[Thanos]

Trudeau's objectively bad as a PM. The only reason he still has the position is because the main opposition party turned into something genuinely putrid by choosing some devious little discount Great Values version of Trump to be their leader. But being bad at his job doesn't make Trudeau an outlier. In fact it means he has lots on common with practically all of our modern-age PM's. The vast majority of them since at least the 1960's have truly sucked, and most of the PM's before then weren't all that great either.

Canadian politics is truly the place for those that come with very low expectations of success to flourish. It's pretty much our one consistent national tradition, one that was born out of an enduring national mediocrity. "Wow, we copied the Europeans to give ourselves a barely functional & hyper-expensive health care system. Yay, us, for our awesome goodness. ". Canada doesn't produce great people in politics, certainly not when in terms of actual performance & legacy most of them obviously never even rise up as high as the level of "meh". Third tier quality of leadership definitely suits the needs of what is essentially a third tier country.

[herbie]

Don't approve of the guy either, never voted for his party, but since 2015 the alternatives have all been much worse.
This anti-vax convoy kissup to the extreme right that thinks micro-mangement of everything and for the unpteenth election leads a Party with no climate plan is bullshit.

[Zipperfish]

People keep forgetting that this is actually a minority government, because it looks as if the Liberals have been given pretty free reign by the NDP. It doesn't seem to have hurt the NDP--the Dippers are dipping a bit but still hovering around 20% as they have since forever.

It's really too bad that Poilievre is so singularly unlikeable and also that he's focussed so much on culture war issue. I would like a little fiscal sanity at this point. It's just deficit spending and taxes with the Liberals.

As Thanos said, not many politicians come from the real world. Whenever the Liberals are asked about the affordability crisis, you ca actually see them trying to wrap their heads around it and coming up blank. Freeland was asked in PEI about the potential impact of increasing fuel costs on car tourism to PEI, and her rambling response included a bit about how she lives in Toronto and doesn't need a car.

[Scape]

The cons are clearly split between the old PC Mulroney crowd and the Harperites. They tried a hybrid approach with Erin O'Toole but he got attacked on both sides and his own base wanted nothing to do with him so a moderate approach was rejected. Now with PP they have doubled down on the Harper brand to return to past glory. That well is dry however as the climate will not be ignored any longer and you can't BS and slogan your way out of that.

[herbie]

It's very hard for NDP support to collapse below 20% as they're the one party that almost always does what it is elected to do: moderate the others so some actual services get to working people. That's about all that remains of their so called "socialism".
That's why Tories hate them so much. They almost never do and there isn't a hope in hell they'd ever get 'propped up' by them. Tories rely on the support of perpetual malcontents and people that believe benefiting companies will somehow miraculously benefit themselves. Hard core trickle down believers.

[Tricks]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Agreed, and the the best choice IMHO is probably Chrystia Freeland, who is smart, competent and well-spoken.

And russia fucking hates her. Bonus.