We had a technocrat masquerading as a populist with Trudeau. Having another technocrat doesn't help with the problem: that most people don't see the Liberals as doing anything for regular people. This is like the Ontario Liberals picking Crombie because they think they need someone more "centrist" and "establishment" to win OPC voters, when the problem is that Doug Ford does a better job of articulating regular people's concerns.
Not that Poillevre isn't worse: He's as much as establishment weasel, only with a shot of fascism to help mask the taste.
If the Liberals want to succeed, they need to prove--before the election--that they're willing to forsake the rich to help everyone else. Right now, they're pulling the usual Liberal bullshit of "we'll do all sorts of progressive stuff, for realz, honest, if you just elect us again!".
Maybe ramp that capital gains tax up on the ultra wealthy? That'd be a good start.
No, because a lot of city people live in places where they can't charge cars, and--at least in Canada where we kiss the boots of landlords--no one's forcing charging infrastructure multi-unit dwellings.
Electric cars aren't for city dwellers, they're for suburban homeowners.
They don't care. The tax cuts are all that matters.
If the policy was "tax cuts for the rich, all the poor people will literally be put into a meat grinder and made into sausages" they'd be for it. The only reason they don't have that as a policy plank is because we're still ostensibly a democracy and conservatives have to fool people into voting for them. The know their platforms are odious and unpopular, which is why they avoid articulating them at all costs and instead hammer on identity politics.
This is also why conservatives are, to a man, in favour of illiberalism across the globe: to further realize their vision, they really need pesky things like "democracy" and "the rule of law" out of the way.
When your politicial ideology is basically the plot of Highander ("there can be only one!") and the details are just who's going to win out in the end, programs that benefit everyone, especially "losers", are off the table.
If you think Conservatives are going to pay for cops and courts and jails, I have a bridge to sell you. Oh, they'll talk a good game, but they won't spend a red cent.
Conservatives represent the rich. The rich can ignore this problem because they live and work in places where they're rarely, if ever, affected. They can afford to let the problem get really bad--especially when they're making bank on real estate and paying record-low taxes--so why would they pay for more cops or judges?
Maybe we'll get private prisons, but the US has shown that those actually cost more money, and it still doesn't address the gaps in the court system. Doug Ford could partner with Galen Weston on No Frills-branded prisons, where you can use your Optimum Points for, eg, smokes or rations, and even then it'd be a hard sell because other rich people aren't going to pick up the tab for the taxes needed to fund it.
That's what politicians should be doing, and it's certainly what advocates need to do, instead of tone-policing people who could be allies.
I've spent too much time around people who are addicts who got uppity about potential allies who referred to "safe injection sites" instead of "safe-use" or "safe-consumption. Like, that doesn't help your cause, all it does is push people away. I had one particularly smarmy person say she didn't care about how much the local SCS was helping the community because it wasn't for the community.
Like, how is that attitude in any way helpful?
Getting support for programs means building consensus, and all the progress that's been made is at risk of retrenching because we're failing to address the concerns of people in the community who aren't addicts, but at affected by the fallout from addiction. We're seeing this now as programs get cancelled because, frankly, we're not doing the hard and expensive part that's needed to support everyone.
The other post above puts it really succinctly: when you've lost the support of other homeless people, you have a serious problem.
“They can come down on you for a lot of things. They seized up the bank accounts for people who were protesting, the truckers. People who were donating to the truckers, they seized their bank accounts,” Rogan said.
One, this is normal. Large amounts of money moving in sketchy ways always gets FINTRAC's attention. The only reason this is getting traction is because white people got caught up in it--instead of Muslims or Tamils or suchlike--and white people finding out that laws apply to them is always funny to watch.
Second, wait until he finds out what Homeland Security can do. FINTRAC is actually pretty lightweight compared it's American equivalents.
The problem, at least from the perspective of people in the communities, is they're seeing people use drugs (and do all the things that people on drugs do, like theft, littering, leaving paraphenalia around, problematic behaviour, etc) anyway.
Source: personal experience. I live in a small Ontario city with a big drug problem. The SCS, while it helps with deaths due to drug use, doesn't appear help with the problems around drug use, especially for people who aren't addicts or people who care about addicts.
