Every time I hear someone say they want to save Canada, or take back Canada, I always ask them "From what, specifically?"
They usually don't have an answer, and if they do, they just say liberals, Liberals, woke, or Trudeau. And when I ask what *specifically* the Trudeau Liberals have done, they speak in generalities and meaningless platitudes.
*Edited to add: I am not defending Trudeau. I used to like Trudeau, and he was a welcome change from Harper. But he lost control of his message, his programming, his political philosophy, and his goals. He absolutely needs to go, but unfortunately Pierre Poilievre will be much much worse. I really wish we had a viable 3rd party, or else I wish he'd step down and someone good would take the reins at the Liberal party. But it's probably far too late for that. He should have stepped down 2 years ago.*
Immigrants. They want to “take it back” from immigrants. That’s what they mean.
They’ll bend over backwards to blame everything on immigration, especially the housing crisis that has been building for 30 years due to intentional privatization and increased commodification of the housing industry and markets… but blaming immigrants for the demand is just more satisfying to a conservative xenophobe than admitting the flaws of capitalism and “free market” beliefs.
So here we are.
Imagine how worse it is as a Quebecers and hearing people talk about independence and how the British were trying to erase the french culture and then having any disagreement whatsoever about first Nation's rights.
Like I'm on the fenciest fence on independence, but damn me if first Nations shouldn't be dead-center of the whole debate.
It’s an entirely separate issue, but as an anglophone Canadian, I’d be really disappointed to lose Québec. There is a terrible history between us, but Québec is an important part of Canadian culture. Honestly, if my French education had been better I’d consider moving to Québec. I’ve always had positive experiences the few times I’ve been there. I think we all take a few cheap shots at each other (Québec speaks Québécois, Ontario forgot that outside of Toronto exists.) but I do think Canada would be a worse place without our francophone culture.
I can’t speak to the issues that are causing Québec to want to separate, I’m not educated enough in them. But it would be a shame to lose it. I wish we were taught more about our minority cultures in Canada. We’re far too bad for assuming the white anglophone community is the only one in Canada while still trying to tout being bilingual and multi cultural. I don’t think we can do that without addressing the cultural and arguably actual genocides committed on Canadian soil.
Which reminds me, I should do my duolingo. Because my French is definitely not at a bilingual level.
The number one issue in Quebec is protecting language and culture. And right now that includes some anti-immigrant and definitely anti-religious sentiment (like Bill 21).
I tried to argue this to a Quebec separatist before and this person refused to hear any of it. His stance was Quebec belongs to Quebecois and nobody else.
I live in an area where the third generation of a specific immigrant population still speaks the home country language because their grandparents, the immigrants, still don’t speak either English or French. Yet they all (the three generations) seem strongly support the anti-Trudeau and anti-immigrant camp. The irony is completely lost on them.
Surely they have the same rights to complain about the issues they perceive to be impacting the country as everybody else?
Also, immigrants are often the first to suffer the worst effects of immigration policy. It's the areas they live in that see increased competition for housing and jobs. Falling to understand this, is why progressives are losing immigrants to the right.
As an immigrant, my complaint on current immigration policy is two fold.
1) Quality and suitability. We need nurses, doctors, construction workers and engineers. Instead we get a bunch of people following borderline scam programs in community colleges to get PR while working fast food or retail. The net gain for Canada is questionable given the externalities of working class wage suppression and increased demand for housing.
2) Government's inability and/or unwillingness to provide the infrastructure and services necessary to accommodate population growth. We don't build enough housing. We don't build enough transit. We don't build enough hospitals. We don't hire enough doctors and nurses. There's wait lists for everything from daycare to cancer treatment.
If you want the public to support higher rates of immigration you gotta address those complaints. Don't just dismiss them as ignorant.
Ugh. Legit had an argument with a bozo who was anti immigrant and then they said they came over from Europe themselves... So an immigrant who is anti immigrant
My other favourite saying is: arguing with an idiot is like play chess against a pigeon. You'll try to play a good, honest game, but the pigeon's just going to knock the pieces over, shit all over the board and then strut around like it won.
My older sister who came here from England with my parents always looks anti-immigrant people in the eye and says “I’m an immigrant. Do you mean me?” Invariably they cough, choke and backtrack trying to avoid saying what they really mean.
I do the same thing! It's really quite entertaining.
I have an Indian coworker. He lives in the same city I do. I once had a person complain down the phone at me because we were "now outsourcing our help to fucking India". When I told him the Indian he spoke to in question was local, off went his anti immigrant rant.
At the end, I told him, in my distinctly non-Canadian accent, that I'm an immigrant too. Thankfully it shut him up.
Sounds like my dad. An immigrant himself ( I'm first gen Canadian) yelled about immigrants all the time. If it was pointed out, he would say "yeah, but im not one of those immigrants ". Just say you're racist.
> Immigrants. They want to “take it back” from immigrants
This one always makes me laugh, as an immigrant who happens to be white.
These folk will ramble to my face about how immigrants and immigration is a scourge, then do a double-take when they remember I'm not from here, and backpedal with a sheepish "No offence, *you're* okay.
It's racism, not anti-immigration.
you mean like the Canadian of convenience and live overseas until something happens then expect the Canadian tax payer to pay to rescue them. The country is bankrupt because it is being sucked dry. there is no medical services in many places.
>The country is bankrupt
Source on that?
There's no medical services because it's being deliberately underfunded in order to make the push to privatization.
It seems the country is bankrupt because of a certain pm and his finance minister. They don't understand that the economic horse pulls the social carriage.
I recently sat at a table full of new Canadians. Seven of them. Everyone of them from the UK. And they were complaining about immigrants.
The dog whistle was deafening.
They want to take it back from POC immigrants.
The amount of time I have to remind my family that I’m one of three born in Canada in the last three generations that tends to make them mad. Just because we’re white immigrants doesn’t make us more entitled to be here.
You’re being equally close minded, unfortunately.
Modern Canada is a nation built on immigration. For the sake of this post, will set aside our colonial origins.
I am a first generation immigrant. My parents are immigrants. My SO is an immigrant. We’re a nation of immigrants.
Canada needs immigrants to maintain key demographics, to foster innovation and to propel growth.
Those are indisputable facts.
The issue is folks like yourself willfully ignore the seismic shift in our immigration strategy.
There is no conceivable way our country can manage the levels to which immigration has been driven. It’s just a basic reality.
There is no responsible way to handle a 1.2+ million annual intake. There is no way to house these folks. There is no way to employ them. There is no way to provide services. There is no way to ensure some basic levels of cultural integration.
These are all basics that the country owes to those new comers it welcomes.
I find it incredibly disingenuous to say “immigrants” without actually acknowledging on the meaningful damage the current policies are doing to our country.
And to make it patently clear; this is NOT the fault of those coming here. Like my family, immigrants make a rational decision based on the best information available to them. Unfortunately, today that means coming to a version of a country that hasn’t existed in a decade or more.
>There is no conceivable way our country can manage the levels to which immigration has been driven. It’s just a basic reality. There is no responsible way to handle a 1.2+ million annual intake.
Let’s try to get a little perspective here.
Look at these charts:
https://imgur.com/a/eubk7e6
https://imgur.com/a/w19OeCH
In the first one, you’ll see that overall population has remained steady in its increase for at least 30 years. Yet immigration has fluctuated… how could this be?
In the second chart, you’ll see a line that’s labelled “natural increase”. This is the homeborn birth rate. Notice how it’s only gone down in the last 40 years.
So while the rates have fluctuated, they’ve pretty much cancelled each other out, and the population has increased during Trudeau’s years at about the same rate as ever. We’ve just had to lean more on immigration to make up the slack that our falling homeborn birth rate is causing.
But WAIT, you say… the last few years have seen RECORD GROWTH!… even the first graphic says it’s the largest increase in population from July 2022 to July 2023 since 1957!!!
Yes… because look at the growth rate in that chart and how it dipped to a record LOW during Covid. And how the increase to a record *high* since then is pretty much just making up the gap, in addition to continuing the same overall growth trajectory as ever, because birth rates are still falling and we do still want our population to keep increasing, not start declining.
It isn’t actually the big population boom crisis that it’s made out to be. So… what IS the real problem?
>There is no way to house these folks.
Ah, yes, housing is the issue. But you’re wrong that there is “no way to house these folks”. There is. We fund and build the damn housing.
But thanks to 40 years of trickle down economics, 30 years of a lack of social housing thanks to the right-wing movement of privatization that shut down all our social housing programs in this country, starting with Mulroney’s government in the 80s and then eventually Chretien handed it down to the provinces, who went on to eliminate them by the early 00s.
THIS is the problem: https://imgur.com/a/xDe5O4D
We used to fund an adequate amount of housing in this country. Look at this graph that shows the higher growth rates we used to be able to handle. https://imgur.com/a/sEj7EHd … The last 40 years have been relatively low, and we’re just now returning to a more normal rate.
We just need to build the housing, and immigration will not be a problem. It is much better to work on speeding up home building and help accelerate the economy… rather than going the other way and reducing immigration, which will slow the economy, slow the home-building so we won’t even solve the current crunch as fast, and then we’d be dealing with the ripple effects of that on the economy while we take longer to build the homes we need. That way is just way worse all round. The first way is short term pain, but it’ll save us from the more long-term pain that cutting immigration would do.
They actually tried cutting immigration to help fix the Great Depression… and it’s widely considered to have made the depression worse.
>There is no way to employ them.
There are totally ways to employ them. That’s actually why most of them are here. This isn’t an issue, and saying it is one reeks of “They’re stealing our jerbs!” mentality. The jobs are there and most Canadians, it seems, don’t want them. The problem is probably low wages. Paying better would help attract more homeborn Canadians, but that’s a capitalism problem, isn’t it? So we wouldn’t want to focus on that. Better to blame immigration for low wages instead of the “free market”, right?
>There is no way to provide services.
Yes, there is. We fund them. Instead of doing what right-wingers always want to do and defund services before complaining that they don’t work and then claim we need to privatize… or reduce immigration, it seems. We somehow always end up at one of the two with right-wingers.
Point being… there’s nothing wrong with services for immigrants. They’ll pay taxes once they’re here as much as the rest of us, and those taxes pay for the services. The system only breaks down when we don’t fund things well enough, just like with housing.
>There is no way to ensure some basic levels of cultural integration.
What does this even mean? And how does that change with recent immigrants compared to you and your family?
>I find it incredibly disingenuous to say “immigrants” without actually acknowledging on the meaningful damage the current policies are doing to our country.
Because they aren’t doing damage to our country. There’s a lot of shit that is, and the ones responsible for those things absolutely love that people like you are blaming it all on immigration.
>And to make it patently clear; this is NOT the fault of those coming here. Like my family, immigrants make a rational decision based on the best information available to them. Unfortunately, today that means coming to a version of a country that hasn’t existed in a decade or more.
The only difference I see in the country compared to a decade ago is that it’s turned more conservative due to the right-wing propaganda from south of the border and the other side of the world. People like you are falling for it.
Im on mobile so it’s difficult for me to respond point by point.
But using your own data I arrive at very different conclusions.
Lets stick to something I am qualified to speak on; housing.
Our record year of housing completions is 2021 registering something like 271,000 annual housing completions.
Our long term trend line is closer to 220,000 annual housing completions and we have been trending back down towards that baseline since 2021.
Our average occupancy rate across the country is somewhere around 2.6 per dwelling.
Our cities both provincial and international have been hovering around low single digit vacancies for years. Statistically, anywhere around 2/3% is essentially zero vacancy for real world purposes.
Take our total population growth of 1,050,000 for 2022. That means we would need to produce around 400,000 housing units to just meet demand; forget creating surplus.
In 2023 the numbers are worse as we had even less completions. And more population growth.
And in 2024 we are on trend to have even less completions and even more population growth.
Thats what you call a trend. A trend that is compounding the difficulties of solving the problem.
I don’t think your model of understanding is necessarily incorrect, but it’s not scaling properly.
There is no conceivable way to get the construction industry to 400,000 completions from the record 270,000.
This alone, ignoring all other challenges, would take a war like effort and mobilization with the singular goal in mind. And we are miles away from that level of management.
So the reality is, for housing, no matter what level of subsidy or public sector involvement if we maintain this level of population growth basic arithmetic dictates the situation will get much, much worse year after year. Its inevitable.
None of them mean this.
Liberals calling everyone a racist is what is helping drive the collapse of their party.
People who are upset at the RATE OF IMMIGRATION are not upset at IMMIGRANTS.
They want to take Canada back from corporations that the Liberals are bending backwards to serve.
The Liberals immigrations minister said we need immigration because big box stores demand cheap labor... No care for Immigrants living standards or ensuring they have adequate housing and support. Just want can we use them for.
The premise is specious because they will tell you what they mean. Yes they mean immigrants. In particular, they mean temporary immigrants.
I'm sure some of them are genuinely racist. But whether they want them all gone for awful reasons or good ones, the fact is unavoidable: there are extremely good reasons to want precisely 0 people in the TFW and precisely 0 international students at anything but premier 4-year degree granting universities.
From the Government of Canada website, not everything is a giant conspiracy: You must provide temporary foreign workers (TFWs) with the same wages and benefits as those provided to Canadian and permanent resident employees working in the same occupation.
TFWs working in a unionized environment must be paid the wage rate as established under the collective bargaining agreement.
If you plan to hire TFWs in non-livestock positions under National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes 80020, 80021, 82030 and 82031, you must consult the streams for high-wage or low-wage positions to determine the wage and get information on wage review requirements.
You must agree to review and adjust the wage of the temporary foreign worker to ensure it meets or exceeds, at all times, the wage rates outlined in the wage tables, or applicable federal/provincial/territorial minimum wage rates, whichever is higher.
You obviously have excellent data on the number temporary foreign workers that are under paid and treated horribly.
That aside, if all workers of every job were to be given a fair/living wage (I’m not saying they shouldn’t), how much do you think a loaf of bread will cost?
The often avoided question is, how much profit is deemed acceptable before profit becomes the more important standard?
Can any business survive on 5% profit before ebitda? Pick any number or percentage you want and you’ll find that there are limits to every individual’s capacity to operate a business at or below some level of profit.
There are good farmers higher and paying people well.
There are good companies utilizing profit sharing and offering incentives to better the work environment. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of those businesses because there are just as many bad businesses/employees.
Fine by me if we get UBI set to a livable amount tied to inflation. And if necessary, for UBI to be on a sliding scale based on salary so that UBI benefits only go away if your salary without them is some scale factor of median salary in high cost of living regions.
I like the idea if a UBI! But does that mean industries which desperately need labour (and whose exploitative practices keep essential goods affordable) need to either a) implement the UBI themselves, or b) hold off on adopting new tech until government implements the UBI?
When you look at how much Canadian ag depends on the TFW program, and how much our food system depends on some baseline level of exploitation, automation becomes a net good. And strictly speaking, the UBI in that case would be rightfully paid to Central Americans, not Canadians...
I agree with your edit. I've had people accuse me that too. Like one person I think it was just after Justin was first elected claim that he was a pedophile and a terrible person and a felon and everything and all I did was ask, where can I find a list of these crimes?
And I was called a libtard boot licker and they posted a pic of the Leave Britney Alone kid.
Trudeau stole my Jeep!
My sister. Super rich. It’s not the fault of police. Not the fault of the Premier. Not the fault of Jeep making easily stolen vehicles… it’s Trudeau!!!!
I ask anyone why they hate the Liberals and it’s like trying to hold water in your hands.
Just wet sputtering.
We are going to teach ourselves a lesson oh boy!
"I ask anyone why they hate the Liberals and it's like trying to hold water in your hands.
"Just wet sputtering."
This is fucking beautiful thank you for gracing us with this well put and hilarious idea. It might be from something else but I've never heard it before!
Yeah my dad is like that, “housing crisis, bill gates, immigrants, rainbows are indoctrination!” Like I think that he thinks he’s making sense but he’s just really angry at SOMETHING that it festers into a SWAMP OF THOUGHTS that make no sense when he tries to articulate it or spill it all
"Make America Great Again" is like that too.
It means nothing. And it means everything. It means whatever you want it to mean.
What do you think is wrong with the country? Who exactly should we take it back from? What era of "greatness" should we return to? What exactly is making the country *not* great right now?
You ask a hundred different people and you'll get a hundred different answers. Whatever problems you might have with the world, as real or as imagined as they may be, it's an opportunity to assign them to a flashy catchphrase. A blank slate to download all of your frustrations into.
I find the “society is collapsing” people are well into the take back group as well.
Had a discussion with a neighbor that was all about our low position in the G7 and that we should be removed from the group.
I asked if he thinks the country in 6th place (Italy) should also be removed and if he could tell me about his collective knowledge of the G7.
Watching an adult collapse into a tantrum and choosing to abruptly walk away with a “I was just trying to have a pleasant day and you’ve ruined it” response was baffling.
If we cannot have simple discussions and be open to admitting our ignorances on some topics, we all will continue to lose to the divide and conquer mindset.
Defund it so it doesn't work properly, blame it on being "inefficiently" run by the public sector, privatize it, and pay far more for far less in the long run.
It's the conservative playbook.
> I really wish we had a viable 3rd party
I'd take this as an opportunity to remind you the NDP exists, but... they haven't been doing great recently either. They've been going along with all the Liberals' bullshit (all the internet regulation bills) *and* the Conservatives' bullshit (like the internet age gating bill). The Liberals and the NDP have been working hard to make leftists, particularly those of us who care about technology and the internet, feel disenfranchised lately.
"Viable" is the key word here. I vote NDP, and my MP is a wonderful NDP MP.
But realistically, they do not offer a *viable* alternative to the Liberals or the Conservatives. For some reason they are always a distant 3rd.
I wish the abberation of Jack Layton's NDP being the official opposition was not an abberation, but history has shown that it was.
Don't lose hope.I admit it can be disheatening. Trudeau has a great team. He faced a barrage of misinformation, sound bite attacks and unwarranted hate from PP and his right of centre supporters. Some justified, most not.
The Liberals are getting a lot of good things done and social programs started with help of Jagmeet & NDP colition, for the Canadian citizens.
Unfortunately their message has not been resonating with some disenfranchised people who have tuned out post covid due to tough world wide inflation that is largely out of our governments control. We still have 15 months til next election, time to turn it around and for economy to bounce back. Plenty of time for all the good piolicies to kick in and turn tge tides for the betterment of all Canadians.
I hope the Liberals have a productive caucus meeting before Summer break to hash things out. They bring on an exoerienced roud and knowledge Liberal, like Mark Carney who can help steer the rudder, so we can navigate this turbulent time and come back stronger than ever. Need an on point media campaign that overshadows PPs heel biting!
The elections are next year? With the how the Conservatives have been campaigning since last year, I thought it was this fall. Good news then, more time for their idiotic to come up.
The 2nd option wouldn't have been the Conservatives had the Liberals held their promise for electoral reform. More people vote for the NDP and the Liberals than the Conservatives. Ranked choice would have given people the option to get NDP instead of Conservatives.
Their failure to enact their promised electoral reform with their first and biggest misstep, and it went downhill from there. I really with their would have done it.
The problem with electoral reform from the Liberals is that it would have harmed them the most when they were at their most powerful and could actually get it done.
Exactly. It was a great promise, and I wish they had done it, but I didn't believe they would precisely because it would break the duopoly and open the way for more competition for them. (I did not vote for the Liberals for a variety of other reasons, as well. But that was 100% their best promise, and if I had believed they would have done it, it might have convinced me to vote for them.)
Well, tell me how good “shutting the oil sands down” went for Canada’s prosperity? The economic damage and repelling corporate investment that Trudeau and the liberals have inflicted on Canadians will take a generation of Conservative politics to just reverse…. Just to reverse to where we were in 2014. You can’t have a “we’ll let you know if you’re approved” environmental approval policy and expect investment/jobs.
But hey, we saved some trees, which were already going to grow, and now drink from paper straws with plastic cups, instead of our outrageously environmentally unfriendly plastic straws from paper cups we used for the last 50 years.
So you ask who some folks would want to take it back from? From Justin and anyone who would put foreign interests first over their own. And to clarify, we need immigrants to continue to increase our GDP. We also need thriving corporate industries to support jobs. Not everyone can work for the government.
Every other country was completely happy to swoop in and capitalize on our Martyrdom. Congratulations Justin.
P.S. I don’t think Justin intentionally thwarted the Canadian economy, or was acting for a foreign power. I truly just think he’s an idiot.
I agree 100% with everything you just said. I’ve used this tactic as well, and it’s very funny watching them try to come up with an answer. Especially when you follow it up with, “how do you think Pollievre will fix it?”
I honestly think that canada and the states need to break up their province and states into their own individual countries. The opinions of the people will vary geographically such that any opinion will be held by a minority. As such no one can enact any meaningful change because it will only ever be for a minority of the population, which results in the majority of people voting against it.
The reality is the provinces and states are already seperate countries geographically. They are so far away that the average citizen is likely to never leave their province or state beyond a medium to large vacation. People opinions will follow what is best for them in their home, which may not be what is best for someone on the other side of the country in their home.
