Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[Upper Canada Tory]

Interesting article on the Canadian political situation. When I say 'interesting' I mean that I largely agree with it.

The author of the article, Michael Harris, used to be a conservative pundit on the CTV weekly political show, or one of those other shows.

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/08/15/Justin-Trudeau-Is-Not-Done/
Don’t Believe the Spin. Trudeau Isn’t Done

I especially agree with this and have been making the same point:
"For all their missteps, the Liberals have passed a lot of legislation that enhanced Canada’s social safety net and directly impacted the lives of its citizens. More importantly, a lot of the legislation dealt with the pressing issues of our time."

I'm not sure that I agree that they deal with the issues the public thinks of as the most pressing, but I have pointed out several times that while the media tends to focus on the mostly minor scandals and other incompetencies, that there was a similar focus on the Pearson government, but looking back many pundits now regard the Pearson government as one of the most significant in Canadian history.

I disagree with the article that Harper's scandals were worse than Trudeau's. In the scandals with the overspending and violation of campaign finance laws, everyone who was involved was held accountable by the law. The Trudeau government has been found to be in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act thrice, more times than the Harper government, two of those being Trudeau himself and there has been very little accountability other than the ethics commissioner's findings themselves.

Also, this is a strange line: 'His government specialized in defence spending rather than social spending, and cut expenditures on First Nations.'

Actually, Trudeau has increased defence spending by a higher percentage of GDP than Harper did - this isn't a bad thing, I think Canada spending on defence is good. But the claim that Harper prioritized defence spending more than Trudeau is definitely untrue in my opinion. Trudeau also cancelled the F-35 deal made under Harper and purchased those same F-35s again 8 years later for a much more expensive price, and it'll be years until they are delivered.

With regards to social spending, Harper mostly kept the same policies as his Liberal predecessors, such as spending 6% of GDP on health transfers per year, although he did reduce future increases in order to spend more on economic stimulus during the recession. However, it's worth noting Trudeau has also kept this formula. I will concede Trudeau has done somewhat better than Harper on First Nations issues since many reserves are finally receiving access to clean water.

https://canadians.org/analysis/trudeau-keeps-harpers-health-care-funding-formula/

Harper was also definitely more fiscally responsible than Trudeau, COVID notwithstanding. The former Parliamentary Budget Officer himself said that Trudeau's budgets were less transparent than Harper's.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thehouse/preston-manning-s-prescription-to-recharge-the-right-1.3463742/liberal-fiscal-plans-less-transparent-than-under-harper-kevin-page-says-1.3464078

Additionally, Harper ran small deficits during the recession with a goal to reach a balanced budget. Trudeau ran large deficits during good economic times from 2016 to 2019. Canada's triple A credit rating with Fitch was downgraded in 2020. Yes it was during the COVID economic crisis which makes it somewhat understandable, but this didn't happen during the two recessions under Harper (2008 and 2015).
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-loses-aaa-rating-fitch-downgrades-amid-virus-costs-1.1455645

To add to this point, many G7 countries like the US and France lost their triple AAA credit rating with S&P after the 2008 recession, so Harper compares favourably in comparison, as Canada did not lose its triple AAA credit rating with any credit agency while he was in power.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-debt-downgrade-idUSTRE7746VF20110807
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-rating-idUSTRE80C2GO20120113

I also disagree with comparing the current Trudeau government to the Pearson government, for many reasons, but that would be a long explanation that I don't feel like writing now and I'm not sure anyone will care to read it.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I think shifts have been happening for following reason.  Note polls are a snapshot and can change.

Quebec:  It has been pretty steady there and kind of makes sense as housing less of an issue and things people upset with Liberals haven't been impacting Quebec.  At same time I find Quebecers have shallowest loyalty to any party so they are prone to massive swings, but typically during election campaign, not before.  See 1984 and 2011 as examples of this.

Conservatives are also starting to do better in Quebec, tbf. There have been a few polls with the CPC above 20% in Quebec, which we haven't seen since the brief-lived O'Toole surge in 2021 (in an actual election, 20% would be the best performance since 2008). Probably more a case of rising tides lifting all boats than anything specific about Quebec.

But Quebec seems to mostly be an afterthought for the Tories, because of how steep the odds are there. Short of a serious surge, they can only realistically pick up 4-5 ridings. Atlantic Canada, despite being much smaller, offers more target seats, and the big prize is obviously southern Ontario. So apart from the nationwide Poilievre bump this summer, there's really not much of an effort to get Quebec to vote Conservative, because there's not much ground they can realistically gain there.

I think people forget that the Tories made some not-insignificant electoral gains in the Quebec City area in previously Bloc-voting seats during the Harper years. While it's not much in the grand scheme of things, it does suggest the Conservatives have room to grow in Quebec if they put the effort into it and run on a convincing message.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Regarding the Ontario Greenbelt controversy, I feel like the opposition would have a more effective attack if they focused on the "greenbelt" part, rather than the "developer buddies" part. The greenbelt remains genuinely very popular, and I think there are more PC voters that can be reached through that line of attack, as opposed to primarily focusing on Doug Ford's ties to those developers. I know that's a scandal in its own right, but focusing too much on the scandal can be detrimental to making actual gains. The federal Conservatives did the same for years and got absolutely nowhere.

And yes, I know what my username is. Completely unrelated lmao.

Conflict of interest!

Just kidding  

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/why-justin-trudeau-is-not-resigning this is interesting and wondering what people's thoughts are here?  I get impression Trudeau is kind of stumped why his numbers so low and thinks will be easy to turn it around.  And maybe he can but I think the headwinds are very tough.  Tories near or above majority territory largely due to cost of living crisis.  That is not easily fixable but nor was covid and I feel Trudeau exceled at covid as he came across as caring and that he was trying to do everything he could to fix problem.  With housing I think his attitude to many comes across as not caring.  People don't expect governments to fix things overnight, but they want to see they

1.  recognize there is a problem
2.  taking action

Trudeau it seems relying too much on Conservatives tripping up and that may happen.  But like or dislike Poilievre (and lots do dislike him) he is a much more solid campaigner than O'Toole or Scheer were.  In theory O'Toole should have been harder to beat as he is closer to political centre where most are than Poilievre but I would argue while ideology matters, ability to campaign does too.  

That being said if Poilievre does beat Trudeau, my guess is Poilievre after 3 wins (if he manages to get that far, no guarantee or even likelihood does) probably resigns as that will have been two PMs in a row losing on fourth time around so probably strong signal to future leaders its not worth trying.  We may lack term limits but if Trudeau loses, it may become a defacto unwritten term limit of 3 terms and you are out.  

I think there are two concomitant possibilities. Firstly, Trudeau mistakenly thinks that he will be able to rely on vote efficiency like he did in the last two elections to win a minority government with 32 percent or so of the vote. Given he has 29 percent or so in the polls now, he may think he may flip many seats by gaining a few percentage points in national polling, as long as the votes gained are in competitive swing ridings. Secondly, he believes he may be able to negotiate another agreement with NDP to keep himself in power. Friendly reminder that in our Westminster system, it is the incumbent Prime Minister who has the first opportunity to form a government after an election, even if the PM's party didn't win the plurality of seats in said election, as long as the PM can keep the confidence of the House. Now that Trudeau has managed to create a deal with the NDP, he may be convinced he can rely on that to remain in power. The best-case scenario for the Liberals is that the two things I mentioned both occur simultaneously.

I don't think either strategy will work, firstly because the LPC's vote efficiency is not as strong in GTA+Metro Vancouver as it once was and also because seat projections suggest that LPC+NDP together will not have enough seats to overtake the CPC, whose seat projections are reaching majority territory now. But this desperate, last-resort strategy is what may be in Trudeau's head.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Why have the polls got noticeably worse for the Liberals just recently?

"Housing is not a Federal responsibility" - Justin Trudeau, July 2023, in the middle of the biggest housing crisis in Canada since WW2.
Not hard to see how things got out of control here, and despite what people might say, PP has been screaming about inflation and affordability for years now so he has credibility here.

And to say that Trudeau is lying about this is an understatement. Directly from the CMHC's website, a corporation owned by the federal government;

https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/nhs/federal-provincial-territorial-housing-agreements#:~:text=Federal%2C%20provincial%20and%20territorial%20governments,better%20housing%20outcomes%20for%20Canada.

'Federal, provincial and territorial governments are primary partners in housing and have a shared responsibility and complementary roles for housing.'

Trudeau launched his so-called 'National Housing Strategy' through the CMHC. The CMHC wants to control half the mortgage insurance market, which increases market concentration and drives up prices.

https://financialpost.com/real-estate/mortgages/the-cmhc-wants-its-market-share-back-but-some-observers-wonder-if-the-timing-is-right

But Trudeau's policies have failed so suddenly 'muh housing isn't a federal responsibility'!

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/why-justin-trudeau-is-not-resigning this is interesting and wondering what people's thoughts are here?  I get impression Trudeau is kind of stumped why his numbers so low and thinks will be easy to turn it around.  And maybe he can but I think the headwinds are very tough.  Tories near or above majority territory largely due to cost of living crisis.  That is not easily fixable but nor was covid and I feel Trudeau exceled at covid as he came across as caring and that he was trying to do everything he could to fix problem.  With housing I think his attitude to many comes across as not caring.  People don't expect governments to fix things overnight, but they want to see they

1.  recognize there is a problem
2.  taking action

Trudeau it seems relying too much on Conservatives tripping up and that may happen.  But like or dislike Poilievre (and lots do dislike him) he is a much more solid campaigner than O'Toole or Scheer were.  In theory O'Toole should have been harder to beat as he is closer to political centre where most are than Poilievre but I would argue while ideology matters, ability to campaign does too.  

That being said if Poilievre does beat Trudeau, my guess is Poilievre after 3 wins (if he manages to get that far, no guarantee or even likelihood does) probably resigns as that will have been two PMs in a row losing on fourth time around so probably strong signal to future leaders its not worth trying.  We may lack term limits but if Trudeau loses, it may become a defacto unwritten term limit of 3 terms and you are out.  

The Canadian public has a habit of keeping governments around until we all just spontaneously reach a point of "Okay, enough of this guy". If Trudeau's at that point, and he may not yet be depending on how the rest of his term goes, it will be hard to turn it around. Poilievre blowing it seems far more likely than Trudeau actually regaining favour, but like you said, Poilievre is also a disciplined messenger. He's began to change the narrative by focusing narrowly on the issues where he has most resonance, while slowly pushing out the ones where he doesn't. I mean, O'Toole himself was less controversial, but the party caucus in that era was bozo meltdown after bozo meltdown. Some of Poilievre's big hits like intensifying around transit stations, selling off 15% of government land to build affordable housing, and speeding up immigrant work permits, were all part of the O'Toole platform too. Yet nobody noticed, because O'Toole was an awful messenger who jumped from idea to idea, never offering a concrete set of core ideas to energize people around.

In certain respects, O'Toole's housing platform was actually slightly better than Poilievre's - it included waiving capital gains tax on rental housing investments and cracking down on money laundering. But you're right, O'Toole was an awful messenger and struggled to energize the base.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/millennials-nearly-twice-as-likely-to-vote-for-conservatives-over-liberals-new-survey-suggests/article_7875f9b4-c818-547e-bf68-0f443ba321dc.html

Congrats to Trudeau for making Canada the first anglo-country where millenials might vote to the right of boomers.

I think that has more to do with left has been in power longest here.  I have found globally millennials tend to be more anti-status quo while boomers more status quo and less right vs. left.  True in English speaking world has favoured left, but also Canada saw leftward swing earlier than others.  US is different in that they have strong racial divide and millennials are 40% non-white while boomers only 15%.  Amongst whites I believe age divide much smaller and if you throw in education disappears as higher Democrat support amongst millennials more due to fact more likely to have a college degree.  Pretty sure Trump won white millennials without a college degree.

UK is probably due to austerity a decade ago as theirs was quite extreme and that really hurt support with millennials.  If Poilievre tries to implement austerity at level David Cameron did, probably similar thing happens in Canada.  Luckily for him, deficit is only around 1-2% of GDP, not 10% like it was in UK so probably not needed unless takes supply side approach of massive unfunded tax cuts like Liz Truss did.

Obama was also the most popular leader among millennials in any Anglo nation as well . Unlike with Trudeau he remained popular with millennial voters throughout his term

Yeah like Miles said it's partially because Obama is a better politician than Trudeau, but it's also because Canadian voters tend to be more fickle than American ones. Partisanship is more "cyclical" up here, it's less etched in stone. It's been a consistent pattern since the Mulroney era that governments only get 10ish years before voters decide it's over for them, and at that point it almost doesn't matter who the opposition is. Although if Poilievre maintains the CPC's current lead into the next election, it would definitely be a historically significant moment for the conservative movement.

Mulroney's 1984 landslide is out of reach for Poilievre, unless the Liberals really, truly, emphatically blow it over the next two years, beyond any Tory's wildest dreams - but the Mulroney landslide was never a sustainable win for the conservative movement and brand, because there were too many competing interests involved. He needed the votes of Quebec nationalists, who for the most part weren't even conservatives, but were single-issue PCs who wanted constitutional reform. When that fell through, so did the Mulroney coalition. With Poilievre, his coalition seems a genuinely conservative one, like Harper's, and of course Harper only got a majority on his fourth shot. Poilievre may do it on his first, the way things are shaping up.

As for young voters, I think some of it definitely is young people being more rebellious and anxious for "change", but even against unpopular Liberal governments, you rarely see Conservatives actually winning the youth vote. Doug Ford never reached these heights with 18-35s despite an even more unpopular Liberal government in Ontario that had been around even longer. There's certainly some kind of change around the corner, and I think it comes down to pocketbook issues, where I think the Liberals have really lost a lot of credibility and the NDP doesn't seem to be picking up the pieces.

