He changed Canada all right - he virtually created Western Alienation single-handedly.
Western Canada had complained about being hard done by by the East since before Pierre Trudeau was in grade school.
Western alienation?
– McDonald and the CPR – freight rates that prefered eastern manufacturing and western farming, rather than mixed economies.
– Westerners easily being ignored or out-voted by there being far more easteners than westerners.
– Trudeau and the National Energy Plan that essentially subsidized the east’s oil consumption at the expense of Alberta.
– Equalization payments now that the west is doing well economically (no sympathy there from us in Ontario).
There are lots of reasons for western alienation, some of which go back to Confederation, and some of which are only recently coming to bear. Trudeau’s NEP was a biggie, and remains well within the memory of most westerners.
Yeah, this democracy thing has got to stop.
You’re right; he didn’t create Western Alienation; he did, however, manage to gel a more amorphous feeling and became the face of all that westerners hate about eastern politics. Don’t you find it interesting that while eastern Canadians worship his memory, western Canadians practically still spit after saying his name?
Half of Quebec hated the man and so did a fair portion of the people in Ontario. In Grade 4 in Mississauga I remember the joke “What does Petro Canada stand for? Pierre Elliot Trudeau Rips of Canada.”
I’ve never understood the man’s appeal but I may not be in the demographic that does.
- Quiet revolution in Quebec.
- Final stage of independence from England.
- Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
- Getting the state out of the bedroom.
- Standing up to the Americans and reducing cold war tensions.
You want to feel alienated, try being a Manitoban NDP supporter living in Alberta. When I lived there in 82 - 84, I felt like I was the only one that didn’t get served the kool-aid…
Not all Westerners spit when we say Pierre Trudeau’s name.
A couple of interesting polls came out today:
New Nanos poll released tonight has the Conservatives at 34% and the Liberals at 31%. And a Harris/Decima has the Cons at 31% and the Libs at 26%.
I never would’ve thought that Liberals would be polling above 30% during this campaign. The last Angus Reid poll had the Conservatives up by 15 points; I eagerly await their next poll.
If you want a list of most of the polls : go here.
It’s going to be interesting if the Liberals win a minority government and manage to stall the economic engine of Canada right when we need it the most. I graduated high school in Saskatoon into the recession of the 80’s - I had to know someone who knew someone to get a job washing dishes. I do not want to go there again.
Amen to that.
I was just starting university. I hired people to care for properties that had been foreclosed upon so that the banks could get better selling prices. Then when things went very bad for my folks, I paid the motgage by working in a funeral home. I was lucky to have been making money when so many of my neighbours were unemployed and lost their homes and savings. My grandparents were hit by the Great Depression. My parents were hit by the 80’s Recession. I hope it is not my turn now, but if so, life will go on, so might as well make the best of it. Besides, I live in a depressed region, so we’re used to eating what we catch.
Economically, I am not too concerned over who wins in Canada, for I don’t see any of the major parties tanking the economy. In contrast, however, I am very concerned about who wins in the USA, for the Republicans have one hell of a bad track record on the economy, and as we all know too well, when the American economy suffers, we also suffer.
I don’t live in a depressed area; I live in the heart of the area that will be hardest hit by Green Shift big ideas. We just had a huge real estate boom here, as well as unbelievably high oil prices. If we go into recession, I can guarantee you that thousands of people who bought their $500,000 house* based on both members of the couple working well-paying Oil & Gas jobs will lose their houses if either of the couple lose their job. Getting a slight break on income taxes (which I don’t believe will happen anyway) won’t make up for not being able to find work or losing our houses here.
- That $500,000 house is no mansion - it’s just your average house in an average neighbourhood.
What the fuck. Fucking yesterday, Flaherty and Harper were going on about how well capitalized Canadians banks were and that our financial system was in good order. Today, they announce a $25 billion bailout for Canadian banks.
Do these guys have any clue? Any clue whatsoever? Today, Harper has been going on and on about how Dion needed to have a question on the economy clarified several times before answering it. “You don’t get do-overs on the economy”, Harper says. Because, as we all know, the best way to handle an economic crisis is to shoot from the hip, rather than taking the time to understand the issue.
Way upthread, RickJay convinced me that Harper is the type of politician who will do anything to get elected. Is this really who we want in charge of this country during an economic crisis? A reactionary populist? And who the hell does Harper think he is to spend 25 billion fucking dollars just like that, mere days before the election?
“There is no question, no possibility of bailing out the banks,” Harper said during a campaign event in Richmond, B.C. This was yesterday.
I read an article that said Harper completely buys into the international banking concepts of the US. That he is pro free trade to the degree of Bush and friends. Is that the impression in Canada?
Canada is a trading nation and so both major parties support the WTO, NAFTA and other trading agreements. 3/4 of our GDP comes form trade so the lower the barriers to our goods the better.
