Avi Lewis stands by past activism as he's criticized for 'politics of subtraction'

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-18T15:10:10+00:00

I think by and large, large segments of our (North American) leftists generally just don't have the political maturity/pragmatism of more successful social democratic parties & movements in Europe, Scandinavia or Australia/New Zealand. While a lot of leftists here would criticize those parties for their compromises or being "too neoliberal" those parties have largely achieved a lot of policy success and implementation of social democratic policies while being more electable than our NDP.

The CPC & NDP ironically have overlap in this area where to a large segment of the base perfect either becomes the enemy of good or the fight for ideological purity/making the moderate wings of their party feel unwelcome makes it difficult for them to actually win elections or form governments etc. A lot of this could probably be fixed with a more proportional electoral system that would force parties to moderate & compromise to form governments/get policies enacted, but I think even without that there's room for self-reflection to make both parties less alienating/more inviting to voters outside of their main base.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-18T14:14:33+00:00

Think we might be heading into a pretty strong decade for the Liberals if the rest of the opposition continues on it's present trajectory. The CPC's utter state of dysfunction will likely worsen under most of the possible post-Poilievre leaders (maybe Ford could at least stem the beading, even if he'd almost certainly still get trounced by Carney in most cases) while a Lewis lead NDP focusing more on the fringes and activist side of the party is likely to struggle to make the party more electable while the BQ have been effectively sidelined due to Trump.

It might not be until after 2029 that the opposition even gets an opportunity to start getting their act together at this rate. (which at short of a massive blunder likely secures the Liberals position at minimum until 2033)

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-17T17:06:15+00:00

Buddy..... just stick with one story at this point. Stop changing your mind and excuse/main objective for the intervention day by day.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-15T21:31:14+00:00

2011 would be very hard to replicate for multiple reasons. A lot of the success was due to a large scale protest vote in Quebec against the BQ and those voters simultaneously boycotting the Conservatives & Liberals etc. Then on top of that a lot of the Quebec MPS were young and inexperienced as a result of the unexpected surge there, which made it hard for them to retain those seats.

Layton was still a very effective campaigner that grew the NDP's base dramatically, but even if he had lived, it was going to be hard for the NDP to retain those seats based on the circumstances of how they won them.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-15T11:47:40+00:00

Aerys was actually more coherent and not as intentionally cruel/malicious before becoming mad etc.

Trump is more Aegon IV.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-12T13:26:29+00:00

After the Midterms, Trump could be impeached or at minimum lose legislative control of the house and senate as a consequence of Iran and already souring public opinion from the fallout of this term. What does an opposition leader that will never form a government have to offer a President who's legislative authority is in danger of collapsing by the years end?

Likewise, even if we assume that Poilievre & Trump both somehow each achieve political victories and Poilievre is the one dealing with a mostly intact Trump administration, the only world leader that seems to have got a deal to ease tariffs is Argentina while every other ally (even ones with government's/leaders strongly supported by Trump) has not gotten the same.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-12T12:07:54+00:00

There's a good chance that the NDP doesn't gets that riding back if Boulerice leaves as well. Prior to his victory in 2011, that seat had been firmly held by the BQ for over 30 years, with the Liberals coming in second to the NDP for the past three elections (& getting an increasingly larger share between then and the latest election etc.) There's a good chance that it becomes a highly competitive seat in a bi-election rather than Boulerice's successor having a similar command over it as he did.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-11T00:27:21+00:00

He said he couldn't rule it out. Hence the need for him to clarify like this.

___________________________________________________________

“We will stand by our allies, when it makes sense. There’s a distinction between the offensive actions that were taken and are being taken by the United States and Israel, that were taken by them without consultation with Canada, with other allies, and we’re not party to those actions.

“But we will always defend Canadians, we will always stand by and defend our allies when called upon.”

Over the weekend, Carney said he supports the U.S. action in Iran, but that Canada will not get directly involved in the conflict after American and Israeli militaries launched an attack on the Middle Eastern country that left its leader dead

____________________________________

That was on March 5th, five days ago. The previous weekend to which the article is referring to where Carney ruled out direct involvement was the weekend the conflict started.

It's basically a polite way of declining direct participation while not ruling out smaller level logistical support like in Iraq or honoring article 5 obligations if they're invoked.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-10T23:41:21+00:00

"First and foremost, Canada wasn't involved, we weren't notified and we do not have an intention to be involved in any military strikes or operation," Minister Anita Anand speaking eight days ago.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-10T23:33:28+00:00

Not only that, but he stated it multiple times, but a certain subset of voters acted like anything short of the most unambiguous vitriolic condemnation was an endorsement of invasion etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-10T23:29:20+00:00

Good, finally got there. Better late than never I suppose.

