Canada is basically run by Big Oil, Big Grocery and Big Telecomm. If it doesn't benefit the Suncor, the Irvings, Weston, Empire, Bell, Telus or Rogers, it doesn't get done.
I mean, this is not strictly true, there’s plenty of examples in history where rich people got their asses kicked in various revolutions. Canadians just need to grow some balls.
I live in a mid-sized Canadian city, specifically in south-eastern Ontario. The police do not show up for all but the most egregious cases.
Auto theft? Robberies and B&E? Assault? Drug dealing? All fine, because it's poor people victimizing other poor people. I've seen cops drive past a bicycle chop-shop or ongoing B&E of a small business and deliberately look the other way so that they don't need to officially take action.
It's especially rich coming from the Conservatives, who talk a big game about law and order, but don't actually spend money on it because it's cheaper to just let poor people tear each other to pieces. At least the Liberals have the (weaksauce) excuse of decriminalization, which sounds great until you realize that they mean "We'll spend less money on enforcement, also spend less money on social services".
I really don't think the government's terribly concerned about Canadians being armed. They've got a great strategy, boiling the proverbial frog slowly and making sure that they only kick one group off the ladder at a time. Right now, it's all about protecting middle-class property owners so that we can keep debt-fueled spending at bay and suck said property-owners dry when they age out of the workforce.
Everything we do, we do to keep taxes low for the rich.
Crime? Doesn't matter, rich people can just move.
Law enforcement? Why bother, only poor people are affected by crime.
Courts? Rich people can turbo them, otherwise why spend the money?
Healthcare? Rich people can get it, so why spend money on it for the poors? At best we'll find a way to monetize it.
Housing? Our housing policy is the way it is to preserve the wealth of boomers (so it can be extracted by the LTC industry, in lieu of providing eldercare) but mostly to enhance the wealth of landowners.
If the Canadian Dream is broken, it's largely because of people like the Thompson family that own the Globe and Mail, are breaking it, so it's really fucking rich--pardon the pun--to see the G&M complain about it.
What's funny about that is that hiring more staff was actually something they could do to avoid paying taxes because salaries are an expense. It reduced your taxable income, as did reinvesting in equipment.
Cutting taxes meant that they could hire less and bank more.
I know this, and you know this, but it's still frustrating.
Yes in that we have a lot of stuff deployed on Microsoft stuff because it's easy. A lot of things are done via the "just do it via Azure/PowerApps/Excel" because it's quick and gets the job done, whereas rolling something more sustainable would take time and effort.
No, because this isn't the 1990s where we didn't really have other choices and if one cropped up, Microsoft would crush them ruthlessly, if not illegally. Microsoft now is the easy choice, but back then it was the only choice. Microsoft has viable competition today.
I really do wish Google or Amazon could roll out low-code stuff on par with PowerApps, and I really, really wish line-of-business staff would stop using Excel for everything.
The challenge is the LPC doesn’t have much bench strength. Like the Democrats, they don’t tend to cultivate personalities, and the CPC has spent the last several years hillarying Chrystia Freeland, which is a shame.
I’ve heard rumblings of snoozers and centrists in an attempt to convince voters that the LPC is "serious", which will work about as well as it did for Dion or Ignatieff.
Voters aren't really interested in calm, sensible governance. Oh, they say they are, but on the left at least they need to feel inspired, which Trudeau can't do anymore and Singh never could.
It looks like Trudeau's team is adopting some of what the US Democratic party does: don't bother refuting the arguments with facts--because conservatives aren't interested in facts, and refuting them gives their insane arguments validity--call them weird because, frankly, they are weird.
The next time Poillevre starts hyperventilating about "woke" just dismiss him with "Dude, what is wrong with you, do you not know how weird you sound?".
This kind of reaction, the one of the article, is exactly what doesn’t work.
Retorts with facts don’t work; it’s ignored at best and reinforces the lie at worst. Look up the “information deficit hypothesis“ and why it’s proven to be wrong. It might feel good, if not self righteous, to Democrats, but it doesn’t move the needle.
It’s also why calling out comments like this as weird, creepy and/or stupid does work. It hits back, smacking the lie in the face instead of giving it oxygen, and it’s the smack in the face that gets traction instead of
No one cares what Vance or Trump say. We’ve proven that, but drawing attention to what idiots they are, calling them it, does work because it makes the story about how ridiculous their lies are, instead of a debate about veracity.
Yeah, much as I'm sure the LPC member tried procedural bullshit, it looks like this meeting had enough to go around, on all sides. But yeah, as someone who's started getting involved in this sort of thing, there's a really irritating tendency for established people to play games with procedure in organized committees, so much so that there is, I'm sure, a "How to through a spanner in the works of government For Dummies" that's bought by bureaucratic beetles everywhere.
Note, Michelle Ferreri is my MP. I would expect grandstanding, so I'm sure some of the LPC and NDP members' concerns were not unfounded.
Public housing is part of the solution. Taxing capital gains far more aggressively is part of the solution. Rezoning and infill are part of the solution. Punitative taxation on ownership of multiple single-family homes is part of the solution.
This isn't the solution, it's just kicking the can down the road. Again. Because we've decided that the rich shall never, ever take a haircut.
Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification.