Fair point, but it also frustrates me that it’s going back to the old framing of a vote for the NDP is a vote for the Tories, because for some reason Canadians think we have a US-style two party system. That the media perpetuates this just feels overtly partisan in my mind.
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When anyone asks, I tell them that Canada has some deep race + minority problems that it deals with by pretending it’s all good.
But I honestly don’t know what to say about Trudeau at this point. This is so bad that even though he does deliver a non-garbage apology for this, I’m just not ever going to be okay with this being part of his pattern of behaviour. Thanks for apologizing, but please leave now?
It will probably break well for the NDP, in that polling from this going to NDP will result in some ABC tactical pickups. But that also likely means a CPC minority unless Singh props Trudeau up with a coalition. Which is also terrible. But better than Scheer? I guess?
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I mean, it’s better in the sense that we continue to tread water, not falling completely into a fascist impulse to declare all refugees fake and all abortions illegal, which are legitimate positives.
But the Liberals are deeply entrenched neo-liberals who literally make up the fabric of the Canadian ruling class. Unless something major happens, like Singh is actually the best campaigner of all time or Scheer implodes or something, I can’t see anything approaching a decent government for years.
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I tried to sum up my thoughts on this shit in one tweet.
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The joy that I have gotten from this has waned as it’s continued being talked about. It hit the lowest when I saw the letters to the editor in the paper my parents read, where only one take on the subject was written by someone who had self-identified as having brown skin, and most brushing off the issue (my favourite being the one that asked “Should every white actor who has ever played or sung Othello express abject apologies to the world’s black population?”).
So, for as tired as I and (I assume) everyone else is on the topic, as a brown dude I want to give my take.
To get this out of the way: it was a racist thing to do. This is not what I wanted to talk about, so I’ll leave it at that.
My main point is that I don’t think it’s something that disqualifies him from being PM or the Liberal leader, but I do think it’s indicative of where he’s coming from, which (for me) disqualifies him from being someone I’d want to vote for. It’s less the fact that he had done brown/blackface, and more the idea that, at 30, he had such a blasé attitude towards doing it. It reeks of a person growing up in a particular set of circumstances where they never have to think about race beyond “these people are different than I am,” and “racism is bad” shown through white saviour stories where the racists are using slurs and committing hate crimes. And while, again, I don’t think it’s disqualifying, it’s indicative of someone who benefits from the status quo, and makes me believe that they’re doing what they’re doing to appeal to groups, rather than doing so out of a personal stake or driving belief.
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Sort of off-topic, but who the fuck casts a white Othello?
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Just once, I want a person on the CBC tell a politician to get fucked. Just once, that’s all I need.
Y’know what, I’d also take having Jagmeet tell a racist to get fucked. Or any of the leaders even. Honestly, it would do wonders for my stress.
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The first French language debate happened, which I believe is the first time the other candidates got to face the PM on stage:
My French is awful, so I’m relying on secondary sources for this one, but wow does it sound like Scheer can’t run away from his party’s platform fast enough. Not admitting his anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice leanings, attacking the Liberals for environmental hypocrisy while offering nihilism as an alternative, the dude just sucks.
Not that the other candidates were all that great. The new consensus of SNC Lavalin being too big to fail sucks, and the lack of full condemnation of Bill 21 (Singh excepted) all spoke to politicians too concerned with maintaining the status quo to craft a just society.
18 days to go. Can we just get this over with?
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The second English language debate was last night (the first of two organized by the Leaders’ Debates Comission), and (I think) the first to give the PPC a podium:
Buckle up, because here’s where the takes start
There was a lot of horseshit thrown around, but honestly I’m glad I was able to watch most of it. I haven’t watched the French language one yet, but it was extremely funny how (from what I saw) nobody was approaching Singh with a ten-foot pole, similarly with May. It could be attributed to the de facto two-party system, but I’d be willing to wager it has as much to do with no-one wanting to seem racist or sexist. It made them both seem much stronger.
The thing that frustrates me with all this re:Singh is how severely it’s showing the homogeneity of the media. The debate last night was the first time I heard Singh say he was opposed to Bill 21, but nothing more. Every other time I’ve heard him talk about it he brings up his appearance and how he’s “against discrimination,” but never actually says anything about the particular thing the is being asked. While a masterful move in a media environment where you’re the only person of colour, it’s extremely frustrating when (a) you probably could push harder and not be racist, and (b) you could just get another person of colour to push him on it and sidestep the whole racism thing entirely. Like, I get that he’s taking that position for québécois votes, but come on.
