Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[Badger]

1) Thinking objectively, a state cannot tolerate the capital and the border being held hostage by protestors. The state must regain control of the country and reassert the rule of law.

2) When you take a minority group and say you’re not allowed to earn a living, you’re not allowed to enter into public facilities, and you’re not even allowed to leave our jurisdiction, while simultaneously having sympathetic-to-government courts deny what are very clearly enumerated rights, you have to expect a backlash.

Our various levels of government have created second class citizenship overnight and apparently expected these people to take it lying down. It’s a miracle that the government has managed to avoid out and out riots.

3) The government and various police forces have taken a lacksadasical approach to illegal blockades for nearly decade now going back to the Caledonia crisis. People notice these things, and not just people the government sympathizes with.

4) So the government trying to regain control of the country is obviously justified. But their entirely unjustifiable actions and arrogant approach leading up to now, as well as mismanagement of previous protests played a huge part bringing this upon thenselves.

/fin

 Can we please reiterate that literally 90% of Canadian truckers have gotten their shots and  Is anywhere from fine to at least accepting the vaccine mandate? It's 10% of one industry that basically says ftw I don't care who catches covid from me I'm going to not get my shots, And I will shut down the streets and join every other extremist crank in the process of doing so if anyone tries to say otherwise.

 Claiming that truckers forced to obey safety regulations not unlike don't drive drunk commawares seat belt, drive only so many hours per shift, and wear a hard hat in a loading dock or the like, as being somehow  Is being relegated to "2nd class citizens" is extreme hyperbole.

[Badger]

Impeach Trudeau !!

There is no impeachment in Canada, which means that you are supporting an unconstitutional coup against the elected Canadian government.

Western Canada should secede and The US should help them become their own nation

 Is meanwhile, in the reality that exists outside of beep boops hard drive:  Canadians overwhelmingly oppose the protesters

With numbers like that, it's doubtful the truckers  Have even a plurality of support in Alberta.

 Edit. Shoot. It's a Google amp link which I can't embed. Just Google "polls in Canada" and There's a CNN article about a Leger poll  Conducted just in the last few days.

[Badger]

They are going to end up barring people from banking for life, without due process
https://twitter.com/drrollergator/status/1493738584884404227?s=20&t=owkJARet...

There should be a general strike in Canada

There won't be, most people don't stand with the far right convoy people.

[Badger]

Has it actually dawned upon  Is any critic of the Canadian government's action here that  Freezing the bank accounts of The protesters Until they cease illegally trespassing and shutting down the roads as they have been for weeks  Is is an infinitely more humane and Is non violent response than the typical American version of sending in cops with truncheons and tear gas?

I mean, would suddenly all the conservatives on this thread be mollified in saying "well, now THAT'S  okay"  If The Canadian cops suddenly started storming these trucks And dragging their owners out by force at gunpoint? I don't think so.

 And, if the fundamental response of the Fox News brigade of such critics is, "well, they shouldn't be punished, because they are RIGHT!1!!",  It bears repeating that Canadians overwhelmingly disagree with that premise, and are quite rightly telling such  right wing critics from South of the border to f##k off.

[Badger]

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/trudeau-plans-record-number-of-immigrants-to-canada-through-2024-1.1723412

Trudeau plans to increase immigration to record levels through 2024.

I'm not Canadian and I of course do not know all the details on this, but I can't imagine this will be good in terms of the already horrific housing affordability crisis up north.

A great point. After all Canada is known for having such a densely packed population.

[Badger]

"59% of U.S. Voters Support Canadian Truckers in ‘Freedom Convoy’ Protest"

Rasmussen, lol.

I'd prefer a better pollster asked the question but I'd be willing to put down money that a majority of Americans (at least of those with an opinion) are pro-trucker. The story is basically tailor made red meat for the 2022 Republican base while not offering much for Democrats to fight back on; the corporate Democrats stopped caring once the Ambassador Bridge was cleared, the leftists (even leftists who typically shill incessantly for the establishment like Vaush) instantly recognized the threat Emergency Act style bank seizures pose to any protest movement, and almost nobody is still interested in dying on the hill of vaccine mandates.

I thought it would take days after the announcement for American news outlets to start talking about "the Trudeau regime" but it didn't even take hours

Has it actually dawned upon  Is any critic of the Canadian government's action here that  Freezing the bank accounts of The protesters Until they cease illegally trespassing and shutting down the roads as they have been for weeks  Is is an infinitely more humane and Is non violent response than the typical American version of sending in cops with truncheons and tear gas?

