Canadian Politics
- Thread starter DOTA
- Start date
So Ford is going to call early elections in Ontario next Wednesday. The reason he's giving is that strong measures will be needed against Trump's likely tarifs and he wants a strong mandate for those.
Politicians like talking like this ('I need a new mandate'), but do people ever believe them? I mean, we have elections every four years to give people a mandate for the next four years. Why would that mandate be any weaker three years in? It seems such a politicians' argument, but I suppose it polls well with voters? Otherwise they'd stop saying it, right...?
Politicians like talking like this ('I need a new mandate'), but do people ever believe them? I mean, we have elections every four years to give people a mandate for the next four years. Why would that mandate be any weaker three years in? It seems such a politicians' argument, but I suppose it polls well with voters? Otherwise they'd stop saying it, right...?
He obviously knows that with the 25% tariffs things can go tits up for him in 1 year. That is why. And at the same time he presents himself like a unified option against trump.
I wonder also what a regional politicians can do "against Trump"
Yeah, it's pretty transparent of course. And his strong language against the tariffs so far has probably boosted his popularity, while the eventual outcome of the RCMP corruption probe in relation to the Toronto greenbelt project will do the opposite.
For the tariffs, Ford has probably been the most vocal Canadian politician about needing a strong response, and has taken a leadership role in that among his fellow PMs and the federal government as well (and has taken on Smith in the process). That doesn't really answer your question I guess; but Ontario has a lot of continuous direct business with the US, including integrated supply chains for the auto industry, so the province does have leverage of its own. But of course, you stand strongest together, which has also been the focus so far. (And I know the economic entanglement works both ways. Tariffs seem like a terrible idea.)
definitely 25% tariffs will hurt everyone but as I said in another thread, I think is just a measure as much pressure to ensure that poilievre have a absolute majority this 2025 as they are ideologically aligned.
Mexico will be a bit hard as they still have more than 5 years till next elections
Well, when even Trudeau says that in a hot mic, shit becomes a notch scarier
That post had a small kernel of one or two facts (that Canada had relatively high immigration over a few years) wrapped in a thick layer of absolute bullshit. That poster's perspective is not a popular one here in Canada, and their depiction of Canada is very far from reality. If a pair of short cell phone videos depicting 2 street corners are enough is enough to convince you of everything that poster was asserting, you should be very worried about your critical thinking skills.
Has Trump rejuvenated Canadian patriotism?
Very much. The US anthem has also been loudly booed at NHL and NBA games, and during the 4 Nations hockey tournament.
The combination between Trudeau stepping back, all the candidates for his replacement promising to scrap the carbon tax, and Trump's actions against Canada have also completely messed up the Conversative game plan: Poilievre now can't keep blaming everything on Trudeau anymore (especially with the Liberal frontrunners being Mark Carney, who has never run for the Liberals before, and Chrystia Freeland, who left her job because of her disagreement with Trudeau), his Axe the Tax slogan has become pointless (everyone agrees), and he can't keep saying that everything is broken in Canada (that's not what people want to hear when they're coming together in patriotism). (See also this CBC article.)
He's instead going with 'Canada First' now, but I'm not sure how that is supposed to make the Conservatives stand out: if there is one thing that all parties now agree on, it's exactly that. Maybe Poilievre thinks it will help if the Conservatives shout it loudest? In the meantime, surveys suggest that the Liberals under Carney might erase most of the giant Conservative lead in the polls. They are still by far most likely to win, but the upcoming elections just got a whole lot more interesting.
Trump sabotaging Canadian conservatives is quite funny...
It's not just Trump, but yeah. Although in Ontario, Doug Ford (also a conservative) has gained a lot of standing due to his strong stance on tariffs, and is making the most of that by calling for early elections. So he's actually benefiting from the situation.
Either way though, there is absolutely no sign that this tariff war would be going any differently if the Conservatives were in charge of Canada (as some have claimed): they oppose the tariffs as strongly as everybody else, and Trump doesn't seem to be in it for a change in Canadian politics, but for economic reasons.
I live just west of downtown Ottawa and visited the trucker occupation of downtown most days. Your recollections do not match mine at all.