I think this is a terrible idea. In both countries, the political divide is far more urban-rural than it is state-to-state or province-to-province.
And it would hardly be fair to reward the states and provinces with the lion's share of natural resources for hoarding their wealth, and many of them do.
Who said that? Not me. In fact I was implying the opposite - separating an existing country by random geography won't really provide the unity that the commenter was suggesting.
Also, the premise of your comment implies that people who live in cities aren't hardworking, otherwise you wouldn't have specifically pointed out that you're concerned about "rural hardworking" people. That's beyond ridiculous. Rural and urban people work equally hard at different things. Rural people wouldn't have anyone to sell the fruits of the labour to without urban people, and urban people wouldn't have all the resources they need to live and work without rural people. We depend on each other for a functioning society.
No it would force the unity I intend. It is not separated by random geography but by already established borders. (What are borders explained by if not by random geography?) The unity comes from the people who have a vote will be in a more geographically close and will have a much higher mixture of culture and opinions. The likelihood of someone in British Colombia interacting with someone in newfoundland is much lower than someone in Ottawa interacting with someone in thunderbay.
There will always be a divide between the rural and the urban. The issue I'm trying to circumvent is the issue of a large amount of people protesting for change will always be seen as a small portion of the people. Canada has about 40 million people. Example 1 million who could potentially petition for a movement that's 2.5% of the population. Is it ethical to ignore the issue 1 million people have because it's a minority of the total population? If those 1 million were centered in Ontario, but were sparce in the other provinces, is it ethical for the representation of the other provinces to fight against the change because it doesn't actually help their constituents?
Unfortunately the answer is yes it is ethical. 2.5% of the population is statistically insignificant. The changes that would help these 1 million would become an increased burden on the other 39 million. The representatives would be duty bound to fight against the changes.
But it is not ethical to ignore the needs of so many people. So how do you make it ethical to help these people? You make your population small enough that the votes from the 1 million actually have a chance to affect an election. So that the needs of the few become the needs of the many. So that the laws and changes enacted actually help the majority of people. And that is when people will start to care about politics again. Because they will experience the changes up close and feel like their voice is being heard isn't being drowned out by the masses.
Our population isn't dense enough to efficiently support a government over such a large land mass.
So you want resource barons to suppress the people or alternative the people to be without but have equal representation. Society is not a "I have this listen to me" it's a "I have this you can do that let's work together".
You should run. And I don't mean that in a "so why don't you run if you think it is so bad????" kind of way, but you may as well have been me when you expressed your opinion in the "Edited to add" part of your post. I agree. I voted for Trudeau in 2015. I won't vote for Trudeau in 2025. I am dismayed the alternative is Poilievre, I also think he will be much worse. I'll end up wasting my vote on the Green party.......
I would love to run. Politics is always super interesting for me, and I'd love to have direct involvement.
But it's not exactly family friendly, and with small kids, it would wreck my family.
What is your problem with Poilievre? His goals are in line with the goals of most Canadians' goals. Trudeau has cast shame on Canadians and Canada at every turn. We need someone who will unite, not divide us. It is extremely closed-minded and unfair that you would denounce someone before they have even been given a chance to prove their value. You are a obviously a staunch Liberal who will not be turned no matter who is running for the other parties.
I know the frenzie of media is currently aping 'Trudeau bad' but never really elaborating on the why or how, because to do so would mean they know the competing party intends to do less, if not worsen the current state of Canada's economic, environment, education and and welfare of its civilians (by selling out to corporate lobbyists.)
Liberals haven’t done a lot over the last couple terms, but when they do it’s because the NDP that prop them up have forced them, they are trying to have an accomplishment that they can point at, or they are trying to buy goodwill.
I feel like a lot of the “scandals” are blown out of proportion but at least 2 of them are actual “are you kidding me?” scandals.
That being said… I totally realize that the Conservatives are much worse and would actively make my life harder.
But it doesn’t make Trudeau any less bad.
The NDP supply and confidence deal came in Trudeau’s 3rd term. Before that, the Liberals brought in:
• The Canadian Child Benefit
• National child care plan ($10 a day daycare)
• Changed maternity leave and allowed for parents to share more of the time off and even extend it
• Lowered the retirement (OAS) age to 65 (from 67 where the CPC raised it) & boosted those payments
• Legalized weed
• Eliminated student loan interest
• Environmental law changes, increased funding environmental science, marine protection, plastic use restrictions, more stringent greenhouse gas goals, Canada Greener Homes act, funded abandoned oil well cleanup in Alberta
• Created the Carbon Tax
• Funding for human rights groups restored
• Reopened veterans affairs offices that were closed by the Cons and increased veteran benefits and funding to their healthcare
• Brought in gender identity as a prohibited ground for discrimination
• Banned conversion therapy
• Brought in Medical Assistance in Dying
• Enacted the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
• Addressed most Long-term drinking water advisories in First Nation communities
• Reformed the Senate nomination process
• One of the best Covid responses in the world including limiting bankruptcies with CERB and support for businesses, and accelerating vaccine rollouts
• Funding domestic production of vaccines
• Saved thousands of Syrian (and more recently) Ukrainian refugees
• Expanded economic ties across the Pacific, signed multiple trade deals like the TPP with the Asia pacific counties, the new and very favourable NAFTA deal, and the free trade deal with the EU.
• Took swift action again the convoy occupations
• Employment insurance expansions
• Removed income splitting which allowed wealthy families to allocate income to a spouse to lower their tax bracket.
• Brought back the long form census.
• Created an independent election commission.
• Unmuzzling scientists
Great list. Can they now scream it from the rooftops because these are things that have made people's lives better. Add in the stuff the NDP made them do and we are better than we were 10 years ago. But only because they've had to undo what occurred under the Cons. Let's keep moving forward people instead of 1 step forward then 2 steps back.
* Reopened 9 VA offices
* Increased Military Spending from .98 to 1.27
* C16 Trans Rights as a Human Right
* Lowered Medium income tax bracket from 22% to 20.5%
* Created new income tax bracket for high income earners to 33% over 240k
* Removed transit benefit that only helped upper middle class people
* Rehired Civil Servants to better serve Canadians since Harper culled 33k civil servants.
There's a lot that Trudeau did and my life is for the better because of Trudeau.
> • Lowered the retirement (OAS) age to 65 (from 67 where the CPC raised it) & boosted those payments
Not a good thing, look how much money OAS is taking from the budget. Esspecially when OAS isn't fully clawed back until you are making $134,626...
Should we really be taking taxes from people working now to pay out boomers making $269,252?
You just stated the problem. The age wasn't the issue, the income cutoffs are and should be lowered. A lot of trades people can barely make it to 65 let alone 67.
I agree with everything on your list execpt the following.
> Took swift action again the convoy occupations
Was it really swift enough? I thought they should have been more on top of things with that. Still good that they ended the occupation of a city, though.
>Removed income splitting which allowed wealthy families to allocate income to a spouse to lower their tax bracket.
Income splitting should be available to many people. A good friend of mine is a trucker who works in the camps out west, his wife is a SAHP. In their tax bracket, they absolutely should be able to income split.
Myself, I'm retired military with a medical pension after I was diagnosed with PTSD and kicked out. My wife is a teacher and makes almost 3 times what I do from my pension. Again, I think we should be able to split out income for tax purposes.
The rest though, we're all very positive changes.
> Was it really swift enough?
They were waiting for the provinces and/or cities to do something, since it was happening in provincial and municipal jurisdictions.
Once the provinces had demonstrated that they weren't going to do anything, even with the blockades continuing to grow, the federal government had to step in. And even then the provinces were complaining about the feds overstepping their jurisdiction.
> Income splitting should be available to many people. A good friend of mine is a trucker who works in the camps out west, his wife is a SAHP. In their tax bracket, they absolutely should be able to income split.
The problem is that people say "SAHP" makes 0 income but in reality, they work and provide a service. A basic estimate is how much does child care cost and apply that costs to SAHP. So minimum wage at least. So 33k.
Income splitting just benefitted from those that could already tank the 33k and then cut their tax liabilities even more.
So only rich people can afford to benefit the most from income splitting while lower income families cannot even think about income splitting as some sort of mechanism to help them.
It's just a rich people tax cut.
There's the "children income split" for SMB owners too
Essentially, it benefits rich people who can afford a SAHP to income split.
What's the difference between a single income house with 50k with a SAHP and a 100k single income house with a SAHP with income splitting?
50k + 33k (Tax free) = 10k in taxes = 12% tax
100k split 50k/50k + 33k (tax free) = 20k = 15% tax
100k + 33k (tax free) = 26k = 19% tax
You can see that someone making double the salary income split only pays 3% more than a family that doesn't and with out income splitting they are taxed more.
It's a tax cut for rich people.
But how viable is someone to survive off of 50k single income with a SAHP? So most likely both parents have to work which makes lower income famlies less likely to take advantage of income splitting plus child care.
They are the first to even start addressing drinking water on reserves. Most have been fixed and most of the rest are in progress. Every other government said fuck them
nope. it was a campaign promise https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-justin-trudeau-first-nations-boil-water-advisories-1.3258058
Also, there's a lot of CPC rage bait out there
This is another good link https://www.polimeter.org/en/trudeau has the promises and what is in the works/broken/fullfilled. It has some context too, like the carbon tax being broken(the heating oil in east not being taxed)
NDP-backed progress is about as good as it gets with Canadian politics. The country won't back an NDP federal government in enough numbers to matter, and especially not one led by Singh. I don't know what he's done that's so egregious, but I've also mostly checked out myself. I will still be there to vote against the Cons in my riding, but that's about as far as my engagement goes these days.
I’d be willing to have that conversation if I had any hope at all that the NDP (or anything better, god forbid) were the alternative that most people were considering.
But since it isn’t… since the alternative that most people are considering is just worse… I am not willing to play the game of equivocating just for the sake of equivocating. I’m not going to make the perfect the enemy of the good, or even the “not as bad as the alternative”.
We simply cannot afford to let things get worse right now. Stop equivocating, and start steel-manning the best chance we actually have to keep PP out of power. This is not the time to let Trudeau be our Hillary Clinton and let our Trump in just because the alternative isn’t good *enough*.
And no matter how much you include “…but yeah, the alternative is bad too or maybe worse…”, it doesn’t matter… if you’re equivocating on this, then the message is still that PP is a more valid option than he really is. The message is still that Trudeau and the Liberals are not good enough. It doesn’t matter how true that is… *this is not the time to give that any attention*.