1. That’s fair though the same is true here as well , as there has only been one time Since 1952 where a party has been in the WH for more than 8 years at a time(GOP 1981-93).

2. It’s possible Polievre may be able to win a similar sort of landslide outside Quebec that Mulroney did but once you include Quebec , yeah I agree that it’s not really possible .

3. A huge reason I think Tories are doing better with young voters right now is also because of NDP’s unofficial coalition with the liberals . Doing so also gave them some of the blame in what has happened along with the liberals and the Tories were the only party that could benefit from that .

I think what Laddicus meant with regards to partisanship is not only after how long people tend to toss out governments, but that party loyalty as a whole is weaker in Canada than in the United States. If you look at voters in the different regions of Canada, they have a surprisingly high willingness to switch the party they vote for every few years.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1spVdQO9Q

TLDR: Canada has a plan for what happens if the US becomes a full-on authoritarian fascist state. I've never been more ashamed of my own nationality.

Right Wing populists are ahead in the polls in Canada too.

The Conservative Leader is someone who became prominent by backing the Trucker Protest

The Trucker Protest was astroturfed by the US' right-wing. Canada does not have lunatics with a serious chance of getting political power, at least not like the Republicans.

The Conservative Party is leading the polls by double digits and their leader is someone who supported the Trucker Protest.

Yeah, but keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the trucker protest but everything to do with cost of living issues. Canadian right wing populists usually become more moderate when they're in power, as opposed to American right wing populists. Most Canadians were not in favour of the trucker protest but also didn't really care enough for it to affect their vote.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1spVdQO9Q

TLDR: Canada has a plan for what happens if the US becomes a full-on authoritarian fascist state. I've never been more ashamed of my own nationality.

Right Wing populists are ahead in the polls in Canada too.

The Conservative Leader is someone who became prominent by backing the Trucker Protest

The Trucker Protest was astroturfed by the US' right-wing. Canada does not have lunatics with a serious chance of getting political power, at least not like the Republicans.

The Conservative Party is leading the polls by double digits and their leader is someone who supported the Trucker Protest.

Yeah, but keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the trucker protest but everything to do with cost of living issues. Canadian right wing populists usually become more moderate when they're in power, as opposed to American right wing populists. Most Canadians were not in favour of the trucker protest but also didn't really care enough for it to affect their vote.

So do American right wing populists . Trump governed far more like a conventional GOPer than his 2016 campaign suggested

I don't know. Compare someone who ran as an RW populist in the USA (Trump) vs someone who ran as an RW populist in Canada (Doug Ford), Ford has turned out to be way more moderate in terms of governance.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1spVdQO9Q

TLDR: Canada has a plan for what happens if the US becomes a full-on authoritarian fascist state. I've never been more ashamed of my own nationality.

Also, this sounds like virtue signalling rhetoric from the Liberal government. What would such a plan even look like? I don't like the policies of some governors and politicians in the US but that doesn't mean the US will go authoritarian tomorrow?

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1spVdQO9Q

TLDR: Canada has a plan for what happens if the US becomes a full-on authoritarian fascist state. I've never been more ashamed of my own nationality.

Right Wing populists are ahead in the polls in Canada too.

The Conservative Leader is someone who became prominent by backing the Trucker Protest

The Trucker Protest was astroturfed by the US' right-wing. Canada does not have lunatics with a serious chance of getting political power, at least not like the Republicans.

The Conservative Party is leading the polls by double digits and their leader is someone who supported the Trucker Protest.

Yeah, but keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the trucker protest but everything to do with cost of living issues. Canadian right wing populists usually become more moderate when they're in power, as opposed to American right wing populists. Most Canadians were not in favour of the trucker protest but also didn't really care enough for it to affect their vote.

So do American right wing populists . Trump governed far more like a conventional GOPer than his 2016 campaign suggested

I don't know. Compare someone who ran as an RW populist in the USA (Trump) vs someone who ran as an RW populist in Canada (Doug Ford), Ford has turned out to be way more moderate in terms of governance.

Well by right wing populist I meant more Polievre and Smith than Ford . Ford imo is more similar to Boris Johnson while Polievre and Smith are more similar to American conservatives (just like Harper was and western conservatives are in general)

Id say :

Your Western Conservatives are more like the GOP and the Eastern ones are more like the UK Tories

Harper is not the best example because he both campaigned and governed as a moderate. Poilievre and Smith are more like American Conservatives (though the former hasn't governed yet) but Harper is very debatable. Harper was not a populist in terms of his style nor his policies nor was he 'our version of Bush' is as often claimed.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1spVdQO9Q

TLDR: Canada has a plan for what happens if the US becomes a full-on authoritarian fascist state. I've never been more ashamed of my own nationality.

Right Wing populists are ahead in the polls in Canada too.

The Conservative Leader is someone who became prominent by backing the Trucker Protest

Poilievre was elected leader of the Conservative Party with 70% of their votes before the terrorist occupation of Ottawa. Poilievre has also taken two positions on his backing of these terrorists. To Conservative partisans he proudly states his support and even sometimes what he did to support them, to Canadians in general though he denies any involvement and the he essentially only supported them in principal but opposed any of the lawlessness.

PP was elected leader after the convoy/occupation (O'Toole was turfed more or less due to his opposition to it) but the rest stands. I may be sympathetic to the centre-right and want action on cost of living and housing, but I'll find it hard to support a party led by a guy who chose to hold a meet and greet with Diagolon Nazis when he could have attended a Stanley Cup parade at the same time in the same city, no matter how nice his wife says he is.

It is a very hyperbolic overstatement to say O'Toole was removed because of his lack of support of the convoy. The CPC typically removes their leader after poor election performances (as what happened with Scheer in 2019).

I think people who associate Poilievre's leadership with the convoy horribly miss the point. The reason Poilievre is popular isn't because of the convoy, not amongst the Tory base nor amongst voters outside the Tory base. He's popular because of his focus and messaging on the cost of living crisis. Roman Baber and Leslyn Lewis were also in favour of the convoy - but they didn't win the leadership race!

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1spVdQO9Q

TLDR: Canada has a plan for what happens if the US becomes a full-on authoritarian fascist state. I've never been more ashamed of my own nationality.

Right Wing populists are ahead in the polls in Canada too.

The Conservative Leader is someone who became prominent by backing the Trucker Protest

The Trucker Protest was astroturfed by the US' right-wing. Canada does not have lunatics with a serious chance of getting political power, at least not like the Republicans.

The Conservative Party is leading the polls by double digits and their leader is someone who supported the Trucker Protest.

Yeah, but keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the trucker protest but everything to do with cost of living issues. Canadian right wing populists usually become more moderate when they're in power, as opposed to American right wing populists. Most Canadians were not in favour of the trucker protest but also didn't really care enough for it to affect their vote.

