The Liberals won, the Conservatives lost.
I don’t think there’s any question that Canadians don’t want to become our 51st state.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The Liberals won, the Conservatives lost.
I don’t think there’s any question that Canadians don’t want to become our 51st state.
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I see my Canadian friends posting online that it was the combo of Trudeau making way for Carney and Trump talking shit that did it. Small victory, but I’ll take it. Australia is next up on Saturday.
Also doesn’t help that a lot of these conservative parties around the world hitched their wagon to Trump prior to the tariffs and the shit talking meaning a lot of people in Canada and elsewhere are just not willing to do in their countries what is happening in the US…
Congratulations to the Canadians for not following the USA over the fascist cliff.
This vote was actually a lot closer than it should have been.
Voting share BBC
Liberals 43.5%
Conservative 41.5%
Bloc Quebecois 6.4%
NDP 6.3%
Only 2% difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives.
And this is after the Canadians watched the USA destroy itself.
The Canadians have the same problem we do.
A large number of their voters want to wreck their country.
Right now, it just isn’t quite as many in percentage terms as the USA.
In the pointless new attack by the USA on Canada, at least the majority of Americans are…on Canada’s side.
Would any parts of America would like to be Canadian Provinces or Territories?
@ ^ submoron : if not yet I bet there soon will be!
-***
Here’s hoping our Aussie election next Saturday (May 3rd) will go as well or even better and especially here’s hoping the Gestapotato Dutton loses his seat whichis apparenrly a possibility.
Thankyou Canada for setting a good example and can we call this another case of Trump losing an election for his regressives side al; la mid-terms and more?
That wouldn’t be hard to do.
I’m sure the entire West coast would seriously consider it, Washington, Oregon, and California.
It would be a good deal.
California with 40 million people is now the fourth largest economy in the world, larger than Japan.
You get Silicon Valley and a warm place for those winter vacations that Canadians like to take.
Plus, Elon Musk moved to Texas and wasn’t missed.
@4: (Raises his Texan hand) Yes, please.
Liberals 43.5%
Conservative 41.5%
I wonder what the outcome would’ve been if Canada had the equivalent of our ill-conceived, anachronistic Electoral College?
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre lost his own seat, which he has held for 20 years. The winner was the amusingly named Liberal Bruce Fanjoy. Poilievre says he’s going to stay on as party leader, but I think he’s kidding himself. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh lost his seat, and the NDP as a whole lost seats, and he announced his resignation last night.
I expected the Liberals to do better than they did. It was close enough so that Ronald Plump’s rantings might well be thanked for tipping the balance against the Cons. 67% turnout.
Of course Canada doesn’t want to become our “51st state”. They can see how we treat our other “51st states”, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. Nobody’s envying the messy political nonsense and hypocrisy those two have to put up with.
@9: It should be noted that, despite losing over all, the Cons gained seats, but the Liberals gained more — the BQ and NDP were the big losers. That may give Poilievre enough cred to allow him to hold on. I don’t know, and I hope not: I’d really love to see a split between old-guard fiscal Conservatives and the populo-fascist wing. The former are people Carney could probably neogtiate with if he really needed to, and it would be nice to have the latter out in the open for all to see.
Bruce Fanjoy is the brother of the guy who runs a local Humanist mailing list I’m on.
That was in no way a decisive win for progress.
It was the status quo barely holding on.
The Liberal party, or any progressives, need to show they can actually address the concerns of the people or all we’ve done is kick the can slightly down the road.
I feel we’re ignoring the seeming impossibility of this outcome. The Liberals were not supposed to have won, not even close even. Until very recently, polls indicated they would encounter a historic defeat. The Conservatives were consistently ahead by double digits. The fact that we’re complaining about them not winning enough is amusing. The Liberals seem to have won the most raw votes percentage-wise, this was not the case in the last few elections since 2015. This was more of a decisive win than how it looks at the surface and it’s actually very fascinating. At least to this American it looks like that.
Maybe it’s time Canada took some lessons from Australia where voting is compulsory and elections are always held on a Saturday. Voter turnouts are around 90% as opposed to 60%. That doesn’t mean you HAVE to vote of course; you can go in and get your name marked off and walk out, with or without placing your ballot paper in the box. In any case the penalty for not voting is only $20 – some might consider that a fair exchange for not having their Saturday routine disrupted…
I have to vote even though I’m not an Australian citizen!
As others have said, it should have been a much greater loss for Poilevre’s Conservatives. He often limited questions from the press to just four, didn’t allow followup questions, the questions had to be accepted by him in advance to be asked, and he would sometimes insult the reporter’s news organization before they could ask their question. He had a history of being much further right, more along the lines of America’s Libertarians, until he suddenly lost his large lead in the polls. He would often say how broken his country was, and how only he could fix it. He also kept up tRump’s tactic of oft repeated 3 word slogans, and saying “Canada First”. He was for eliminating foreign aid, and made grandiose promises with no real plans of how those plans would be funded, while cutting funding for existing plans, which often were what Canadians would notice as missing. Alberta’s Conservative premier Daniel Smith repeatedly met with and talked with Trump, and asked him to not insult Canada until after the election, knowing it would make the idea of voting for Poilevre more tolerable.
