Canada had it’s national elections yesterday, and the picture this morning is near identical to the one we had yesterday. The pragmatic in all of us wonders what was the point of this if nothing changed, we certainly could have spent the projected $600m on something else. And there are still 800,000 mail in votes that need to be tabulated, so some shifts are expected.

The results themselves are generally in line with polls, which did undergo some minor swings in this 30-odd day period (that it was short was great!). There were a few hurdles for everyone in this battle, both in the concepts/promises and in the track history.

We have a first past the post (FPTP) electoral system here, so strategic voting makes a big difference. People will vote against someone rather than for, just to avoid splitting the vote. Long story here, but electoral reform is a sensitive subject which we have not yet solved.

The party in power is lead by someone who has a truckload of charisma, there is no denying it. He’s also made some horribly poor ethical decisions, or perhaps they seem anti-ethical when he says he wants to push for transparency and equality. And yet, his platform is very progressive, effectively eating into the platforms of the smaller left-leaning parties. Health care, climate change, national day care, gun control (for automatic weapons) are all part of the platform.

The opposition part is right leaning, with a relatively new leader. He’s a good speaker, but the least charismatic of the bunch. Looks matter in politics, and a old (still younger than the PM!) balding white guy doesn’t resonate so much with everyone. The platform presented was much more center than the last ones, with clear acknowledgement of abortion rights, LGBTQ+ support, and some climate change support. It still had traditional right side ticks, like lower taxes, more jobs, more choices for people. He was pro-choice on vaccine support, and at the provincial level last week, the 2 right-leaning provinces declared emergencies and support for vaccine passports. The problem here is not the leader, the problem is the party.

We then get into the 3rd party, which was traditionally the most left-leaning. The party in power has eaten into their base, so they opted to go farther left, into the ‘this can’t actually work’ space. They have a very charismatic leader, but their platform is utopian in a country that is traditionally financially conservative. When pressed as to how they would pay for all this, the answer was a simple sound bite ‘we will increase taxes on the rich’. While a good soundbite, there was no answer to the follow-up question ‘how do you keep the rich people in the country?’ This party suffered the most from this election, in that they are not viewed as a viable alternative across the country, and strategic voting moved towards the party in power instead. If we were a proportional-representation system, then they would absolutely be a viable strategic choice.

The last 3 parties are somewhat fringe. One is entirely focused on climate change, and has some serious leadership challenges over the summer. They lack any coherent platform. Another only exists in the province of Quebec, meant to represent their population’s distinct needs. This party is much more aligned to the right, but the national right-leaning party is headquartered in a province that dislikes Quebec and is anglophone – really fascinating dynamics here. And the last party is a bunch of white nationalist imbeciles, with the thought power of a bucket of rusty bolts. They are an extreme right-wing party and their sole part of this election was pushing anti-vax conspiracy theories. They took ~5% of the national vote, which was enough to “steal” some wins from the opposition party.

Lessons Learned

Each party is going to have to do some soul searching after this election, it’s a rare event that the pre/post results are so close.

• Even with people not wanting an election and a leader that has more than enough bad decisions, they still came away with a “win”. This is the 2nd election in a row with this result…
• It seems fairly clear that Canadians have accepted that a progressive agenda is here for the foreseeable future and are willing to absolve some poor decisions in that goal
• There is no new mandate. Nothing promised here was “new” in the big sense. Which is sort of good in that there’s shift in government priorities in the middle of a pandemic.
• It would appear on the surface, that this election was a quasi-referendum on the pandemic response (as we had during the 2008 economic crisis). The way the prior government handled it vs the style of the opposition was quite the contrast
• This appeared to be a party-based election rather than a leader-based one, which is a slight shift from the prior one. Perhaps this is due to the shorter time frames and very weird debate format. Ideally this grounds our PM on the impact of his personality.
• There is a growing regional political divide, as well as an urban/rural one. The inability for provinces and federal parties to “get along” is more striking.
• That the right still has a significant “fringe” vote and voice that “scares” moderates. (There was a giant unification of the right 20 years ago, there’s the potential of a split)
• This is still a minority government, which typically have a 2 year lifespan. And we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. This is a tentative endorsement of the party in power, with some checks and balances.

