[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

Is it even considered "strategic voting" to vote for a less preferred party over a more preferred party that has zero chance of being elected?  I thought that was just good sense?

Before Bernier's party became associated with so many racists, it had some appeal to me (I did prefer Bernier over Scheer in the leadership race), but I never would have voted for it if it was just a small fringe party with single digit support.

BB what you described is strategic voting.  Not voting for the party you prefer but some other party which is less bad than another option.

The problem I have in this election is I have no clear preference and I can't decide who is the least bad.  I am hoping that will become more clear.  Ideally someone will emerge who I can feel good about supporting.

[Josephus]

Do the Greens have anything else on their platform other than the environment? Asking for a progressive friend.

https://www.greenparty.ca/sites/default/files/platform_english_web.pdf

Certainly says something when it hasn't been updated since 2015.

[Malthus]

If Justin "Because it's 2015" Trudeau isn't progressive enough for you, your views are probably far enough outside the Canadian mainstream that you have little chance of seeing your preferred party in power anyway.

Trudeau talks the talk but never walks the walk.

The pipeline bullshit was the last straw for me.

Eh, I agree he's had some failures from a progressive standpoint (distinct from his ethical failings, which is a different matter) but he's also actually implemented a lot of progressive policies.

That's one of the problems Singh has faced IMO - how to distinguish his party when the current incarnation of the Liberal Party is already so far left on social issues. Of course, Singh has proven to be a poor leader, but he was also dealt a difficult hand in that respect.

A lot?

Name 5 or maybe just 3.

There has been a lot of talk but no implementation that I can think of.  Remember he backed down from personal corporate tax reform.  That benefits me but does nothing for the greater good.  Also he did nothing about existing trust fund kids, only prevented further such abuses.  Hurts my kids, well notionally, they are going to make their own money, but does nothing to address people like our PM and Minister of Finance.

I want to rephrase how I described the difference between the Libs and Cons.  In addition to the rhetorical differences we now have a better idea of Trudeau's shortcomings.  Scheer is still untested. Well all the other contenders are.

Well, he's good at apologizing for past sins - of people other than him. 

[Grey Fox]

The RoC always at the tail of the USA, 5 years later.

[Camerus]

If Justin "Because it's 2015" Trudeau isn't progressive enough for you, your views are probably far enough outside the Canadian mainstream that you have little chance of seeing your preferred party in power anyway.

Trudeau talks the talk but never walks the walk.

The pipeline bullshit was the last straw for me.

Eh, I agree he's had some failures from a progressive standpoint (distinct from his ethical failings, which is a different matter) but he's also actually implemented a lot of progressive policies.

That's one of the problems Singh has faced IMO - how to distinguish his party when the current incarnation of the Liberal Party is already so far left on social issues. Of course, Singh has proven to be a poor leader, but he was also dealt a difficult hand in that respect.

A lot?

Name 5 or maybe just 3.

There has been a lot of talk but no implementation that I can think of.  Remember he backed down from personal corporate tax reform.  That benefits me but does nothing for the greater good.  Also he did nothing about existing trust fund kids, only prevented further such abuses.  Hurts my kids, well notionally, they are going to make their own money, but does nothing to address people like our PM and Minister of Finance.

I want to rephrase how I described the difference between the Libs and Cons.  In addition to the rhetorical differences we now have a better idea of Trudeau's shortcomings.  Scheer is still untested. Well all the other contenders are.

Sure, I can give you 5 from a variety of areas.

·At least 20,000 Syrian refugees accepted, a centerpiece policy meant to distinguish Trudeau from the previous Conservative approach to the Syrian refugee crisis

· Bll C-69, the Impact Assessment Act, which ups the bar for resource development assessment, including adding a "gender assessment" component to the approval of resource development

· Reduction by 50% of tax-free investment vehicle TFSA because only wealthy people have "$10,000 lying around" (Trudeau's words), a policy meant to foster equality and target allegedly "wealthier" Canadians with more money to invest

· Introduction of a national carbon tax policy, over the heads and constitutional challenges of Conservative-led provinces, including Ontario and Alberta

· Cutting middle class tax rate while increasing the tax rate for high income earners, including the fact that tax rate on income over $200,000 went up four percentage points, from 29 per cent to 33 per cent

And there are more that I could cite as well.

[Malthus]

One thing I'd really like to see is someone do a high level, unpartisan side-by-side comparison on where each party stands on environmental matters -- and also what has actually been accomplished by the governing Liberals.