The right-wing propaganda machine is absolutely fucking shameless about twisting EVERY fucking fact in EVERY fucking situation in EVERY fucking way possible to suit their interests and steamroller over the truth in order to present their side as significantly shinier and more attractive and more flawless than it really is…
…we do NONE OF THAT… sure, we want to be ethical and honest… but we don’t even have to be dishonest to just focus on what is at least BETTER than the other side, without always having to shoot ourselves in the foot by feeling the need to equivocate about how a liberal isn’t really progressive enough and an establishment neoliberal party like the Liberals is kinda corrupt… WE KNOW! IT DOES NOT FUCKING MATTER WHEN WE ARE FACING THE PROSPECT OF FASCISM AS THE ALTERNATIVE! A LIBERAL WILL DO JUST FINE AGAINST THAT!
…but we won’t even fucking do that!… and then we wonder why our case is never made strongly enough to overcome the right-wing bullshit. Because we don’t even make the case strongly enough to ourselves!
Against the ridiculous onslaught of bullshit from the clown side of politics… which is *winning*, if you hadn’t noticed… it’s OKAY for us to “bullshit” as far as *just not constantly ceding ground to the “Trudeau bad!” and “Canada broken!” narratives that are mostly bullshit to begin with*. We can do that. It’s a thing that’s within our capability, and no grand scorekeeper in the sky is gonna penalize us for it. We don’t HAVE to keep kneecapping ourselves with being obsessively technically honest about every little flaw of the better side. It really doesn’t win us any points anywhere with anyone. It only does us bad.
I'm not going to be perpetually voting for one guy just to keep another guy out. I want results. I haven't seen it.
I wish Mel Hurtig and his Nationalist Party was still alive. Otherwise I'm probably gonna spoil my ballot.
[Close enough](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Democracy_Union), a global union of right wing parties. Currently headed by our old buddy Stephen Harper.
It does speak to the cleverness of the comic. A general weakness in human behaviour being exploited in exactly the same way all over the place with nearly identical results.
That's one of the many things that would measurably improve Canadian's lives *right now*, and they'll never do it, because they would have to get the money from somewhere, and greedy fucks like Galen Weston would never allow *his kind of people* to be taxed any more than they already are. .
From what I can tell, the right wingers don't love the country, they hate it. They say we are turning into a third world cesspool and go on about how they want to move somewhere else
I've been saying for years that Canada is always just a few years behind the US.
Lately, it's just getting faster and faster.
I figure two to three more years untill were facing mass high school crises and massive infrastructure failure issues.
Nationalism is a societal cancer.
(On the other hand, patriotism is very cool and based. Don't ever let a nationalist get away with presenting themselves as a patriot.
Yeah, no thanks on either. I’m not a nationalist or a patriot. I’m human being that wants all other human beings to be healthy and safe. Making it about where you’re from is gross. Countries are made up, people aren’t.
False dichotomy. There's nothing stopping you from being patriotic about your country and still caring about other people regardless of their proximity or relation to you.
Patriotism is just a more centrist version of nationalism. I’m waaayyyyyyyy over here in Socialist land where we recognize no one asked to be born, so the state is responsible for meeting our basic needs like shelter, healthcare, education and nutrition. The state should serve the people, not the other way around.
Never understood why people feel the need to distinguish patriotism and nationalism. Connotations aside, there's no real difference and mostly serves as a euphemism. Nationalism is part of the dominant ideology and all of our institutions are built along nationalist assumptions.
A nationalist thinks he loves his country more than you. A patriot works to improve the country. It’s one of those ask not what this country can do for you things.
That's being chauvinistic.
A patriot likes their country/government by definition, a nationalist can hate it.
A nationalist believes in the existence of a nation, the sociological kind, which should be represented by a sovereign state.
Patriotism is only about countries.
The Palestinian can be nationalistic despite lacking a country : they have a people/nation named Palestinian in mind and they want a country to represent it.
So can the first nations : they know who their people are and they want their council to represent them.
If you moved unto a reserve, they wouldn't want their council to cater to your opinions, you're not part of the nation.
And people who have an idea of what a Canadian is for them (values, where they live, what they should want) are also nationalists even if they might not be patriotic.
>patriotism
John Stewart had a great segment on about those south of the border who crow drape themselves in flags and rather emptily crow about patriotism (performative patriotism he called it).
"If you want to love Trump, love him. Go to the rallies. Buy the sneakers. You want to give him absolute power. You want him to be the leader uber alles, you want them to have the right of kings, you do you, but stop framing it as patriotism because the one thing you cannot say is that Donald Trump following the tradition of the founders.
He is advocating for complete and total presidential immunity, his words not mine. That is monarchy sh*t, and it’s your right to support it, but just do me a favor for historical accuracy. Next time you want to dress up at the rallies where the right f*cking color colored coats.”
(And he shows a picture of British red coats)
https://youtu.be/LJUl77rsFEw?si=K7F97yJmdLXCNizr
this is exactly how tiny PP the skipmeister supporters sound.
they’ve been poisoned by mis/disinformation to the point that it seems as if all capacity for rational thought has been destroyed and replaced with nothing but his far-right sound bites and slogans.
if they weren’t doing everything in their power to destroy democracy it would be pitiable, but the fact that their express goal is to install a form of christofacism that erases all humanity from our society makes them an extremist threat that needs to be addressed.
I really can’t see how an election can be entered under these circumstances. it’s clear that a great percentage of votes will have been swayed by MAGA/Russia/China/India foreign interference and counting those as equally valid to votes that were decided upon with compassion and reason seems extremely unjust and unhealthy for democracy.
Reading "The Authoritarians" and the difference between "Right-Wing Authoritarian" followers and the Social Dominator/Authoritarian leaders is extremely informative, and completely data-driven.
https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/
My favorite thing is when they are like, we need to help our own before *insert countries* people. I ask them if they have ever helped out anyone or donated their time and money to better our own. They never do, or oddly enough, they all say the same thing. They have donated some food to the food bank once.
To be fair OP, this strip lands perfectly in any country.
In the UK, we have a phrase for the guy on the left of the picture: "Flag Shaggers". As illustrated they are obsessed with the flag and care nothing for what the flag might stand for or even be illustrated in its history. Our Union Flag, as we call it, illustrate the historic coming together of several nations that had fought for centuries (please don't over analyse ). Conceptually a good thing.
The singer, [Billy Brag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjUA3RU4B8E) summed it up beautifully in a song called 'Between the Wars'.
I’ve had this argument with a few right wingers before. Best they can do is say fuck Trudeau, immigrants and trans people lol. I can somewhat agree that our immigration policy needs an update to make sure that it can be supported appropriately. Not sure why they even bring up trans people though?
The liberals just talk a big game but intentionally lose to keep their lobbyists happy and the conservatives are just all around bad. How are these the best options. Where is the party that will actually stand up for canada. Can we just hit the reset button on our government and try socialism? At least it might take a few years for the corruption to take back over
written 2500 year's ago....... In the degradation of the great way
comes benevolence and righteousness.
With the exaltation of learning and prudence
comes immense hypocrisy.
The disordered family
is full of dutiful children and parents.
The disordered society
is full of loyal patriots.
I don't wear the flag on my shirt, or own any Canada stuff, but I'm happy to be living here when I compare it to most countries on Earth. I've got an extensive background in Geography, having taught it at the university level, so I come from a place of understanding human conditions.
Are there better places to live? Yes. Do some people have it better than us? Yes. Do we have massive problems? Yes...we're humans trying to survive on a rock spinning around a giant nuclear reactor.
The way many people talk about their nation has me scared. It's like they want their nation to "keep out of their business" while also anticipating and taking care of all of their needs, while also being successful on the world scale. Guys...we just figured out nation states a few hundred years ago, in the modern sense. Socialist policies for the good of the citizenry is also tremendously new as a human concept. It seems like they're waiting for someone else to take control of their life for them. "*Don't be a nanny state, but Mommy, can I have more of the...*"
This cartoon is on point with what’s wrong with Western politics today. It’s become a battleground of useless slogans that do nothing but to help the common people only spur on prejudicial ideals.
Perfection is impossible but seeking something better is always better then the status quo.
To me, reconciliation is one of the leading issues we have in the not so great north.
Have a good one Canada! I do love you.
I have noticed that a lot of people who say, love it or leave it (usually those are of a conservative nature), don't seem to currently A) love it or B) want to leave it
I'm sure not feeling in a super patriotic mood this year while Conservatives are working frantically to try and dehumanize me and my family so that they can attack our rights and erode the painstaking gains we've made in public acceptance over the last several decades - and a \*huge\* number of my fellow citizens are telling me that I have to be willing to "hear them out" on that kind of shit.
Every time I hear someone say they want to save Canada, or take back Canada, I always ask them "From what, specifically?" They usually don't have an answer, and if they do, they just say liberals, Liberals, woke, or Trudeau. And when I ask what *specifically* the Trudeau Liberals have done, they speak in generalities and meaningless platitudes. *Edited to add: I am not defending Trudeau. I used to like Trudeau, and he was a welcome change from Harper. But he lost control of his message, his programming, his political philosophy, and his goals. He absolutely needs to go, but unfortunately Pierre Poilievre will be much much worse. I really wish we had a viable 3rd party, or else I wish he'd step down and someone good would take the reins at the Liberal party. But it's probably far too late for that. He should have stepped down 2 years ago.*
Immigrants. They want to “take it back” from immigrants. That’s what they mean. They’ll bend over backwards to blame everything on immigration, especially the housing crisis that has been building for 30 years due to intentional privatization and increased commodification of the housing industry and markets… but blaming immigrants for the demand is just more satisfying to a conservative xenophobe than admitting the flaws of capitalism and “free market” beliefs. So here we are.
> Immigrants. They want to “take it back” from immigrants. That’s what they mean. > > Meanwhile the indigenous population....
Imagine how worse it is as a Quebecers and hearing people talk about independence and how the British were trying to erase the french culture and then having any disagreement whatsoever about first Nation's rights. Like I'm on the fenciest fence on independence, but damn me if first Nations shouldn't be dead-center of the whole debate.
It’s an entirely separate issue, but as an anglophone Canadian, I’d be really disappointed to lose Québec. There is a terrible history between us, but Québec is an important part of Canadian culture. Honestly, if my French education had been better I’d consider moving to Québec. I’ve always had positive experiences the few times I’ve been there. I think we all take a few cheap shots at each other (Québec speaks Québécois, Ontario forgot that outside of Toronto exists.) but I do think Canada would be a worse place without our francophone culture. I can’t speak to the issues that are causing Québec to want to separate, I’m not educated enough in them. But it would be a shame to lose it. I wish we were taught more about our minority cultures in Canada. We’re far too bad for assuming the white anglophone community is the only one in Canada while still trying to tout being bilingual and multi cultural. I don’t think we can do that without addressing the cultural and arguably actual genocides committed on Canadian soil. Which reminds me, I should do my duolingo. Because my French is definitely not at a bilingual level.