What they aren't understanding, is that the drug problem, as experienced by people who aren't addicts, doesn't really change as a result of safe-use sites. It stays the same, or at least get worse immediately around the area. The problem advocates have is that they don't (or won't) understand that people--and this hurts to hear--don't care if addicts die. They actually see that as a bonus: it means one less addict engaging in antisocial behaviour.
Governments really need to step up spending on the things that actually fix the problem of addiction from the perspective of people who are not addicts. This means large, comprehensive mental health facilties that are well-staffed. It means housing-first supports so they aren't using in parks. It means giving drugs away to addicts for free, so that they don't commit crimes. And--and this one hurts for advocates--it means involuntary incarceration for people who can't or won't benefit from the first three.
The problem, for governments, is that this is expensive, both monetarily and politically. It means spending a lot of money on people and buildings, which means taxes for the rich for things that benefit the poor. It means looking like jackbooted thugs when you arrest and detain people, which hurts their image among progressives, and it means giving addicts supports, housing and, honestly, free drugs, which pisses off conservatives. From the perspective of a politician, it's all-pain-no-gain. Except, y'know, solving the problem.
What does happen is that we do the cheap and easy part: decriminalization without supports (for Liberals) and tough talk without action (for Conservatives). Neither really helps much, unless you're rich, because the problems of drug addiction don't affect the rich.
If the polls hold up and the Conservative win people should realize that the LIberal’s could have changed things dramatically by implementing Voting Reform but refused to do so
They don't care.
If they lose, they know they'll be back in, depending on how bad the Conservatives do, on four to eight years, likely with a majority. Both parties are quite amenable to a periodic chair-switch.
However, if they had put through electoral reform, they'd never get another majority again. They'd have to share power with other, likely left-leaning, parties, which they wouldn't like. It would mean less power, less exclusive access to donations and reciprocation, and the ire of their donor class, who very much don't want to see a goverment that aligns with Canadians instead of the investor class.
The Liberals would ratther lose every seat in parliament than implement electoral reform.
The media is desperate for balance. They're not able to say "this man is a deranged fascist who's harmful to the country and the world". They're fighting decades of professional inertia.
They just can't do it; their training doesn't let them. It's kind of like asking a scientist if they're certain that burning fossil fuels causes global warming: their training practically insists that they say "there's strong evidence that it does" instead of "yes, of course it does".
If they came out and said it, they wouldn't be "balanced". When you realize that the media cares more about balance than truth, it helps explain a lot of why we are where we are.
A lot of conservative supporters--especially the hard-core ones--have been influenced by Russian social media operations in the wake of Ukraine. The result is that internal party polling looks poor on things like "support for NATO".
The conservatives today aren't the conservatives of the 1950s and 60s. They're more like those of the 1920s and 30s: useful idiots at best, complicit at worst.
Start calling out right-wing terrorism. Including the stochastic bullshit that the CPC and it's pets in the media pull.
And it's pretty rich to see Poillievre crying about it since he's the one who's been courting this kind of stuff and whipping it up. Leopards, faces, etc.
Of course we all know that “warrior culture” in this context means kicking out anyone who’s not a “straight” white male. Because nothing says warrior like being toxicly insecure about ones sexuality.
"Warrior culture" means willing to commit war crimes at the direction of the government, without thought, hesitation or remorse.
We've seen "warrior culture" in action. It's why we have professional standing armies that are (supposed to be) well paid, well equipped and supported. Because the alternative--underpaid mercenaries with scorching cases of PTSD--never ever ends well.
Uh huh, sure. Party of the military, except when it comes to paying for stuff. Maybe if we conscripted rich people then conservatives would be more amendable to giving them handouts?
I'm sure that being the party of choice in Canada for Putin supporters has nothing to do with it, either.
No.
We had a technocrat masquerading as a populist with Trudeau. Having another technocrat doesn't help with the problem: that most people don't see the Liberals as doing anything for regular people. This is like the Ontario Liberals picking Crombie because they think they need someone more "centrist" and "establishment" to win OPC voters, when the problem is that Doug Ford does a better job of articulating regular people's concerns.
Not that Poillevre isn't worse: He's as much as establishment weasel, only with a shot of fascism to help mask the taste.
If the Liberals want to succeed, they need to prove--before the election--that they're willing to forsake the rich to help everyone else. Right now, they're pulling the usual Liberal bullshit of "we'll do all sorts of progressive stuff, for realz, honest, if you just elect us again!".
Maybe ramp that capital gains tax up on the ultra wealthy? That'd be a good start.