Federal Government & Politics II

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Mulroney was much more unpopular and had an approval rate of 10-15% when he left office. But many of his accomplishments that are praised today are ones that weren't in the spotlight very much while he was PM with the exception of free trade. I'm quite sure that JT will be seen in the same way except by those who really dislike him today. Mulroney was blamed for leaving Canada in an economic mess as well but so were so many PMs who governed for more than a term.

Mulroney attempted to make difficult choices to make a better country. Some of which history vindicated. The GST was awful tasting medicine. Jean Chretien had to backtrack on his promise to kill it, though. That was a good thing for Canada. It helped set Canada is a more sustainable fiscal course for decades.

Justin Trudeau has not exactly showered himself in such vision. If the net effect of the carbon tax is to make it an easy political win for the opposition to kill it, what has one accomplished, really? If one's going to make a legacy stick, might as well have the stones to do it proper. Difficult choices aren't ones that can be weaseled out of easily by the next guy.

Late-era half-baked programs that likely die when the next government comes to power and taxes that are easily jettisoned at no political cost aren't the product of visionary minds. Great legacies are the product of people who went against the grain to make a better country and make it stick. Sometimes that was an unpleasant process.

But legacies can be bad things too. Large chunks of Ukraine and Belarus are permanently uninhabitable because of the USSR's nuclear 'legacy'. As will this government's legacy of debt. Mulroney's flaw was his failure to tackle Pierre Trudeau's deficits before it got out of hand. Another leader had to eat that tasty legacy. Fortunately, we had one.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Loco101

If the same situation was happening under a federal conservative government would the same blame be placed? I hardly think so. There would be more blame on the addicts and how much they are costing society. There would be comments telling them to get a job, get help (which may not be available) etc..

While I do agree that a job loss or losing a house can lead to addiction for some people it doesn't for the vast majority. Yes it's hard but the main causes are a person's upbringing and state of mental health.

I wish the partisanship would stop and that we could look at what is more worthwhile. Mandatory rehab would be very expensive but would it cost less than the current cost on emergency and health services?

I will happily take a strip off the next government regardless of political branding if they continue the path followed by the current one. You can quote this post in a few years.

Shit government with shit policies that have shit consequences (let's give a junkie a pile of free money with no strings attached whilst inflating their shelter costs!) deserves to be called shit.

Partisan, sir? I think not. People who fail to call shit government and policy what it is are partisan. I don't care about colour of political party. I care about a better country.

Make 2034 look better than 2024, because the choices government made sure didn't make 2024 look better than 2014.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Partisan, sir? I think not. People who fail to call shit government and policy what it is are partisan. I don't care about colour of political party. I care about a better country.

Make 2034 look better than 2024, because the choices government made sure didn't make 2024 look better than 2014.

Exactly. Those who unwaveringly defend Trudeau's status quo at the moment are the most rabidly partisan of the lot. They're directly importing and embodying US style "my side can do no wrong" identity politics, even though they keep harping about the dangers of politics south of the border.

Dougie is also being hit left and right with criticism for his mediocre governance of Ontario, and it doesn't matter if he's a Conservative or a Liberal. What matters is his poor track record, and the rapidly declining quality of life in Ontario.

[hipster duck]

By now, I've been a voting age adult since Jean Chretien's last term, and Justin Trudeau is - hands down - the worst prime minister in my adult life.

I think the mood on the street speaks for itself: very few Canadians are "better off" now than they were in 2015. I count myself lucky that I bought a house before Covid, and I'm old enough that the things that are giving a lot of younger people anxiety right now are well in the past for me. But instead of feeling lucky, I feel guilty. But I don't want to feel guilty. Ten years ago, someone with my material standard of living would have just been plain old middle class, and now, thanks to the slippage of the Trudeau years, I'm probably upper middle class for my age group. I shouldn't feel like the lucky pawn that made it to the other side of the chessboard. This sucks.

I could name specific policies like immigration, but I think my dislike for the Trudeau government boils down to three things:

(1) The Trudeau government makes every policy cynical and performative, and he makes me embarrassed to be Canadian. This is what I hated about the Harper government, but at least we were all better off back then.

(2) He has taken on so many initiatives and executed them in a half-assed way so that they just consume resources and produce terrible outcomes, and he has stepped into the jurisdictions of other governments - thus inflaming the relationship that the Federal government has with provinces and awakening the sleeping dog of national unity. Meanwhile, as Poilievre pithily said: "Canadians don't need a government that runs their lives, they need a government that can run a passport office".