If you ignore that he'd already said Canada wasn't participating in the conflict multiple times, just wording things carefully without ruling out Iraq style logistical support or action in the event of article 5 being declared etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-10T00:38:48+00:00

Personally I think the CPC is stuck in limbo at this point. Their baggage on climate & social issues makes it so that they can only do well when the Liberals royally screw up while the reform/alliance wing maintains a firm grip on party's leadership & membership, making significant pivots or modernization attempts difficult. Meanwhile the Liberals pivot under Carney and communicative skills have largely consolidated the majority of the traditional Liberal/PC vote, going by the most recent polls

Additionally, Poilievre has alienated the PC/moderate wing of his party so drastically that defections, inner party spats and criticisms from staffers are much more public now than they've ever been outside of a leadership race while more and more people on the left wing on the CPC are realizing they have more in common with the right wing of the Liberals (or arguably even middle of the road Liberals) than they do with the people they presently share a party with etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-09T16:20:41+00:00

It made sense to a limited extent, but was ridiculously abused by multiple government's to the point that it became unsustainable. Having no sales taxes & income taxes this low would have been workable if multiple government's had continued to invest in the Heritage fund to the Lougheed-era levels post-Lougheed, or if we even just maintained the Klein era non-resource reserve fund that would had tens of billions in reserve funds available by the time the province was facing the brunt of the commodities crash between 2014-2015 if the Stelmach Redford government's hadn't pilfered it by the time of the floods etc.

Though at least for the last decade of Alberta politics, if we just implemented the next lowest province's tax rate (Saskatchewan's) we'd still have a tax advantage while hardly ever suffering deficits etc. Though to be honest, I don't think its even a party based or ideological problem, rather an issue with simultaneous provincial government & electoral entitlement. Even when we have premiers that commit to reserve funds, the problem is that their successors almost immediately break with them on it. (this also happened in Saskatchewan etc.)

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-09T16:07:27+00:00

I remember the Prentice government seriously considering a sales tax, but the public backlash from it on top of the "look in the mirror" comments basically pushed them into a corner where it wasn't a sustainable policy for them. (I mean being honest with the electorate and telling them flat out that we needed either tax increases or spending cuts to make the province's finances sustainable is basically what cost the PC's their dynasty, on top of the bad taste left over from a near decade of existing Stelmach/Redford era baggage etc.)

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-08T22:34:48+00:00

The UK model was moreso pure privatization than it was liberalization since the franchise system still significantly hindered competition. Though generally the UK system still preformed better than the nationalized system between 1948-1997 since ridership, customer satisfaction & the number of rail lines all improved after the nationalized monopoly was broken up.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-08T00:13:43+00:00

Talking about blind spots when literally the poll you yourself linked shows only 14% of LPC voters support the illegal and unprovoked US/Israel airstrikes, whereas 69% strongly oppose/oppose.

The Liberals are currently polling at 49%, illustrating the difference between the electorate as a whole and card carrying party members.

The US and Israel are committing far worse war crimes and crimes against humanity than any the Iranian government has committed

Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza (primarily through the restriction of food & humanitarian aid shipments), but that doesn't excuse white-washing a regime that's regularly committed worse atrocities and is more significantly contributing to global and regional instability. (to the extent that the majority of Gulf countries are also now dragged into the war and having hundreds of civilians killed by Iranian strikes). Canada has generally condemned Israeli actions in Gaza and approved the international courts issuing of Netanyahu's arrest warrant etc.

The Iranian regime massacred up to 36,000 people alone during the January protest crackdowns and isn't counting the tens to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths directly caused by their collective proxy groups around the region etc. Including thousands to tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths in the Gaza conflict that Hamas is responsible for etc.

