[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[viper37]

Elizabeth May had the rather ludicrous idea last night that SNC Lavalin should be punished by making it go build infrastructure on native reserves.  There was also that mess out in New Brunswick.

I can understand voting Green as a protest vote (since, you know, I'm thinking about it) but they are wholly incapable of forming a government at this time.

There is that.

I was thinking more as a way to send a signal.

As to actually governing ... yeah. Not so much.

Sending a signal is always nice.

But then, you end up with Brexit and Trump.  The signal is well received and the liberals are melting down, but was it really worth it to burn your own house while you're still in it?

Reminds me of people voting LPC last election.  Justin sure did receive the signal.     

[viper37]

Reason #532764 for continued Quebec separatism sentiment:

The Liberal party of Canada rolled out their campaign song, in French and English. The French is gibberish. You can tell some intern just plugged it in google translate or something similar.

For the few of you that speak:
« [On lève] une main haute/Pour tout main/ [On lève] une main haute/Osé toi/On peut être avenir aujourd'hui/Si tu restes avec moi »

I doubt this would have flied in the Conservative Party.  Scheer would have likely asked people to double check with on of the French speakers in his team before sending that during a campaign.

Trudeau never cared much for bilinguism, except when it means English first.

[Grey Fox]

Why you voting with the Forced Birth racist people, Viper?

I am not.  I will be voting for the Conservative Party of Canada, or technically, my current MP and former mayor of the great city of La Pocatière.

As Malthus said, it is not an issue of the party, it's been made clear by the party multiple times and while Scheer is even more religious than Harper, he's not insane, he's in there for the love of politics, and that means letting people express themselves, but ultimately not let them go through with more radical ideas.

Besides, the Conservatives rules in the not so distant past, even as a majority government.  Did women rights in Canada regress in any ways?

You are. Some will vote for Bernier's party I guess. Most forced birth & racist people will vote for the CPC. When you vote CPC, you vote with them. You are enabling them. Be an actor for positive change, not regression.

[Barrister]

You are. Some will vote for Bernier's party I guess. Most forced birth & racist people will vote for the CPC. When you vote CPC, you vote with them. You are enabling them. Be an actor for positive change, not regression.

Andrew Scheer is about as milquetoast as they come, but still people like you come along and label him a bigot.

[Grey Fox]

You are. Some will vote for Bernier's party I guess. Most forced birth & racist people will vote for the CPC. When you vote CPC, you vote with them. You are enabling them. Be an actor for positive change, not regression.

Andrew Scheer is about as milquetoast as they come, but still people like you come along and label him a bigot.

He might not be, he's a career politician after all. It's not about him, it's about who the CPC panders to, who the base is.

[viper37]

So, here's the Green Party's climate plan:

If Greens are elected in sufficient numbers to either form government or exert significant influence in a minority parliament, Green MPs will:

1. Declare a Climate Emergency
Accept, at every level of government, that climate is not an environmental issue. It is the gravest security threat the world has ever seen.

2. Establish an inner cabinet of all parties
Modelled on the war cabinets of Mackenzie King and Winston Churchill, parties will work together to ensure that climate is no longer treated like a political football. It requires all hands on deck.

3. Set stringent new targets
Establish our new target and file it as Canada's Nationally Determined Contribution with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: 60 per cent GHG reductions against 2005 levels by 2030; zero emissions by 2050.

4. Assume leadership
Attend the next climate negotiation in Chile this year and press other countries to also double their efforts.

5. Respect evidence
Restore funding of climate research within the Government of Canada and in the network of universities that received financial support before 2011.

6. Maintain carbon pricing
Revenue neutrality will be achieved through carbon fee and dividend and we will eliminate all subsidies to fossil fuels.

7. Ban fracking
No exceptions. It destroys ecosystems, contaminates ground and surface water, endangers our health and it's a major source of GHGs.

8. Green the grid
By 2030, remove all fossil fuel generation from our national east-west electricity grid.

9. And modernize the grid
By 2030, rebuild and revamp the east-west electricity grid to ensure that renewable energy can be transmitted from one province to another.

10. Plug in to EVs
By 2030 ensure all new cars are electric. By 2040, replace all internal combustion engine vehicles with electric vehicles, working with car makers to develop EVs that can replace working vehicles for Canadians in rural areas. Build a cross-country electric vehicle charging system so that drivers can cruise from St. John's, NL to Prince Rupert, B.C. – with seamless ease.

