Yess PP lost the run for PM and humiliatingly lost his riding, but overall the party grew in influence and in number of seats tremendously under his leadership.
I agree the Conservatives have grown in influence but I don't believe it was because of Poilievre. It doesn't matter who leads the conservative party, the Canadian pendulum was due to swing back to the Cons, he dropped the ball hard, and probably still would have won if it wasn't for Trump slapping Canada in the face and waking a bunch of us up. Any influence gained was because it was "their turn", not Poilievre's leadership.
The question is, did the Conservatives come close to winning because of Poilievre, or did they lose a sure thing because of him? Based on what things looked like 6 months ago, I'd say the latter.
A while back on Reddit I saw a post asking about this stuff. Companies don't need to "listen" anymore, they have much more sophisticated options now. This example will use 3 people: A (wife) B (husband) and C (wife's old friend from school).
The question: A goes to the store without B, and runs into C, who proceeds to tell A about this cool gaming chair he just got. After the conversation, A puts the interaction aside and never mentions it to B. B later gets ads for the gaming chair. If B never had any interaction whatsoever about the chair, and A never even talked about it to B, how does B get the ads?
The answer: A goes to the store, and her phone knows this through location data. The algorithm knows A is at the store, and now picks up that C is also at the same store. The algo then finds a connection through social media that A and C know each other, and maybe even knows spending habits and sees A and C buy similar things. The odds are good that A and C will interact at the store.
C has been searching about this gaming chair for months, has just recently bought it, and talks about it constantly on socials. Odds are good that if A and C interact, C will talk about the chair.
A has no interest in gaming or tech, but B does. The algo knows A and B are married, and B would be interested in the chair C just bought. There is now a vector to send ads from the interaction of A and C directly to B, even though A never mentioned anything about the chair to B, and B has never even met C.
Charlie Angus the other day: “Donald Trump, I’m going to say this once—and I might never say it again—I want to thank you. I want to thank you for bringing Canada together.”
“It took a malignant narcissistic slug like you to make us put aside all our differences—all our regional fights, all our concerns with one another—and realize we actually had to stand up for something better: standing up for the rule of law, for democracy, for decency.”
Angus went on to hit out at Trump and his “incel gang” who are terrified of diversity, equity and inclusion, adding, “Your DEI nightmare? Well, we are your DEI nightmare, Donald. Canada will always be a country of diversity. We will always be a country of equity. We will always be a country of inclusion. And we will defend the rule of law.”
For now. Conservatives have been inching further right for decades and if the US is any indication, they're gonna start speeding up. Especially if they win this one.
I'm sure there are a lot of other people who are thinking the same thing. This is why progression takes so long.
If you and the others like you vote, you may not change anything, true. However, you may increase the numbers enough to turn the tide in the next election. All votes matter. It'd be interesting to see the results if the 40% of Canadians who didn't vote last election do this time, or did last time.
There are people who strive to make you believe your vote doesn't matter. Sounds like they were successful.
Trudeau's Liberals increased defense funding from Harper's Conservative gov't and Carney's Liberals just bought a $6bil state-of-the-art early warning radar defense system from Australia. Seems the Libs take defense more seriously than the Cons.
I too watched Death of a Unicorn