In addition to being tribal, etc, it was dismissive of the previous government and its supporters. How is it any less of an issue when it was said? I see excuses here for something both parties have done, yet one is wrong for doing it while the other isn’t for some baffling explanation about timing.
I suppose, but I remember that phrase in relation to re-engaging with multilateral institutions like the UN as opposed to bilateral work with the US/Israel/UK. Hardly felt personal.
Could just be the phrasing. Verb Noun Adverb (Take Canada Back!) feels like an imperative sentence, while Noun Verb Adverb (Canada is Back!) feels like an exclamatory one.
“Look, I ordered the perfect tropical weather and exceptionally sociable people. I don’t like to complain, but you seem to have given me the Canada. It’s pretty good, and fantastic value and it comes with a lot of poutine. I’m not sure I want to send it back, but could you add the two things I wanted?”
Just a comment that I think Trudeau’s first “scandal” was a mistake in that he should have pushed back firmly against the opposition claims that it was a scandal. It was presented as a breach of ethics to vacation at the island retreat of the head of a foundation that received funding from the government. However, the Aga Khan was, much more importantly, a highly respected world leader, who had strong ties to Canada including being made an honorary Canadian citizen, had addressed Parliament, had received many Canadian honours, and was, above all, a longtime friend of the Trudeau family extending back at least to Justin’s childhood, who had been a pallbearer at Pierre’s funeral.
Outside of columnists, I don’t think most Canadians objected to Trudeau having influential friends. But they should object to improper influence and so were more concerned with SNC and WE. I don’t think they are so concerned as to want a quick election or dethrone Trudeau. But O’Toole is probably more capable than Scheer. Personally, I dislike prorogued parliaments.
It wasn’t a scandal because the opposition said it was, it was a scandal because it broke the rules. Were they also going to push back against the Ethics Commissioner?
It could hardly be otherwise. Scheer was a dud.
I’m not proud of Trudeau’s ethical concerns. But I’m a little more concerned about debt… and a dated foreign policy. With certain politicians eviscerating important international institutions, Canada needs a more robust and realistic re-evaluation of the place the world is now. This is especially true if Biden is unsuccessful.
We should have a slogan which highlights someone all Canadians respect. So… uh…
New Canadian slogan: “Gretzky! Fuck yeah!”
Canadians like Canadians who live and work in the US, apparently. But it’s pretty hard to dislike Gretzky, a childhood hero of mine despite not playing for Montreal. Much easier to dislike an imperfect hero and national icon like Sir John A. Macdonald?
I see in the news today that the Liberals are going to be taking a look at a Guaranteed Basic Income at their next convention:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/guaranteed-basic-income-priorities-liberals-1.5721943
So if the Trudeau government falls to scandal we can say goodbye to that for sure. Conservatives would never go for it.
If the Liberals actually support this, I won’t know who to vote for (I won’t vote for anyone supporting UBI). The NDP would support it too, and I don’t want to vote Conservative.
Man, a UBI is such an incredibly bad idea, I’m not at all surprised Trudeau wants one.
Look at the replacement for CERB, whichnis supposed to be a model for the UBI. Under the new benefit, a person can get the $2,000/mo so long as they make under $38,000, and then the benefit is clawed back 50% for every dollar over that you earn. That benefit is slated to cost $37 billion for six months of coverage. Yet this is apparently the morel they are looking at for a UBI.
As far as I can tell, this means a minimum wage worker in Alberta could get their $29,000/yr from minimum wage, and still get a full $24,000 in benefits from the government. If the UBI works like that, a minimum wage worker would get a permanent $53,000 total income. That’s just nuts.
And if you make $60,000 per year now (about the Canadian median income), you’d still get an additional $13,000 from the government. So now the median worker in Canada is gojng to get a massive benefit.
This thing will cause massive distortions in the labor market. And it will be a huge disincentive to work. That is, until it goes bankrupt. Which won’t take long.
And the real risk is that it will cause a lot of people to drop out of the labor force. If they stay out long enough they will be unemployable, and we will have bankrupted ourselves for the purpose of creating a giant permanent underclass we can’t afford to support.
And of course they’ll try to pay for it with massive tax hikes on the rich, which will further crater the economy.
Worst idea ever.
What you actually want is hard data on the practical results of minimum guaranteed income. Finland had a go at it recently.
The researchers also noted a mild positive effect on employment, particularly in certain categories, such as families with children, adding that participants also tended to score better on other measures of wellbeing, including greater feelings of autonomy, financial security, and confidence in the future.
“Some people said the basic income had zero effect on their productivity, as there were still no jobs in the area they were trained for,” said Prof Helena Blomberg-Kroll, who led the study. “But others said that with the basic income they were prepared to take low-paying jobs they would otherwise have avoided.