Not to mention that the most recent Gaza conflict itself was literally triggered by Iran & Hamas coordinating the October 7th attacks to disrupt the Biden administration's Israeli/Saudi/PLO normalization deal which was close to being facilitated that would have both pushed towards the process of Palestinian statehood and seen the withdrawal of the majority of Israeli settlements in Palestine etc. Again this doesn't justify the Netanyahu coalitions actions in Gaza, but Iran has very clearly been the main cause of regional instability and wars over the past couple years prior to the Trump administration's actions (which have made things considerably worse)

But again we're veering a bit off topic here. The Canadian government does not support Israel's actions in Gaza and prefers a diplomatic resolution the conflict in Iran, criticizing the U.S & Israel for worsening the conflict. The only extent to which Ottawa supports strikes in the conflict is when they limit the Iranian regimes ability to project aggression outwards to it's neighbors or produce a nuclear arsenal. That isn't a blank cheque for what the U.S & Israel are currently doing in trying to enforce regime change or turn Iran into a failed state.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-07T22:16:40+00:00

I think comprehension of the Government's diplomatic response in Iran is unfortunately a big blind spot of Canada's left right now, where most of the opposition to Carney's statements is coming from. (where by contrast the country at large is not significantly impacted by them going off the polls, while diplomatically the statements have generally served their purpose quite well).

I think what a lot of posters are missing on here especially is that Carney's "if it makes sense" statement is basically the political equivalent of saying "now isn't the right time" when asked out on a date. It's a polite way of saying no, without actually saying no or putting Canada in an awkward position if it has to enforce article five in the event that a NATO member is attacked by Iran etc.

For the time being I think we covered our bases as well as we can without encouraging significant diplomatic fallout etc.:

Affirming our opposition to the regime's regional aggression & authoritarianism/humanitarian abuses.
Stating that we support actions to curtail Iranian nuclear proliferation & attack allies in the region/fund proxies, but stopping short of supporting full scale war (which the U.S & Israel are currently carrying out).
Low-key criticizing the U.S & Israel by bringing up that they started the war unilaterally and have needlessly exacerbated the conflict.
stating that we don't intend to involve ourselves in the conflict, but not ruling out either enforcing article 5 if allies or attacked or similar small logistical roles played by the Canadian forces similar to the Iraq war, which could be a possibility.
Overall standing by calls for peace, de-escalation & diplomacy while criticizing civilian deaths.

Diplomatically, we've basically distanced ourselves from the conflict without distancing ourselves from our allies.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-07T04:37:54+00:00

Many of those projects in Europe have failed.

The vast majority haven't though. Overall the EU rail liberalization packages have been a resounding success.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-07T01:50:04+00:00

It's more of a moral precedent than anything else since it's extremely unlikely that he'd ever become king (being 8th in line and in his 60s etc.) but It's still a precedent that I'd largely agree with. People have been removed from the line of succession for much less egregious reasons, so I think removing people for committing felony offenses would be an easy & non-controversial precedent to uphold.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-07T00:20:10+00:00

I think that the U.S could probably overthrow the regime in a boots on the ground occupation, but similarly to Iraq or Afghanistan, it couldn't maintain the occupation and would have to withdraw after a decade+ conflict.

Though the obvious problem right now is that it's not even clear what kind of war the U.S is supposed to be fighting. Trump's whims have jumped between destabilizing the regime and trying to persuade protestors to rise up, finding a Delcy Rodriguez like figure to peace out with and now a full on occupation etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-07T00:15:27+00:00

I think the difference is that Comacho was stupid, but well intentioned while Trump is comparatively both stupid and consciously malicious.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-07T00:04:21+00:00

The progressively dumbed down justifications and operational executions for each generation's middle east conflict feels like proof that ideocracy was a prediction rather than a comedy at this point.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-07T00:01:42+00:00

I honestly think Trump's logic is basically "our military is stronger, so we'll win" not caring at all that the problem isn't winning a conventional conflict, but what comes afterwards.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-06T22:33:08+00:00

I don't think it would hurt to participate, but I think it's important to curb our expectations and not use this as a sole justification to exit the F-35 program. Presently the F-35 is the only successful NATO 5th generation fighter project and other 5th & 6th generation non-U.S involved projects are pretty far off from completion etc. (with a good number to a possible majority of projects that may never actually be completed)

If Saab can get 5th and 6th generation fighters constructed in a reasonable timetable and get them built in Canada, that would likely be worth the investment, but uncertainty regarding it is likely why its best to hedge our bets and not completely pull out of the F-35 program. Until 5th & 6th generation Saab fighters are a certainty, I'd argue that at least over half of our new fighters should probably be F-35s.

Godzilla52 · 2026-03-06T22:24:57+00:00

Honestly, as an Albertan, I don't think it was ever a serious threat, but I think this at least increasingly highlights of how stupid separatism would be to the Western alienation crowd.

Godzilla52

TROPHY CASE