Singh not splitting hairs and telling Bernier directly that he didn’t deserve a platform was… sobering (?) in a way I was not expecting. Similar to when MP Romeo Saganash used the fuck word in the HoC, saying Trudeau “doesn’t give a fuck” about the rights of indigenous peoples (I’ll put the full quote below because it’s excellent).
Full quote
Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister insists that this pipeline expansion will be done no matter what and his minister adds that Canada will not be able to accommodate all indigenous concerns, it means they have decided to willfully violate their constitutional duties and obligations. It sounds like a most important relationship, does it not?
Why does the Prime Minister not just say the truth and tell indigenous peoples that he does not give a fuck about their rights?
(obtained from http://openparliament.ca/)
Lastly, the Bloc leader had some really good lines and was pretty charming, but lost me with his vehement defense of Bill 21.
I can’t take much more, I can’t wait to vote next weekend.
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Here are two wrap-ups for those who don’t have the two hours to watch the whole thing. Though I believe that listening to the whole thing is vital, I don’t want to hear a single piece of bigotted slobber out of the mouths of Scheer or Bernier and I’ve already decided who I am voting for in my riding*
*which will most likely end up being a CPC riding because fuck rich white people, but the NDP have the best shot of beating them and hopefully enough of those rich people show their entire bigotted asses and split the bigot vote with PPC ahaha don’t you love being in a post-FPTP world
Which reminds me to mention:
Advance polling starts Friday and ends on Monday. You can also vote at any Elections Canada office at any time before the 15th.
https://www.elections.ca/content2.aspx?section=vote&document=index&lang=e
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i really liked the Sandy and Nora podcast reacting to the debates: https://sandyandnora.com/episode-77-debate-night-and-the-fall-of-canadas-old-order/
overall, it’s a great leftist podcast from two experienced activists who are able to have nuanced disagreements on tactics without needing to debate basic issues.
at my university, the liberals have had a booth set up. it’s heartening to see that almost every time i walk past there is some leftie giving them a hard time for campaigning for a party which went back on its promises for electoral reform, is fighting a court order to compensate first nations children who had been forcibly removed from their families, and which has a leader who has appeared in blackface too many times to remember.
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Hey, fuck FPTP. My dad, who has been the most willing to join me in shitting on the Liberals, just voted red on the hope that the Tories wouldn’t win our riding, and I feel like I made him feel bad by pressing on the subject.
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This election brings my cognitive dissonance with participation in civic life to all new highs. I can handle the ordinary cynicism regarding available candidates. I can keep from breaking down at how the quasi-dynastic mindset Canadians have about voting leads to a totally unnecessary two-party dynamic.
What breaks me is how I find myself hoping the PPC chips support off of the CPC despite the fact that the PPC explicitly wants to revoke my rights. I messaged my local PPC candidate on that, and her response showed a grade-school level understanding of issues. Not only does she write me off as ‘identity politics’, but she complains that she herself is the victim of hate speech because someone told her to go to hell, and the PPC is having its freedom of speech attacked because Singh didn’t feel Bernier belonged at the debate.
There was a time where the idea of seeing the right split again brought a smile to my face, but I’m hoping to see PPC wiped off the face of the nation through starvation of public support.
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It’s Election Day!
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It’s looking like this will he one of the closest elections in years. Get out there and vote people!
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I’m about 2 months away from being able to apply for citizenship. Following all of this knowing that I’m not able to vote, especially in what’s projected to be a close election, has been extremely anxiety-inducing. Please vote if you can!
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Shout out to anyone who, like me, is a big ball of anxiety today over the outcome of this election.
Hugs all around, if you want them.
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Hey, never mind!
Good job NDP. We’ll see how this turns out but I’m not too disappointed by the NDP’s campaign.
Here’s hoping Canada’s dumbest racists show up and vote PPC enough to take a bite out of Scheer’s lunch but not enough to win a seat?
That’s a sentiment I can get behind. No matter how this plays out, it’s clear to me that the NDP rebuilding efforts are starting to work out.
Still, hugs all around, I’ll be refreshing my browser lots hoping for a not terrible outcome.
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I am, at least locally. I’ve driven over 120km of highways in my district and there is not a single NDP sign up anywhere. Even the Green Party managed that much. There’s also a disturbing number of Conservative signs up considering this is a longtime Liberal district. Not that sign volume means anything. I was in Halifax during the 2015 election and the lawns were a sea of orange signs but the seats ended up red.