“Some said the basic income allowed them to go back to the life they had before they became unemployed, while others said it gave them the power to say no to low-paid insecure jobs, and thus increased their sense of autonomy.”
Reports on Finland’s trial at UBI is mixed, but it seemed to match up with Manitoba’s experiment as well: recipients had better mental and physical health, had less stress, and had little meaningful impact on employment rates–which meant people worked just as much as they did before, but with fewer hospital visits there’s some degree of positive to it all.
Now it’s been awhile since I read up on my macroeconomics, but the basic gist of Keynesian theory here is the best way out of a recession is to get people to spend. Rich people tend to sit on their money when times are rough, and poor people don’t have that choice. And right now, with poor people making even less money than usual, some money needs to circulate. Taxing the rich to get some money moving, ultimately, will have the opposite of tanking the economy.
So, until I see some counter facts–and I’m genuinely interested in reading from an economist more recent than Keynes–I’m going with, “This UBI isn’t a bad idea at all.”
Cynically, however, I can believe the reason it’s coming out now is that this current government feels it may be struggling at the polls and might like to rouse support from voters who usually vote orange.
I like the idea and think it has real potential. The only problem I see is that the cost efficiencies rely on a dismantling of the enormous and numerous bureaucracies that currently hand out money to, unemployed, disabled, retired, single mothers, etc, etc.
But can anyone really claim that such a thing is actually gonna happen? Public service unions are some of the toughest in the country.
I have my doubts, that this can be achieved. If those agencies stay in place I don’t think any savings at all can be realized. Government overseeing the dismantling of government bureaucracy seems well beyond unlikely. I’d have to see that, to believe it. But nobody seems focused on how that will be achieved. Most likely scenario is it unexplainedly takes years to dismantle, the program thereby fails to reach savings targets and gets scrapped, never to be attempted again!
Without a concrete plan to initiate such closures, the scheme, though it has real merit and would help a lot of people, is likely doomed from the start, in my opinion.
This was a government that promised us a proportional voting system, so it’s one that does like to talk a certain style of talk. The walking part of their record isn’t as impressive, though.
A lot of the infrastructure for disbursing payments to the underemployed runs at the provincial and municipal level, though. I imagine the feds would just set up their own system (probably piggybacking off CRA on some level as they’re already in the business of sending cheques out to people and monitoring their income levels), and leave it to the provinces and cities to tear their own systems down.
Since those levels of government no longer need to spend that money, I imagine it’ll come down faster than you think. Pre-COVID Premier Ford would be ecstatic and bragging about all the money he’s “saved” the province.
My concern lies more in the feds instituting this system, and then the Conservatives getting into office, deciding they hated it and tearing it all down–and with all the old systems dismantled, leaving a lot of desperately poor people in the lurch.
The estimated deficit for 2019 was $20 billion CAD. The estimated deficit for 2020 (calculated in July) is already $343 billion. A huge chunk of that is the CERB, which pays double what UBI is expected to pay, but to a far smaller section of the population (roughly 6-8 million out of a population of 37.5 million, with as many as 36% of workers losing money). CERB cost $30 billion by the end of April, a figure literally higher than last year’s deficit by itself.
We cannot afford to run a deficit an order of magnitude higher every year. I’ve taken enough accounting to know how bonds work, so I know this money isn’t being made from thin air. I am all for giving more money to people who need it (a lot of people right now!) but I am not in favor of giving a whole lot of money from nowhere to people who don’t need it.
Parliament has been prorogued precisely twice in the past decade, from the 2011 federal election to today.
The 41st Parliament was elected in the general election of May 2, 2011. The first session began on June 2, 2011, and continued until September 13, 2013, when it was prorogued. The second session began on October 16, 2013, just over a month later, and lasted until Parliament was dissolved on August 2, 2015 for the 2015 federal election.
The 42nd Parliament was elected in the 2015 general election and the session began on December 3, 2015. It was never prorogued.
The current Parliament was elected in October, 2019, and first met on December 5, 2019. It was prorogued on August 18, 2020, and the second session began on September 23, 2020, again, just over a month later.
I’m not seeing an abuse of the prorogation power here, and it’s certainly not been used frequently in the past decade.
Perhaps people prioritize parliamentary prorogues performed persistently for proper and pertinent purposes. However, despite the challenges of COVID coverage and cultural connotations, after hearing the throne speech I concluded the causes of closing communication and ceasing consultation with colleagues cannot condone the compromises committed. A crisis is exactly when debate and discussion are demanded and accordingly should be a rarer event than once in a generation and not merely to draw attention away from scandal for perceived political payoff. Probably.
It’s not the frequency, but the hypocrisy.
What hypocrisy? I’m just not getting why prorogation seems such a bad word to you. Proroguing Parliament is the standard way (the only way) to end a parliamentary session and start a new one, with a new Throne Speech and a new legislative agenda.