[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

The notion that Canadians hate to look into this fact is laughable. Our current government, it must be said, sometimes appears to do little else. A major criticism of our Prime Minister is that he sometimes sounds like he's been elected as our apologizer-in-chief. Of course it is easy to apologize, and hard to do anything constructive about the many and severe problems between native and non-native - unfortunately, we are now in a place where, with the best of intentions, we have created a system that practically guarantees continuing strife, with little end in sight.

This something that the pandemic has shed a very bright light on to me. RoC looks to the federal government for leadership in what seems to be everything. Quebecois' don't. Ontario, Alberta & Saskatchewan are run by bigots. 

We need a federal country wide drug insurance scheme Why Federal? Because you guys keep electing weak provincial governments? 

Um, no.  BC certainly does not look to the Feds.  BC has been ahead of the Feds every step of the way.  We put our own government employees into the airports to screen incoming passengers - essentially shaming the Feds in to doing it about 48 hours later.  We told the Feds to close the border with the US, or we would have to - again nudging the Feds into doing it about 24 hours later.  The list goes on and on.

[Barrister]

Ontario, Alberta & Saskatchewan are run by bigots. 

You know this kind of shit just pisses me off.

You can accuse Jason Kenney of all sorts of things - but not being a bigot.  Remember he was Harper's minister of Immigration for many years, and worked tirelessly to increase support for Conservatives amongst visible minorities.  They worked hard to recruit minority candidates and cabinet members.

So instead you just fall back on the lazy old 'right wingers must be bigots'.

[Grey Fox]

I used to call y'all racists. It's an improvement.

[Jacob]

I used to cal y'all racists. It's an improvement.

[HVC]

Ontario, Alberta & Saskatchewan are run by bigots. 

You know this kind of shit just pisses me off.

You can accuse Jason Kenney of all sorts of things - but not being a bigot.  Remember he was Harper's minister of Immigration for many years, and worked tirelessly to increase support for Conservatives amongst visible minorities.  They worked hard to recruit minority candidates and cabinet members.

So instead you just fall back on the lazy old 'right wingers must be bigots'.

To be fair he's not calling conservatives bigots, he's calling all Anglos bigots

[Barrister]

Some Alberta politics for you.

Back in the winter Jason Kenney came out with a 4-stage re-opening protocol.  The key metric was supposed to be hospitalization rates.  As number declined we went from phase 1 to phase 2, and the number were in low enough we could have moved into phase 3.  Except we didn't as number were climbing, and now hospitalizations have as well.  So on Tuesday we moved back to Phase 1 (which is well short of the lockdown Ontario is under).

So now in the last couple days a total of 17 UCP MLAs have spoken out against these restrictions in a very public manner.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-mlas-public-health-restrictions-1.5978864

Curious to see where this goes.  These MLAs are almost entirely all from rural areas or secondary cities, so the risk isn't those areas being won by the NDP but rather a third party popping up.  BUt hopefully by the next election in 2023 nobody is talking about Covid.



On a related note there's been a Church west of Edmonton that has been very publicly ignoring any public health orders, holding packed services every Sunday.  The government arrested the pastor only for him to go back to holding services.  He was arrested again but this time he refused to sign his bail order (which ordered him to follow public health orders), so he was jailed for over one month.

Then all of a sudden all but one charge against the pastor was dropped.  Crown asked for $100 fine, which the judge refused to go along with and imposed a $1500 fine.  But in any event the pastor is now released and goes back to hold another Sunday service.

So now the government dropped the big one.  They came in with the police and put up big-ass fences around the church closing it entirely.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/glatz-knox-united-gracelife-closure-1.5979707

The UCP clearly didn't want to take this step - they wanted this story to just go away.  But the pastor kept on provoking them until they were forced to act.  And again we'll see if there are any repercussions. 

[Jacob]

To be fair he's not calling conservatives bigots, he's calling all Anglos bigots

Yeah Beeb. Conservatives don't own bigotry, okay? :p

[Jacob]

Yeah that church thing is something. Serves them right.

There's an eatery in Vancouver somewhere that's ignoring restrictions as well, and where the customers basically tried to run off the health inspector. I hope they take away their business license.

[Barrister]

Ontario, Alberta & Saskatchewan are run by bigots. 

You know this kind of shit just pisses me off.

You can accuse Jason Kenney of all sorts of things - but not being a bigot.  Remember he was Harper's minister of Immigration for many years, and worked tirelessly to increase support for Conservatives amongst visible minorities.  They worked hard to recruit minority candidates and cabinet members.

So instead you just fall back on the lazy old 'right wingers must be bigots'.

To be fair he's not calling conservatives bigots, he's calling all Anglos bigots

So it just so happens he lists 3 provinces run by conservatives?

I'm assuming he just forgot about Manitoba.

[Grey Fox]

[crazy canuck]

Yeah that church thing is something. Serves them right.

There's an eatery in Vancouver somewhere that's ignoring restrictions as well, and where the customers basically tried to run off the health inspector. I hope they take away their business license.

The business in question has been told by the City of Vancouver that if they violate the closure order their business license will be revoked and they will not be entitled to apply for a new one for five years. 

[Jacob]

The business in question has been told by the City of Vancouver that if they violate the closure order their business license will be revoked and they will not be entitled to apply for a new one for five years.

Excellent.

[HVC]

How do business licenses work? Can they "sell" to their spouse or kid and reopen?

[crazy canuck]

How do business licenses work? Can they "sell" to their spouse or kid and reopen?

No, it is not transferrable.  Also, this license was given to a corporation.

[Malthus]

The notion that Canadians hate to look into this fact is laughable. Our current government, it must be said, sometimes appears to do little else. A major criticism of our Prime Minister is that he sometimes sounds like he's been elected as our apologizer-in-chief. Of course it is easy to apologize, and hard to do anything constructive about the many and severe problems between native and non-native - unfortunately, we are now in a place where, with the best of intentions, we have created a system that practically guarantees continuing strife, with little end in sight.

This something that the pandemic has shed a very bright light on to me. RoC looks to the federal government for leadership in what seems to be everything. Quebecois' don't. Ontario, Alberta & Saskatchewan are run by bigots. 

We need a federal country wide drug insurance scheme Why Federal? Because you guys keep electing weak provincial governments? 

I hate to break it to you, but every province struggles with the feds for more resources and less oversight - despite your notions, Quebec is not unique in demanding more stuff and more autonomy. 😄

In terms of cops, Quebec and Ontario both have their own provincial force. Sad to say, our provinces are more alike than they are different!