Why of course the Cons offer the solution of Pierre Poilievre, the representative from Battle Crow River or whatever it’s called.
Stop calling the President of the United States a toddler (even though it is the one thing we agree on). No deal will be made until that attitude is fixed.
OK then, he’s a complete fucking narcissistic idiot who does not have the faintest idea of what is going on in the world. Better? You can’t negotiate with him. He’s a loon. It does not matter what anyone’s attitude is. Should we give him a shiny trophy for being the bestest boy and eating all his dinner? It’s fucking pointless.
What Carney should be doing is exactly what he IS doing; The very hard, arduous and long term work of changing Canada’s trade relationships, building bonds with other countries, and minimizing, wherever possible our reliance on the United States of Crazytown.
Much better, yes. Fucking narcissist.
For what it is worth, I was warned. I was in grade school in the 80’s and I remember the lecture my class got sometime around grade five or six. Paraphrased, the essence of it was “your father who works in the forest industry will retire with a generous pension and a gold watch. You however, child of the forest industry, are fucked. You will change careers and need to be completely retrained in something new at least a dozen times in the course of your life. And you ain’t getting shit for a pension.”
The language used to convey the message probably wasn’t as colorful but that is what they said and that is what I have found to be true. And we protested. I remember having pins that said “12% not 21%” (referring to the amount of land that should be safe from the saws of industry). I remember every logging truck on Vancouver Island jamming the streets of Victoria. I remember laughing when I saw the bumper sticker “Earth first, we’ll log the other planets later”. I was there. I don’t remember who the government was at the time but we kicked those bums out and the next ones after them and the next ones and so on. And yet last week Crofton announced it will be shutting down.
PP is toast. I’m going to call it. He just keeps losing members. No matter how much he plays to his base with his antics, he publicly loses every battle with the Liberals.
All party leaders, from all parties, throughout all history, and all levels/realms of government have one thing in common. Massive narcissistic egos. PP won’t recognize his failures and will fight tooth and nail to cling to power, but he’s already lost. His last chance to contest an election will be this past budget (where he ordered members to sit out the vote -some behind a curtain). One way or another, he’ll not survive to lead the CPC in another election.
In the coming days, weeks, or months… he’ll be brought down and removed by his own party. PP will have missed his chance to be Prime Minister.
And Lord knows who the CPC will put up next. The party is still full of PP hand picked loons, so I doubt there will be a big departure from right-wing, culture war stuff. In fact, if someone a bit more likeable, militant, and Trumpian like Jamil Jivani get chosen, bet on a heavy turn to MOSTLY anti-woke muckraking from the Tories. (I think JJ will get his turn in the sun. He’s too provocative and ambitious to not rise to the head of this frat pack)
I think Carney has done some things very well.
I think elected officials that want to “cross the floor” to other parties should have to face their constituents in a new election. Regardless of whether it benefits a party I support, or some other party. What goes around… so I also think political parties should have more respect for privacy, and less centralized control over candidates and procedures.
This has always been the dilemma inherent in our system. Is the candidate representing the party, so the party gets to vet the candidate, or you voting for a candidate who chooses with whom they’ll caucus.
I’m sure it varies, but almost certainly a very significant percentage of voters were going for the party.
Trade is doing better! First surplus after 7 months of deficits:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-trade-surplus-9.7011913
MtM
Good news indeed. I noted:
“Overall story is really positive,” said Prince Owusu, a senior economist with Export Development Canada.
“It seems to suggest that the trade flow with the United States is beginning to stabilize,” he said, adding that the trend of diversification from the U.S. that started is also continuing.
Bolding mine. It’s a long, long road, but it’s one that we MUST continue to move down.
Why? In Canada, we elect individual MPs, not party-owned seats. Party affiliation clearly matters to voters, but MPs are meant to represent their constituents, not be permanently bound to a party no matter what happens. Circumstances change, leadership changes, and sometimes MPs reach a point where they can’t honestly support their party anymore.
