# Conservative leadership race 2020



## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

I didn't see a thread on this and I thought there would be one.

I am looking at the messaging from the candidates and there is little regarding financial/economic policy from any of them. The uniform message is "The libs are spending too much and a conservative govt with X at the helm would spend less". Personally I don't find that messaging especially compelling as a leadership bid from any of them.

I can't see any chance of victory from any but MacKay. Is there anything but social factors to separate them? At the mo, I think I will support MacKay, but I'm wondering if there are significant policy elements from any of them that persuade others.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

gardner said:


> I am looking at the messaging from the candidates and there is little regarding financial/economic policy from any of them. The uniform message is "The libs are spending too much and a conservative govt with X at the helm would spend less". Personally I don't find that messaging especially compelling as a leadership bid from any of them.


Hasn't that always been their platform? "Our policy is we're not the Liberals". I don't think they ever post a compelling book of policies in past elections. Or rather, at the last minute before the election, they'll update their website with a "platform".


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

I guess the big problem here is whether you want the candidate that can best beat Trudeau or the candidate you most support. Sometimes you have to bite your lip I suppose.

I have no use for two of the candidates. Leslyn Lewis is a staunch religious social conservative who's main agenda appears to be anti-abortion and pro-life (sigh). She claims she would increase government funding for crisis pregnancy centers (which counsel women against abortion), and she would end foreign aid funding for abortion. She endorses pro-life advocacy groups including the Campaign Life Coalition (sheesh). She is focused on gathering support among religious social conservatives and pro-life groups. It seems to be the top of her agenda. Reports say that even though she won’t be marching in any Pride parades, she said she wouldn’t change gay marriage laws, although, “My personal view as a Christian is that marriage is between a man and a woman,” she said. I'm sure the gays are thrilled with this candidate after all the progress they've made over the years in the Conservative party. This woman is a non-starter who wants to back it all off. She said she has a problem with legalizing recreational marijuana use. That's a position that will absolutely lose you votes in the next election against Trudeau. Asked if legalization should be rolled back, she said “that’s something I would consider". Doesn't she realize why Trudeau got elected?

Derek Sloan is a social conservative. But even that may be putting it mildly. He wears his religion prominently on his sleeve as was evident in the debates – he’s opposed to abortion and gay rights – he’s promised to re-open the abortion debate and repeal amendments to the human rights code including gender identity and gender expression as grounds for discrimination. He bills himself as a “Conservative without apology” , but from everything I've seen this appears to be to simply draw attention to himself.

So that leaves Erin O'Toole and Peter MacKay as the only legitimate candidates. Here the question isn't their platforms, rather who can win.

Myself, I would rather O'Toole, but I think MacKay has the best chance to beat Trudeau, so there's nothing left to discuss as we need to save our country from the Liberal scourge.

I vote Peter MacKay.

ltr


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

I believe Derek Sloan is also in favor of conversion therapy, which I find abhorrent. 

I agree that O'Toole and MacKay are the only two with a shot.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Except for the raise in pay and living in the official opposition residence for free, with free housekeepers, chefs and drivers.......I don't know why anyone would want to lead the Conservatives.

Whomever wins faces the dilemna that the Conservative Party won't change it's policies and can't win with the policies they have.

Even with all the perks........Rona Ambrose didn't want to tackle that problem.


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## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

sags said:


> Conservative Party won't change it's policies and can't win with the policies they have


I'm not sure about whether they need to or can change many policies significantly, but I do feel that they're unlikely to win any upcoming election, at least for a year or so. I think any party would be insane to trigger an election before the dust settles around COVID.

I think whoever is the next leader is likely to lose the next general election, and be kicked out afterwards like Scheer. The interesting potential candidates, like Ambrose or Baird are sitting this round out. I'm sorry to see the party that improved its position greatly, and came close to forming a government apparently just cave in on itself.

There's talk that if MacKay wins it will trigger a schism with the religious right taking their ball and forming some new, irrelevant vote sink. I'm not sure that would be entirely bad, but it would cut them off from some of the traditional base. It would be hell for all the sitting conservative members.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I can't imagine ever voting Conservatives as long as they stick with this social conservatism and religious right stuff.

These current Conservatives keep hoping everyone will forget that they are really Reform / Alliance, a party focused on Alberta's interests. The original Progressive Conservatives existed from 1942 - 2003 but that ended in 2003. They don't exist today.


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## newfoundlander61 (Feb 6, 2011)

They promise much but deliver little, nothing new with this one.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

For all the talk of wexit because Alberta hardly voted for Liberals, no one seems to be taking about the fact that CPC vote share in the Atlantic was as low as LPC vote share in Alberta. Maybe CPC should deal with that alienation...


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

Seems to me that, in typical Conservative Party style, the knives will be out and sharpened days after the new leader is announced. Hard to imagine but this is really two parties...Reform and Red Tory.

I would like to see a very strong Conservative Party. Scheer has been worse than a total bust. Now, we have second stringers running. Plus two no hopers. The Party's heavy hitters decided, probably for good reason, to sit this one out. Until the Party decides that they want to be one unified Party I cannot see any of these first rate candidates in waiting even consider entering a race to become leader.