I mean, would suddenly all the conservatives on this thread be mollified in saying "well, now THAT'S  okay"  If The Canadian cops suddenly started storming these trucks And dragging their owners out by force at gunpoint? I don't think so.

 And, if the fundamental response of the Fox News brigade of such critics is, "well, they shouldn't be punished, because they are RIGHT!1!!",  It bears repeating that Canadians overwhelmingly disagree with that premise, and are quite rightly telling such  right wing critics from South of the border to f##k off.

That they're avoiding violence is commendable but that says more about recent police training practices than any action by the government. Ultimately the only thing that will end the occupation other than capitulation is an overwhelming number of police, something the Emergency Act does nothing whatsoever to provide.

The financial controls won't do much to stop the protest since they were never reliant on that money anyway. The real "value" is in intimidating the people who donated to the protest or who might donate to future "disfavoured" causes, a horrific precedent that was made explicit by that thuggish, unbefitting display from our Justice Minister. Russia implementing similar measures rightly attracted international condemnation but because Canada is a "sophisticated democracy" the supposed "human rights organizations" of the world are silent (Canadian civil liberties organizations are thankfully fight back though). As my favourite Russian dissident put it, someone who actually spent time in Putin's prisons, in two weeks Canada fell down a path that took Russia a decade.

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1493379432156995586

 An extraordinary post. You may have changed my mind on the subject. Perhaps what is needed is a strong police presence Similar to what was necessary to shut down CHAZ in Seattle. 

And whereas just about every red avatar on Atlas Then said "about time", It'll be fun to hear all the good little "F##k Antifa! Smash BLM!"  posters squeal like piggies when that happens.

[Badger]

Has it actually dawned upon  Is any critic of the Canadian government's action here that  Freezing the bank accounts of The protesters Until they cease illegally trespassing and shutting down the roads as they have been for weeks  Is is an infinitely more humane and Is non violent response than the typical American version of sending in cops with truncheons and tear gas?

No, actually extrajudicially seizing people's property is a much less civilized response than arresting them and letting the judiciary decide whether they've done anything wrong. There would be far less outrage if Trudeau had done the Canadian equivalent of sending in the National Guard.

 Agree to disagree about which is less "civilized and" , by this I think we can agree should be defined as" the lesser of evils" .

I've actually thought about this over the last day or so and I'm now neutral at best about this action. On the one hand I do believe it is Far less potentially disastrous than the still possible measure of full bore police response,  But I'm highly concerned about the lack of mechanism for challenging any such action by the government..

Offer the recourse of some sort of administrative hearing at least, and I think it's OK. Until then though, I'm dubious.

[Badger]

Good to see the police have been cracking down And finally arresting these protesters. This is akin to the CHAZ  Neighborhood take over in Seattle which, although it started off peacefully enough, crossed the lis cross the line from is legitimate non violent demonstration 2 needing needing removed weeks before the police stepped in period good to see that there's apparently been little violence thus far. Fingers crossed.

For what it's worth, I've I've switched my mind again and believed that, to a degree, the freezing of bank accounts  Is as probably legitimate, assuming the money is refunded  Down the road. Over half of the money coming in coming in to support the 10% trucker whiner convoy is convoy has come from the US rather than Canada. Now tell me those of you who cried "fascism" at trido, if you learned that suddenly over half of the donations to support protests by BOM or antifa or coming from China, if Is trump or even Biden froze those financial transactions, would you be saying that was unreasonable? Now put yourself in the shoes of Canada which has always,  For good reason, needed to fight for it's cultural, Is economic, and even political independence from from it's vastly Is more populated and influential neighbor to the South.

On a side note, Fox News's coverage of the convoy is even more disingenuous and political Even for usual for them.

[Badger]

https://mobile.twitter.com/markstrahl/status/1495472037438967808?ref_src=twsrc%5...

The government said only 76 accounts were frozen, so I strongly doubt Briane's story or even her existence.

Lol at trusting a government that is clearly fascist

 Lol at trusting OSR to  Have the slightest clue is to what "fascist" means.

[Badger]

https://mobile.twitter.com/markstrahl/status/1495472037438967808?ref_src=twsrc%5...

Wtf are you talking about?  Serious question.

The government said only 76 accounts were frozen, so I strongly doubt Briane's story or even her existence.

Lol at trusting a government that is clearly fascist

 Lol at trusting OSR to  Have the slightest clue is to what "fascist" means.

Says the guy who is defending the person who called a Jewish MP a Nazi

 Because I'm saying that you are demonstrating gross ignorance claiming the Canadian government is "fascist",  And further have a  nuanced  And tepid support for the Is Canadian government's temporary freezing of bank accounts contributing to to the illegal trucker protests-all 76  Of them-somehow that conflicts with me "defending" Trudeau's untoward and inappropriate comments in Parliament?  Which I in fact did (checks notes)  0 times?

