[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

And as an update the criteria for qualifying for the subsidy will be more flexible.

[Malthus]

So Canadians, how would you rate your premier and the PM in this crisis?

As you may know, I'm not a Conservative, and have been very anti-Doug Ford. But I have to admit, he's been strong, and showing good leadership skills. I think, unlike say Trump, he really shines in this sort of crisis. He was a bit late to start, encouraging people to have fun on Family Day, when there were already some signs it was starting to spread here, but he's been strong. He stood up well to Trump over the 3M thing. I give him 4 out of 5.

Trudeau? I aslo think he's been good. His daily press conferences from self-isolation were warm, he has that unique ability to give you doom and gloom in a very calm-non panic monotone. Although some conservatives must be freaking over all the money he's spending (even I as a tax and spend guy knows this is going to be very painful down the road), these are necessary measures to prevent a complete breakdown of the economy. I thought when he first shut the borders he should have gone all the way and stop American travellers as well. Also 4 out of 5.

I tend to agree with your analysis.

I've been pretty pleasantly surprised by our politicians, both federal and provincial - all of the provincial leaders I've kept track of. Canadians tend to come together in a crisis, leaving differences aside, and I'm happy to see this one is not an exception. We shall see how they do as the going gets really rough.

[crazy canuck]

Also, to Trudeau's credit he did avoid a full Trump temper tantrum by jointly closing the border with the Americans just as it was becoming known that the new infections in BC were coming from Washington State.

[crazy canuck]

The financial institution just reduced credit card interest to 0 for those finically affected by COVID

[Barrister]

So Mrs B got her $2000 CERB money today.  Some of the parents of kids she looks after had offered to pay her something, but we decided to go with the CERB money instead.  In fact we used some of it to pay back parents some money that had paid us for child care that is no longer happening.

[viper37]

That would be a perfectly reasonable line for the owner to take, and if they had, they would have my agreement. However, the owner decided not to do so. In effect, the owner agreed that the restaurant was going to go boozeless if someone complained about it.

It's not about business, it's about peer pressure.

There are many BYBO establishments in big cities.  This group could have gone to any establishment out there and made their demands.

Yet, they chose to do so in a muslim-held establishment.  Why is that so, you think?

Those affected by that decision definitely have a legitimate beef with the owner, in that their meal was disrupted - in effect, they have been mislead by the owner. If they choose not to pay, because they had not been offered a byob experience that the restaurant claimed to provide, I'd agree with them, too.

They would be sued at small claims and they would lose since they were served food and there is no damages done since they could bring back their bottles, even those opened.

Evidently the owner came to the conclusion that going boozless if anyone complained about it was the right business move. They may well be wrong about that. If so, customers will vote with their wallets and the owner will regret it.

He came to this conclusion because it is easier to cave in to extremist demands than to stand up to them.  Or are you not familiar with the concept of peer-pressure in a small-ish community?  Refresher: it is a tactic used by many religious sects to enforce desired behaviour from their members. The fear of being shunned by your peers is a lot to take.

[viper37]

So Canadians, how would you rate your premier and the PM in this crisis?

As you may know, I'm not a Conservative, and have been very anti-Doug Ford. But I have to admit, he's been strong, and showing good leadership skills. I think, unlike say Trump, he really shines in this sort of crisis. He was a bit late to start, encouraging people to have fun on Family Day, when there were already some signs it was starting to spread here, but he's been strong. He stood up well to Trump over the 3M thing. I give him 4 out of 5.

Trudeau? I aslo think he's been good. His daily press conferences from self-isolation were warm, he has that unique ability to give you doom and gloom in a very calm-non panic monotone. Although some conservatives must be freaking over all the money he's spending (even I as a tax and spend guy knows this is going to be very painful down the road), these are necessary measures to prevent a complete breakdown of the economy. I thought when he first shut the borders he should have gone all the way and stop American travellers as well. Also 4 out of 5.

Premier:
Great job so far.  Always ahead of the situation.
Only criticism I can make is that he underestimated older people's stubborness in doing what they're told.  I bet he never worked with his father.   

Prime Minister: Abysmal job.  Poor leadership, only reacts to situation once everyones pulls at him to do something, always late to the party, seems completely aloof during his press conferences.  Must be the effect of not having a direct audience to cheer on him.
Trudeau should have imposed quarantine for people coming back from hotzones way before he finally did it.  There should have been people trained in the airport to watch for symptomatic people and recommend incoming travelers they self isolate 14 days and inform them sooner of the risks of community transmission.
That he did better than Trump is not exactly an achievement.  What was that show's title again, Are you better than a 5th grade?.

Closing the border mutually with the US was the right thing to do, but non essential travel should have been restricted before that.  The countries who did this seem to have managed the crisis better than the others.
Even the most pro-Liberal people of the medias are avoiding chanting his praise and have enacted mild (very) criticism on him at the beginning of the pandemic over here.  That is telling.  It's not a partisan issue.