[HVC]

Canada wins the newest battle in the lumbar wars with the states

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/nafta-panel-says-us-cant-show-harm-from-canadian-softwood-industry/ar-AAGR0gE?ocid=spartandhp

[Malthus]

Canada wins the newest battle in the lumbar wars with the states

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/nafta-panel-says-us-cant-show-harm-from-canadian-softwood-industry/ar-AAGR0gE?ocid=spartandhp

Man, our spines must be in great shape! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbar_vertebrae

[HVC]

we're a fine upstanding people

i'd blame my phone, but I typed that out on my computer

[crazy canuck]

Sure, I can give you 5 from a variety of areas.

·At least 20,000 Syrian refugees accepted, a centerpiece policy meant to distinguish Trudeau from the previous Conservative approach to the Syrian refugee crisis

· Bll C-69, the Impact Assessment Act, which ups the bar for resource development assessment, including adding a "gender assessment" component to the approval of resource development

· Reduction by 50% of tax-free investment vehicle TFSA because only wealthy people have "$10,000 lying around" (Trudeau's words), a policy meant to foster equality and target allegedly "wealthier" Canadians with more money to invest

· Introduction of a national carbon tax policy, over the heads and constitutional challenges of Conservative-led provinces, including Ontario and Alberta

· Cutting middle class tax rate while increasing the tax rate for high income earners, including the fact that tax rate on income over $200,000 went up four percentage points, from 29 per cent to 33 per cent

And there are more that I could cite as well.

1) Isn't the implementation of a progressive policy - the Conservatives were going to allow in a similar number but the then minister failed miserably in his communication of the policy.  The Liberals have done no better, and probably worse, that the Conservatives on the immigration front and have been ineffective at implementing immigration law reform.

2) mere rhetoric made in essentially meaningless legislation.  Where are the substantive changes that have been implemented regarding equality?

3) A tax policy change many were calling for, only the wealthy could take advantage of it.  The stats were pretty clear on that.  If you want to characterize sane tax policy as progressive then definitely paint me as a progressive.

4) A very right wing government in BC implemented Canada's first carbon tax.  Not exactly a progressive idea....

5) The big winners were actually high middle income earners between 100k-200k, not the poor.  So also again, not exactly implementation of progressive policies.  Further combined with the failure to deal with personal corporations made the small increase in personal taxes over 200k largely irrelevant. 



At most you have one there - if you want to count the rhetoric made legislation.  But I suspect your idea of implementation of a progressive policy and what an actual progressive might think are a bit different, which is really the point we were addressing - why should progressives vote Liberal?

[crazy canuck]

One thing I'd really like to see is someone do a high level, unpartisan side-by-side comparison on where each party stands on environmental matters -- and also what has actually been accomplished by the governing Liberals.

Its hard to do atm, despite all the fanfare of their announcement there is not much detail about what the Conservatives would actually do - which causes considerable concern for me.

The Liberals at least are attempting to create a national carbon tax - although much more needs to be done and it is unclear what more they propose.

Greens, unclear about the details.  May be counting on their brand.

NDP, who knows.

[crazy canuck]

Canada wins the newest battle in the lumbar wars with the states

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/topstories/nafta-panel-says-us-cant-show-harm-from-canadian-softwood-industry/ar-AAGR0gE?ocid=spartandhp

Man, our spines must be in great shape! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbar_vertebrae

Its going to take years to recover from the US bending us out of shape - and no guarantee they don't jump on us again.

[PRC]

Sure, I can give you 5 from a variety of areas.

·At least 20,000 Syrian refugees accepted, a centerpiece policy meant to distinguish Trudeau from the previous Conservative approach to the Syrian refugee crisis

· Bll C-69, the Impact Assessment Act, which ups the bar for resource development assessment, including adding a "gender assessment" component to the approval of resource development

· Reduction by 50% of tax-free investment vehicle TFSA because only wealthy people have "$10,000 lying around" (Trudeau's words), a policy meant to foster equality and target allegedly "wealthier" Canadians with more money to invest

· Introduction of a national carbon tax policy, over the heads and constitutional challenges of Conservative-led provinces, including Ontario and Alberta

· Cutting middle class tax rate while increasing the tax rate for high income earners, including the fact that tax rate on income over $200,000 went up four percentage points, from 29 per cent to 33 per cent

And there are more that I could cite as well.

1) Isn't the implementation of a progressive policy - the Conservatives were going to allow in a similar number but the then minister failed miserably in his communication of the policy.  The Liberals have done no better, and probably worse, that the Conservatives on the immigration front and have been ineffective at implementing immigration law reform.

2) mere rhetoric made in essentially meaningless legislation.  Where are the substantive changes that have been implemented regarding equality?

3) A tax policy change many were calling for, only the wealthy could take advantage of it.  The stats were pretty clear on that.  If you want to characterize sane tax policy as progressive then definitely paint me as a progressive.

4) A very right wing government in BC implemented Canada's first carbon tax.  Not exactly a progressive idea....

