Canadian Federal Election

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Oh wow. Why didn't anybody think of that before?

Please link to any Canadian politician or party who proposed a debt elimination plan in under 5 years. Not a balanced budget plan either. A debt elimination plan. And a plan with specific details, not musing about it in passing.

I'll eagerly await this source.

[samne]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

As soon as someone trots out the “communism” card, they’ve lost me. Especially when they use it to refer to centrist policies.

Same thing goes for “Maple MAGA”.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by bodaggin

Excellent question! Important discussion. Here's the line-by-line.

Current deficit is $62B. But, roughly $23B of that was a one-off First Nation lawsuit settlement.

So the actual deficit is roughly $40B/yr recurring. Here's what you cut:

$45B - Debt servicing costs. Wiping the debt eliminates these and balances budget itself alone.

Wait, what? How do you just stop paying debt servicing costs?

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Wait, what? How do you just stop paying debt servicing costs?

Scroll up.
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=10413218&postcount=6365

Sorry, two-part plan from separate posts confused people:

1) Balance Sheet intervention via one-time ~10% sovereign wealth tax. To wipe the debt. (radical)
2) Spending cuts. Minimum $35B, but $60B is achievable (excluding debt servicing).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Wait, what? How do you just stop paying debt servicing costs?

He's arguing for a massive wealth tax to simply pay off the debt. Simple solutions for simple problems apparently. Why didn't anybody simply thinking of seizing assets to pay off the debt before? So simple right?

[BlackDog204]

[Marshsparrow]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

How the heck can the NDP go up in the polls - if there is one thing that unifies CPC and Liberals - Jagmeet had a terrible debate performance - he does not deserve votes!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by BlackDog204

"Carney's costed platform amounts to a deficit-to-GDP ratio of 1.96% in the first year, falling to 1.36% in 2028-29.

The Progressive Conservative governments of Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark never, ever came close to a level that low.'

Dude, that graph you posted is fake data, literally. The red bars for years like 2022, 2023 should be ~6x that. (JT’s deficits were 2-3% of the GDP.)

JT actually DOUBLED the federal debt during his time in charge. Just look at any debt graph that doesn’t have imaginary data for 2018-2025, and you’ll see.

[TorontoDrew]

It must suck for conservative voters, you guys came so close this time but it looks like the far right south of the border and PP's attempt over the years to mirror MAGA has ruined your chances once again of winning back parliament.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is coming from the guy who thinks we should spend several hundred billion dollars turning Canada into North Korea.

"The great people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea 조선민주주의인민공화국 find your comments highly offensive"

"Our Excellency, fearless Supreme leader and giver of life, Kim Jong Un has constructed many grand buildings in Pyongyang recently. The great leap forward of showpiece architecture"


"Wouldn't you like to live in ICBM tower 1 or ICBM tower 2? Water flows to at least 15 of the 40 floors, and more when the electricity and elevators are functioning"


"Kim Jong Un designed this building himself, like everything in the wonderful DPRK he takes personal credit for. One day the entire building, all 80 floors, may have working electricity and running water"

"Look! We have exterior illumination from 19:00 to 23:00 every evening. We aim to impress the thousands of Chinese and Russian tourists on their highly curated tours of our nation's capital. The most beautiful capital on Earth and the envy of Western nation cesspools like Canada"

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by lio45

JT actually DOUBLED the federal debt during his time in charge. Just look at any debt graph that doesn’t have imaginary data for 2018-2025, and you’ll see.

source: https://www.ceicdata.com


You can see here how under Harper the deficit rose more then double, in 2015 when JT took over it started to come down again, then like every other major nation the deficits jumped up during the pandemic. No party has a good track record with the deficit. They all need to work on that.

But PP will never get that chance, he never should have gone so Maple MAGA, conservative leaders need to learn how to read the room better, the room being most of CANADA.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

He's arguing for a massive wealth tax to simply pay off the debt. Simple solutions for simple problems apparently. Why didn't anybody simply thinking of seizing assets to pay off the debt before? So simple right?

Just brainstorming here, but I think the only realistic way to tax sitting wealth is to tax real estate more. Imagine a 10% tax on everything — every single square foot of privately-owned Canadian soil and property — that would take the form of a government mortgage. Owners wouldn’t have to pay a penny immediately, just start servicing that new debt.

Rents would go up a lot, so the economy would crater as disposable income of renters would fall to zero in an effort by the lower and middle classes to avoid becoming homeless.

Overall, it would likely be bad… so, scratch that lol

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

It must suck for conservative voters, you guys came so close this time but it looks like the far right south of the border and PP's attempt over the years to mirror MAGA has ruined your chances once again of winning back parliament.

What has been released by Carney appears to be the most conservative-lite platform we've seen from the Liberals since Paul Martin. Apart from touting a government-run builder as the solution to the housing crisis (I have quite a few thoughts on this), you could've put Erin O'Toole's name on this and I would be largely convinced of its authenticity.

On the flip side, if you've been a Liberal voter for the past 10 years willing to buy into Trudeau-era fiscal policy, consumption spending as a virtue, counter-productive housing policies, and everything else, then the smugness around a possible Carney majority is odd to say the least. It's dangerously close to admitting that your vote is largely determined by the colour on the candidate's placard.

