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Canadian politics- "to work! We have a government to defeat!"


maarsen

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On ‎7‎/‎7‎/‎2017 at 3:31 PM, Sullen said:

It's pretty baffling when you consider that pretty much every other party agreed proportional, or at least, having a referendum on proportional, would be the way to go.

Extremely dirty and disingenuous of Trudeau, and honestly, the good PR he has here and abroad is infuriating. 

No one switches from First Past the Post, when they benefit from it.

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  • 2 months later...

Time to bring this thread back from purgatory. Politics in Ontario has gotten really wild in the last few weeks The leader of the Conservative Party resigned abruptly after it came out that he had a habit of getting underage girls into bars, getting them drunk and then try to have his way with them. This is about 5 months before an election that he was expected to win. Then the party president resigns also because he has a sexual assault allegation hanging over his head. I have never seen such a case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The leading candidate for the now vacant leadership is crackhead Rob Ford's brother Doug Ford. Doug has issues in his past also as he was well known as an alleged pot dealer in Toronto during the 80's.

And people thought Ontario was a dull place.

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So does anyone know just what exactly is happening in this vet vs Trudeau thing? I mean there could be something to it, but there's been to much whining about the Omar Khadr settlement and American-style bullshit "support the troops" rhetoric from scumbag conservative types for me to look at this as anything other that horseshit.

(and god do I fucking despise this "support that troops they fight for our freedoms" horseshit. Not only does no government actually do that, with Ironically Trudeau coming the closest to actually doing so, but in the history of Canada there are exactly 2 incidents where our soldiers can be claimed to have fought for our freedom, and that was over 200 years ago, and the soldier involved were mostly British)

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1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

So does anyone know just what exactly is happening in this vet vs Trudeau thing? I mean there could be something to it, but there's been to much whining about the Omar Khadr settlement and American-style bullshit "support the troops" rhetoric from scumbag conservative types for me to look at this as anything other that horseshit.

(and god do I fucking despise this "support that troops they fight for our freedoms" horseshit. Not only does no government actually do that, with Ironically Trudeau coming the closest to actually doing so, but in the history of Canada there are exactly 2 incidents where our soldiers can be claimed to have fought for our freedom, and that was over 200 years ago, and the soldier involved were mostly British)

The thing is, the Harper government's agenda was a Republican-Libertarian agenda where services to the people would be cut back and cut back until government became much smaller, and The People would be rewarded with that holy grail, lower taxes. We will skip over the fact that their government grew at the fastest pace in years, since Conservative supporters had to be rewarded with jobs and firing civil servants is hard.

The cuts they made followed their ideological bent. So you had cuts to anything that dealt with women, equality, foreign aid and services for people. They shut down all the help windows at tax offices across the country! I laughed out loud for real when I read that the federal government suffered a sharp and unexpected drop in taxes collected right after they did that. Small businesses and self-employed individuals across the country who paid taxes on the last day available were shocked to find out the payment windows were gone and the help desks were gone, and they were pointed to a telephone instead. They closed a huge number of the Vet's offices (200 or so?) and put up a telephone number. They announced home delivery of the mail was going to be eliminated. Walk, you bastards! Walk for lower taxes!

All the while they gave endless tax credits targeted at their base. I just got more and more pissed off with every fucking new tax credit. As someone who had a long stretch of being very well paid and paying huge taxes, they really made me angry. Just fucking lower taxes instead of rewarding comfortable middle class families who could afford kids in hockey. Now, though, the new child support payments, in contrast, don't even bat an eyelid with me. So many kids being lifted out of poverty by an extra $300, $400, $500 or however much, a month. Better lives, better people! Kids fed and clothed. I don't give a damn the money's not taxed, people are being lifted up.

That brings us to the veterans. The Cons always told you straight to your face that whatever they were doing was good for you, God, and country, all the while it was to fulfill their plan of less government. (Don't kid yourself, raising the TFSA contribution amount to $10,000, in the long term, was going to suck money out of the tax base, tying the hands of future governments, and forcing, in their calculations, smaller governments in the future).

Ten years ago the Cons replaced lifetime disability benefits with lump sum payments for injured soldiers. The maximum benefit was $360,000. Just imagine, you are a critically injured vet with immediate, expensive needs, like equipment. Do you spend the capital? Do you try to live off interest? At historic lows? Do you try to guess you'll live for another 40 years and divide the sum accordingly? Buy an annuity (at historic low interest rates)? Decisions that had to be made by people with no financial expertise, more than likely?

BUT, and that's a big but, the average payment to disabled vets was actually, wait for it, $43,000.

