Canada General Discussion (2019-)

[TechbroMBA]

As a former Canadian, this seems like a bizzaro UK situation where a zombie incumbent government is basically pleading for death. PP’s weird anti-porn measures show the Cons always have a chance to screw things up, but the polling and vibes are so bad I can’t see the Liberals recovering.

Their best chance to save seats is probably setting the election for October and running against Trump. I know my Dad (and a not insignificant share of the CPC base) will probably lose enthusiasm if PP doesn’t defend Trump enough, but that’s radioactive for most of the electorate.

[Flyersfan232]

With Liberals trying to compare Poilievre to Trump, one poll by Abacus showed approximately 1 in 6 Liberal and 1 in 7 NDP voters would vote for Trump if in US.  Who the heck would these be?  I can see why maybe some who voted for two parties in past would support Trump, but cannot understand why anyone who still votes for them would prefer Trump over Biden.  I mean a Conservative voter wanting Biden to win that I can see.  Heck even a PPC voter favouring Biden seems more plausible (albeit unlikely) than a Liberal or NDP who favours Trump.

https://x.com/thejagmeetsingh/status/1761791194680709284?s=46&t=8G_VWbBrVGy-C9PtXUjfGA I am sure it a a great idea to run against a government that u have a offical agreement with!

[Upper Canada Tory]

The pharmacare plan that has been introduced in Parliament is likely going offload costs to the provinces that they cannot currently afford because they spent the last few years spending money on mitigating COVID. Not to mention that our population growth levels are currently unsustainable, so it will be difficult to measure how much money will be needed to cover everyone. I oppose any new social programs until we get back to reasonable immigration levels and we can be fiscally responsible about it.

[Hatman 🍁]

The pharmacare plan that has been introduced in Parliament is likely going offload costs to the provinces that they cannot currently afford because they spent the last few years spending money on mitigating COVID. Not to mention that our population growth levels are currently unsustainable, so it will be difficult to measure how much money will be needed to cover everyone. I oppose any new social programs until we get back to reasonable immigration levels and we can be fiscally responsible about it.

Pharmacare coverage may reduce health-care costs: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/free-prescription-drugs-could-reduce-overall-health-care-costs-in-canada-study-1.6418350

But regardless, it should be covered because it's the right thing to do. If my insulin wasn't covered by my employer, this would be a Godsend. I shouldn't be punished because I got the short end of the stick in the genetic lottery.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

1 in 7 NDP voters would vote for Trump if in US.  

Who are these people? I know one, personally - my step grandmother in law. She's a Serbian immigrant. Thinks the NDP are the party of the working people, but likes Trumps anti-war stance. I get the impression this is not an uncommon view among Eastern Europeans.

I also think it's completely understated to not stated at all in modern political analysis that Trump is not really a conservative as a conservative was defined 20 to 30 years ago. I personally don't consider the Republican Party a conservative organization any longer even though it definitely has conservative elements inside it (no different than the Democratic Party until the 1980s).

It's not surprising to me that in a country whose political setup is not overwhelmingly binary you see seemingly strange coalitions being made of who supports who in a binary one, and it should give pause to people that think if the Liberals and NDP merge they would automatically win every election going forward.

I don't like to refer to Trump or the Republican Party as conservative either as opposed to either populist right wing or incoherent right wing because as much as I don't necessarily agree with traditional conservative ideology it has a respectable history and is more or less ideologically consistent (as consistent as any other ideology.)

[Upper Canada Tory]

The pharmacare plan that has been introduced in Parliament is likely going offload costs to the provinces that they cannot currently afford because they spent the last few years spending money on mitigating COVID. Not to mention that our population growth levels are currently unsustainable, so it will be difficult to measure how much money will be needed to cover everyone. I oppose any new social programs until we get back to reasonable immigration levels and we can be fiscally responsible about it.

Pharmacare coverage may reduce health-care costs: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/free-prescription-drugs-could-reduce-overall-health-care-costs-in-canada-study-1.6418350

But regardless, it should be covered because it's the right thing to do. If my insulin wasn't covered by my employer, this would be a Godsend. I shouldn't be punished because I got the short end of the stick in the genetic lottery.