(3) He's been around for way too long and he refuses to step down. It's too bad we had our last election in 2021. Had we had it in 2022, we might have been able to kick him out, and then we would have been spared the country's slow circling of the drain of the past two years. To some extent, the Conservatives would have inherited the mess, and Trudeau would look better too. We also wouldn't have had the insane brainchild-of-McKinsey immigration policies that really kicked into overdrive after the last election, and we'd probably have 2 million fewer people spiking rents and crippling service delivery. Now we have to keep circling for another year at least. It'll kill his reputation, but it will do profound damage to the country, too.

So, yes, come 2025, I will be marking an X beside the Conservative candidate in my GTA swing riding. If I lived one riding south, I'd vote NDP, not because I'm particularly sold on Jagmeet Singh and his supply confidence agreement, but because it's imperative to get the Liberals out and they're the party that's favoured to win there.

The Liberal party of Canada really needs to clean house. A lot of ministers have been forced out, but many of those who remain have the strong taint of Trudeau. If one of the Trudeau gang - like Freeland or Marc Miller - runs in 2029, then I'll probably grudgingly vote for Poilievre again.

[thewave46]

It's difficult to live in a stagnating era, and hard to govern it. I'll admit that openly. The slow backslide from 1972 to 1982. The early 1990s. We haven't had one in a bit and are living it now.

The Trudeau government didn't invent the opioid crisis. Or COVID.

It's how one responds to them that's the mark of great leadership.

That's where my criticism of this government stems from. The Trudeau government has underwhelmed at policy-making. It has consistently chosen the most expedient path at the cost of (IMO) choosing the more difficult, but longer-term reward path.

Eventually this will come to haunt us.

[Coldrsx]

A nice blockade on Hwy1 west of Calgary today due to these folks.

How they are permitted to protest on a national hwy is beyond me.

[Rollerstud98]

Yeah fuck those people. Was lucky enough to be through early this morning and missed the worst but still fuck them. Want to protest a policy from Ottawa? Go to Ottawa and set up on parliament hill.

[People_talking]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

A nice blockade on Hwy1 west of Calgary today due these folks.

How they are permitted to protest on a national hwy is beyond me.

Had to deal with my own on the TCH at the NB NS Border today, missed my pysio appointment in Amherst and it took about 45 minutes to get through.

Further regarding Calgary, wasn't Alberta's Bill 1 passed to prevent this?

"The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (Bill 1) protects essential infrastructure by creating offences for trespassing, interfering with operations or causing damage."

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by People_talking

Had to deal with my own on the TCH at the NB NS Border today, missed my pysio appointment in Amherst and it took about 45 minutes to get through.

Further regarding Calgary, wasn't Alberta's Bill 1 passed to prevent this?

"The Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (Bill 1) protects essential infrastructure by creating offences for trespassing, interfering with operations or causing damage."

As with the other side the hard assed attitude is only for those you disagree with. Hypocrites all!

[Hackslack]

Is it only the Liberals that call the carbon tax a “price on pollution” I don’t think I have heard anyone else anywhere call it a price on pollution, rather, calling it what it is, a carbon tax. Seems like the Libs feel they need to use verbiage to legitimize the tax.

[People_talking]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

As with the other side the hard assed attitude is only for those you disagree with. Hypocrites all!

That's generally what I assumed lol

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

Is it only the Liberals that call the carbon tax a “price on pollution” I don’t think I have heard anyone else anywhere call it a price on pollution, rather, calling it what it is, a carbon tax. Seems like the Libs feel they need to use verbiage to legitimize the tax.

Well it's a branding exercise. Most people consider carbon as pollution so it's a fair characterization. Almost everyone agrees with someone else paying the tax.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Hackslack

Is it only the Liberals that call the carbon tax a “price on pollution” I don’t think I have heard anyone else anywhere call it a price on pollution, rather, calling it what it is, a carbon tax. Seems like the Libs feel they need to use verbiage to legitimize the tax.

Is it a tax when the federal government is not using it to generate revenue for itself, all revenue is rebated in the province where it's collected, and is only imposed if a province doesn't have a compliant climate plan? It's more accurately a fee-and-rebate scheme with an opt out (make up another compliant plan).

[casper]

Most of Europe, Japan, Argentina and a number of other smaller countries have a carbon trading or carbon tax system. Fairly common strategy. Instead of a carbon tax the US has just been dumpling massive sums of money in its just transition strategy. Something we don't have the pocket books to do.

Canada just has a large part of its economy and population tied to the oil and gas sector that does not like how we are the rest of the work are moving to de carbonize.

I get it. People working in that industry are scared, they want to preserve their market. However, blocking roads is not the way to get their message across.

