Canada’s a young enough country that there were still a bunch of bitter Quebecois who remembered losing against the British, and they had such giant rods up their arses that they decided to take it out on the rest of Canada by not signing a piece of paper, and having a militant separatist group go bombing English speaking people (and then whining about martial law when the govt took action to stop it). And to try and appease the pampered province, Ontario continues to compete in National “French Language” debates where each politician spends a TON of time trying to convince Quebec they’d give the best sloppy bj with tons of financial perks as lube. Financial lube that they take from Provinces in the West, who they ignore. Quebec then tells them all to get fucked and votes for the Bloc anyhow. And while telling everyone to get f’d, they still get more benefits than any other province. They’re a spoiled child in this sense.
I wonder why there’s often talk of Western alienation, hand in hand, with Quebec separatist movements. Like the last time the Bloc had a ‘real’ referendum, there were movements in BC/Alberta half-jokingly asking if we could vote them out.
Like here’s an Idea, we’re having a french language debate – that’s totally fine and Canadian. But that shouldn’t require it to be a whole debate focused almost entirely on Quebec and Quebecs local issues. The Bloc guy, despite his attestations, is not some king representing “Quebec”: they deserve to have a broader conversation, and Canada ought to treat the language’s reach as “National”, not “Just this one niche pocket”. Ask questions about how the politicians will help British Columbia during that French language debate. Ask another about Alberta. How will Canadians voting for the Bloc, benefit people back West? Make that Bloc guy stand there for 10-15 minutes explaining to voters that a vote for him, is a vote to tell every other Canadian to get fucked, because he has no real plan or care for Canada as a country. And then when he’s in power, treat ridings that go bloc like they treat most minority party ridings out west – shift funding to the provinces that actually support the federation. Or at the very least, let them keep their tax revenue, instead of sending it to Quebec as “equalization payments”.
The current format of those debates is divisive, and elevates the bloc more than it deserves.
Those requirements are designed to allow Quebec’s provincial party a seat at the table
Certainly, and I’ve already expressed how I feel about that. But I get it - they’re able to leverage the electoral system to their advantage, and have in fact been the Official Opposition at times.
Hilarious… so the req is to have someone in the house (or 4% vote share nationally), and run candidates in most ridings. They’re getting cut because the elections folks think they are in violation of the latter there.
While still allowing the Bloc to participate. A party that’s never run a candidate outside of Quebec. A party where every second of time they’re givin on a national stage, only speaks to one province’s interests, in a ‘national’ debate. Who’s been in pretty well every national debate for decades now.
I certainly agree that it’s very questionable to have an explicitly regional party in the federal debates, but for clarity’s sake, the criteria are 2/3 of the following:
having at least one sitting MP who’s been elected as a member of that party
having at least four per cent national support in opinion polls
running candidates in at least 90 per cent of all ridings
After pulling the candidates, the Green Party only meets one of these criteria (the first).
Those requirements are designed to allow Quebec’s provincial party a seat at the table, while impeding access for parties such as the Greens and Peoples. They’re basically an example of institutional discrimination that came in fairly recently, with a pretty explicit target/goal.
I have much less interest in sitting through a debate between 4 people, when 1/4 of the time will be dedicated to a guy talking about one province’s interests, and where that party doesn’t even run outside of that province. Guess I’ll just wait for my media bubbles to give me the highlights and hope that it’s not too biased.
I know you might not interest in listening, but at the time the writ was drawn up, he had 33 seats, which was over 10% of the total. If a party can muster 10% of the seats, they almost certainly should be included in the debate!
That’s nice, but I don’t really care. They aren’t a national party, nor are they interested in being a “Canadian” national party. Giving them a platform to debate on the national level is in part why they’re able to maintain their seat count – it’s the same sort of pageantry that drives dictators to covet meetings with democratic leaders, to trick people into thinking “Oh, they’re basically the same”, when they’re very much not.
The peoples party, and the greens, even if they’re super fringe in nature, have more merit for being included in the debates in my view. I’d watch (well, listen to) those debates. I won’t bother watching the bloc get up and do its stupid bloc crap. There’s talk in the media again about western alienation / succession, and Quebec / Canada’s approach to Quebec compared to its handling of Western interests is a big part of what fuels that sort of resentment. The bloc is basically Quebec just giving the entire country a giant middle finger, which is a wonderful way to show support for the country as a whole…
Don’t get me wrong, I love the Greens. I voted for Mike Morrice twice and would have voted Aislinn Clancy if I hadn’t already moved. I would love to see the Greens on the debate stage, but they knew the rules and chose to fall out of line with them.
