Polly getting roasted by his own advisors.
And he’s nattering about reducing crime.
Crime in general has declined in Canada since 2000 with the 2023 crime rate being around 25 percent lower than peak levels in 2003. When compared to the early 2000s, the severity of crimes committed has also been on the decline, according to the Crime Severity Index (CSI) which tracks crimes committed weighted by their seriousness. The rate of drug-related crime increased slightly over this period but began steadily dropping since 2011. The recent legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada is predicted to further decrease such offenses.
But not a word about decreasing CO2 pollution…so out of synch…
11 Dec 2024 — 71% of Canadians say they want their next federal government, regardless of its political stripe, to do more to address climate change, to adapt to its ..
24 June 2024 — Canadians are increasingly concerned about climate change, with 80% expressing some level of concern and 70% demanding greater government action.
If you believe serious crimes deserve tough penalties (they likely do, but this is not the biggest issue facing Canada now), why not choose a path almost certain to be found unconstitutional and be struck down by judges?
That’s encouraging, but I’m not getting my hopes up. At this point, Canada cannot trust Trump on anything. We all know that he lies constantly; thus, we cannot trust that what he says today, he will deny saying tomorrow.
But I will say that I guess Trump has some sort of respect for Mark Carney. He was the governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada? Guy’s got to have something going for him.
We all think of Trump as being a wannabe-strongman, like Putin. But he also wants to be a respected businessman. To do that, he needs economists on his side. Mark Carney is one such; an educated economist, with whom Trump feels a bond: hey, after all, Trump went to the Wharton School of Business. But that raises Carney far above Trudeau in Trump’s eyes.
I’m not saying that Carney will prevail in the upcoming election, or that he will respect Trump’s wishes if elected, but his credentials will make Trump think twice. Trump respects businessmen. Justin Trudeau wasn’t any sort of a businessman (drama teacher? really?), so Trump did not respect him. Trump will respect Carney; he has no choice, Carney being a trained economist. I think Carney, should he be elected, scares Trump. So Carney gets called “Prime Minister” instead of “Governor.”
Trump is slamming Poilievre and is treating Carney with respect because he wants the Liberals back in power. The Liberals that have been weak on protecting the Arctic and Canada in general for decades and Trump wants that to continue.
Don’t be naïve - everything Trump does in transactional - for the benefit of his wallet, or for his ego.
Trump says he doesn’t care who wins the election in Canada. I don’t believe much of what Trump says. But I am inclined to believe this; that Trump does not think it will make any real difference to what he does. Americans don’t think about Canada much at all. The actual difference between the policies of the Canadian main political parties is small, and even less so this election.
Trump is transactional, sure. But no deep thinker.
Trump may also be looking for a way out of his self-checkmate with tariffs. I can’t see how he can apply auto tariffs without putting GM and Ford out of business and maybe he finally realizes that (or has had it finally drilled into his tiny brain by advisors). So, now good relations with Canada and a new trade deal will have the optics of a win for him.
The stock market fell 2% around the day Trump discussed his excellent “we agree on many things” conversation with Carney, which included an early renegotiation of USCMA that might be a mistake. I wonder if the markets had an effect.
Few Congressmen have been willing to challenge the Emperor. Surprisingly, the most consistent and strident objections to tariffs have come from an unlikely and very conservative source - The Wall Street Journal. I never much paid attention to the WSJ. After reading it for the last couple weeks, I was surprised that I quite like their newspaper.
This is nonsense. Let’s arbitrarily look from 1980 forward, that’s 45 years. Of those 45 years, the Liberals have been in power for about 25 years vs 20 for the PC/Cons. What did the Tories do during their two decades?
Yeah he invested in “infrastructure” perhaps he could have done more with the billions he spent on prisons in his pet ridings in an era of falling crime rates and legalized MJ.
Now we see the same shite from Polly and the infighting has begun.
Conservatives fear ‘dysfunctional’ campaign and ‘civil war’ in the party: sources
Conservative sources describe a campaign that is ‘highly disorganized’ and ‘a mess’
We’ve seen this in-fighting play book before on both side of the house
I wonder if Harper is refusing his pension?? that was a promise way back.
And how much did he spend “transforming” Canada from a peacemaket to warmonger.?
Canadians remember and the reasons they tossed Harper and his party for a third place newbie.
WSJ is a totally Republican-sided Murdoch paper which has no problem, for example, publishing total lies about climate change or pretty much anything else. But – being extremely pro-business they also recognize the imperative of a strong economy. This is where they’ve broken with Trump on tariffs and are pissing him off – because they agree with leading economists that tariffs are going to be disastrous for business and may well tank the economy.
I went to the mall today, which I generally hate doing but I was able to get my son’s birthday gift.
Anyways, there was a car in the parking lot which was doing some political advertising. I’m not sure if it was tied to the Conservative party or not, but the car was absolutely plastered in pictures of PPs face, adorned with no fewer than 6 Canadian flags and had some sort of “anti-woke” statement that I didn’t get close enough to read beyond deciphering those words.
It was positively unhinged.
There was also a wankerpanzer, presumably waiting to pick someone up. It was parked on a crosswalk near one of the entrances. There were several nearby empty spots. Not like whoever would have trouble spotting the eyesore.
Anyways, I’m going to hunker down at home and recover from the insanity of the outside world.
I’d never read the WSJ regularly until last week. It has a lot of world and business news, much more so than the Globe and Mail. It isn’t quite The Economist, but it is better in some respects than the Times or Post. They certainly have more courage when it comes to Trump.
Most of the social commentary is limited to a single editorial. Some of it certainly differs from my moderate views, but it is more balanced than I would have thought. (The Economist has fully endorsed climate change for over a decade; I haven’t seen an oped on this topic in the two weeks I have been reading the WSJ). The WSJ is not Fox, and it is not the National Review.
Talking about crime is a reasonably good campaign strategy, because people often think crime is getting worse even when it’s not getting worse. Old people are especially prone to thinking crime is getting worse irrespective of the evidence, and old people vote more than anyone else.