What the Liberals have announced is that veterans will now have a choice between a lump sum payment or a disability pension, both tax free. They have also streamlined the disability payment programs, combining 6 into one program. They have added a 2nd stream of payments, taxable income assistance for veterans having difficulty transitioning to private life. Both benefits have a maximum payment of $1,500 a month.

From past experience with Veterans Affairs, though, vets have a low expectation of the sums of money they will receive, that everyone will get some measly offer that doesn't come close to meeting their needs.

The biggest problem, in my view, is the fact that the support systems put into place for veterans after WW 2 and the Korean war have largely been dismantled. We once had a huge military, with Veteran's hospitals in every province. Now the government expects the provincial systems to meet those needs.

The huge question, as you suggest, is what do we owe to veterans? I think veterans feel cheated because they see other kinds of public servants, the police, firefighters, paper pushers in Ottawa, receiving more

ETA Story that gave facts http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-pension-disability-1.4457755

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  • 3 weeks later...

Did he lead chants of 'lock her up' about a political rival?

Did he announce he wanted to stop allowing Indian immigrants in Canada from sponsoring family members? And impose new visa requirements for visitors and workers?

Did he....say...move the Canadian embassy to Jerusalem after the country followed a decades-old policy of presenting a united front with the rest of the world with regard to embassies? And spread anger throughout the Middle East?

Has he proposed building a wall on the US Canada border to keep out people fleeing the US?

Has he talked about how unfair the US is to Canada on matters of trade? 300% tariffs on Bombardier to support Boeing?

Does it sound like the writer has a political agenda? Does it sound like she doesn't like Sikhs, maybe?

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12 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Does it sound like the writer has a political agenda? Does it sound like she doesn't like Sikhs, maybe?

Um, I'm not going to speak for Barkha Dutt, but literally all four of the other top news links you get when googling "Trudeau India" mention his political missteps, let alone the choice of dress.  If anyone is demonstrating a political agenda here, it's your post.

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11 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Um, I'm not going to speak for Barkha Dutt, but literally all four of the other top news links you get when googling "Trudeau India" mention his political missteps, let alone the choice of dress.  If anyone is demonstrating a political agenda here, it's your post.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

You post about horrible political blunders, and said what would people say if Trump did this. The consulate invited someone they shouldn't have.  He wore ethnic clothing. Hey, look up Trudeau dancing with an Indian group in Canada, politicians of every stripe in this country do that! 

And I listed a mere couple of the blunders of Trump. My God, what secret political agenda could I have comparing the two!

And do you know anything about the hatred between ethnic groups in India? We certainly have had a lot of lessons on that topic here in Canada.

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4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

You post about horrible political blunders, and said what would people say if Trump did this. The consulate invited someone they shouldn't have.  He wore ethnic clothing. Hey, look up Trudeau dancing with an Indian group in Canada, politicians of every stripe in this country do that! 

Agreed, your response is richly, and hilariously, verifying as a researcher in depicting the RAS model.  Instead of acknowledging the decidedly objective point of the post that Trudeau's garb could be offensive to Indians, you first reject that premise and focus on attacking the other, then attack the source's motives as "not liking" Sikhs to boot.  This is precisely the type of reaction from a partisan Trump supporter - well done!

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2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

You post about horrible political blunders, and said what would people say if Trump did this. The consulate invited someone they shouldn't have.  He wore ethnic clothing. Hey, look up Trudeau dancing with an Indian group in Canada, politicians of every stripe in this country do that! 

Actually one of Trudeau's MPs invited someone who was previously convicted of the attempted murder of an Indian cabinet minister (on Vancouver Island) and was tried but acquitted in a vicious assault on Ujjal Dosanjh, former BC premier and federal Liberal cabinet minister. It's unconscionable. 

Otherwise I think it's a bit much to accuse that WaPo opinion writer of essentially "racism" against Sikhs. There was a fair amount of snark in that article, but I think the point about Trudeau's apparent preoccupation with projecting image and staged selfies seems increasingly hollow and vapid. 

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3 hours ago, Aemon Stark said:

Actually one of Trudeau's MPs invited someone who was previously convicted of the attempted murder of an Indian cabinet minister (on Vancouver Island) and was tried but acquitted in a vicious assault on Ujjal Dosanjh, former BC premier and federal Liberal cabinet minister. It's unconscionable. 

Otherwise I think it's a bit much to accuse that WaPo opinion writer of essentially "racism" against Sikhs. There was a fair amount of snark in that article, but I think the point about Trudeau's apparent preoccupation with projecting image and staged selfies seems increasingly hollow and vapid. 

Did that article not say the consulate invited him?

