A new thread to unite some varied topics.
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What is your impression of the recent budget?
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Ontario election coming up in June.
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Inflation, legislation, expectations, machinations…
Getting started.
Recent budget kind of meh. Lots of talk. Few specific details of future fundraising. Bank tax but less than campaign promises. Some good new laws and lots of neutral ones, but overall not enough for consumers. Very little military increase but big loans for Ukraine - should be more balanced but loans a smart way to help. Not much to help housing. Dental care a good step but vague. Too much central planning. Lots of missed opportunities.
Ontario election. Del Duca may have stuff to offer? But seems invisible. Know him mainly from Wynne. Always Horvath in the news, who seems to know her job well enough. So I see Ford repeating?
Will Freeland be the next Grit leader? How would she match up against Pierre Poilievre? What might happen?
It was tough. But I finally found a topic too boring for the SDMB.
Del Duca came out swinging in Ontario politics with a proposal to ban handguns over a year. We’ve discussed this before. These policies really do seem to punish licensed owners while providing very marginal increases in safety.
Has anything changed to make these policies more effective? How do folks feel about the often quiet Del Duca? What might be a more effective policy?
I doubt banning handguns will make a measureable difference in crime at all. The great majority of such weapons used in crimes are smuggled in.
As to the budget, much money spent, little real purpose. The one thing they shortchanged was the Armed Forces, stupidly.
The housing crisis in Canada is only going to get worse and it’s becoming a significant social problem that if not dealt with in a serious manner is going to result in levels of wealth inequality not consistent with a functioning democracy. No level of government, however, wants to get serious about it.
Election season is upon us in Ontario. Unofficially it has been already. Officially it begins on Tuesday.
Polls suggest Conservatives have a moderate lead over the Liberals and then the NDP. I think the PC will likely win. Building highways can be done well or badly, with or without enough environmental analyses. But “dollar transit”makes little sense to me. Expanding hospitals and medical care is necessary - doctor and nursing shortages are very real and enormous backlogs make them worse. NDP proposals for counselling and nurses make sense; all the parties have played loose with budgets. Banning guns will work as well as it always has; not so much. I think Ford has matured as a leader and struck a fair balance during Covid.
At this time, I would like to thank providence about the considerable separation between politics and Canadian jurisprudence. The US has enough problems without the latest hubbub or releasing the pandora of abortion restriction in 22 states. The horrifying lack of exception for incest or rape in some cases does not seem consistent with my perception of modern rights even if one allowed these changes. Women should generally decide what women need. Not politicians. Just saying.
People died because of Ford, Williams, and Moore. They provided poor advice and moved too slowly.
Until Ford stands up in front of the podium and publicly states “I may love my daughter Krista, but her ideas about Covid and Medical Science make it clear that the cheese has slipped off her cracker” he has zero credibility with me.
Only about seven countries had better outcomes per capita in terms of Covid deaths than Canada. Not saying the response was excellent or ideal. Not saying there were not some serious problems, and I know something about this. Not discussing many other issues. Ford could have handled Covid better. But so could almost everyone - and it is only fair to compare equal things.
Anyway, that is Ford’s best issue in my view. Reasonable people might disagree including some of the scientific advisors. But at a minimum the challenge was complicated, and more unexpected than it should have been.
If his daughter isn’t in government, who gives a crap what she thinks? Doesn’t everyone have a crazy relative? I can think of real reasons not to vote for Ford, but having a dim bulb in the family isn’t one of them.
Because he’s the premier, charged with convincing the public of the value of vaccines and masking.
I’ve got a 1000 reasons not to vote for Ford, this is just one of them.
I don’t see that as being an answer. Every politician has relatives with stupid or obnoxious beliefs.
Well I guess you and I have different expectations of our political leaders. Do you not think that, for example, Gini Thomas is impacting on Clarence Thomas? I certainly do. Or that the MAGA crowd are trying to do that with Hunter Biden?
The impression of endorsing poor behaviour can by as bad as actually endorsing it in politics.
He awarded a medal of excellence to Brian Mulroney, who sits on the board of Chartwell nursing homes. You remember them, they had such terrible conditions that the army medics sent in to help, said they were THE worst they’d ever seen. People’s parents died in horrid conditions, and alone and Doug gave him a medal for it.
His highway plan has more to do with shunting money to his construction friends than expanding highways for Ontarians, in my opinion.
