EntitledbitchistanPol 2024: the religious experience of pissing on dolphins

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > EntitledbitchistanPol 2024: the religious experience of pissing on dolphins

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(Thread IKs: ZShakespeare)

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Following up on the fact that the government denied funding in 2009 for further investigation of residential schools the tweet author followed up by finding that there was funding added in 2016 when the government changed.

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1399364223478767635?s=20

# ¿ May 31, 2021 17:10

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 16:29

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Duck Rodgers posted:

Everyone I know who goes regularly to CFL games is from working class families in Elmwood, Transcona etc. Everyone I know who goes regularly to NHL games is from upper middle class families in the suburbs. I know lots of people who like the CFL who have great politics, and lots of people who like the NHL who also have great politics, but the difference in in-person attendance seems to be income.

It's def a stereotype that at BC Lions games there's blue collar fans while at Canucks games it's all realtors doing business deals on their phones the whole time.

I think it was a big missed opportunity when it came down to what to do about BC Place. The Province should have imploded the overbuilt thing (capacity 54,000 lmao), made a fortune selling the land to developers to make Yaletown 2.0, built social housing with the proceeds, and suggested to the BC Lions that they build a stadium out where most of their fans live, in Surrey, contributing to the creation of the Downtown there. Instead the BC Liberals spent half a billion on renovations. Great thx.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2021 04:04

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

MA-Horus posted:

At a time when parks are being used more than ever before, I bring you the National Post!

https://twitter.com/accessd/status/1400155095808065542?s=19

Goddamn now that's some nuclear grade bad opinion clickbait.

Here's a recent tweet thread bout the actual problem with our parks, which is that they're surrounded by increasingly ultra expensive low density housing, and these public amenities are now woefully underutilized spaces reserved for super wealthy neighbours. The thread takes us on a little tour of a bunch of very nice west side parks, ringed by multi million dollar homes and inaccessible to renters.

https://twitter.com/DannyOleksiuk/status/1397238054453137408?s=20

If we have a land utilization problem, it's not that open gardened park spaces exist, it's that these spaces are surrounded by low density estates for the rich. Every one of these west side Vancouver parks should be ringed with small apartment buildings and townhouses at a minimum.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2021 21:12

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

*NIMBYs prevent any and all redevelopment of low density Single Family Home areas*
*Housing shortage results in near zero vacancy and spiking rents*
*Giant corporations buy SFHs to exploit high rents*

We can't build apartments in SFH areas tho because developers will profit.

I guess we'll just do nothing and suffer.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2021 16:24

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Normy posted:

Mumilaaq made a fiery farewell speech that is worth watching and sharing.

https://youtu.be/7mqJGG7yUGw

Canadian press ran with the headline Canada excoriated as racist failure during farewell speeches by departing MPs lumping Qaqqaq's speech in with a discussion of the speech of a Bloc Quebec MP that went on about how Canada "stole" the 1995 referendum on Quebec independence and stole its symbols � the maple leaf and the beaver � from Quebec. Of course we've previously discussed how discrimination against French Canadians is worse actually than any other group in Canada.

Qaqqaq calling out posting cringe.

https://twitter.com/MumilaaqQaqqaq/status/1405157122623655937?s=20

# ¿ Jun 16, 2021 18:25

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Mr. Apollo posted:

I know a guy who has started a pro-UBI lobbying group and now he's also starting a Land Value Tax lobbying group. He keeps going on and on about how beneficial a LVT would be. However, I'm very skeptical because his pro-UBI arguments are essentially "corporations can pay people less since UBI will make up the difference, the savings will be passed onto the consumer" and "taxes will go down since governments can eliminate various social programs since UBI will allow people to pay for the services themselves".

Does anyone have any recommended readings or studies on LVT? It doesn't see to be widely implemented so I'm guessing there are some drawbacks that I'm not seeing.

In the back of my mind whenever someone is going off on how great Georgism is is the thought that, "oh yeah if it's so great than how come it was forgotten about so quickly?" Meanwhile Henry George's contemporary, Karl Marx, well, his ideas had a lot more impact.

But yeah a LVT, while the notion that it can replace all other taxes is seems dumb, it does seem like a pretty reasonable way to raise revenues. We already try to capture land values in other ways that are worse, more complex and less effective.

When Vancouver rezones some property from low rise detached house to highrise apartment for example it retains 75% of the land value lift as a "Community Amenity Contribution." I'm sure many other cities around the world do similar things.

Coincidentally today the BC government expert panel into housing affordability released their report and it goes quite in depth into CACs, and into various negative secondary impacts they have, recommending significant reforms.

Too long to post but here's the url of the report https://engage.gov.bc.ca/housingaffordability/.

