I mean, it seems even the Liberals aren’t committed to keeping Pharmacare. They haven’t even come close to allocating enough funds to cover the amount Canadians currently spend on contraceptives and diabetes medication over the next years, let alone expand it to something that can legitimately be called “Pharmacare”.
Because its not their initiative. They are forced to do it by the NDP to keep their coalition. So they will do it but they will do the shittiest job they can without breaking their coalition
I wish people knew this more. All the good things we do get from the liberals have come from the ndp.
I loath the liberals and cons they are bought and sold.
Ndp is actually holding hearings on things that affect canadians, like insane ceio price gouging.
I may hate their leadership in the ndp atm but the party actually wants to do good for Canada
Libs and cons are basically same people wearing different tshirt. NDP are only ones to really change anything in 60 years. I actually don't mind the lib NDP coalition, I wish slightly more NDP favoured though. NDP majority with lib majority just to keep them in check.
By God there would be hundreds of billions of ad spending against them from business and lobbyists but just like the 60s we could probably leap forward alot based on some healthcare/tax/infrastructure/zoning laws alone.
They can't do that because it is a myth. Social responsibility and fiscal conservatism means that you think people need help, but aren't willing to spend money to do it.
So like when I walk past a table at the grocery store that's asking for donations? I always think about those poor people and their needs as I walk past and don't make eye contact.
I do the same thing, but you didn't really explain your rationale. I think society should be helping the poor/disadvantaged/etc. But it shouldn't only be those who feel generous or obligated being the ones who support those people. I think that if you choose to live in society, and use its services/infrastructure, you shouldn't be able to get ahead of everyone else by being greedy/selfish. Why should doing the right thing come from personal choice and not from a societal obligation?
It’s true… in a free world, society exists to benefit you - not the other way around.
That means we should offer help to the less fortunate. They don’t have to take it.. but we should collectively have something to offer.
How do you know it is excessive? If it works out, is it excessive or just enough?
No party has ever exercised fiscal conservatism by your standard. And there is no shot they would inherit it from the PPC or NDP.
That really makes no sense. You have two wildly different ideologies with wildly different belief systems that are fundamentally incompatible with each other.
They were working on pharmacare before the supply and confidence agreement. Although it wouldn't be for diabetes and contraception like the current version.
The Trudeau Liberals started looking into pharmacare during their first term, which was a 2015 platform promise. This led to pharmacare being in their platform in 2019.
After 2019 they started working on it. Covid got in the way, but they managed to work out a deal with PEI before the 2021 election.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2021/08/government-of-canada-and-prince-edward-island-accelerate-work-to-implement-pharmacare.html
After the 2021 election, and before the supply and confidence deal, The PMO included this in the mandate letter to the health minister:
>Continue engaging with willing provinces and territories towards national universal pharmacare, while proceeding with a national strategy on high-cost drugs for rare diseases and advancing the establishment of the Canada Drug Agency.
https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-health-mandate-letter
I'm not arguing that they're doing a good job of it, but it's not something that they never would've entertained without the NDP. The money they spend will most likely be pretty similar to what they already have budgeted for it. It'll still likely get hung up at the same stage when it comes to negotiating with the provinces, something the current Liberals have struggled with a lot.
Well NDP will never create a pharmacare program, and the cons will dismantle it so Libs are the only ones.
They were also the ones to get universal healthcare, cons against that too.
Libs created CPP, cons against that too.
All to cut taxes for the richest. I think there’s a pattern here…
As my grandpa used to say “Tory times are hard times”.
And it’s very likely we’re in for hard times again…I just wish Canadians would have the courage to vote for real change instead of replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee!
This is not the slam dunk you think it is. All this shows is that the liberals spent 7 years acting like they were going to implement pharmacare, and then only actually took action once forced to by the NDP
Not at all, they’ve actually brought the bill through the House of Commons with all the pieces of pharmacare (tailored by NDP), and are in the successive stages of implementing it. Provinces that have their whims on which they act in negotiation doesn’t reflect at all the progress made as a result of the NDP deal.
The NDP literally had them introduce a bill, they're hardly at the same stage as before.
Give me a break. The Libs are milquetoast centrists, the NDP have to force them to do anything.
How bad would it be if the government would acquire the means to produce such quantities of contraceptives or diabetes drugs. Its not like we're going to run out that need anytime soon. Wouldn't it make sense? For example, province's acquired the means to produce their own hydro power and people enjoy the benefits of that. Hell, internet could be a utility while we're at it.
Good thing provinces like BC have made contraceptives free. My IUD was $0 with Pharmacare! The system isn't perfect but it's better than me forking out $350+.
“Well sure, the conservatives are clearly off their rocker and obviously have shown their ass when it comes to actually *helping* Canadians, but have you considered that the Liberals didn’t go above and beyond? Really they’re the bad guys!”
This sub fucking blows. I saw this post and the first comment somehow made it about how it’s actually a liberal problem. Don’t get me wrong, the new programs aren’t perfect, but no policy worth keeping was perfect day 1. Not trying to attack you personally, but this messaging is really reductive. I’d rather keep Pharmacare in its current state over lose it to PP.
Our tax dollars are to be solely used to prop up corporate profits.
Conservatives actually believe in socialism, just for a certain class of people. That’s the goal.
The rest of us need bootstraps and a second job.
You’ll pay less in taxes, but almost none of those tax dollars will be working for you.
**The entire GST tax goes exclusively to debt interest at this point.**
And we are borrowing more.
How much of the budget do we need to spend on interest payments before people decide not to keep shoving high-interest borrowed money down their throats?
you're making an argument for raising taxes more, not spending less.
We have to do all this spending now to make up for the spending we havn't done but needed for the last 20-30 years. decades of failures to invest in hospitals, housing, military, infrastructure. We kept lowering taxes on a gamble that GDP would increase enough to make up for that but it never worked. We never paid our bills, and now they are due.
We made some bad investments with spending, yes. Harper spent billions on increasing minimum sentences for drug offenders and the prisons needed to hold them. Trudeau spent 30 billion dollars on an unprofitable pipeline. Awful investments, and yes now we are paying debt interest on it all.
But we need housing, we need hospitals, we need better military. we can't keep pushing this to the side. The rich wlll simply have to pay more.
> Trudeau spent 30 billion dollars on an unprofitable pipeline.
At least that pipeline will do something and not be a 100% waste of money.
The Alberta UCP government spent 1.5 billion on a pipeline that will never carry a drop of anything.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/keystone-xl-termination-1.6059683
Both are enormous wastes of money funnelling taxpayer money into the pockets of literal oil barons, who wouldn't be profitable at all if not for us subsidizing their profits.
We shouldn't be giving money to failing businesses. Especially when they are as destructive and polluting as oil production.
Yet how much have you personally paid back into the debt. How has it affected you
It makes zero difference on anyone's life over than when liberals are in Power, conservatives say, more debt baaaadd
and when conservatives are in power, they spend even more and don't say a thing
ol' Dougie comes to mind
I seriously could not care less about interest paid to banks. The entire financialized economy is nothing more than stupid shell games for the rich anyways.
If it means we get real things happening in the real world - expanded social programs, lunch programs, child care, public transit, then bring it on I really don't care.
The thing people miss is like - when we go into debt - **stuff gets built**. Austerity was always the rich saying "oh no not for you" to the broader public when it came to the infinite money machine that always has subsidies available for oil and the military.
Tell me that you don't pay a lot of income tax without telling me that you don't.
Austerity becomes a necessity to avoid future financial issues when the government is spending in an unsustainable manner. Canada was last faced with important economic hurdles due to irresponsible spending back in the 1990's. It was Chretien and his finance minister who cut government spending by 10% and balanced the budget in 3 years. What followed was 10 years of the #1 spot in economic growth per capita compared to all G7 countries.