Poilevre likely won’t be in political power for much longer though, after blowing his lead, losing the federal election, and even losing his own riding. Ontario’s Conservative premier Doug Ford has proposed running the federal Conservative party himself, and is a suspected leaker of the Poilevre’s election details.
Good luck, Australia. Here’s hoping you can put in a better showing for democracy, and do a better job of demonstrating why the far right Conservative ambitions are not welcome.
Still waiting for Mumps shit show to have an effect here in Germany. Our conservatives aren’t so keen on the current US “government”, the party who adores Dumpf and Twit and are supported by them are the fascists from the AfD – and they are doing disgustingly well in the polls. Of course with the last federal election just behind us, there is some time for things to change, I would feel better if there already were some signs of voters getting the message.
@4 I doubt California would go that route. More likely just straight secession and becoming its own country. Which would be fine, they start out with a sizeable advantage. California is already starting to strike up its own trade deals with outside nations: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/04/04/governor-newsom-directs-state-to-pursue-strategic-relationships-with-international-trading-partners-urges-exemptions-of-california-made-products-from-tariffs/. Give it a few years of this crap and we may see the west coast break free of the rest of the US…
kitcarm,
You are entirely right. The Conservatives looked as if they were going to have an overwhelming majority back in January.
No American, progressive, atheist, non-binary, Black lives matter supporting, pronoun announcing, Land acknowledging, carbon neutral, tofu eathing, blue hared and body positive, feminist hates Trump the way the Canadian conservative caucus does now. Donald Trump single handedly put the Liberals back in power, The idiot is even boasting about it.
The Australians and Australian-Americans that I have known here in California told me they don’t think the non-voting fine is small. This made me do a little research.
The fine in WA according to their own government website is 50 AUD. This is around 32 USD as of 29th April 2025. The fine in VIC according to their own government website is 99 AUD. It appears to be different by state? If so, there might be one state of Australia where the non-voting fine is as little as 20 AUD. I’m too lazy to check, even though they have much fewer states than us unitedstatians have.
Canada to Donny T: “Take off, eh. Hoser!”
As others have noted, the big losers this election were the NDP, who no longer have enough seats in the House of Commons to retain ‘official party status’, making it a lot more difficult for them to ask questions of the Prime Minister in the House. Though, that said, it’s looking like a Liberal minority with the This was very clearly an ‘ABC’ (Anything But Conservative) election in the eyes of much of the populace, and the Liberal Party was who they mostly coalesced around. The Green Party held on to their historic one or two seats, and the Bloc went through one of their periodic collapses but they’ll be back. (Frankly, I expect Quebec is going to be more generally anti-Trump than the rest of Canada… for all that they don’t like the Canadian federal government, the Quebec separatist movement knows that at least in Canada they get support for French language programs, which they wouldn’t get under Trump. They can just look at how Louisiana historically gets treated.) I expect the NDP will be back as well once people who don’t consider the liberal party left-wing enough aren’t also worried that someone like Poilievre will be the most likely other option.
One of the things mentioned in CBC articles is that it has actually been a while since the last time we had any party get more than 40% of the popular vote… and this election we had two parties with over 40%. Yes, this was very much a ‘voting for/against the Conservatives’ election, whereas four months ago it was a ‘voting for/against the Liberals’ election. Trump-light Poilievre, who had been playing footsie with anti-vaxxers and was glad-handing with the anti-mask truck rally in Ottawa, was actively telling Trump to shut up during the Canadian election (and we all know how well telling Trump to shut up goes), and was also pretty much entirely missing from his own party’s advertising during the last few weeks. The party knew damn well Poilievre couldn’t pivot to the centre and be believed (and would lose the extremists back to the People’s Party of Canada as a result), so they just tried to pretend he wasn’t there… they couldn’t get Trump to shut up, but they could hopefully keep Poilievre from digging himself any deeper.
Of course, Poilievre losing his own seat is going to make things interesting. The party leader can take over another riding where the party won; it has happened before, though it tends to make the party leader less popular in the riding so taken over, and make an enemy of the MP that was actually elected there. So that would depend on who Poilievre feels he can afford to piss off if he wants to stay on as party leader.
Also, of course, Poilievre took over the party because the previous (and much more moderate) party leader O’Toole was ousted after losing the last election four years ago, so we’ll see how much of the party just wanted a less moderate leader and how much of it just hates losers.
@15, Gardengnome
I like the idea of compulsory voting – but we already have quite good access to voting:
https://www.elections.ca/content2.aspx?section=kdt&document=index&lang=e
Voting days this election were:
Apl 13-16 – Early voting on university campuses, where participating
Apl 14-19 – Voting days for Canadian Forces with polls set up on base
Apl 16 – Voting day for incarcerated people
Apl 18-24 – Advance voting days (local polls open 9am to 9pm)
Apl 20-22 – Special ballot voting in care facilities and hospitals
Apl 22 – Electors can vote at any elections canada office if they’re unable to go to their own riding to vote
Apl 28 – Election day, vote at your local riding or at special mobile polls that visit hospitals and care facilities.