At the moment City of Vancouver uses the revenues from CACs to fund not just improvements related to the development itself, but affordable housing, public art, childcare and other things. If Vancouver wanted to scale back or abandon CACs, it could find a replacement for the revenue in a different form of LVT. For example I think it was Vancouver's OneCity party that proposed a 1% LVT on sale of a property.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2021 04:11

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Housing Secretary Vaughan here saying that the government will do whatever it can to prop up housing.

lol to any young, renter Liberal supporters out there still thinking that the government is trying to help them.

https://twitter.com/TOAdamVaughan/status/1408470309850787843

I gotta say I'm kind of amazed the cabinet lets Vaughan go off like this, as you'd think Vaughan would be really talking himself into controversy here, but then again the Canadian media reporting on housing is so shallow and of course owned by establishment forces that don't want anything to change, so I don't think the media would even see stuff like this as a controversial story.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2021 22:33

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Can you imagine after this heat wave buying some 1000+$/sqft condo in Vancouver that doesn't come with air conditioning? lol.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2021 04:07

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

It seems remarkable that Woo's comments here, which seem wildly out of alignment with public opinion, and seemingly the position of the PM, are not being much picked up on by the media and do not seem to be causing any questions for Trudeau.

I suppose this means that Trudeau's attempt to reform the Senate as "independent" and having nothing to do with his party in the House of Commons has succeeded, since despite Woo being appointed by Trudeau and being the leader of the "Independent group" which is ostensibly Liberal aligned it doesn't seem like the media thinks that there's any connection worth following up here.

quote:

Invoking residential schools, B.C. senator says Canada should be careful about criticizing China

In a provocative speech in the upper house on Monday, Independent Senators Group (ISG) Leader Sen. Yuen Pau Woo said Canada should avoid criticizing China for its human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims because our country has mistreated Indigenous peoples.

Echoing an argument made by Chinese officials at the UN last week, Woo said China's policy toward the Muslim minority in Xinjiang province is similar to the colonialism directed at Indigenous peoples in this country, and that condemning the Asian country in harsh terms would be "gratuitous" and "simply an exercise in labelling."

Citing allegations of China's mass arrest of Uyghurs on "terrorism" charges, the forced sterilization of Muslim women and the relocation of their villages, Woo said Canada "did all of those things, and we did them throughout our short history as a country, most appallingly to Indigenous peoples, but also to recent immigrants and minority groups who were deemed undesirable, untrustworthy or just un-Canadian."

Woo, who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016, urged senators to reject a Conservative-led motion in the upper house that would denounce China's genocide against the Turkic minorities, arguing such a statement would be a "distraction" that would further damage already strained Canada-China relations.

Senate motion no. 79, which was introduced by Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos and seconded by Independent Sen. Marilou McPhedran, calls on the Senate to "recognize that a genocide is currently being carried out by the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims."

It also proposes calling on the International Olympic Committee to deny Beijing the 2022 Winter Olympics by relocating the Games to another country "if the Chinese government continues this genocide."

Woo said that while there may be legitimate concerns about the conditions the Uyghurs face, parliamentarians should avoid passing motions on sensitive issues like this because it would needlessly embarrass China or suggest Canada believes it is morally superior.

Canadians may be concerned about the Uyghurs, but our criticism should be made in the spirit of friendship and "out of a desire for China to succeed as a nation of many ethnicities," he said.

"The fact that China does not share our view of individual freedoms or, indeed, our interpretation of freedoms based on the Charter is not a basis on which to lecture the Chinese on how they should govern themselves," Woo said. He added that the Chinese would be appalled by some Canadian policies � such as medical assistance in dying.

Woo said that, in a recent conversation with an unnamed Chinese "interlocutor," he said that some Canadians understand that China's Uyghur policies are "motivated by the fight against terrorism," a "desire to provide employable skills for minorities" and the "need to modernize infrastructure and upgrade living standards" � but are troubled by the reported repression of religious and cultural rights.

"Canadians are saying to Chinese friends that we don't want them to make the same mistakes," Woo said.

He also said the Chinese are happy with their form of "democracy," pointing to a recent poll by an organization called Alliance of Democracies, a pro-democracy group led by former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The poll suggested that a majority of respondents from China are generally content with their system of government. In fact, Woo said, most Chinese poll respondents were happier with their political system than Canadians are with theirs.

Most experts agree that China, an authoritarian country run by the Chinese Communist Party's politburo, is not a democracy.

Woo � who leads the ISG, a group primarily composed of Trudeau appointees to the upper house � said Western-style democracy doesn't always produce positive outcomes and there is something to be said for the Chinese system, which he maintains can produce results for its people.

"We are learning the hard way that democratic elections and changes in government over decades have not consistently produced better outcomes for citizens in many industrialized economies," he said.

"I much prefer the vagaries of democratic choice to the certainty of authoritarian rule, but we cannot be smug. We also cannot deny that the Chinese state has its own claim to a kind of legitimacy, even if we don't like it."