Typically, what most research says about pharmacare and what our Parliamentary Budget Officer has concluded is that overall, pharmacare would save money for the economy because there would be less private spending - however, the cost for the government would increase, since the government would be covering prescription drugs. Also, the PBO assumes there would be co-pays in a pharmacare program to raise revenue - I don't think the Liberals and NDP have discussed co-pays as of yet in the current pharmacare legislation (correct me if I'm wrong)?

Anyway, universal pharmacare is fine, I'm not opposed to government health insurance covering prescription drugs - but it's going to be very hard to accurately estimate the costs for this program with nearly 3% population growth annually and with cash-strapped provinces after the COVID-19 crisis. A lot of provinces seem sceptical of the plan for now, mainly because they seem anxious about whether or not they will be able to properly fund it. Health Minister Mark Holland has even said;

'the cost is likely to be in the realm of $1.5 billion, but he said that estimate is very likely to change over the course of his talks with provinces'.

So it seems like it will be $1.5 billion, but we don't know how much the provinces will cover and how much the feds will. This is only the first phase of implementing pharmacare - the PBO's estimates for how much a pharmacare program that covers all drugs are much higher, especially in the long term.

It looks like if this is implemented now, it is undoubtedly going to cause some issues with the implementation. It is similar to how the population growth, the doctor shortages (which are a result of provinces limiting medical school graduates), and the cash-strappedness of the provinces are making wait times in our healthcare system worse. Provinces like Ontario are even allowing pharmacists to provide prescriptions for some medications because of the doctor shortage - will people be able to see a doctor (without having to wait a ridiculous wait time) before getting a prescription covered by the pharmacare program?

If the government wants to expand the welfare state now, then it should also fix other underlying issues like doctor shortages, the fiscal situation in the country, the high levels of immigration etc. I'll also be fair and say these issues aren't all the federal government's fault - some of these issues like the lack of doctors is something that would, in part, require policy change at the provincial level. But the policy change still has to take place first.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I used to be skeptical of replacing Trudeau as some kind of Liberal panacea, but now I'm starting to think it's the only choice they have. Governments rarely come back from this depth of unpopularity, but when they do, they do it with a new leader. There's maybe the argument of letting Trudeau be his own sacrificial lamb (in the same way Wynne was in 2018), but I remember how pessimistic Liberals were in Wynne's final term, and they haven't reached that level of hopelessness yet. So it might be worth it to throw something at the wall and hope it sticks.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I used to be skeptical of replacing Trudeau as some kind of Liberal panacea, but now I'm starting to think it's the only choice they have. Governments rarely come back from this depth of unpopularity, but when they do, they do it with a new leader. There's maybe the argument of letting Trudeau be his own sacrificial lamb (in the same way Wynne was in 2018), but I remember how pessimistic Liberals were in Wynne's final term, and they haven't reached that level of hopelessness yet. So it might be worth it to throw something at the wall and hope it sticks.

IMO, Trudeau/whoever is the next Liberal leader (if they pick a new one) will have to address the elephant in the room - which is his immigration policy. This is the main reason he is unpopular now, but this is heavily downplayed in nearly all levels of political discourse in Canada.

One can argue that it's not solely the immigration policy itself but many of the effects of the policy (eg. the rise in the cost of living, particularly housing prices) but all of this goes together because the primary detrimental effects of his immigration policy on the Canadian public have been macroeconomic, up until now.

Trudeau took an immigration system that was previously orderly, widely recognized as successful, based on taking in high-skilled workers via the points system, was historically broadly popular with Canadians and turned it into a scammy, messy, unethical scheme of exploiting cheap labour and reducing our living standards. Of course he would be unpopular because of that, and the fact that he has done nothing to alleviate the cost of living/housing crisis makes it ten times worse. Not to mention, he also basically told everyone that you're not allowed to question his wisdom at all while he was making these severely detrimental changes. It feels almost like he destroyed our previous immigration system for progressive virtue-signalling political points and to move the overton window.

Going forward the Liberals will have to address what they will do to fix this or they have zero chance of getting re-elected in 2025 (and maybe even in the elections afterwards), even if they pick a new leader and somehow manage to rebrand themselves. I think even if they make any meaningful proposals to fix this, they might not recover their previous support, so maybe they might feel that it's better for them politically to keep the current failed policy to 'move the overton window' on immigration and then make the next government have to fix the current mess.