So do American right wing populists . Trump governed far more like a conventional GOPer than his 2016 campaign suggested

I don't know. Compare someone who ran as an RW populist in the USA (Trump) vs someone who ran as an RW populist in Canada (Doug Ford), Ford has turned out to be way more moderate in terms of governance.

Well by right wing populist I meant more Polievre and Smith than Ford . Ford imo is more similar to Boris Johnson while Polievre and Smith are more similar to American conservatives (just like Harper was and western conservatives are in general)

Id say :

Your Western Conservatives are more like the GOP and the Eastern ones are more like the UK Tories

Harper is not the best example because he both campaigned and governed as a moderate. Poilievre and Smith are more like American Conservatives (though the former hasn't governed yet) but Harper is very debatable. Harper was not a populist in terms of his style nor his policies nor was he 'our version of Bush' is as often claimed.

I think there's plenty of evidence that Harper was every bit a blue-blooded conservative as Poilievre is. One of the things he used to get attacked for early in his term as leader and PM was the controversial statements he made during his time as a right-wing think tank type guy, especially regarding Canada's political systems. He moderated his image as leader, as Poilievre is trying to do and seemingly succeeding at this specific point, but he was basically forced to govern as a moderate in his first five years in power, since he was in a unique position of being a centre-right prime minister with a centre-left parliament. Even Joe Clark theoretically had the SoCreds. Every major vote was a potential writ drop, so the Tories governed very surgically, always trying to hit a sweet spot where they could somehow get support. This mentality continued into the majority, they were coming up with all sorts of tax credits because they didn't seem to know what else to offer. His post-PM career doesn't suggest being much of a moderate either, although he's a "pre-Trump" conservative, so his rhetoric is less heated than a post-Trump conservative like Pierre. But the beliefs seem to be largely the same, deep down.

To be clear, I'm not implying Harper was not a conservative (he definitely was), but I'm just saying he is not as much of an ideological purist as Poilievre.

This is an interesting debate, because there are several ways we can use to compare the two in this regard - either by their record long ago as Reformers, how they campaigned during elections and how they governed (though the latter is not possible for Poilievre as he has not governed yet).

In terms of how they campaigned during elections, I find one major philosophical difference between Harper and Poilievre. Harper was mainly focused on making government agencies more accountable, transparent, fiscally responsible and less bureaucratic, but not necessarily privatizing or downsizing the government agency outright. On the other hand, Poilievre is very hostile to government structures - he wants to privatize the CBC, is very critical of the Bank of Canada, has promoted bitcoin, even if only as a campaign tactic in poor taste. In this regard, Poilievre is definitely much more of an ideological purist than Harper - Harper wouldn't have advocated for any of those things.

Regarding their record as Reform Party/Canadian Alliance members, yes Harper was chastised for his past controversial statements, but he was actually relatively moderate for a Reform MP. He frequently broke ranks with his party, like being the only Reform MP to vote in favour a Canadian Firearms Registry or, at a policy convention, was one of the few Reform delegates to vote against restricting the definition of marriage to being between a man and a woman. Harper also opposed Manning's propensity toward populism, which is very in character with how he governed. On the other hand, Poilievre is a natural populist and has been known to take a more hardline stance on most issues.

I think Harper is far less of an ideologue than Poilievre is.

[Upper Canada Tory]

This is going to sound like "he was no angel" deflection but is it true that the organisation Nijjar was part of (Khalinstad or something) was openly calling for the assassination of indian diplomats in Canada? That's what I'm seeing bombarded in every indian subforum (on reddit) that I occasionally visit. They seem to be pretty universally on India's side (except the sikh specific ones).

Honestly, the world would be a better place if immigrants just left behind whatever their native countries' issues were once they go to another country. Be it middle eastern muslims trying to bring their religious cultures or indian sikhs trying to bring their seperatist movements and the like. You came to a new country for a better future, just keep the other stuff for when you go back home. I know that this goes against Canada's idea of a "salad bowl" or whatever their concept of multiculturalism is, but I'm sure some canadians would agree.  

I agree with you but I don't think this is issue in particular is an question of immigrants importing foreign tensions. There is a Khalistani sympathy problem in Canada but it has largely been dormant since the 1990s. Very few Canadian Sikhs actually sympathize with the Khalistani movement.

The most recent tensions seem to be an attempt by the Indian government to revive the issue in order to enflame diaspora tensions with the goal of influencing politics in a Western country.

Granted, Trudeau is not a very competent statesman, so his response to this issue has been subpar, to say the least. With Trudeau being the dimwit he is, he has unfortunately fallen into Modi's trap.

[Upper Canada Tory]

This is going to sound like "he was no angel" deflection but is it true that the organisation Nijjar was part of (Khalinstad or something) was openly calling for the assassination of indian diplomats in Canada? That's what I'm seeing bombarded in every indian subforum (on reddit) that I occasionally visit. They seem to be pretty universally on India's side (except the sikh specific ones).

Honestly, the world would be a better place if immigrants just left behind whatever their native countries' issues were once they go to another country. Be it middle eastern muslims trying to bring their religious cultures or indian sikhs trying to bring their seperatist movements and the like. You came to a new country for a better future, just keep the other stuff for when you go back home. I know that this goes against Canada's idea of a "salad bowl" or whatever their concept of multiculturalism is, but I'm sure some canadians would agree.  

I agree with you but I don't think this is issue in particular is an question of immigrants importing foreign tensions. There is a Khalistani sympathy problem in Canada but it has largely been dormant since the 1990s. Very few Canadian Sikhs actually sympathize with the Khalistani movement.

The most recent tensions seem to be an attempt by the Indian government to revive the issue in order to enflame diaspora tensions with the goal of influencing politics in a Western country.

Granted, Trudeau is not a very competent statesman, so his response to this issue has been subpar, to say the least. With Trudeau being the dimwit he is, he has unfortunately fallen into Modi's trap.

I think you are behind the times on the issue. It seems very clear that in the years that Modi got elected Prime Minister in India that support for the seperate Sikh state of Khalistan has surged among the diaspora and, no doubt, within India as well.

Over 200,000 Sikhs take part in Khalistan referendums held in four countries
Sikh community in UK, Geneva, Italy and Canada actively participated in a huge number
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2379266/over-200000-sikhs-take-part-in-khalistan-referendums-held-in-four-countries

This is before the 'referendum' in Surrey.

"The first Khalistan referendum was held on October 31, 2021, in the UK, in which 30,000 Sikhs participated. Over 6,000 people voted for a sovereign Sikh state in Geneva on December 10, last year.

A similar exercise was held in Italy with the participation of 62,000 Sikhs and around 110,000 in Canada."

I don't know what's going on in India, but I really doubt that Modi is promoting this.

I think it would be wise to be sceptical of those numbers. Those figures are provided by the secessionist group themselves, who have a vested interest in overestimating the amount of Sikhs who support their cause.