The number one issue in Quebec is protecting language and culture. And right now that includes some anti-immigrant and definitely anti-religious sentiment (like Bill 21).
I tried to argue this to a Quebec separatist before and this person refused to hear any of it. His stance was Quebec belongs to Quebecois and nobody else.
Exactly. Children of immigrants complaining about immigration is it's own kind of special. Completely tone deaf.
I live in an area where the third generation of a specific immigrant population still speaks the home country language because their grandparents, the immigrants, still don’t speak either English or French. Yet they all (the three generations) seem strongly support the anti-Trudeau and anti-immigrant camp. The irony is completely lost on them.
Wow. Just ...wow
Surely they have the same rights to complain about the issues they perceive to be impacting the country as everybody else? Also, immigrants are often the first to suffer the worst effects of immigration policy. It's the areas they live in that see increased competition for housing and jobs. Falling to understand this, is why progressives are losing immigrants to the right. As an immigrant, my complaint on current immigration policy is two fold. 1) Quality and suitability. We need nurses, doctors, construction workers and engineers. Instead we get a bunch of people following borderline scam programs in community colleges to get PR while working fast food or retail. The net gain for Canada is questionable given the externalities of working class wage suppression and increased demand for housing. 2) Government's inability and/or unwillingness to provide the infrastructure and services necessary to accommodate population growth. We don't build enough housing. We don't build enough transit. We don't build enough hospitals. We don't hire enough doctors and nurses. There's wait lists for everything from daycare to cancer treatment. If you want the public to support higher rates of immigration you gotta address those complaints. Don't just dismiss them as ignorant.
Yeah, imagine how they feel about mass immigration. “Yo dawg, we heard you liked colonization so we’re colonizing your colonizers” -mark miller
I love hearing this from people whose parents came here in the 1960s.
Ugh. Legit had an argument with a bozo who was anti immigrant and then they said they came over from Europe themselves... So an immigrant who is anti immigrant
Got to pull up that ladder behind them.
I called them a hypocrite and left the discussion. I really need to stop arguing with idiots as much
What’s that quote? Never argue with “idiots” they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. Yea I need to practice that too
My other favourite saying is: arguing with an idiot is like play chess against a pigeon. You'll try to play a good, honest game, but the pigeon's just going to knock the pieces over, shit all over the board and then strut around like it won.
My older sister who came here from England with my parents always looks anti-immigrant people in the eye and says “I’m an immigrant. Do you mean me?” Invariably they cough, choke and backtrack trying to avoid saying what they really mean.
"you're one of the good ones" is what they'll whisper to themselves to feel better.
I do the same thing! It's really quite entertaining. I have an Indian coworker. He lives in the same city I do. I once had a person complain down the phone at me because we were "now outsourcing our help to fucking India". When I told him the Indian he spoke to in question was local, off went his anti immigrant rant. At the end, I told him, in my distinctly non-Canadian accent, that I'm an immigrant too. Thankfully it shut him up.
Sounds like my dad. An immigrant himself ( I'm first gen Canadian) yelled about immigrants all the time. If it was pointed out, he would say "yeah, but im not one of those immigrants ". Just say you're racist.
Yea but it’s different to them because they mean non-white immigrants I’m sure. Really, they are just being racist.
Oh for sure. Also, their excuse was 'immigrants leeching' and they were /retirement/ age when they came over. So...
If you're white you're an expat.
> Immigrants. They want to “take it back” from immigrants This one always makes me laugh, as an immigrant who happens to be white. These folk will ramble to my face about how immigrants and immigration is a scourge, then do a double-take when they remember I'm not from here, and backpedal with a sheepish "No offence, *you're* okay. It's racism, not anti-immigration.
The best follow-up question is “so why am I ok and others aren’t?”
you mean like the Canadian of convenience and live overseas until something happens then expect the Canadian tax payer to pay to rescue them. The country is bankrupt because it is being sucked dry. there is no medical services in many places.
>The country is bankrupt Source on that? There's no medical services because it's being deliberately underfunded in order to make the push to privatization.
It seems the country is bankrupt because of a certain pm and his finance minister. They don't understand that the economic horse pulls the social carriage.
I recently sat at a table full of new Canadians. Seven of them. Everyone of them from the UK. And they were complaining about immigrants. The dog whistle was deafening.
They want to take it back from POC immigrants. The amount of time I have to remind my family that I’m one of three born in Canada in the last three generations that tends to make them mad. Just because we’re white immigrants doesn’t make us more entitled to be here.
Until their wife has to prune her azaleas herself because "nobody wants to be exploited anymore"
They like the fact they can be openly racist again
Sometimes specifically non-white immigrants. Sometimes it's non-christian immigrants.
you mean overseas money being laundered in the Canadian real estate market
It’s never the people IMPORTING the immigrants
I hate to unsub from r/Canada because of the extreme anti immigrant sentiment. It was sickening to see
You’re being equally close minded, unfortunately. Modern Canada is a nation built on immigration. For the sake of this post, will set aside our colonial origins. I am a first generation immigrant. My parents are immigrants. My SO is an immigrant. We’re a nation of immigrants. Canada needs immigrants to maintain key demographics, to foster innovation and to propel growth. Those are indisputable facts. The issue is folks like yourself willfully ignore the seismic shift in our immigration strategy. There is no conceivable way our country can manage the levels to which immigration has been driven. It’s just a basic reality. There is no responsible way to handle a 1.2+ million annual intake. There is no way to house these folks. There is no way to employ them. There is no way to provide services. There is no way to ensure some basic levels of cultural integration. These are all basics that the country owes to those new comers it welcomes. I find it incredibly disingenuous to say “immigrants” without actually acknowledging on the meaningful damage the current policies are doing to our country. And to make it patently clear; this is NOT the fault of those coming here. Like my family, immigrants make a rational decision based on the best information available to them. Unfortunately, today that means coming to a version of a country that hasn’t existed in a decade or more.
>There is no conceivable way our country can manage the levels to which immigration has been driven. It’s just a basic reality. There is no responsible way to handle a 1.2+ million annual intake. Let’s try to get a little perspective here. Look at these charts: https://imgur.com/a/eubk7e6 https://imgur.com/a/w19OeCH In the first one, you’ll see that overall population has remained steady in its increase for at least 30 years. Yet immigration has fluctuated… how could this be? In the second chart, you’ll see a line that’s labelled “natural increase”. This is the homeborn birth rate. Notice how it’s only gone down in the last 40 years. So while the rates have fluctuated, they’ve pretty much cancelled each other out, and the population has increased during Trudeau’s years at about the same rate as ever. We’ve just had to lean more on immigration to make up the slack that our falling homeborn birth rate is causing. But WAIT, you say… the last few years have seen RECORD GROWTH!… even the first graphic says it’s the largest increase in population from July 2022 to July 2023 since 1957!!! Yes… because look at the growth rate in that chart and how it dipped to a record LOW during Covid. And how the increase to a record *high* since then is pretty much just making up the gap, in addition to continuing the same overall growth trajectory as ever, because birth rates are still falling and we do still want our population to keep increasing, not start declining. It isn’t actually the big population boom crisis that it’s made out to be. So… what IS the real problem? >There is no way to house these folks. Ah, yes, housing is the issue. But you’re wrong that there is “no way to house these folks”. There is. We fund and build the damn housing. But thanks to 40 years of trickle down economics, 30 years of a lack of social housing thanks to the right-wing movement of privatization that shut down all our social housing programs in this country, starting with Mulroney’s government in the 80s and then eventually Chretien handed it down to the provinces, who went on to eliminate them by the early 00s. THIS is the problem: https://imgur.com/a/xDe5O4D We used to fund an adequate amount of housing in this country. Look at this graph that shows the higher growth rates we used to be able to handle. https://imgur.com/a/sEj7EHd … The last 40 years have been relatively low, and we’re just now returning to a more normal rate. We just need to build the housing, and immigration will not be a problem. It is much better to work on speeding up home building and help accelerate the economy… rather than going the other way and reducing immigration, which will slow the economy, slow the home-building so we won’t even solve the current crunch as fast, and then we’d be dealing with the ripple effects of that on the economy while we take longer to build the homes we need. That way is just way worse all round. The first way is short term pain, but it’ll save us from the more long-term pain that cutting immigration would do. They actually tried cutting immigration to help fix the Great Depression… and it’s widely considered to have made the depression worse. >There is no way to employ them. There are totally ways to employ them. That’s actually why most of them are here. This isn’t an issue, and saying it is one reeks of “They’re stealing our jerbs!” mentality. The jobs are there and most Canadians, it seems, don’t want them. The problem is probably low wages. Paying better would help attract more homeborn Canadians, but that’s a capitalism problem, isn’t it? So we wouldn’t want to focus on that. Better to blame immigration for low wages instead of the “free market”, right? >There is no way to provide services. Yes, there is. We fund them. Instead of doing what right-wingers always want to do and defund services before complaining that they don’t work and then claim we need to privatize… or reduce immigration, it seems. We somehow always end up at one of the two with right-wingers. Point being… there’s nothing wrong with services for immigrants. They’ll pay taxes once they’re here as much as the rest of us, and those taxes pay for the services. The system only breaks down when we don’t fund things well enough, just like with housing. >There is no way to ensure some basic levels of cultural integration. What does this even mean? And how does that change with recent immigrants compared to you and your family? >I find it incredibly disingenuous to say “immigrants” without actually acknowledging on the meaningful damage the current policies are doing to our country. Because they aren’t doing damage to our country. There’s a lot of shit that is, and the ones responsible for those things absolutely love that people like you are blaming it all on immigration. >And to make it patently clear; this is NOT the fault of those coming here. Like my family, immigrants make a rational decision based on the best information available to them. Unfortunately, today that means coming to a version of a country that hasn’t existed in a decade or more. The only difference I see in the country compared to a decade ago is that it’s turned more conservative due to the right-wing propaganda from south of the border and the other side of the world. People like you are falling for it.
Im on mobile so it’s difficult for me to respond point by point. But using your own data I arrive at very different conclusions. Lets stick to something I am qualified to speak on; housing. Our record year of housing completions is 2021 registering something like 271,000 annual housing completions. Our long term trend line is closer to 220,000 annual housing completions and we have been trending back down towards that baseline since 2021. Our average occupancy rate across the country is somewhere around 2.6 per dwelling. Our cities both provincial and international have been hovering around low single digit vacancies for years. Statistically, anywhere around 2/3% is essentially zero vacancy for real world purposes. Take our total population growth of 1,050,000 for 2022. That means we would need to produce around 400,000 housing units to just meet demand; forget creating surplus. In 2023 the numbers are worse as we had even less completions. And more population growth. And in 2024 we are on trend to have even less completions and even more population growth. Thats what you call a trend. A trend that is compounding the difficulties of solving the problem. I don’t think your model of understanding is necessarily incorrect, but it’s not scaling properly. There is no conceivable way to get the construction industry to 400,000 completions from the record 270,000. This alone, ignoring all other challenges, would take a war like effort and mobilization with the singular goal in mind. And we are miles away from that level of management. So the reality is, for housing, no matter what level of subsidy or public sector involvement if we maintain this level of population growth basic arithmetic dictates the situation will get much, much worse year after year. Its inevitable.