[Hatman 🍁]

Again, who are the Liberals going to turn to? No one who could actually reverse the course for them is going to want to captain the sinking ship.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I used to be skeptical of replacing Trudeau as some kind of Liberal panacea, but now I'm starting to think it's the only choice they have. Governments rarely come back from this depth of unpopularity, but when they do, they do it with a new leader. There's maybe the argument of letting Trudeau be his own sacrificial lamb (in the same way Wynne was in 2018), but I remember how pessimistic Liberals were in Wynne's final term, and they haven't reached that level of hopelessness yet. So it might be worth it to throw something at the wall and hope it sticks.

IMO, Trudeau/whoever is the next Liberal leader (if they pick a new one) will have to address the elephant in the room - which is his immigration policy. This is the main reason he is unpopular now, but this is heavily downplayed in nearly all levels of political discourse in Canada.

One can argue that it's not solely the immigration policy itself but many of the effects of the policy (eg. the rise in the cost of living, particularly housing prices) but all of this goes together because the primary detrimental effects of his immigration policy on the Canadian public have been macroeconomic, up until now.

Trudeau took an immigration system that was previously orderly, widely recognized as successful, based on taking in high-skilled workers via the points system, was historically broadly popular with Canadians and turned it into a scammy, messy, unethical scheme of exploiting cheap labour and reducing our living standards. Of course he would be unpopular because of that, and the fact that he has done nothing to alleviate the cost of living/housing crisis makes it ten times worse. Not to mention, he also basically told everyone that you're not allowed to question his wisdom at all while he was making these severely detrimental changes. It feels almost like he destroyed our previous immigration system for progressive virtue-signalling political points and to move the overton window.

Going forward the Liberals will have to address what they will do to fix this or they have zero chance of getting re-elected in 2025 (and maybe even in the elections afterwards), even if they pick a new leader and somehow manage to rebrand themselves. I think even if they make any meaningful proposals to fix this, they might not recover their previous support, so maybe they might feel that it's better for them politically to keep the current failed policy to 'move the overton window' on immigration and then make the next government have to fix the current mess.

I could go on and on about how poorly immigration has been handled by this government, but I'll try not to, in part because I'd be repeating a lot of what you said. I will say though that Canadian public opinion on immigration hasn't shifted as dramatically as people think. Polling basically always finds that public opinion is generally for maintaining current levels or reducing, but very few support increasing, and this is going back many years. Why this didn't manifest in Canadians' electoral preferences is hard to say, but my general sense is that even Canadians who want less immigration, for the most part, aren't anti-immigrant. "Maybe we should reduce our immigration levels" is not the same as "immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country", even though both takes are technically "anti-immigration".

But yeah I agree with the rest of what you've said, and I think trust in the Canadian immigration system has fallen off a cliff. Our immigration system used to work. When every European country was electing hard-right ethnonationalists and the states was electing Trump, Canada voted for probably the most pro-immigration government of any country in the free world. Because while their immigration system was overwhelmed, ours was working, it was accepting 250k immigrants a year, and we basically had zero integration issues compared to anywhere in Europe or the states. It was working. It was completely unnecessary to blow up the system into basically a giant racket. Trying to decouple the housing crisis and high immigration is an absolute load of crap. We have every bit of evidence that shows that demand is outpacing supply. Oh great, we got the housing accelerator fund. Accelerate it all you want bud, but you'll have to do a lot of accelerating to keep up with the 500,000 people you're adding to the nation. And have fun finding money to pay for all this while Canada's GDP per capita is falling. It is just not working anymore. I said I'd try not to rant, but this whole thing is just so stupid.

I don't think it's immigration alone though. People are just across the board unhappy with this government. Affordability is the big issue right now, and while immigration contributes to it, it's much bigger than that. But it's so many things, if you ask two different people you'll get two different answers. It feels a bit like Harper's final term, when he had pissed off enough people over a sustained period of time, and for different reasons, until the Canadian public basically decided their time was up.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Again, who are the Liberals going to turn to? No one who could actually reverse the course for them is going to want to captain the sinking ship.

Oh yeah, it would be a total Hail Mary. Carney just took a job as an economic advisor for Starmer (not that I think Carney would be a good leader anyway). Freeland feels like a disaster in the making, she is an AWFUL communicator on the hustings. And there go the two touted successors.

