Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[timun]

Originally Posted by Firebot

It's really hard to take such posts for face value as anything but partisan when you call Poilievre Skippy

His own ####ing party nicknamed him 'Skippy'! He's been 'Skippy' for decades!

and more upset of Conservative "propaganda" popularizing the term "ArriveScam" (a throwback to yet another previous famous Liberal scandal) than upset at the actual scandal. And I even thanked your passport post which I agree with and had a drafted post to thank you for the thorough information.

I'm not "more upset", all I've been saying all along is I don't take it at face value.

As for complaining about conservative rhetoric, they are in politics and will hammer down on issues that matter to Canadians or will cause outrage at the current government. The current motto is "Not worth the cost" which is being drilled down any chance they can. Have you not paid attention to what Liberals are doing these days in terms of rhetoric?

No I haven't been paying attention to Liberal rhetoric either; generally it's a bunch of two-faced gobbledy####. I don't take it at face value either.

You also appear to be blatantly downplaying the AG's report who stated “glaring disregard” and her ballpark figure is higher than the one that Conservatives previously quoted. Attention on the app was further scrutinized not because of Conservative propaganda, but because Botler made an official complaint of shady contract practices involving said agencies and companies who happen to be also linked to ArriveCAN. Are you claiming that Botler is in cahoots with Conservatives propaganda?

I don't know how many times I have to repeat that I haven't followed this issue whatsoever. I know the AG wrote a report; I did not read that report, but I know it was less than complimentary. I don't know who 'Botler' is.

For someone so quick to come to the defense of the passport contract, I am sure we would all agree we would love you to do the same for this one

I replied 'quickly' about the passport contract because I had already looked into it on my own time. Again: I haven't followed this ArriveCan story.

[The Fonz]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

In other news, the party that's pro-personal freedom and anti-government overreach wants you to show your face and/or personal information every time you jerk off.

Doesn't the article suggest otherwise?

"When asked whether his government would require porn websites to verify the age of users, Poilievre gave a one-word answer: “Yes.” He didn’t offer further explanation, and his office quickly followed up with a clarifying statement asserting that the Tories don’t believe in the imposition of a digital ID...

...Sebastian Skamski, a spokesperson for Poilievre, said shortly after the leader’s remarks Wednesday that Conservatives do not support any measures that would allow the imposition of a digital ID or infringe on the privacy of adults and their freedom to access legal content online.



Where are you seeing it that the CPC is wanting people to show their face and/or personal ID when watching porn?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by The Fonz

Where are you seeing it that the CPC is wanting people to show their face and/or personal ID when watching porn?

I just cannot fathom how this could ever possibly happen. It just seems so far-fetched.

[timun]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Timun very clearly stated that he is not rushing to judgment without actually looking at the facts here, and his "not true whatsoever" line was about the perpetual scandal cycle in general, not this particular scandal.

At least somebody gets it.

I also see no reason to believe timun is a liberal supporter. Just seems like a dude who likes to think critically with actual evidence.

In point of fact I've never voted Liberal in my entire life, and I don't plan on starting anytime soon. I wrote this last summer:

Originally Posted by timun

Not that you asked me, but I'm going to answer anyway: at this point I would very seriously consider just foregoing casting a ballot for anyone. They're all horrible:

• The Liberals line up closest with my social beliefs, but I have huge problems with their lack of accountability for their spending programs—it is absolutely, positively unacceptable to me that Freeland as FM couldn't/wouldn't account for billions in Covid-related spending in the last couple fiscal years. I also do somewhat sympathize with right-wingers' loathing of the "woke" bull#### that Liberals have peddled in the last eight years. (I would agree with the right a lot more about this if they could/would discern the actual hypocritical "woke" #### from... whatever it is they happen to allegedly not like about... whatever random crap they call "woke".) The Liberals are masters at pandering to regionalism and creating social-policy strawmen (and it's made soooooo much easier for them by ineffectual Conservative opposition), and I absolutely detest it. Justin Trudeau really does come across as a "Laurentian elite" trust-fund kid who thinks that his party is "the natural-governing" one, and while I think he's way out of his depth at policy-making he/his team are extremely adept at playing social liberals like fiddles while spending like drunken Conservatives on a smattering of BS programs that few if any of us can feel any palpable results from. I do honestly believe that there are a great many politically-connected people making a lot of graft off of this government, and it's gross.
  
• The Conservatives have gone off the deep end with conspiratorial whackadoodle gibberish. I don't think the party leadership believes in it, but they've stoked the belief in it in a cross-section of gullible rubes who've taken over the party's grassroots base, and now they've made this pact with the devil such that the party leadership feel like they have to act like kooks in order to keep this utterly insane voter base satisfied. I honestly believe they're fascists in waiting, and wouldn't trust them to run a popsicle stand. Everything bad about Justin Trudeau is just as bad or worse with Pierre Poillievre.
  