I look forward to see how the various parties adjust their platforms and messages, in particular as to how the provinces adjust.

Canada is in the midst of a weirdly (by any objective aside from political) timed election. It’s relatively short, some 32 days long before we all head to the polls. Which is fun because some countries spend half their term in the election cycle, meaning they only work half the time on their actual mandate (at best).

First, the basis that Canada has generally been a fiscally conservative and socially liberal country. There’s been a general sharing of power across the parties for a very long time, with both offering centrist platforms.

As with many countries, there are polarizing bits within the nation. We are a physically large country, but 80% of the entire population lives within the US border and urban centers. Proportional representation clearly favors one side, while equal representation would dramatically shift the national agenda. In the olden days, this was less of an issue as the matters of a local area didn’t often conflict at the national level – groups were relatively self-sufficient. In the post-Thatcher/Regan era of global multi-corporations + the massive proliferation of social media the world has shifted nearly completely and within a generation. The ‘financial hubs’ of our country have pushed a particular agenda, and well, the other parts are stuck playing catch up, if at all. This dissonance causes anger because people feel (are) ignored.

I am overly simplifying between urban and other settings. It’s dramatically more complex.

Each political party has a base. In a multi-party system, this base can shift around a bit. In a 2 party system, the bases don’t move. In Canada, we have 2 right-wing parties, and 3 left-wing parties. Only 1 of each wing has ever held national power, the wings that are closer to center and therefore have a wider base. The fringes of a given wing have typically been inconsequential due to lack of size. That said, as we’ve all learned, there is a very loud minority out there. The crazies have no shame after all (and the echo chamber effect cannot be ignored).

The current regional polling reflects this space. Where the numbers are similar at a national level, you have a federal platform. Where the numbers shift dramatically, you have a local platform. The CPC (right wing) absolutely dominates the prairies, where there are very small urban centers. This is their base, and even if the platform was to shoot laser kittens into the sun, they would still have the base come out and vote. This is due to the lack of competition (the PPC is at 3% national support and super fringe), and the community aspects at play. They could even come out with the most left-wing idea, and they’d still get the base out. But they haven’t. Up until this summer, their platform was entirely focused on their base which has meant a shift further to the right. Their new leader however, has really ruffled feathers by leaning to center with the platform. The ‘old guard’ and vocal minority are all over this, but the proof as the say, is in the pudding.

The left is more complex, as they share the remainder of the pie. The Liberals have used this to their advantage in eating into the more left-leaning party’s social platforms. Where the party was generally more controlled on the financials, that’s been all out the window to support social growth programs. They leveraged the fact that the right was going further to the extreme and ‘centrists’ would generally favour their platform (which the last 30 years has signalled). It didn’t matter what they had as a platform, they could just point and say ‘the right wants to stop abortion’ and that would be the end of that.

Not today! The right’s platform has practically ignored their base and put almost all their chips in the middle. That has thrown the left’s thinking that this was a slam dunk election out the window. It’s still leaning left for now, and more because there are a LOT of base voters that will vote against a party rather than for one – strategic voting is the term often used.

I remember reading Foundation when I was younger and fascinated at the concept of psycho-history – that numbers could predict actions, at large scale numbers. To me, this particular development was expected, just that the timing of it is a tad earlier. Most of this is generated from the situation with our southern cousins and the ever growing divisive political situation. It is hard to articulate how much Canada wants to avoid being seen emulating the US system. The shift back to centre was sorely needed, and this is just the first act in that rebalancing.

Regardless of the results of this election, it’ll be fascinating to see how this modifies the party platforms in the future. And I haven’t even started on the generational shift underway now…

After going full bore and filling every weekend with something, I was finally able to negotiate some time off. 2 weeks worth of full break mode. A few hours after I had confirmed it, my wife sends me a picture of the cottage and it’s leaky roof. And some carpenter ants having fun under a large window set. Guess the vacation would be postponed.