And whether or not you think Trudeau is hollow and vapid (and this has always been your opinion, to be honest, hasn’t it Aemon?) comparing the ‘blunders’ on this trip with what the reaction would be to Trump doing stuff is just hilarious. Trudeau dances wearing orange clothes, Trump in his orange hair threatens nuclear war. Which kind of blunder would you like your nation’s leader to make?

And yes, having worked for many years with a Sikh person, I got sensitive to Sikh issues. There’s not a helluva a lot of friendliness towards Sikhs in that article.

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27 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

And whether or not you think Trudeau is hollow and vapid (and this has always been your opinion, to be honest, hasn’t it Aemon?) comparing the ‘blunders’ on this trip with what the reaction would be to Trump doing stuff is just hilarious. Trudeau dances wearing orange clothes, Trump in his orange hair threatens nuclear war. Which kind of blunder would you like your nation’s leader to make?

Preoccupation with Trump - check

29 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

And yes, having worked for many years with a Sikh person, I got sensitive to Sikh issues. There’s not a helluva a lot of friendliness towards Sikhs in that article.

Sikh justification - check

Alls I need is control group..

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Alright, this is like playing with a smart dog.  Stop comparing Trudeau to Trump.  You know who is comparing the two?  Only you.  Is it stupid?  Yep.  Was it easy to prime?  Also, yep, that's why I did it.  But no one here thinks they're comparable; or if they do, they have yet to make themselves known.  So, just stop.  Yes, Trudeau kicks Trump's ass.  Is that what you needed to hear?  Because it's kinda sad if you did.

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Canada should keep our soldiers out of pointless expansionist/war profiteering conflicts in the first place, and then we won't have future problems taking care of wounded vets.  That said having spent several years in mid east countries and conflict zones with many fellow Canadians, I don't blame them for feeling abandoned.  And angry. 

IMO we should forget about buying replacement fighters for the CF18s and just fly them until they time out - in 10 to 15 years unmanned combat air vehicles will largely replace fighters anyway IMO - so why waste that $ - put it straight into health and vets affairs and take care of our guys who were blown apart and now face a life of pain, misery, and hopelessness.  Do that or they may take matters into their own hands, and that's something Trudeau won't have a clue how to deal with.

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10 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

Canada should keep our soldiers out of pointless expansionist/war profiteering conflicts in the first place, and then we won't have future problems taking care of wounded vets.  That said having spent several years in mid east countries and conflict zones with many fellow Canadians, I don't blame them for feeling abandoned.  And angry. 

IMO we should forget about buying replacement fighters for the CF18s and just fly them until they time out - in 10 to 15 years unmanned combat air vehicles will largely replace fighters anyway IMO - so why waste that $ - put it straight into health and vets affairs and take care of our guys who were blown apart and now face a life of pain, misery, and hopelessness.  Do that or they may take matters into their own hands, and that's something Trudeau won't have a clue how to deal with.

:lol:

Yeah, sure they will.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ugh:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/doug-ford-leader-ontario-canada-1.4571558

'Disruption, distraction and dysfunction': What Doug Ford's Ontario PC leadership could mean for Canada

Saturday's Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership convention was supposed to close a chaotic six-week chapter in the party's history, providing a smooth transition into the campaign leading into the June election.

But the process was disorganized, the vote hours late and then briefly contested by Christine Elliott, the candidate who finished second.

Though it was a result for one party in one province, Doug Ford's leadership could produce ripples that will be felt across the country. 

If Ford is elected the next premier of Ontario, he could cause headaches for the federal government given his opposition to a carbon tax, his unpredictability and his capacity to potentially influence Toronto ridings in next year's federal election, experts say.  

Ford's populist message of taking down the "elites," cutting taxes and standing up to the federal government on things like a carbon tax resonated with many Ontarians.

The Liberals, currently led by Kathleen Wynne, have been in power in Ontario for nearly 15 years. Wynne's approval ratings sit at around 18 per cent, and most polls favour the Conservatives to win the provincial election.

His timing could be perfect.

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Doug Ford. I really think that the PCs have  moved up from shooting themselves in the foot to shooting themselves in the head. First the election process managed to select a leader who both lost the popular vote and lost in more ridings. Then he has the baggage of being an apologist and enabler of his brother, Rob Ford. Then there is his history of being a drug dealer during the 80s, as exposed by the Globe and Mail. 

He also has no real experience in  politics, apart from a short stint as a city councillor, where he had no real power or any new ideas. 

I have heard  of NDP supprters signing up to vote in the contest so that they could vote in Ford, and thus driving centrists over to the NDP as an alternative to the Liberals. 

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