 Pipe down, beep boop.  We are more than used to your posts being stubbornly ill-informed, but your increasingly crossing the line into outright dishonesty is an ugly look.

[Badger]

https://mobile.twitter.com/markstrahl/status/1495472037438967808?ref_src=twsrc%5...

Wtf are you talking about?  Serious question.

The government said only 76 accounts were frozen, so I strongly doubt Briane's story or even her existence.

Lol at trusting a government that is clearly fascist

 Lol at trusting OSR to  Have the slightest clue is to what "fascist" means.

Says the guy who is defending the person who called a Jewish MP a Nazi

 Because I'm saying that you are demonstrating gross ignorance claiming the Canadian government is "fascist",  And further have a  nuanced  And tepid support for the Is Canadian government's temporary freezing of bank accounts contributing to to the illegal trucker protests-all 76  Of them-somehow that equates with me "defending" Trudeau's untoward and inappropriate comments in Parliament?  Which I in fact did (checks notes)  0 times?

 Pipe down, beep boop.  We are more than used to your posts being stubbornly ill-informed, but your increasingly crossing the line into outright dishonesty is an ugly look.

MaxQue is defending Trudeau's actions while Trudeau and his party are smearing all opposition. Just look at what some other liberal mp said today


https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1495961814420664327

I'm not Maxque, genius.

If you had any spine or ability to process new information whatsoever, you would apologize. But you don't, so you won't.

[Badger]

https://mobile.twitter.com/markstrahl/status/1495472037438967808?ref_src=twsrc%5...

Wtf are you talking about?  Serious question.

The government said only 76 accounts were frozen, so I strongly doubt Briane's story or even her existence.

Lol at trusting a government that is clearly fascist

 Lol at trusting OSR to  Have the slightest clue is to what "fascist" means.

Says the guy who is defending the person who called a Jewish MP a Nazi

 Because I'm saying that you are demonstrating gross ignorance claiming the Canadian government is "fascist",  And further have a  nuanced  And tepid support for the Is Canadian government's temporary freezing of bank accounts contributing to to the illegal trucker protests-all 76  Of them-somehow that equates with me "defending" Trudeau's untoward and inappropriate comments in Parliament?  Which I in fact did (checks notes)  0 times?

 Pipe down, beep boop.  We are more than used to your posts being stubbornly ill-informed, but your increasingly crossing the line into outright dishonesty is an ugly look.

MaxQue is defending Trudeau's actions while Trudeau and his party are smearing all opposition. Just look at what some other liberal mp said today


https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1495961814420664327

I'm not Maxque, genius.

If you had any spine or ability to process new information whatsoever, you would apologize. But you don't, so you won't.

When I said “says the guy” it was referencing the argument I was having with MaxQue not you . Sorry that I didn’t make that more clear

Got it. Apology accepted.

[Badger]

In retrospect, why was the emergency  freezing of funding, which was so controversial and admittedly questionable, even invoked at all since it took literally about 3 days between that being imposed and the police basically removing/arresting the truckers en masse? Really not sure why they didn't just go with plan B to begin with.

[Badger]

I thought it anything, the NDP's support was less polarized by income than in the past when it was seen as more of a "socialist" party. I wonder if this is due to the increase in support among younger people?

The bulk of NDP support in those days probably came from union workers, who aren't necessarily "poor". Working-class =/= poor, particularly in heavily-unionized sectors. A solidly middle-class auto factory worker in Oshawa who negotiated his wages through UAW would have a much more direct link to the NDP than, say, a lobster fisher in rural New Brunswick who made less money, but made a living based on the market price of his lobsters.

As for now, yeah it's probably the age thing. Most polls show that NDP support is heavily skewed to the 18-34 age group. And on average, young people also have smaller incomes and definitely less wealth and property. And even then, my experience with urban 20-somethings in southern Ontario is that yuppies are more likely to vote Liberal, and to a lesser extent Tory, while the NDP is more popular with "creative class" types, social workers, etc who obviously make less than the former.

I'm going to ask a question which I really admit to powers of Canadian politics is probably laughably naive. But go ahead and laugh.

What are the cultural, economic, political, or other barriers that keep a United left versus it being split between the NDP and the Liberals. To phrase it even more basically and with even greater naivete, how fundamentally different are the policies of the NDP and the Liberals that they couldn't, at least on a very theoretical and ignoring all the mini personal grudges and rivalries, merge?