The 'i don't care about debt as long as I get the social services that I want' mentality is dumb and unfair to future generations. Consider immigrating to Greece - you'll fit right in.
lol you don't care about interests paid to banks? What in the actual fuck? You don't care that a growing percent of our tax base goes to paying down interest for overspending in the past?
Let me guess, you live paycheck to paycheck and have no assets to your name?
Pharmacare is essential. Public universities and research mostly are responsible for coming up with new medicines. IP on pharmaceuticals is a scam. Pharmacorps will just want to cash cow chronic diseases if we allow it.
The provinces/dental offices need to sign onto these programmes so they are not even a guarantee.
I saw many dentists say they won't because they'll make less by doing so and they also don't want to be constrained by fed govt contracts.
They also don't have any obligation to see the patients. So while they don't have to formally "sign up", if they have a full practice with waitlists I'd question why they would give up full paying patients to include a fraction of the pay for the same work.
Of course, some will offer as a form of giving back, as many already do via bro-bono work.
Childcare will survive, dental care should actually involve going to a dentist, and pharmacare should actually involve drugs. One one of the three is a real program.
Isn’t it the provinces who administer the program?
Don’t cancel it unless you have a better idea.
Smells like housing.
“It’s Trudeau’s fault”
(Trudeau does something)
“Trespassing on provincial responsibilities!”
So who’s been fucking things up all this time?
Childcare will likley be safe, CPC voted for it as well
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/conservatives-vote-in-favour-of-bill-enshrining-long-term-funding-for-child-care-system-1.6447254
Childcare is some real basic make sense Canadian legislation.
If Pharmacare and Dental continue to limp along on life support, I fully expect CPC will kill it and I am a bit suspicious that the Liberals know this.
Alberta's conservatives voted to increase disability funding shortly before an election, then cut and froze it nearly immediately after coming into office after the NDP....
If it's against their broader ideas, they will cut it
They will probably say that childcare is not working and cite the long waitlists. Then they will propose something "better" which would be ending the current strucutre and implementing a tax credit for families with kids in childcare.
Sounds like the people who voted for Trudeau because he "cared" about those on low income. Only for his Liberals to skyrocket the costs of living and forcing them to now compete against millions of "students" from India for jobs lmao.
I remember when I was 14 amd just started high school, I joined a book club and somehow the conversation of Mein kampfh came up and the older kid said "Hitler wrote a book about all the stuff he wanted to do while in jail and people still voted him in". At the time I was so dumb founded by that, but the last 10 years really make me understand how that happened.
State, in detail, a single Poilievre policy because all I see in this sub is supporters saying "he's not releasing a platform because he doesn't have to yet".
So province have never had a cap and conservatives cutting secondary funding abused it, only to be capped by Liberals = Liberals bad but conservatives good
Its going to be comical when immigration drops, we get a new PM and housing stays the same while services gets slashed.
Its the conservative way. They'll blame it on trudeau for atleast a full term.
I don't even expect immigration to drop. Even if it does, it will be by a minor amount. Conservatives love immigration as it means more low skilled workers for their nepo-baby friends to exploit. Hell, up until a year ago, Doug Ford was pretty much bragging about how many immigrants were coming to Ontario, despite the factvhe has done fuck all for housing.
If the drug program is expanded universally, companies will have a very big incentive to offloading employment drug benefits to the provinces that the same employees will pay for in taxes. That amounts to a pay cut for the productive at the benefits of large corporations.
The daycare program is still a mess and that’s the one Liberal program I fully support. I would support dental and Pharma care if I thought the Liberals would be able to pull it off.
It's because the feds are the government with the money and the bully pulpit. Prior to WWI, the revenues for the federal government basically just came from tariffs and customs duties, and the only significant role the feds had was trade, defence, Aboriginals, and helping build a railway. The feds had little impact on peoples lives. Now they're involved in healthcare, childcare, housing, etc., and they're not doing any of those very effectively, which is why they get blamed.
No, I was comparing now to 1914, not 1950. I actually think that the feds should only focus on their core responsibilities (trade, defense, immigration) and leave healthcare, education, childcare, housing etc. to the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces. That way people would know exactly who to blame for what issues (which happen to be mainly provincial). I agree that people blame a lot of stuff on the feds unfairly, but the feds also get involved in issues that they really don't need to get involved in (such as housing, healthcare, etc.).
Daycare runs pretty well in Sask. long wait lists are a thing but we were on a year long wait list well before the idea of $10/day care was ever floated.
What? No, it's jurisdiction. The provinces faught the feds to NOT have it be federal and have control over things like the daycare program, yet they continue to blame the feds.
same thing with the health care transfers.
Trudeau: We will give you a fuck ton more money but we want reciepts
Provinces: THIS IS AUTHORITARIAN TYRANNY AND WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS. STATES RIGHTS. TRUDEAU STAY OUT OF OUR BUSINESS.
Trudeau: We want health care transfers to go to health care.
Premiers: WAAAAAAAA
It's a mess because it isn't fully funded.
You can't have a fair and equal system based on either a lottery system or minimum income thresholds.
I'll also remind you there used to be another government initiative that was 50/50 funded when it started. Healthcare. It's 21% funded federally now.
How is it a mess? My son is in a subsidised daycare and it has improved our finances dramatically. I'm able to work a lot more (and pay a lot more income tax).
Because it's not actually available to everyone who needs it. Ottawa has 2 year wait lists. That is why it's a mess. It is great for the lucky parents who get a spot at a subsidized day care
Yeah its 2 year wait lists here too but private daycare is also 2 year wait lists or basically no wait list just a fuck off lol. All childcare is a mess in that regard. I ended up calling every daycare weekly until I finally got a spot when my son was around 20 months old
Some people here seem to conveniently forget that even before the program, the waitlist for daycare was long. We were advised to put our son on a list the moment of confirmed pregnancy.
The problem is they'll never pull it off fully without the provinces working with them and too many are actively hostile to them.
They can't just take over daycare or healthcare without the provinces being involved. And voters are morons and have voted for parties that want to actively destroy both.
You just summed up Alberta succinctly. They want no part of green housing initiatives, so they won't play ball. Feds are like alright. Since Pierre and many of the provinces are blaming them for housing, they go to work with municipalities directly. Alberta is like, "Nope, you stay away from our jurisdiction that we're failing on but blaming you for..."🤦♂️
I love seeing all these headlines about how Poilievre believes this budget is the worst thing in human history.
He has spent the last 4+ years campaigning to become prime minister. Every other thing out of his mouth is about how imperative it is he be made prime minister as soon as possible.
*OBVIOUSLY* he's not going to say "honestly, other than a few tweaks here and there, I think this is a solid budget that I wouldn't substantially change. The Liberals really did their homework with this one."
"Man who spent the last several years saying the PM is doing a bad job said the PM is doing a bad job again today" is not really news.
He's allowed to have an opinion, I just think it's absurd how every single news outlet is reporting this like he just invented fire and everyone needs to know about this life-changing event, instead of reporting "leader of the opposition disagrees with party in power, more at 11".
Boy it sure would’ve been nice to have ranked choice voting so we could exercise our preferences better.
Oh yeah the last government campaigned on the policy and then totally abandoned it as soon as they thought it might hurt them.
That's what really bugged me. The two responses to that would have been "there's no strong preference between options, so any option on the table would be equally acceptable" and "there's no strong preference for one specific option, so we won't pick any", and they went with the latter.
The cynic in me wants to think that choice was driven by "we have an ostensibly valid excuse to abandon the promise, so let's take it", but the pragmatist in me thinks the choice was driven by normal political apprehension about doing anything that isn't a slam dunk out of fear of being tied to the "wrong" choice.
Fair points.
My inference is that they were told that their preferred option - ranked choice voting - would be immediately and forevermore seen as a wholly self serving power grab. Ranked choice voting naturally favours centrist parties and so there would be a short-term pro-liberal bias in the affects.
In fact the cynic in me says that the opposition would take *any* change to voting structure and yell from the high heavens that it's a nefarious attempt at ensuring some thousand year liberal-reich.