Honestly? Sean Fraser. Why not. Good communicator, pretty good looking guy, awful record as immigration minister but has made some announcements as housing minister that he could actually campaign on. I could think of worse.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I used to be skeptical of replacing Trudeau as some kind of Liberal panacea, but now I'm starting to think it's the only choice they have. Governments rarely come back from this depth of unpopularity, but when they do, they do it with a new leader. There's maybe the argument of letting Trudeau be his own sacrificial lamb (in the same way Wynne was in 2018), but I remember how pessimistic Liberals were in Wynne's final term, and they haven't reached that level of hopelessness yet. So it might be worth it to throw something at the wall and hope it sticks.

IMO, Trudeau/whoever is the next Liberal leader (if they pick a new one) will have to address the elephant in the room - which is his immigration policy. This is the main reason he is unpopular now, but this is heavily downplayed in nearly all levels of political discourse in Canada.

One can argue that it's not solely the immigration policy itself but many of the effects of the policy (eg. the rise in the cost of living, particularly housing prices) but all of this goes together because the primary detrimental effects of his immigration policy on the Canadian public have been macroeconomic, up until now.

Trudeau took an immigration system that was previously orderly, widely recognized as successful, based on taking in high-skilled workers via the points system, was historically broadly popular with Canadians and turned it into a scammy, messy, unethical scheme of exploiting cheap labour and reducing our living standards. Of course he would be unpopular because of that, and the fact that he has done nothing to alleviate the cost of living/housing crisis makes it ten times worse. Not to mention, he also basically told everyone that you're not allowed to question his wisdom at all while he was making these severely detrimental changes. It feels almost like he destroyed our previous immigration system for progressive virtue-signalling political points and to move the overton window.

Going forward the Liberals will have to address what they will do to fix this or they have zero chance of getting re-elected in 2025 (and maybe even in the elections afterwards), even if they pick a new leader and somehow manage to rebrand themselves. I think even if they make any meaningful proposals to fix this, they might not recover their previous support, so maybe they might feel that it's better for them politically to keep the current failed policy to 'move the overton window' on immigration and then make the next government have to fix the current mess.

I could go on and on about how poorly immigration has been handled by this government, but I'll try not to, in part because I'd be repeating a lot of what you said. I will say though that Canadian public opinion on immigration hasn't shifted as dramatically as people think. Polling basically always finds that public opinion is generally for maintaining current levels or reducing, but very few support increasing, and this is going back many years. Why this didn't manifest in Canadians' electoral preferences is hard to say, but my general sense is that even Canadians who want less immigration, for the most part, aren't anti-immigrant. "Maybe we should reduce our immigration levels" is not the same as "immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country", even though both takes are technically "anti-immigration".

But yeah I agree with the rest of what you've said, and I think trust in the Canadian immigration system has fallen off a cliff. Our immigration system used to work. When every European country was electing hard-right ethnonationalists and the states was electing Trump, Canada voted for probably the most pro-immigration government of any country in the free world. Because while their immigration system was overwhelmed, ours was working, it was accepting 250k immigrants a year, and we basically had zero integration issues compared to anywhere in Europe or the states. It was working. It was completely unnecessary to blow up the system into basically a giant racket. Trying to decouple the housing crisis and high immigration is an absolute load of crap. We have every bit of evidence that shows that demand is outpacing supply. Oh great, we got the housing accelerator fund. Accelerate it all you want bud, but you'll have to do a lot of accelerating to keep up with the 500,000 people you're adding to the nation. And have fun finding money to pay for all this while Canada's GDP per capita is falling. It is just not working anymore. I said I'd try not to rant, but this whole thing is just so stupid.

I don't think it's immigration alone though. People are just across the board unhappy with this government. Affordability is the big issue right now, and while immigration contributes to it, it's much bigger than that. But it's so many things, if you ask two different people you'll get two different answers. It feels a bit like Harper's final term, when he had pissed off enough people over a sustained period of time, and for different reasons, until the Canadian public basically decided their time was up.

Just to clarify - I don't think immigration is the only reason for Trudeau's unpopularity, but it is the main one.

Primarily because most other issues in the country like housing prices, the healthcare shortage, lack of productivity and investment in workers are things that are at least partly linked to the immigration policy. Not entirely linked to immigration policy, but just think about the fact that our housing crisis, healthcare wait times, falling living standards might be 50 percent less bad if the immigration numbers hadn't skyrocketed in the last few years.

[Hatman 🍁]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.   

 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Canadians are skilled at doublethink on issues such as this, so people will find ways of indicating that it is an issue they are very concerned about without seeming to be at surface level.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.
 

