[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Grey Fox]

As usual, when I cast my Communist Quebec Solidaire vote, I'll chant your name Viper.

[viper37]

As usual, when I cast my Communist Quebec Solidaire vote, I'll chant your name Viper.

[Barrister]

Goddammit - I submitted my CPC leadership ballot yesterday.

I voted for fucking Jean Charest as my first choice.

He's a corrupt POS, but at least he isn't playing footsie with anti-vaxxers and insurrectionists.  He's just old-fashioned corrupt.

Polievre is still going to win, but I just want him to not have to strong a mandate.

A genuine thank you from me. I understand how annoying this must be for you.

Jacob, while I hear your thanks, that makes me doubt my vote even more.

But whatever - the vote is cast.

[Sheilbh]

From the other side of politics you've got my sympathies. I know what that's like from 2015, 2016 and then the next two elections

Vote for the uninspiring, anti-charismatic apparatchik who you've never heard of (despite following politics pretty closely), because at least he's not an anti-Semitic crank.

And then difficult election decisions - although only about my own view as I'm in a very safe seat.

[celedhring]

From the other side of politics you've got my sympathies. I know what that's like from 2015, 2016 and then the next two elections

Vote for the uninspiring, anti-charismatic apparatchik who you've never heard of (despite following politics pretty closely), because at least he's not an anti-Semitic crank.

And then difficult election decisions - although only about my own view as I'm in a very safe seat.

As a Catalan voter, I laugh at you both and your pain 

[Jacob]

Jacob, while I hear your thanks, that makes me doubt my vote even more.

But whatever - the vote is cast.

So noted. I'll refrain from letting you know when I think you're doing something politically decent in the future, lest I discourage you.

[Barrister]

So some Alberta politics for y'all to chew on.

Alberta of course is ruled by the United Conservative Party, formed by the merger of the Progressive Conservative Party and the Wildrose Alliance.  Earlier in the year UCP leader Jason Kenney stepped down after significant internal opposition, largely (but not entirely) around his handling of the pandemic.

The leading candidates appear to be:

Brian Jean: last leader of the Wildrose Party, and former Conservative backbench MP
Danielle Smith: the leader of Wildrose before Jean, but quit when she joined the PCs in an earlier failed attempt to merge the parties.  More recently a radio host.
Travis Toews: until recently finance minister under Kenney.  Biggest claim to fame is tabling Alberta first balanced budget in years (although largely due to massive oil revenues)

There haven't been a lot of policy differences between the candidates.  Other than Smith they all served in Kenney's caucus, though some were more vocal in opposition than others.

But the one who has stood out has been Danielle Smith.  What has become her signature policy is promising to pass the Alberta Sovereignty Act.  Under the ASA the Alberta Legislature claims will claim the power to disallow any federal legislation within Alberta based on a vote in the legislature.  She has also said that if the courts rule against the ASA they will just ignore the court ruling.

This is of course blatantly unconstitutional.  The Constitution sets out what is within the sphere of powers of the Feds, and what is in the sphere of powers of the province.  If there is a disagreement you take it to the courts.  This has happened many times, and we spent the first half of 1st year Constitutional Law on division of powers cases.

But being anti-Federal government, and anti-Trudeau, always plays well with the UCP base, so propelled by the ASA Smith seems to be in the lead (because voting is restricted to members it's very hard to get accurate poll results).

But the remaining Powers That Be(tm) in the UCP seem to be increasing afraid she's actually going to win, which will cause either A: the opposition NDP to win, or B: plunge the province into a constitutional crisis and economic uncertainty.  So first Kenney (who otherwise has stayed out of the race) gives a speech saying how unconstitutional and dangerous this is, and now today all the other candidates gave a joint news conference to say the same thing.

So we'll see what happens...

[viper37]

Québec Solidaire refuses the communist label.  They once went to court for libel over that, and lost.

But they're trying really, really, really hard to convince everyone they can live up to their label.

One of their proposal is to tax the very (filthy) rich of province.  By their definition, a very (filthy) rich is someone who has 1 million $ in net assets (gross value - liabilities), including the house.  It would, however, exclude agricultulral productors of the calculations.

That definition would pretty much include any autonomous worker or moderately successful private worker living in a large city where housing costs have risen over the years and who has invested to secure himself/herself a retirement plan.  It would, obviously, exclude of the calculation, most public sector workers who depend on an employer managed pension fund for their retirement, even if many of them end up having a million $ value at their retirement, they wouldn't be taxed by this proposal.  But the private workers with 1m$ in net house value + RRSP would be taxed.

Given the prices of houses in Montreal, I know a few people who aren't exactly rich who would fall in that category come retirement time.  People who would otherwise likely be tempted by Québec Solidaire.

You gotta love these self ignored commies.

[Grey Fox]

It is such a Montreal renter centric proposition. The idea to tax rich entrepreneurs and investment class is always sound but not that way, you idiots.

[Barrister]

"Wealth taxes" always sound great at first until you look into the details of what that would actually mean.

For many/most people only a tiny bit of their wealth is in liquid assets.

[Grey Fox]

"Wealth taxes" always sound great at first until you look into the details of what that would actually mean.

For many/most people only a tiny bit of their wealth is in liquid assets.

They also went with the very low amount of 1 million net, that's so low considering farms assets and why they had to exclude farmers the next day of their announcement. That low number is also a good way to foster debt even tho the tax % was 1%.

[crazy canuck]

"Wealth taxes" always sound great at first until you look into the details of what that would actually mean.

For many/most people only a tiny bit of their wealth is in liquid assets.

They also went with the very low amount of 1 million net, that's so low considering farms assets and why they had to exclude farmers the next day of their announcement. That low number is also a good way to foster debt even tho the tax % was 1%.

How many people with fixed incomes are sitting in houses worth north of 1M?

[Sheilbh]

It doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me

Maybe a bit of refining at the edges.

[Grey Fox]

"Wealth taxes" always sound great at first until you look into the details of what that would actually mean.

For many/most people only a tiny bit of their wealth is in liquid assets.

They also went with the very low amount of 1 million net, that's so low considering farms assets and why they had to exclude farmers the next day of their announcement. That low number is also a good way to foster debt even tho the tax % was 1%.

How many people with fixed incomes are sitting in houses worth north of 1M?

We just had a 2 year period where houses tripled in price. So, I'm guessing 2-3 hundreds thousands.

But even that's only 1 part of the issue. For middle class people 1000$ more of your disposable cash in income tax means money not spent elsewhere in the economy and that's a bad political move. We hate giving money to the inefficient government and no way to avoid it.

[crazy canuck]

I am not opposed to a wealth tax in principle, but it has to be set at a level where it actually taxes only the wealthy.

As you have said, with the dramatic increase in housing prices, people who were lucky enough to purchase their houses years ago on an average salary (and are still earning an average salary) should not be caught by a wealth tax.