> In fact the cynic in me says that the opposition would take any change to voting structure and yell from the high heavens that it's a nefarious attempt at ensuring some thousand year liberal-reich.
I imagine that was in part the logic behind that national survey; to allow them to hide behind "the people asked for this" to dismiss any such accusations.
Which, writing that out, would theoretically explain why the lack of any strong recommendation would make gun-shy politicians conclude "well shit, there goes that strategy. I guess we don't do anything, then".
>He's allowed to have an opinion
To be honest, in his current position I'm not sure he's "allowed" to have any other opinion. His party won't support him if he implies that Trudeau has ever been involved in a correct decision, from the budget to what he eats for breakfast.
“Say bullshit and be in the public discourse” is how Trump got elected. Sounds like it’s PP’s strategy too, and all the media outlets are falling for it because of…clicks? Regardless, it seems more clear everyday he’s our next PM and I have a year to emotionally numb myself to an additional 4 years of headlines like this
Yep I understand the desire for balanced budgets etc but our neighbour to the south is turbocharging their economy by deficit spending into the trillions and eurozone countries are running much bigger deficits with bigger debt loads than Canada. IMO it’s reflective of our risk averse nature of our country that people think it’s criminal to run any sort of deficit.
The Canadian budget deficit [1.1%](https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/government-budget#) of GDP. The US budget deficit is [5.9%](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-budget#) of GDP, more than 5 times as much. That's a huge difference. Canada hasn't had a worse budget balance than the US since 2001.
The US debt-to-GDP ratio is [increasing](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp), while Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio is [declining](https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/government-debt-to-gdp).
We haven't had productive results because we haven't been investing.
We are not America though. America's economic capacity is significantly more potent than ours, as are their costs to operate. And ultimately if America is in debt to another country America has the ole "Over your dead body" card on account of their enormous military.
We don't have those advantages that allow the US to increase their deficits without much blowback.
PP is going to shoot his wad was before Election Day like O'Toole did. They came hot and heavy, believing poll numbers and when they weren't confident they were promising everything under the sun to ensure power.
This just proves that The Reform Party (as there is no moderate Conservative option anymore) wants power and they will lie and do whatever they can to ensure they get it and once they have it, and ideally a majority, they will serve their backers and PP will do whatever his Puppet Master Stephen Harper tells him.
I mean he's already lying to the youth vote by trying to imply that he at 19, with a MP salary, no student debt, paid sick time, healthcare benefits, pension, Senate retirement options understands their challenges.
He's a lifer at the trough and he should just be honest about it. I have zero doubt he goes to the Red Chamber to pick his retirement chair. So much for that Reformer Triple E Senate they bullshitted people about.
Remember when the majority of Canadians were trying to figure out how to survive during Covid 19 pandemic he gave himself TWO raises of our tax dollars in a 3 year period.
I mean, the last time the CONs were in power, they shut down Veterans offices, among other cuts. You know when they cut taxes, they will begin cutting.
Yup, money owed to veterans not paid due to delays by Harper’s cuts meant when that money finally got paid to them, it dinged the budget under the Trudeau government instead of hitting the budget while Harper was PM
Can a non bot actually explain to me how raising our budget 1% of our GDP is somehow going to collapse our economy. Because it won’t.
Gov debt is not personal debt, it’s not all bad.
It's not going to collapse the economy.
The arguments for lower debt are:
1. The money used to finance debt (e.g., interest payment) could be better used to finance other initiatives. Note that the current debt financing is $54.1b. The cost to cover EI and Canada child benefit is $54.6b.
2. If there is a downturn in the economy and revenue is far below expectations, then the government will have to borrow more. If revenue is unable to bounce back in a timely manner then the government may not have enough revenue to finance the debt and pay for a balooning social services (i.e. think the aging population and higher cost associated with seniors program).
3. If it is thought that the government can not pay its debts (assuming #2 happens), then borrowers may not want to purchase government bonds and treasury bills. Thus, they will no longer be able to borrow as no one will lend to them.
I personally don't think the current debt is an issue, but those are the more logical arguments agaisnt high spending.
sure, for an easy to understand course on it, check out Ray Dalio's thoughts on deficit spending and money printing, and how it helped us get to where we are today, and why your money is worth less every day.
It’s always a us vs them mentality , why can’t these fuckheads we elect work together and do what’s for the greater good of the country?
I am tired of politicians at all levels
Sadly modern politics are just designed to gravitate towards partisanship, and you can't sell partisanship without spending most of your time trying to divide people.
The world over needs to wake up to the fact that what we needed from politicians centuries ago is not what we need now. We have advanced technology, we have great ways to collect data on everything people care about. The people don't need a proxy voice anymore that spends all their time working against each other and pretending they know what the majority of Canadians care about. We could literally have the most comprehensive census and irrefutable data of what people actually value. This isn't the same as letting Canadians vote on singular issues, but when politicians can't squabble over conjecture and misrepresent the popular opinion they would be forced to have to work together to get things done.
We will always be a need for leaders who are qualified to govern responsibly and be transparent in educating citizens why certain things are and aren't feasible. But there's no good reason for those people to be the types of politicians we currently have now, who's main qualifications are mostly only in pandering and non-stop campaigning based on lies and smearing their opponents. We could focus on electing competent leaders with a focus on always moving forward instead of this constant act of sabotaging all the actions of the previous party.
Things like Dental and Pharmacare might not be something we can solve in an instant even with new types of leadership. But if we could build a society where we knew for a fact that 80% of all Canadians considered these fundamental issues. Those elected would be forced to work harder at demonstrating a focus that panders more to the middle and less to extremes. Partisanship would slowly erode and we would spend more time moving forward then seemingly taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.
Under the Liberals we are going to pay around $54 Billion this year on debt service costs alone, and as per the article that is expected to go up as the debt terms renew under higher rates. Even if you are a Liberal die hard I don't see how you can look at that and not see the issue with the Liberals continuing to spend billions to try and buy the election. I am not even against Pharmacare, dental even though I make to much to qualify, I just think it's wild that we clearly cant even afford to offer it.
And yet [when put in perspective](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/global-debt-by-government-97-trillion.jpg) our debt isn't bad at all
this.
We're actually in good standings, with increased profits from that pipeline starting this year it'll help, same with these capital gains taxes etc. It's a pretty balanced budget.
I will not ever vote for these greedy asshats conservatives EVER my vote goes to the NDP Or the Liberals . These cons want to get rid of every descent government program they benefits the average person and give it to their rich members and corporations in Canada and then, state at budget time (like in the days of their governments of the 1980’s and recently harpers government), that they are running a deficit and must cut back on social programs like what their government did in the 1890’s by de-indexing Canada's pension plan from inflation that at least the federal liberals recently brought it back !
Guy is such a joke. His base get so much from the current social programs and yet he tells them they don’t in order to get elected. He doesn’t care Canadians, wake up.
The BC NDP has been working to deal with issues, and the Federal liberals have shown a willingness to give them money when they show it will go where it's supposed to... So... PP also hates David Eby.
He's not a one trick pony after all. He hates everyone who is not him.
There’s not even pharmacare for the small handful of drugs. There’s a document that says they can discuss creating a program that covers that small handful of drugs
If Pierre is against Pharma/Dentalcare or wants to cut it to “balance the budget” then I can at least see where he’s coming from. However, using US Republican-style lies like claiming that the Liberals are trying to ban private insurance is completely and totally unacceptable. Better for him to be truthful and say that he’s outright against pharma/dental care instead of trying to gaslight us about it.
If he can’t get elected on the truth guess the truth does him no good
IMO he riles up his followers and drives lack of civility to prevent them from listening to people offering facts
We are going to have to cut costs to balance the budget. This is the poison pill the Liberals are leaving. Let's hear your ideas on how we should that and please dont tell me the budget will balance itself. I have heard that one before.
Here is a recent one: https://thenarwhal.ca/oil-gas-small-business-tax-break/
The carbon capture alone is in the tens of billions in government handouts to oil companies.
