An Odd Phrase.

 The phrase "Andrew Scheer loyalists" isn't one I expected to hear at this late date.

Missed One.

It would be a full time job to try to keep up with all the conspiracy theories out there.  It probably wouldn't be possible.  But I'm surprised I missed this one.  I overheard some kid on the bus ranting about Justin Trudeau, and one of the things he mentioned was claims Fidel Castro is Trudeau's father.

That was a conspiracy theory I'd never heard before, but some research shows it's been floating around since at least 2016.  The claim is that Margaret Trudeau had an affair with Fidel Castro, and Justin resulted.  Supposedly Castro's eldest son Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, commonly referred to as Fidelito, referred to Justin Trudeau as his half-brother in his 2018 suicide note.  Believers think Justin Trudeau looks a lot like Fidel.

Unfortunately for the conspiracy crowd there's no evidence Margaret Trudeau met Fidel Castro before 1976, when Justin was 4 and a half.  He was conceived in April of 1971, shortly after the Trudeaus were married in March of 1971, being born on Christmas Day of  1971.  So somehow Margaret Trudeau was able to meet Fidel Castro with no one knowing about it.  Yeah, no, didn't happen

But in the end the real question should  be "So what?"  It would be an issue for the Trudeau family, but not really for anyone else.  Being Fidel Castro's son would not legally disqualify Justin Trudeau from being Prime Minister.  Unlike the US there is no provision in the Canadian Constitution requiring a PM candidate being a "natural born citizen,"  and his mother was Canadian anyways.  The last Prime Minister not born in Canada, John Turner, is still alive.  He was born in England, and became PM under the 1982 Constitution.

Of course we did see this with the Obama birther theories.  Deviating from the standard "Obama was born in Kenya, so he can't be President!" nonsense some birthers decided his real father was either African America journalist, activist, and poet Frank Marshall Davis, or Malcolm X.  Since both men were born in the United States I'm not sure how they figured this was useful in their crusade to get Obama out of office.

It would be interesting to know what this kid has been reading, because he mentioned a couple of other crank ideas.  Something from some Wexit idiot seems likely.

Go And Vote.

As always I encourage those of you who can to vote in today's Canadian federal election.  I don't care who you vote for.  I do have my opinions on who you should and shouldn't vote for, but in the end that's your choice.  And if you ever needed an incentive to vote it's an election like this, where the Conservatives and Liberals are neck and neck, and there's a high chance we'll have a minority government.  Early voting was up this year, so hopefully that's a sign the overall numbers of voters will be up this year.

Futile.

This week I spotted some election signs for the Christian Heritage Party.  It's one of those parties you look at and ask "Why bother?"  According to its Wikipedia entry the party has been around since 1987.  Yet in that time they have failed to elect even one candidate, not even coming close in any riding.   The party has pretty much no public profile outside its current supporters, leader Rod Taylor being ignored by the media. Their high point was in their first election appearance, 1988, when they won 3.56 percent of the vote.  In the 2015 election they won 0.97 percent of the vote, which was in fact an increase from 2011, when they won 0.84 percent.

The demographics become less in their favour with each passing year.  The percentage of Canadians who identify in some way as Christian is decreasing, and of course many who do have no interest in the conservative policies of the CHP.  They aren't likely to attract the support of those non-Christian voters who might agree with many of their policies.  And this election they face competition from the People's Party of Canada, which has former Conservative Party cabinet member and leadership candidate Maxime Bernier as leader. 

Having said all that I wouldn't be surprised if the CHP is around for future elections, which the PPC, which I suspect is as much a vanity project of Bernier as anything else, will not.  Stay tuned.

Google Will Get You For That.

Recently one of the candidates for the People's Party of Canada put up some campaign signs in a local park.  This morning I took at look at them.  They're for Guto Penteado.  The Guto on the signs is presented in a font similar to one Google has occasionally used, and the letters are in several colours, again reminiscent of Google.  Seems to me that crossing paths with Google like that is not a good idea.  It's unlikely Google will have a chance to take action before the campaign ends, but why take the risk?

As for the PPC it will interesting to see if they're around this time next year.  To date they've remained under the 5 percent range in the polls.

40 Days.

The limited suspense Canadians had been feeling is over.  We now know the federal election will be held October 21st.  As I said, the suspense was limited, since there had to be an election in October, and the parties had all been unofficially campaigning for a while now.  Hopefully the turnout will be better than yesterday's Manitoba provincial election, which saw a dismal 53 percent of eligible voters turn out to vote.

Saying No.

