Canadian Politics: The Surreality of Life under King Corona

[JGP]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Yup. They were told so, everywhere, but real estate - rentier profit trumps all.

Second wave looks really bad everywhere too, just as back in the 14th century.

~~~~~~~

Is this a Happy Thanksgiving?  We have made plans for US Thanksgiving, hoping we will have a Really Big Reason to be thankful, or else, as Our Host said, reason to be suicidal, which means we need to be together at least as much.  But we have no idea if we will be able to risk being together or not due to the spiking virus -- we might be back where we were this winter.  We'd even thought, to try to minimize risk, to observe the dinner either two days before or two days after the actual date.

But we don't know.

Well, I hope you have a good one, Z, 

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Well, I hope you have a good one, Z, 

Thank you!  I hope so!  I hope it is truly a celebration of the election, more than anything!

 

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

Thank you!  I hope so!  I hope it is truly a celebration of the election, more than anything!

 

I shall celebrate the election with great gusto, if....

[Zorral]

41 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I shall celebrate the election with great gusto, if....

As shall we all, if ....

 

[Fragile Bird]

Update

Oct.              7         8        9        10       11       12       13                        

BC            115      110      119      170     159     119     101         

AB            143     364     277     236     259     246     220

SK              10        18       22        34       24       48       34      

MB             32       66       84        97       54       77     124

ON           583     797     939      809     649     807     746

PQ            900   1078    1102    1097     942     843     815   

Atl-4           17         3        15         26       16         7         6

North                                                                                           

Total        1800   2436  2558   2469   2103   2147   2046

The most encouraging thing I can say is the numbers seems to be trending in the right direction. After 5 days of more than 1,000 new cases, Quebec has had 3 days with less than 1,000 cases. However, I heard on the radio that testing numbers have dropped, so it may be an illusion. Unfortunately, Manitoba is in rough shape. Ontario's numbers from the weekend include 61 cases from one darn fitness outfit, a spin club in Hamilton where 'case zero' was apparently asymptomatic. 

In other, nasty, news, Alberta has announced they are going to reduce the hospital workforce by 11,000 people to reduce spending by $500 M. It's the usual story of "no nurses or doctors will be laid off, it will be done by attrition, by looking for efficiencies, and by laying off 100 people in management positions". Good luck with that. Maybe they'll find jobs in the crews cleaning up orphan oil well sites.   

[Fragile Bird]

So far today, Ontario is down again, slightly, Quebec is up, slightly, NB keeps adding cases, and Manitoba set a new record.

Toronto reported 270 cases today, down from the recent 300s. Maybe we’ll be below 2000.

eta: the 7 day average in Toronto is 207, compared to 40 at the start of September.

[SerHaHa]

On 10/13/2020 at 9:51 PM, Fragile Bird said:

 

In other, nasty, news, Alberta has announced they are going to reduce the hospital workforce by 11,000 people to reduce spending by $500 M. It's the usual story of "no nurses or doctors will be laid off, it will be done by attrition, by looking for efficiencies, and by laying off 100 people in management positions". Good luck with that. Maybe they'll find jobs in the crews cleaning up orphan oil well sites.   

Ridiculous isn't it.  Our health care here in my experience, in 3 Western provinces (MN, SK, AB), is atrocious already - to remove eleven thousand health care professionals at any time, and especially now looking down the barrel of flu season + Covid....

There aren't enough synonyms for stupidity in existence at the moment.  

[JGP]

5 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

Ridiculous isn't it.  Our health care here in my experience, in 3 Western provinces (MN, SK, AB), is atrocious already - to remove eleven thousand health care professionals at any time, and especially now looking down the barrel of flu season + Covid....

There aren't enough synonyms for stupidity in existence at the moment.  

It's pathetic. AB needs a general strike.

---

This racist shit between Indigenous fishers and Nova Scotians is getting serious. I hate the jurisdictional bullshit that makes it difficult for the Feds to put their foot down. There's an Indigenous man with life threatening injuries due to the fire last night. :/

 

edit: was wrong about that last bit, apparently local RCMP has stated that the man hospitalized is a person of interest

 

 

[Fragile Bird]

Hole-lee shit, Alberta. Alberta had 898 new cases over the weekend, skyrocketing our Monday number to 3,289 if you don't break them out to Saturday and Sunday.

Update

Oct.            12       13       14      15      16       17      18      19                        

BC            119      101     158    142    155    172    153    174             

AB            246      220     243    244    332    311    231    356

SK              48        34       25      33      40      36      24      66      

MB             77      124     146    176      75      85      44      80

ON           807      746     721    783    712    805    658    704

PQ            843      815     844    969  1055  1279  1094  1038   

Atl-4             7          6        8        1       9       10        7        5

North                                                                                   2                                                                 

Total        2147    2046   2145  2348  2378  2698  2211  2425

I think I mentioned that my sister-in-law flew to Poland a month ago to spend time with her elderly mother. I warned her that she should keep in mind she might be stuck there if borders got closed. When she left, I think Canada was about 23rd on the Worldometer list, and Poland was up in the 50s. As of today, Canada is 28th, since a number of European countries have passed us. Poland is 29th, and adding more than 7,000 cases a day, soon to pass us.

I did not watch any press conferences today so I don't know what the stories are.

[Fragile Bird]

I just saw that we should all raise a glass in honour of Gary Johnston, an Agriculture Canada plant scientist who developed the Yukon Gold potato. Forty years ago this month he registered the potato with the Canada Food Inspection Agency.

Sadly, he brought the potato to market a few years before the establishment of laws guaranteeing breeders’ rights, so he missed out on royalties.

[JGP]

How's everyone feeling about the recent bullshit going on in Ot TAW Wa

[Fragile Bird]

On one hand, I’m happy to see the government held to account by the opposition, but on the other hand, what the hell did o’Foole think he was doing? “We have lost confidence in the government, but this vote isn’t a confidence vote!” For crying out loud, if you announce you have lost confidence in the government, what kind of a vote do you think it is?

Also, while I don’t doubt that spending mistakes have been made (we are talking about the federal government, after all) to launch a full frontal attack on the government saying there has been massive fraud involved without laying out some solid facts first is just so friggin stupid.

[JGP]

Totally.

I'm glad Trudeau went all in, even if I'd been surprised how long his government restrained themselves from doing so. The Conservatives and Bloc checked, while NDP, Greens [and the two Independents] folded. 

And... looks possible there might be another confidence check. I'm so sick of this bullshit I want another election, because I'm reasonably certain every party but the Liberals will lose seats, and it would be nice to see the Opposition shut the fuck up for a bit.

[maarsen]

The next vote is supposed to be on the government's Covid response. I wonder what O'toole thinks they should have been done considering that we have done reasonably well compared to the US or Britain. He just comes across as being desperate for attention. 

[The Anti-Targ]

I read a foreign affairs briefing at work the other day saying shit is going even more sideways between Canada and China that is was previously. Sounds like the Chinese ambassador to Canada has basically been threatening Canadians who are living / working in Hong Kong.

Bit of a troubling deterioration. Realistically Canada can't do much without the USA or EU (or both preferably) being openly seen to be operating in total sympathy with Canada.

[Fragile Bird]

18 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I read a foreign affairs briefing at work the other day saying shit is going even more sideways between Canada and China that is was previously. Sounds like the Chinese ambassador to Canada has basically been threatening Canadians who are living / working in Hong Kong.

Bit of a troubling deterioration. Realistically Canada can't do much without the USA or EU (or both preferably) being openly seen to be operating in total sympathy with Canada.

I don't know what the situation was in Australia and New Zealand, but in the years leading up to the handover of Hong Kong to China, literally hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents moved to Canada for the purpose of getting Canadian citizenship, just in case. Vancouver already had a big Chinese population, but it got huge, and Toronto got a whole new Chinese suburb. In fact, there was a notorious scandal involving a major Toronto law firm where Hong Kong residents bought houses in Toronto and people were hired to live in the houses, collect mail and pay bills, so that the owners could pretend they had met the residency requirements while they had actually snuck back to Hong Kong to run their businesses.

After the handover, when China didn't go bat-shit crazy the way everybody feared, most moved back to Hong Kong to continue running their businesses, often leaving their children behind to attend university and get roots here while mom and dad made money in Hong Kong. The estimate is that there's 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong, 300,000 Hong Kong folk who came to Canada to get citizenship. I understand that the Chinese government doesn't really consider them Canadian citizens, no matter what passport they use, but really Chinese citizens.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I don't know what the situation was in Australia and New Zealand, but in the years leading up to the handover of Hong Kong to China, literally hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents moved to Canada for the purpose of getting Canadian citizenship, just in case. Vancouver already had a big Chinese population, but it got huge, and Toronto got a whole new Chinese suburb. In fact, there was a notorious scandal involving a major Toronto law firm where Hong Kong residents bought houses in Toronto and people were hired to live in the houses, collect mail and pay bills, so that the owners could pretend they had met the residency requirements while they had actually snuck back to Hong Kong to run their businesses.

After the handover, when China didn't go bat-shit crazy the way everybody feared, most moved back to Hong Kong to continue running their businesses, often leaving their children behind to attend university and get roots here while mom and dad made money in Hong Kong. The estimate is that there's 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong, 300,000 Hong Kong folk who came to Canada to get citizenship. I understand that the Chinese government doesn't really consider them Canadian citizens, no matter what passport they use, but really Chinese citizens.

Yeah, that was never a significant thing in NZ. Dunno about Aus. Seems most Hong Kong people afraid of what China might do (and is arguably getting around to doing now after lulling people into a false sense of security) went for North America or UK back up plans.