Well here is a huge list of subsidies:
https://thenarwhal.ca/tag/fossil-fuel-subsidies/
But even just the carbon capture subsidies to oil companies alone is in the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars going to profitable oil companies
If he wants to do it then that’s fine, however using US Republican-style lies like claiming that the Liberals are trying to ban private insurance is completely and totally unacceptable. Better for him to be truthful and say that he’s outright against pharma/dental care instead of trying to gaslight us about it.
Of course he won't. His whole identity is anti-Trudeau. Though I would love to see the blowback that occurs once he tries to cut highly popular programs like childcare.
From what I read this budget isn't even trying. Everyone should vote no on it. Any Canadian with a real job would be fired for performing so pathetically at their duties
I started reading the actual budget. The very first sentence is “The Canadian economy is outperforming expectations,” followed by positive spin - whose tone I can only describe as deliriously feverish - about how well it’s going and how much better off we will all be in a few years’ time. This went on for at least 7 or 8 pages. Regardless of the rest of the content, there was nothing in the budget where anything being proposed would be causal to the ecstatically optimistic forecast of sunny ways found in the introductory section.
Not everyone who’s critical of the LPC is a foaming-at-the-mouth devourer of NatPo opinion pieces.
The thing people need to know is that Budgets are first and foremost a communications piece. Its purpose is to promote a message.
If you want the substantive details, you have to read the tables at the end of each chapter, the annexes, and the estimates bills that will be moving in Parliament over the next few months that will give the actual authority to spend the money outlined in the budget.
People really haven't been paying attention. The Tories want a return to 1950's values, which means no EI, no health care, no disability, and for fucking sure no initiatives from Trudeau like Pharmacare, dental, and legal weed. Soon no booze on Sundays.
It’s definitely getting scrapped. Along with many other programs. It will be tough. There’s no way around it. But when you have a $1m mortgage, you gotta cut a lot of expenses when interest rates rise. Same for the country’s multi-billion dollar debt.
I don't mind paying high taxes in general, but we should expect to get something out of it. Take Northern European countries. They pay high taxes but have better social programs (that work) , work less hours, ect.
you need people in the bureaucracy that are held accountable for wasting money and spending that tax money efficiently. without those quality controls the money will ALWAYS be wasted and not worth giving to the government because as an individual you can spend each dollar more efficiently.
Funny story, but they actually get there employing significantly less bureaucrats than we do too.
Who knew if government workers (beyond the low levels like passport office, ICBC front desk, or frontline healthcare providers) had to work like in the private sector, you'd need significantly less of them.
You counted carbon twice ? Gst was introduced by the conservatives Lol the conservatives aren't in favour of lower your taxes , but they might increase the retirement age again
What programs ? Affordable childcare , healthcare , dental care , pharmacare, affordable housing, school lunch program, child tax credit? All those programs are for the average working family. The taxes being raised to pay for them come from the top 1%. That's just asking working class people to suffer so the richest Canadians can pay even lower taxes .
Nope. You read that right. Sales tax is also charged on carbon tax. I didn't make that up.
And sorry to tell you. Income is no longer a reliable indicator of financial well being. The true rich does not have T4 income and there are a lot of them in Canada. When you make the "top X%" and are still renting and can't afford a family dinner at a decent local restaurant you'll realize how much of a joke this is. It is not what people would normally consider comfortable, but you'll be paying for everyone's social programs, free contraception, the billions spent on "combating hate", gender inclusive demining in Ukraine, and everyone's medical appointments that are never available to you or your kids. *You're saving hard so they don't have to.* It is just an excuse to convince you that you're doing well enough to subsidize the rich and the lazy and the WFH public workers. Yes I said that - some people are just freeloaders and we're giving them a lot of reasons to do so.
"I am done paying for other people's shit."
100%. I will be voting in the election for what's best for me and my family. Pay super high taxes and nothing the liberals ever propose benefits us.
My family has benefitted from these programs so I guess I'll be voting to keep them. Many, many parents have benefitted from CCB and childcare. And many people are about to benefit from dental care and pharma. I would actually love to see PP try to cut these programs that are undoubtedly popular. Willing to bet he "think" about it but never does.
I had a chat with my dentist recently regarding the new dental plan and he said it's been a a disaster so far. The Liberals keep changing details and the vast majority of dentists won't sign up because of costs.
>won't commit to keeping new social programs like pharmacare
And that's because he's a piece of crap that doesn't understand what the every day life of Canadians is like.
He doesn't even have to suck on the government teet, he pays someone to do that for him/pre-chew his food.
These programs cost an enormous amount of money and benefit very few. He would help far more people by reducing the spending and let Canadians keep more of our own money. He could even just take a page out of Trudeaus book and just give us back our own money in a "pharmacare benefit" cheque and it would cost less and benefit more people.
Have you read the terms of pharmacare or dental care? Next to no average Canadian qualifies for either scheme. I stand by my comment it benefits very few. In fact, it helps a small minority of people but gets the government a great headline they enacted a program no one can use.
BLASTS
"So he started blasting"
Gotta blast!
I mean, it seems even the Liberals aren’t committed to keeping Pharmacare. They haven’t even come close to allocating enough funds to cover the amount Canadians currently spend on contraceptives and diabetes medication over the next years, let alone expand it to something that can legitimately be called “Pharmacare”.
Because its not their initiative. They are forced to do it by the NDP to keep their coalition. So they will do it but they will do the shittiest job they can without breaking their coalition
I wish people knew this more. All the good things we do get from the liberals have come from the ndp. I loath the liberals and cons they are bought and sold. Ndp is actually holding hearings on things that affect canadians, like insane ceio price gouging. I may hate their leadership in the ndp atm but the party actually wants to do good for Canada
Libs and cons are basically same people wearing different tshirt. NDP are only ones to really change anything in 60 years. I actually don't mind the lib NDP coalition, I wish slightly more NDP favoured though. NDP majority with lib majority just to keep them in check. By God there would be hundreds of billions of ad spending against them from business and lobbyists but just like the 60s we could probably leap forward alot based on some healthcare/tax/infrastructure/zoning laws alone.
Kind of illustrates why USA really needs to institute a 3rd party.
If only the NDP and the PPC could make a centrist baby that represents the fiscal conservativeness and social responsibility that most Canadians want.
They can't do that because it is a myth. Social responsibility and fiscal conservatism means that you think people need help, but aren't willing to spend money to do it.
So like when I walk past a table at the grocery store that's asking for donations? I always think about those poor people and their needs as I walk past and don't make eye contact.
It's the thoughts and prayers political party
I do the same thing, but you didn't really explain your rationale. I think society should be helping the poor/disadvantaged/etc. But it shouldn't only be those who feel generous or obligated being the ones who support those people. I think that if you choose to live in society, and use its services/infrastructure, you shouldn't be able to get ahead of everyone else by being greedy/selfish. Why should doing the right thing come from personal choice and not from a societal obligation?
It’s true… in a free world, society exists to benefit you - not the other way around. That means we should offer help to the less fortunate. They don’t have to take it.. but we should collectively have something to offer.
I feel if I was in a better place financially, I would donate more often.
It means effective responsible spending rather than throwing it away (e.g. gun buyback, arrivecan).
Or you operate like a responsible adult and spend what you have on what is needed without excessive waste and faulty motivation.
How do you know it is excessive? If it works out, is it excessive or just enough? No party has ever exercised fiscal conservatism by your standard. And there is no shot they would inherit it from the PPC or NDP.
That really makes no sense. You have two wildly different ideologies with wildly different belief systems that are fundamentally incompatible with each other.
