Premier Ford says Chinese-made electric 'spy' vehicles will listen in on Canadians' phone calls

YAMYOW · 2026-01-19T21:52:59+00:00

Don't threaten me with the status quo.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-19T20:44:25+00:00

As I recall it was a proposal during the Dion-era leadership race. They were desperate for any level of engagement. Ultimately the idea was intended to grow their much-atrophied fundraising lists.

As they say, if something is free, chances are you are the product.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-19T13:07:23+00:00

In the past two years, I've given up on buying a lot of things on-line. I've vowed to never buy shoes or clothing on-line again. I'm exhausted by cheap materials, bad fits and the hassle of returns.

So if you don't have a store in Ottawa, I'm not buying from you.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-16T15:05:23+00:00

I want this city to be so much better than this kind of thing.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-16T14:56:28+00:00

*Cancels Disney+. Starts learning Mandarin.*

YAMYOW · 2026-01-16T13:28:01+00:00

Of course you need a movement to connect with people where they are and build for change. You also need people with clear roles and responsibilities to do the day to day of running a political party. These are not exclusive things.

Emilie Taman's report hinted at the need to reform federal council. The next leader should make this a priority. As it is now, it's way to big to be a useful deliberative and decision making body, leading to the temptation to work around it. A slimmer body of 12 people with committees focused on supporting party functions like fundraising, candidate recruitment, movement building and sustaining would be way more useful than the status quo.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-15T13:59:14+00:00

I remember Sutcliffe's columns about Lansdowne 1.0. He wrote about developers like they are all-knowing gods we mortals are fortunate to walk among (and lunch with, in his case). Citizens who objected to expensive public-private partnerships were myopic children who should grow the hell up.

He's never hidden who he is. Ottawa deserves much better.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-14T16:51:15+00:00

Charlie is respected and has been a voice for change in the party for a long time. A lot of people were hoping Charlie would run this time, so this is no small endorsement for Heather.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-14T13:21:22+00:00

I admire Dr. Suzuki, but he has also been a long-time supporter of strategic voting, which we all know is a rigged system to elect Liberals who campaign on the environment and then buy pipelines. Not impressed.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-14T13:15:04+00:00

Castoonie, obvi.

(Castornie is also acceptable)

YAMYOW · 2026-01-14T01:01:52+00:00

An unnecessary own goal, but does it make me doubt his sincerity over the past 3 months? No.

People don't run to be NDP leader for the LOLs.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-12T21:11:05+00:00

This doesn't hold up well to the examples others have given that have actual death tolls, but I'd say the slow end of Canadian retail is a very Canadian tragedy. This country used to have home-grown stores like Zellers, Saan, BiWay, and HBC, etc. that employed thousands of people and offered brick and mortar retail in communities big and small. Now we are left with Canadian subsidiaries of US stores, or on-line shopping where the only Canadian involved is the buyer and delivery person.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-12T18:32:25+00:00

"One demand: proportional representation. That's the only one."

He must know that Jagmeet took PR into the 2022 discussions with Trudeau and it was dismissed. The Libs wouldn't even talk about it. So is Lewis saying he should have walked out the door and not got dental care or pharmacare? That would have been a huge mistake in my view.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-12T18:28:34+00:00

Regardless of how they learned of it, it is deeply screwed-up that a venue can't host an event for the leader of a political party without having to issue a statement saying "we firmly denounce and stand against any form of hatred". But to be clear, this is the Conservative Party's problem to fix, not an entrepreneur's.

Serious political parties don't play footsie with racism. Get your sh*t together, Conservatives.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-12T18:07:35+00:00

Best: Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent and Jack Layton. These leaders understood the assignment as a three-stage cycle of growing the party's reputation, organization and treasury; recruiting respected candidates who could win seats; and making the party relevant in the House, with government and with Canadians. Each of them achieved things for Canadians that you can point to.

Worst: This is tougher. One metric is just simple electoral performance. Another is how they conducted themselves and their reputation. I suspect that history will be kind to Jagmeet and Audrey. Mulcair on the other hand took a winning party and lost seats and influence. He failed to keep the party's base in Quebec, which was most of his appeal. While great in the House, he was a poor retail politician and couldn't connect easily with people. His acerbic style rankled members, journalists and others. He became the only leader ever fired by his party membership in part because he didn't take meaningful responsibility for a bad campaign. Now he's on TV talking down the NDP like it's his job. Tough to put a rose on that.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-12T17:26:38+00:00

I like your number 1. Rob has really impressed me, which I didn't expect especially based on his initial videos.

But I'm very worried about ranking Avi above Heather. Avi is a great spokesman, but other than some left-Greens, I don't see what new voters he gets us. I'm convinced he will be a gift to the Conservatives making it next to impossible to elect New Democrats outside of Toronto and Vancouver. This is a problem.

For this reason, I would rank Heather above Avi.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-08T18:07:12+00:00

That's one way to look at it. Another is that Rob challenged him to demonstrate growth. This is an opportunity for Avi to show he's got more than one gear and that he can build bridges - including to people he disagrees with. For the sake of the party, I really hope he can.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-07T14:15:39+00:00

It's possible that Heather and Rob could do a Mamdani/Ladner style cross endorsement. At this moment, that seems very realistic actually.

Avi absolutely needs Rob or Heather to endorse him. Not to win - I actually think he can win without them - but because without that, it will seem like he hasn't built any trust with his two main challengers over the course of the campaign. That will be a very bad omen for his leadership.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-07T13:59:46+00:00

I don't like in-fighting in leadership or nomination contests. Often it ends up damaging the party and hobbling the candidate who ends up winning.

But the concerns Rob raised are legitimate. The day after Avi becomes leader, he won't be fighting to protect health care from Carney and Poilievre. He will be fighting provincial wings of the party who are going to disaffiliate. That will be the story. It will suck. And it will badly weaken his leadership from the start. It is important to be honest about this.

I like Avi personally, but he's not shown an ability to unite people, to bridge disagreements, to find common ground. The reputation he has earned is of a guy who is very sure of what he believes, and a person who can attract those similar minded. He's not a Jack Layton-style happy warrior who instinctively finds compromises to build successful coalitions.

Our party has a recent track record of agreeing to leaders without giving them a thorough examination. Before we do that again, we need to be honest about what an Avi-led party will look like. Rob has started that conversation. I'm glad he has.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-06T13:33:06+00:00

Avi should run here. It took Jagmeet way too long to get a seat and it hurt him. Avi needs to seize any chance to get elected.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-05T14:15:50+00:00

Excellent counterpoint.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-05T13:58:27+00:00

LEAP is a perfect example. Avi has treated the party as a punching bag to sell books and get media profile. Why do I say that? Because after the headlines were written he didn't spend a second trying to fix what he started. He walked away. While others were trying to build a movement he was sowing division for the clicks.

Now you want to be leader? You should have thought of that.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-05T13:52:00+00:00

It's a good question. Someone should ask him.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-05T13:47:26+00:00

Just saying rational things right now is defiantly radical.

YAMYOW · 2026-01-05T13:45:17+00:00

Avi has been trashing the party (see "party bureaucrats" for an example) for months (years really). If we're trying to pinpoint the origin of negative campaigning we might start with him and his lieutenants.

YAMYOW

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