I recently posted about a campaign billboard I saw in Saskatoon for the People's Party of Canada.  Now the company that has been hosting the signs is pulling them, after complaints the signs are anti-immigrant.  Pattison Outdoor Advertising initially said the billboards would remain up, but yesterday changed their mind, and will remove the billboards as soon as possible.  Interestingly the ads weren't actually paid for by the PPC, but do reflect the party's policy that immigration should be greatly reduced.  Canada currently takes in about 350 thousand immigrants a year.

You Will Anyway.

October will see a federal election in Canada, and more and more political advertising is staring to appear.  This morning I saw a billboard for the People's Party of Canada along Saskatoon's Warman Road.  On it was the slogan "Say NO to mass immigration."  My response was to think "Just say no to Maxime Bernier," the PPC's leader. 

But what I say definitely doesn't matter in this case.  Whatever your thoughts on current Canadian immigration policy you'll likely be saying no to Bernier and the PPC regardless.  The last I heard the party was polling a mighty 3 percent of decided voters.   I wouldn't be surprised if Bernier retains his seat, but the chances of them electing anyone else are probably iffy, despite planning to run candidates in all ridings.  The Liberals and Conservatives are running at pretty much a dead heat at the moment, so a lot of potential PPC voters aren't going to take the risk voting for them, because it might help the Liberals retain power.

As If The Name Wasn't A Tell.

Political parties come and go in Canada.  The latest group trying to get party status from Elections Canada calls itself the Canadian Nationalist Party.  Seeing nationalist in a party name is generally a good sign their ideology will be crap.  And that seems to be the case here, as the would be party is facing an RCMP hate crime investigation.  Party founder Travis Patron claims he's not referring to Jews in a recently posted video, but anyone familiar with the language of the hard right knows that "globalists" is commonly used as a shorthand for the international Jewish conspiracy they believe in.  Patron also uses the term "parasitic tribe," which is pretty hard to interpret as anything but a reference to Jews.  The party is also opposed to immigration and LGBTQ rights.

If the CNP does get party status it will be able to issue tax receipts for contributions.  If they manage to get 2 percent of the vote nationally, or 5 percent of the vote in ridings they run in, they will also get 50 percent of their election expenses paid.  But that's really not much of an if.  The CNP will be like most fringe parties.  It will get a handful of votes, which probably won't make a difference in any riding.  Chances are it won't exist 10 years from now.

O'Leary Leaps In.

Some American visitors are likely to be familiar with Kevin O'Leary.  The Canadian businessman has been one of the regulars on ABC's reality TV series Shark Tank since its debut in 2009.  But he may be leaving the series, as he announced that he is running for the leadership of Canada's federal Conservative Party.

The Conservatives are Canada's equivalent of the Republican Party, although it's fair to say a lot of Republicans might find some of their policies dangerously left wing.  Previous Conservative Party leader, and former Prime Minister, Stephen Harper resigned after the Conservatives lost the 2015 election to Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party.  The campaign for a new leader effectively began at the beginning of 2016, with the announcement the leadership convention will held on May 27th this year.

O'Leary has not surprisingly drawn comparisons to Donald Trump, and has said his interest in running for the leadership was inspired by Trump.  O'Leary isn't as rich as Trump(although, like Trump, some claim he's not as rich as he claims to be), and doesn't have the same kind of baggage Trump does.  He's had a long media presence in Canada, including being on the Canadian business reality show Dragon's Den, and co-host of the CBC News Network current affairs show The Lang and O'Leary Exchange before leaving CBC in 2014.  He's also said some things that might remind one of Trump, such as questioning global warming, and calling the fact that the 85 richest people in the world own as much as the poorest half of the world's population "fantastic."

The timing of O'Leary's entry into the race has raised some eyebrows.  This morning's announcement followed the sole leadership debate of the campaign held entirely in French.  To lead the main federal parties in Canada one has to make at least a pretense of trying to speak French, and O'Leary admits his French is weak.  Of course this could be said about some of the other candidates, and they made an effort.  And in case you're wondering, a candidate that was effectively unilingual in French wouldn't get the time of day from those parties.

What are O'Leary's chances of winning?  It's hard to say.  He's the fourteenth candidate to enter the race.  Yep, fourteen people are running.  O'Leary is the most well known, and at the moment the vote is heavily split.  On the other hand it's likely we'll see someone drop out with his announcement, and of course some of those candidates probably don't have much of a chance no matter who is running.  A good example would be my former Member of Parliament Brad Trost, who is not well known outside Saskatchewan.  But there's also the chance an "anybody but O'Leary" movement might build behind one of the candidates.