Not good for Canada IMHO. We are being left with very poor choices.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

andrewf said:


> For all the talk of wexit because Alberta hardly voted for Liberals, no one seems to be taking about the fact that CPC vote share in the Atlantic was as low as LPC vote share in Alberta. Maybe CPC should deal with that alienation...


I don't think the Reform/Alliance party resonates much outside of Alberta. I deliberately am not saying 'western provinces' because that means BC, AB, SK, MB.

The more surprising part to me is that this Alberta-focused political movement was able to get so many votes in Ontario, previously.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> I don't think the Reform/Alliance party resonates much outside of Alberta. I deliberately am not saying 'western provinces' because that means BC, AB, SK, MB.
> 
> The more surprising part to me is that this Alberta-focused political movement was able to get so many votes in Ontario, previously.


Stephen Harper was a very capable and competent leader. Nobody was really thrilled with him, but pretty much everyone had to accept that he was doing a pretty good job all things considered.
That's all I want from my goverment, just do your job well, and leave me alone.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> Stephen Harper was a very capable and competent leader. Nobody was really thrilled with him, but pretty much everyone had to accept that he was doing a pretty good job all things considered.
> That's all I want from my goverment, just do your job well, and leave me alone.


No question he was competent and capable. I just did not like his (and many other party members') values.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

james4beach said:


> No question he was competent and capable. I just did not like his (and many other party members') values.


But I think that's why Harper was able to keep the party on track as well as he did.

Even if they disagreed with him on an issue, they knew that he'd deliver an acceptable trade off.
I'm not confident Mackay can do that.


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## Eder (Feb 16, 2011)

I don't think confederation has much of a future.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I don't know how Harper deserves much praise.

He completely alienated Atlantic Canada with his attacks on seasonal workers (unemployment benefits) and the Conservatives have paid for it since.

The Harper government immediately cancelled the tax cuts for low income workers and treated military veterans shamefully.(see Juian Fantino)

Then there was his government's terrible response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Who can forget the mess they made of that ? (see Chris Alexander)

Sorry.......but Conservatives are trying to rewrite history. Canadians remembered and that is why the "guy with the nice hair" kicked Harper's butt.

Reporter Christine Blizzard tried to rewrite the history of Ontario's Mike Harris too. That didn't sell well.

Message to Conservatives.......Don't treat voters like idiots. They know what happened.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

For Canada, Trudeau is the right man for the job. In Ontario, Doug Ford is the right man for the job.

They both have some faults, but they are doing the best they can and are effective.

And more importantly, they are working hand in hand together....and that is impressive. Both are enjoying high popularity in the polls.

Ford doesn't have the time or tolerance for the constant whiners in the Conservative Party. He wouldn't even campaign or meet with Andrew Scheer.

Maybe someday he will run for the PC leadership.


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## gardner (Feb 13, 2014)

sags said:


> In Ontario, Doug Ford is the right man for the job.


I don't agree. I think Christine Elliott was the right one. Ford's an idiot. But this COVID business has snapped him out of his vindictive crusade against the Toronto city council and made him actually do his job and, miraculously, he is not totally incompetent.



> Maybe someday he will run for the PC leadership.


You mean national Conservative Party leadership? Gosh, I hope not. I do not think he would be a good choice at all.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

gardner said:


> I don't agree. I think Christine Elliott was the right one. Ford's an idiot. But this COVID business has snapped him out of his vindictive crusade against the Toronto city council and made him actually do his job and, miraculously, he is not totally incompetent.
> 
> You mean national Conservative Party leadership? Gosh, I hope not. I do not think he would be a good choice at all.


Christine Elliott comes across much more polished.
Doug Ford doesn't, but that isn't the point. He has leadership, he knows how to set priorities, and let people do their job.

As far as being vindictive against Toronto city council, there should be some lingering animosity there. When you have people come at you and your family personally, yeah you'll want to lash back. Their behavior was an abuse of the democratic process.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

Is every politician a crook or an incompetent boob or do we expect too much? I see comments all the time from people who expect politicians to do the impossible as if they had some magic wand that suspended all laws including the laws of physics and economics. I wish the public could know the truth about what is possible and what is not and scale back their demands. In the end we would be far better off with realistic policies and laws rather than trying to do the impossible and failing.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> Doug Ford doesn't, but that isn't the point. He has leadership, he knows how to set priorities, and let people do their job.


Ford showed some serious lack of judgment in his first year or so in office. He, for some reason, prioritized expensively firing the head of Hydo One, meddling in the Toronto City Council election days before it was supposed to happen, spent an inordinate amount of political capital on sex education in schools. Within a year he was, somehow, less popular that the Wynne government that was just defeated and reduced to a rump without official party status. He should thank his lucky stars that the COVID pandemic happened and gave him a crisis that required basic competency to manage and for Ontario to rally around that basicly competent leadership. Thousands of Ontarians died but it saved his political career.