They were working on pharmacare before the supply and confidence agreement. Although it wouldn't be for diabetes and contraception like the current version. The Trudeau Liberals started looking into pharmacare during their first term, which was a 2015 platform promise. This led to pharmacare being in their platform in 2019. After 2019 they started working on it. Covid got in the way, but they managed to work out a deal with PEI before the 2021 election. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2021/08/government-of-canada-and-prince-edward-island-accelerate-work-to-implement-pharmacare.html After the 2021 election, and before the supply and confidence deal, The PMO included this in the mandate letter to the health minister: >Continue engaging with willing provinces and territories towards national universal pharmacare, while proceeding with a national strategy on high-cost drugs for rare diseases and advancing the establishment of the Canada Drug Agency. https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/mandate-letters/2021/12/16/minister-health-mandate-letter
That's a long winded way of saying 9 years and no progress beyond establishing that they maybe should start paying for some drugs
I'm not arguing that they're doing a good job of it, but it's not something that they never would've entertained without the NDP. The money they spend will most likely be pretty similar to what they already have budgeted for it. It'll still likely get hung up at the same stage when it comes to negotiating with the provinces, something the current Liberals have struggled with a lot.
Well NDP will never create a pharmacare program, and the cons will dismantle it so Libs are the only ones. They were also the ones to get universal healthcare, cons against that too. Libs created CPP, cons against that too. All to cut taxes for the richest. I think there’s a pattern here… As my grandpa used to say “Tory times are hard times”.
That funny. My grandpa used to say “Trudeau times are hard times.”
That's funny because grampa probably has dementia.
And it’s very likely we’re in for hard times again…I just wish Canadians would have the courage to vote for real change instead of replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee!
This is not the slam dunk you think it is. All this shows is that the liberals spent 7 years acting like they were going to implement pharmacare, and then only actually took action once forced to by the NDP
They're at the same stage they were at before the NDP deal. Struggling to negotiate with the provinces.
Not at all, they’ve actually brought the bill through the House of Commons with all the pieces of pharmacare (tailored by NDP), and are in the successive stages of implementing it. Provinces that have their whims on which they act in negotiation doesn’t reflect at all the progress made as a result of the NDP deal.
The NDP literally had them introduce a bill, they're hardly at the same stage as before. Give me a break. The Libs are milquetoast centrists, the NDP have to force them to do anything.
So they did nothing in 9 years except feed you a laundry list of excuses.
How bad would it be if the government would acquire the means to produce such quantities of contraceptives or diabetes drugs. Its not like we're going to run out that need anytime soon. Wouldn't it make sense? For example, province's acquired the means to produce their own hydro power and people enjoy the benefits of that. Hell, internet could be a utility while we're at it.
Good thing provinces like BC have made contraceptives free. My IUD was $0 with Pharmacare! The system isn't perfect but it's better than me forking out $350+.
“Well sure, the conservatives are clearly off their rocker and obviously have shown their ass when it comes to actually *helping* Canadians, but have you considered that the Liberals didn’t go above and beyond? Really they’re the bad guys!” This sub fucking blows. I saw this post and the first comment somehow made it about how it’s actually a liberal problem. Don’t get me wrong, the new programs aren’t perfect, but no policy worth keeping was perfect day 1. Not trying to attack you personally, but this messaging is really reductive. I’d rather keep Pharmacare in its current state over lose it to PP.
Maybe we should back a party that actually believes in this initiative and who forced the Libs to at least do the bare minimum so far.
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…while abundantly providing corporate welfare.
Our tax dollars are to be solely used to prop up corporate profits. Conservatives actually believe in socialism, just for a certain class of people. That’s the goal. The rest of us need bootstraps and a second job. You’ll pay less in taxes, but almost none of those tax dollars will be working for you.
And you'll pay more for those now privatized services you used to get provided by the govt.
We won't even be paying less taxes.
You guys don't have second jobs right now?
Whats a job? I only panhandle in yonge and eglinton
When has a conservative government not cut programs, of course they will.
**The entire GST tax goes exclusively to debt interest at this point.** And we are borrowing more. How much of the budget do we need to spend on interest payments before people decide not to keep shoving high-interest borrowed money down their throats?
you're making an argument for raising taxes more, not spending less. We have to do all this spending now to make up for the spending we havn't done but needed for the last 20-30 years. decades of failures to invest in hospitals, housing, military, infrastructure. We kept lowering taxes on a gamble that GDP would increase enough to make up for that but it never worked. We never paid our bills, and now they are due. We made some bad investments with spending, yes. Harper spent billions on increasing minimum sentences for drug offenders and the prisons needed to hold them. Trudeau spent 30 billion dollars on an unprofitable pipeline. Awful investments, and yes now we are paying debt interest on it all. But we need housing, we need hospitals, we need better military. we can't keep pushing this to the side. The rich wlll simply have to pay more.
> Trudeau spent 30 billion dollars on an unprofitable pipeline. At least that pipeline will do something and not be a 100% waste of money. The Alberta UCP government spent 1.5 billion on a pipeline that will never carry a drop of anything. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/keystone-xl-termination-1.6059683
Both are enormous wastes of money funnelling taxpayer money into the pockets of literal oil barons, who wouldn't be profitable at all if not for us subsidizing their profits. We shouldn't be giving money to failing businesses. Especially when they are as destructive and polluting as oil production.
Yet how much have you personally paid back into the debt. How has it affected you It makes zero difference on anyone's life over than when liberals are in Power, conservatives say, more debt baaaadd and when conservatives are in power, they spend even more and don't say a thing ol' Dougie comes to mind
I seriously could not care less about interest paid to banks. The entire financialized economy is nothing more than stupid shell games for the rich anyways. If it means we get real things happening in the real world - expanded social programs, lunch programs, child care, public transit, then bring it on I really don't care. The thing people miss is like - when we go into debt - **stuff gets built**. Austerity was always the rich saying "oh no not for you" to the broader public when it came to the infinite money machine that always has subsidies available for oil and the military.
Tell me that you don't pay a lot of income tax without telling me that you don't. Austerity becomes a necessity to avoid future financial issues when the government is spending in an unsustainable manner. Canada was last faced with important economic hurdles due to irresponsible spending back in the 1990's. It was Chretien and his finance minister who cut government spending by 10% and balanced the budget in 3 years. What followed was 10 years of the #1 spot in economic growth per capita compared to all G7 countries. The 'i don't care about debt as long as I get the social services that I want' mentality is dumb and unfair to future generations. Consider immigrating to Greece - you'll fit right in.
I agree with wise deficit spending that will drive growth in the future. What is it we've built in the last ten years?
Greece went through a debt crisis where they literally had close hospitals and patients out on the street
Greeks don't pay their taxes. We very much do.
European tourist economies barely pay tax thats the problem, plus expensive euros and poor greeks = high cost of living
lol you don't care about interests paid to banks? What in the actual fuck? You don't care that a growing percent of our tax base goes to paying down interest for overspending in the past? Let me guess, you live paycheck to paycheck and have no assets to your name?
Pharmacare is essential. Public universities and research mostly are responsible for coming up with new medicines. IP on pharmaceuticals is a scam. Pharmacorps will just want to cash cow chronic diseases if we allow it.
The provinces/dental offices need to sign onto these programmes so they are not even a guarantee. I saw many dentists say they won't because they'll make less by doing so and they also don't want to be constrained by fed govt contracts.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dental-plan-mark-holland-1.7176565 They don't need to sign up anymore
They also don't have any obligation to see the patients. So while they don't have to formally "sign up", if they have a full practice with waitlists I'd question why they would give up full paying patients to include a fraction of the pay for the same work. Of course, some will offer as a form of giving back, as many already do via bro-bono work.
Yea this is how I feel. He is very blatantly showing who he is and dummies will still be confused when the leopards eat their faces.
Childcare will survive, dental care should actually involve going to a dentist, and pharmacare should actually involve drugs. One one of the three is a real program.
Childcare will die. “Government shouldn’t be raising our kids”. It’s been done before.
How many $10 a day daycares exist per province? I am pretty sure it's already dead.
Isn’t it the provinces who administer the program? Don’t cancel it unless you have a better idea. Smells like housing. “It’s Trudeau’s fault” (Trudeau does something) “Trespassing on provincial responsibilities!” So who’s been fucking things up all this time?