5) The big winners were actually high middle income earners between 100k-200k, not the poor.  So also again, not exactly implementation of progressive policies.  Further combined with the failure to deal with personal corporations made the small increase in personal taxes over 200k largely irrelevant. 

At most you have one there - if you want to count the rhetoric made legislation.  But I suspect your idea of implementation of a progressive policy and what an actual progressive might think are a bit different, which is really the point we were addressing - why should progressives vote Liberal?

It does appear that the progressive talking points of the Liberals during the last election, electoral reform in particular, was just political virtue signalling to scoop NDP and Green voters. 

Apparently it worked the last time around, but no one should believe them this time, especially if you were a Green or NDP voter and saw the Liberal government go on and purchase Trans Mountain. 

The SNC Lavalin affair hasn't seemed to really hurt Trudeau, but once the campaign starts and we start seeing ad after ad harping on it alongside photo after photo of him in East Indian attire and talk of him at the Aga Khans party island maybe that will all change.   

I feel like it's going to be a close one but the Liberals have acquired a lot of new baggage in a short time.  Maybe we see a minority government, maybe we see enough "progressives" go back to the Greens & NDP, or even former Liberal voters protest voting for the other two and the Cons get handed the government. 

[crazy canuck]

Here is a CBC article which discusses the same issues

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-2019-election-andrew-scheer-1.5252988

[viper37]

At least 20,000 Syrian refugees accepted, a centerpiece policy meant to distinguish Trudeau from the previous Conservative approach to the Syrian refugee crisis

And as a result, we had 19 000 Syrians refugees left to themselves, sometimes to freeze in winter, because the system was totally swamped with too much requests.  Meanwhile, Quebec had to foot the bill for Trudeau's invite to everyone in the world, and the masses of illegal immigrants who crossed the US border on foot - most of whom are still not regularized because, well, you know those 20k refugees you're so proud of?

Exactly as I predicted.

· Bll C-69, the Impact Assessment Act, which ups the bar for resource development assessment, including adding a "gender assessment" component to the approval of resource development

That just bureaucratic bullshit that extends the delays to approve resource development.
Most of these rules were already there, one way or another.  Discussing nation-to-nation is not new, the Supreme Court has ruled on that multiple times and the Feds have obliged.

· Reduction by 50% of tax-free investment vehicle TFSA because only wealthy people have "$10,000 lying around" (Trudeau's words), a policy meant to foster equality and target allegedly "wealthier" Canadians with more money to invest

Not totally accurate:
You will accumulate TFSA contribution room for each year even if you do not file an income tax and benefit return or open a TFSA.
The annual TFSA dollar limit for the years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 was $5,000.
The annual TFSA dollar limit for the years 2013 and 2014 was $5,500.
The annual TFSA dollar limit for the year 2015 was $10,000.
The annual TFSA dollar limit for the year 2016 and 2017 was $5,500.
The annual TFSA dollar limit for the year 2018 is $5,500.
The annual TFSA dollar limit for the year 2019 is $6,000.
The TFSA annual room limit will be indexed to inflation and rounded to the nearest $500.

They reduced the increase by half after 2015, that means they simply reversed the Conservative decision.

· Introduction of a national carbon tax policy, over the heads and constitutional challenges of Conservative-led provinces, including Ontario and Alberta

True. Taxing citizens is a very "progressive" measure.  Now, what are the concrete actions taken by the Libs to reduced GHG emissions?


An inconvenient truth...

· Cutting middle class tax rate while increasing the tax rate for high income earners, including the fact that tax rate on income over $200,000 went up four percentage points, from 29 per cent to 33 per cent

Pretty much negated by other budget measures in the following years.  Anyway.  Revenues increases, but debt keeps growing at alarming rate.  That is a sure sign of incompetance.

And here are some charts to help make sense of the looming disaster:
Most important charts to watch in 2019

Basically, with Liberal management, we destroyed the years of careful planning by Harper and we are left very, very vulnerable to the next recession.  Canada is tool small to have any influence on the world's economy, so we are left to ride it.  It's like being in a rollercoaster: you don't drive the thing, all you can do is scream when you're upside down.  Harper put security measures in place to avoid us falling, Trudeau judged them unnecessary because, well, it's 2015?  Or maybe because that's what progressive do, making life miserable for as much people as possible so they can justify their existence?

I still don't get them.  I still don't get this idea that we must collectively suffer while the rich ride the rollercoaster with adequate protection.  Worst case scenario, a few magazines, plants, are closed, high executives move to another business with millions, retirees are left fighting for scraps.  Yeah, recessions are fun.  Let's make sure we're poorer when we hit them!  That will teach them those filthy rich!!!

And there are more that I could cite as well.

Please, go ahead, I love trashing the Libs!