11. Get Canada back on track
Modernize VIA Rail, expand service and ensure trans-modal connections across Canada to light rail and electric buses, so that no one in rural and remote areas of Canada lacks efficient, affordable and safe public transit.

12. Complete a national building retrofit
Create millions of new, well-paying jobs in the trades by retrofitting every building in Canada – residential, commercial, and institutional – to be carbon neutral by 2030.

13. Turn off the tap to oil imports
End all imports of foreign oil. As fossil fuel use declines, use only Canadian fossil fuels and allow investment in upgraders to turn Canadian solid bitumen into gas, diesel, propane and other products for the Canadian market, providing jobs in Alberta. By 2050, shift all Canadian bitumen from fuel to feedstock for the petrochemical industry.

14. Switch to bio-diesel
Promote the development of local, small scale bio-diesel production, primarily relying on used vegetable fat from restaurants. Mandate the switch to bio-diesel for agricultural, fishing and forestry equipment.

15. Create new partnerships for renewables
Form partnerships with Indigenous peoples, providing economic opportunities by ramping up renewables on their lands. Harness abandoned deep oil wells, wherever feasible, for geothermal energy, using workers who drilled the wells to manage the renewable energy generation.

16. Call for all hands on deck
Engage every municipality and community organization, as well as every school and university to step up and plant trees, install solar panels, heat pumps, assist in retrofitting buildings to maximize energy efficiency.

17. Prioritize adaptation
Invest significant resources in adaptation measures to protect Canadian resource sectors such as agriculture, fishing and forestry from the ravages of climate change. Review all infrastructure investments for adaptation to climate change. Map flood plains, tornado corridors and other areas of natural vulnerability and adjust land use plans accordingly.

18. Change planes
Cancel the purchase of F35s and buy more water bombers to protect communities from forest fires. Cut standing dead timber to establish fire breaks and save lives.

19. Curtail the "other" GHG sources
Address the fossil fuel use that falls outside the Paris Agreement – emissions from international shipping, aviation and the military.

20. Restore carbon sinks
Launch a global effort to restore carbon sinks, focusing on replanting forests and restoring the planet's mangrove forests as quickly as possible.

Sigh.

The first five items - fully a quarter of the entire plan, is pure "virtue signalling".  None of it actually does anything to reduce GHGs.  And by the way, is there anyone who seriously believes we can go to zero emissions?  There's still agriculture, industrial petrochemical use, air travel...

Item six is actually just maintaining the status quo.

7 - ban fracking.  Again this is pure virtue signalling.  Regulation of natural resources are within the jurisdiction of the provinces.  And in any event, I'm unaware of any way in which fracking produces any more GHGs than conventional production.

8 & 9 - "green the grid".  Move to 100% non-fossil fuel electrical generation.  Now this is an area we can do a lot more of, but within 10 years?  That's ludicrous.  Canada is blessed with lots of hydro power, and there might be some more room for expansion there (along with a national grid), but those projects take over a decade to complete.  Solar and wind can and will expand, but there's the issue of having a stable baseline.

10 electric vehicles.  Again great (if we move to carbon-free electricity - right now there's no environmental point to buiying an EV in Alberta), but within 10 years?  The lifespan of most vehicles is in excess of 10 years.

11 modernize VIA.  Umm isn't VIA still using diesel engines?  Another one where good idea, but suddenly having a national railway grid is wildly expensive.

12 retrofitting every building in Canada in 10 years.  That's just fantasy.

13 End foreign oil.  This is an interesting one.  It's the one time where they acknowledge we will be using oil for awhile, including in the petrochemical industry.  But does this mean the Green's support something like Energy East, to get Alberta oil to eastern Canada by pipeline?

14 bio-diesel.  Bio-diesel has just as much GHGs as regular diesel.

And I'm losing steam here, but the remaining points lack a ton of detail as well.

This just doesn't seem like a serious policy document to me.

zero emissions can only be achieved by compensating what can't be eliminated, that is, having sufficient trees or capturing carbon (like artificial trees in Mexico, or more traditional carbon capture projects). 