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

andrewf said:


> Ford showed some serious lack of judgment in his first year or so in office. He, for some reason, prioritized expensively firing the head of Hydo One, meddling in the Toronto City Council election days before it was supposed to happen, spent an inordinate amount of political capital on sex education in schools. Within a year he was, somehow, less popular that the Wynne government that was just defeated and reduced to a rump without official party status. He should thank his lucky stars that the COVID pandemic happened and gave him a crisis that required basic competency to manage and for Ontario to rally around that basicly competent leadership. Thousands of Ontarians died but it saved his political career.


he has done a great job. He saved taxpayer's $ firing the Wynne appointed $6M man. Got rid of 1/2/ the lefty waste in TO. Decent families were upset Wynne was teaching g3 students about gay sex so he fixed the curriculum. Same for scrapping 'discovery' math where Liberal teachers can't even do multiplication tables.. He created 300,000 + jobs getting rid of Liberal red tape and scrapping the hated Liberal carbon tax grab. Then did an excellent job on covid Will clean up the Lib LT care mess now.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Jimmy, you can think what you like, but the reality was that Doug's approval rating was in the 20s% after about a year. Most Ontarians were deeply unimpressed with him. COVID saved his bacon.

Toronto spends over $6 billion per year. Cutting council was completely inconsequential in terms of expenditures. Maybe mathematically challenged people are impressed, but it did nothing material to cut waste in Toronto. If Dougy really wanted to cut waste in Toronto he could dissolve the city government and manage the city from Queens Park (effectively appoint himself mayor, council and executive of the city). It is within the power of the provincial government to do this. The gong show with the election was just to distract the rubes and maybe exact a bizarre bit of petty revenge. He did it without any consultation of the electorate of Toronto.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> Ford showed some serious lack of judgment in his first year or so in office. He, for some reason, prioritized expensively firing the head of Hydo One, meddling in the Toronto City Council election days before it was supposed to happen, spent an inordinate amount of political capital on sex education in schools. Within a year he was, somehow, less popular that the Wynne government that was just defeated and reduced to a rump without official party status. He should thank his lucky stars that the COVID pandemic happened and gave him a crisis that required basic competency to manage and for Ontario to rally around that basicly competent leadership. Thousands of Ontarians died but it saved his political career.


I'll hit on the sex ed curriculum. The Liberals pushed through an ideologically driven curriculum, without properly consulting with stakeholders. 
Doug Ford pulled it, consulted with parents made some adjustments and re-released the new curriculum with some that was generally accepted by most stakeholders.

That's how it should have happened in the first case. 
Could you imagine the outrage if Ford implemented "values" like logic, hard work, and personal responsibility in the curriculum without consultations?



Toronto city council was a dysfunctional mess, he took steps to fix it. 
They announced the changes 3 months before the election and passed them into law more than 2 months before the election.

2 months is more than enough time for an election campaign. Both Canadian Federal and Ontario Provincial elections are less than 2 months.


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

andrewf said:


> Jimmy, you can think what you like, but the reality was that Doug's approval rating was in the 20s% after about a year. Most Ontarians were deeply unimpressed with him. COVID saved his bacon.
> 
> Toronto spends over $6 billion per year. Cutting council was completely inconsequential in terms of expenditures. Maybe mathematically challenged people are impressed, but it did nothing material to cut waste in Toronto. If Dougy really wanted to cut waste in Toronto he could dissolve the city government and manage the city from Queens Park (effectively appoint himself mayor, council and executive of the city). It is within the power of the provincial government to do this. The gong show with the election was just to distract the rubes and maybe exact a bizarre bit of petty revenge. He did it without any consultation of the electorate of Toronto.


His approval rating fell from 40% to 29% and now he is back to a 14 pt lead now anyway so moot. Who cares about ratings anyway. he had to do some unpopular things like getting the lazy teachers' costs down , scrap wasteful garbage green energy FIT deals to Lib pals and reduce other Liberal waste. Business and the 300,000 who got new jobs appreciate him.

He realigned ridings to be similar to prov and fed. Then the lazy left voted themselves doubling of their expenditures when they were doing the same amnt of work. He tried. TO council is a mess is right


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Jimmy, you must think Trudeau is doing a fantastic job because his approval rating is also very high. COVID flatters anyone who happens to be in a leadership role, unless you are catastrophically incompetent like Trump. Doug had to hide during the last federal election because he was seen to be absolutely toxic in Ontario and deeply hurt Sheer's chances against a vulnerable Trudeau.

Jimmy, do you think every municipality should have council wards the same size as their ridings (many as few as one council seat)? And if not, why not?


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

Doug Ford for PM. No thanks. Same for our Premier, Jason Kenney. Absolutely not.

There is something amiss inside the federal Conservative Party if they can only get their second stringers to reach for the leadership position. The most talented and capable seem to shy away from it. Such a shame.

I believe that there is a flaw in how the voting is structured.. It seems incredible to me that someone like Scheer was elected even as a compromise leader. It is almost as if they want to elect as leader that members dislike the least vs. the leader that has the most ability to more them forward to win an election.

MacKay and O'Toole seem to be bending over backwards to garner the support of the social conservative crowd. Really, does it make sense that 10 or 15 percent of Party members should make the choice, and of course have a more than their numbers role in setting policy? I believe this is a huge impediment to the Party moving forward.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The Liberals had their time of wandering the wilderness with Dion and Ignatieff. Now it is the Conservatives turn to woe and despair.