I didn't mean that Modi is promoting the Khalistan referendums. What I meant was that their paranoid fixation on the threat of the Khalistani movement when dealing with other states (especially in Canada in particular, since the referendum also occurred in other countries with Sikh diasporas that India seems far less concerned about) and the alleged killing of the Sikh activist (if New Delhi was really involved in that) seem to be an attempt by the Indian government to use diaspora tensions to influence Canadian politics in their favour. I highly doubt that a 'referendum' and some activists in Canada, even if they espouse violent rhetoric, are a serious threat to India as a state. It seems like Modi thinks that if he can make Hindus in Canada view Sikhs as a threat they will vote for a political party that is more favourable to New Delhi's interests.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I wonder if there is any chance Trudeau uses this to overall smartly restrict Indian immigration to more manageable levels while having political cover. Seems like the smartest play and the right for Canada, and US citizens.

I disagree. Restricting Indian immigration would show the world that Canada is afraid of Modi. Canada needs to increase immigration from India, if anything. It sends a better message: “unlike India, Canada is a free nation”

lmao. Are you aware of the current immigration situatuon in Canada and its effect on the housing crisis and cost of living? The strip mall diploma mills?

The idea that immigrants are to blame for housing shortages is nonsensical. Housing shortages are evidence of insufficient supply, not too much demand. Building more housing would solve the problem. Secondly, the implication that a citizen is more deserving of housing than a citizen is xenophobic.

Any time someone is blaming “immigrants” for a societal ill, it’s a distraction from the actual causes.

Generally, population growth is a factor in house price increases. Other than the fact that it is basic supply and demand, there are also numerous studies that demonstrate that population growth contributes to increased housing prices. Just one example:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10835547.2002.12091069?casa_token=htm63ZUwrwYAAAAA:eXRLAbimBQTADBu6MQB3yuQZLhy4T0w_DTx79IaBEA8swEKNUeyVBt2WyO8CbYw9EiDTdB1_U1R5IQ

Housing is mainly a supply issue. With that said, building adequate supply takes much longer than bringing loads of people into the country. Canada's population growth is mainly a result of its high immigration rates, so reducing the annual immigration intake would reduce house prices.

Of course, I think in the long term, policymakers should focus on increasing supply, but high population growth while supply remains stagnant doesn't help.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1707346630305865746?t=6tLyc-KO2hItyDC8Ag...
So this poll came out. I find it fairly informative,  cause it's going to be perhaps the only federal poll of the province for a long time, perhaps until the GE if even. So there is data here with a respectable MOE rather than the usual absurdly small sample size of the N&L subsample in Altantic Canada polls.

I would put the numbers here as only a bit worse that 2011 for the liberals, just with the Conservatives pulling the voters rather than the NDP.  However,  the Tories having a more efficient vote distribution means the liberals probably only hold St. John's South and Avalon,  compared to the 4 seats held in 2011.

I do not know much about Canadian politics, but why are Liberal voters flocking to the Tories, rather than the NDP?

Party/ideological loyalties are not as fixed in Canada as they are in the US, so it's not uncommon for Liberal-Conservative swing voters to make up a large part of the vote in any given province (though it is somewhat rare in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the poll was taken).

Also, Poilievre's promise to expand the seal hunt is likely a large part of it since the seal hunt is a large part of NFLD's economy.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1707346630305865746?t=6tLyc-KO2hItyDC8Ag...
So this poll came out. I find it fairly informative,  cause it's going to be perhaps the only federal poll of the province for a long time, perhaps until the GE if even. So there is data here with a respectable MOE rather than the usual absurdly small sample size of the N&L subsample in Altantic Canada polls.

I would put the numbers here as only a bit worse that 2011 for the liberals, just with the Conservatives pulling the voters rather than the NDP.  However,  the Tories having a more efficient vote distribution means the liberals probably only hold St. John's South and Avalon,  compared to the 4 seats held in 2011.

I do not know much about Canadian politics, but why are Liberal voters flocking to the Tories, rather than the NDP?

Party/ideological loyalties are not as fixed in Canada as they are in the US, so it's not uncommon for Liberal-Conservative swing voters to make up a large part of the vote in any given province (though it is somewhat rare in Newfoundland and Labrador, where the poll was taken).

Also, Poilievre's promise to expand the seal hunt is likely a large part of is since the seal hunt is a large part of NFLD's economy.

How large a fraction of Newfoundland’s economy are oil revenues? I know historically the province was extremely dependent on federal transfers, and correspondingly developed a political culture which was very statist/Republican-definition-of-socialist, which was still around as recently as the 2008/2011 cycles, but every time I hear any sort of allusion to Newfoundland’s economy or culture outside of federal transfers — where it seems like the energy industry and hunting are both very important — it feels like a WV-esque place that’s bound to move rightwards at some point. (And yes, I know in an absolute sense that the Atlantic provinces are poorer than any US state, which explains the dissonance to some degree.)

1. Yeah, the rest of Canada used to make fun of NFLD for being dependent on federal transfers intended to raise the quality of social services for poorer provinces (known as equalization). However, the tables turned over time and NFLD did get off equalization, in part because of oil revenues, as you mentioned. Today, other formerly 'have' provinces such as Ontario recieve equalization, so NFLD makes fun of us hard for that nowadays. The irony!

Have province = province that does not recieve equalization
Have-not province = province that does recieve equalization

https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/historic-first-ontario-in-n-l-out-of-equalization-1.339239
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/federal-transfers/major-federal-transfers.html#Newfoundland

2. The energy industry has taken off in Newfoundland only relatively recently. Most off it is offshore oil. About one sixth of NFLD's revenues are from oil and it makes up about 11 percent on NFLD's exports.

3. Historically, NFLD's main industry was fishing, particularly cod, but it collapsed because of overfishing in the 1990s & mismanagement from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The government imposed a 10 year moratorium on cod fishing. This is part of why they were depending on government transfers for a while, though not exclusively so.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_fishing_in_Newfoundland

[Upper Canada Tory]

The important thing to note about the collapse of the Grand Banks fishing industry was they continued to fish for cod at increasing rates (and were encouraged to by the federal government of the day) even after warnings were issued by every possible environmental body in the 1980s. Which is why the scale of collapse was much worse than in the North Sea, where action was taken earlier and where stocks have partially and tentatively recovered.

If I remember correctly, subsidies from the federal government to the fishing industry also contributed heavily to the overfishing of cod.

[Upper Canada Tory]

https://twitter.com/DavidColetto/status/1707346630305865746?t=6tLyc-KO2hItyDC8Ag...
So this poll came out. I find it fairly informative,  cause it's going to be perhaps the only federal poll of the province for a long time, perhaps until the GE if even. So there is data here with a respectable MOE rather than the usual absurdly small sample size of the N&L subsample in Altantic Canada polls.

I would put the numbers here as only a bit worse that 2011 for the liberals, just with the Conservatives pulling the voters rather than the NDP.  However,  the Tories having a more efficient vote distribution means the liberals probably only hold St. John's South and Avalon,  compared to the 4 seats held in 2011.