The protesters were overwhelmingly white (this from the Ottawa People’s Commission, which produced a report into the protests: “While convoy organizers claimed there was diversity among the participants and supporters, and that was true to a limited extent, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of people involved in the protests were white males.")
and the protest was more about hating Trudeau than about ‘freedom’ from mask or vax mandates (which had actually been imposed by the US administration, not Canada). There were a number of confederate flags there, a lot of the funding came from right wing US sources. Some protestors desecrated the National War Memorial.
Had the truckers made their point and gone home I would have supported their right to protest, but instead they occupied a city centre and shut down the nation’s capital for weeks. That’s not an acceptable form of protest and most Canadians agree: according to polling, most Canadians did not support the occupation. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/15/poli...u-support-oppose-truckers-mandates/index.html
For a couple of years PP was able to get support by just not being Trudeau. But with Trudeau now gone and that orange thing in the White House, the calculus has changed dramatically. Now PP’s up against Carney, who is a much stronger candidate and the onus has shifted from years of LPC’s fecklessness to trumps tariffs, and many people think Carney is a safer pair of hands at this critical moment.
PP is not just not very likeable, he’s actively disliked, even by conservatives who know him well. I golf with a bunch of guys, mostly conservatives, who know him well (one’s writing a biography of him) and, to a man, they can’t stand him.
A Leger poll dated Feb 11th now puts Carney and PP as neck and neck, from a 20+ point margin just a few months back.
PP is not just not very likeable, he’s actively disliked, even by conservatives who know him well. I golf with a bunch of guys, mostly conservatives, who know him well (one’s writing a biography of him) and, to a man, they can’t stand him.
A Leger poll dated Feb 11th now puts Carney and PP as neck and neck, from a 20+ point margin just a few months back.
I agree in everything that you said, but certainly I support any protest that paralyzes the country if the protests are warranted. No protest that don't bother achieve anything. If the truckers would have gone it would be just a parade and forgotten 1 day after. didn't support the reason of the protest but fully supported they way they protest
Who decides whether a protest is warranted? There's currently a protest about Canada selling live horses to Japan to be slaughtered for meat. Personally, I think that's a great cause, but should we be able to 'paralyze the country' to make our point? Absolutely not. In a democracy my right to protest can't trump someone else's right to go about their business peaceably.
The truckers would have had a much more sympathetic hearing if they had protested for a weekend: shutting Ottawa down and blaring the air horns, then tidying up and going home. Showing they were capable of shutting things down would have been an eloquent statement, but instead they lost a lot of that sympathy by just becoming a small handful of political malcontents (who had just lost the election) intent on disrupting people's lives and livelihoods. It became obvious that the protest wasn't about vaccines at all; these guys just hated Trudeau.
In your scenario, the loudest, most angry and aggressive people would prevail in our society. With respect, that sounds like a bad idea.
And the people with the biggest tools. I mean, if these people hadn't had those trucks, they wouldn't have been able to settle down the way they did in the first place.
I agree with @4bars that people should be able to demonstrate and all that, but in practice, there is a lot of inequity involved in how and how long people are able to demonstrate. I don't want to apply downward equity here by disempowering everyone, and I don't know what my limit would be; it would be a philosophical debate about under what circumstances and with what kind of support different types of protest are justified. (These people will say they were protesting fundamental injustice and overreach from the side of the government, which would be an important cause if true.) But either way, being able to block downtown and parliament in these particular circumstances seems well beyond the upper threshold.
You absolutely have a point here, in the end is difficult to determine who would have the right or how much or how long but my belief is that demostrations are too watered down to matter anything and i would rather prefer that they are a bit too much than this watered version.
Demonatrations should be a way more powerful tool and to be this powereful tool, should be more disruptive than what they are regardless if i agree or not with it. And trust me, if i would suffer it i would curse them too but at the same time i would still believe on their rights
Canada beat the USA - new tariffs incoming
Would have been amazing if the US anthem would have sound when the medals were givenCanada beat the USA - new tariffs incoming
I feel like the two matches with the US deserve to be played in full in this thread. It's as political as it gets, all of it. They were fighting within seconds in that first match!Canada beat the USA - new tariffs incoming