Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[Firebot]

Meanwhile as some on the left spectrum on this forum cheers a 'bad week' for PP.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/can...nomy-1.7044651

GDP shrank by 0.3% which would put us in a technical recession, if not for revised Q2 numbers which after accounting for record immigration grew by 0.3%.

The US meanwhile increased at an annual rate of 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2023 in comparison.

Liberals announces legislation for their new digital services tax, promised back in 2020, causing tensions with the Biden administration who vehemently opposes this tax and where they are disappointed. Canadians are expected to pay more for digital services as a result and the tax will cause additional economic tension with the US.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dig...tion-1.7042662

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/poli...tawas-digital/

The new Liberal-Bloc Quebecois coalition just voted down a conservative motion demanding Senate pass farmers’ carbon tax exemption bill C-234, currently stuck in senate hell in a previously mentioned article, to avoid the optics of having a carve out on carbon tax after specifically stating there will be no more carve outs on carbon tax, outside of the carve out that gave preferential tax treatment to Liberal friendly Atlantic Canada. This will continue to put pressure on food prices while the Ontario Federal of Agriculture pleads to get this bill passed to help farmers. To their credit the NDP voted with the conservatives as they also did initially on the original bill to help Canadians.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10132180/...vative-motion/

https://ofa.on.ca/ofa-encourages-pas...ate-of-canada/

Rent across the country are rising including Nova Scotia where rent is rising faster than anytime since the 1970s despite a provincial rent cap in place until 2025.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...tion-1.7042109


Trudeau just gave major concessions in an agreement with Google, for Google to agree to give millions to Bell and Rogers, on a bill that gave the Liberals nothing but bad press, which will surely trickle down to the little guys, which the left is cheering and including it as a bad week for PP...

These are just things that impacts Canadians daily which are immaterial to Liberal supporters, but oh boy did you see PP squirm when asked why he prematurely defined a car explosion at a border crossing causing 4 bridges to be closed as terrorism? One that also had posters initially insinuate potential terrorism as a natural reaction on initial reports?

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

If I'm not mistaken that seems like the area where cars are pulled in for closer inspection?

But yeah! Take that Milhouse!

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Firebot

These are just things that impacts Canadians daily which are immaterial to Liberal supporters, but oh boy did you see PP squirm when asked why he prematurely defined a car explosion at a border crossing causing 4 bridges to be closed as terrorism? One that also had posters initially insinuate potential terrorism as a natural reaction on initial reports?

I'm sure you definitely saw that he said he got his 'source' from CTV, which didn't post anything until 13 minutes after he said it it in the House of Commons.

But let's not let facts get in the way of a good grandstanding!

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Azure

Instead of taking bets on who will win the election, we should take bets on how big of a meltdown Johnny will have when his Liberal buddies get tossed.

Hey i threw that bet out to you weeks ago and you hid in a hole. It must really sucked for you the past 9 years after dear leader got booted.

$500 that the Cons will not get a majority gov't next election even the polls say it's 150% chance of them getting one in the polls. lol

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Meanwhile as some on the left spectrum on this forum cheers a 'bad week' for PP.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/can...nomy-1.7044651

GDP shrank by 0.3% which would put us in a technical recession, if not for revised Q2 numbers which after accounting for record immigration grew by 0.3%.

The US meanwhile increased at an annual rate of 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2023 in comparison.

Liberals announces legislation for their new digital services tax, promised back in 2020, causing tensions with the Biden administration who vehemently opposes this tax and where they are disappointed. Canadians are expected to pay more for digital services as a result and the tax will cause additional economic tension with the US.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dig...tion-1.7042662

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/poli...tawas-digital/

The new Liberal-Bloc Quebecois coalition just voted down a conservative motion demanding Senate pass farmers’ carbon tax exemption bill C-234, currently stuck in senate hell in a previously mentioned article, to avoid the optics of having a carve out on carbon tax after specifically stating there will be no more carve outs on carbon tax, outside of the carve out that gave preferential tax treatment to Liberal friendly Atlantic Canada. This will continue to put pressure on food prices while the Ontario Federal of Agriculture pleads to get this bill passed to help farmers. To their credit the NDP voted with the conservatives as they also did initially on the original bill to help Canadians.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10132180/...vative-motion/

https://ofa.on.ca/ofa-encourages-pas...ate-of-canada/

Rent across the country are rising including Nova Scotia where rent is rising faster than anytime since the 1970s despite a provincial rent cap in place until 2025.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...tion-1.7042109


Trudeau just gave major concessions in an agreement with Google, for Google to agree to give millions to Bell and Rogers, on a bill that gave the Liberals nothing but bad press, which will surely trickle down to the little guys, which the left is cheering and including it as a bad week for PP...

