Federal Government & Politics II

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

"Fitness and cohesion"?

Since when does Canada care about "cohesion"?

"Cohesion" is suspect, and maybe even racist.

Don't like cohesion? How about "indoctrination." Or, perhaps "inculcation of a sense of nationalism or patriotism."

I say this mostly in jest, but, one has to be careful about the motivations behind a national service program.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I find the idea of trading GST for carbon taxes quite interesting. Not sure it would fly constitutionally though. Per my understanding, the Supreme Court ruling support carbon taxes was actually based on the interpretation that the federal government was only applying a backstop to provinces that didn't comply. It wasn't imposing a national tax. This provincial flexibility was the key to constitutionality of the federal carbon price plan.

Yes it would need a re-structure. A gasoline excise tax is probably a great solution. I don't see much value in the natural gas part of the tax anyway. The heating oil part probably changes behaviour but we've cancelled that anyway.

A 50 cent excise tax would bring in about $20 Billion. That wouldn't quite allow a total elimination of GST but maybe could remove from almost everything. Keeping tax on cars and other big ticket items. This would allow removal of the GST credit and almost all of the administrative costs. We could actually replace with a tax on cars by engine size as they do in the UK further encouraging energy efficiency. Removing housing for end users and getting rid of any refunds for investors would also make sense.

This would be a huge change with many heavy drivers spending a lot more than they saved so politically not straight-forward. It would completely reframe the election though. If the GST is already removed the Conservatives would have to campaign on re instating in order to remove the fuel tax.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

"Fitness and cohesion"?

Since when does Canada care about "cohesion"?

"Cohesion" is suspect, and maybe even racist.

Yeah, no chance of such a program in nowadays’ Canada, where the motto is “incohesion is our strength”.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Acajack

"Fitness and cohesion"?

Since when does Canada care about "cohesion"?

"Cohesion" is suspect, and maybe even racist.

I mean there are lots of definitions of cohesion. I know Quebec is a bit alergic to the word but ironically I would say Quebec has more cohesion to Canada's basic values than most other societies. You can say that is racist but I think it is about values and experiences not race or background.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by lio45

Yeah, no chance of such a program in nowadays’ Canada, where the motto is “incohesion is our strength”.

Or, in JT's case, incoherence.......

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Or, in JT's case, incoherence.......

It's funny you say that, because Justin Trudeau has more familiarity with youth community services programs as he was chair of Katimavik, which does programs exactly like what others in this thread have been advocating for.

[theman23]

A warning from the breakdown nations

Led by Canada, Chile, Germany, South Africa and Thailand, these “breakdown nations” carry a lesson. Growth is hard, sustaining it even harder, so the stars of today are not necessarily the stars of tomorrow.

Take Canada first. Widely admired for how it weathered the global financial crisis of 2008, it missed the boat when the world moved on, driven by big tech instead of commodities. Canada’s per capita GDP has been shrinking 0.4 per cent a year since 2020 — the worst rate for any developed economy in the top 50. New investment and job growth is being driven mainly by the government.

Private-sector action is confined largely to the property market, which does little for productivity and prosperity. Many young people can’t afford to buy in one of the world’s most expensive housing markets. Pressed to name a digital success, Canadians cite Shopify — but the online store is the only tech name among the country’s 10 largest companies, and its shares are trading at half their 2021 peak.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by casper

I think we talking about a different kind of operation.

This is what tree planting in BC is like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep6sWECi3BE

Yes, but the topic was national service, not replacing industry. The kind of things these youth groups do sound like they would align perfectly with some level of national service. And while the military sounds like a good source of free labour to fill sand bags, it occurs to me that boy and girl scout/guide groups and cadet programs could also do stuff like that. In Ontario high schools, students need 40 hours of community volunteer work over their high school years to graduate. An extension of that sounds it could be similar in part to the kind of thing TN is proposing.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Yes, but the topic was national service, not replacing industry. The kind of things these youth groups do sound like they would align perfectly with some level of national service. And while the military sounds like a good source of free labour to fill sand bags, it occurs to me that boy and girl scout/guide groups and cadet programs could also do stuff like that. In Ontario high schools, students need 40 hours of community volunteer work over their high school years to graduate. An extension of that sounds it could be similar in part to the kind of thing TN is proposing.

