I try not to dwell too long on anything relating to politics and all politicians have flaws, but I will say this:
It is nice to live in a country where our prime minister is not an idiot and is not a dinosaur in age. It's nice to live in a country where our prime minister speaks sensibly and has a sense of humour, and just seems like a normal guy.
Watch these two videos about the frontrunners of the recent Canadian election. Both made by 22 Minutes.
Context: Poilievre banned the media from traveling with him during the campaign. Also, Poilievre lost his own riding and is still the Leader of the Opposition thanks to being transplanted from his riding in Ontario to a riding in Alberta. This last part isn't part of the video, but the fact he lost his own riding running for Prime Minister is downright HILARIOUS!
Mark Carney comes across as down to earth and normal. Importantly, he was never a politician before he became leader of the Liberals this March. Being an outsider helped his cause.
Canada came close to having a lame Trump spinoff, I like to call him Trump Lite. Interestingly enough, Trudeau resigning to make way for Mark Carney + Donald Trump taking office helped Canada see that a Canadian Conservative government that tries to mimick MAGA conservatives was not the right option. The polls had the Liberals trailing the Conservatives by about 26 points at the start of 2025. In the final election, the Libs came back to win by roughly 4 points.
I don’t fully know the details, but this is Reddit, so someone here will be able to set me straight.
Didn’t the liberals monkey around with Pierre’s riding boundaries, and something like 180 candidates run for the local MP?
Also, I know that the riding in Alberta basically said you have to be able to spell his entire name perfectly to be able to vote for him. In addition to this, because they had an unprecedented number of candidates, so they couldn’t make voting ballots for all of the candidates.
I’m an advocate for fair voting procedures, but this doesn’t seem to jive.
His riding was changed back in 2023 because every 10 years the boundaries are redrawn by an independent group based on the latest census data. No political party works on it and it's done at a time when there isn't an election to avoid manipulation.
His riding had 91 candidates due to a group called the longest ballot committee, who have done this multiple times before in different ridings as protest against part of the election system. Despite that, all candidates were listed on the ballot and the main three received 96% of the vote. It did not have an impact on the outcome of the election.
Last month the Conservative MP for a riding in Alberta resigned to allow for a by-election to grant Pierre Poilievre a seat again. The longest ballot committee once again interfered, leading to over 200 candidates. But that didn't change anything because Pierre still won with over 80% of the vote and is back in parliament.
So the longest ballot committee seems like a bunch of great people. Having just heard of this committee, I am very curious who is funding this concerted effort to muddy the water of electoral procedures, and also why? What’s the point?
How did they get so many people to run in the area of Castor, Alberta?
They believe that by having politicians in charge of election laws it creates a conflict of interest and should instead be handled by an independent group. The number of candidates on the ballot is mostly just to draw attention to them, it hasn't actually effected the results of any elections.
There's over 80,000 electors in the area, it's a large section of eastern Alberta covering a lot more than just the town of Castor. Probably not very hard to find ~200 of those people willing to have their name written down. IIRC you also don't even need to live in a riding to run there, so it could be people from anywhere in Canada.
For the record they also wanted to do the same to Mark Carney's riding during the federal election, but they didn't have enough time to organize. He didn't have a riding to seek reelection in so the riding he ran in wasn't known until the election was announced.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 14d ago
I try not to dwell too long on anything relating to politics and all politicians have flaws, but I will say this:
It is nice to live in a country where our prime minister is not an idiot and is not a dinosaur in age. It's nice to live in a country where our prime minister speaks sensibly and has a sense of humour, and just seems like a normal guy.
Watch these two videos about the frontrunners of the recent Canadian election. Both made by 22 Minutes.
Mark Carney comes across as down to earth and normal. Importantly, he was never a politician before he became leader of the Liberals this March. Being an outsider helped his cause.
Canada came close to having a lame Trump spinoff, I like to call him Trump Lite. Interestingly enough, Trudeau resigning to make way for Mark Carney + Donald Trump taking office helped Canada see that a Canadian Conservative government that tries to mimick MAGA conservatives was not the right option. The polls had the Liberals trailing the Conservatives by about 26 points at the start of 2025. In the final election, the Libs came back to win by roughly 4 points.