I do not know much about Canadian politics, but why are Liberal voters flocking to the Tories, rather than the NDP?

So that was a poll of only Newfoundland and Labrador, interestingly. In most of Canada, it's not at all unheard of for Liberals to switch to Conservatives rather than the NDP. This group basically decides every federal election. There's plenty of political polarization, and I certainly don't think the average base Liberal voter would prefer Poilievre to Singh. But the Liberals aren't quite losing their base yet, so they're not shedding too many "orange Liberals". The Liberal Party's base is primarily motivated by stopping Conservatives, and the Liberals remain the choice more likely to do so. However, many Liberal voters are closer to Tories than the NDP. They don't make up much of the Liberal activist base, and are basically a dead (or at least very quiet) breed among Liberal MPs under Trudeau, but they do rely on the support of these swing voters. These voters aren't really Liberals or Conservatives, they can really be either depending on the mood of the nation. Then there are some people who want change above anything else. And I would strongly argue that the NDP's parliamentary partnership with the Liberals greatly hurts their case. The Conservatives have basically been given a monopoly over the "change uber alles" vote, because the NDP is the lifeblood of this no good very bad government that Canadians want to get rid of.

But as fickle as voters in my home province of Ontario are, it seems like Newfoundland is going through an actual realignment. Historically, it's basically a Liberal fiefdom, at least federally. It was the last province to join Canada, before which point it was basically a rural, underdeveloped British fishing colony that the British didn't really care about. Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949 under a Liberal government, and the provincial Liberal government of Joey Smallwood really heralded a strong liberal-populist legacy. It remained very impoverished for decades, at least by Canadian standards, so the party of more generous social spending obviously caught on. Even when they had a PC government, they were so at odds with the federal Conservatives that their Conservative premier started an "ABC" (Anybody but Conservative) movement, go figure. In 2015, Trudeau's Liberals received 65% of the vote in NL. 82% in one district. Sadam Hussein margins.

But let's take a closer look at Newfoundland and Labrador. It's predominantly rural, Christian, white, and they're older than median. They have a massive oil industry, and close ties to the Conservative heartland of Alberta, due to the now-famous phenomenon of young men from Newfoundland moving to Alberta to work in the oil sands. Many of those latter-day albertans come back to the rock with loads of oil money, as well as Albertan conservatism, traditionally unheard of in Newfoundland and Labrador. Then you have a federal government that hasn't endeared itself to people in and around the oil industry, to put it mildly. In particular, their taxes on fossil fuels have become very unpopular, even the Liberal Premier is opposed to the Liberal Prime Minister's measures. While he's not going full on Danny Williams and launching an "ABL" campaign, his vocal disagreement with his own party's federal cousins is telling of the mood out there.

Basically, Newfoundland and Labrador is Canada's RGV. An underdeveloped part of the country nowhere near the places people care about, totally detached from the national mainstream. Liberal populism rules the roost throughout the 20th century. But in the 21st century, it finds itself a much more naturally conservative place, both due to its very conservative culture and close ties to the oil industry. Their traditional liberal party is increasingly dominated by urban people, and the cultural gap is widening.

Sorry, I'm not the best with acronyms. What does 'RGV' stand for?

[Upper Canada Tory]

University of Calgary investigates Nazi-style march through student residence

What is going on up there Canada? Is everything okay?

Why do you think Conservatives had a freak-out last week when the government proposed to publish the confidential appendix to the 80's report about Neo-Nazi immigration?

Hint: most of that immigration moved to the Prairies.

Yet somehow the descendants of that immigration ended up in the Liberal cabinet and as Trudeau's Deputy PM (aka Chrystia Freeland).

[Upper Canada Tory]

but that had nothing to do my point.

I know, I just wanted to get that off my chest  

But seriously, I'm much more respectful of the Liberals than most online Conservatives (maybe only slightly beat out by you lol), but on this particular issue, I passionately despise them. The Liberals like to portray themselves as glorious saviours who will protect Canada during this era of rising extremism around the world, when in reality all they've done is used that worrying phenomenon as a wedge issue during elections. There have been multiple instances, one from the Prime Minister himself, using the House as a forum to call his political opponents Nazis (the one swastika flag that popped up during the convoy was immediately condemned and no Conservative MP "stood with" the guy, but I digress). He also wedged the last federal election by equating Conservatives with "anti-vaxxers", and all that did (other than contributing to his short-term political gain) helped fuel a much more militant anti-vaxx movement that became the focal point of significant civil strife.

Meanwhile, they have been terrible at actually combatting these issues. Worse, they've become the very thing that many people who honestly believe in liberalism absolutely hate. They brought in a law that gives the CRTC a broad mandate to regulate what kind of content is promoted on the internet. They then brought in a law, that in effect, makes it harder for people to access news on the internet. Both justified by a kind of nationalistic populism, something our dear leader claims, very very strongly and convincingly, is a plague upon the world that he will protect Canadians from. In reality, they basically justify these measures by saying "yeah but do you want the big bad no good very bad *ahem* AMERICAN CORPORATIONS to take over our beloved country?"

I mean, the Liberals have always resorted to cheap nationalistic rhetoric when backed against a corner. John Turner did the same with NAFTA, which did not in fact erase the 49th parallel with a giant eraser. But their approach to media, how on earth is that a liberal response to creeping authoritarianism? I mean, if Viktor Orban passed laws that sought to impose restrictions on what Hungarians can see on the internet, I doubt your average Liberal supporter would think that's a good thing. But no, it's okay when Canada does it, because the law has good intentions and not bad intentions and that's definitely how government works.

And yet, it's hard to see exactly what the damn government is actually doing about rising acts of extremist violence. Nova Scotia shooting, the RCMP was completely ill-equipped to respond, and the legislative response was a gun bill that went way beyond and tried to ban guns that are never used in mass shootings. Not one, but two nationalistic foreign states have now meddled in Canada's internal affairs, with one allegedly assassinating a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. Mainstream Canada is starting to learn about how tensions have been rising for years within our very large Indo-Canadian community regarding this once-dead Khalistan issue, and it's not clear what, if anything, the Canadian government did to address this.

I am just sick and tired of the Liberal government trying to claim ANY authority over the authoritarian, extremist, and/or populist threats to liberal democracy, because it's a whole lot of rhetoric and not a lot of action.

Fair enough. I don't mind you getting that off your chest, I just didn't want my argument to be misinterpreted.

Yeah, you're right about this, and I will also point out that hate crimes have also increased in the last few years under the LPC government, against many groups but particularly Jewish Canadians, who are the top target of hate crimes in the country, and the Liberals have done nothing about this rise of extremism either while our Liberal PM called accused Jewish MP Melissa Lantsman of 'standing with swastikas'. Talk about blaming the victim.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Yeah, you're right about this, and I will also point out that hate crimes have also increased in the last few years under the LPC government, against many groups but particularly Jewish Canadians, who are the top target of hate crimes in the country

Speaking of Jewish Canadians, today's revelations of a war in Gaza is already spilling over into Canadian public life. I would hate to turn this thread into yet another Israel-Palestine s--t flinging contest, I only bring this up to point out that conflict in that part of the world often correlates with a rise in antisemitic violence. We've already started increasing police presence at synagogues and mosques, which is a good thing. But with this government's weak record on taking strong preventative measures on crime and violence, I'm not too confident in them.