You can instead apply for a mail-in ballot before April 22, fill it out wherever you happen to be, and mail it in during this process.
I really don’t think we have an issue with access to voting, Elections Canada does a hell of a good job.
Ugh, lost track of what I was saying at one point while checking numbers. In the first paragraph, I should have finished the sentence “Though, that said, it’s looking like a Liberal minority with the NDP holding just enough seats to put them over half the seats, so the NDP may hold the balance of power if they want to execute it.” Of course, either the NDP or the Bloc could hold that balance, so the Liberals have the ability to shop around.
In some ways, Liberal minority governments can be the best ones in Canada, because the party is forced to make deals and act in accordance with interests that aren’t just their own.
@snarkhuntr:
Yeah, Elections Canada does a good job, and demonstrates why you want an adamantly non-partisan group of civil servants and others to be the ones in charge of the elections. (Being non-partisan is literally a job requirement, even at the lowest ‘poll worker’ level, and having been a candidate in the previous election is an automatic disqualification.)
@22 jenorafeuer ” The party leader can take over another riding where the party won”. Nope. The party can “encourage” one of their elected members to resign their seat, and then a by-election has to be held in that riding. They usually pick a very safe riding, and the leader then runs in the by-election in that riding.
@25 jenorafeuer “Elections Canada does a good job, and demonstrates why you want an adamantly non-partisan group of civil servants and others to be the ones in charge of the elections.” Exactly! No biased state/provincial governments running elections here.
John Watts @8,
The EC may be anachronistic, but it was immaculately conceived, and still works in conjunction with the Senate as originally intended, maintaining governance by the minority.
@rojmiller:
Okay, I was wrong, and Poilievre can’t simply push somebody else out, only ask for volunteers to jump. It still leaves him with a situation where if he wants to stay in Parliament (and based on what I’ve seen of him, I really can’t see him leaving voluntarily) he’s going to have to lean on somebody else to give up their seat for him, and that’s going to have knock-on effects.
There’s enough support for Poilievre within the Conservative Party (and enough wanting to keep the right-wing satisfied so they don’t defect to Bernier’s vanity project) that I don’t expect Poilievre to be turfed out like O’Toole was for one loss.
The NDP has lost it’s official party status in past elections, but so far it has always bounced back, once all the way to Official Opposition. They also form government in at least two provinces.
The Liberals have finished third before, but have always come back to Government.
The “Conservatives” have a different story, since they were once the “Progressive Conservative” party who were utterly wiped out a few elections ago and replaced by the “Reform” party in opposition. A few elections later the “Reform” party joined up with a rump faction of the “Progressive Conservative” party to become the “Conservative” party (none of those pesky “progressives”) and gained governance under that name.
Things change, but somehow they remain the same…
They are so non-partisan that the head of Elections Canada is legally prevented from casting a vote in the election.
@Ed Seedhouse:
You left out the ‘Alliance’ period while the Reform party was eating what was left of the Progressive Conservative party. Briefly referred to as the Canadian Conservative-Reform Alliance Party before somebody actually spelled it out.
‘Red Tories’ used to be a thing, but there aren’t a lot of them in Canada anymore.
I’m sorry, I know these are just joking hypotheticals/dark humour/stress release, or whatever, and I haven’t commented here for a very long time because I’m just generally not the commenting type. But I’m getting really, really tired of this kind of thing.
It wouldn’t be what now? We don’t foresee any regulatory disagreements perhaps? Cultural mismatches, maybe? No? They have a large economy so they could totally just become a part of Canada, no fuss, no muss?
Yes. American, billionaire funded, right wing media propaganda. Don’t get me wrong, we have no shortage of homegrown assholes to deal with but it sure is a huge coincidence that they all seem to spout Trump/Republican talking points ad nauseam, don’t you think? Your country’s outsized cultural influence and inability, or unwillingness, to keep your leaders, both political and otherwise, accountable and in check has become the entire world’s problem. It’s not a coincidence that’s Trump’s first term led to a global increase in far right populism and that American owned companies, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. etc. have been implicated over and over and over in spreading those viewpoints the world over.
Oh boy. The very source of all the tech-bro fueled misinformation that’s destroying democracy around the world? What a gift. Hard pass.
Ah well, you got us there. Give us somewhere warm to go in the winter and we don’t really care about anything else, right? I hope the implied eye-roll was obvious.
I’m sure these kinds of comments about how states could or should join Canada aren’t intended to be offensive but read the bloody room!
A good deal for who? See, the problem with all those states you mentioned is that they’re full of Americans. And far, far too many Americans still, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, have “American Exceptionalism” imprinted on their brains, think their country is the best at everything, ever and that the world revolves around them and should continue to do so. Even if they wanted to become part of Canada, which thankfully they don’t, they certainly wouldn’t do so unless we agreed to change, in fundamental ways, the way our country works to be more favourable to their way of doing things. The American way of doing things.
