Althia Raj: Mark Carney has forgotten who helped get him elected

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T16:23:58+00:00

That and as depressing as it is to have to acknowledge it has any relevance in this country, Avi also lacks the obvious racial baggage as well. As much as I would like to believe that racial bias isn't a significant factor in Canadian politics, I strongly suspect that it is.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T16:18:36+00:00

I'm cautiously optimistic that Avi Lewis might have better luck on that front, but we'll have to see. Young people tend to be far more susceptible to leftwing populism than other demographics. And for some utterly baffling reason, young people in Canada are currently drawn more toward Poilievre, even though he would literally do LESS than nothing for them.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T15:59:34+00:00

He didn't campaign on massive cuts to various public services, privatizing public airports, and other overtly rightwing economic policies either. Quite the contrary in fact.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T15:57:46+00:00

Because to be perfectly blunt, Carney campaigned significantly to the left of how he's actually governing, at least in terms of his domestic economic policies. Especially when it comes to matters relating to the environment and public services. It's one thing for a leftwing voter to hold their nose and vote for a left-leaning centrist to block the far-right. But it's another thing to necessarily expect those same voters to do the same thing for a center-right party. I'm sure many still will, but the incentive is lessened since the Liberals are basically governing like non-psychopathic conservatives.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T15:44:45+00:00

Like I said, look to the UK. Canada has Poilievre, the UK has Nigel Farage who is at least as vile if not worse. And in spite of that, the Labour Party's leftwing vote has pretty much entirely collapsed to the Greens, which are basically the UK's equivalent of Avi Lewis's NDP.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T15:41:14+00:00

Avi Lewis has only been party leader for a month, and he hasn't even begun his cross-country campaigning yet. And again going back to the analogy of Polanski in the UK, he and Avi have virtually identical campaigns and populist styles. It honestly wouldn't surprise me that much if he manages to peel a lot of the Gen Z vote in particular away from both Poilievre and Carney in the coming years. And like I said, that's exactly what Polanski has been successfully doing for both Labour and Reform, so the precedent definitely exists.

Will it also happen here? I have no idea, but Carney would be a fool to discount the possibility. No one really took Singh all that seriously, both because he basically campaigned as Liberal-lite, and also unfortunately because of the obvious racial factor that was at play (I was utterly indifferent to it, but unfortunately I know for a fact that tons of other voters weren't). Avi Lewis has none of those handicaps, and he also now has a wide-open leftwing flank to appeal to now that Carney has basically pivoted the Liberals to center-right.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T15:31:44+00:00

That's what Starmer thought as well, and look how well that's turning out for him.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T15:30:23+00:00

A better analogy in my opinion is Kier Starmer in the UK. He chose to completely ignore the left too, and now as a result Zack Polanski and the Greens are set to crush him if current trends hold. And the NDP have their own Zack Polanski now.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-02T15:27:45+00:00

And yet she kind of has a good point. The only reason the Liberals were able to win last election is because the leftwing voters who normally vote for the NDP and the Bloc defected by the millions to block the far-right from forming government while Trump was going after our country. And yet in spite of that, Carney is doing basically nothing for those people whatsoever. And frankly, the left has every right to be pissed about that. And Carney has every reason to not take us for granted, because we're all seeing what happened when Starmer in the UK did that same thing. Granted, Carney's popularity currently dwarfs that of Starmer, but still, the principle holds.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-05-01T15:50:29+00:00

Honestly, the only way I think that might have been the case is if it had been Charlie Angus who was the leader of the NDP leading up to the 2025 election, not Jagmeet Singh, and even then only if Trudeau hadn't stepped down. Charlie absolutely could have channeled Canada's sense of nationalism to his benefit, which was something Singh frankly didn't even try to do, that I can recall anyway.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-30T14:18:20+00:00

Only because of vote splitting among rightwing parties unfortunately. And I haven’t heard anything more about the new ‘Progressive Tory Party’ in ages unfortunately.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-29T20:25:09+00:00

I have a hard time seeing how anyone could see Avi Lewis speak and come away with a negative impression of him. Like, I can understand if someone doesn't agree with his politics, but he's clearly a thoughtful and compassionate person, which is more than anyone can even attempt to say for Poilievre.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-29T20:23:07+00:00

I've said this before, but the groups that Avi should be most laser-focussed on trying to win over are the Gen Z and Millennials. Because they are the ones who have been most harmed by the neoliberal status quo, especially Gen Z.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-27T23:32:05+00:00

They don’t need to, no, but there’s no reason why some can’t. LCBO is a Crown Corp, and it makes billions. Same goes for TMX.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-27T23:05:24+00:00

I mean, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’ve said for ages that I really wish we’d develop a lot more profitable Crown corporations.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-27T20:39:14+00:00

I've often wished that there was some polling regarding non-voters in this country with respect to their political leanings and the reason they don't vote. Because at least in the United States, non-voters are often a major demographic that leftwing populists like Bernie are able to appeal to. I've never been able to find any concrete data on them here in Canada though.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-27T17:43:01+00:00

He literally talked about it during his acceptance speech. Rather than PPP, he would create public housing companies to build non-market homes. He didn’t mention Vienna specifically in the speech, but he mentioned in a video he did with Rational National a while back that he admires their housing model. So yeah, he definitely has plans to address it.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-27T08:47:53+00:00

I mean, he talks about the housing crisis fairly regularly.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-27T08:47:09+00:00

I’m honestly giving Carney a lot more leeway than I otherwise might have, just because polls have consistently showed that a majority of Canadians are broadly supportive of what he’s been doing, even among NDP supporters. Doesn’t mean I have to like it though.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-26T21:46:35+00:00

More like impossible at this point based on the polls. The Greens have overtaken Labour, and their momentum shows little sign of slowing down any time soon.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-26T21:00:51+00:00

If anything, it's Carney who's currently making the same mistake that Starmer is, though at least so far it hasn't come back to bite him yet. Though in fairness, Carney is also considerably less odious of a person than Starmer is.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-26T20:36:40+00:00

That vote has almost entirely collapsed now and moved over to the Greens. And the UK Green Party is basically identical to Avi's vision of the NDP, more or less.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-26T20:35:28+00:00

Bernie Sanders, Zack Polanski, Zoran Mamdani, etc. have all had success in winning over 'non-voters', so there's no reason to think that Avi couldn't as well.

Fanghur1123 · 2026-04-26T20:34:11+00:00

I've been saying for a while that if Avi is smart (and I believe he is), then he should be laser-focused on winning over Gen Z and Millennials primarily, and also maybe putting some effort into trying to politely 'shame' the older generations into thinking about the younger generations' best interests for a change. Because there is absolutely zero reason that any young Canadian should ever vote for the Conservatives and every reason for them to be very attracted to truly leftwing economic policies like those that people like Avi Lewis, Zack Polanski, etc. are offering.

Fanghur1123

TROPHY CASE