We already have two threads like that - no need for a third one.  

In general, I will point out that Canada is overall an extremely safe country - both for Jews and non-Jews. I'm a Jew who goes to synagogue weekly, have never had any issues, even when there's a conflict in Israel.

But yeah, antisemitic violence domestically when conflicts arise in the Middle East is always a concern. It was particularly bad after the May 2021 conflict, because for some reason that war particularly enflamed tensions, which is why I think the subsequent record high rise in hate crimes in 2021 and 2022 is still in recent memory and could happen again, especially if there's a serious conflict such as the ongoing.

Hopefully there will be a police presence at synagogues and mosques and the federal and provincial governments will take this issue seriously. But who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if a screw up happens from the government that had a caucus member/Speaker who accidentally invited a Nazi to parliament.

[Upper Canada Tory]

My reaction is what I wrote earlier: there isn't enough money to do everything and to claim otherwise is a lie.

"There isn't enough money to do everything and to claim otherwise is a lie."

Is this the philosophy of how the Liberal Party of Canada has governed during Trudeau's time in power? Talking everything.

Has Canada formally notified other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that they are unable to live up to the commitments they made when they signed the treaty, and have the other members of NATO taken up the notice, making a decision on how to treat that and whether it affects the details of Canada's membership? Canadians investing 2% as they agreed to do in a treaty is them investing in every other NATO member's defense, not just their own. That's the whole purpose in fact of NATO and collective defense organizations.

If it's the opinion of the Canadian government that the burden is too taxing and should be altered, they can offer up an amendment to the treaty. They have done no such thing.

In terms of 'influence' in the world being based on military spending, what does 'influence' get Canada? That sounds to me like the usual B.S from the foreign policy establishment "we must have a large military to have influence.' What does this influence get us? Why should I care?

Paul Wells wrote about this 6 weeks ago.

http://paulwells.substack.com/p/grounded

[Justin Trudeau tweet following attending the G20 Conference]:

The @G20org Leaders' Summit has started. During today's working sessions, we spoke about climate change, gender equality, global health, inclusive growth, and more. I pushed for greater ambition in those areas - and I advocated for continued support for Ukraine.

One can imagine the other world leaders’ glee whenever this guy shows up. “Oh, it’s Justin Trudeau, here to push for greater ambition!” Shall we peer into their briefing binders? Let’s look at Canada’s performance on every single issue Trudeau mentions, in order.

On climate change, Canada ranks 58th of 63 jurisdictions in the global Climate Change Performance Index. The country page for Canada uses the words “very low” three times in the first two sentences.

On gender equality, the World Economic Forum (!) ranks Canada 30th behind a bunch of other G-20 members.

On global health, this article in Britain’s BMJ journal calls Canada “a high income country that frames itself as a global health leader yet became one of the most prominent hoarders of the limited global covid-19 vaccine supply.”

On inclusive growth, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has a composite indicator called the Inclusive Growth Index. Canada’s value is 64.1, just behind the United States (!) and Australia, further behind most of Europe, stomped by Norway at 76.9%.

On support for Ukraine, the German Kiel Institute think tank ranks Canada fifth in the world, and third as a share of GDP, for financial support; and 8th in the world, or 21st as a share of GDP, for military support.

Almost all of these results are easy enough to understand. A small number are quite honourable. But none reads to me as any kind of license to wander around, administering lessons to other countries. I just finished reading John Williams’ luminous 1965 novel about university life, Stoner. A minor character in the book mocks the lectures and his fellow students, and eventually stands unmasked as a poser who hasn’t done even the basic reading in his discipline. I found the character strangely familiar. You’d think that after nearly a decade in power, after the fiascos of the UN Security Council bid, the first India trip, the collegiate attempt to impress a schoolgirl with fake trees, the prime minister would have figured out that fewer and fewer people, at home or abroad, are persuaded by his talk.

Then goes on into domestic politics.

There is no specific commitment from Canada or any other nation on reaching 2%. There is a target.

Paul Wells is generally one of the better columnists, but he also wants the government to increase military spending (and probably other spending as well), cut taxes and balance the budget. The best thing about Paul Wells is that he admits that he's lying in arguing that any government can achieve all of these things.

The entire federal budget is $500 billion Canadian, the U.S defense budget is somewhere around $800 billion. If the only way to have 'influence' is to spend money on defense, the United States is the boss of the world.

The foreign policy establishment has publicly argued that defense spending is somehow unique and should not be subject to the same restraints and bean counting of every other department. If the foreign policy establishment was less arrogant, more Canadians might buy into their B.S.

This is not to say that I don't favor military spending in a number of areas, whether dealing with disasters, NORAD or protecting trade but this is the sort of nonsense I hear from them:

1.Russia has invaded Ukraine so Canada needs to increase its military spending.
2.Russia has invaded Ukraine and is losing, so Canada needs to increase its military spending.  ?

I think even the press that repeats everything the foreign policy establishment says (including the CBC) couldn't explain that. So...

3.Russia has invaded Ukraine and is losing, so Putin will be like a wounded bear, so Canada needs to increase its military spending.

4.Russia has invaded Ukraine and its uncertain what's going to happen, so in a more uncertain world Canada needs to increase its military spending.

Anytime the mainstream media reports on foreign affairs from a Canadian perspective, no matter what's going on, you can be sure Canadians will be told that Canada needs to increase its military spending.

There's a very large difference between "we're increasing military spending to the moon" and "our military is in such a financial and personnel depression that we have cut back ceremonial events drastically".

I'm just looking at the next 10 years, I'm pretty pessimistic on the world and where it's going and I think we're all going to be doing a lot more fighting. Real fighting, not us staying at home and sending the Ukrainians a tank, and not necessarily vs. Russia. The glass got broke and now all this change that got bottled up post-end of Cold War you can see it getting released. Ukraine (which dates back to 2014, not 2022), Israel and the Palestinians are back at it, Gaza will likely get decreased in size by fact as the Israels create a buffer (kind of a Russian viewpoint actually), Azerbaijan/Armenia got "resolved" in the Azeris' favor and no one from the First World much cared, the Serbian portion of Kosovo are openly considering joining Serbia which will drive some reaction, a lot of coups occurred in West Africa after a decently-long lull, China's been saber-rattling forever and while it probably won't be Taiwan, I can see some naval-only skirmish occurring to set a negotiating benchmark, Turkey I think are an interesting actor to watch, they currently control some Syrian territory...and they are a NATO member. Meanwhile other states not openly looking for a fight are very obviously making maneuvers trying to solidify who their friends are (not all toward the West either). This is natural if you look at history. States rise and fall very very gradually over time. But this does not get reflected until a spark occurs. To quote Lenin "there are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen".  Russia-Ukraine put Europe in the middle of a hot war unexpectedly and the military apparatuses of these countries and their procurement (replacement) programs were completely unprepared for it. This has been admitted by top military brass and it's still not resolved yet. If another hot war occurred in Europe (another Russian front or Kosovo again), military equipment procurement is not really there outside the U.S., although even our military procurement has had severe flaws exposed. http://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-america-is-out-of-ammunition

