Canada General Discussion (2019-)

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Trudeau is holding a cabinet meeting, and he's holding a conference with all first ministers tomorrow morning. The Emergencies Act requires the consultation, but not the approval, of the premiers, before it can be invoked.

An old desperate Liberal attack ad from 2006: https://youtu.be/unNZtCH9Mdo

Obligatory:
https://youtu.be/DeTsQQ22Uwc

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Striking unionists attacking those seeking to work should be responded to with force, and peaceful protestors should not be.

The blockade of the Ambassador Bridge alone led to tens of thousands of auto workers losing shifts, as far away as Tennessee and West Virginia.

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The last time Albertans elected a conservative government whose premier served a full term was 2001. That's absolutely incredible. The Alberta NDP would be killing themselves if they didn't declare themselves as the party of stability, in contrast to the circular firing squad on the right.

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With Doug Ford secure until 2026, how will this affect the next federal election, when it comes? Of course, there's Ontarians' habit of electing different parties at both levels. But, how will Doug Ford's seemingly moderate stance this time affect the CPC leadership rate??

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UCP could win if they accepted Alberta isn't that conservative and were moderate.  Problem is too many live in a delusional world believing Alberta is like your typical red state in US when it is not.  Ontario tomorrow is about to elect a PC majority (quite possibly larger than 2018) and Legault should coast to easy victory this fall in Quebec.  Both provinces more progressive than Alberta, but conservatives in both recognize this and are far more pragmatic.

A big factor that allowed Doug Ford to cruise to a second term was that the anti-vaxxer and far-right crazies within the PCPO broke away themselves, and saved him from having to please them. These crazies want to think they're indispensable to the PCPO, but they were proven wrong tonight.

The crazies within the UCPA were the ones who defenestrated Jason Kenney, and now it's an open question whether the UCPA can survive intact.

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Did an airport run yesterday and completely forgot that there's still a mask mandate in federally regulated institutions. What a silly rule.

The federal government absolutely loves utterly useless Covid legacy rules - the mask mandate is probably the least silly of all, when you consider things like ArriveCAN (the lack of which apparently forced a fully-vaccinated couple returning from a day trip to Plattsburgh to quarantine!) and the random arrival testing which is costing over $1 billion now.

My personal favourite, which they quietly dropped a month or so ago, was the apparent requirement that all travellers returning to Canada needed to wear a mask in public spaces for 14 days after their return.

I'm going to France in a bit over a month so I look forward to dealing with our federal government's incompetence at the airports.

I arrived from Cuba last week, and the lineup at YYZ Terminal 3 was completely insane. The customs staff were, thankfully, more interested in how much rum I bought, rather than anything virus-related. I was randomly selected for an antigen test, though it was clearly done for show. It's time to scrap all travel measures, aside from masks on board.

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https://twitter.com/CanadianPolling/status/1569749344211042304

https://twitter.com/JETrudeau/status/1570093172168040450

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1570183298160402432

https://twitter.com/CPC_HQ/status/1570237711721836545

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Tyndale University? Anyone ever heard of it?

Yes, it's well-known among Christian circles. It has a conservative bent, but it's fully mainstream and its education program trains a lot of teachers who work in mainstream schools.

As for Jordan Peterson, I view him more as a grifter who merely regurgitates other peoples' ideas and then repackage them for clickbait directed at people who are seeking a purpose in their lives.

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Ottawa has to respond with more than just expelling a diplomat. If that's the only price for conducting an assassination, then other countries will be emboldened to do the same. Russia can send agents to assassinate pro-Ukraine activists, China can send agents to assassinate anti-CCP activists, the Mossad can assassinate pro-Palestine activists. And if Trump gets in next year, he can send agents to assassinate anti-Trump activists. So there must more greater retaliation.

Perhaps, perhaps, collecting a dossier of senior BJP members with houses in Canada bought with stolen money would be a good start, and then leaking it two weeks before the Indian election. I don't know.

It's a good thing that the upcoming public inquiry into foreign interference is tasked to examine all nation-states, and non-state actors. It's also very sus why the Conservatives were reluctant to expand the inquiry's mandate. Could it be??? 🤔

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The harsh reality is there isn't much we can do unless the US is seriously willing to back Canada on this one and impose serious retaliatory against India. With the US' aim to try and contain China in Asia, I don't think they will risk hampering relations with India. Tough reality of international relations really, but there are no good guys here.

An outright confrontation with India - as with Russia - is unworkable. But, doing nothing isn't an option either. There are some serious cards that Canada has to play, and they should be used well. The US will want to see Canada push back as well, or else Indian agents will be conducting assassinations in the US without consequence.

There must be many officials from India's BJP who have bought property in Canada using stolen money. Any one of them can be seized under the Magnitsky Act. The property could be taken from some relatively junior officials, to avoid an uncontrolled escalation. The proceeds could be used to compensate the relatives of the victim. It would cause embarrassment to Modi himself, but wouldn't be worth breaking his relations with the entire western world. He - and other wannabe autocrats - would take the hint and learn that the cost of offending Canada - or any comparable nation - would be far greater than just an expelled diplomat.

