
Justin Trudeau – Profile of an interesting man - sriram_sun
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/justin-trudeau-canadian-prime-minister-free-worlds-best-hope-w494098
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nilved
I didn't read the article, but as a Canadian I thought it was important to
voice my dissent of Trudeau. He ran on a platform of electoral reform, and
reneged after his election. Unfortunately, he looks pretty great compared to
Trump, so the international community seems to think he's well-liked in
Canada.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-electoral-reform-
whe...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-electoral-reform-wherry-
analysis-1.4179928)

[http://trudeaumeter.ca](http://trudeaumeter.ca)

eta: not going to reply to every comment, so: yes, he is better than Trump;
no, CBC is not smearing him.

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wvenable
After the experience in BC, I think electoral reform is a non-starter in
Canada.

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xemoka
That was a mixed bag. The 2005 electoral reform referendum had 'yes' support
of over 57%, however nothing happened because the BC Liberals (who, for our
neighbours to the south, are small-c conservatives, not small-l liberals like
our Federal Liberal party) set a super majority requirement.

The second referendum didn't pass, with only 40% saying 'Yes' to STV—however
in both referendums the electorate were incredibly uninformed and both our
major political parties did a poor job of supporting it; it's never in the
interest of a party that could form a majority government (in FPTP rules) to
enact electoral reform that could result in them not having a majority if they
'won'.

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wvenable
> however in both referendums the electorate were incredibly uninformed

Really? There was a ton of material about it sent to everyone. What is your
bar for really informed? Now imagine that on a national level.

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xemoka
The Yes campaign ran a grass-roots oriented standard political campaign, with
volunteer call centers, signs and standard political advertising.

The No campaign ran a mass-media (television) focused campaign that
concentrated on airtime in the last two weeks (there was evidence to show,
that 6 weeks before the referendum, very few people were even aware it was
happening).

The 'No' television pieces told the electorate it was 'complicated' and
there's no point in fixing something that's not broken. Most people didn't
know anything about what was happening behind the scenes, just that television
was telling them it would be more complicated and wasn't worth it. Most people
left it at that and didn't look for the other side—the 'Yes' informative
pieces were not in the same format, not in easily digestible televised promos.
That is what I call uninformed. There was very little for the mass-consumer
that was easily accessible. It doesn't help that the STV proposed _was_
complicated, but no accessible advertising by the 'Yes' campaign was available
to quell those fears.

Just because everyone got it in the mail, doesn't mean it was accessible. It
was a complete failure of the 'Yes' campaign to realize who their audience
really were. Those who were interested enough to read their materials probably
were already willing to support the cause. Those who were not interested
enough just listened to what the television was telling them: Vote No, Fear
Change.

Re: informing on a national level

I do not believe a referendum is required to enact electoral reform. We have
enough intelligent people that the best choice—or at the very least a better
choice—can be made without forcing the electorate to make the choice between
systems themselves. I do not trust the majority to support a minority, our
societies continually fail at that. No one ever said we cannot change an
electoral system again, in fact, in BC we've already done that in the distant
past.

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sriram_sun
The Rolling Stone article compares Harper to Cheney and Trudeau to Obama. Is
it possible that Canada might vote in a Trump in the next election cycle?
Anything is possible I guess.

Also, I posted this not as a Harper Vs. Trump thing, but to see how each
country is dealing with multiculturalism.

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xemoka
Thankfully we dodged that bullet already, the Conservative Party of Canada
eschewed picking either of our 'Trump'-style Candidates: Kevin O'Leary with
his bombastic, CEO brash attitude and Kelly Leech, the 'Canadian-values' 'Old-
stock Canadians' candidate (read: racist dog-whistling).

The candidate they did pick, Andrew Scheer, is more like Stephen Harper than
otherwise. He might (and in some ways is) try to pull a few pages from Trump's
play book, but at least it's not the entire thing.

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moretai
i can't be the only one who thinks he got elected because he's extremely good
looking.

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eumenides1
True, but he also is not terrible at policy and campaigning.

I learned my lesson when rob ford was elected. The man isn't much of a
statesman but he can campaign with the best of them. While everyone was
laughing at him, I worried over Scottish independence, brexit, and of course
Donald trump.

