O'Leary speaks out on Trudeau.

[The Green Barbarian]

Well, before that happens, we will get to see how nasty the leadership race will get within the party. How many Conservatives want to go down the same road as the GOP and elect a shallow, reality TV, attention-whore instead of a true leader who exemplifies traditional Conservative values? Will the party embrace him? It will be interesting.

Yes I honestly don't think O'Leary can pull it off as Canadians are turned off by this kind of behavior, but we will see how palpable the anger is out there against Trudeau. Right now JT seems to be following the same trajectory as his evil dad, in that he won in a landslide in 1968 and by 1972 a lot of people were sick of his BS and he barely squeaked out a win in 1972, only because he had Quebec in his back pocket. We'll see if the same goes for JT. He's been stepping on his man parts more often than usual lately.

[hobbyguy]

GB - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/04/justin-trudeau-canada-first-year-prime-minister-global-stage-challenge

"But most see these as small knocks for a government that has political capital to spare. Polls routinely suggest that were an election to be held today, Trudeau and his party would earn an even greater number of seats than the 184 won last year in Canada’s 338-seat House of Commons."

"The Trudeau government’s popularity is hard to untangle from the divisiveness that dogged his Conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, whose government shunned climate change obligations, slashed funding to federal efforts on gender equality and sought to ban women wearing the niqab from participating in citizenship ceremonies. "

Don't forget that many folks like JT and the Libs for what they NOT.

O'Leery is exactly what Canadians voted against.

[Ka-El]

Support for federal Liberals plummets, new poll shows

OTTAWA—After soaring in public approval for more than a year, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals tumbled last month in a new poll that reflects a prime minister and key ministers struggling to balance ambitious electoral promises and the hard realities of governing.

[yet still ahead of Conservatives and NDP]

In the past month, the Conservatives’ national approval rating under interim leader Rona Ambrose ticked up to 34 per cent from 28. That narrows a recent gap between the Liberals and the Conservatives — who do not yet have a permanent replacement for Stephen Harper — from 23 percentage points to just eight points.

There was no significant change for the New Democratic Party, which stands stalled at 12 per cent, nor for the Greens at 6 or the Bloc Québécois at 5 per cent.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/su ... id=SL5MDHP

As badly as Trudeau might be doing right now, the Conservatives still have a long way to go to become a viable alternative and their supporters criticizing Trudeau for not wearing a poppy at Halloween won't help them. Kevin O’Leary might present the Party with a fresh face and might even be able to somehow make his old ideas look fresh, but his advisors (if he yet has any) should warn him that giving interviews for The Rebel will not help him earn credibility with the electorate at large.

[hobbyguy]

Yup, the reality is that governing means that that you can not please everyone all the time. Some hard decisions had to be made. The TMX and NGP decisions annoyed some folks at both ends of the spectrum. The decisions on military aircraft are annoying some folks (but hey, Canada's military will at least have some up to date equipment).

Plus some special interests who thought they would get lots of goodies did not.

The next budget will be interesting.

[hobbyguy]

The old Conservative schtick won't work. Canadians voted against that when they turfed Harper. And as I said before, many swing voters are not fooled by the likes of O'Leery.

[The Green Barbarian]

GB - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/04/justin-trudeau-canada-first-year-prime-minister-global-stage-challenge

"But most see these as small knocks for a government that has political capital to spare. Polls routinely suggest that were an election to be held today, Trudeau and his party would earn an even greater number of seats than the 184 won last year in Canada’s 338-seat House of Commons."
.

This is completely meaningless. Pontificating on how Justin would do in an election against two parties who currently don't have leaders is a complete waste of time. The Conservatives need a unifying leader. They still control the center-right and the right. That isn't fractured like it was in the past. The NDP is extremely weak right now. If someone can take over and fight off the Avi Lewis Naomi Klein lunatic fringe they might draw votes back that went to the Liberals last election. One thing is certain, the honeymoon is over with JT. He's already showing that he's drawing farther and farther away from the average voter, after working so hard to convince everyone otherwise. That Castro statement was just ridiculous. And now this democracy stuff just makes him look like a giant clown.

[The Green Barbarian]

The old Conservative schtick won't work. Canadians voted against that when they turfed Harper. And as I said before, many swing voters are not fooled by the likes of O'Leery.

Yet they were fooled by the likes of JT. So really your comments about swing voters don't hold much water.

[hobbyguy]

The point is, the Conservatives wore out their welcome. Promising "x" but doing "y". And then basically telling the public to go fly a kite. Skippy Poiliviere, Julian Fantino, Jason Kenney, Chris Alexander...