It is doable, but not in any short time frame, and it involves sacrificing part of our living standards.  We will need to pay more for our houses so they are better insulated, we need to renovate our existing homes and commercial buildings, it will mean higher shipping costs for day to day anything we need, etc, etc.

Many will find a profit, many will lose.   Just like free trade.  Will the left follow through with it when it means lots of unionized jobs are lost and replaced by non unionized ones in new industries?  That's doubtful.

[Barrister]

This seems right up Languish's alley:  Green Party's platform contains a reference to Dunkirk, but gets numerous details wrong:

However, the story that May chooses to illustrate the necessary "can-do" spirit — about Winston Churchill and the spring 1940 evacuation of British troops from the beaches of Dunkirk, France — is rife with factual errors, and appears to be more in line with some fictionalized films than the history books.

"The entire British army was pinned down on a beach in northern France, at Dunkirk. France had just surrendered," she begins, swinging and missing twice: The British had sent about a third of their army to the continent. And French troops fought bravely to cover their retreat to the Channel beaches, and continued to do so for weeks after the May 27-June 4 evacuations. Their formal surrender didn't come until June 22, 1940.

May then turns her attention to the legendary "little ships," the fleet of 861 civilian fishing boats, pleasure craft and ferries that helped retrieve the trapped soldiers. She writes that it was Winston Churchill's idea to send them, although virtually every historical source credits Admiral Betram Ramsay and his staff for coming up with the plan.

And the Green leader suggests the small boats "rescued over 300,000 men," when the fact is that a British Navy flotilla, including 41 destroyers, 36 minesweepers, and more than 100 other ships carried the bulk of the 338,000 evacuees back to the U.K.

John Broich, a British Empire and World War II historian at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, gives May credit for trying to bring a historical perspective to her politics, but said she appears fuzzy on the details.

"That small ships story feels great, but it's not true," he said. "It was the destroyers that were going back and forth ... And she says that Churchill came up with the plan? Oh my gosh, no, no!"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elizabeth-may-dunkirk-history-1.5286077

[Barrister]

Oh, and I think the inclusion of Bernier in the debates is going to prove to be very bad news for the Conservatives.  In a tight election every vote for the People's Party is one vote less from the Conservatives, and Bernier's now been given the biggest stage of all, despite his basis for being there being quite weak.

[crazy canuck]

I liked the part about how the reporter contacted James Holland and read out portions and his reaction - particularly to the Darkest Hour

[viper37]

Why you voting with the Forced Birth racist people, Viper?

I am not.  I will be voting for the Conservative Party of Canada, or technically, my current MP and former mayor of the great city of La Pocatière.

As Malthus said, it is not an issue of the party, it's been made clear by the party multiple times and while Scheer is even more religious than Harper, he's not insane, he's in there for the love of politics, and that means letting people express themselves, but ultimately not let them go through with more radical ideas.

Besides, the Conservatives rules in the not so distant past, even as a majority government.  Did women rights in Canada regress in any ways?

You are. Some will vote for Bernier's party I guess. Most forced birth & racist people will vote for the CPC. When you vote CPC, you vote with them. You are enabling them. Be an actor for positive change, not regression.

Let's look at my options:
LPC: Strongly anti french, anti bilingual and anti Quebec leader and a master of the double talk in english provinces and Quebec.  Opposed to just about anything coming from Quebec

NDP: Strongly anti Quebec leader and a master of the double talk in english provinces and Quebec.  Opposed to just about anything coming from Quebec.  Just this morning, he said no to more power in immigration and the single tax declaration made in Quebec. The leader says Sikh can not remove their turbans, so law 101 is racist as it discriminates against religious people.  Then proceed to host a meeting with francophones where he removes his turban for many hours - on top of doing it for advertising.  So, it's ok for a Sikh to remove his turban whenever he wants to seduce an electorate, but it is totally racist to remove it for part of his work?  Who's the fucking racist moron, really?

BQ: A cokehead for leader.  Got arrested for DUI (technically, not driving, just high in his vehicle with the keys in his pocket).  Got out on a technicality, with good money for a good lawyer and a lot of support from his party, since he was a cabinet Minister at the time.  Nope, sorry, just this, it would not pass.  Add that is very pro-Québec Solidaire in all of his public discourse on television, up 'til he became interested in the leadership of the Bloc, that makes him a very dubious, very shady character.  Than, there's all the rest, his prior life as an artist agent, filled with lies... his opposition to free speech was very notable.  In essence, voting for him means voting against free speech in Canada.  Not gonna cut it with me, sorry.

