[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Josephus]

Greens 60
NDP 58
Liberals 55
Conservatives  37
PPC did not participte

Still not voting Green.

[crazy canuck]

It's behind a paywall, but apparently Ottawa is citing cabinet confidentiality and is refusing to assist with RCMP investigation into Lavalin investigation.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-ottawa-blocks-rcmp-on-snc-lavalin-inquiry/

This story is not going to go away...

I was listening to Trudeau's press conference on my drive into work, the first 4 questions were on that topic and there were a number of follow ups.  It will be interesting to see if he can ignore it wait for it to go away, which appears to be the strategy.  Probably the one that is politically most wise - deal with the question of what do you have to hide rather the answering substantive questions about information that is disclosed.

I think it was a bad judgment to call the election today, they could have waited until tomorrow out of respect.  But perhaps that is not as big a deal anymore?

[PRC]

And that was with me saying the government should impose a carbon tax.

You appear to be significantly out of step with your fellow Conservatives on carbon tax, climate change and environmental issues.

Jason Kenney just gave a speech to a group of oil executives where he seemingly appeared to applaud Vladimir Putin's approach to environmentalists:

https://pressprogress.ca/jason-kenney-vladimir-putins-jailing-of-dissidents-is-instructive-on-how-to-deal-with-environmentalists/

"They know they couldn't get away with this in Vladimir Putin's Russia. In fact, Greenpeace did do a protest on an offshore rig in Russia and their crew was arrested and thrown in a Siberian jail for six months and funnily enough they've never been back — I'm not recommending that for Canada, but it's instructive. It's instructive ... They have seen Canada's wonderfully generous, hospitable, sometimes apologetic Canadian temperament as an invitation for aggression. But folks, that is why it is so important we send a message that Alberta and Canada is now standing up and fighting back."

[ulmont]

I was similar to PRC


Greens 63%

NDP 59%

Liberals 59%

Conservatives 45%

Took this out of pure curiosity as a non-Canadian, and wasn't too much different from you:

Green 73
NDP 67
Bloc Québécois 63
Liberals 60
Conservative 33

[Barrister]

I was listening to Trudeau's press conference on my drive into work, the first 4 questions were on that topic and there were a number of follow ups.  It will be interesting to see if he can ignore it wait for it to go away, which appears to be the strategy.  Probably the one that is politically most wise - deal with the question of what do you have to hide rather the answering substantive questions about information that is disclosed.

I think it was a bad judgment to call the election today, they could have waited until tomorrow out of respect.  But perhaps that is not as big a deal anymore?

I guess the Liberal thinking is that whatever damage from LavScam has already been done, so just ignore it and move on.

I also think calling the election on 9/11 is a mistake.

[Zoupa]

No surprises. Voting green though.

[Oexmelin]

About the same for me. But since I am disenfranchised, I cannot vote.

One interesting difference is that I voted neutral or disagree on a bunch of questions that concerned whether the federal government should intervene in provincial competences - which the compass translated as conservatism.

[crazy canuck]

About the same for me. But since I am disenfranchised, I cannot vote.

One interesting difference is that I voted neutral or disagree on a bunch of questions that concerned whether the federal government should intervene in provincial competences - which the compass translated as conservatism.

I think that is why I received a high conservative rating (or as high as I did)

[Grey Fox]

Bloc Québécois (BQ)75%
Green Party of Canada (GP)73%
New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP)71%
Liberal Party of Canada (LPC)61%
Conservative Party of Canada (CPC)36%


Fuck.

[viper37]

But if you have some bright brilliant ideas, instead of bullshit, I would love to hear them.

The carbon market, as per 1990-Kyoto accord was the preferable solutions.

It avoids the psychological problem of a "tax", even if the end result is the same.  People feel the big corporations are paying for it, not them, it's easier to swallow.

A tax in and of itself is of no real use, unless you hike it to 10 times what it is now.  Oil is an inelastic product, people don't easily switch away to other products.  You can't just sell you gaz car tomorrow and pick up an electric vehicle, it doesn't suit everyone's budget or needs.  If the price of Corn Flakes increases, you can still buy Muslix cereals instead and come back to Corn Flakes later when the price drops.  Are you ready to penalize consumers who depends on oil because they have no alternative?  Do you have some kind of personal subsidy in mind to alleviate the problem - at the risk of reducing the efficiency of your carbon tax?

Now, if we're talking what we must do:

• abandon coal&oil&gaz subsidies, but that means fighting powerful lobbies
  
• revive the nuclear power option, but that means fighting the left
  
• use shale/natural gaz to heat our homes, other sources of electricity to light ourselves
  
• invest in R&D to develop new cooling solutions to adapt ourselves to climate change, because currently we are worsening the problem with our indoor air conditionning
  
• plant trees in cities
  
• privatize public forests to small entrepreneurs willing to "garden" their forest, remove mature trees before they fall, replant trees where necessary
  
• subsidize far away (mostly native) communities to transit from oil power to wind, solar(summer) and other means to power themselves so they use the generator only as backup
  
• stop subsidies to polluting industries, like cement&oil refineries
  
• stop preferential tax treatment to oil companies
  
• build pipelines instead of rails so we reduce the CO2 needed to transport oil, until such time as we (the world) don't need it anymore
  
• invest in R&D to increase the efficiency of current batteries so we can eventually power big trucks, trains, boats, for part of the trip (something like an hybrid; I know some shipping companies have resorted to using sails to reduce their fuel consumption)
  
• invest in sensible road network upgrades to avoid purposefuly creating traffic jamm in cities while at the same time increase the number of reserved lanes where they will be used: building a new highway with reserved lanes and then not having buses use it is simply pissing off drivers for no other purpose than to piss them off and it is totally counter-productive.
  