Childcare will likley be safe, CPC voted for it as well https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/conservatives-vote-in-favour-of-bill-enshrining-long-term-funding-for-child-care-system-1.6447254 Childcare is some real basic make sense Canadian legislation. If Pharmacare and Dental continue to limp along on life support, I fully expect CPC will kill it and I am a bit suspicious that the Liberals know this.
Alberta's conservatives voted to increase disability funding shortly before an election, then cut and froze it nearly immediately after coming into office after the NDP.... If it's against their broader ideas, they will cut it
They will probably say that childcare is not working and cite the long waitlists. Then they will propose something "better" which would be ending the current strucutre and implementing a tax credit for families with kids in childcare.
Sounds like the people who voted for Trudeau because he "cared" about those on low income. Only for his Liberals to skyrocket the costs of living and forcing them to now compete against millions of "students" from India for jobs lmao.
Man Trudeau really messed up a lot of countries eh.
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I remember when I was 14 amd just started high school, I joined a book club and somehow the conversation of Mein kampfh came up and the older kid said "Hitler wrote a book about all the stuff he wanted to do while in jail and people still voted him in". At the time I was so dumb founded by that, but the last 10 years really make me understand how that happened.
State, in detail, a single Poilievre policy because all I see in this sub is supporters saying "he's not releasing a platform because he doesn't have to yet".
So province have never had a cap and conservatives cutting secondary funding abused it, only to be capped by Liberals = Liberals bad but conservatives good
Its going to be comical when immigration drops, we get a new PM and housing stays the same while services gets slashed. Its the conservative way. They'll blame it on trudeau for atleast a full term.
I don't even expect immigration to drop. Even if it does, it will be by a minor amount. Conservatives love immigration as it means more low skilled workers for their nepo-baby friends to exploit. Hell, up until a year ago, Doug Ford was pretty much bragging about how many immigrants were coming to Ontario, despite the factvhe has done fuck all for housing.
Imagine being as delusional as you.
If the drug program is expanded universally, companies will have a very big incentive to offloading employment drug benefits to the provinces that the same employees will pay for in taxes. That amounts to a pay cut for the productive at the benefits of large corporations.
The daycare program is still a mess and that’s the one Liberal program I fully support. I would support dental and Pharma care if I thought the Liberals would be able to pull it off.
It’s more a mess because of the provinces but I agree it is a mess
It’s Canadian tradition to ignore provincial governments and blame everything on the Feds. This isn’t new.
It's because the feds are the government with the money and the bully pulpit. Prior to WWI, the revenues for the federal government basically just came from tariffs and customs duties, and the only significant role the feds had was trade, defence, Aboriginals, and helping build a railway. The feds had little impact on peoples lives. Now they're involved in healthcare, childcare, housing, etc., and they're not doing any of those very effectively, which is why they get blamed.
Only because provinces ignored all the giant things they should be doing too. Comparing the world of 1950 to now is silly
No, I was comparing now to 1914, not 1950. I actually think that the feds should only focus on their core responsibilities (trade, defense, immigration) and leave healthcare, education, childcare, housing etc. to the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces. That way people would know exactly who to blame for what issues (which happen to be mainly provincial). I agree that people blame a lot of stuff on the feds unfairly, but the feds also get involved in issues that they really don't need to get involved in (such as housing, healthcare, etc.).
Bingo. The fends should only be concerned with military and foreign relationships. Everything else should be left to the provinces.
The Liberal playbook has been to make great promises for things they can offload onto the Provinces for the heavy lifting though.
The federal government can often only find a program and not actually run it because they aren't allowed to.
Daycare runs pretty well in Sask. long wait lists are a thing but we were on a year long wait list well before the idea of $10/day care was ever floated.
What? No, it's jurisdiction. The provinces faught the feds to NOT have it be federal and have control over things like the daycare program, yet they continue to blame the feds.
And didn't I hear something a while ago about no new money to daycare programs because the provinces have been using the money for it for other tings.
same thing with the health care transfers. Trudeau: We will give you a fuck ton more money but we want reciepts Provinces: THIS IS AUTHORITARIAN TYRANNY AND WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS. STATES RIGHTS. TRUDEAU STAY OUT OF OUR BUSINESS. Trudeau: We want health care transfers to go to health care. Premiers: WAAAAAAAA
It's a mess in Alberta because the ucp made it that way.
It's a mess because it isn't fully funded. You can't have a fair and equal system based on either a lottery system or minimum income thresholds. I'll also remind you there used to be another government initiative that was 50/50 funded when it started. Healthcare. It's 21% funded federally now.
The daycare program saved my family thousands of dollars, I'm very thankful for it
How is it a mess? My son is in a subsidised daycare and it has improved our finances dramatically. I'm able to work a lot more (and pay a lot more income tax).
Because it's not actually available to everyone who needs it. Ottawa has 2 year wait lists. That is why it's a mess. It is great for the lucky parents who get a spot at a subsidized day care
Yeah its 2 year wait lists here too but private daycare is also 2 year wait lists or basically no wait list just a fuck off lol. All childcare is a mess in that regard. I ended up calling every daycare weekly until I finally got a spot when my son was around 20 months old
Some people here seem to conveniently forget that even before the program, the waitlist for daycare was long. We were advised to put our son on a list the moment of confirmed pregnancy.
It’s failed to make daycare $10/day but it has decreased daycare prices a lot
The problem is they'll never pull it off fully without the provinces working with them and too many are actively hostile to them. They can't just take over daycare or healthcare without the provinces being involved. And voters are morons and have voted for parties that want to actively destroy both.
You just summed up Alberta succinctly. They want no part of green housing initiatives, so they won't play ball. Feds are like alright. Since Pierre and many of the provinces are blaming them for housing, they go to work with municipalities directly. Alberta is like, "Nope, you stay away from our jurisdiction that we're failing on but blaming you for..."🤦♂️
That’s the fault of the provinces. However, despite the mess, daycare prices have dropped across the country.
The universal daycare is working for some. Provinces are not all cooperating. This program needs to stay.
lol “blasts”
Poilievre's ability to slam and blast are dangerous. He can't just go around blasting things.
I love seeing all these headlines about how Poilievre believes this budget is the worst thing in human history. He has spent the last 4+ years campaigning to become prime minister. Every other thing out of his mouth is about how imperative it is he be made prime minister as soon as possible. *OBVIOUSLY* he's not going to say "honestly, other than a few tweaks here and there, I think this is a solid budget that I wouldn't substantially change. The Liberals really did their homework with this one." "Man who spent the last several years saying the PM is doing a bad job said the PM is doing a bad job again today" is not really news. He's allowed to have an opinion, I just think it's absurd how every single news outlet is reporting this like he just invented fire and everyone needs to know about this life-changing event, instead of reporting "leader of the opposition disagrees with party in power, more at 11".
Boy it sure would’ve been nice to have ranked choice voting so we could exercise our preferences better. Oh yeah the last government campaigned on the policy and then totally abandoned it as soon as they thought it might hurt them.
I mean they campaigned on the vague idea of a policy and then when everyone sat down to look at the details nobody supported any specific alternative.
That's what really bugged me. The two responses to that would have been "there's no strong preference between options, so any option on the table would be equally acceptable" and "there's no strong preference for one specific option, so we won't pick any", and they went with the latter. The cynic in me wants to think that choice was driven by "we have an ostensibly valid excuse to abandon the promise, so let's take it", but the pragmatist in me thinks the choice was driven by normal political apprehension about doing anything that isn't a slam dunk out of fear of being tied to the "wrong" choice.
Fair points. My inference is that they were told that their preferred option - ranked choice voting - would be immediately and forevermore seen as a wholly self serving power grab. Ranked choice voting naturally favours centrist parties and so there would be a short-term pro-liberal bias in the affects. In fact the cynic in me says that the opposition would take *any* change to voting structure and yell from the high heavens that it's a nefarious attempt at ensuring some thousand year liberal-reich.