Oh yeah, I think walking the tightrope is the right call. Poilievre does drop hints every now and then, like lamenting the gap between population growth and housing starts. I think eventually he'll need to give tangible numbers on what kind of immigration numbers the CPC would target, but for now there's no reason to come down too strongly on this issue. There's a lot of frustration with the immigration system, but you don't want to come across as anti-immigrant more broadly. This is something the Conservatives particularly have to watch for.

[Upper Canada Tory]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.  

 

I don't think Poilievre or any Canadian politician should go hardline anti-immigration like Trump - but I think in a free society we should be able to discuss immigration openly.

I'm certain the Liberals and the NDP believe this as well, given Justin Trudeau wrote a column in 2014 blasting Harper for increasing (what then seemed like) the temporary foreign workers to relatively high numbers, and Trudeau promised to scale back the program once he's PM. The NDP expressed similar sentiments at the time as well. Their website even said the following;
'Just this month, McDonalds was accused of bringing in temporary foreign workers to replace Canadians at franchise outlets across the country.' Imagine what would happen if a conservative politician used this terminology today.

Funny how they can use immigration to admonish Harper using very harsh terminology, but as soon as the Liberals gain power (and NDP has a confidence and supply agreement with them) immigration is suddenly the third rail of Canadian politics and you can't oppose it without being seen as racist.

Anyway, at the same time, I agree with you that Poilievre (and all other politicians) should be responsible in terms of their immigration rhetoric, mainly because the current anger around immigration has caused a lot of exaggerations and misconceptions about Canada's Indian diaspora in particular.

The argument should simply be; we should go back to the old immigration policy where most immigrants were skilled workers taken via the points based system, and international students and TFWs are limited based on very specific needs. Housing should also be mentioned. This shouldn't be that difficult since Canada had an excellent points based immigration system for over 5 decades.

With that said, I do find it a prime example of gaslighting that Liberals and NDP got away with harshly criticizing the TFW program, then got elected and expanded it to its height.

[PSOL]

Alright, with everything that’s been happening I have to say it

Canada is a liberal hellscape

[Flyersfan232]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.   

 

the ppc are a fringe party

[Hatman 🍁]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.   

 

the ppc are a fringe party

They got 5% of the vote last time. Whether you consider that fringe or not is up to you, but it's significant enough for the Conservatives to worry about losing votes to them.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.   

 

the ppc are a fringe party

They got 5% of the vote last time. Whether you consider that fringe or not is up to you, but it's significant enough for the Conservatives to worry about losing votes to them.

The Tories nominated Erin O Toole last time though, not Pierre Polievre . Erin O Toole was not liked by many right wingers which is why the PPC was able to do that well

[Upper Canada Tory]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.   

 

the ppc are a fringe party

They got 5% of the vote last time. Whether you consider that fringe or not is up to you, but it's significant enough for the Conservatives to worry about losing votes to them.

The Tories nominated Erin O Toole last time though, not Pierre Polievre . Erin O Toole was not liked by many right wingers which is why the PPC was able to do that well

2021 was a specific case. That was the election where vaccine mandates/COVID restrictions were an issue, and since PPC were seen as the only party to seriously oppose them, they stole Tory votes based on that (and maybe to some extent from other parties as well). In 2019 PPC only got 2% of the vote - current polling suggests the PPC would get roughly the same percentage now.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

I feel like immigration is the third rail of Canadian politics. No one wants to be seen as 'racist' for opposing it, even if Canadians generally oppose it.

I do agree that it will be a big issue in the next election. Poilieve will have to address the issue very carefully. He can't be seen as being racist, but he does risk losing votes to the PPC. I assume Bernier is going to focus his campaign heavily on being anti-immigration and with the Tories assured victory, a lot of people on the far right may feel like voting PPC won't split the vote.

Anecdotally I'm seeing a lot of chatter on places like Reddit about the influx of student immigration from India, and how they're not integrating very well (to put it mildly) on campuses. It's certainly fuelling a lot of racism and xenophobia.   

 

the ppc are a fringe party

They got 5% of the vote last time. Whether you consider that fringe or not is up to you, but it's significant enough for the Conservatives to worry about losing votes to them.