If he does win the next step will probably be someone resigning their seat in Parliament so O'Leary can run in a by election..  Presumably he would get elected, but that's not a given.  Not getting a seat would partially put him on the sidelines, since he wouldn't be able to show Canadians what he can do in the House of Commons, and might be seen as a bad sign regarding his chances in the next election.  Barring a gigantic political scandal bringing down the government, or Prime Minister Trudeau randomly dropping dead, the next Canadian federal election is in 2019.

Our Definitions Vary.

During my travels today I noticed an ad on the electronic signboard at 33rd Street and Idylwyld.  It congratulated Stephen Harper for "Ten Years of Excellence."  A quick check indicates the same sign has been seen in Edmonton and Calgary.  Apparently whoever is behind the sign has a different definition of excellence than I do.  The signs give no indication who had them put up, but I wonder if it might be Jim Pattison, since they appeared on electronic signs owned by his advertising company.

Vote, Canadians!

It's federal election day.  If you haven't already done so in an advanced poll get off your ass and vote.  There are legitimate reasons not to vote, but laziness and disinterest aren't.  If you don't vote,  and you could, keep your yap shut when things don't go the way you want.  By not voting you de facto vote for whoever wins your riding.

Who Loves Rob Ford?

I suspect right now it's a trio named Duffy, Wallin, and Brazeau.  While what James Nicoll has dubbed "Crackatoa" is getting more and more press their problems have largely dropped off the news over the last few days.  Of course mere financial shenanigans aren't as titillating as talk of crack and hookers. 

A Welcome Distraction?

The latest allegation about Toronto's controversial mayor, Rob Ford, is making a lot of press, even in the US.  The purported video of Ford smoking crack, and making idiotic statements, has led to comparisons with former Washington, DC mayor Marion Bradley, whose own drug use caused him a world of trouble.

The cynical side of men wonders if there's one  person who is quite happy to hear about this, Stephen Harper.  The Ford mess may distract attention from the ongoing controversy over the expenses of Conservative Senators Mike Duffy and Pam Wallin, both of whom resigned from the Conservative caucus in the Senate this week as a result. Questions have arisen about the role Harper's chief of staff, Nigel Wright, and Harper himself,  might have had in trying to make this scandal go away. 

But that story revolves around questions of campaign spending and loans to pay off expenses.  Stuff that can be slightly confusing or dull to the average newspaper reader or TV watcher.  "OMG, the loudmouth, loose canon mayor of Canada's biggest city is a crackhead!" is much easier to understand, and  no doubt much more exciting for many folks.  And it's the mayor of Canada's largest city, allowing a large number of voters to be distracted. 

Vile Tongues.

Listening to CBC Saskatchewan's noon show today I heard about an interesting project.  Madam Premier is a new Tumblr site, run by Diamond Isinger, that's collecting examples of sexist Tweets, forum posts etc. about Canadian female politicans.  And boy, has Ms. Isinger found some doozies.  As is often the case you wonder what some of those people sound like in real life.  Are they that nasty and vulgar, or does the Internet offer them the opportunity to say things they'd be wary of doing in real life? 

Hopefully some of these people will come to regret saying stuff like that.  But I doubt it.

Burn!

James Nicoll does not like Michael Ignatieff.  And he has come up with a rather nasty putdown of "Iggy."  He says Ignatieff is our Mitt Romney.  Somehow I doubt James is going to be sent a copy of Ignatieff's next book for review.

Menace Of The Endless Campaign.

I was not amused.  I just saw an anti-NDP attack ad, courtesy of the Conservative Party.  If you're not a Canadian you aren't likely to know that we aren't in the middle of an election campaign.  In fact the next election, barring some major surprise, won't be until October of 2015.  So why the hell are we seeing this stuff now?  Do we face a neverending election campaign, where the parties never stop harrassing us?  The party hacks who support such activities may wish to read the story of the boy who cried wolf. Bash the other guys too much and the voters may come to ignore your claims.

Not Actual Size.

This picture may be old news to some of you, but it's still rather amusing.  Was whoever wrapped this bus trying to be silly,  or were they just clueless?

Vote, Albertans.

If you live in Alberta please vote in your provincial election if you can.  Especially if it might keep the Wildrose lot out.  They sound like real charmers.

Sign It.

I'm not normally one to sign online petitions, but this one is an exception, especially since my MP probably is too much of a backwards thinker to suppor this idea.  Bill C-279 will prevent discrimation against transgendered people, who currently are not protected from discrimination in various forms.  Sounds like a good idea to me, so I signed this petition in support of the bill.  The petitioners are looking for 10 thousand signatures, but they've got a long ways to go.  So if you think this is a good idea, sign it.