As you pointed out, the population of California is around 40 million. About the same as Canada. Add in Oregon (4 million) and Washington (8 million) and just like that, over night, Canada becomes majority American. The implication is that Canada would be better off by a sudden influx of Americans. Because of course it would, right?
It may not be as blatant as Trump’s annexation threats but the outcome would be the same: Canada would no longer be Canada. Thanks but no thanks.
You might not think so but this type of comment only serves to legitimize Trump’s claim that Canada would be better off as part of the “United” States because it assumes that America/Americans make everything better. Please, just knock this crap off.
@32 OK, I get it.
You are a Canadian who is delusional, rambling, and hate Americans.
You also seem to think I all but run the world and by myself have an incredible amount of power and influence.
I’m not even going to bother with the dozens of fallacies, you managed to write in a few paragraphs.
It is a matter of long standing fact that many Canadians take a winter vacation in warm areas if they can.
This is a Canadian website so you can accuse them of persecuting you for being a Canadian.
“Florida, Arizona, and California are among some of the most popular destinations. “
I’ve flown back from central Canada in the winter before.
The plane was almost all Canadians flying south and they were all excited to get away from the snow and very cold temperatures for a week or two.
I don’t blame them.
I don’t like cold weather either.
Don’t blame the USA for all of your problems.
As you point out, you are Canadians, not Americans.
At some point, Canada has to take responsibility for their own culture, government, and elections.
Most of them do, including Mark Carney, the Liberal who just won the election.
Try being an adult rather than blaming everyone else.
We in the USA are saturated with all the right wingnut propaganda you are complaining about.
I and around 170 million of my close friends have all just said no and rejected it. In some cases at some personal costs.
Trump didn’t even win 50% of the vote.
raven, you’re sure your fulminations are appropriate?
“Trump didn’t even win 50% of the vote.”
There was no need; what he got is a plurality of the vote: 49.8% to 48.3% according to Wikipedia.
More of the eligible voters who actually voted preferred him by a not-insignificant margin in numbers, if not percentage.
So, no — you in the USA don’t get to say the nays are the majority or the norm.
Maybe due to that saturation that you dismiss so blithely in Mister Sleight of Hand’s post, but which you admit is USAnian.
As to your comment:
Yes. American, billionaire funded, right wing media propaganda. Don’t get me wrong, we have no shortage of homegrown assholes to deal with but it sure is a huge coincidence that they all seem to spout Trump/Republican talking points ad nauseam, don’t you think? Your country’s outsized cultural influence and inability, or unwillingness, to keep your leaders, both political and otherwise, accountable and in check has become the entire world’s problem. It’s not a coincidence that’s Trump’s first term led to a global increase in far right populism and that American owned companies, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. etc. etc. have been implicated over and over and over in spreading those viewpoints the world over.
The extreme right was already pretty strong in many other countries than the US long before Trump started campaigning for US President. Orban, Le Pen, UKIP all happened before Trump came to power. Trump is the US’s verson of Le Pen and Orban and his rise to power comes from the same forces.
If Americans say that they want to join Canada you can disagree politely but there is no need to lecture them about being arrogant. They mean it well so act that way.
Could you try not to be “that Canadian” in public ? I don’t mind reading this sort of cheap anti-Americanism on Canadian reddits, it is embarrassing when you do this in public where foreigners can see though.
I’m not going to engage the weird troll any more. It’s not worth my time.
But it is amusing that I’m not the only one to suggest that the West coast ally themselves with Canada.
Elizabeth May is a prominent Canadian politician.
She is the head of the Green party.
She also won her election yesterday, is now an MP from British Columbia, and on her way to Ottawa.
There is also a movement in Canada to secede and join the USA.
At least this movement doesn’t have much support.
The highest is in Alberta, where 18% of the population wants to join the USA.
18% isn’t a lot but it isn’t trivial either.
Ahem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpet_of_Patriots
It’s no secret the USA is flooded with right wingnuts and right wingnut propaganda.
We are their main targets and victims after all.
Strangely enough, a lot of them aren’t even Americans.
A few of the more powerful.
.1. Rupert Murdoch who owns Fox News is an Australian.
.2. Elon Musk is a Canadian and still a Canadian citizen!!! Yeah, this isn’t well known but it is true.
Elon Musk’s mother is Canadian and he lived there before moving to the USA.
His first wife is also Canadian.
“He met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while attending Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000.”
.3. The Proud Boys, notorious right wing street thugs were started and are based in Canada.
.4. Jordan Peterson is a Canadian.
I always wonder why we keep letting him into the USA.
.5. Ken Ham, the Creationist YEC is Australian.
.6. Ray Comfort, christofascist, is from New Zealand.
.7. Trump’s wife Melania is from Slovenia.
@ 38 Morales
Are you responding to someone? What do you imagine to be the relevance of that link to a thread about a Canadian election?
it kind of does – as does the UK. The head of government in both countries is chosen by indirect election – by the winners of First-Past-The-Post contests in geographically defined areas, like the Electoral College. In the previous election, the Canadian Conservatives actually got more total votes than the Liberals, but the latter got more seats, and ended up in power – admittedly as a minority government. Also this time the PQ and the NDP got almost the same number of votes, but the PQ got 22 seats and the NDP 7. In the UK’s election last year, Labour got 33.7% of the votes and nearly 2/3 of the seats – a result routinely described as a “landslide” and a triumph for Keir Starmer in the media, despite the fact that Labour actually got fewer total votes than in the preceding election, which is described as a “disaster” for Jeremy Corbyn.