Ford is a hard NO for most people I know.
Quite possibly, but
- Launching a goddamn COUP is just a tiiiiiiny bit different, and
- A judge is ethically required to recuse themselves in certain circumstances, and Thomas has not done so.
If Thomas has some antivax doofuses in his family, that has zero to do with him doing his job.
I expect electable politicians of any stripe will have some more and less dubious supporters and relatives. Better if they don’t. But hardly surprising.
Building highways is a mixed bag, and some ways are better than others (environment needs consideration; not a fan of private highways; tolls can be done well or badly, based on incentives). I don’t see big differences between buck transit, car rebates or electricity discounts - just giveaways by each party of limited economic value. Infrastructure is better than some choices and some Ontario highways are among the world’s busiest.
I did find Del Duca’s idea of a temporary grade thirteen interesting. I may have a poor understanding, however, on the effect of Covid on education. This may be one of his better ideas?
Some research (and Freakonomists?) suggest smaller class sizes may offer less benefit than one might expect, but the unions approve. Hiring nurses and addressing care home concerns are a perpetual promise too, but have their place. Details matter but should deliver real benefit.
Ford is very polarizing. I think he did a reasonable job with Covid, and accept many disagree. I like the fact he is getting along with Trudeau for now. I like him better than I did.
I don’t know that much about Del Duca. Wynne was a mixed bag and I, fairly or not, associate him with her.
But saw his first campaign commercial. It is exceedingly mellow. I understand that “bland works” in Ontario. But I’m surprised they didn’t break out the sweater vest. Not that this is more important than the issues.
The commercial seems to wish to introduce Del Duca as a gentle alternative to Ford. After seeing it, I understand his interests include smiling, spending time with his smiling family, dining with smiling elderly people and smiling while wearing casual clothing. He looks like a benign Varys. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things.
But the man presumably has considerable personal accomplishments, reasonable opinions on many policy matters and ideas which appeal to the small segment of the electorate that prefers details. The commercial does not have a great deal of substance, which is puzzling to me since his opponents are very polarizing and blunt and there are good arguments against many of their policies. I guess that’s the point - vote for me. I am not my opponent. Will that work?
I got a flyer in the mail advertising the Blue Party (for the Ontario election). Apparently their campaign platform is that Doug Ford is a communist and there are too many “woke activists” (their words) invading our schools. Sounds interesting, tell me more. 
I agree, budget, meh…
Ontario election, no useful opinion at all.
Inflation. In an economy that produces little in value added exports, or even internal products, we need to depend on inflation of prices for our raw resource exports to combat inflation. Though that does not immediately filter through the economy. Also depends on that price bonus to filter through to wages. Luckily we produce our own food to great extent. But even that is warped by foreign ownership of the industry and may not come back to shelter us here. Ultimately, I feel we have little control of our own economy.
Legislation. It feels that here and in many countries, legislation has become a vehicle for convenience of a small portion of the citizens and giant businesses. What legislation that is passed to positive overall intent, seems to fall to the lesser folks to bare the burden off enacting. Through extra personal effort and cost. Lots of feel good legislation that has very little physical, financial, security effect is passed, at little or no cost to government. But makes the government look a bit shiny.
Expectations. Negative. Whatever party is governing. Due to the people in the political parties and due to our country having so little control of it’s own destiny at this time. We off shored our control of our own economy, and therefore our ability to control our own destiny.
Machinations. A sad mixture of hopes and dreams not backed by real logical actions to gain votes. A venal sellout of important things to gain funds to get votes. A frightening enactment of 1984 to keep an ever worsening status quo, forcefully in place.
Consider that at some near time, such negative opinions stated this publicly might get my banking privileges cancelled. I also pay subscriptions to some media outlets that may cause the same to happen.
Ontario debate on tonight. Like an idiot, watched it for an hour.
People said stuff. Most came off as competent. Most interrupted others way too often. My opinion on who did best is irrelevant. But I will say Ford interrupted the least and managed not to look concerned when criticized.
What a terrible effort at moderation. When someone interrupted, they usually said nothing. Sometimes they focused the camera on the interruptor. Hardly ever cut off microphones. The hosts launched into a long-winded segue about the rules, then barely enforced them.
There was a column today on why debates are so poorly managed in Canada. It’s still a good question. If you interrupt without cause, you receive a penalty on how much time you get to speak. Every time.