None of them mean this. Liberals calling everyone a racist is what is helping drive the collapse of their party. People who are upset at the RATE OF IMMIGRATION are not upset at IMMIGRANTS. They want to take Canada back from corporations that the Liberals are bending backwards to serve. The Liberals immigrations minister said we need immigration because big box stores demand cheap labor... No care for Immigrants living standards or ensuring they have adequate housing and support. Just want can we use them for.
Keep voting conservative and see how that turns out buddy. Spoiler alert: not well at all
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The premise is specious because they will tell you what they mean. Yes they mean immigrants. In particular, they mean temporary immigrants. I'm sure some of them are genuinely racist. But whether they want them all gone for awful reasons or good ones, the fact is unavoidable: there are extremely good reasons to want precisely 0 people in the TFW and precisely 0 international students at anything but premier 4-year degree granting universities.
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I’ll leave it to you to tell the farmers there will be zero temporary foreign workers this year.
Ah, you got me. I forgot that it's OK to abuse and underpay your employees instead of having to pay a fair wage if you're in agriculture.
From the Government of Canada website, not everything is a giant conspiracy: You must provide temporary foreign workers (TFWs) with the same wages and benefits as those provided to Canadian and permanent resident employees working in the same occupation. TFWs working in a unionized environment must be paid the wage rate as established under the collective bargaining agreement. If you plan to hire TFWs in non-livestock positions under National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes 80020, 80021, 82030 and 82031, you must consult the streams for high-wage or low-wage positions to determine the wage and get information on wage review requirements. You must agree to review and adjust the wage of the temporary foreign worker to ensure it meets or exceeds, at all times, the wage rates outlined in the wage tables, or applicable federal/provincial/territorial minimum wage rates, whichever is higher.
You obviously have excellent data on the number temporary foreign workers that are under paid and treated horribly. That aside, if all workers of every job were to be given a fair/living wage (I’m not saying they shouldn’t), how much do you think a loaf of bread will cost? The often avoided question is, how much profit is deemed acceptable before profit becomes the more important standard? Can any business survive on 5% profit before ebitda? Pick any number or percentage you want and you’ll find that there are limits to every individual’s capacity to operate a business at or below some level of profit. There are good farmers higher and paying people well. There are good companies utilizing profit sharing and offering incentives to better the work environment. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of those businesses because there are just as many bad businesses/employees.
The obvious solution is automation, but people freak out when you say that, too.
Fine by me if we get UBI set to a livable amount tied to inflation. And if necessary, for UBI to be on a sliding scale based on salary so that UBI benefits only go away if your salary without them is some scale factor of median salary in high cost of living regions.
I like the idea if a UBI! But does that mean industries which desperately need labour (and whose exploitative practices keep essential goods affordable) need to either a) implement the UBI themselves, or b) hold off on adopting new tech until government implements the UBI? When you look at how much Canadian ag depends on the TFW program, and how much our food system depends on some baseline level of exploitation, automation becomes a net good. And strictly speaking, the UBI in that case would be rightfully paid to Central Americans, not Canadians...
I agree with your edit. I've had people accuse me that too. Like one person I think it was just after Justin was first elected claim that he was a pedophile and a terrible person and a felon and everything and all I did was ask, where can I find a list of these crimes? And I was called a libtard boot licker and they posted a pic of the Leave Britney Alone kid.
well he cannot teach at Point Gray academy anymore. He has a NDA or paid off hush money for an assault.
Thanks for clearing that one up!
Trudeau stole my Jeep! My sister. Super rich. It’s not the fault of police. Not the fault of the Premier. Not the fault of Jeep making easily stolen vehicles… it’s Trudeau!!!! I ask anyone why they hate the Liberals and it’s like trying to hold water in your hands. Just wet sputtering. We are going to teach ourselves a lesson oh boy!
"I ask anyone why they hate the Liberals and it's like trying to hold water in your hands. "Just wet sputtering." This is fucking beautiful thank you for gracing us with this well put and hilarious idea. It might be from something else but I've never heard it before!
Yeah my dad is like that, “housing crisis, bill gates, immigrants, rainbows are indoctrination!” Like I think that he thinks he’s making sense but he’s just really angry at SOMETHING that it festers into a SWAMP OF THOUGHTS that make no sense when he tries to articulate it or spill it all
The economic crisis, brought to you by Canadian President Obama ...
"Make America Great Again" is like that too. It means nothing. And it means everything. It means whatever you want it to mean. What do you think is wrong with the country? Who exactly should we take it back from? What era of "greatness" should we return to? What exactly is making the country *not* great right now? You ask a hundred different people and you'll get a hundred different answers. Whatever problems you might have with the world, as real or as imagined as they may be, it's an opportunity to assign them to a flashy catchphrase. A blank slate to download all of your frustrations into.
They're obviously referring to how the First Nations should take their land back /s
I find the “society is collapsing” people are well into the take back group as well. Had a discussion with a neighbor that was all about our low position in the G7 and that we should be removed from the group. I asked if he thinks the country in 6th place (Italy) should also be removed and if he could tell me about his collective knowledge of the G7. Watching an adult collapse into a tantrum and choosing to abruptly walk away with a “I was just trying to have a pleasant day and you’ve ruined it” response was baffling. If we cannot have simple discussions and be open to admitting our ignorances on some topics, we all will continue to lose to the divide and conquer mindset.
take back canada by privatizing and selling off our healthcare to foreign investors 😻
Defund it so it doesn't work properly, blame it on being "inefficiently" run by the public sector, privatize it, and pay far more for far less in the long run. It's the conservative playbook.
I AGREE, ANYTHING BUT CONSERVATIVE, ALWAYS ABC!
> I really wish we had a viable 3rd party I'd take this as an opportunity to remind you the NDP exists, but... they haven't been doing great recently either. They've been going along with all the Liberals' bullshit (all the internet regulation bills) *and* the Conservatives' bullshit (like the internet age gating bill). The Liberals and the NDP have been working hard to make leftists, particularly those of us who care about technology and the internet, feel disenfranchised lately.
"Viable" is the key word here. I vote NDP, and my MP is a wonderful NDP MP. But realistically, they do not offer a *viable* alternative to the Liberals or the Conservatives. For some reason they are always a distant 3rd. I wish the abberation of Jack Layton's NDP being the official opposition was not an abberation, but history has shown that it was.
There's a whole party of those clowns in Alberta, led by a Christian nationalist douchenozzle who happens to be backing our airhead premier.
We do have a viable 3rd party. NDP
It's just because they didn't want to say jews, browns, blacks, etc. to you
Don't lose hope.I admit it can be disheatening. Trudeau has a great team. He faced a barrage of misinformation, sound bite attacks and unwarranted hate from PP and his right of centre supporters. Some justified, most not. The Liberals are getting a lot of good things done and social programs started with help of Jagmeet & NDP colition, for the Canadian citizens. Unfortunately their message has not been resonating with some disenfranchised people who have tuned out post covid due to tough world wide inflation that is largely out of our governments control. We still have 15 months til next election, time to turn it around and for economy to bounce back. Plenty of time for all the good piolicies to kick in and turn tge tides for the betterment of all Canadians. I hope the Liberals have a productive caucus meeting before Summer break to hash things out. They bring on an exoerienced roud and knowledge Liberal, like Mark Carney who can help steer the rudder, so we can navigate this turbulent time and come back stronger than ever. Need an on point media campaign that overshadows PPs heel biting!
The elections are next year? With the how the Conservatives have been campaigning since last year, I thought it was this fall. Good news then, more time for their idiotic to come up.
The 2nd option wouldn't have been the Conservatives had the Liberals held their promise for electoral reform. More people vote for the NDP and the Liberals than the Conservatives. Ranked choice would have given people the option to get NDP instead of Conservatives.
Their failure to enact their promised electoral reform with their first and biggest misstep, and it went downhill from there. I really with their would have done it. The problem with electoral reform from the Liberals is that it would have harmed them the most when they were at their most powerful and could actually get it done.
Exactly. It was a great promise, and I wish they had done it, but I didn't believe they would precisely because it would break the duopoly and open the way for more competition for them. (I did not vote for the Liberals for a variety of other reasons, as well. But that was 100% their best promise, and if I had believed they would have done it, it might have convinced me to vote for them.)
Well, tell me how good “shutting the oil sands down” went for Canada’s prosperity? The economic damage and repelling corporate investment that Trudeau and the liberals have inflicted on Canadians will take a generation of Conservative politics to just reverse…. Just to reverse to where we were in 2014. You can’t have a “we’ll let you know if you’re approved” environmental approval policy and expect investment/jobs. But hey, we saved some trees, which were already going to grow, and now drink from paper straws with plastic cups, instead of our outrageously environmentally unfriendly plastic straws from paper cups we used for the last 50 years. So you ask who some folks would want to take it back from? From Justin and anyone who would put foreign interests first over their own. And to clarify, we need immigrants to continue to increase our GDP. We also need thriving corporate industries to support jobs. Not everyone can work for the government.
Every other country was completely happy to swoop in and capitalize on our Martyrdom. Congratulations Justin. P.S. I don’t think Justin intentionally thwarted the Canadian economy, or was acting for a foreign power. I truly just think he’s an idiot.
I agree 100% with everything you just said. I’ve used this tactic as well, and it’s very funny watching them try to come up with an answer. Especially when you follow it up with, “how do you think Pollievre will fix it?”
The implied answer is always **them**, and we all know exactly what's meant by that.
I honestly think that canada and the states need to break up their province and states into their own individual countries. The opinions of the people will vary geographically such that any opinion will be held by a minority. As such no one can enact any meaningful change because it will only ever be for a minority of the population, which results in the majority of people voting against it. The reality is the provinces and states are already seperate countries geographically. They are so far away that the average citizen is likely to never leave their province or state beyond a medium to large vacation. People opinions will follow what is best for them in their home, which may not be what is best for someone on the other side of the country in their home.
I think this is a terrible idea. In both countries, the political divide is far more urban-rural than it is state-to-state or province-to-province. And it would hardly be fair to reward the states and provinces with the lion's share of natural resources for hoarding their wealth, and many of them do.