[JakeLRS]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

It must suck for conservative voters, you guys came so close this time but it looks like the far right south of the border and PP's attempt over the years to mirror MAGA has ruined your chances once again of winning back parliament.

It's the constant polarizing comments like this that are dividing Canadians. It's honestly exhausting how you continue to doom, gloom, and divide people with this rhetoric.

PP has been firm against Trump since he took office. There is a reason why the Liberals aren't really using this attack line anymore and instead changed the question to "Who is better to handle trump", which is a much fairer and quite frankly, less polarizing question.

[bodaggin]

Originally Posted by lio45

Just brainstorming here, but I think the only realistic way to tax sitting wealth is to tax real estate more. Imagine a 10% tax on everything — every single square foot of privately-owned Canadian soil and property — that would take the form of a government mortgage. Owners wouldn’t have to pay a penny immediately, just start servicing that new debt.

Rents would go up a lot, so the economy would crater as disposable income of renters would fall to zero in an effort by the lower and middle classes to avoid becoming homeless.

Overall, it would likely be bad… so, scratch that lol

Brainstorming is good! Keep the ideas going. I get wet, talking about debt.

Problem with RE is it's not financial. Gov has to actually receive something to absolve their debt. You can't really give the gov one room of your house. So your proposal just transferred government debt to personal balance sheets by financializing it. (But you knew that, all good).

But yes, keep brainstorming. Because as much as people whine about radical solutions, the Canadian public voted for "something for nothing" causing debt crisis we're in now. We got ourselves into this. Now we have to pay the piper. One way or another. There is no pretty solution. The longer we wait, the more ugly it gets.

[JakeLRS]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

What has been released by Carney appears to be the most conservative-lite platform we've seen from the Liberals since Paul Martin. Apart from touting a government-run builder as the solution to the housing crisis (I have quite a few thoughts on this), you could've put Erin O'Toole's name on this and I would be largely convinced of its authenticity.

On the flip side, if you've been a Liberal voter for the past 10 years willing to buy into Trudeau-era fiscal policy, consumption spending as a virtue, counter-productive housing policies, and everything else, then the smugness around a possible Carney majority is odd to say the least. It's dangerously close to admitting that your vote is largely determined by the colour on the candidate's placard.

The liberal platform isn't terrible, but the amount of spending is crazy. I can understand the threat of tarrifs and all that, but adding $225 billion to the federal debt is insane.

I'm happy Carney will go after government efficiency, but that alone isn't enough.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

What has been released by Carney appears to be the most conservative-lite platform we've seen from the Liberals since Paul Martin. Apart from touting a government-run builder as the solution to the housing crisis (I have quite a few thoughts on this), you could've put Erin O'Toole's name on this and I would be largely convinced of its authenticity.

On the flip side, if you've been a Liberal voter for the past 10 years willing to buy into Trudeau-era fiscal policy, consumption spending as a virtue, counter-productive housing policies, and everything else, then the smugness around a possible Carney majority is odd to say the least. It's dangerously close to admitting that your vote is largely determined by the colour on the candidate's placard.

Exactly. Conservative voters (MonctonRad, etc.) should be happy — they wanted JT gone, and they got their wish. They’ll get as next PM either a Harper-era MP or else Harper’s pick for Gov. of BoC. No more JT, and good riddance!

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by lio45

Exactly. Conservative voters (MonctonRad, etc.) should be happy — they wanted JT gone, and they got their wish. They’ll get as next PM either a Harper-era MP or else Harper’s pick for Gov. of BoC. No more JT, and good riddance!

Harper was a good man.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by JakeLRS

The liberal platform isn't terrible, but the amount of spending is crazy. I can understand the threat of tarrifs and all that, but adding $225 billion to the federal debt is insane.

I'm happy Carney will go after government efficiency, but that alone isn't enough.

It's a large increase in near-term spending during unprecedented times. It's the kind of plan I would've been much happier with during Covid (the previous period of unprecedented times <5 years ago) than what we got. Unfortunately, we didn't get that, and so this additional debt load is stacked on top of our extremely unproductive previous round of debt spending. At the very least, having a truly serious person capable of delineating between operational spending and capital investment is a much better place to be in.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Good point about the fixed wealth tied up in real estate.

That's the thing about "wealth." A lot of it is arbitrary, and isn't realized until it is sold. You may have a Vermeer hanging in your living room, but, how much is it actually worth? No one knows until it is actually sold! What are we supposed to do? Are we to have all our possessions assessed for their value on an annual basis so that their value can be estimated for taxation purposes??? What if the assessment is $1.5M, but, when we sell it the next year, the selling price is only $1.3M. What happens then? Do you apply for a tax refund???

Just imagine the confusion and complexity of figuring this out.

Also, a wealth tax is really a form of double taxation. You made these purchases with after tax income after all. Do you really want this?

Isn't it safe to assume that most assets of any significant value would already have been appraised for insurance purposes? Who's going to have a $1 million+ piece of art hanging on their wall without it being insured? And I don't see why the taxes couldn't just be based on the most recent appraisal by a 3rd party, accredited entity. A future valuation wouldn't have any bearing on that unless one could prove that said appraisal was done fraudulently.

I think it's true that it's more complex than many other taxes but it doesn't help to overstate the point.