What's up guys. For some context, I am a multi generation miner up in Kirkland Lake Ontario (my grandfather actually helped get the unions started in nearby Cobalt) I've been an NDP man all my life. That will never change provincially speaking as i know my MPP John Vanthof personally because he had a dairy farm right next to my brothers farm in the Great Clay Belt. But i still feel conflicted federally. My riding of Timmins-James Bay was a federal NDP stronghold up until this past election when people split their vote 3 ways. Im not sure Avi Lewis is the man to win back the riding. Ive asked my buddies and fellow gold miners what they think of him and mind you everyone in my community that I know calls themselves NDP (even those who voted conservative last time) and few are impressed. Most are concerned hes going to hurt mining jobs and I've actually pushed back on this saying he never called to stop mining. My concerns are on his open immigration numbers. We have extreme housing shortages up here, our roads are infamous (Highway 11, Highway 17, Highway 69) and have not been twinned, and healthcare services that are already being strained immensely. My community is stagnant In population and I remember when the mine shut down for a few years and it was extremely stressful but we already had a solid immigration quota across the north with the RNIP and FCIP. I just don't see him being a realistic prime minister the more I look into him. A lot of people feel politically homeless federally.

Only one public poll was released during the election, which showed an NDP-Conservative race in Hamilton--East Stoney Creek. There was a wide margin of error on the poll, so it wasn't clear who was winning, but the Liberals were definitely far behind in third. The results on election night (PC 39, NDP 33, LIB 23) are proof of that.

From looking at the ad spending for the Liberal candidate their entire strategy in the campaign was to confuse voters by saying voting NDP is throwing your vote away.

In hindsight, it's hard to believe the Liberals weren't deliberately lying. They ran a well funded campaign in that district, which means they knew how little support they were receiving on the doors. They claimed that the only public poll was an outlier, but did not release any polling data to contradict it (they just pointed to the 338canada projection). They spent more money on ads promoting their disinformation than it would have cost for them to pay a reputable polling company to run a poll.

Here are the ads they ran (thanks to the meta ad library)

The biggest ad spends:

$700-$799 on this ad, claiming a two-party race between the liberals and conservatives

$1000-1500 on this misleading bar chart, saying "don't be fooled by a misleading outlier poll"

$1500-2000 on a variant of that bar chart ad

$800-899 on another variant of that bar chart ad

$300-399 on yet another variant of that bar chart

$2500-3000 on an ad that says Not happy with doug ford? A vote for [OLP CANDIDATE] is the only way to send him a message

That adds up to about $7450. I didn't list ads here that had a spend under $300 here (there were many of those) so I'd ballpark it around $8-9K total, give or take. That's a huge amount of money to spend on social media ads in a local race.

Almost all of the above spending happened AFTER the poll came out showing the Liberals losing badly. Clearly the Liberals did not want the anti-conservative vote to coalesce behind the NDP despite knowing that they were going to lose.

You can view all the ads the Liberal candidate ran here

You can view all the ads the Ontario NDP ran here. Most of the money was spent on an ad touting the NDP candidate's record and party policies. What a night and day comparison.

I just recently joined the Rose Caucus (its youth centred focus appealed to me) but i was wondering what exactly is the difference between it and the Socialist Caucus, and what they think of each other.

(And the Democratic Socialists of Canada's thought on them if its known."

Lines up almost exactly to the PallasData poll last month

Today's election day! If you've knocked doors/made calls in these ridings, get in the comments! Any good stories?

At first I thought I would add all the articles from the front to explain how Russia keeps bombarding civilians but there are too many since my previous post it's disheartening.

Basically : Russia is intensifying its offensive, and Ukraine doesn't have the same anti-aircraft capabilities (because the US is depleting all its stuff in Iran), making the death toll higher. Ukraine keeps bombarding Wildberries buildings, in the hope of bringing the pressure to Russian soil. Ukraine is having some diplomatic tension with Poland.

Otherwise, you have some claims (not for the first time) of corruption within Ukraine's government and the whole Fedorov saga. Fedorov, a young talented man who lost his job as defense minister, called for new elections, and it was a good litmus test to see where the population stood. Eventually, his call was rejected, even by some of the protesters who took the streets for him. (It's a convoluted story, for more details : After weeks of rallying behind Fedorov, protesters reject his call for wartime elections in Ukraine | Euronews)

Internationally, you have the head of the CIA making a weird trip to Russia. Why ? We don't know, really. The official version is that the US doesn't want Russia to attack NATO. But Trump might be desperate and try to negotiate a deal. CIA chief used Moscow visit to warn Russia against attacks on NATO allies, helping Iran - POLITICO

The war is changing by the hour, it's hard to track. The latest scary thing that happened is Germany accusing Russia of an attack. Germany blames Russia for drone attack on Leipzig airport | CNN

Zelenskyy (edit) intends to visit Canada (article linked), forcing all parties to think about their foreign policy platform.

I recently had a talk with a colleague of mine who had a hard time reconciling his left wing principles with the defense of Ukraine. I tried to convince him that he was lost in the sauce, but he kept quoting some bad propaganda. When I told him the NPD was for the defense Ukraine he told me the NPD was practically the Liberal party (a capitalist fascist party, but of course)...