Any suggestion that the Liberals would remove Trudeau are nothing but fanciful thinking. He is a living legend among Liberals.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

ian said:


> Doug Ford for PM. No thanks. Same for our Premier, Jason Kenney. Absolutely not.
> 
> There is something amiss inside the federal Conservative Party if they can only get their second stringers to reach for the leadership position. The most talented and capable seem to shy away from it. Such a shame.
> 
> ...


Scheer became leader because 51% of the party prefered him to the 49% who preferred Bernier.

Rank ballot is a pretty fair way to ensure a compromise candidate that is arguably most acceptable to the people.
I agree, that it may also elect a leader who has less enthusiastic support.

The way our system works in elections is we end up with a government that only gets somewhere around 30-40% of the vote. It's crazy that we can end up in a viritual dictatorship that less than half the country supports.
However they do tend to have stronger support from their base than a compromise candidate would.

Look at the US, people are very passionate about their party, and they don't have compromise candidates.

I am a bit dissappointed that the CPC doesn't have the stronger people running, but they seem to have bowed out.
I would have loved to see Baird vs Trudeau, but isn't going to happen.

That being said I think OToole is a good candidate, and he's pushing some pragmatic election items, for instance he's raising the issue is that the CPC needs some Carbon plan. Quite simply Toronto voters hate the resource industry, and you have to give them something.
Telling them "no carbon tax" and leaving it at that isn't going to cut it, I'm not saying he's the second coming of Harper, but it seems he understands that the first rule of politics is get elected.
I think he might have a good chance, then he has to sit down with the party and explain be pragmatic, we have to spend our political capital well. That was Harpers big trick, he got them to mostly stick to a good plan, instead of fighting unwinnable battles.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

Harper also use the reward system well and crates of duct tape to cover the mouthes of recalcitrant back bench MP's and Cabinet Ministers who may not have otherwise cleared their every utterance with the minions in his PMO office. This was very much a tight control and command environment that only started to fail at the end when it was clear that the Harper Conservatives would not be re-elected.


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

andrewf said:


> Jimmy, you must think Trudeau is doing a fantastic job because his approval rating is also very high. COVID flatters anyone who happens to be in a leadership role, unless you are catastrophically incompetent like Trump. Doug had to hide during the last federal election because he was seen to be absolutely toxic in Ontario and deeply hurt Sheer's chances against a vulnerable Trudeau.
> 
> Jimmy, do you think every municipality should have council wards the same size as their ridings (many as few as one council seat)? And if not, why not?


I don't want to argue about other councils. TO was just notorious for waste. Doug has been doing a great job whether you like him or not. He wasn't popular w the swamp so he stayed out of the way for Scheer.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

ian said:


> Harper also use the reward system well and crates of duct tape to cover the mouthes of recalcitrant back bench MP's and Cabinet Ministers who may not have otherwise cleared their every utterance with the minions in his PMO office. This was very much a tight control and command environment that only started to fail at the end when it was clear that the Harper Conservatives would not be re-elected.


Yes, and the power of the PMO & Party leaders have only gotten worse under Trudeau.
Put in garbage like Proportional representation, and it gets even worse.

That's why politicians are scared of ranked ballot.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Conservatives would do poorly in ranked vote elections.









Who wins Election 2019 under a ranked-ballot system - Macleans.ca


Philippe J. Fournier: The system the Liberals once favoured would have benefitted that party—and exposed a real Conservative weakness




www.macleans.ca


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Jimmy said:


> I don't want to argue about other councils. TO was just notorious for waste. Doug has been doing a great job whether you like him or not. He wasn't popular w the swamp so he stayed out of the way for Scheer.


In other words, no coherent logic to reducing the number of councilors in Toronto when they already represented more people than the vast majority of mayors in Ontario. Torontonians don't deserve local representation, but presumably residents of Burlington need 6 councilors for a population that wold be represented by 1 in Toronto. Such waste! And Ford obviously doesn't care about the poor taxpayers of Burlington. Ottawa has 23 councilors but should only have 6! Think of all the hundreds of council positions in Ontario that could be eliminated. I'm sure it could save literally a basis point worth of cost--local representation be damned. No point in asking any of these communities about how they would feel about it--we should just implement it in a matter of weeks without consultation.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

sags said:


> Conservatives would do poorly in ranked vote elections.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It is amusing that they think it is a fine system to choose their leader but would fight til their dying breath any move away from FPTP in elections that matter.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> Yes, and the power of the PMO & Party leaders have only gotten worse under Trudeau.
> Put in garbage like Proportional representation, and it gets even worse.
> 
> That's why politicians are scared of ranked ballot.


I dunno. We seem to see members of the cabinet and backbench MPs expressing their thoughts openly more than was ever the case under Harper. Many cabinet members were essentially banned from speaking except prepared remarks with Harper.