• The NDP have carved off their little niche of voters, and I don't think they have the chops to steal more from anyone. They've got a lot of seemingly good and nice policy positions in their platform, but I don't believe have any real ability to effect them even if they won. I think deep down Jagmeet Singh is a pragmatist who realizes this, but he's milquetoast leader who inspires no one.
  
• The Greens are a comedy of self-inflicted errors, nothing more. Just a trainwreck that's fun to watch. They're what the NDP would be if they let the looney left wing run the show. As I see it their continued existence serves little purpose, because the Liberals and NDP have incorporated the only salient positions the Greens ever had regarding the environment.
  
• Maxime Bernier's People's Party is just the right-wing equivalent of the Greens: the home for disaffected Conservative voters who are too crazy even for the CPC.
  

That's still where I'm at with respect to my feelings about the federal parties.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Trudeau is a lot better when not reading from a script. It's way worse he's reading remarks and he goes slow and sounds patronizing.

This is a very specific reference, and maybe others will think I'm a little nuts for making the comparison, but Trudeau reads prepared speeches like Stuart McLean (RIP) read Vinyl Café Stories. The cadence is just so... weird. And yeah, "patronizing" is an apt description. I would also add "disingenuous" and "off-putting".

[Firebot]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/poli...it-misconduct/

https://globalnews.ca/news/10281263/...ings-suspends/

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/poli...l-allegations/

Botler is the company that filed a complaint about shady tactics involving how government contracts were being awarded. Add to this the 1500 deleted emails by the now CTO of the government of Canada and a 'scary' report which Liberals used to shut down the committee and further questioning on the pretense of criminal investigation interference (which I stated in a previous post is flawed), and there's a lot more questions than answers. This is a separate but linked investigation involving corruption and potential bribery

I'm well aware of 'Skippy's nickname heritage. It's usage in this thread generally seems to be from posters that detest Conservatives / Poilievre and also happens to interchange Milhouse.

Admitting ignorance of ongoing transgressions while talking about the boy who cried wolf and complaining of Conservative propaganda seems counterintuitive.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by timun

This is a very specific reference, and maybe others will think I'm a little nuts for making the comparison, but Trudeau reads prepared speeches like Stuart McLean (RIP) read Vinyl Café Stories. The cadence is just so... weird. And yeah, "patronizing" is an apt description. I would also add "disingenuous" and "off-putting".

He made his mark speaking at this dad’s funeral. I guess he figured why change the style that made him a star. But a political speech is not a eulogy, and shouldn’t sound like one.

[Fuzz]

I read your last sentence in Trudeau's slow voice. It works!

[PepsiFree]

I guess we can call him PP if we’re not allowed to use his actual nickname.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Botler is the company that filed a complaint about shady tactics involving how government contracts were being awarded. Add to this the 1500 deleted emails by the now CTO of the government of Canada and a 'scary' report which Liberals used to shut down the committee and further questioning on the pretense of criminal investigation interference (which I stated in a previous post is flawed), and there's a lot more questions than answers.

The bolded is chiefly why I haven't engrossed myself in it. Such as I understand the issue, PSPC at the behest of CBSA issued multiple contracts to develop and maintain the ArriveCan app and associated databases, and the allegation is that one of the chief companies involved, GCStrategies, is simply a middleman operation that doesn't do its own IT work but instead they subcontract it out to other third parties, which obfuscates precisely who ultimately gets paid for what. Allegedly they exaggerated their expertise and experience in their proposals, and they told the people from this other company Botler that they had cozy relationships with senior CBSA (/PSPC...?) procurement personnel and could help facilitate getting contracts with the federal government in exchange for a percentage of their gross.

The issue is being investigated internally by CBSA and externally by the RCMP and, based on a report that has not been publicly released, the Liberal, NDP and Bloc MPs on the inquiry committee voted to cease the parliamentary hearings about it pending the results of these—likely criminal—investigations.

Do I have it right so far?

So, so far, the questions this begs from me are:

1) what exactly does this have to do with the Liberal Party itself, which seems to be the thrust of the vague allegations made by the Conservatives. This goes right to the point you were making here:

Admitting ignorance of ongoing transgressions while talking about the boy who cried wolf and complaining of Conservative propaganda seems counterintuitive.

What exactly is the Liberal transgression here?

2) if this was going to reveal Liberal corruption, why would the Bloc want to hide it? They've got no reason to keep this government propped up, they give precisely zero ####s about the Liberals. They hate the Liberals almost as much as the Conservatives do.

Which leads to question 3): if the RCMP is conducting a criminal investigation, is it perfectly plausible that parliamentary hearings about the issue ought to be paused lest the hearings interfere with the RCMP's investigation? I would tend to say "yes"; maybe I'm wrong.

