Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Slava

It's hilarious that you think I'm some super rabid right-winger! It's actually quite interesting to see that because there are a lot of posters here who would characterize me as a hardcore Liberal.

I don't think so. I've never you seen you come off that way in the slightest.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by jayswin

I don't think so. I've never you seen you come off that way in the slightest.

I've been here for a lot of years!

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Slava

It's hilarious that you think I'm some super rabid right-winger! It's actually quite interesting to see that because there are a lot of posters here who would characterize me as a hardcore Liberal.

I never said you were a “rabid right winger” and wasn’t trying to suggest that at all with my post. That being said I’d be interested to know how many you would consider to be “a lot of posters” because I don’t think most people would characterize you that way at all despite your attempts to portray yourself as such.

Edit: to be fair though I should have probably added a j/k or wink emoji so that my “for a change” comment came off a little less antagonistic

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I’m not seeing where it states in that article that multiple Unions are going to go on strike across Canada.

We won't know what was potentially coming based on the announcements this morning. Unifor's National President said this morning that they "we were prepared to respond with an unprecedented response ... Uniform members were, and are, prepared to vigorously oppose this law. Last evening, our national executive board voted unanimously to take whatever action was needed to defeat Bill 28." We can read into that whatever we want but it sounds like a pretty serious threat that could have rippling effects across Canada.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

We won't know what was potentially coming based on the announcements this morning. Unifor's National President said this morning that they "we were prepared to respond with an unprecedented response ... Uniform members were, and are, prepared to vigorously oppose this law. Last evening, our national executive board voted unanimously to take whatever action was needed to defeat Bill 28." We can read into that whatever we want but it sounds like a pretty serious threat that could have rippling effects across Canada.

Shouldn’t we all be ready to join them in the flippant use of the notwithstanding clause?

Effectively the government is saying that in Canada labour rights are not protected if the majority government decides it to be.

We already have court tested mechanisms to legislate essential workers back to work. The Ontario government is trying to do an end around these processes.

Also what can the government do if people refuse to work? It could be deemed an illegal strike and you could terminate people for non performance of their job but if people are willing to take those risks then there isn’t really anything the government can do.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by GGG

Shouldn’t we all be ready to join them in the flippant use of the notwithstanding clause?

Effectively the government is saying that in Canada labour rights are not protected if the majority government decides it to be.

We already have court tested mechanisms to legislate essential workers back to work. The Ontario government is trying to do an end around these processes.

Also what can the government do if people refuse to work? It could be deemed an illegal strike and you could terminate people for non performance of their job but if people are willing to take those risks then there isn’t really anything the government can do.

Agreed. On CBC yesterday they had a panel, one of which included Thomas Mulcair and he made a couple good points.

1) it isn't even so much of the use of the notwithstanding clause, it's the pre-emptive use of it. It is pretty heavy handed.

2) Trudeau finger wags at Ontario, yet Legault / Quebec did the exact same thing with respect to language laws. But of course, because Quebec is politically valuable to Trudeau it's crickets. Another perfect example of how Quebec can operate in this country with one set of rules and the rest of the country has a different set of rules. Mind you, and importantly, Trudeau hasn't really "done anything" to Ontario he has just basically condemned it- but such statement is still stronger than what he did / didn't do for Quebec.

The other larger problem with this action from Ford, is that it opens the door wide open for all provinces to start enacting the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively which is a massive problem. As such yes, it does make sense for the Liberals to do something here (I think). Not sure what though, and it is admittedly complicated.
on the issue of

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by GGG

Shouldn’t we all be ready to join them in the flippant use of the notwithstanding clause?

Effectively the government is saying that in Canada labour rights are not protected if the majority government decides it to be.

We already have court tested mechanisms to legislate essential workers back to work. The Ontario government is trying to do an end around these processes.

Also what can the government do if people refuse to work? It could be deemed an illegal strike and you could terminate people for non performance of their job but if people are willing to take those risks then there isn’t really anything the government can do.

Of course all Canadians should stand up for our rights and ensure that they are protected. Do we do that at any cost necessary though? Can we sustain $10's or $100's of millions worth of economic impact per day if some of the major unions, and/or non union, employees took job action?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Of course all Canadians should stand up for our rights and ensure that they are protected. Do we do that at any cost necessary though? Can we sustain $10's or $100's of millions worth of economic impact per day if some of the major unions, and/or non union, employees took job action?