Not all proportional representation schemes empower the leadership. That is really more a function of who controls nominations and caucus membership. In many ways, I think the UK method of having MPs pick the PM is more in keeping with how legitimacy is supposed to flow. MPs are elected by the people. PMs are not (though our elections are a bizarro electoral college presidency). PMs should be accountable to MPs and the House. The current situation is a quasi-presidential system. In many ways I think we should adopt a more straightforward presidential model if we are not going to buttress the primacy of MPs in the House as the conduit of democratic legitimacy. Then we can disconnect the role of electoral college the HoC currently plays and allow it to truly hold the executive to account.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> It is amusing that they think it is a fine system to choose their leader but would fight til their dying breath any move away from FPTP in elections that matter.


The issue is that the Liberals benefit from FPTP.
The conservatives generally benefit from FPTP.
The NDP will get more power under Proportional representation. But PR is very scary and will lead to a 2 party system like in the US.


Ranked ballot is a big unknown for the established parties, but honestly it's really hard to find a downside.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

MrMatt said:


> Ranked ballot is a big unknown for the established parties, but honestly it's really hard to find a downside.


I think most people will find that ranked ballot will favour the Liberals. The only party that overwhelmingly benefits FPTP is the Conservative party.

If you didn't know, Trudeau favours ranked ballot and it would have put the Liberals in power for perpetuity unless there was a big change where every party worked together to vote them out. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-electoral-reform-1.3976345

You only have to look at the Conservative leadership results as an example of what would likely happen, in a ranked ballot, or instant runoff type voting system. Basically, the least offensive choice will win out in the long run as being the perpetual second choice. Assuming that most ridings have 3 main contenders (Conservatives, NDP, Liberals), when it comes down two it, would most Conservative voters rank NDP above Liberals? Or would most NDP voters rank Conservatives above Liberals? I'm sure there are some exceptions, and only in an extreme case where the Liberal party has universally alienated the whole population, where it is unlikely that the Liberals are the preferred 2nd choice.

As for PR, it's more likely you'd get a pizza-style parliament like in most European countries rather than coalescence into 2 parties.

Edit: An article where they simulated a ranked vote result in 2019 election based on a survey of preferred 2nd choice. The Liberals and NDP would have gained while Conservatives and Bloc lost seats. Who wins Election 2019 under a ranked-ballot system - Macleans.ca


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Ranked ballots would turn into political strategies. The parties would tell their supporters to leave the 2nd and 3rd choices blank.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

Besides getting the people elected that you want, you also want to enable them to enact legislation.

In the US system they have been in a stalemate and can't get any big problems solved. The social security system is bankrupt and they can't do anything about it. Immigration policy is a mess and they can't change it. Infrastructure spendings is full of pork barrel spending to buy votes. It is a complete mess.

A majority government in Canada can actually make timely changes. Even in a minority government , much is possible with the support of other parties.

We can have a Parliament full of happy faces from all different parties, or we can have one that functions. I don't think we can have both.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

bgc_fan said:


> I think most people will find that ranked ballot will favour the Liberals. The only party that overwhelmingly benefits FPTP is the Conservative party.
> 
> If you didn't know, Trudeau favours ranked ballot and it would have put the Liberals in power for perpetuity unless there was a big change where every party worked together to vote them out. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-electoral-reform-1.3976345
> 
> ...


Regarding PR, there is no reason for the Liberals to support it. There is a good chance it will go to parties heavily controlled by the leader, which is bad.

As far as Ranked ballot, many people vote Liberal as a protest against the Conservatives.
I think that, after an adjustment period, there will be more groups and candidates with more nuanced positions.
Given the choice between the Liberal party, and a party with the same policies, just less racist, I can imagine that former Liberal party voters would be glad to put that new party as 1, with the old party as 2.

That's the real risk to the established parties.
Look at the US, sure there are real Trump supporters, but really 2020 will be a repeat of 2016, where most people were just voting "against" the other guy.
On Ranked ballot they could have easily put in someone who wasn't as bad as Trump or Clinton (now Biden), and they would have gathered a LOT of #1 votes.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

sags said:


> Ranked ballots would turn into political strategies. The parties would tell their supporters to leave the 2nd and 3rd choices blank.


All that would mean is that your vote would be thrown away if your first choice doesn't make the cut. So if your first choice comes in 3rd, then it is no longer counted for subsequent rounds.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

MrMatt said:


> Given the choice between the Liberal party, and a party with the same policies, just less racist, I can imagine that former Liberal party voters would be glad to put that new party as 1, with the old party as 2.


You're assuming that the Liberal party would split just like the Conservative party did. The problem is that there already is a split for the most part: NDP, Liberals, and the Greens in there somewhere. There are already 3 parties that lean somewhat to the left. There's only 1 party that represents the right and that's the Conservatives. The Bloc is somewhat inbetween the two, but is fairly regional.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

The ideology opponent for Liberals is the Conservatives...........but.

The predominance of progressive (left leaning) voters makes me think the "enemy" in many ridings is the siphoning off of votes from the one progressive party to another.

If all the progressives voted for one party, that party would win. (Progressive parties capture about 70% of the vote).

Liberals are the middle of the road "progressive" party, and a more acceptable alternative to NDP/Green voters. They may place Liberals as a 2nd choice.

By social engineering each riding could be analysed and the progressives informed the best way to vote to ensure that a progressive won.