These are just things that impacts Canadians daily which are immaterial to Liberal supporters, but oh boy did you see PP squirm when asked why he prematurely defined a car explosion at a border crossing causing 4 bridges to be closed as terrorism? One that also had posters initially insinuate potential terrorism as a natural reaction on initial reports?



But yeah! Take that Milhouse!

and what the flying eff would Millhouse do to combat all that?? lol

Other than take off his glasses and ram millions of dollars worth of ads down our throats??

Yeah he has no relations with his biological parents because he was a test tube baby born in the Manning institute lab in Calgary.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I'm sure you definitely saw that he said he got his 'source' from CTV, which didn't post anything until 13 minutes after he said it it in the House of Commons.

But let's not let facts get in the way of a good grandstanding!

Did you not believe it was probably a terrorist act initially based on your post? I did based on initial reports, until I saw the flying car video.

Poilievre answered the reporter question extremely poorly and had poor tact when questioned. There is no denying this or disputing it. It was a bad moment for him. He obviously got his info from Fox News first, though the CTV did in fact also report this as a suspected terrorist attack. The FBI investigated is as suspected terrorism until it could be ruled out. He should have answered that at the time this was the information available.

To attempt to catch him in a gotcha moment to count the minutes and get a timeline of event for what many Canadians believed at first, and something where you seemed to believe as well, shows the level of political grandstanding.

The terrorism flub by a politician is a blip in the grand scheme of Canadian politics and issues that matter, and only matters to those that already call Poilievre PP and Milhouse. You weren't voting for him anyways.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Firebot

GDP shrank by 0.3% which would put us in a technical recession, if not for revised Q2 numbers which after accounting for record immigration grew by 0.3%.

The US meanwhile increased at an annual rate of 5.2 percent in the third quarter of 2023 in comparison.

Here's another comparison:

US deficit as a % of GDP: 6.7%

Canada deficit as a % of GDP: 1.4%

The US is basically using government debt to push its economy along. I guess we could do the same, but I can only imagine Conservatives howling if the government was running a $200B deficit right now.

There's a reason why bond markets are predicting basically identical interest rate trajectories for both countries (cuts in the spring and -100bps within a year).

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Rent across the country are rising including Nova Scotia where rent is rising faster than anytime since the 1970s despite a provincial rent cap in place until 2025.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...tion-1.7042109

Honest question. I think I've asked this before on there but I really am curious what you expect JT to do to combat rent and housing costs in this country. Say we have an election next week and PP wins, what is he going to magically do instantly to stop increases like this in Nova Scotia?

I'm not asking this to stick up for JT (really couldn't care less about the guy) but it seems like one of those issues that's easy for PP to bash the current government over to get votes, but does he even have a solution? If the Cons were in power right now and the Libs the opposition and doing the bashing I'd be asking the same question. What's the solution?

[Doctorfever]

Didn’t JT basically admit he messed up regarding housing prices? I would say you look to the guy in charge for the solution.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Did you not believe it was probably a terrorist act initially based on your post? I did based on initial reports, until I saw the flying car video.

Poilievre answered the reporter question extremely poorly and had poor tact when questioned. There is no denying this or disputing it. It was a bad moment for him. He obviously got his info from Fox News first, though the CTV did in fact also report this as a suspected terrorist attack. The FBI investigated is as suspected terrorism until it could be ruled out. He should have answered that at the time this was the information available.

To attempt to catch him in a gotcha moment to count the minutes and get a timeline of event for what many Canadians believed at first, and something where you seemed to believe as well, shows the level of political grandstanding.

The terrorism flub by a politician is a blip in the grand scheme of Canadian politics and issues that matter, and only matters to those that already call Poilievre PP and Milhouse. You weren't voting for him anyways.

I mean, I thought it was terrorism for sure. I can cop to that. The part that is the issue (in my eyes) for Polievre, is that he is so petulant and is constantly scolding everyone. It's just so off-putting. Are Canadians going to respond favourably to say a year or two of this leading up to the election?

[Monahammer]

Firebot, can you please point me in the direction of a Pierre Poilievre proposal to increase housing stock in Canada? Or any other proposal that would serve to reduce rent in various markets across Canada?

Re:Google. What concessions were given to google? Is it the ultimate number decreasing from $170 million to $100 million? That doesn't seem like much concession compared to getting zilch. It seems to me, fairly objectively, that the liberals actually got what they were seeking. I think they wanted money for canadian media companies all along, not some arcane "benefit for the little guy!" I don't think this was a secret, here is the original proposal: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-he...line-news.html .