So there's my superficial understanding of the issue. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm well aware of 'Skippy's nickname heritage. It's usage in this thread generally seems to be from posters that detest Conservatives / Poilievre and also happens to interchange Milhouse.

Well now, I think you do have to at least give the Milhouse comparisons some deference. After all, this is the leader of the party that has spent the last decade giving Justin Trudeau never-ending #### about being a pretty-boy more concerned with perfectly coiffed hair and fancy socks than governing well. They elect the dorky guy in their party most well-known for being a fierce debater to their leadership, and then the guy... goes out and buys some contact lenses and sheds the two-piece suit for jeans and a T-shirt? C'mon, you can't tell me this isn't precisely the kind of hypocrisy that Milhouse Van Houten would exhibit:

Spoiler!

I am a dork who wears glasses: that Pierre Poilievre is so desperate to shed this image is frankly a personal affront.

[Firebot]

Not much he can do there, he has bad initials. Go wild with PP

[timun]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I guess we can call him PP if we’re not allowed to use his actual nickname.

Hey, hey, if I'm not allowed to abbreviate Jody Wilson-Raybould to 'JWR' you can't call Skippy 'PP'.

[Firebot]

Timun I've answered all those questions already earlier in this thread a week or two ago except for 1. I won't repeat.

We don't know at this point how high the chain this goes as all the evidence has been deleted. We still have zero idea who actually gave the thumbs up and selected GCStrategies in the first place. The evidence has all mysteriously vanished with no backups by the former CIO of the CBSA, now CTO of the Government of Canada (Treasury), Minh Doan, and he's unable to provide an answer as to who decided that GCStrategies would get a sole sourced contract for ArriveCAN. Normally a high level IT operative gets reprimanded for failure to safeguard crucial evidence and data. We have no idea at this point if any Liberal MPs or Liberal party members are involved, as the CBSA investigator is pinning everything on 2 lower level officials and failed to do a thorough investigation, while dismissing the 1500 emails being deleted. This is the 'scary' preliminary report that Brock got hold off from the 2 officials who are now suing the government, and which caused the committee to be shut down.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10091207/...sation-denial/

It took years of investigation for the Adscam details to unravel, and that appears to be miniscule in scope compared to what happened here now that it has come to light that the 2 man operation has received 250 million in IT related contracts since 2015 while not doing any actual IT work.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Timun I've answered all those questions already earlier in this thread a week or two ago except for 1. I won't repeat.

Okay, I'll go look at that at some point.

We don't know at this point how high the chain this goes as all the evidence has been deleted. We still have zero idea who actually gave the thumbs up and selected GCStrategies in the first place. [...] We have no idea at this point if any Liberal MPs or Liberal party members are involved

Okay, so... this is why I'm going to let the dust settle before coming to conclusions. But 98% of the stuff I hear about this is "Liberal scandal", "Liberal cover-up!!1!", "ArriveSCAM", "PLANdemic", blah blah blah. *shrug*

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by timun

Okay, so... this is why I'm going to let the dust settle before coming to conclusions. But 98% of the stuff I hear about this is "Liberal scandal", "Liberal cover-up!!1!", "ArriveSCAM", "PLANdemic", blah blah blah. *shrug*

Liberals voted against the ArriveCAN audit in 2022, and yesterday and today attempted to filibuster the summoning of the 2 owners of GCSecurities with a Liberal MP on the committee (Irek Kusmierczyk) even calling the auditor general's report fiction. The NDP and Bloc supported the motion at the chagrin of Liberals but the filibuster was still attempted.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en...207?view=party

https://www.ourcommons.ca/en/parliam...-21%20-05%3a00

https://twitter.com/user/status/1760058819424534637

https://globalnews.ca/news/10309160/...threat-passes/

Any explanation why they would do this constant knuckle dragging if they are squeaky clean? You would think Liberals would help the investigation along to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing.

[aaronck]

Originally Posted by Firebot

Liberals voted against the ArriveCAN audit in 2022, and yesterday and today attempted to filibuster the summoning of the 2 owners of GCSecurities with a Liberal MP on the committee (Irek Kusmierczyk) even calling the auditor general's report fiction. The NDP and Bloc supported the motion at the chagrin of Liberals but the filibuster was still attempted.

https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en...207?view=party

https://www.ourcommons.ca/en/parliam...-21%20-05%3a00

https://twitter.com/user/status/1760058819424534637

https://globalnews.ca/news/10309160/...threat-passes/

Any explanation why they would do this constant knuckle dragging if they are squeaky clean? You would think Liberals would help the investigation along to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing.

Well if Sheer is saying it.....

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by aaronck

Well if Sheer is saying it.....

It's a 34 second video...you could see it's Kusmierczyk who said it.