If we can’t sustain that economic loss won’t the politicians cave in about 15 minutes? Yes I think that not normalizing the not withstanding clause usage is worth 100’s of millions in economic damage. We more or less have no rights in Canada that can’t be superseded by its use.

If you have pissed off a few hundred thousand people enough that they are willing to lose their jobs to protest for people unrelated to them then perhaps you need to address what you are doing.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Agreed. On CBC yesterday they had a panel, one of which included Thomas Mulcair and he made a couple good points.

1) it isn't even so much of the use of the notwithstanding clause, it's the pre-emptive use of it. It is pretty heavy handed.

2) Trudeau finger wags at Ontario, yet Legault / Quebec did the exact same thing with respect to language laws. But of course, because Quebec is politically valuable to Trudeau it's crickets. Another perfect example of how Quebec can operate in this country with one set of rules and the rest of the country has a different set of rules. Mind you, and importantly, Trudeau hasn't really "done anything" to Ontario he has just basically condemned it- but such statement is still stronger than what he did / didn't do for Quebec.

The other larger problem with this action from Ford, is that it opens the door wide open for all provinces to start enacting the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively which is a massive problem. As such yes, it does make sense for the Liberals to do something here (I think). Not sure what though, and it is admittedly complicated.
on the issue of

Did he not say the same thing about Ontario as he did about Quebec? Yap about how he may do something but in reality do nothing?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...ault-1.6465090

https://globalnews.ca/news/9253789/t...ntario-strike/

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Did he not say the same thing about Ontario as he did about Quebec? Yap about how he may do something but in reality do nothing?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montr...ault-1.6465090

https://globalnews.ca/news/9253789/t...ntario-strike/

Thanks! I actually did search but couldn't find anything, that's good he was consistent. Anyway, Mulcair's main point was that action is needed on this issue not just rhetoric, basically. Although he stopped short of describing exactly what "needed" to be done.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Slava

I've been here for a lot of years!

I know, and you've never come off as hardcore liberal, ever. Always right of centre, imo.

[starseed]

Originally Posted by Slava

I've been here for a lot of years!

I have always assumed you were far right. But in a friendly Nazi way.

Sent from my SM-N986U1 using Tapatalk

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Thanks! I actually did search but couldn't find anything, that's good he was consistent. Anyway, Mulcair's main point was that action is needed on this issue not just rhetoric, basically. Although he stopped short of describing exactly what "needed" to be done.

What can be done by the federal government in these instances? I don’t really know what options they have other than rhetoric. The clause was specifically inserted to allow the provinces to do this.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by starseed

I have always assumed you were far right. But in a friendly Nazi way.

Sent from my SM-N986U1 using Tapatalk

Haha, hopefully this is a joke. I’m socially super liberal, and on a lot of issues pretty libertarian. I don’t know where I’d be on the political spectrum, but it’s definitely not far right at all.

Not to belabour this (because I don’t think anyone cares), but I’m mostly contrarian. When Harper was in, I generally enjoyed railing against him. Now we have Trudeau and I enjoy railing against him. The common thread is the NDP, because they’re never in.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by diracspike

but every working person is "paying back" the country by contributing to the economy, whether or not they have some piece of paper from school. I didn't even see the liberals had done this, too busy focusing on their ridiculous tax on stock buy backs they announced as well but this is also pretty bad. If you don't see the direct linear connect between more and more societal pressure for everyone to go to university no matter their degree, backed by cheap guaranteed government loans, and the exponential rise in university cost then i don't know what to tell you. And now with interest free loans that's only going to accelerate and cause this university mess to metastasize further until we have billions and billions of dollars in student debt backed by tax payers that compound further and further as universities increase their prices. Why the hell would anyone ever pay back an interest free loan? So what, just rack up a huge bill of university costs that we all have to back regardless utility and maybe pay it back if you feel like it, maybe not, all good? Most of the student debt in north america represents one of the largest bubbles of malinvestment ever assembled in human history and now we're going to add to it.