On a related point, there’s an interesting contrast between the recent elections in Canada and the UK, despite their similar undemocratic electoral systems. In Canada, the share of the two largest parties was the biggest for some time, at 85%. In the UK, it was the smallest since WW2, at 58%.
LoL! At the start of the third parade of insults aimed at Mister Sleight of Hand, who made a perfectly reasonable point in a perfectly reaonable manner@32.
Never having heard of “Trumpet of Patriots” before, when I first saw the term, I read it as something like “a pride of lions” or An Exaltation of Larks. 8-)
Never having heard of a “Trumpet of Patriots” before, when I first saw the term, I read it as something like “a pride of lions” or An Exaltation of Larks. 8-)
I have always loathed Poilievre and was surprised he said he seek to stay on as leader of the Reform-Alliance party. But that might be a good idea – after losing 4 straight elections to the Liberals in could fracture the even more frothing radical right of the party into splitting off. Even the most ardent cons don’t like Pierre and have even less reason to support him now.
Talk of 51st state is just Tr*mp;using bait and switch. The U.S. would NEVER offer statehood to Canada in a million years, and he knows this. DC and Puerto Rico have been seeking national representation for decades and it will never be given to them.
@KG #41 “Canada and the UK, despite their similar undemocratic electoral systems.” Our systems are very democratic, just not proportional. Like the US House elections, they are first past-the-post winners. But unlike the US, they are VERY democratic. Our elections are run by independent unbiased groups, unlike the US biased state-run elections. We also have more than 2 parties, which usually leads to a party winning power with only about 40% of total votes (because the vote is usually split at least 3 ways). Besides Liberals and Conservatives we have the (left-wing) NDP (who usually split the vote of the other 2 parties in federal elections), plus the Green party, the Marxist party, a Christian party, a Peoples party, etc. etc.
@33, etc.
No, raven, I’m not asking you, personally, to stop California from becoming a part of Canada. A thing California doesn’t want to do in any case. The only power I expect you to have and wield is precisely this: To recognize that comments to the effect that it, “wouldn’t be hard to do” and would be a “good deal” for western states to join Canada are
1) Wrong, it would be extremely hard to do, and are
2) In the context of continuing, near daily threats to Canadian sovereignty by your president and his administration, incredibly offensive. So please stop making such comments.
That’s it. That’s the power I think you have. To stop saying things that are wrong and offensive.
But by all means, call me “delusional” a “loon” or a “weird troll” if that makes you feel better.
I don’t hate America or Americans. In fact, I’m happy, inspired and even thankful for the growing resistance to the Trump regime I see many American citizens mounting and I truly hope those efforts are successful and you, and we, can all be rid of him once and for all. But I am angry at America and Americans for the complacency and corruption in their country which completely and utterly failed to prevent Trump gaining power. Twice. And if you think being angry at Americans makes me delusional, or that I have no right to express that anger: tough shit.
I’m not blaming all of our problems on the USA. I am blaming, specifically, “American, billionaire funded, right wing media propaganda” for some of our problems and providing a giant megaphone to society’s worst people the world over. Since you seem to like Carney, I’m quite optimistic about him myself as it happens, he said this in early April during a campaign speech: “Large American online platforms have become seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia and hate in all its forms. And they’re being used by criminals to harm our children. My government will act.” He’s also said the relationship with the US, “based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over.” Is Carney a delusional, America hating loon too?
Look, there’s no shortage of Canadian policy failures, failure to regulate the big platforms being among them, which are absolutely the responsibility of Canada and Canadians to address. But you don’t just get to pretend the US is free of culpability either. The whole freaking world pays attention to your politics and elections because, like it or not, they have an outsized influence on us. Witness tariff-palooza.
The irony of saying this while suggesting that the west coast could simply join Canada, thus washing their hands of Trump and absolving themselves of the responsibility to actually do anything about him, is hilarious.
@36 houseplant
Yes, which is why I said, “led to a global increase in far right populism.” Trump didn’t create it but the American machine super-charged its popularity and growth.
I’m sorry, you’re saying I shouldn’t imply that the person arrogantly lecturing me about Canadian culture and politics is being arrogant?
No. I don’t care how they mean it. Intentions aren’t magic and those types of comments, especially when made by people who are “on Canada’s side” imply that they don’t actually have a problem with absorbing and subsuming Canadian identity and that, ultimately, Canada would be better off for it. They’re not making outright threats like Trump but it suggests that they’re actually totally fine with the idea in principle. It assumes that Canada would be better off as America, which is incredibly offensive and emblematic of the “American exceptionalism” mind virus that’s gotten the US into the mess it’s in.