In the election in 2016, I met the NDP candidate and was impressed and going to vote for him. Then a group started an online website that calculated that if the Liberal and NDP vote split the left, the incumbent PC MP would win. It changed my mind on who to vote for.

They began a campaign for progressive voters to pledge to vote Liberal.........to ensure the incumbent didn't win. The strategy worked.

It was one of the 3 ridings in Southwestern Ontario that flipped from the Conservatives to another party. Peter McKay was just there trying to get it back.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

bgc_fan said:


> All that would mean is that your vote would be thrown away if your first choice doesn't make the cut. So if your first choice comes in 3rd, then it is no longer counted for subsequent rounds.


You miss the issue in the 2016 Election.

Many 2016 voters are more against than for a candidate

Nearly half of the total vote was "against" the two main candidates.
The advantage of Ranked ballot is you could put your #1 as a preferred candidate, without the risk of "throwing away" your vote.

I think if we had ranked ballot we'd end up with more compromise people elected.
However, we wouldn't have the issue where people vote Liberal just to stop the Conservatives. 

I think the immediate effect would be a dramatic shift in first choices. 
Secondary effects would be.
More parties, representing different views.
Less interest on negative advertising. 

I'd love a Conservative party that didn't have the religious hangup.
or a Liberal party that used science to develop policy, or at least weren't so blindingly corrupt.

Ranked ballot would make room for this.

Of course for 2020 in the US, we'd end up with President Kanye, which would be even more hilarious.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

sags said:


> In the election in 2016, I met the NDP candidate and was impressed and going to vote for him. Then a group started an online website that calculated that if the Liberal and NDP vote split the left, the incumbent PC MP would win. It changed my mind on who to vote for.
> 
> They began a campaign for progressive voters to pledge to vote Liberal.........to ensure the incumbent didn't win. The strategy worked.
> 
> It was one of the 3 ridings in Southwestern Ontario that flipped from the Conservatives to another party. Peter McKay was just there trying to get it back.


You mean the 2015 or 2019 election? That's kind of why it's difficult to project what effects a change of voting would have done on historical results. If the ranked ballot or PR was in place, I'm sure people would have voted differently.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

MrMatt said:


> You miss the issue in the 2016 Election.


Nope, because I don't care about the US elections in this context. It's not applicable to this discussion because they have a straight 2 party system with an electoral college which is different than the parliamentary system.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> The issue is that the Liberals benefit from FPTP.
> The conservatives generally benefit from FPTP.
> The NDP will get more power under Proportional representation. But PR is very scary and will lead to a 2 party system like in the US.
> 
> ...


Nearly every PR system in the world has more than 2 parties. The US uses FPTP just like Canada. Generally FPTP promotes a two party system, though you do see three or four parties when there are regional disparities. It's why the conservative parties in Canada had to merge again to have any hope of forming government.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

sags said:


> Ranked ballots would turn into political strategies. The parties would tell their supporters to leave the 2nd and 3rd choices blank.


It makes no difference if you leave 2nd and third choice blank. If your first choice is eliminated your vote no longer counts.


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

andrewf said:


> In other words, no coherent logic to reducing the number of councilors in Toronto when they already represented more people than the vast majority of mayors in Ontario. Torontonians don't deserve local representation, but presumably residents of Burlington need 6 councilors for a population that wold be represented by 1 in Toronto. Such waste! And Ford obviously doesn't care about the poor taxpayers of Burlington. Ottawa has 23 councilors but should only have 6! Think of all the hundreds of council positions in Ontario that could be eliminated. I'm sure it could save literally a basis point worth of cost--local representation be damned. No point in asking any of these communities about how they would feel about it--we should just implement it in a matter of weeks without consultation.


The coherent logic as you were told already is the TO ridings are the same now as those for prov and fed. There aren't more local issues than prov or federal so they didn't need 2x as many representatives. The representation is based on geography and location. Also nothing was getting done. At least now it is easier to pass votes and not have endless debating

Maybe other cities need less councilors too but issues aren't related to popn again and representation is by geography . Things like parking, parks, transit etc exist in small cities so Burlington still needs councilors to represent their geographical interests regradless of popn density.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> In other words, no coherent logic to reducing the number of councilors in Toronto when they already represented more people than the vast majority of mayors in Ontario. Torontonians don't deserve local representation, but presumably residents of Burlington need 6 councilors for a population that wold be represented by 1 in Toronto. Such waste! And Ford obviously doesn't care about the poor taxpayers of Burlington. Ottawa has 23 councilors but should only have 6! Think of all the hundreds of council positions in Ontario that could be eliminated. I'm sure it could save literally a basis point worth of cost--local representation be damned. No point in asking any of these communities about how they would feel about it--we should just implement it in a matter of weeks without consultation.


Sure there is, you can't do much with that many individuals, that's part of the reason Toronto city council is so dysfunctional.

