What are some cool political groups/issues you get in Montreal, Quebec?

Question

I am an American who feels my country's political climate is too narrow. It's like voting between red wine or white wine. And this false dichotomy of "I'm a redwiner, you're a whitewiner"

While in Montreal it's like voting between 1978-Northern Italian Lake Maggiore red plum wine, 1875-Napoloenic sailor French Chateau wine, 1945 Cobb & Co Australian red wine, etc.

(Just an analogy)

But also the more political debates and discussions between multiple groups and shades of color, the more difficult it becomes to brainwash the mass public because they learn to see there is more than leftwing and rightwing.

Am I right?

One Montrealite I greatly admire is Abraham Weitzfeld. He is a 2nd generation Canadian Jewish immigrant and holocaust survivor who is very pro-Palestine on many key issues and has a very careful and indendent Middle East view that is very issue-focussed. He introduces perspectives that in the US don't necessarily exist because they are no on the leftwing-rightwing spectrum.

Answer 1

There are some advantages and disadvantages to the Canadian political system as opposed to the US system.

In USA, it usually comes down to the Liberals and the Democrats, with a few independents out there vying for a seat at the table.

In Canada, if you have the backing of the people, you can pretty much start a political party and try to get elected to a seat in parliament. I have seen (at the federal level) the Liberals, Conservatives, New Democratic Party, Green Party, Bloc Quebecois, Communist Party, even the Marijuana Party. Each has their own agendas and issues that they bring to the forefront during elections.

For example, the Marijuana Party's main platform is to try and legalize the use and possession of marijuana. The Bloc Quebecois' goal is to obtain their own country by separation of the province of Quebec.

(Oddly enough, the Bloc are referred to as "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition" when they are the party with the second most seats in the house of commons...)

The advantage to this system is that you have various parties to choose from, and it does not have to be the "us vs them" mentality. On the other hand, you often need support from other parties to get your bills passed.

And at election time (at least for anglos here in Quebec), you often get into cases where people were voting not for the party with the best platform, but rather voting for the party you think is most likely to defeat the separatist party.

In a way, I like the fact that in USA, you vote separately for the President and the senate. The electoral votes vs the popular vote makes a difference, where in Canada, you vote for the "senator" (in our case minister of parliament) for your riding and the next leader of the country is decided based on how many of his/her people get into power.