Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Slava

I just can't on-board with that line of thought. Are we just taking a "boys will be boys" approach to corruption now? I think that PP is brutal, but at least there's no evidence of corruption at this point. If my choice is between a corrupt, bumbling idiot or just a plain bumbling idiot, I'm skipping the corrupt option.

Considering the word is that both the LPC and CPC were targets of Chinese interference (and unless I have missed some development, which is possible), wouldn’t the answer be considering neither of them and voting for a different party?

If the issues are important to you, it doesn’t make sense to limit yourself to two parties where you’re just picking the best of the worst, does it?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Considering the word is that both the LPC and CPC were targets of Chinese interference (and unless I have missed some development, which is possible), wouldn’t the answer be considering neither of them and voting for a different party?

If the issues are important to you, it doesn’t make sense to limit yourself to two parties where you’re just picking the best of the worst, does it?

Well, I voted Rhino last time around, so I'm willing to consider other parties with feasible and sound platforms!

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Considering the word is that both the LPC and CPC were targets of Chinese interference (and unless I have missed some development, which is possible), wouldn’t the answer be considering neither of them and voting for a different party?

If the issues are important to you, it doesn’t make sense to limit yourself to two parties where you’re just picking the best of the worst, does it?

Not until the LEAP manifesto is denounced or clearly eliminated from the NDPs lexicon and policy, no. In this instance one must consider what’s best (or, what’s worse, I guess). Extreme blatant corruption is a disaster that could ruin the country yes, but the NDPs policies are arguably worse and may destroy it faster or even worse than the corruption and cronyism. I have yet to see the NDP declare anything that isn’t overtly hostile to western Canada excluding Vancouver proper.

[TheIronMaiden]

It will be interesting to see if there is a race to grab votes from the centre. I know the NDP have worked hard to brand themselves differently from the LPC but it would be a great time to make a move on their base.

[Izzle]

... so a certain amount of corruption is ok. Good to know.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Izzle

... so a certain amount of corruption is ok. Good to know.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by theironmaiden

it will be interesting to see if there is a race to grab votes from the centre. I know the ndp have worked hard to brand themselves differently from the lpc but it would be a great time to make a move on their base.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1640422008700715028

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Not until the LEAP manifesto is denounced or clearly eliminated from the NDPs lexicon and policy, no. In this instance one must consider what’s best (or, what’s worse, I guess). Extreme blatant corruption is a disaster that could ruin the country yes, but the NDPs policies are arguably worse and may destroy it faster or even worse than the corruption and cronyism. I have yet to see the NDP declare anything that isn’t overtly hostile to western Canada excluding Vancouver proper.

So you would vote LPC over NDP?

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

So you would vote LPC over NDP?

I dunno, need way more info than what's available currently. I'm not sure the NDP still hold that LEAP manifesto near and dear to their hearts anymore, it isn't clear to me. Also depends on the Trudeau situation, and on what the Conservatives put out there for actual policy.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Maybe the Federal Government needs to updated its version of quickbooks. We saw 10's of billions unaccountable in terms of Infrastructure when McKenna ran the department. Now the auditor General is shrugging her shoulders in terms of Foreign affairs and whats happening with projects where the money is going.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9581108/f...neral-reports/

Families struggling to pay for rent, groceries, etc....

Billions going who knows where, meh whats the big deal?

[Northendzone]

^ to me the government needs to really get a hold of the money they spend. it is really frustrating when you read stories like that and then when the government gets grilled in teh hosue it is a bunch of non-answers and we all just carry on

[FlameOn]

Former Liberal MP Han Dong sues Global News for "false" reporting.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/...-interference/

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Azure

Families struggling to pay for rent, groceries, etc....

Billions going who knows where, meh whats the big deal?

I don’t think people are reading the article. They government in this case knows where the money was allocated.

What they did not document effectively was is the money spent accomplishing the goals of that money. That’s a problem but not the problem identified by the headline or the comments going on around it.

Global Affairs Canada has no sense of whether development aid meant to help women and girls abroad is actually advancing gender equity, according to an audit tabled in Parliament on Monday morning

The department missed an opportunity to demonstrate the value of international assistance.”

These difficulties with measuring outcomes applied for 24 out of 26 of the department’s stated policy indicators, in part due to poor data collection, Hogan found.

“While individual project files included useful information, because of the weaknesses in information management practices, this information was not being rolled up and used at the departmental level,” the audit says.

So the question that can’t be answered is how effective was the money spent at accomplishing its goals. This backwards looking evaluation of projects is a problem in both the public and private sector.

The UCP had a similar audit report that people freaked out about. On the list of misuse of government funds this one is pretty low.

[CaptainCrunch]

The problem is that this is not uncommon, look at Catherine McKenna when she ran infrastructure and billions became unaccounted for.

How many times does the auditor general do his/her report and shrug shoulders and say that the government either doesn't know if money is being used effectively, or doesn't know where the money goes, and or the government actively fights against Audits by refusing to deliver key data.

[Geraldsh]

Originally Posted by GGG

I don’t think people are reading the article. They government in this case knows where the money was allocated.


So the question that can’t be answered is how effective was the money spent at accomplishing its goals. This backwards looking evaluation of projects is a problem in both the public and private sector.

The UCP had a similar audit report that people freaked out about. On the list of misuse of government funds this one is pretty low.

It may be low on the list but it is on the list and it’s something that should not be cavalierly dismissed .
If I hire a taxi to take me to the airport and I arrive at the train station I don’t just shrug and hop on a bus.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

There is a difference between saying "we spent $1 billion but have no invoices, purchase orders, work orders, pay stubs, accounting codes or other data to show us how much of that $1 billion went to which entities and for what purpose", and saying "we have all of that data and can tell you where every penny went and for what purpose, but we cannot tell you how good a job they ended up doing on the things we paid them to do". Both are bad, obviously, but the former is completely unforgivable.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Former Liberal MP Han Dong sues Global News for "false" reporting.
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/03/...-interference/

Not really a surprise at all. Its just something that no matter what is on the transcripts was going to happen.

Theoretically if the government felt that nothing on the transcript of Dong's call was actionable they could have released that segment and this would have been over and Dong wouldn't have had to resign, except for the whole Trudeau government saying they had no idea that dong was directly talking to the Chinese.

Discovery is going to be interesting, but this does remove the clock on things as lawsuits like this probably take years.

I still completely believe that this whole mess needs to be removed from the committee level, removed from the need of a special rapper, and moved to a public inquiry.

[Erick Estrada]

To this day I'm still at a loss that any government department could lose billions on 20,000 unaccounted projects. Are they still operating under paper-based management or something?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

To this day I'm still at a loss that any government department could lose billions on 20,000 unaccounted projects. Are they still operating under paper-based management or something?

Well you know, Quickbooks advanced is hard.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Not really a surprise at all. Its just something that no matter what is on the transcripts was going to happen.

Theoretically if the government felt that nothing on the transcript of Dong's call was actionable they could have released that segment and this would have been over and Dong wouldn't have had to resign, except for the whole Trudeau government saying they had no idea that dong was directly talking to the Chinese.

Discovery is going to be interesting, but this does remove the clock on things as lawsuits like this probably take years.

I still completely believe that this whole mess needs to be removed from the committee level, removed from the need of a special rapper, and moved to a public inquiry.

Don't disagree that we need an inquiry, but it's starting to seem like Global ran with something they shouldn't have.

Globe and Mail essentially came out and said they didn't publish the Dong story because it didn't meet their editorial standards and even Global seems to be backing away from it now.