So, while Canada isn't a superpower, it isn't powerless either.

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But Canada, like the US and Australia, is a free nation that also built its identity around migration. No one can be prevented from agitating about events abroad.

However, it's true that the political class should be treating foreign policy as a whole-of-nation issue, rather than gaining the votes of particular demographics. We support Ukraine because it's in the overall national interest, not merely because of the votes of the Ukrainian diaspora. That's true for the US as well, with the embargo on Cuba maintained purely to try to win Florida's electoral votes.

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Speaking of the Irish, they brought their issues over here as well. I mean, the Fenians were involved in our first political assassination.

Yes, but that calls for tougher measures against all foreign interference. The Indians thought they could get away with murder because they got away with many lesser actions. We would never see these antics in the US, Israel, or Singapore, which are all diverse immigrant-based countries home to people that foreign security services would want to target.

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A lot of otherwise reputable community colleges have also cashed in on this grift, leaving even small towns across Ontario facing shortages in rental space. Much of that blame can be laid on Doug Ford, who deregulated community colleges and private educational institutions, and then cut their funding while demanding they cut tuition fees for local students. But it's ultimately the federal government that issues study permits, and the current requirement for financial sustenance for student visas is CAD $ 10,000 per year. That's beyond ridiculous.

Students from India or anywhere who want to come to Waterloo to study computers, or other world-class programs at Canadian universities, should be given a red carpet. But what's happening is a huge grift that's leaving everyone unhappy.

Maybe Modi will order restrictions on these college recruitment agents in India, thinking it would be a punishment. But that would actually make 99% of Canadians kiss his feet. Even Trudeau would kiss his feet for solving such a pressing issue.

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This is not a power provinces should have though

You're confusing separate things here. The Provincial Nominee Programs purely select economic migrants, who must meet criteria set by the provinces, and who are ultimately vetted by the federal government. No one has any problem with these. The issue is with study permits, which are wholly issued by the federal government, but to study at educational institutions that are under provincial jurisdiction. So, when Doug Ford opened the floodgates to these diploma mill colleges, and when the federal government issued too many study permits, that led to the current problems.

That means the solution either means Ford would crack down on diploma mills and fund the community colleges so they wouldn't have to rely on international students, or the federal government would unilaterally tighten requirements for study permits and let the Ford government deal with the problem themselves.

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You guys can’t have it both ways :


- We want to restrict development for a “Greenbelt”

- We want to build more houses


You have to choose and it seems like you guys have chosen option 1 , so then you have to live with the consequences of that policy decision

This is a lie that Doug Ford used to cover his ass. The developers who proposed building on the Greenbelt were planning multi-million dollar mansions, without paying development charges to municipalities. There's plenty of land to build enough houses for everyone, within what is currently low-density sprawl.

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Unless those homes are empty and unowned , then the government has no right whatsoever to do anything to them without the owner’s consent .

No one has proposed taking private property without the owner's consent. The only thing that is being proposed is a deregulation of zoning rules - you know, what free-market conservatives should support - to allow the owners of private property to build denser housing, or sell their property to a developer who wants to.

I'm happy that the Trudeau Liberals are finally waking up to this problem, and requiring municipalities to change their zoning regulations if they want federal funds for affordable housing.

It's also the best value for taxpayers. Continued low-density sprawl would require municipalities to maintain more miles of streets and utilities without an increase in the number of taxpayers, thus forcing each taxpayer to pay more. Densifying already developed land would allow the cost to be split among more taxpayers, reducing the property tax bill for everyone.

So, the most logical and proven solution is to keep the Greenbelt, and deregulate zoning, so that property tax bills in existing suburban municipalities can be lowered.

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The Bloc and the NDP have called on Speaker Rota to resign. The Conservatives are predictably slamming the Liberals, but Andrew Scheer (remember him?) stopped short of actually calling for the resignation.

I think the chance that Trudeau will take a walk in the snow (leaves?) has gone up a lot. Last week, John Manley called for Trudeau to step down, and he would only say that on behalf of some senior Liberals. And that was before this weekend.

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The Harper Conservatives made big inroads among Orthodox Jews, who previously had a low voter turnout. An interesting pattern in the GTA is that the Jewish community was clustered along Bathurst Street, and the more this community became upwardly mobile, the more it migrated northwards along Bathurst Street. These turned a few seats in North York and the York Region into play. The Jewish community in Montreal (anecdotally) became smaller but more Orthodox with the rise of Quebec nationalism. You can spot where they are clustered based on poll-by-poll maps, but they are too small to affect any seats.

Most non-Orthodox Jewish Canadians behave as one would expect: middle to upper middle class, with a somewhat socially liberal bent. They would be "naturally" Liberal-leaning voters, but could turn Conservative if the conditions are there.

But, anyway, I think the mood has shifted enough that Trudeau can be compared to the famous lettuce.