What I find baffling is the other parties have been pressing the Conservatives to do exactly this. Now they’re angry about it.
Well, sort of; they aren’t actually giving the money to the banks. No bank is being bailed out in Canada. There aren’t any banks to bail out, you see. None are collapsing. What they’re doing is essentially buying something from the banks in an effort to free up credit. This isn’t an AIG-style move.
It’s funny; my personal opinion never seems to track public opinion. When the election was called Harper was riding high and I was pissed at him. In the last ten days Dion and Layton have, to an extent that I’d say was almost deliberate if it wasn’t silly to think that, thoroughly convinced me that either would be terrible, terrible Prime Ministers and if they formed a coalition it’d be the worst government of my lifetime. They’ve been amazingly irresponsible and their promises have veered from silly to dangerous. For the first time in my life I’m actually really, honestly worried about the possibility that a particular party will win an election, because I think they’ll really go into nutty panic mode, raise tariffs, crush job creation and do what governments so often do in times of crisis - overreact and make things way worse.
You’re asking two totally separate questions there, with completely separate answers. Those answers are
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No, and
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Yes, sort of.
No, Canada (or the Conservative Party, for that matter) don’t have the same no-regulations banking philosophy of the USA. Canada probably has the strongest, most stable banking industry in the history of the world, and part of the reason for that is that it’s reasonably well regulated.
Yes, the Conservatives are staunchly free trade. Of course, so was the preceding Liberal government. Free trade as an issue is different in Canada than it is in the USA, granting that it’s always a different issue in a different country. Canada is much more of an export economy than the USA’s, and relies on the American market as more than half its foreign market. Much of the opposition to free trade is, consequently, driven by anti-Americanism; as ther old saying goes, Canada is all about keeping the French in and the Americans out. If Barack OBama is elected President I’ll bet anyone $20 that Canadian public opinion of free trade will improve, even though who’s the President has little to do with it, just because public opinion of the USA will improve.
It’s telling that in recent days the Canadian dollar has crashed in value, and everyone I know’s thrilled. Our dollar being low against the US dollar means work and jobs.
And this differs from the $700 billion Paulson bailout plan how?
Anyway, you’ve missed the thrust of my criticism. This action may or may not be a good thing. My problem is that as far as I can tell, this is panic move by the Conservatives. Whether it’s in response to the chaos in the financial markets or their slide in the polls I don’t know, but either way it hardly reflects well on them.
Frankly, I’m baffled at how you can accuse the Liberals of panicking when it’s the Conservatives who have been saying “No action is necessary, no bailout is needed, ZOMG WE HAVE TO SPEND $25 BILLION NOW OR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE!”
Aside from scope, in some respects it’s the same.
The U.S. government has, however, gone way past just buying mortgages. They’ve spent $85 billion just buying AIG - a true, total and complete bailout, and now may end up anteing up billions more. The rough equivalent to this in Canada would be the government announcing that it was buying a majority stake in Scotiabank or else the bank was going under.
I agree. I’m not necessarily opposed to the move, and I don’t mind a government changing its mind if conditions change, but conditions have not changed since two days ago so it was not appropriate for Harper to say there would be “no bailouts” if in fact they were planning something that certainly sounds like one, even if it is not technically one.
I’m not sure this is a political move, anyway. If it is, it’s inexplicable. It won’t win him any votes and I cannot imagine how anyone would think it could. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt as best I can and assuming there may be some political calculus to it, I can’t figure out what it could be. The credit package in the USA is wildly unpopular - Congress is still getting mounds of letter, phone calsl and E-mails from constituents enranged over it. I don’t think Canadians will be substantially more impressed.
I just read the papers and watch the debates. Even in their current state the Conservatives look positively Zen-like as compared to the frantic shrieking of the Liberals and NDP (the Green Party and Bloc haven’t changed their tunes much, to their credit.) That’s what the “Harper is out of touch” crap is about. Harper is calm so he doesn’t care. We care. We feel your pain. I’m skeptical by nature and I despise those sorts of campaigns, which is why I voted Liberal in 1993, 1997 and 2000 when the Reform/Alliance campaigns were all about what a scary child molesting monster Jean Chretien was. Once a party’s main plank is invoking fear I find myself just assuming they’re liars.
As I’ve said before, I’d much prefer Harper to be even more conservative than he is, at least with regards to economic policy. I was sufficiently displeased with the last budget I actually sent a letter to my MP asking where all his conservative mojo had gone. If they actually do bail out a bank I’ll be apoplectic with rage. But the truth is that at some point you’ve got to just swallow your displeasure and go with the best available option. I admire Stephane Dion and Jack Layton as people, but I don’t want them running the country, so I shall vote for Stephen Harper’s party.
My standards are dropping by the day, anyway. Actually, right now I will vote for the first party to unambigously say they won’t cancel NAFTA.