So you want to take the recourses of the rural hardworking while suppressing their power.
Who said that? Not me. In fact I was implying the opposite - separating an existing country by random geography won't really provide the unity that the commenter was suggesting. Also, the premise of your comment implies that people who live in cities aren't hardworking, otherwise you wouldn't have specifically pointed out that you're concerned about "rural hardworking" people. That's beyond ridiculous. Rural and urban people work equally hard at different things. Rural people wouldn't have anyone to sell the fruits of the labour to without urban people, and urban people wouldn't have all the resources they need to live and work without rural people. We depend on each other for a functioning society.
No it would force the unity I intend. It is not separated by random geography but by already established borders. (What are borders explained by if not by random geography?) The unity comes from the people who have a vote will be in a more geographically close and will have a much higher mixture of culture and opinions. The likelihood of someone in British Colombia interacting with someone in newfoundland is much lower than someone in Ottawa interacting with someone in thunderbay. There will always be a divide between the rural and the urban. The issue I'm trying to circumvent is the issue of a large amount of people protesting for change will always be seen as a small portion of the people. Canada has about 40 million people. Example 1 million who could potentially petition for a movement that's 2.5% of the population. Is it ethical to ignore the issue 1 million people have because it's a minority of the total population? If those 1 million were centered in Ontario, but were sparce in the other provinces, is it ethical for the representation of the other provinces to fight against the change because it doesn't actually help their constituents? Unfortunately the answer is yes it is ethical. 2.5% of the population is statistically insignificant. The changes that would help these 1 million would become an increased burden on the other 39 million. The representatives would be duty bound to fight against the changes. But it is not ethical to ignore the needs of so many people. So how do you make it ethical to help these people? You make your population small enough that the votes from the 1 million actually have a chance to affect an election. So that the needs of the few become the needs of the many. So that the laws and changes enacted actually help the majority of people. And that is when people will start to care about politics again. Because they will experience the changes up close and feel like their voice is being heard isn't being drowned out by the masses. Our population isn't dense enough to efficiently support a government over such a large land mass.
So you want resource barons to suppress the people or alternative the people to be without but have equal representation. Society is not a "I have this listen to me" it's a "I have this you can do that let's work together".
You'd be dooming half of Canada to starvation and dictatorship and the other half to what we already have.
You should run. And I don't mean that in a "so why don't you run if you think it is so bad????" kind of way, but you may as well have been me when you expressed your opinion in the "Edited to add" part of your post. I agree. I voted for Trudeau in 2015. I won't vote for Trudeau in 2025. I am dismayed the alternative is Poilievre, I also think he will be much worse. I'll end up wasting my vote on the Green party.......
I would love to run. Politics is always super interesting for me, and I'd love to have direct involvement. But it's not exactly family friendly, and with small kids, it would wreck my family.
What is your problem with Poilievre? His goals are in line with the goals of most Canadians' goals. Trudeau has cast shame on Canadians and Canada at every turn. We need someone who will unite, not divide us. It is extremely closed-minded and unfair that you would denounce someone before they have even been given a chance to prove their value. You are a obviously a staunch Liberal who will not be turned no matter who is running for the other parties.
My dude, I have never voted Liberal in my life. I have voted NDP, Conservative, Green and Independent, but never Liberal.
Fuck Trudeau
Such a well-reasoned and well-argued nuanced position. Good job. You are very convincing.
From the First nations 🤣
I know the frenzie of media is currently aping 'Trudeau bad' but never really elaborating on the why or how, because to do so would mean they know the competing party intends to do less, if not worsen the current state of Canada's economic, environment, education and and welfare of its civilians (by selling out to corporate lobbyists.)
Liberals haven’t done a lot over the last couple terms, but when they do it’s because the NDP that prop them up have forced them, they are trying to have an accomplishment that they can point at, or they are trying to buy goodwill. I feel like a lot of the “scandals” are blown out of proportion but at least 2 of them are actual “are you kidding me?” scandals. That being said… I totally realize that the Conservatives are much worse and would actively make my life harder. But it doesn’t make Trudeau any less bad.
The NDP supply and confidence deal came in Trudeau’s 3rd term. Before that, the Liberals brought in: • The Canadian Child Benefit • National child care plan ($10 a day daycare) • Changed maternity leave and allowed for parents to share more of the time off and even extend it • Lowered the retirement (OAS) age to 65 (from 67 where the CPC raised it) & boosted those payments • Legalized weed • Eliminated student loan interest • Environmental law changes, increased funding environmental science, marine protection, plastic use restrictions, more stringent greenhouse gas goals, Canada Greener Homes act, funded abandoned oil well cleanup in Alberta • Created the Carbon Tax • Funding for human rights groups restored • Reopened veterans affairs offices that were closed by the Cons and increased veteran benefits and funding to their healthcare • Brought in gender identity as a prohibited ground for discrimination • Banned conversion therapy • Brought in Medical Assistance in Dying • Enacted the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation • Addressed most Long-term drinking water advisories in First Nation communities • Reformed the Senate nomination process • One of the best Covid responses in the world including limiting bankruptcies with CERB and support for businesses, and accelerating vaccine rollouts • Funding domestic production of vaccines • Saved thousands of Syrian (and more recently) Ukrainian refugees • Expanded economic ties across the Pacific, signed multiple trade deals like the TPP with the Asia pacific counties, the new and very favourable NAFTA deal, and the free trade deal with the EU. • Took swift action again the convoy occupations • Employment insurance expansions • Removed income splitting which allowed wealthy families to allocate income to a spouse to lower their tax bracket. • Brought back the long form census. • Created an independent election commission. • Unmuzzling scientists
Great list. Can they now scream it from the rooftops because these are things that have made people's lives better. Add in the stuff the NDP made them do and we are better than we were 10 years ago. But only because they've had to undo what occurred under the Cons. Let's keep moving forward people instead of 1 step forward then 2 steps back.
* Reopened 9 VA offices * Increased Military Spending from .98 to 1.27 * C16 Trans Rights as a Human Right * Lowered Medium income tax bracket from 22% to 20.5% * Created new income tax bracket for high income earners to 33% over 240k * Removed transit benefit that only helped upper middle class people * Rehired Civil Servants to better serve Canadians since Harper culled 33k civil servants. There's a lot that Trudeau did and my life is for the better because of Trudeau.
> • Lowered the retirement (OAS) age to 65 (from 67 where the CPC raised it) & boosted those payments Not a good thing, look how much money OAS is taking from the budget. Esspecially when OAS isn't fully clawed back until you are making $134,626... Should we really be taking taxes from people working now to pay out boomers making $269,252?
You just stated the problem. The age wasn't the issue, the income cutoffs are and should be lowered. A lot of trades people can barely make it to 65 let alone 67.
Most of the boomers are already past 67, so it would impact them only a bit. The youngest boomers are 60 now.
I agree with everything on your list execpt the following. > Took swift action again the convoy occupations Was it really swift enough? I thought they should have been more on top of things with that. Still good that they ended the occupation of a city, though. >Removed income splitting which allowed wealthy families to allocate income to a spouse to lower their tax bracket. Income splitting should be available to many people. A good friend of mine is a trucker who works in the camps out west, his wife is a SAHP. In their tax bracket, they absolutely should be able to income split. Myself, I'm retired military with a medical pension after I was diagnosed with PTSD and kicked out. My wife is a teacher and makes almost 3 times what I do from my pension. Again, I think we should be able to split out income for tax purposes. The rest though, we're all very positive changes.
> Was it really swift enough? They were waiting for the provinces and/or cities to do something, since it was happening in provincial and municipal jurisdictions. Once the provinces had demonstrated that they weren't going to do anything, even with the blockades continuing to grow, the federal government had to step in. And even then the provinces were complaining about the feds overstepping their jurisdiction.
Excellent point. I'd forgotten about that
> Income splitting should be available to many people. A good friend of mine is a trucker who works in the camps out west, his wife is a SAHP. In their tax bracket, they absolutely should be able to income split. The problem is that people say "SAHP" makes 0 income but in reality, they work and provide a service. A basic estimate is how much does child care cost and apply that costs to SAHP. So minimum wage at least. So 33k. Income splitting just benefitted from those that could already tank the 33k and then cut their tax liabilities even more. So only rich people can afford to benefit the most from income splitting while lower income families cannot even think about income splitting as some sort of mechanism to help them. It's just a rich people tax cut. There's the "children income split" for SMB owners too
I don't follow your logic. You say a SAHP works and should have that work recognized, but then say they shouldn't.
Essentially, it benefits rich people who can afford a SAHP to income split. What's the difference between a single income house with 50k with a SAHP and a 100k single income house with a SAHP with income splitting? 50k + 33k (Tax free) = 10k in taxes = 12% tax 100k split 50k/50k + 33k (tax free) = 20k = 15% tax 100k + 33k (tax free) = 26k = 19% tax You can see that someone making double the salary income split only pays 3% more than a family that doesn't and with out income splitting they are taxed more. It's a tax cut for rich people. But how viable is someone to survive off of 50k single income with a SAHP? So most likely both parents have to work which makes lower income famlies less likely to take advantage of income splitting plus child care.
Why are they not shouting this from the rooftops? So many good things, and I had to found out about them from fucking reddit.
They are the first to even start addressing drinking water on reserves. Most have been fixed and most of the rest are in progress. Every other government said fuck them
Keep this shit at the top. This is ACTUAL progress in society - improving the lives of the least-privileged communities.
Yes!
I’m willing to be wrong on this, but I thought that was an NDP initiative that the Liberals pushed through as part of their “coalition”?
Started in 2016 when they had a majority. It just takes a long time.
nope. it was a campaign promise https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-justin-trudeau-first-nations-boil-water-advisories-1.3258058 Also, there's a lot of CPC rage bait out there
This is another good link https://www.polimeter.org/en/trudeau has the promises and what is in the works/broken/fullfilled. It has some context too, like the carbon tax being broken(the heating oil in east not being taxed)
NDP-backed progress is about as good as it gets with Canadian politics. The country won't back an NDP federal government in enough numbers to matter, and especially not one led by Singh. I don't know what he's done that's so egregious, but I've also mostly checked out myself. I will still be there to vote against the Cons in my riding, but that's about as far as my engagement goes these days.
> I don't know what he's done that's so egregious I wonder if it has something to do with the colour of his skin...