"The Online news act aims to ensure dominant platforms compensate news businesses when their content is made available on their services."

It seems that this goal was successfully achieved, to the tune of $100 million that wasn't flowing in previously. Now what the media companies do with that is another question, but wouldn't you prefer to believe that at least a portion of these profits will be dedicated to keeping staff employed, writing more news articles? OR would you prefer that the government add additional regulation to the media companies to ensure the money is used this way?

Genuine question.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Slava

I mean, I thought it was terrorism for sure. I can cop to that. The part that is the issue (in my eyes) for Polievre, is that he is so petulant and is constantly scolding everyone. It's just so off-putting. Are Canadians going to respond favourably to say a year or two of this leading up to the election?

We all thought it might be for sure. Then facts came out. Milhouse clearly got his from Fox News, who was the ONLY media outlet to say 'terrorism' publicly, and blamed it on CTV.

This from the guy who goes to war with the media. Mighty convenient to purposely spin a media trap he chastises them for.

Looking forward to that kind of honest leadership.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by Doctorfever

Didn’t JT basically admit he messed up regarding housing prices? I would say you look to the guy in charge for the solution.

That's not answering my question at all.

PP wins an election tomorrow. What is he doing to solve the renting issue in Nova Scotia? Or housing prices across the country? I don't know....that's why I'm asking.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

That's not answering my question at all.

PP wins an election tomorrow. What is he doing to solve the renting issue in Nova Scotia? Or housing prices across the country? I don't know....that's why I'm asking.

I honestly don’t know either. I suspect if there was an election tomorrow those answers would be in their election platform.

Edit: until there is an election, we should be looking to the Liberals for the answers, as you know.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Liberals announces legislation for their new digital services tax, promised back in 2020, causing tensions with the Biden administration who vehemently opposes this tax and where they are disappointed. Canadians are expected to pay more for digital services as a result and the tax will cause additional economic tension with the US.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/dig...tion-1.7042662

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/poli...tawas-digital/

The new Liberal-Bloc Quebecois coalition just voted down a conservative motion demanding Senate pass farmers’ carbon tax exemption bill C-234, currently stuck in senate hell in a previously mentioned article, to avoid the optics of having a carve out on carbon tax after specifically stating there will be no more carve outs on carbon tax, outside of the carve out that gave preferential tax treatment to Liberal friendly Atlantic Canada. This will continue to put pressure on food prices while the Ontario Federal of Agriculture pleads to get this bill passed to help farmers. To their credit the NDP voted with the conservatives as they also did initially on the original bill to help Canadians.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10132180/...vative-motion/

https://ofa.on.ca/ofa-encourages-pas...ate-of-canada/

But yeah! Take that Milhouse!

2 more questions.

The digital services tax is an interesting one- Let me again ask what PP's proposal to deal with this expanding taxation and trade issue is? Why should the US government profit off of canadian citizens? Why shouldn't digital services provided within Canada be taxed as all other services provided in Canada are? Wouldn't this confer a specific advantage to American companies offering digital services in Canada?

Further, the US does seem to be making a lot of noise about this issue, when it seems to me VERY similar but in reverse to the most long standing trade dispute between our nations: softwood lumber. Maybe the US should abide by the WTO findings and then we can be more generous in our trade relationship. We get squished too often by sleeping in bed with the elephant. Sometimes we need to make a bit of noise so they don't crush us completely.
The point here is that this single issue can't impact the trade relationship between our two great nations more than other longstanding issues that have existed through multiple free trade agreements. Our relationship goes beyond this, so making that a locus point for attack is dumb.

The second issue you outlined is definitely a PP loss. Why couldn't he get the block on board politically? That's a failure of leadership, or getting outplayed by a better offer from the liberals. The block is doing what it thinks will get it votes; your positioning of credit to the ndp (and inference of shame upon the Bloc) is infantile. If PP was savvy enough and had enough cred, he may have toppled the government by offering something to the bloc. Of course, in that event the NDP would have crawled back to the libs because they have no interest in seeing an election today. It should be telling that Stephane Dion was able to pull this type of maneuver off 15 years ago, yet PP was not.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

We all thought it might be for sure. Then facts came out. Milhouse clearly got his from Fox News, who was the ONLY media outlet to say 'terrorism' publicly, and blamed it on CTV.

This from the guy who goes to war with the media. Mighty convenient to purposely spin a media trap he chastises them for.

Looking forward to that kind of honest leadership.

Well, I don't really care if the guy watches Fox News. I feel like that is most voters? I think that had he just come out and said "hey, I saw it on Fox and thought it was terrorism" there isn't even a media report to be had, because no one cares.