Forcing a by-election every time that happens would weaken Parliament. It would discourage independent thinking, tighten already strong party discipline, and make principled disagreement almost impossible.
Also, by-elections are expensive. Each one costs millions of dollars to administer, involves significant public resources, and pulls Elections Canada, local officials, and volunteers away from other priorities. Requiring by-elections for floor-crossing would mean spending large amounts of public money just to re-run elections mid-term–possibly in ridings where voters may be perfectly content to wait until the next general election to pass judgment.
And floor-crossing is rare to begin with. MPs who do it already face serious political consequences: intense public scrutiny, reputational risk, and the ultimate test at the next general election. If voters feel betrayed, they can vote the MP out then. That’s how accountability is supposed to work.
If someone dislikes floor-crossing, that’s a fair view. But turning MPs into party property and triggering costly, unnecessary by-elections isn’t a better democratic solution.
MPs have little power in politics. Somewhat more if chosen for cabinet or shadow. Their lack of power and need to toe the line must be frustrating for many of them.
Floor crossers can be rewarded in many ways. Some might be genuinely tired of their leader, but other financial and career incentives would be easy to proffer. However rare this was, it has happened twice in a month and could easily happen again. The impetus might be as simple as not being chosen for an opposition shadow position.
Say half of voters vote for a party (though probably more), and half vote for the candidate (though generally less). Given winning margins, the wishes of voters are usually compromised by those who cross the floor. Having to run for reelection would serve as a disincentive more than waiting for four years minus whatever. The scrutiny seems largely to be a chance to spread badmouthing propaganda. It is true one has scuttled chances with the original party, but we might differ in how serious a cost this actually is.
I think that original party might want to look at what it is doing to scare away MPs (looking at you, PP), and what Carney is doing to attract them. I think it’s the difference between perpetual whining and acting more like an adult.
After years of being the opposition, PP finally comes onto the CBC for an interview and he offers absolutely 0 self reflection. Its worth it to watch the whole thing. He’s like the energizer bunny with the canned speeches and slogans too.
I’m not going to watch the interview but I doubt he answers this question anyway: when he expresses outrage at Carney’s “backroom deals”, is he saying he wouldn’t do the same thing if the situation were reversed? A Liberal MP comes to him offering to defect and he’s going to say no because of principles and shit? Get out of here PP. You’d welcome floor-crossers with the quickness, you’re just mad that they only cross the floor one way and that’s away from you.
JJ’s ambition is clear. Its difficult to see his self-promotion here as not laying a foundation for a future leadership role. Carney has previously sought aid and guidance from retired heavy hitting Tories like Harper and Charest. However I don’t think JJ is in any unique position to charm Canada back into talks with Trump, no matter his clear confidence in his own abilities to do so.
Trying to have ANY constructive dialog with Trump is a fool’s game. Especially now - he’s barely functional.
The only way to win this game is to refuse to play. Move on to trade with other countries that have adult leadership. Yes, it’s going to be hard - we’ve had it easy so far, and it may get harder. Canada has relied on US trade far, FAR too much. It’s time we diversified. We will always trade with the US - it’s right next door… but we need to diversify as much as we possibly can for the next decade.
Agreed.
How? Logistically that is. I understand that Canadian ports are near capacity and even a small shift in capacity would overload them without major improvements and expansion. None of which is occurring fast enough to meet Carney’s strategy in any meaningful way. We’ve already seen Nutrien going to build a port in Washington state, bypassing BC, due to the difficulty of building in Canada. Now Smith in Alberta is making similar noises as well.
Then we have the extra costs involved in shipping overseas. Does that make our industry less competitive to local products, or even competing with the US.
Thanks for the regular doom and gloom “Canada is Broken” report, direct from Poilievre’s office somewhere in northern Alberta.
I prefer my leadership to be forward looking, proactive and actually working on solutions, rather than focusing on how horrible everything is.
And as I said above (you seem to have missed) “Yes, it’s going to be hard - we’ve had it easy so far, and it may get harder.” Or, I guess we can roll over and give up.