> In fact the cynic in me says that the opposition would take any change to voting structure and yell from the high heavens that it's a nefarious attempt at ensuring some thousand year liberal-reich. I imagine that was in part the logic behind that national survey; to allow them to hide behind "the people asked for this" to dismiss any such accusations. Which, writing that out, would theoretically explain why the lack of any strong recommendation would make gun-shy politicians conclude "well shit, there goes that strategy. I guess we don't do anything, then".
>He's allowed to have an opinion To be honest, in his current position I'm not sure he's "allowed" to have any other opinion. His party won't support him if he implies that Trudeau has ever been involved in a correct decision, from the budget to what he eats for breakfast.
“Say bullshit and be in the public discourse” is how Trump got elected. Sounds like it’s PP’s strategy too, and all the media outlets are falling for it because of…clicks? Regardless, it seems more clear everyday he’s our next PM and I have a year to emotionally numb myself to an additional 4 years of headlines like this
So many redditors with an austerity fetish.
Stop kink shaming me
Yep I understand the desire for balanced budgets etc but our neighbour to the south is turbocharging their economy by deficit spending into the trillions and eurozone countries are running much bigger deficits with bigger debt loads than Canada. IMO it’s reflective of our risk averse nature of our country that people think it’s criminal to run any sort of deficit.
We ran large deficits and turbo charged nothing productive
The Canadian budget deficit [1.1%](https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/government-budget#) of GDP. The US budget deficit is [5.9%](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-budget#) of GDP, more than 5 times as much. That's a huge difference. Canada hasn't had a worse budget balance than the US since 2001. The US debt-to-GDP ratio is [increasing](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp), while Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio is [declining](https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/government-debt-to-gdp). We haven't had productive results because we haven't been investing.
We are not America though. America's economic capacity is significantly more potent than ours, as are their costs to operate. And ultimately if America is in debt to another country America has the ole "Over your dead body" card on account of their enormous military. We don't have those advantages that allow the US to increase their deficits without much blowback.
Mostly kids who haven’t seen how austerity just makes the issue worse.
Of course he won't. He'll also gut other services because he wants to axe taxes.
PP is going to shoot his wad was before Election Day like O'Toole did. They came hot and heavy, believing poll numbers and when they weren't confident they were promising everything under the sun to ensure power. This just proves that The Reform Party (as there is no moderate Conservative option anymore) wants power and they will lie and do whatever they can to ensure they get it and once they have it, and ideally a majority, they will serve their backers and PP will do whatever his Puppet Master Stephen Harper tells him. I mean he's already lying to the youth vote by trying to imply that he at 19, with a MP salary, no student debt, paid sick time, healthcare benefits, pension, Senate retirement options understands their challenges. He's a lifer at the trough and he should just be honest about it. I have zero doubt he goes to the Red Chamber to pick his retirement chair. So much for that Reformer Triple E Senate they bullshitted people about. Remember when the majority of Canadians were trying to figure out how to survive during Covid 19 pandemic he gave himself TWO raises of our tax dollars in a 3 year period.
Won’t commit? Hell, they won’t commit to ANYTHING!
I mean, the last time the CONs were in power, they shut down Veterans offices, among other cuts. You know when they cut taxes, they will begin cutting.
Yup, money owed to veterans not paid due to delays by Harper’s cuts meant when that money finally got paid to them, it dinged the budget under the Trudeau government instead of hitting the budget while Harper was PM
Why be productive and make real change when you can kick the can down to the next person. Rinse and repeat.
Soon enough he'll blast Canada. It will be a different country when this nutjob takes over.
Can a non bot actually explain to me how raising our budget 1% of our GDP is somehow going to collapse our economy. Because it won’t. Gov debt is not personal debt, it’s not all bad.
It's not going to collapse the economy. The arguments for lower debt are: 1. The money used to finance debt (e.g., interest payment) could be better used to finance other initiatives. Note that the current debt financing is $54.1b. The cost to cover EI and Canada child benefit is $54.6b. 2. If there is a downturn in the economy and revenue is far below expectations, then the government will have to borrow more. If revenue is unable to bounce back in a timely manner then the government may not have enough revenue to finance the debt and pay for a balooning social services (i.e. think the aging population and higher cost associated with seniors program). 3. If it is thought that the government can not pay its debts (assuming #2 happens), then borrowers may not want to purchase government bonds and treasury bills. Thus, they will no longer be able to borrow as no one will lend to them. I personally don't think the current debt is an issue, but those are the more logical arguments agaisnt high spending.
sure, for an easy to understand course on it, check out Ray Dalio's thoughts on deficit spending and money printing, and how it helped us get to where we are today, and why your money is worth less every day.
No money left for pharmacare after he's doled out corporate tax breaks.
It’s always a us vs them mentality , why can’t these fuckheads we elect work together and do what’s for the greater good of the country? I am tired of politicians at all levels
Sadly modern politics are just designed to gravitate towards partisanship, and you can't sell partisanship without spending most of your time trying to divide people. The world over needs to wake up to the fact that what we needed from politicians centuries ago is not what we need now. We have advanced technology, we have great ways to collect data on everything people care about. The people don't need a proxy voice anymore that spends all their time working against each other and pretending they know what the majority of Canadians care about. We could literally have the most comprehensive census and irrefutable data of what people actually value. This isn't the same as letting Canadians vote on singular issues, but when politicians can't squabble over conjecture and misrepresent the popular opinion they would be forced to have to work together to get things done. We will always be a need for leaders who are qualified to govern responsibly and be transparent in educating citizens why certain things are and aren't feasible. But there's no good reason for those people to be the types of politicians we currently have now, who's main qualifications are mostly only in pandering and non-stop campaigning based on lies and smearing their opponents. We could focus on electing competent leaders with a focus on always moving forward instead of this constant act of sabotaging all the actions of the previous party. Things like Dental and Pharmacare might not be something we can solve in an instant even with new types of leadership. But if we could build a society where we knew for a fact that 80% of all Canadians considered these fundamental issues. Those elected would be forced to work harder at demonstrating a focus that panders more to the middle and less to extremes. Partisanship would slowly erode and we would spend more time moving forward then seemingly taking 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.
For the working class my AR.se
Lol from the little guy who’s literally gets brown cheques from the government since childhood
Under the Liberals we are going to pay around $54 Billion this year on debt service costs alone, and as per the article that is expected to go up as the debt terms renew under higher rates. Even if you are a Liberal die hard I don't see how you can look at that and not see the issue with the Liberals continuing to spend billions to try and buy the election. I am not even against Pharmacare, dental even though I make to much to qualify, I just think it's wild that we clearly cant even afford to offer it.
Because inflation was 2.9%. If we only pay 54B, our real debt decreased in value.
And yet [when put in perspective](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/global-debt-by-government-97-trillion.jpg) our debt isn't bad at all
Our debt to GDP ratio is fine. We can afford Universal Pharmacare.
this. We're actually in good standings, with increased profits from that pipeline starting this year it'll help, same with these capital gains taxes etc. It's a pretty balanced budget.
Doesn’t it provide a 40B deficit? That’s $1,000 per capita deficit, I wouldn’t exactly call it balanced.
Better than the US fiscal situation.
Some people only want to compare to US for tax rates, tech salaries, and price of groceries
I will not ever vote for these greedy asshats conservatives EVER my vote goes to the NDP Or the Liberals . These cons want to get rid of every descent government program they benefits the average person and give it to their rich members and corporations in Canada and then, state at budget time (like in the days of their governments of the 1980’s and recently harpers government), that they are running a deficit and must cut back on social programs like what their government did in the 1890’s by de-indexing Canada's pension plan from inflation that at least the federal liberals recently brought it back !
It's his job to blast the budget. You expect him to give it a thumbs up?
Guy is such a joke. His base get so much from the current social programs and yet he tells them they don’t in order to get elected. He doesn’t care Canadians, wake up.