I received another sms text to join some PP protest in Nanaimo against the federal carbon tax. How they got my cell number to spam I have no idea. A few people I know were getting robo calls from PP team as well. These conservatives don't get it. The federal carbon tax does not apply to BC because we have our own system. Obviously I reported it as spam to Bell.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

….Still, our relative decline is revealing. As noted in the Bloomberg article posted earlier, Canada was ranked 13th out of 170 countries in meeting the basic needs of citizens in 2013; but by 2023 had fallen to 39th place. Our GDP per capita is falling, disparity with those of our peers are growing. Etc. We've become accustomed to mediocrity.

Australia certainly seems to be doing things a lot better than we are:
…url]

Maybe because Australia’s government isn’t virtual-signaling themselves into decline and still developing their natural resources for the benefit of all?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by casper

Most of Europe, Japan, Argentina and a number of other smaller countries have a carbon trading or carbon tax system. Fairly common strategy. Instead of a carbon tax the US has just been dumpling massive sums of money in its just transition strategy. Something we don't have the pocket books to do.

Canada just has a large part of its economy and population tied to the oil and gas sector that does not like how we are the rest of the work are moving to de carbonize.

I get it. People working in that industry are scared, they want to preserve their market. However, blocking roads is not the way to get their message across.

I received another sms text to join some PP protest in Nanaimo against the federal carbon tax. How they got my cell number to spam I have no idea. A few people I know were getting robo calls from PP team as well. These conservatives don't get it. The federal carbon tax does not apply to BC because we have our own system. Obviously I reported it as spam to Bell.

Which other countries have a generalized carbon tax? Europe has a limited carbon trading system that applies to the industrial sector. Japan has a carbon tax of $2/tonne (a fraction of Canada’s). Other major emitters like the U.S., Russia, China, India have nothing.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Maybe because Australia’s government isn’t virtual-signaling themselves into decline and still developing their natural resources for the benefit of all?

Environmental and progressive social consciousness, and correction for demographic realities unfortunately come at a high price, especially when the results are uncertain, and won't be seen for years, if at all. Any party that tries to do the right thing for the future is bound to pay a price politically.

[casper]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Which other countries have a generalized carbon tax? Europe has a limited carbon trading system that applies to the industrial sector. Japan has a carbon tax of $2/tonne (a fraction of Canada’s). Other major emitters like the U.S., Russia, China, India have nothing.

Here is an overview of the EU Carbon tax.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/e...n-europe-2023/

Portugal is the EU country I have the most knowledge of. Other than showing up on airline tickets I never see it broken out. Their VAT tax is mostly hidden from the consumer as well. Apparently in Portugal it is is 23 Euro per tonne.

The conservatives are not making the argument that tax is to high, they are making the argument we should have no carbon tax at all. What alternative is being presented to discourage the use of hydrocarbons?

The US government is directly investing on a massive scale in clean energy projects. That is an alternative, one that would be added directly to our deficit.

[Hecate]

Originally Posted by casper

You may want to re-read my post. I did not say the people on opioids are to blame for the situation they are in.

If you ask me what I do see. It is a country where we have a high standard of living compared to most of the rest of the world. People who live in western countries just don't understand the challenges that many face in the third world. We have a health care system and education that for the most part functions. Yes, there are problems.

Line ups at food-banks is deeply concerning. The fact housing is expensive is also concerning.

You said if addicts were more productive members of society we wouldn’t need so much immigration. So basically that’s like blaming addicts for the lack of productivity across the country and for the increase in housing costs we are currently seeing. This is absolutely ridiculous when you consider the increase in financial stress this government has inflicted on the nation. Most people are like one missed pay check away from a shelter. This is stressful. Here’s an article about how financial stress kills productivity and destroys lives. Thanks Justin!

https://www.fastcompany.com/90891230...friends-survey

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by casper

Here is an overview of the EU Carbon tax.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/e...n-europe-2023/

Portugal is the EU country I have the most knowledge of. Other than showing up on airline tickets I never see it broken out. Their VAT tax is mostly hidden from the consumer as well. Apparently in Portugal it is is 23 Euro per tonne.

The conservatives are not making the argument that tax is to high, they are making the argument we should have no carbon tax at all. What alternative is being presented to discourage the use of hydrocarbons?

The US government is directly investing on a massive scale in clean energy projects. That is an alternative, one that would be added directly to our deficit.

There is no EU carbon tax. Some member states have some sort of local carbon tax, although they are mostly limited in scope (for example, Spain’s applies only to fluorinated gases). Your chart indicates Portugal’s carbon tax applies only to 36% of emissions.