The Tories nominated Erin O Toole last time though, not Pierre Polievre . Erin O Toole was not liked by many right wingers which is why the PPC was able to do that well

Also, a lot of it was just anti-vaccine stuff which just isn't going to be relevant in 2025.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Trudeau says he thinks about leaving 'crazy job'


That's a very frank thing to say. A stupid thing to say if he wants another term. But I think Trudeau's at least considering a walk in the snow.

But I have to say, he's been a bit more frank recently in general. His impassioned defence of the carbon tax, while probably bad politics given the mood of the nation, I think he comes off much better in those off the cuff moments compared to his standard focus-grouped word salad non-answers. I don't think he's winning back any LPC-CPC defectors with that, but I can definitely see how a stance like that would at least help unite progressive voters around the LPC. And aside from partisan/ideological stuff, he does come across as a more assertive and confident leader than he has for months if not years, and that's half the job of a Prime Minister. But it might also be that his frankness is him thinking more about his long-term legacy rather than the next election, and it sounds like he doesn't really want to contest it in the first place.

A bit eye-rolly how he keeps insisting on calling it a "price" though. It's a tax, I get the political calculation there but literally nobody calls it a "price on carbon" or thinks of it as a "price". You tried to brand it that way, it didn't work. It's just corny at this point.

[lfromnj]

Trudeau says he thinks about leaving 'crazy job'


That's a very frank thing to say. A stupid thing to say if he wants another term. But I think Trudeau's at least considering a walk in the snow.

But I have to say, he's been a bit more frank recently in general. His impassioned defence of the carbon tax, while probably bad politics given the mood of the nation, I think he comes off much better in those off the cuff moments compared to his standard focus-grouped word salad non-answers. I don't think he's winning back any LPC-CPC defectors with that, but I can definitely see how a stance like that would at least help unite progressive voters around the LPC. And aside from partisan/ideological stuff, he does come across as a more assertive and confident leader than he has for months if not years, and that's half the job of a Prime Minister. But it might also be that his frankness is him thinking more about his long-term legacy rather than the next election, and it sounds like he doesn't really want to contest it in the first place.

A bit eye-rolly how he keeps insisting on calling it a "price" though. It's a tax, I get the political calculation there but literally nobody calls it a "price on carbon" or thinks of it as a "price". You tried to brand it that way, it didn't work. It's just corny at this point.

I could atleast understand his defense of the carbon tax but the simple fact is he helped out some provinces(Atlantic) while the Western provinces remain screwed over.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Trudeau says he thinks about leaving 'crazy job'


That's a very frank thing to say. A stupid thing to say if he wants another term. But I think Trudeau's at least considering a walk in the snow.

But I have to say, he's been a bit more frank recently in general. His impassioned defence of the carbon tax, while probably bad politics given the mood of the nation, I think he comes off much better in those off the cuff moments compared to his standard focus-grouped word salad non-answers. I don't think he's winning back any LPC-CPC defectors with that, but I can definitely see how a stance like that would at least help unite progressive voters around the LPC. And aside from partisan/ideological stuff, he does come across as a more assertive and confident leader than he has for months if not years, and that's half the job of a Prime Minister. But it might also be that his frankness is him thinking more about his long-term legacy rather than the next election, and it sounds like he doesn't really want to contest it in the first place.

A bit eye-rolly how he keeps insisting on calling it a "price" though. It's a tax, I get the political calculation there but literally nobody calls it a "price on carbon" or thinks of it as a "price". You tried to brand it that way, it didn't work. It's just corny at this point.

I could atleast understand his defense of the carbon tax but the simple fact is he helped out some provinces(Atlantic) while the Western provinces remain screwed over.

Alberta and Saskatchewan aren't 'the west.'

Since 1984 with the ending of the National Energy Program, Alberta and (to a lesser degree) Saskatchewan have received enormous revenues from fossil fuels and insisted that the National Energy Program end because it was their resource to gain from.  That's fine, resources are provincial and the Federal government received taxes as well which the Federal government helped earn through the assistance the Pierre Trudeau government provided in developing the oil sands (completely and conveniently forgotten by pretty much everybody.)

However, now that we find out since then that fossil fuels are the main contributor to global warming (known theoretically since the 1950s anyway), since the resources are provincially owned, it's primarily up to Alberta and Saskatchewan to address the harms caused by their resource. 

Obviously the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan as well as the Federal Conservatives and their owners - the fossil fuel sector- want to privatize the gains and socialize the costs, but so far Canadians have resisted that.