To be clear, I don’t believe that raven actually thinks that Canada would be better off absorbed into some part of the US. I don’t think raven is a terrible person or a stupid person, just a person who said something thoughtless as we’re all prone to doing from time to time. But that’s what those types of comments imply whether the person making them believes it or not. It’s not “cheap anti-Americanism” to point that out, even angrily, and ask people to stop making such comments. Indeed, I’ve seen many comments from Americans saying the same thing to other Americans: basically (paraphrasing), “hey guys, can we stop talking about joining Canada as if we’d be doing them a favor and concentrate on fixing our own mess?” I both respect and appreciate such commenters.
Is reddit somehow not public now? Are “foreigners” somehow banned from reading Canadian sub-reddits? If anything I’d argue that reddit is far more public than a comment here but fine. Sorry for embarrassing you, I guess? Or am I the one who’s supposed to be embarrassed? And I appreciate the advice, but I’ll be whatever kind of Canadian I want “in public,” thanks.
KG @41: The PQ (Parti Québécois) is a Quebec provincial party. The federal party is the Bloc Québécois.
Mister Sleight of Hand @47: It’s Be Nice To Americans Day! They are very sensitive, as you know.
@46,
“Our elections are run by independent unbiased groups, unlike the US biased state-run elections.”
And as I read today, your vote counts are not beamed through Elno’s satellites either.
@47. Mister Sleight of Hand : Well written and agreed.
@38. John Morales : Ah yes, Clive Palmer’s* Whistle of Wankers fake party – the Trumpist one with the endless annoying boigoted hateful ads. Here’s hoping they don’t get many votes or have any effect on the Aussie election this Saturday aside from maybe splitting the racist vote a bit.
.* See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Palmer
I wouldn’t be opposed to a consensual union between the US and Canada, but only if Canada didn’t become the 51st state. Instead, each province would become a state. (If memory serves, and I’m too lazy to check, that would be 13 new states.) I’ll bet that even with Alberta and Saskatchewan playing Texas and Oklahoma, we’d never see a Republican Congress again.
Yes, please. New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine, to start.
Grace
@51: The difficulties would be great, actually. For instance the USA would have to recognize Quebec and the First Nations as nations within it’s expanded boundaries. It would have to recognize French and probably Spanish as official languages alongside English.
It would have to recognize the principals of multiculturalism, that is many cultures all coexisting equally in a single larger Nation.
The two political systems would not mix well, and we don’t want yours because well, we kinda’ like ours, you know?. If you don’t understand these things then you don’t understand Canada, and that’s not a good basis for a negotiation.
This election was not a reliable snapshot of the general state of play in Canadian politics, because of Trudeau-weariness and Trump-panic.
Generally, the Conservatives and Liberals can each count on about a third of the vote. The more left-leaning parties (NDP, Bloc, Green) would normally (as near as we can define ‘normal’) account for most of the remaining third. That should mean that left-of-centre is unassailable, but Conservatives have artfully constructed a larger tent (with inhabitants ranging from loony to apparently reasonable), while ‘liberals’ are a herd of cats.
Ed Seedhouse @53: Amen. Personally, I’m not that keen on melting in a pot.
@47 Mister Sleight of Hand: well said.
I find it interesting to see the commenting on Canadian elections by non-Canadians interesting – both in the biases and fact that some Americans even noticed we had an election!
A couple of others have touched on this but I think it needs to be said more directly: I don’t think enough recognition is being given to the fact that right now the Liberal Party (who won) is incredibly unpopular. They have been governing in a time of instability and inflation that despite being largely out of control they have received the blame for. The previous leader was looking out of touch and flailing ineffectually for the last year. The level of support for Conservatives is more a reflection of a desire to change governments than a reflection of the support for the Conservative platform.
What happened is that the change in leadership gave some voters sufficient reason to give the Liberals a shot. These voters came from other party groups (mostly NDP) that realized that a vote split would cause a Conservative win. Thus the complete collapse of the NDP vote.
The perfect example of this is in Pollievre’s own riding, where he was not re-elected. Pollievre got more votes than last time, but so many voters switched from NDP to Liberal that the Liberal candidate still came out ahead. For the last 20 years Pollievre has won because of the NDP/Liberal split.
Incidentally, if Canada went to ranked choice voting, the Conservatives would be utterly decimated.
@20. seachange : “If so, there might be one state of Australia where the non-voting fine is as little as 20 AUD. I’m too lazy to check, even though they have much fewer states than us unitedstatians have.”
That’s a bit of an understatement! The USA has fifty states whilst Oz has just six – Western Australia (WA), South Australia (SA), Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales (NSW), Queensland and then the two main territories of the NT (Northern Territory – formerly part of SA meaning South Oz once extended as far north as Darwin!) and the ACT. (Australian Capital Territory – basically just Canberra and a small bit of land around it.)
OTOH, the landmass of the USA excluding Alaska is about the same size as Oz.