At the federal and provincial level, it's party politics, which are banned at the municipal level in Ontario.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Jimmy said:


> The coherent logic as you were told already is the TO ridings are the same now as those for prov and fed. There aren't more local issues than prov or federal so they didn't need 2x as many representatives. The representation is based on geography and location. Also nothing was getting done. At least now it is easier to pass votes and not have endless debating
> 
> Maybe other cities need less councilors too but issues aren't related to popn again and representation is by geography . Things like parking, parks, transit etc exist in small cities so Burlington still needs councilors to represent their geographical interests regradless of popn density.


Then why does Ottawa need 23 councilors for their 6 ridings? It was a petty and capricious decision made out of his personal dislike of how the city council works. Councilors deal with issues at a very local level such as community centres, parks, stop signs and speed bumps. It is unreasonable to say that a councilor should represent as many people as MPs or MPPs when those representatives are not typically dealing with hyperlocal issues. A change like this should have been done with consultation of the voters affected, and not imposed on them based on the whims of one person. Particularly when he didn't mention anything about it in the election campaign he just came out of. Why did he hide his desire to do this if it was one of his first acts in office?


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> Sure there is, you can't do much with that many individuals, that's part of the reason Toronto city council is so dysfunctional.
> 
> At the federal and provincial level, it's party politics, which are banned at the municipal level in Ontario.


Is the issue, then, that the City of Toronto is too big? Maybe amalgamation should be undone and the city should return to a borough/regional government model like in the surrounding regions. I don't live in Toronto, but I found the move absolutely flabbergasting. I could been indifferent to it if residents of Toronto were consulted and the change was put in place for the subsequent municipal election.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

More broadly, I am continually amazed by generally-conservative griping about how democracy is too expensive and is wasteful. You're right, less democracy is cheaper. I'm not sure that makes it desirable.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> Is the issue, then, that the City of Toronto is too big? Maybe amalgamation should be undone and the city should return to a borough/regional government model like in the surrounding regions. I don't live in Toronto, but I found the move absolutely flabbergasting. I could been indifferent to it if residents of Toronto were consulted and the change was put in place for the subsequent municipal election.


Region of Toronto with various cities.
Or City of Toronto withe various districts /broroughs/wards, each with their own subdivisions..

I do think that Toronto is too small for one level of "local" government.

The reality is Toronto really needs a lot of focus, and they need multiple tiers, to manage.
Having lived in areas under regional government, it's "interesting".

The problem is each level needs to be clear on their responsibilities and powers, something that people don't get about the Federal/Provincial split. Even politicans at those levels don't understand different responsibilities.
When you have 4 levels, people simply don't understand it.

One issue with Toronto is that there are a LOT of politics, which makes sense, there are a lot of issues when you cram that many people into a small area, and expect government to sort it out.

In high density areas, government has lots of involvement, in less dense areas, they have lesser involvement.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> More broadly, I am continually amazed by generally-conservative griping about how democracy is too expensive and is wasteful. You're right, less democracy is cheaper. I'm not sure that makes it desirable.


From the Conservative side you're mixing 2 things.

Democracy is inefficient, but that's acceptable because its the "best" form of government we've developed so far.

Government is too expensive because it's too big and trying to do too much.
Also because they have so much money, and so little accountability, they waste money like crazy.


Separate problems, all forms of official government are inefficient and wasteful, which is why government should be small, so it does as little damage as possible.

Democracy should be used, because the other options are worse.


The Leftist idea seems to big some big all knowing government controlling every aspect of everything would be good, well I don't see how. 
At the very least, we know central planning will fail due to the local knowledge problem.


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

andrewf said:


> Then why does Ottawa need 23 councilors for their 6 ridings? It was a petty and capricious decision made out of his personal dislike of how the city council works. Councilors deal with issues at a very local level such as community centres, parks, stop signs and speed bumps. It is unreasonable to say that a councilor should represent as many people as MPs or MPPs when those representatives are not typically dealing with hyperlocal issues. A change like this should have been done with consultation of the voters affected, and not imposed on them based on the whims of one person. Particularly when he didn't mention anything about it in the election campaign he just came out of. Why did he hide his desire to do this if it was one of his first acts in office?


Ottawa probably doesn't. NYC only has 51 Councillors w 3x the popn. TO can do w 25. The work is about the same at all levels of govt too. You have some bent about Doug Ford and just need to get real.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

So your argument about the logic of aligning city wards to federal and provincial ridings is bunk. Agreed.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> From the Conservative side you're mixing 2 things.
> 
> Democracy is inefficient, but that's acceptable because its the "best" form of government we've developed so far.
> 
> ...


It is generally conservatives that complain about too many representatives. Whenever new seats are added in the HoC they inevitably moan about having too many MPs. The direct cost of representatives is tiny in the overall cost of government, so any argument about reducing representation as a desire to meaningfully reduce waste is clearly invalid.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> It is generally conservatives that complain about too many representatives. Whenever new seats are added in the HoC they inevitably moan about having too many MPs. The direct cost of representatives is tiny in the overall cost of government, so any argument about reducing representation as a desire to meaningfully reduce waste is clearly invalid.


I don't care about the cost of the representatives, the direct cost is insignificant. Just like people complaining about senior officials on private jets or the cost of a filibuster, I don't care.
Honestly I've said before (even in the Harper era) opposition leaders and critics should have access to government funded transport to do their job better. 
I think Scheer is doing a poor job, but he shouldn't be slumming around the Toronto airport (Neither should Singh actually). they and senior critics should, in non-COVID times, be travelling around the country, meeting people, understanding issues and debating them in parliment.