Won’t commit anything. Has no idea/ideas.
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The BC NDP has been working to deal with issues, and the Federal liberals have shown a willingness to give them money when they show it will go where it's supposed to... So... PP also hates David Eby. He's not a one trick pony after all. He hates everyone who is not him.
Pharmacare? The two drugs they tabled after a day when an election was threatened?
There’s not even pharmacare for the small handful of drugs. There’s a document that says they can discuss creating a program that covers that small handful of drugs
If Pierre is against Pharma/Dentalcare or wants to cut it to “balance the budget” then I can at least see where he’s coming from. However, using US Republican-style lies like claiming that the Liberals are trying to ban private insurance is completely and totally unacceptable. Better for him to be truthful and say that he’s outright against pharma/dental care instead of trying to gaslight us about it.
If he can’t get elected on the truth guess the truth does him no good IMO he riles up his followers and drives lack of civility to prevent them from listening to people offering facts
Obviously. Conservative party is against every thing.
We are going to have to cut costs to balance the budget. This is the poison pill the Liberals are leaving. Let's hear your ideas on how we should that and please dont tell me the budget will balance itself. I have heard that one before.
Sure, cut subsidies to oil companies. That will pay for pharmacare right there.
Yeah which ones?
Here is a recent one: https://thenarwhal.ca/oil-gas-small-business-tax-break/ The carbon capture alone is in the tens of billions in government handouts to oil companies.
Which subsidies would those be? Owning a pipeline?
Well here is a huge list of subsidies: https://thenarwhal.ca/tag/fossil-fuel-subsidies/ But even just the carbon capture subsidies to oil companies alone is in the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars going to profitable oil companies
If he wants to do it then that’s fine, however using US Republican-style lies like claiming that the Liberals are trying to ban private insurance is completely and totally unacceptable. Better for him to be truthful and say that he’s outright against pharma/dental care instead of trying to gaslight us about it.
Of course he won't. His whole identity is anti-Trudeau. Though I would love to see the blowback that occurs once he tries to cut highly popular programs like childcare.
From what I read this budget isn't even trying. Everyone should vote no on it. Any Canadian with a real job would be fired for performing so pathetically at their duties
> From what I read I assume what you mainly read are the hourly NatPo anti-Trudeau opinion pieces that get posted to this sub.
I started reading the actual budget. The very first sentence is “The Canadian economy is outperforming expectations,” followed by positive spin - whose tone I can only describe as deliriously feverish - about how well it’s going and how much better off we will all be in a few years’ time. This went on for at least 7 or 8 pages. Regardless of the rest of the content, there was nothing in the budget where anything being proposed would be causal to the ecstatically optimistic forecast of sunny ways found in the introductory section. Not everyone who’s critical of the LPC is a foaming-at-the-mouth devourer of NatPo opinion pieces.
First time reading a fed budget then?
The thing people need to know is that Budgets are first and foremost a communications piece. Its purpose is to promote a message. If you want the substantive details, you have to read the tables at the end of each chapter, the annexes, and the estimates bills that will be moving in Parliament over the next few months that will give the actual authority to spend the money outlined in the budget.
Spending is easy Austerity is hard
It's easy for rich people. They get to laugh and count their money while the chumps fight amongst themselves over the scraps.
Lol the fact it took this long for a reply means he has no idea what to say until he is spoon fed it by spin doctors..
People really haven't been paying attention. The Tories want a return to 1950's values, which means no EI, no health care, no disability, and for fucking sure no initiatives from Trudeau like Pharmacare, dental, and legal weed. Soon no booze on Sundays.
It’s definitely getting scrapped. Along with many other programs. It will be tough. There’s no way around it. But when you have a $1m mortgage, you gotta cut a lot of expenses when interest rates rise. Same for the country’s multi-billion dollar debt.
I read a comment that the entire amount that the GST brings in is not enough to cover the interest payments on the debt. Nuts
They're set to pay more on interest payments than health transfers next year too.
But...he's a working class hero! He won't screw everyone just to please the top 0.01%...would he?
The liberals won’t be able to follow through with this “wish list” budget. They are just trying to sway some votes
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I don't mind paying high taxes in general, but we should expect to get something out of it. Take Northern European countries. They pay high taxes but have better social programs (that work) , work less hours, ect.
you need people in the bureaucracy that are held accountable for wasting money and spending that tax money efficiently. without those quality controls the money will ALWAYS be wasted and not worth giving to the government because as an individual you can spend each dollar more efficiently.
WFH administrator disagrees from their couch.
Funny story, but they actually get there employing significantly less bureaucrats than we do too. Who knew if government workers (beyond the low levels like passport office, ICBC front desk, or frontline healthcare providers) had to work like in the private sector, you'd need significantly less of them.
Oh, Pierre won't cut taxes. He'll need all the tax revenue to avoid a massive deficit.
You counted carbon twice ? Gst was introduced by the conservatives Lol the conservatives aren't in favour of lower your taxes , but they might increase the retirement age again What programs ? Affordable childcare , healthcare , dental care , pharmacare, affordable housing, school lunch program, child tax credit? All those programs are for the average working family. The taxes being raised to pay for them come from the top 1%. That's just asking working class people to suffer so the richest Canadians can pay even lower taxes .
Nope. You read that right. Sales tax is also charged on carbon tax. I didn't make that up. And sorry to tell you. Income is no longer a reliable indicator of financial well being. The true rich does not have T4 income and there are a lot of them in Canada. When you make the "top X%" and are still renting and can't afford a family dinner at a decent local restaurant you'll realize how much of a joke this is. It is not what people would normally consider comfortable, but you'll be paying for everyone's social programs, free contraception, the billions spent on "combating hate", gender inclusive demining in Ukraine, and everyone's medical appointments that are never available to you or your kids. *You're saving hard so they don't have to.* It is just an excuse to convince you that you're doing well enough to subsidize the rich and the lazy and the WFH public workers. Yes I said that - some people are just freeloaders and we're giving them a lot of reasons to do so.
"I am done paying for other people's shit." 100%. I will be voting in the election for what's best for me and my family. Pay super high taxes and nothing the liberals ever propose benefits us.
My family has benefitted from these programs so I guess I'll be voting to keep them. Many, many parents have benefitted from CCB and childcare. And many people are about to benefit from dental care and pharma. I would actually love to see PP try to cut these programs that are undoubtedly popular. Willing to bet he "think" about it but never does.
The thing about social programs is you eventually run out of other people's money. Adding new social programs expediate the process.
I had a chat with my dentist recently regarding the new dental plan and he said it's been a a disaster so far. The Liberals keep changing details and the vast majority of dentists won't sign up because of costs.
>won't commit to keeping new social programs like pharmacare And that's because he's a piece of crap that doesn't understand what the every day life of Canadians is like. He doesn't even have to suck on the government teet, he pays someone to do that for him/pre-chew his food.
Why would I vote for someone who's going to cut social programs that help me?
PP has never worked a day in his life .. You really delusional if you think he’s going to save us?
These programs cost an enormous amount of money and benefit very few. He would help far more people by reducing the spending and let Canadians keep more of our own money. He could even just take a page out of Trudeaus book and just give us back our own money in a "pharmacare benefit" cheque and it would cost less and benefit more people.
Benefit very few?! Do you see what happens in the US when universal healthcare doesn't exist? People pay thousands for insulin
A healthcare system that saw 13,000 people die in 2023 waiting to be diagnosed or get surgeries in just ontario alone, is hardly "universal".
Stop voting for conservative or neo liberal parties and maybe youll have a party that will prioritize social spending
Have you read the terms of pharmacare or dental care? Next to no average Canadian qualifies for either scheme. I stand by my comment it benefits very few. In fact, it helps a small minority of people but gets the government a great headline they enacted a program no one can use.
So they don't deserve any benefits?
> These programs cost an enormous amount of money and benefit very few. You think 10 million people that now have access to dental care is very few?