The Conservative civil war is in full swing
The Conservative civil war is in full swing
The Conservative civil war is in full swing
Hi from EU! Can someone please explain to an interested outsider what this means?
Rentlar's synopsis is really good, but I'll add a tiny bit of backstory. The Progressive Conservative party was the old stalwart, around forever, with not crazy views. Fiscally conservative. In the 90's a new brand of social conservative came on the scene from Alberta, the Reform party. Suddenly the conservative vote was getting split by fiscal conservatives (bring down the debt) and social conservatives (bring down big gay) and so there was a movement to "unite the right" that is now the current Conservative Party of Canada CPC which just lost the election. It has always been a tenuous alliance and shows cracks occasionally, but stays together because they win elections. Losing has caused the old conservatives and the reform conservatives to infight. Doug Ford is east/old style Pierre Pollivre is west/new style. They both really hate each other which is lovely to see from the other side.
The two largest political parties in Canada faced off in a polarizing election (at the expense of the smaller Canadian parties): the Liberals (slightly left of centre), vs. Conservatives (right wing big tent party). Canada's political system works as several simultaneous races for a parliamentary representative for their area, then the political party with the most representatives total selects (or has selected beforehand) a leader who will be the Prime Minister.
Now the Conservatives had been expected to take over due to the previous Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, being blamed for inflation and anything bad by Conservatives, Trudeau not accomplishing much and people being tired of the incumbent. But then, Justin Trudeau steps down and chooses a new leader who calls an election, Trump gets in office and threatens Canada, leading enough people to realize what shit-fuckery Trump style politics in Canada would lead to (not as many as I'd like, but enough).
The Conservatives had a decent vote share, but the leader, Pierre Poilievre who ran on a diet version of populist conservative nationalism, lost his own seat. In the meantime, the province (a sub-national region) of Ontario also held an election. The Progressive Conservative party (right of centre populist) got majority power in the province again due to the party and leader, Doug Ford, campaigning strongly against Trump.
The provincial party had been warning the national one to change tack against Trump, both in private from leaked statements and in public from some current and former campaign managers. The Nova Scotia Premier, (leader of another province, also a Conservative party) also warned them. However, Pierre was too slow to do that, and his campaign style of not letting the press ask questions freely remained, reminiscent of the Trump administration, which partly contributed to Canada's Conservative relative loss of power.
In Trump-style politics, Dear Leader (Pierre who did not get elected in his own election race) can do no wrong, so now that the election is done, it's time for the blame game and the knives are out. The crazies of the Conservative party are going to attack anyone, even if they are politically aligned, if they dared to tell the truth about Poilievre's likeness to Trump leading him to failure.
!lemmysilver for a great summary.
Great summary! I can't see the Conservatives splitting and giving up their chances of gaining power, but I hope this at least tamps down the PPC elements of the Conservatives.
The Liberals aren't slightly left of center, it's a center right party that got forced to do left wing stuff to stay in power.
@ladicius @Sunshine Depicted is Doug Ford, current Premiere of Ontario, Canada's most populous province. He is a leader of a provincial conservative party which typically is politically aligned with the federal conservative party.
A bit of drama within the ranks conservative political sphere in Canada is brewing whereby critics of the leader of the federal conservatives (e.g. Ford) and his allies (e.g. Jivani) are sniping at each other through the press. Here, Jivani is calling Ford a turncoat.
Thinking ford is suddenly a liberal without addressing his ridiculous highway plans, ridiculous tunnel plans, his loyalty to oil coupled with resistance to green energy, gutting of the endangered species act, and greenbelt scandal is ridiculous. Ford is half the problem most people in Ontario hate Trudeau because his polciies failed to help Ontarians, but his charisma managed to blame the feds.
He also promised buck a beer and what we got instead was an increase in beer prices and now you can buy it at every gas station, which i predict in the long term will increase the amount of drinking and driving as well as increase access to alcohol for minors.
Isn’t he related to the crack head mayor?
Imagine trying to dunk on a guy for not laying down and showing his belly to an authoritarian leader of a hostile Nation who wants to conquer yours. Like what kind of fucking loser..
What a time, when the federal Conservatives make Doug Ford look like the voice of reason, and hate him for it.
So fucking weird, right?