[Lord of Oop North]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I don't know what the situation was in Australia and New Zealand, but in the years leading up to the handover of Hong Kong to China, literally hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents moved to Canada for the purpose of getting Canadian citizenship, just in case. Vancouver already had a big Chinese population, but it got huge, and Toronto got a whole new Chinese suburb. In fact, there was a notorious scandal involving a major Toronto law firm where Hong Kong residents bought houses in Toronto and people were hired to live in the houses, collect mail and pay bills, so that the owners could pretend they had met the residency requirements while they had actually snuck back to Hong Kong to run their businesses.

After the handover, when China didn't go bat-shit crazy the way everybody feared, most moved back to Hong Kong to continue running their businesses, often leaving their children behind to attend university and get roots here while mom and dad made money in Hong Kong. The estimate is that there's 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong, 300,000 Hong Kong folk who came to Canada to get citizenship. I understand that the Chinese government doesn't really consider them Canadian citizens, no matter what passport they use, but really Chinese citizens.

Yup, I grew up with a lot of the children of those people. It was common.

[Aemon Stark]

6 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

And... looks possible there might be another confidence check. I'm so sick of this bullshit I want another election, because I'm reasonably certain every party but the Liberals will lose seats, and it would be nice to see the Opposition shut the fuck up for a bit.

I think proposing an "anti-corruption" committee was fairly ridiculous, but it was hardly a true "confidence" measure. It's time we removed the ability of PMs (and premiers) to make arbitrary declarations about what is and what is not a confidence vote, let alone control the timing of elections. But it's the job of Parliament to investigate and hold the government to account. That includes having access to information about the COVID-19 response and innumerable issues that the government is quite literally stonewalling and filibustering to prevent release of. 

2 hours ago, maarsen said:

The next vote is supposed to be on the government's Covid response. I wonder what O'toole thinks they should have been done considering that we have done reasonably well compared to the US or Britain. He just comes across as being desperate for attention. 

I don't like O'Toole, but he is not proposing a vote of non-confidence, only the release of documents related to the pandemic response at the Health Committee level. Canadian governments have always been very resistant to transparency, and I have little doubt the Conservatives would be behaving much differently. That, in itself, is the problem. 

And yes, we've done better than the US or the UK (not Quebec though...), but if our standard to compare against includes Trump and Boris Johnson, we're in bad company. We've had a highly fragmented response, and now a second wave with an even higher disease burden (if lesser mortality) than before. Part of the problem is that we have the likes of Ford, Legault, and Kenney governing over half the country. But Ottawa took a long, long time to do much of substance, and in recent times they destroyed stockpiles of PPE without replacement, failed to reverse poor governance decisions at PHAC, and were caught completely unawares about the dismantling of the Global Public Health Intelligence Network. We had a pointless prorogation which was used to reiterate the same promises the Liberals have done nothing about for years (child care, pharmacare), and a general pandemic response that hasn't provided much more than enhanced EI - important, but not enough, and not enough to coordinate or lead us through this time. 

[Fragile Bird]

19 minutes ago, Aemon Stark said:

I think proposing an "anti-corruption" committee was fairly ridiculous, but it was hardly a true "confidence" measure. It's time we removed the ability of PMs (and premiers) to make arbitrary declarations about what is and what is not a confidence vote, let alone control the timing of elections. But it's the job of Parliament to investigate and hold the government to account. That includes having access to information about the COVID-19 response and innumerable issues that the government is quite literally stonewalling and filibustering to prevent release of. 

Traditionally finance bills are confidence events, vote down a budget and there’s an election. But otherwise the opposition can make any vote a no-confidence vote by stating it’s a matter of no confidence. The government, as well, just like the opposition, has the right to consider any vote a no-confidence vote by stating it’s a matter of confidence. There are no formal rules.

O’Toole expressly declared he had lost confidence in the government and was therefore bringing this vote, but then after expressly stating he had no confidence in the government tried to have his cake and eat it too by saying “but it’s not a no-confidence vote”. Pardon my language, but that’s fucking bullshit, and any government would be justified as saying they would treat it as a confidence vote. O’Toole has been in a government as a Minister and he damn well knows the meaning of the words he used. It wasn’t Trudeau who pulled no-confidence out of thin air here, it was O’Toole who set it up.

As for the rest of what you said, I appreciate your professional point of view. As I said in the previous post, I have no problem with demanding answers. What I did find repulsive were the allegations of fraud and corruption. Again, the government that O’Toole was part of took several years to report on their spending during the financial crisis and considered demands for transparency to be political bullshit. Don’t forget, the report eventually showed almost 80% of the money they spent was spent in Conservative ridings. Even so the public considered they did a good job and rewarded them with a majority government. The Conservatives know public approval of their handling of the financial crisis translated into votes, and maybe I’m just cynical, but I’m pretty sure that they know Canadians approve of the job the Liberals have done so far and making accusations of corruption and fraud is an attempt to tarnish that approval.
 

On a totally different matter, could you take a look at the picture Kalbear (now Killjoybear, lol) posted of Mitch McConnell’s hands on page 13 of the US Politics thread and tell us what causes something like that? Can that completely be bruising from blood thinners?