[timun]

*siiiiiiiiiiigh*...

So, that clip was from yesterday's Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates meeting, not today (which you linked). And of course 34 seconds of a tweet is insufficient to give full context to what was actually being discussed.

See https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en...40221/-1/41088 @ 14:12:13 for the beginning of Scheer speaking, as follows:

SCHEER: Thank you very much Mr. Chair, I'd like to move a motion that I'll just provide a little bit of context for before I move it. Little bit of a recap of what brings us here today, to the motion that I'd like to propose, and it has to do with the ArriveSCAM app, and some of the shocking revelations that we've heard from the Auditor General and her findings. To back up: during the pandemic, this, uh—it was decided to bring in—the government decided to bring in an app for Canadians, forcing Canadians to use this app, to document their crossing the border into Canada. It should have cost just around eighty thousand dollars; instead, so far, the Auditor General has concluded that it is at least sixty million dollars in cost attributed that, and that's based on what she can find.

KUSMIERCZYK: Point of order, Mr. Chair.

McCAULEY (chair): Yes, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

KUSMIERCZYK: Yes, I would appreciate it if—if my honourable colleague would ground his statement in fact, not fiction—

GENUIS: That's not a point of order.

KUSMIERCZYK: —and exaggeration. So, uh, again, I think it's important that we ground our discussions here. I know he's new to this committee—

GENUIS: <chuckles, continues to interrupt>

KUSMIERCZYK: —but I'd appreciate that he would ground his arguments and his interventions—

McCAULEY: Mr. Genuis, let him speak.

KUSMIERCZYK: —in fact.

McCAULEY: Thank you Mr. Kusmierczyk. Is your hand up on this point of order, Mr. Genuis, or can we proceed?

GENUIS: No I was raising it to be added to the speaking list and this is clearly not a point of order, just a dilatory tactic, so I think that—

McCAULEY: Okay, thank you. We'll go back to Mr. Scheer, please.

SCHEER: Yeah, just to let the record show that the Liberal MPs are now calling the findings of the Auditor General "fiction", so, uh, that, uh, that's new to me, Mr. Chair!

KUSMIERCZYK: Point of order! Point of order!

SCHEER: But, uh, that's what I heard.

KUSMIERCZYK: Point of order, Mr. Chair.

McCAULEY: <shaking his head> Yup.

KUSMIERCZYK: Point of order, Mr. Chair.

McCAULEY: I've got you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

KUSMIERCZYK: I really don't appreciate—I don't appreciate my colleague ascribing to me statements that I do not hold, and uh, and I ask—

SCHEER: You just said it!

KUSMIERCZYK: —that he retracts—I ask that he—no no no, I said that YOU should stick to facts, not fiction. Not the Auditor General, whose recommendations absolutely—

BARRETT: Point of order.

KUSMIERCZYK: —I respect.

McCAULEY: Okay. Mr. Barrett, and then hopefully we can get back to Mr. Scheer.

BARRETT: Chair: wants and feelings. I'm just wondering if we can point to those in the standing orders—

McCAULEY: Okay, that's not a point of order... <sighs and chuckles>

BARRETT: —or if we're just gonna, or if these are indeed dilatory tactics, and Liberal members should, ah, should restrain themselves.

McCAULEY: We will ask everyone to maintain some decorum. Mr. Scheer, we'll get back to you.

SCHEER: Just for the record I was quoting the Auditor General from her appearance just this morning, but basically what we're dealing with is twenty million dollars' worth of contracts going through to GC Strategies. The Auditor General has told us, and told committees, [etc]

A bunch of grandstanding jackasses on all sides. Our government at work.

[curves2000]

The level of blind homerism when it comes to this stuff when its someone else's side is just laughable. Notice how almost nobody is taking any responsibility here? Nobody can recall anything. All these Ministers and PM are just oblivious to what is happening in their departments and their senior executives and mangers are all shrugging about some rules being followed.

This garbage shouldn't happen and it doesn't matter who is in charge. If it's YOUR side that is involved with corruption and flat out theft at any political level/party, you better be demanding serious answers and expecting mass firings and accountability along with criminal charges.

Only the homers play the "what about the other guys" card when in reality this scandal will be a strong factor in potentially deciding the election next time. So Liberals should logically be screaming to get to the bottom of the bottom feeders who messed this up, not pretending nobody knows nothing and that millions in chq's go out to firms from the lowest level employee around.

If you tried this garbage in the corporate sector or someone's personal business, expect to get ****** with something large enough to satisfy a whale. Not a "not much to see here, some rules weren't followed"

[Erick Estrada]

I can understand why anyone would not like the CPC or PP but the reality is that this Liberal party is bad to the bone. It's really, really, really disappointing that this level of corruption is allowed to happen in a country like Canada.