And before someone chimes in with the "it's none of your business what people study or where they go to school, every degree and education has worth..." etc refrain that people think justifies every dumb action taken on this file i would love not to worry about where people go or what they study. If you want to light tens of thousands of dollars on fire and waste your 20s studying something with no utility i'd be perfectly happy to let you go ahead and do that, couldn't care less. But when you demand interest free loans, or debt forgiveness paid by me, now you're forcing me to care because you're asking for my money. We have entirely too many people going to university getting taxpayer money to study things that have no utility or use, and that's the free market telling you that not me. The free market decides what is of use and economically viable or not and you get into trouble going against it. You won't find a job with an art history degree that pays anything, but you can get high paying jobs operating shovel at an oil sands mine or as a drilling hand on a natural gas rig. Why? Because it turns out we all have a lot more need for diesel to move our products and natural gas to keep us warm than we do for someone to tell us about the evolution of french impressionism.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1589670638440308737

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

As someone with an English literature and philosophy degree, I... kind of agree with Diracspike on this. The aim should be to reduce the cost of attending post-secondary, not subsidizing it, and with a preference for trades.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Even though I am a union steward, I don't have any inside baseball scoop here. But I did have my ear to the ground.

Likely, next Monday would have been a general strike. And, yes, any union going on a wildcat strike would put the member at risk of being terminated. So how many of the 24 unions that were on stage would have asked their members to risk their jobs? They were coy on that one. When asked at the presser today one guy said "Maybe I'll write a book about this in 10 years and you can find out then".

Would this have hurt the economy? If it was one day of having autoworkers or steelworkers off, it would be a blip. But if they agreed to stay out longer....

As I posted a few pages back, my bigger concern in all of this was the use of the Notwithstanding Clause. It is my HOPE that other premiers will see what a disaster this turned out to be for Ford and think twice about using it in the future. But I suspect that it will depend on how powerful the people are that are having their rights taken away. Muslims and other minorities in Quebec were easy targets as they have no power. Ford thought that custodians and librarians had zero power and were easy targets. PCs did not realize the hornets nest they poked.

-=-=-=-=-

Note that this is not over. This only gets them back to the negotiating table. If the negotiations go nowhere and it is obvious that the two sides are much too far apart, CUPE will be back picketing. And everyone on the stage today swore that they would be back to help. What is over thought is any federal connection. Trudeau doesn't need to think about disallowance or threatening Doug with financial penalties for taking away Charter rights.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by DevilsAdvocate

Even though I am a union steward, I don't have any inside baseball scoop here. But I did have my ear to the ground.

Likely, next Monday would have been a general strike. And, yes, any union going on a wildcat strike would put the member at risk of being terminated. So how many of the 24 unions that were on stage would have asked their members to risk their jobs? They were coy on that one. When asked at the presser today one guy said "Maybe I'll write a book about this in 10 years and you can find out then".

Would this have hurt the economy? If it was one day of having autoworkers or steelworkers off, it would be a blip. But if they agreed to stay out longer....

As I posted a few pages back, my bigger concern in all of this was the use of the Notwithstanding Clause. It is my HOPE that other premiers will see what a disaster this turned out to be for Ford and think twice about using it in the future. But I suspect that it will depend on how powerful the people are that are having their rights taken away. Muslims and other minorities in Quebec were easy targets as they have no power. Ford thought that custodians and librarians had zero power and were easy targets. PCs did not realize the hornets nest they poked.

-=-=-=-=-

Note that this is not over. This only gets them back to the negotiating table. If the negotiations go nowhere and it is obvious that the two sides are much too far apart, CUPE will be back picketing. And everyone on the stage today swore that they would be back to help. What is over thought is any federal connection. Trudeau doesn't need to think about disallowance or threatening Doug with financial penalties for taking away Charter rights.

This is where the other Canada Conservative parties can learn from Doug Ford. He'll do stupid things, but he'll also reverse course and not dig himself into a deeper hole if they appear to be unpopular.

[Fuzz]

Ford played chicken and chickened out.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ford played chicken and chickened out.

Or did what politicians should do when they make a mistake. Rethink the position and fix it. We should crap on Ford for the bill but we should give him credit for repealing. Someone like Smith probably doubles down.

This reminds me much more of historic politics where actions led to consequences as opposed to just ignoring the consequence knowing that by election time this won’t be an issue.