I do think 300+ is too many, it's simply not possible for all those representatives to effectively communicate and represent their constituents.
The vast majority of MPs have no voice at all in the commons.
If they're lucky they might get a seat on a committee.

I'd rather a smaller group of maybe 50-100 or so representatives get together and actually discuss how to run the country.
As it is, most MPs have no input into how the country is run, and that's a problem.

Secondly the issue with government waste is the things they spend our money on.
Lots of money get spent on things that should not be funded by the government.
That's my actual concern with the size of government.

Honestly if they had a way to get the 300+ members of parliment to effectively work together, I'd have no issue with expanding parliment. As it is, most of them do nothing, and they sit there finding new ways to spend money.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

So your solution to improve representation is to have MPs represent more than half a million people? Good luck meeting your MP or getting them to do anything on your behalf. Nevermind that half the provinces would only have 1-2 MPs.


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

andrewf said:


> So your argument about the logic of aligning city wards to federal and provincial ridings is bunk. Agreed.


Math a struggle? NYC has 51 wards for a popn of 9M. So TO has 25 w a popn of 3M


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

This is off topic but congrats @Jimmy on your post # 1,000


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## Jimmy (May 19, 2017)

james4beach said:


> This is off topic but congrats @Jimmy on your post # 1,000


Thanks James. Lots of good discussions w everyone here.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> So your solution to improve representation is to have MPs represent more than half a million people? Good luck meeting your MP or getting them to do anything on your behalf. Nevermind that half the provinces would only have 1-2 MPs.


Federal Government should deal with items of national importance.
Do you really have items of national importance that you need to speak with your MP about?

Do you really think that your MP is able to adequately represent you in parliment today?
Right now, even if you got to sit down with your MP, they wouldn't be able to do much if anything to address your concern.

Really most daily items should be handled at the local government level, or through administrative functions. Or not by the government at all.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

There are things that are federal jurisdiction that are nonetheless individual. MPs often help with citizenship issues, for instance.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> There are things that are federal jurisdiction that are nonetheless individual. MPs often help with citizenship issues, for instance.


Helping with citizenship issues is an administrative function that should be handled by staff.
If you actually contact your MPs office, the staff will actually do most of the work (as it should be)

Really MPs should be working on policy and laws, and oversight of the administration.
But in Canada most of the administrative process is by the non-partisan public service, politicians shouldn't really be getting their hands into that too much.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

For once, it would be nice to vote for someone that you really wanted to support vs. the the person that you felt was the best of a bad bunch. Could not bring myself to vote for the Scheer, Conservatives, cannot see myself voting for MacKay and definitely never for O'Toole. Not really left with much choice.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

ian said:


> For once, it would be nice to vote for someone that you really wanted to support vs. the the person that you felt was the best of a bad bunch. Could not bring myself to vote for the Scheer, Conservatives, cannot see myself voting for MacKay and definitely never for O'Toole. Not really left with much choice.


There are a couple of other ways of looking at it. With Parliamentary system, things get conflated a bit because of the tight lines between the party and party leadership. In reality, we are electing a local MP to represent our interests in Parliament. Another way to look at things are which local candidate best represents my interests, or at least responsive to my needs. Obviously they normally toe the party line; however, an involved MP who may not represent your ideal party is probably better than a disinterest MP who supports your "preferred" leader.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> Helping with citizenship issues is an administrative function that should be handled by staff.
> If you actually contact your MPs office, the staff will actually do most of the work (as it should be)
> 
> Really MPs should be working on policy and laws, and oversight of the administration.
> But in Canada most of the administrative process is by the non-partisan public service, politicians shouldn't really be getting their hands into that too much.


They spend a lot of their time getting public exposure and photo opps........or glad handing and back slapping at backyard BBQs.

They eat a lot of rubber chicken dinners too.........


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

bgc_fan said:


> There are a couple of other ways of looking at it. With Parliamentary system, things get conflated a bit because of the tight lines between the party and party leadership. In reality, we are electing a local MP to represent our interests in Parliament. Another way to look at things are which local candidate best represents my interests, or at least responsive to my needs. Obviously they normally toe the party line; however, an involved MP who may not represent your ideal party is probably better than a disinterest MP who supports your "preferred" leader.


Well my MP is NDP, and they're actively against the interests of their constituents, but they do toe the party line. I honestly don't know how they get elected.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

MrMatt said:


> Helping with citizenship issues is an administrative function that should be handled by staff.
> If you actually contact your MPs office, the staff will actually do most of the work (as it should be)
> 
> Really MPs should be working on policy and laws, and oversight of the administration.
> But in Canada most of the administrative process is by the non-partisan public service, politicians shouldn't really be getting their hands into that too much.


Another thing to consider is that smaller assemblies are easier to capture by the executive due to cabinet inclusion (and enforcement of cabinet solidarity). The UK has a larger parliament and a history of backbench governing party MPs actually standing up to the executive.


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