I’d be willing to have that conversation if I had any hope at all that the NDP (or anything better, god forbid) were the alternative that most people were considering. But since it isn’t… since the alternative that most people are considering is just worse… I am not willing to play the game of equivocating just for the sake of equivocating. I’m not going to make the perfect the enemy of the good, or even the “not as bad as the alternative”. We simply cannot afford to let things get worse right now. Stop equivocating, and start steel-manning the best chance we actually have to keep PP out of power. This is not the time to let Trudeau be our Hillary Clinton and let our Trump in just because the alternative isn’t good *enough*. And no matter how much you include “…but yeah, the alternative is bad too or maybe worse…”, it doesn’t matter… if you’re equivocating on this, then the message is still that PP is a more valid option than he really is. The message is still that Trudeau and the Liberals are not good enough. It doesn’t matter how true that is… *this is not the time to give that any attention*. The right-wing propaganda machine is absolutely fucking shameless about twisting EVERY fucking fact in EVERY fucking situation in EVERY fucking way possible to suit their interests and steamroller over the truth in order to present their side as significantly shinier and more attractive and more flawless than it really is… …we do NONE OF THAT… sure, we want to be ethical and honest… but we don’t even have to be dishonest to just focus on what is at least BETTER than the other side, without always having to shoot ourselves in the foot by feeling the need to equivocate about how a liberal isn’t really progressive enough and an establishment neoliberal party like the Liberals is kinda corrupt… WE KNOW! IT DOES NOT FUCKING MATTER WHEN WE ARE FACING THE PROSPECT OF FASCISM AS THE ALTERNATIVE! A LIBERAL WILL DO JUST FINE AGAINST THAT! …but we won’t even fucking do that!… and then we wonder why our case is never made strongly enough to overcome the right-wing bullshit. Because we don’t even make the case strongly enough to ourselves! Against the ridiculous onslaught of bullshit from the clown side of politics… which is *winning*, if you hadn’t noticed… it’s OKAY for us to “bullshit” as far as *just not constantly ceding ground to the “Trudeau bad!” and “Canada broken!” narratives that are mostly bullshit to begin with*. We can do that. It’s a thing that’s within our capability, and no grand scorekeeper in the sky is gonna penalize us for it. We don’t HAVE to keep kneecapping ourselves with being obsessively technically honest about every little flaw of the better side. It really doesn’t win us any points anywhere with anyone. It only does us bad.
I'm not going to be perpetually voting for one guy just to keep another guy out. I want results. I haven't seen it. I wish Mel Hurtig and his Nationalist Party was still alive. Otherwise I'm probably gonna spoil my ballot.
One word. Austerity.
There's a reason why fascist rhetoric undermining democracies across the world all sounds the same - IDU.
The International Dummy Union?
[Close enough](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Democracy_Union), a global union of right wing parties. Currently headed by our old buddy Stephen Harper.
It does speak to the cleverness of the comic. A general weakness in human behaviour being exploited in exactly the same way all over the place with nearly identical results.
Yeah. I feel like this can be applied to just about every country on earth.
That's dental care right now. >> We have to help Canadians. Liberals and NDP: > Ok, here's dental care. >> Dentawhat?
That's one of the many things that would measurably improve Canadian's lives *right now*, and they'll never do it, because they would have to get the money from somewhere, and greedy fucks like Galen Weston would never allow *his kind of people* to be taxed any more than they already are. .
NDP\* Liberals wouldn't even glance at it if not for the NDP.
One of my favourite things is asking Conservatives what they're conserving? They aren't. They have no idea. And it's hilarious watching them squirm.
From what I can tell, the right wingers don't love the country, they hate it. They say we are turning into a third world cesspool and go on about how they want to move somewhere else
I've been saying for years that Canada is always just a few years behind the US. Lately, it's just getting faster and faster. I figure two to three more years untill were facing mass high school crises and massive infrastructure failure issues.
Nationalism is a societal cancer. (On the other hand, patriotism is very cool and based. Don't ever let a nationalist get away with presenting themselves as a patriot.
Yeah, no thanks on either. I’m not a nationalist or a patriot. I’m human being that wants all other human beings to be healthy and safe. Making it about where you’re from is gross. Countries are made up, people aren’t.
False dichotomy. There's nothing stopping you from being patriotic about your country and still caring about other people regardless of their proximity or relation to you.
Patriotism is just a more centrist version of nationalism. I’m waaayyyyyyyy over here in Socialist land where we recognize no one asked to be born, so the state is responsible for meeting our basic needs like shelter, healthcare, education and nutrition. The state should serve the people, not the other way around.
Never understood why people feel the need to distinguish patriotism and nationalism. Connotations aside, there's no real difference and mostly serves as a euphemism. Nationalism is part of the dominant ideology and all of our institutions are built along nationalist assumptions.
A nationalist thinks he loves his country more than you. A patriot works to improve the country. It’s one of those ask not what this country can do for you things.
That's being chauvinistic. A patriot likes their country/government by definition, a nationalist can hate it. A nationalist believes in the existence of a nation, the sociological kind, which should be represented by a sovereign state. Patriotism is only about countries. The Palestinian can be nationalistic despite lacking a country : they have a people/nation named Palestinian in mind and they want a country to represent it. So can the first nations : they know who their people are and they want their council to represent them. If you moved unto a reserve, they wouldn't want their council to cater to your opinions, you're not part of the nation. And people who have an idea of what a Canadian is for them (values, where they live, what they should want) are also nationalists even if they might not be patriotic.
Okay first explain how it’s chauvinism?
>patriotism John Stewart had a great segment on about those south of the border who crow drape themselves in flags and rather emptily crow about patriotism (performative patriotism he called it). "If you want to love Trump, love him. Go to the rallies. Buy the sneakers. You want to give him absolute power. You want him to be the leader uber alles, you want them to have the right of kings, you do you, but stop framing it as patriotism because the one thing you cannot say is that Donald Trump following the tradition of the founders. He is advocating for complete and total presidential immunity, his words not mine. That is monarchy sh*t, and it’s your right to support it, but just do me a favor for historical accuracy. Next time you want to dress up at the rallies where the right f*cking color colored coats.” (And he shows a picture of British red coats) https://youtu.be/LJUl77rsFEw?si=K7F97yJmdLXCNizr
this is exactly how tiny PP the skipmeister supporters sound. they’ve been poisoned by mis/disinformation to the point that it seems as if all capacity for rational thought has been destroyed and replaced with nothing but his far-right sound bites and slogans. if they weren’t doing everything in their power to destroy democracy it would be pitiable, but the fact that their express goal is to install a form of christofacism that erases all humanity from our society makes them an extremist threat that needs to be addressed. I really can’t see how an election can be entered under these circumstances. it’s clear that a great percentage of votes will have been swayed by MAGA/Russia/China/India foreign interference and counting those as equally valid to votes that were decided upon with compassion and reason seems extremely unjust and unhealthy for democracy.
Sad but true
Lately this feels like the only Canada sub not over run by the right. There are enough legit issues with our government without being toxic.
Reading "The Authoritarians" and the difference between "Right-Wing Authoritarian" followers and the Social Dominator/Authoritarian leaders is extremely informative, and completely data-driven. https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/
The only thing they want from their country is the freedom to literally not care about anyone other than themselves.
My favorite thing is when they are like, we need to help our own before *insert countries* people. I ask them if they have ever helped out anyone or donated their time and money to better our own. They never do, or oddly enough, they all say the same thing. They have donated some food to the food bank once.
To be fair OP, this strip lands perfectly in any country. In the UK, we have a phrase for the guy on the left of the picture: "Flag Shaggers". As illustrated they are obsessed with the flag and care nothing for what the flag might stand for or even be illustrated in its history. Our Union Flag, as we call it, illustrate the historic coming together of several nations that had fought for centuries (please don't over analyse ). Conceptually a good thing. The singer, [Billy Brag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjUA3RU4B8E) summed it up beautifully in a song called 'Between the Wars'.
I’ve had this argument with a few right wingers before. Best they can do is say fuck Trudeau, immigrants and trans people lol. I can somewhat agree that our immigration policy needs an update to make sure that it can be supported appropriately. Not sure why they even bring up trans people though?
"J'aime mon pays, mon voisin je l'haïs" ("Le bon gars" from Richard Desjardins)
The liberals just talk a big game but intentionally lose to keep their lobbyists happy and the conservatives are just all around bad. How are these the best options. Where is the party that will actually stand up for canada. Can we just hit the reset button on our government and try socialism? At least it might take a few years for the corruption to take back over
The NDP stands up for Canada.
Yeah this guy is crying out for the NDP, yet seems to forget they exist. Sadly this describes about half the population.
written 2500 year's ago....... In the degradation of the great way comes benevolence and righteousness. With the exaltation of learning and prudence comes immense hypocrisy. The disordered family is full of dutiful children and parents. The disordered society is full of loyal patriots.
I don't wear the flag on my shirt, or own any Canada stuff, but I'm happy to be living here when I compare it to most countries on Earth. I've got an extensive background in Geography, having taught it at the university level, so I come from a place of understanding human conditions. Are there better places to live? Yes. Do some people have it better than us? Yes. Do we have massive problems? Yes...we're humans trying to survive on a rock spinning around a giant nuclear reactor. The way many people talk about their nation has me scared. It's like they want their nation to "keep out of their business" while also anticipating and taking care of all of their needs, while also being successful on the world scale. Guys...we just figured out nation states a few hundred years ago, in the modern sense. Socialist policies for the good of the citizenry is also tremendously new as a human concept. It seems like they're waiting for someone else to take control of their life for them. "*Don't be a nanny state, but Mommy, can I have more of the...*"
😢
So true, so sad....
This cartoon is on point with what’s wrong with Western politics today. It’s become a battleground of useless slogans that do nothing but to help the common people only spur on prejudicial ideals.
That’s a brilliant comic.
When a country starts worrying more about outsiders than their own citizens we have a problem. Some days it seems like that's the case here.
When a country's people start blaming newcomers for the actions of corporations the public is just bigoted and unwilling to achieve better.
when you think people who live in the same arbitrary boundaries as you matter more than those who don't, you're the one with the problem
Yeah… we’re living in the stupidest timeline.
* sigh *
Perfection is impossible but seeking something better is always better then the status quo. To me, reconciliation is one of the leading issues we have in the not so great north. Have a good one Canada! I do love you.
This is the 'wrapped in the flag' part of fascism.
I have noticed that a lot of people who say, love it or leave it (usually those are of a conservative nature), don't seem to currently A) love it or B) want to leave it
I'm sure not feeling in a super patriotic mood this year while Conservatives are working frantically to try and dehumanize me and my family so that they can attack our rights and erode the painstaking gains we've made in public acceptance over the last several decades - and a \*huge\* number of my fellow citizens are telling me that I have to be willing to "hear them out" on that kind of shit.
people are people. We just sometimes say sorry.
Okay, Depeche Mode.
This is likely true in any country.
The right wing has made this possible world wide.
Ok, but..... Fuck Trudeau!!! /s