GP:  Well, the greens, their platform is totally unrealistic for now.  As Berkut said in another thread, about the Democratic party's problems, why go for an extreme solution that is unpopular when you can take a more pragmatic approach that has 90% approval?   That's the prolbem with idealists and fanatics, there is no middle ground.

PPC: No, sorry, not voting for this party.  From the moment he decided to create his own party, it was clear it was a purely populist agenda to boost his starpower.  Not for me, sorry.  Be pragmatic, maybe I'll consider it for the next election, if he makes a 180 degree turn on most of his public discourse.

CPC: Well, at least they agree on 3 of 4 Quebec's demands.  In the past, they respected Quebec's autonomy, even increased it, and left us mostly alone instead of constantly attacking us, like the Libs and NDP supporters.  They seem to be making a genuine effort to truly understand Quebec and its difference within Canada, unlike the Liberals and NDP who would just prefer we disapear as a nation.  In the past, despite his former association with the Reform Party and his past discourse, Harper was very pro-bilinguism in everything he did.  Was it cosmetic?  Yeah, pretty much. There's only so much a Canadian Prime Minister can do for French minorities outside of Quebec.   But it was miles ahead what the Liberal Party ever did.  Their environmental plan is way too weak, but at least, they will reduce GHG emissions, unlike the Libs who just increased it and pretend it would all be fixed with a carbon tax.  A tax that will have no effect but to increase the price of gazoline and the price of heating for many communities.  Now, if it was accompanied by other, credible measures to reduce GHG emissions, I might support the plan.  But as it is, it is a smoke screen.  By the time everyone realize they've been had once more, it will be too late and it won't matter anymore since the problems will be so dire than anyone in Canada not recognizing the issue will be thrown rocks at.  And the Libs are already counting on that for their 3rd mandate.  It worked before, under Chrétien.  Present the exact same platform for 3 elections, and dumb electors fell for it. 
Trudeau recycled the empty promises and hooked a lot of people with this scary thought of a hidden agenda.  Realistically, they're the least worst option right now. 

I'm not gonna go over the fringe parties.  I don't even know them all.


I'm still tempted not to vote, but that does not send any message.  A victory for the Liberal party is a victory for the anti-Quebec sentiment of Canada as well as a condoning of political corruption and illegal party financing.  A victory for the NDP is a victory for the religious extremists in Quebec and the opponents of government rationalization.  A victory for uncontrolled, unaccountable spending.  I can not in good Faith vote for that.

Tell me, are you really better off today than 5 years ago?  I know I'm not, my business is not either.  Big corporations are doing as well as before.  Rich citizens are even better now.  Tell me, really, what was the use of all those big budget deficit from the Liberal party?  Remember when the biggest financial scandal of the Conservatives was a 8$ orange juice the minister had ordered to her room?  How awful that was?  Tell me, how many equivalent of 8$ orange juices did the Liberals Cabinet ministers wasted on personal travel expenses?

[PRC]

NDP is proposing free dental care for households making under $70K starting in 2020.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-dental-1.5287918

Universal dental care and vision care is apparently also part of their platform but that would come after 2020.

[Admiral Yi]

Scheer promises to bring back my favourite tax policy: the public transit tax credit.  Never quite sure why Trudeau scrapped it in the first place - it encourages public transit use (which is environmentally helpful) and it predominantly goes to lower and middle income people.

What hoops did one have to jump through to collect this?

[Grey Fox]

Refundable tax credits on your federal income tax. It was actually pretty easy.

[Barrister]

Scheer promises to bring back my favourite tax policy: the public transit tax credit.  Never quite sure why Trudeau scrapped it in the first place - it encourages public transit use (which is environmentally helpful) and it predominantly goes to lower and middle income people.

What hoops did one have to jump through to collect this?

I had to keep both the bus pass, and my receipt for buying the bus pass, then brought it in with our other tax documents.

[Barrister]

Justin Trudeau in brownface back in 2001.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-brownface-arabian-nights-1.5289165