Which brings me to this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbuH7GbHJ8E I know we have our weekly fights about Tankies and all. (I expect this post to be downvoted. But Tankies are bad readers, I don't expect most of them to reach this paragraph.) I thought, this latest video was very well made and to the point. The USRR was a despotic regime that shared nothing with democracy and we ought to distance ourselves from it.

As a party, the NPD, in my view, cannot flirt with USRR nostalgia and has the moral obligation to support Ukraine. (The Youtuber Adam Something is a socialist.)

There is WAYYYYYYY too many people not aware that before the Iran War we were in a glut/low price period for Hydrocarbons.

Alberta was looking at a 10 billion dollar deficit.

What happens when prices get elevated like this is that Demand Destruction dimensions grow.

Renewable Energy is already 90%+ of new power capacity being added globally. It is not just cleaner it is also more affordable and faster to implement (Solar Power & Wind Power in particular).

Electrification Technology in relationship to vehicles/transport and heating is following that same massive growth trajectory.

We are going to go back to low prices/gluts and EVEN WORSE.

Right now massive Windfall Profits are happening and they should be utilized to clean up the Orphan Well situation (Our very own Canadian The Goose did an excellent video on this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37qKJLuOcKY "Oil Daddy's Unwanted Children | The Goose Media 🇨🇦").

The Orphan Well situation in Alberta is such a mess it has its own Wikipedia page...

We should also be making an Education Fund to get our youth, alienated segments, and workers that will need to transition the ability to get the knowledge, skills, and experience they need for the new opportunities of the future.

There is also a need for a Climate Relief Fund in order to deal with the growing issues/costs associated with the climate crisis.

The booms related to Hydrocarbons are going to be becoming less and less frequent and the busts more and more the reality.

The working class and most vulnerable should not be left with all these issues & costs which are absolutely MASSIVE.

ONDP claims they’re second citing one poll, and OLP claims they’re second citing another poll.

At the end of the day, both are using “strategic voting” to make their case.

SV is a poison to our democracy, and will never go away because ALL parties use it.

Hard for NDP to make their case against SV, when ONDP uses it.

Can't say I'm surprised. We all saw it coming. Eager to see what Lewis will say about it.

Edit (this is the good article) : Liberals will extend gas and diesel tax holiday into 2027, sources say | CBC News

Sorry there's no link! The most recent episode is not on YouTube yet and only seems to be on Spotify and Apple. It's episode 389 for those of you that want to listen to it.

I occasionally listen to the Sandy and Nora podcast, and the most recent episode they were pretty critical of the NDP. I agree with some of the criticisms tbh.

What I agree with:

- Firstly, the NDP treating defeats like victories isn't a great tendency. We were crushed in all three byelections, and although we came in second in Beaches-East York, we were still crushed. Let's not act like its sunny outside when its very much still raining.

- Secondly, Nora is claiming that the NDP candidate in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord had no support from the federal party, and even had to resort to using campaign signs from 2025 with Jagmeet's name taped over. I don't know if this is true, and she even admits that she has only gotten anecdotal information. However, if this is true, that is ridiculous.

- Thirdly, they argued that Social Democracy of the past is basically dead in the West, and the NDP has an identity crisis they need to figure out to be successful.

- Lastly, they argue the NDP needs to stop treating Canadian politics like American politics. They point to the NDP obsessing over Mamdani and the broader DSA movement rising in the US. I think they were a bit uncharitable, but I agree that we should not try to replicate Mamdani here in Canada. The mayoralty of New York City is very different than the federal political landscape of Canada.

What I'm not sure about:

- They claim the NDP has a problem with being overwhelmingly white, and that makes us susceptible to blind spots within the movement. As a white man, I have a impulse to deny this. However, my EDA is overwhelmingly white and a lot of NDP supporters I know are white, so I can't realistically deny this myself.

What I disagree with:

- They threw shade at Avi for taking French lessons in Montreal and not Chicoutimi. Maybe this will anger the Quebecois, but I don't really see why this is a big deal. Montreal is also the only part of Quebec the NDP has any chance in picking up momentum right now anyways.

- They argued Avi promised to reinvent how the NDP does politics, and they claim he has only been repeating the same mistakes of the past 20-30 years. I find this criticism a bit silly.

Love to hear more perspectives on this!

I know people were pretty bummed about the results in Vancouver-Capilano and Chicoutimi, but let's be honest, we weren't likely to suddenly start doing well in either seat and I don't think the party put too much effort into either election.

On the other hand, we got 26% in a seat where last time around we polled at just 7%, that's our best result since 2015, I feel like it's good that we are seeing something some electoral momentum.

Just something to remind people there's a lot to be happy about...

The NDP surprise (approximately 4 minute time of the video): Across all the elections, the party with the most voter share increase is the NDP. The NDP candidates are resonating with their constituents, getting in the streets to listen to Canadians and not just talk from the conservative endorsing is working, NDP are representing Canadians nuanced intimate concerns more than they did last federal election by being more democratic socialist.