[viper37]

Do you have a link about the subsidy being a tax credit?  I agree that would not make any sense.

It was to be a payroll tax credit.  I don't think they've changed their mind on that.

[Malthus]

That would be a perfectly reasonable line for the owner to take, and if they had, they would have my agreement. However, the owner decided not to do so. In effect, the owner agreed that the restaurant was going to go boozeless if someone complained about it.

It's not about business, it's about peer pressure.

There are many BYBO establishments in big cities.  This group could have gone to any establishment out there and made their demands.

Yet, they chose to do so in a muslim-held establishment.  Why is that so, you think?

Those affected by that decision definitely have a legitimate beef with the owner, in that their meal was disrupted - in effect, they have been mislead by the owner. If they choose not to pay, because they had not been offered a byob experience that the restaurant claimed to provide, I'd agree with them, too.

They would be sued at small claims and they would lose since they were served food and there is no damages done since they could bring back their bottles, even those opened.

Evidently the owner came to the conclusion that going boozless if anyone complained about it was the right business move. They may well be wrong about that. If so, customers will vote with their wallets and the owner will regret it.

He came to this conclusion because it is easier to cave in to extremist demands than to stand up to them.  Or are you not familiar with the concept of peer-pressure in a small-ish community?  Refresher: it is a tactic used by many religious sects to enforce desired behaviour from their members. The fear of being shunned by your peers is a lot to take.

That may well be the case. However, things such as "peer pressure" are, as long as they are not to do things that are illegal, not matters for the law.

The reason: the government deciding that expressions amounting to "peer pressure" are illegal, have all sorts of bad unintended consequences. So such situations ought to be very limited.

Pressuring people over the choice to serve booze or not isn't one of those rare exceptions. 

[Malthus]

So Canadians, how would you rate your premier and the PM in this crisis?

As you may know, I'm not a Conservative, and have been very anti-Doug Ford. But I have to admit, he's been strong, and showing good leadership skills. I think, unlike say Trump, he really shines in this sort of crisis. He was a bit late to start, encouraging people to have fun on Family Day, when there were already some signs it was starting to spread here, but he's been strong. He stood up well to Trump over the 3M thing. I give him 4 out of 5.

Trudeau? I aslo think he's been good. His daily press conferences from self-isolation were warm, he has that unique ability to give you doom and gloom in a very calm-non panic monotone. Although some conservatives must be freaking over all the money he's spending (even I as a tax and spend guy knows this is going to be very painful down the road), these are necessary measures to prevent a complete breakdown of the economy. I thought when he first shut the borders he should have gone all the way and stop American travellers as well. Also 4 out of 5.

Premier:
Great job so far.  Always ahead of the situation.
Only criticism I can make is that he underestimated older people's stubborness in doing what they're told.  I bet he never worked with his father.   

Prime Minister: Abysmal job.  Poor leadership, only reacts to situation once everyones pulls at him to do something, always late to the party, seems completely aloof during his press conferences.  Must be the effect of not having a direct audience to cheer on him.
Trudeau should have imposed quarantine for people coming back from hotzones way before he finally did it.  There should have been people trained in the airport to watch for symptomatic people and recommend incoming travelers they self isolate 14 days and inform them sooner of the risks of community transmission.
That he did better than Trump is not exactly an achievement.  What was that show's title again, Are you better than a 5th grade?.

Closing the border mutually with the US was the right thing to do, but non essential travel should have been restricted before that.  The countries who did this seem to have managed the crisis better than the others.
Even the most pro-Liberal people of the medias are avoiding chanting his praise and have enacted mild (very) criticism on him at the beginning of the pandemic over here.  That is telling.  It's not a partisan issue.

I'm not a Trudeau fan by any means, but I disagree in part. Yes, with the benefit of hindsight, he ought to have closed down travel earlier. But he was basing his actions on the consensus of expert advice at the time. Second, once he did act, he moved pretty fast to offer meaningful financial support for ordinary people who lost their income because of the necessary measures, which is pretty impressive - people are already getting cheques.

This isn't perfect by any means, but I think "abysmal" is unfair.

[Grey Fox]

Also, he was doing that while being quarantine alone with 3 kids, 2 being teenagers.

[crazy canuck]

The Feds recognized early on that each province was going to have its own epidemic and made the correct decision leave restrictions to the Provinces.  The Federal role has been to provide economic support.  The fact that it only took a couple of weeks to implement a form of universal income, although imperfect, is pretty damn impressive.

[crazy canuck]

Do you have a link about the subsidy being a tax credit?  I agree that would not make any sense.

It was to be a payroll tax credit.  I don't think they've changed their mind on that.

I hope you are wrong because that is not what the PM and the Minister of Finance have said it is.

[crazy canuck]

Looks like the wage subsidy law will be proclaimed into law by this evening.  Cheques should start to be received in two weeks.

[crazy canuck]

Looks like the Conservatives are taking a page out of the Trump playbook and are starting to attack the WHO.