You can see the U.S. reaction to Canada's place pre Russia-Ukraine War when they were not considered for the AUKUS alliance early in Biden's presidency. So while you guys are always going to be our friend barring something unforeseen, it's clear we weigh our friendship with Australia right now more than you guys. And this does matter in real stuff. Trudeau's administration had to spend months trying to make sure Biden's electric vehicles subsidies did not negatively impact Ontario-based union auto jobs. If you guys were more AUKUS-level friend maybe the argument over what qualified and did not qualify under the USMCA would've been taken care of ahead of time, never becoming something that required heavy hitters from both administrations you've never heard of to negotiate to not threaten a good-sized segment of the Ontario economy.

So what's the Canadian plan, especially since whether the Liberals win or lose the next election Trudeau is probably not Prime Minister much longer. With changes in power on the horizon it's time to discuss these things.

Firstly, USMCA and EV subsidies have nothing to with defence spending, but are related to trade. Regardless of defence spending, Canada is the USA's closest trading partner and does more trade with the USA than Australia does.

Second of all, the main reason Canada was excluded from AUKUS isn't because of a lack of defence spending, but because Canada is insufficiently active in the Indo-Pacific region (which, sadly, has historically been the case) and does not really have a consistent Indo-Pacific foreign policy strategy. Canada has historically been more active in the Euro-Atlantic region and NATO. As we can see with the Ukraine situation, Canada is one of Ukraine's top funders/suppliers. Canada's contribution to the American alliance has historically mainly been in Europe.

The number that a country spends as a percentage of GDP or in terms of absolute dollar value is less important than the country's contributions to the alliance, and the main issue is that Canada doesn't really sufficiently contribute to American geopolitical objectives in the Indo-Pacific. Similarly, Australia does contribute to American geopolitical objectives in the Indo-Pacific, but not really in Europe, so that's why Australia is included in most Indo-Pacific alliances (AUKUS, QUAD).

However, you do bring up an important point - Trudeau has failed us on Indo-Pacific fp and we need to improve our record on that soon to continue to be taken as a serious US ally, so that's an important fp conversation to have.

[Upper Canada Tory]

On another note, the Liberals' partial reversal (really, hiatus) of the carbon tax has been quite something to watch.

Some context for non-Canadians: They recently announced that the carbon tax will be temporarily removed on home heating oil. This is a pretty uncommon form of home heating in Canada, mostly used in rural Atlantic Canada, which happens to elect a good number of Liberals. Voting intentions have sharply shifted out east, with Conservatives now consistently polling ahead of the Liberals. This is in a part of the world that gave Trudeau a clean sweep in 2015, and has generally been the most Liberal-friendly region of Canada for the best part of forty years. The announcement on the carbon tax comes with the backdrop of falling poll numbers, and the literal backdrop of the Liberal Atlantic caucus standing behind Trudeau as he announced the reversal. They're not being coy about the electoral calculus here, it's pretty obvious, and it makes sense considering how strategically important the four eastern provinces are to the Liberals.

The carbon tax has been sold as a tax-and-rebate package. Curiously, despite reversing the tax, they're not reversing the corresponding rebates - actually, they're increasing it for rural residents. The purpose of the rebate is to offset the tax. Cutting the tax while increasing the rebate basically amounts to a handout. Then consider the fact that this sweet deal expires in 2026, after the next scheduled election. Could it be justified as a way to help Atlantic Canadians prepare for the hike by investing in cleaner heating sources? Sure, but why implement that hiatus only for one region of the country, and not the others? The timing is also curious, because leaving the hike until after the next election is a pretty transparent move. It's also a hard thing to campaign on. They're basically telling voters "you don't like the carbon tax, I don't want to lose. I'll cut the tax, you vote for me, I get re-elected, and re-implement the same exact tax". Bold.

It's a sign of a government in "save the furniture" mode, because I really don't think they thought this through. The idea was always that even though the carbon tax necessarily raise the cost of fuel, the rebates offset those costs. Conservatives have been arguing that the carbon tax is worsening Canada's affordability crisis, and the Liberals have, until last week, rejected that argument. But the very premise of cutting the carbon tax on home heating is affordability. And here I thought the carbon tax didn't make life more unaffordable? If the carbon tax isn't excessively unaffordable, then it doesn't make sense to cut it to help with affordability. And if cutting the carbon tax does help with affordability, then the tax actually WAS unaffordable. You can't simultaneously argue that the carbon tax isn't unaffordable, and also cut it to help with affordability. That just doesn't track. If this is an admission that the carbon tax was indeed making home heating excessively costly for Atlantic Canadians, well, you're basically making the Conservative argument. Poilievre's argument is "carbon tax is too expensive, we'll cut it." Trudeau's argument now is "carbon tax isn't too expensive and is good for the environment, but we'll cut it anyway". One argument is much stronger than the other.

It gets weirder. Gudie Hutchings, a Liberal MP from Newfoundland and the Minister responsible for Atlantic Canadian economic development, had this to say.

Yep, when pressed on why her government was only selectively cutting the carbon tax, she basically said "because the Atlantic provinces voted for us". Or more accurately, "maybe we'd listen to westerners if they voted for us". Of course, all parties play to their base at the expense of their opponents, but that's the quiet part, you're not supposed to say it out loud. It's also a really bizarre electoral argument. If westerners want to see a cut in the carbon tax, they should vote for the party that campaigns on raising it, so that party can then go ahead and do the opposite of what they promised? Um, Miss Hutchings, why wouldn't they then just vote for the party that campaigns against the carbon tax in the first place? This applies to Atlantic Canadians too, just differently. I'm sure many out east who use oil for home heating appreciate this move. But come 2025, they'll have two options - a party that promises to eliminate the tax, versus a party that promised to raise it, went back on it, and promises to raise it again once they're re-elected. Again, that's a really odd position to put yourself in.

I guess this part is just an admission from the Liberals that they're trying to avoid losing Liberal voters in the Atlantic provinces. I guess it also doesn't help that MP Ken McDonald broke ranks with the Liberals on this issue and some Atlantic Premiers are expressing their frustration with Ottawa over carbon pricing.

I think the Liberals realize it has an impact on affordability, regardless of the rebates - they just hoped people wouldn't notice, but with the inflation levels in the last two and a half years plus the absurdly high cost of living in general, it's become too difficult to ignore it.

Also, this statement comes off as very condescending, in typical Liberal fashion. They essentially just admitted they don't listen to constituencies in Canada that don't vote for them. That's one heck of a thing to admit.