The military is far from free labour. We pay them well and spend a fortune training them. We also get most of them only for a few years so any training they miss making them less effective is very very expensive. Now a few weeks a year of physical labour won't hurt infantry rediness but it is getting out of hand in Canada for sure.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

The military is far from free labour. We pay them well and spend a fortune training them. We also get most of them only for a few years so any training they miss making them less effective is very very expensive. Now a few weeks a year of physical labour won't hurt infantry rediness but it is getting out of hand in Canada for sure.

There are a few hundred thousand people working in government offices around the country making a nice taxpayer salary that could probably use a few weeks of physical labour a year filling sandbags too, but we don't seem to be calling on them. It's no more the army's job than it is the CRA's.

[Hecate]

lol isn’t that kind of the point of the military, to respond, at times of crisis, whether at home or abroad? If not, what’s the point of them?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Hecate

lol isn’t that kind of the point of the military, to respond, at times of crisis, whether at home or abroad? If not, what’s the point of them?

If you listen to TrueNorth, the military is glad to pitch in during a time of unexpected crisis, but, wildfires are now a predictable annual event, and the government should be making appropriate preparations for dealing with these predictable events. The more the military is expected to deal with these wildfires, the less time they have to spend on their other duties, including training and preparing for deployments.

Canada needs a civil defence force.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Hecate

lol isn’t that kind of the point of the military, to respond, at times of crisis, whether at home or abroad? If not, what’s the point of them?

The point of the military is to defend the interests of Canada through the use of force. In other words: To engage in combat against Canada’s external enemies.

The military can be used as civil disaster assistance, but is not explicitly meant for that purpose. Especially when it involves roles that should be performed by other agencies of government ordinarily.

Forest firefighting is a recurring and predictable problem. Governments should bolster those capabilities, not rely on the military to save them. Or the care of elderly residents in old age homes during COVID, as another example of misuse of the military. Or snow removal, rather famously.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

There are a few hundred thousand people working in government offices around the country making a nice taxpayer salary that could probably use a few weeks of physical labour a year filling sandbags too, but we don't seem to be calling on them. It's no more the army's job than it is the CRA's.

That is a bit, or really a lot different. A lot of CAF does not do training 50 weeks a year and has a lot of people who in between training are essentially on stanby. (And I mean regforce so being paid to do lower level training or waiting around not reserves) That said when it becomes too encompassing it can interfere with training and thus readiness. We wouldn't have pilots or even mechanics fill sandbags but there is wide range of needed training and some say it is already causing problems. Of course it's also something that CAF probably isn't keen to do in general so the leadership can say whatever they want to some extent and we (nor politicians) have enough visibilty to dispute it. It is true that it certainly takes a lot more training to do what we think of as grunt work than it did in previous generations.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If you listen to TrueNorth, the military is glad to pitch in during a time of unexpected crisis, but, wildfires are now a predictable annual event, and the government should be making appropriate preparations for dealing with these predictable events. The more the military is expected to deal with these wildfires, the less time they have to spend on their other duties, including training and preparing for deployments.

Canada needs a civil defence force.

What the military is glad to do isn't the final word on anything. Nor is the point only to engage external enemies with force. For sure taking away a summer of excercises for a second year artillery man to fight fires is a bad tradeoff given what was already spent and the limited time to get them up to snuff but if it is a lull in their schedule they can fill sandbags for a weekend. The military excels at logistics and the discipline exists to do it properly. Maybe a FEMA like organization would be a good thing for Canada. I guess we'd put it under the military at this point to juice the spending numbers anyway.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If you listen to TrueNorth, the military is glad to pitch in during a time of unexpected crisis, but, wildfires are now a predictable annual event, and the government should be making appropriate preparations for dealing with these predictable events. The more the military is expected to deal with these wildfires, the less time they have to spend on their other duties, including training and preparing for deployments.

