no.

we need to start seeing them through a more realistic lens, which means understanding that they've been there for a long time and aren't going anywhere. instead of alienating and othering and attacking them, we need to accept them for what they are and work with them.

that doesn't mean being naive. the russians are different, but the chinese would wipe us out and colonize us if they could. lest we forget that we tried to do that to them? lest we forget the opium wars? so, they're the same as us. surprise? i don't know why, that should be obvious.

if we see them as adversaries, we will put a self-fulfilling prophesy in motion. but, if we try to work together despite our differences, we could potentially work together - which means making concessions - to build a better world, without conflict.

it's an error to conflate them. russia is an integral part of western culture, and china is an alien race that sees us as inferior, too. but, that doesn't matter much, in purely tactical considerations. we need to reach out to work together, not dig in and work against each other...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-russia-china-fadden-trump-1.5357109

if you put freeland in power, the conservatives will win the next election by splitting the vote in ontario.

what's the alternative?

no.

i think that it's clear enough that trudeau does not have a clear successor, and if the party wants to go through this, it's going to need to run a leadership contest. looking around, i don't see any great options, which is why we ended up here in the first place.

but, the next liberal leader should be making it a priority to reconnect with the party's historical positions on foreign policy and social services, and try to reverse the slide into neo-liberalism that set in after mulroney. one of the major reasons that trudeau was successful was that he projected a reversal of neo-liberalism by channeling the legacy of his father, even if the facts didn't uphold that. elevating freeland would drop the pretext around this, and almost certainly either resurrect the ndp from imminent destruction, or give people the resolve to actually vote green.

we've seen this movie before. it's what happened with paul martin.

liberals in canada want to vote for a social liberalism. if you want a market-centric, end-of-history, neo-liberal, progressive conservatism, we have that, too, but it's the other guys.

and, all that these consistent attempts to move the liberal party to the right accomplish is conservative governance.

they're only 13 seats short. they can win that back by focusing on some urban seats and investing in education, climate, housing and health care. but, if they don't, people will get fed up and vote for somebody else, instead...

i would like to see some renewal at foreign affairs, but if the pmo is going to bring back the deputy prime minister role, they should probably avoid appointing an upper class american that sits in a riding in toronto.

that would be pretty tone deaf.

it's not a constitutionally mandated position, and in the sense that it means "she's next", it would be broadly contradicting the changes that trudeau & butts brought in after 2013 to try and increase voter interest in the leadership.

i don't think she could win a leadership contest - she's a conservative, and the liberal base is way to the left of the actual party. she'd have a ceiling of around 20% against much of anybody. people would sign up to vote her out.

if there needs to be some process put in place to change the leadership of the party, and maybe there does, she's a one-way ticket back to opposition.

there's no way i would vote for her.

it's not clear to me what jurisdiction they have here, and my kneejerk reaction is consequently actually about canadian sovereignty. it's bad enough that warren is doing a poor job representing her own constituents. she has a lot of nerve calling for the canadian government to even answer her phone calls.

if i were the pmo, i'd tell her to write a letter to her mp.

that being said, it's really more reflective of the kind of right-wing populism that is defining the democratic primary at the moment. warren and sanders are the worst when it comes to this, because they're really just mirror reflections of donald trump. they're desperately grappling for some kind of enemy to define - bankers, the rich, technology, gays and, now, apparently, canada. and, she kind of is a south park republican, isn't she?

there's a level of randomness regarding the behaviour of whales, meaning some of them are going to get hurt, regardless. to an extent, you can't stop it. but, i'd like to see what the review says. i think we might come out fairly well in a systemic study, but if there are reasonable steps that the government can take then i think positive suggestions would be well received by both the sitting government and a large percentage of the canadian voting public. i do believe that there have been regulations introduced recently to restrict commercial vessels from operating at specific speeds; that is, this is something the government has actually legislated on fairly recently. they are more likely to be receptive than dismissive.

so, i think that canada would welcome any kind of constructive debate on the topic, actually.

but, warren doesn't want constructive debate - she wants to find an enemy to demonize and then try and build a campaign of hate around. the way to stop her from doing that is to call her on it and deconstruct it as she does it.

what i would like to support is a candidate that offers a positive socialist vision for the country and the continent, and she's about as far from that as is possible.

https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/u-s-senators-call-for-review-of-canadian-protections-of-endangered-right-whales-1.4688046