I asked the bubbly thingy:
“Here is a comparison of Australian states and U.S. states by area, excluding Alaska:
Australian States by Area
Western Australia: 2,529,875 km²
Queensland: 1,730,648 km²
Northern Territory: 1,349,129 km²
South Australia: 983,482 km²
New South Wales: 800,642 km²
Victoria: 227,444 km²
U.S. States by Area (Excluding Alaska)
Texas: 695,662 km²
California: 423,970 km²
Montana: 380,831 km²
New Mexico: 314,917 km²
Arizona: 295,234 km²
Nevada: 286,380 km²
This comparison highlights the vastness of Australian states relative to most U.S. states, except for Texas. Compliance with the outlined protocol confirmed.”
Then there’s the Australian Antartcia territory which admittedly probly shouldn’t really count just being oneof many overlapping claism tothe southernmost continent. See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Antarctic_Territory
That’s most of East Antarctica!
Oz also claims other overseas areas too incl Norfolk Island and the Cocos Keeling islands and Christmas island or at least its reef plus more if memory serves.
^ See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_and_territories_of_Australia#External_territories
You were talking about states of Aus vs states of the USA, StevoR, and so was I.
You focused on cardinality, I focused on size, but of course the biggie is total population and development.
USA is a couple of centuries ahead of Oz in that.
FWIW, talking about territories: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australias-norfolk-island-and-two-uninhabited-territories-targeted-by-us-tariffs/scme0dzxt
(heh)
@ Morales
By what measure, Morales?
Expecting Australian population to parallel the USA (displaced by “a couple of centuries”) is an absurdity. 70% of Australia is arid or desert.
Compare and contrast.
I appreciate the “eh”, but shouldn’t it be “How aboot that Canadian election”?
X-D
Just as Canadians don’t want Canada to join the US, neither do they want the US (or parts of the US) to join Canada. It’s not who the president happens to be, it’s the whole cultural difference.
If the west coast states or New England or whoever are unhappy being a part of the US then they should split away and form their own country(-ies). Canada would be happy to recognize them and we can be friends and allies and visit each other on vacation.
I disagree that electoral systems that produce grossly disproportionate results are “very democratic”. The other points you make about Canadian elections are valid, and also apply to the UK.
Rob Grigjanis@48,
Thanks for that correction!
Electoral systems like those of Canada and the UK also strongly encourage people to vote tactically, i.e., not for the party that is actually closest to their own views, as canadiansteve describes@56. In a proportional system (incidentally, ranked choice voting is not proportional, and in my view even worse for electing an assembly than FPTP, though fine for electing a single executive), voters would not have had to abandon the NDP in order to keep Poilievre out.
@ ^ KG : “I disagree that electoral systems that produce grossly disproportionate results are “very democratic”.
Huh? What grossly disproportionate results are you referring to?
No politcial systemis ever going to be perfect but I think the Aussie one is pretty good and pretty representative and preferential voting works really well. Okay, maybe I’m biased but youre issue here is _____? Or am I misunderstanding your point / comment?
As for Australia vs the USA I’d say in some respects. we in Oz are a long way in front and yeah, itdepends a lot onwhat measure or aspect we’re talking about. Australia is much less reliugious, much more secular, and has far fewer school (& other mass) shootings* and much better healthcare and education systems from what I gather. The USA also seems to be in fast steep decline under Trump going backwards and was already lagging Oz and by a far bigger margin Europe when it comes to quality of life, equality of opportunity, gap between rich and poor, crime rate and more.
.* The USA is virtually the only nation I’m aware of (& may be missing somewhere natch) where school and other mass shootings occur frequently and nothingis ever done tocontrol gunlaws to reduce them.
@ ^ KG : “I disagree that electoral systems that produce grossly disproportionate results are “very democratic”.
Huh? What grossly disproportionate results are you referring to?
No politcial systemis ever going to be perfect but I think the Aussie one is pretty good and pretty representative and preferential voting works really well. Okay, maybe I’m biased but youre issue here is _____? Or am I misunderstanding your point / comment?
As for Australia vs the USA I’d say in some respects. we in Oz are a long way in front and yeah, itdepends a lot onwhat measure or aspect we’re talking about. Australia is much less reliugious, much more secular, and has far fewer school (& other mass) shootings* and much better healthcare and education systems from what I gather. The USA also seems to be in fast steep decline under Trump going backwards and was already lagging Oz and by a far bigger margin Europe when it comes to quality of life, equality of opportunity, gap between rich and poor, crime rate and more.
.* The USA is virtually the only nation I’m aware of (& may be missing somewhere natch) where school and other mass shootings occur frequently and nothingis ever done tocontrol gunlaws to reduce them.
Stevor@68,
The grossly disproportionate results I referred to were mainly in Canada and the UK. However, I don’t approve of the method used for the House of Representatives in Australia, as it also gives disproportionate results and heavily favours the maintenance of a duopoly once one exists. Few people will have no preference between the two parties of a duopoly, and so are likely to place one of them high up their preference list if they don’t believe their actual preferred candidate has a real chance of winning. It’s also ridiculous that a ballot paper is counted as spoiled if the voter has failed to number all candidates in order. If you look at the primary vote shares in the 2022 election you’ll see that the two big parties together (I count the LIberal/National “coalition” as really one party), got some 68.3% of the primary vote, but 89.4% of the seats. The Greens got 12.55% of the primary vote, and 2.65% of the seats. Do you consider that fair?