It took folks a while to realize that they were being taken, but they did. So much so that a LOT of folks voted NDP during the Jack Layton period. (The Liberals had no remotely credible leader during the period). 10 years of Conservative "shtick" on the economy did absolutely zero, or worse, for most Canadians. So when the Liberals came up with a candidate that looked remotely possible as a leader, the Cons got the boot.

So bar is pretty low. If the Liberals have any economic success at all at the level of average folk, they will look good. JT and his immediate brigade can look like the Keystone Kops, but if the economy gets any better, or perhaps even just stays as it is, they have a good chance of easily defeating the old Con "shtick" regardless.

O'Leery is all "shtick" and nothing else.

[OREZ]

^^^
That pretty much sums up the way I think things happened too.

However, I'm not entirely convinced that Canadians won't got for "schtick" again.

[The Green Barbarian]

O'Leery is all "shtick" and nothing else.

Can you honestly say that Trudeau isn't all "schtick" as well? The constant selfies? The stupid comments about Castro? The botched democracy stuff? O'Leary will have one big advantage, the same one that Trump had. He doesn't care. He can speak unfiltered. He already knows that if he says one thing that conflicts with the allowable PC narrative on Muslims and immigration that the snowflakes and PC People will dub him a "bigot" and a "racist" so there really is no point even trying to pander to those bozos. Just say what you think, and mean what you say. People either respond to it or they don't. In the end, it will be a guy who has been out in the real world vs. a failed drama teacher who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. We will see what resonates with Canadians more.

[The Green Barbarian]

There was speculation Mr. Wonderful would use this opportunity to officially throw his hat into the federal Conservative Party leadership race. But the entrepreneur and TV star said first Conservative MPs “need to know if I do run, I am not going to disrupt them but help them.”

Who he does want to disrupt is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“What we have to realize is Justin is a surfer dude and his friend (senior political adviser) Gerald Butts is a vampire sucking the blood (out of country). I may have to bring garlic with me,” said O’Leary.

The surfer may be wise to keep his eye on this hungry shark, who says the first item on his menu is stopping the incoming carbon tax.

“It’s just bad for Canada and it makes no sense to not have uniformity across the country,” he said. “We need to delay this thing for at least six months until we see how things are under the Donald Trump presidency because with the changes he’s taking about, we don’t want price ourselves out of the market.”

Taxing carbon, he said, is out of step with where the United States is heading.

“It was fine with President Obama where they all had this dream about fighting climate change,” he said. “But that grand, social experiment is not working and I fear with carbon taxes our provinces will not be competitive with states like Michigan and Ohio which are going to become more attractive for investment.”

http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Canada/201 ... 89527.html

[hobbyguy]

As my momma used to say, "if your friend jumps off a cliff, do you jump with him?".

The US has been slowly shutting Canada out of the good parts of trade anyway.

Trump wants to revisit the XL decision. Fine, that will help solve our short term problem, and paradoxically it will boost JT and the Liberals.

Long term, we need to move away from US trade. Harper knew that, which is part of the reason he worked on CETA. (I actually think CETA is slightly better than NAFTA, because it does NOT include a super low wage, no regulation country). The US only wants trade with Canada for raw materials. Seen lots of "made in Canada" stuff on the shelves lately?

Even the "Art of the Deal" master Trump had to resort to buying Carrier jobs. Is that the direction we want to go - bribing corporations to keep a few decent jobs in Canada?

So the opportunity is there for Canada to steal a march on the US by moving to a more sustainable economy and prosperous society while the US tries to go backwards. Perhaps then, "made in Canada" will not be an endangered species.

O'Leery represents a "Wall St." mentality. If you listen to what he says, he always talks about lower taxes (for the wealthy), never accepts that there are areas where government does a more cost effective job (our health care - despite its flaws - does a better and cheaper job than the US so called "system"), and when he speaks of "competitiveness" it is just code for lower wages for the average citizen, more money for Kevin and his ilk.

So O'Leery, with his deep treasure trove of politically stupid comments and outrageous statements (that's how he makes his money - not through successful business) would need a Trumpian audience. I don't think that's big enough in Canada. And by the time our election comes around, things will be at different point of context.

[maryjane48]

If someone can take over and fight off the Avi Lewis Naomi Klein lunatic fringe they might draw votes back that went to the Liberals last election

no liberal leaning person in canada would ever vote for anything close to a person like harper . their only hope is find someone young and sexy like jt :P

[The Green Barbarian]

. their only hope is find someone young and sexy like jt :P

and stupid. You forgot stupid.

[The Green Barbarian]

So O'Leery, with his deep treasure trove of politically stupid comments and outrageous statements

Such as? Honestly, if he's making statements that you think are "politically stupid" I'd say that's a positive for him.