The part where people were screenshotting things posted in the Mountain time zone and that kind of thing to try to justify this...that's the level of petulance and admonishing everyone that I think is going to cause him problems.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I see this has really fired Azure up. It's OK to admit the Libs had a better week than the Cons. It does happen once in a while. But don't worry, the CPC are still winning the hearts and minds of Canadians with their shrewd governance and magnetic hutzpah.

Have no problem at all admitting that the CPs and their PP had a bad week.

I also don't think the CPs are winning the hearts and minds of anyone. If the Liberals would have tossed Trudeau to the curb 2 years ago and presented better policies, the CPs wouldn't be polling so high, because in reality they haven't shown much of value other than not being the Liberals.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

Honest question. I think I've asked this before on there but I really am curious what you expect JT to do to combat rent and housing costs in this country. Say we have an election next week and PP wins, what is he going to magically do instantly to stop increases like this in Nova Scotia?

I'm not asking this to stick up for JT (really couldn't care less about the guy) but it seems like one of those issues that's easy for PP to bash the current government over to get votes, but does he even have a solution? If the Cons were in power right now and the Libs the opposition and doing the bashing I'd be asking the same question. What's the solution?

Rent and housing costs are directly impacted by supply and demand, mortgage rates and inflation, and speculative bubbles from both domestic and foreign sources. Record high immigration negatively impacts supply and demand, and overzealous government spending impacts Bank of Canada decisions, both are which the federal government does control.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10048805/...ing-inflation/

CPC had unveiled their plan. They are not in power at this point and market conditions may change so any talk is only speculative. We may have a hard housing crash next year and have a different problem altogether before election comes up. It's not the first time I had to link it (last time the same line of question came up, it reverted to bashing the CPC plan).

https://www.conservative.ca/building...t-bureaucracy/

Trudeau has been campaigning on affordable housing since 2015

https://liberal.ca/trudeau-promises-...for-canadians/

“While Canadians struggle to make ends meet, Stephen Harper gives billions to the wealthiest few. Mulcair irresponsibly supports Harper’s plan to give more money to millionaires and will make major cuts to public services,” said Mr. Trudeau. “Only Liberals have a plan to put more money in families’ pockets to help with the high cost of raising their kids, and by investing in the social infrastructure that gives all Canadians a real and fair chance at success.”

It's not so much what will Poilievre do as only time will tell if his policies will work once elected (and while certainly bolder and more aggressive will it resolve a housing crisis in itself, very doubtful). It's more to do that Trudeau and Liberals have been at the helm promising affordable housing for 8 years, and this year Trudeau just raises his hands and effectively shrugged "not my responsibility". The acceleration of housing prices and rent has only gone up since the Liberals have been in power, and the incumbent in charge is where the blame shifts. It's an easy target to campaign on.

The optics while rent continues to go up is something that Canadians feel and would care more about, and would likely vote based on that optic more

[GGG]

Telling other people to solve your housing problem or funding is cut isn’t really a plan.

The plan is also directly contradicting the conservative stakeholders on city council who continually vote against zoning changes. I suspect there will be significant grass roots resistance among conservatives if this type of housing policy actually went into place.

I think the federal government needs to directly subsidize housing. Essentially build rental housing until the market is saturated and rents drop. You can likely make this a boondoggle and still end up efficient because supply increase lowers rents for everyone.

I don’t believe any party will do anything about the problem because the property owning class is harmed by lowering real estate prices.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well, I don't really care if the guy watches Fox News. I feel like that is most voters? I think that had he just come out and said "hey, I saw it on Fox and thought it was terrorism" there isn't even a media report to be had, because no one cares.

The part where people were screenshotting things posted in the Mountain time zone and that kind of thing to try to justify this...that's the level of petulance and admonishing everyone that I think is going to cause him problems.

I expect better from a future leader. Much, much better.

But I guess he has to follow his 'common sense' gimmick or whatever that is, so perhaps assuming we're all doing FOX News hyperbole is both indicative and an indictment on Canadians.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GGG

Telling other people to solve your housing problem or funding is cut isn’t really a plan.

The plan is also directly contradicting the conservative stakeholders on city council who continually vote against zoning changes. I suspect there will be significant grass roots resistance among conservatives if this type of housing policy actually went into place.

I think the federal government needs to directly subsidize housing. Essentially build rental housing until the market is saturated and rents drop. You can likely make this a boondoggle and still end up efficient because supply increase lowers rents for everyone.

I don’t believe any party will do anything about the problem because the property owning class is harmed by lowering real estate prices.

Well that's the whole issue with affordable housing. People are basically in favour until they realise that the house they own is going to drop by 30% (or whatever amount). It's not as enticing of a concept once you consider that!