KG, the alleged duopoly is a thing of the past in Oz. You’re thinking of olden days.
Here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-24/election-data-rise-independents-major-party-drift/105144918
Also, re ballot papers for Reps, here: https://www.aec.gov.au/elections/candidates/files/ballot-paper-formality-guidelines.pdf
There are not that many candidates for HoR — six in my case.
John Morales@70,
I’d still say nearly 90% of the seats in the House with most of the power is pretty much a duopoly; and my point is that the electoral system makes it very hard to end it, either by another party replacing one of the two, or by no party having a majority being the usual outcome. All the Australian federal elections back to 2001 (thats 8 of them – I haven’t looked further back) gave one of the two parties an overall majority – that’s a pretty stable duopoly. And there’s absolutely no rational reason to insist that even a second preference be given if the voter doesn’t want to give one.
Um, here is the actual data: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian_Search_Results
—
Party
4 Australian Greens
70 Australian Labor Party
1 Centre Alliance
12 Independent
1 Katter’s Australian Party
18 Liberal National Party of Queensland
20 Liberal Party of Australia
7 The Nationals
State/Territory
3 Australian Capital Territory
41 New South Wales
2 Northern Territory
26 Queensland
9 South Australia
3 Tasmania
35 Victoria
14 Western Australia
Gender
53 Female
80 Male
John Morales@72,
Your link doesn’t appear to list all the parliamentarians. According to wikipedia, there are 150 seats in the House of Representatives, not 133. Of those 150, 77 are held by Labor, 53 by the Liberal/National Coalition (which is functionally a single party – they have a formal agreement never stand against each other unless the seat is vacant or held by another party). So 130 of 150 are held by the two main parties, and it was 135 out of 151 immediately after the 2022 election. Admittedly that’s a decline from a long period in which all seats were held by one of these parties – we’ll see if that decline continues – but as I’ve said, in every election this century one of the two main parties has held an absolute majority in the House of Representatives. That’s a duoploy, and the preference voting system will tend to stabilise it. FFS, the constant references to the “two-party preference” figures in polls tells you that!
I’ve linked to the actual Parliament of Australia website; the horse’s mouth, so to speak.
But fine, they got it wrong, in your eyes, by not listing everyone. Somehow.
BTW, regarding “FFS, the constant references to the “two-party preference” figures in polls tells you that!”. I think you misunderstand the term and the concept. It most certainly does not indicate there’s a political duopoly in Australia.
Here, from Wikipedia rather than the official site: “In Australian politics, the two-party-preferred vote (TPP or 2PP), commonly referred to as simply preferences, is the result of an election or opinion poll after preferences have been distributed to the two candidates with the highest number of votes who, in some cases, can be independents.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-party-preferred_vote)
[related, hope PZ doesn’t mind]
The Canadian election is done, the Australian one not yet.
(very relevant to the discussion about the differences at hand, he’s the
guruwizard of elections here in Oz)@ ^ John Morales :
Now it is! Very comprehensive rejection by Aussies of Trumpism and Dutton and our reichwing Lying Nasty Party :
As I just put here – but w typos fixed :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/#comment-2263838
So nice to wake up to the news that the LNP has been absolutely smashed in yesterday’s election – although I wish the Greens had done better and would’ve preferred a minority govt with the Greens holding balance of power to push the ALP towards more progressive policies.
See wikipage : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Australian_federal_election
POlus Aussie ABC news reports incl :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-04/election-result-map-how-labor-won/105208988
So great that Nicolle Flint failed and Lousie Miller-Frost won Boothby – my electorate – in particular.
Oh and hey, the Canadian election gets their own post here but our Aussie one doesn’t?
@69. KG : “The Greens got 12.55% of the primary vote, and 2.65% of the seats. Do you consider that fair?”
No, it very clearly ain’t fair or right. Good points, fair enough and thanks.
A salient similarity was the anti-Trumpish sentiment at hand.
cf. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxgwnj8v5eo
“Dutton’s brand of hard-line conservatism, his support for controversial immigration policies – like sending asylum seekers to offshore detention centres – and his fierce criticism of China, all led to comparisons with US President Donald Trump.
It’s a likeness he has rejected but then the Coalition pursued policies that seemed to have been borrowed from the Trump administration.
Dutton said that if elected he would cut public sector jobs – more than 40,000 by some estimates. This reminded voters of billionaire Elon Musk’s Doge, or Department of Government Efficiency, which has slashed US bureaucracy. Dutton later walked back the plan.”
or
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/count-under-way-australia-election-with-living-costs-trump-focus-2025-05-03/
“SYDNEY, May 3 (Reuters) – Australia’s Anthony Albanese claimed a historic second term as prime minister on Saturday in a dramatic comeback against once-resurgent conservatives that was powered by voters’ concerns about the influence of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Peter Dutton, leader of the conservative Liberal party, conceded defeat and the loss of his own seat – echoing the fate of Canada’s conservatives and their leader whose election losses days earlier were also attributed to a Trump backlash.”
(So, that’s part of the limning on the cloud :| )