• invest in sensible public transit options: you can't expect people to rely on public transit if you don't develop your cities accordingly: do not give building permits to a part of the city you don't intend to serve with bus/tram/metro, that is a better option than letting people build everywhere and then complaining they don't settle in the city centre where you have public transit
  
• If cities are intertwined but seperated by a river/border (Ottawa/Gatineau, Quebec city/Lévis, Kansas City, etc), make sure public transit is coordinated between the two cities; having people use 3 buses and 2 trams to get to their job/school and pay twice the usual price is not going to promote the use of public transit services
  
• If we are discussing the Federal government's policies, I would have expected a "pro-environment" govt to readily finance a huge public transit for Quebec city without dragging its feet all along.  If they repeat this over each&every city, no wonder we're not on target for our reduction goals.
  
• add a criteria of energy efficiency for all new Federal contracts, be it buildings or ships or replacement vehicle.  Why is my government using gaz guzzlers when I'm told I'm a bad person for using the same vehicles for my job?
  
• I might think of something else later.  But these are what I'd like to see from the provincial and federal governments who talk about being "pro-environment".  Feell free to call this bullshit.
  

[Barrister]

But if you have some bright brilliant ideas, instead of bullshit, I would love to hear them.

The carbon market, as per 1990-Kyoto accord was the preferable solutions.

It avoids the psychological problem of a "tax", even if the end result is the same.  People feel the big corporations are paying for it, not them, it's easier to swallow.

A tax in and of itself is of no real use, unless you hike it to 10 times what it is now.  Oil is an inelastic product, people don't easily switch away to other products.  You can't just sell you gaz car tomorrow and pick up an electric vehicle, it doesn't suit everyone's budget or needs.  If the price of Corn Flakes increases, you can still buy Muslix cereals instead and come back to Corn Flakes later when the price drops.  Are you ready to penalize consumers who depends on oil because they have no alternative?  Do you have some kind of personal subsidy in mind to alleviate the problem - at the risk of reducing the efficiency of your carbon tax?

A well designed carbon tax would be revenue neutral - that returns money back to consumers.

So yes, gas prices will, say double: but here's your $100/month check.  So now you do have a much bigger incentive to take the bus, make your house energy efficient, whatever.  Because even as you reduce your carbon output - you still keep the $100/month.

Yeah, when Jason Kenney dropped Alberta's carbon tax, price of gas dropped by 5-10cents/litre.  Which was nice, but that's not going to influence behaviour one way or another.

[viper37]

PPC: 58%
Bloc: 52%
LPC: 40%
NDP: 40%
Green: 38%
PPC: what?  who?  hmm...

[crazy canuck]

But if you have some bright brilliant ideas, instead of bullshit, I would love to hear them.

The carbon market, as per 1990-Kyoto accord was the preferable solutions.

It avoids the psychological problem of a "tax", even if the end result is the same.  People feel the big corporations are paying for it, not them, it's easier to swallow.

A tax in and of itself is of no real use, unless you hike it to 10 times what it is now.  Oil is an inelastic product, people don't easily switch away to other products.  You can't just sell you gaz car tomorrow and pick up an electric vehicle, it doesn't suit everyone's budget or needs.  If the price of Corn Flakes increases, you can still buy Muslix cereals instead and come back to Corn Flakes later when the price drops.  Are you ready to penalize consumers who depends on oil because they have no alternative?  Do you have some kind of personal subsidy in mind to alleviate the problem - at the risk of reducing the efficiency of your carbon tax?

A well designed carbon tax would be revenue neutral - that returns money back to consumers.

So yes, gas prices will, say double: but here's your $100/month check.  So now you do have a much bigger incentive to take the bus, make your house energy efficient, whatever.  Because even as you reduce your carbon output - you still keep the $100/month.

Yeah, when Jason Kenney dropped Alberta's carbon tax, price of gas dropped by 5-10cents/litre.  Which was nice, but that's not going to influence behaviour one way or another.

Exactly!   

[Josephus]

About the same for me. But since I am disenfranchised, I cannot vote.

One interesting difference is that I voted neutral or disagree on a bunch of questions that concerned whether the federal government should intervene in provincial competences - which the compass translated as conservatism.

I think that is why I received a high conservative rating (or as high as I did)

Same here.

[Josephus]

There's a very good chance that for the first time in history, us out east are gonna have to stay up late and wait for B.C. to catch up with us before we'll know who wins this one. If the Greens out there can steal a number of seats from Justin, that could very much shape the final outcome.