I’m also not sure why you think if a party isn’t national, that they don’t count. At the time the election was called, the BQ represented 10% of Canadians. Do you think those voices shouldn’t count? Do you think nationalism and patriotism should be a prereq to get into the debate? I’m really trying to figure out where your argument lands because it sounds like you are against dictators, but also want to dictate specifically who can and can’t be on the debate stage which would be the actions of a …
Yawn. I think national parties should be highlighted on the national stage: I don’t think the metrics provided by the TV consortium for who gets to participate properly captures what a national party is. I think rules/requirements that specifically carve out a ‘system’ that enables one niche interest from one part of the country, to masquerade as a ‘national’ party, is disingenuous and insulting to everyone outside of that niche – especially as the ‘rules’ were clearly structured to preference/enable the blocs participation. That % threshold of the voting public is a lot easier for a separatist movement to hit in Quebec, than it is in the West due to population density – its basically tailor made for them, and provides a ‘structure’ to block other regions doing the same / getting the same preferential treatment for their ‘niche’ interest parties. At least the PPC and GPC are interested in the country as a national body, and in governing/contributing to the national interests.
They should just change the format. Do an hour long unedited interview with each candidate, with pre defined topics / identical questions, to allow leaders to get their talking points out in a more ‘user friendly’ conversational way. Allow as many leaders as they want to sit for an interview, post them all on third party news sites to allow them to generate some ad revenue for providing the interview services/hosting (with requirements to host all qualifying candidates to mitigate news agency bias). Let voters watch whichever clips they want. Hell, have local news agencies do similar with the local candidates, so that you can see your person speak on topics of import, and how they would represent your region on those fronts.
They all just try to say their sound bites anyway. And few voters are realistically going to suddenly support a different party based on a one night zinger.
It’s not because you don’t like the party that it should not get visibility. You can’t be for democracy and against giving visibility to a party that represent a non negligeable percentage of the population. If that party is gaining such popularity, maybe there is an underlying issue that drive it, like why one province did not get to sign the constitution 🫣
Canada’s a young enough country that there were still a bunch of bitter Quebecois who remembered losing against the British, and they had such giant rods up their arses that they decided to take it out on the rest of Canada by not signing a piece of paper, and having a militant separatist group go bombing English speaking people (and then whining about martial law when the govt took action to stop it). And to try and appease the pampered province, Ontario continues to compete in National “French Language” debates where each politician spends a TON of time trying to convince Quebec they’d give the best sloppy bj with tons of financial perks as lube. Financial lube that they take from Provinces in the West, who they ignore. Quebec then tells them all to get fucked and votes for the Bloc anyhow. And while telling everyone to get f’d, they still get more benefits than any other province. They’re a spoiled child in this sense.
I wonder why there’s often talk of Western alienation, hand in hand, with Quebec separatist movements. Like the last time the Bloc had a ‘real’ referendum, there were movements in BC/Alberta half-jokingly asking if we could vote them out.
Like here’s an Idea, we’re having a french language debate – that’s totally fine and Canadian. But that shouldn’t require it to be a whole debate focused almost entirely on Quebec and Quebecs local issues. The Bloc guy, despite his attestations, is not some king representing “Quebec”: they deserve to have a broader conversation, and Canada ought to treat the language’s reach as “National”, not “Just this one niche pocket”. Ask questions about how the politicians will help British Columbia during that French language debate. Ask another about Alberta. How will Canadians voting for the Bloc, benefit people back West? Make that Bloc guy stand there for 10-15 minutes explaining to voters that a vote for him, is a vote to tell every other Canadian to get fucked, because he has no real plan or care for Canada as a country. And then when he’s in power, treat ridings that go bloc like they treat most minority party ridings out west – shift funding to the provinces that actually support the federation. Or at the very least, let them keep their tax revenue, instead of sending it to Quebec as “equalization payments”.
The current format of those debates is divisive, and elevates the bloc more than it deserves.
Certainly, and I’ve already expressed how I feel about that. But I get it - they’re able to leverage the electoral system to their advantage, and have in fact been the Official Opposition at times.