The first weekend was some friends helping get the demo & framing done. The supporting joists were rotten, a separate set of windows was crooked, and an inside wall had suffered years of water damage. All of Saturday was fixing the exterior, straightening the wall, levelling the windows, insulating, and closing up with OSB/Tyvek. The large window repairs included cutting 8” of the floor. The ceiling over the dining area was full of years of mouse trappings. Holy moley. Sunday was setting new window trim for the siding. And then watching the roof repairs not work as expected and it leak inside the house.

Monday was more roof repairs and fixing the interior wall. I should mention it was a load bearing wall, and right on the load. Father-in-law is more than handy and it was a day and a half of work to get it sorted out. The good news is that even with the hose spraying the roof, the leaks are gone.

Tuesday was clean up work outside, shoring up the retaining wall in the crawl space, caulking and filling in holes.

Wednesday was about rebuilding the interior finish. Some white pine tongue & groove, over a cedar plank to cover the cut floor. The rad was going to cover the plank anyhow. With the large wood shortages around, we opted for some 1×5” pine trim. Looks pretty good.

Thursday was about finishing the ceiling in the dining area that had leaked. That was a very cathartic part of the project since its the room we tend to spend the most time in. The same large trim is on the ceiling, just as on the window trim. It’s a different look on the windows, since they are not the same size (off an 1 1/2”), but it still retains the cottage / wood look.

Friday was OFF, as was Saturday. Sunday was mostly off, but we needed to expand the size of the door on the shed by about 9”. A shed that’s 30+ years old, and far from level. Building on anything that’s not level is really hard, cause there’s no easy cuts, everything must be eyeballed. We opted to shore up some parts, shave some parts, and make it as level as possible.

Things that are left to do this week:

• Put up the vinyl (should be here for next weekend)
• Rebuild 2 access doors to the crawl space (4×4), including the framing)
• Add some panels and caps to the extended shed door to close off the gaps
• Install a 4×8 wood panel sheet on a rebuilt wall
• Install quarter round in the living/dining room ceilings
• Spread out the fill that’s in a few piles around to level the yard, which includes removing a good half ton of river rock (we have a homemade shaker)

And before end of season

• Install some new rain gutters
• Replace the roof
• Install a vent in the crawl space

The end goal is that most people won’t see a large difference in the cottage, except some new colours. We will see doors that close level, windows that slide level, less water all over the place, and a shed door that is miles easier to get into / out of.

Oh, and get some fishing in too!

It may have made the news near you, but my city got hit with a couple tornadoes on Friday.  First time in 25 years.

It’s an oddly built city, with a sister city just across the river (in another province), a we’re in a valley.  This makes for interesting storm paths that hit the west end of the city, cross the river, hit that city, then come back to this side farther in the east.  I live on top of a hill, which is often spared the brunt of any large storm.  I saw the black clouds and a bit of heavy wind… but that’s it.

Luckily there were no fatalities, and just 6 critical injuries.  Power was lost to half the city for most of the weekend, with just over 5,000 left impacted on Monday.  The majority of the city is closed today to allow people to worry about their family and homes, rather than office work.  Except the french school board, but that’s a different topic.

No one on my team was directly impacted, but quite a few of their family members were.  That’s some good news.  My friends and family are mostly unaffected, except for a few with power issues.  That’s also some good news.

I work in IT.  We have multiple data centers in this city, as it’s the core of our operations.  A lot of those centers offer critical services both internally and to clients, so it was an all-hands on deck type of weekend.  Disaster recovery plans are the types of plans you never want to execute, but are glad that you have when you need them.  It’s impressive how thorough and passionate people can be during these types of events.   More than happy with what my team pulled through this weekend, and what the organization was able to do given the circumstances.

Now we start the period of rebuilding.   And to see what kind of help we can provide.