Canada needs a civil defence force.

The Canadian provinces need a civil defence force, perhaps.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Honestly, I am not sure I want to serve in a conscript military where half (or more) of those there don't want to be there. The other half get an absolutely minimal level of training which would mostly be useless on the modern battlefield. The current casualty rates on both sides in Ukraine proves this point.

If this were ever to be a semi-serious suggestion, I wouldn't suggest building it around military service. But something like a civil defence corps. Teach them first aid, firefighting, basic rescue, environmental protection etc. Use them for fighting forest fires, disaster response, evacuating communities, planting trees, etc. In this way, they can actually free up the real professionals in the CAF, Forest Service, Coast Guard, etc to really focus on important jobs. They can be trained in 3 months for something like this. And serve for 3 months. That would be enough time to be both useful and inculcate the values that are usually the goals of this kind of program.

But again, imposing this on young people, while screwing them over in so many other ways is unjust. The Tories pushing mandatory military service in the UK after screwing over future generations with Brexit is the ultimate middle finger to every youth in that country.

This is a good take. I think that some sort of civil national service program does have lot of merit, but at this point in time, when our social contract is fraying due to declining prospects for youth, it would be unjust to add more to the obligation side of the social contract for them.

Fix our broken systems first, restore confidence in the social contract, and then we talk about a national service program.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

If you listen to TrueNorth, the military is glad to pitch in during a time of unexpected crisis, but, wildfires are now a predictable annual event, and the government should be making appropriate preparations for dealing with these predictable events. The more the military is expected to deal with these wildfires, the less time they have to spend on their other duties, including training and preparing for deployments.

Canada needs a civil defence force.

Will add that starting with the commitment to expand Latvia to a brigade sized commitment, the CDS is now openly demanding and advising the federal government to refuse all but the most critical domestic commitments. He's stated that the provinces are getting far too comfortable relying on the CAF to respond to virtually every incident that is slightly more than local. The pace of domestic deployments is impacting both readiness and the health and well-being of CAF members and families.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

The Canadian provinces need a civil defence force, perhaps.

Originally Posted by YOWetal

What the military is glad to do isn't the final word on anything. Nor is the point only to engage external enemies with force. For sure taking away a summer of excercises for a second year artillery man to fight fires is a bad tradeoff given what was already spent and the limited time to get them up to snuff but if it is a lull in their schedule they can fill sandbags for a weekend. The military excels at logistics and the discipline exists to do it properly. Maybe a FEMA like organization would be a good thing for Canada. I guess we'd put it under the military at this point to juice the spending numbers anyway.

Technically civil defence is a joint federal provincial responsibility. We don't expect provincial authorities to respond to large scale disasters or say a chemical or biological attack. But it's getting ridiculous that the army's entire summer training cycle is disrupted every year for firefighting just because the provinces refuse to do their jobs. Heck, we saw during COVID that we had to mobilize tons of CAF personnel simply to fix the disaster in old age homes because the provinces had failed to do their jobs. In a time of serious global tension (those summer exercises are readiness proving before rotating into theatre to face the Russians), an ongoing personnel shortage and some very angry allies, this isn't a good strategy.

Part of the problem here is that federal governments have been all too eager to send the CAF and all too timid to bill the provinces after. Charge them full freight for CAF assistance and they'd change their opinion on using the CAF very quickly.

[Hecate]

Well Canada has been doing very little when it comes to forestry management. There’s lots that could be done to prevent fires from reaching inhabited areas that would need evacuations.

And honestly how do you unite a people that have never been more divided? I’m in my 40’s and no kids, at one point I’d have supported mandatory service. But not anymore. In manitoba we have wonderful commemorative Liscence plates with a bloody red hand print for missing and murdered indigenous women. I’m reminded of how wonderful this country really is every time I see them. Anymore statues of Queen Victoria or sir John A. we can destroy? Lol honestly I’d love to see Queen Victoria’s statue at the Manitoba legislature restored. It never deserved to be beheaded and toppled.