Trudeau himself has rejected the comparison between the way Canada and China have handled official injustices. While Canada has recognized its past wrongs, the Chinese regime contends there is no evidence of mistreatment of Uyghurs � despite abuses reported by a number of sources, including a report from the House of Commons subcommittee on international human rights.

The subcommittee's report, tabled last fall, says that China's persecution of this Muslim minority � through mass detentions in concentration camps, forced labour, state surveillance and population control measures � is a clear violation of human rights and is meant to "eradicate Uyghur culture and religion."

"The journey of reconciliation is a long one, but it is a journey we are on. China is not even recognizing that there is a problem. That is a pretty fundamental difference," Trudeau said last week when asked about China's statement at the UN that it was "deeply concerned about the serious human rights violations against the Indigenous people in Canada."

"In Canada, we had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission," Trudeau continued. "Where is China's truth and reconciliation commission? Where is their truth? Where is the openness that Canada has always shown and the responsibility that Canada has taken for the terrible mistakes of the past, and indeed, many of which continue into the present?"

Trudeau said it's important for Canadians and the world to pay attention to the "systemic abuse and human rights violations against the Uyghurs."

In a tweet Tuesday, Housakos, the senator behind the motion, said he was "beyond disbelief" as he sat listening to Woo's comments about the matter.

"Indigenous people in Canada are not pawns to be used to silence criticism of other human rights abuses. They AND China's Muslims deserve better," the senator tweeted.

Housakos said there is no justification for the "atrocities" committed by the Chinese state against this Muslim minority, adding that the "undeniable" systemic repression of the Uyghurs has been well-documented by respected groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

He said Canadian attempts to justify China's actions or to act as "apologists" for the communist regime sends the wrong message at a time when Uyghurs need Western countries to stand in solidarity against their plight.

Another Trudeau appointee, Ontario Sen. Peter Boehm � a former senior official at Global Affairs Canada and Canada's former sherpa to G7 meetings � also talked down the value of a motion condemning Chinese genocide.

Boehm said a similar motion passed by the House of Commons in February resulted in "a lot of media and social media pizzazz afterwards, but it had no discernible impact ... other than to spark an angry reaction from the Chinese government."

He said foreign policy pronouncements should be left to the prime minister and cabinet, not the appointed upper house.

"The very public denunciations that we make will only reinforce an internal Chinese view of us as adversarial. If that's what we want to do, fine. But in the event, it is the people of China who will change that country's behaviour, and if we wish to influence them, I would suggest this is not the way," Boehm said.

"Poking China again is unlikely to change things."

# ¿ Jun 30, 2021 18:12

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Goosed it. posted:

It wasn't just during the heatwave. EMS in the greater Vancouver region has been a mess for a while.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-paramedic-staffing-now-critical-as-ambulance-wait-times-reach-2-hours-union-1.5330153
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/it-really-hit-the-wall-paramedics-sound-alarm-over-unstaffed-ambulances-longer-waits-1.5321655

Boy I wonder if our EMS in Vancouver would be better able to manage things if we actually addressed the huge homelessness and toxic drug epidemic for once instead of doing nothing and leaving EMS to struggle to deal with the implications of these unaddressed issues night after night.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2021 23:18

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

bunnyofdoom posted:

https://twitter.com/Puglaas/status/1413128438592933898?s=19

I do love that she says she's not quitting so that she can "spend more time with her family." lmao yes lets please kill this bad communication strategy.

Not too far off the sort of stuff Qaqqaq was talking about in her statement about why she wasn't running again.

IMO seemed like JWR was a genuinely principled person and that collided with the PMO that didn't care about principles at all. With what happened and her banishment from the Liberal Party we probably have missed out on the positive impacts from someone who could have elevated and changed parliament at least some if she had the chance.

I dunno if JWR's actions were actually that divisive or if it was just internet partisan politics that made it seem so. For whatever reason the SNC Lavalin affair absolutely triggered Liberal partisans into a frothing madness of the sort that I didn't think existed in Canadian political discourse. The poo poo spewing from redditors and twitter liberal partisans on this issue was pretty much at the same insane levels as what we'd see with tea partiers in the USA. The hate directed toward JWR in particular was remarkable. That Philpott was also so disgusted by the PMO she voiced concerns and was poo poo canned seems to be often ignored, and Philpott was never targeted with such vitriol.

Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jul 8, 2021

# ¿ Jul 8, 2021 19:58

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

For some reason young women 18-30 have started to really, really not like Justin Trudeau.

18-29 Men: Singh vs Trudeau: 55 to 49. Not too far off. Men like Trudeau fine.
18-29 Women: Singh vs Trudeau: 56 to 29. That's a 20 point plunge there for some reason.

From the latest abacus data released this morning
https://abacusdata.ca/party-leaders-canada-abacus-july-2021/

# ¿ Jul 12, 2021 22:05

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

McGavin posted:

I like the implication that the Conservative team has the best players and the best strategy, they just don't believe in themselves enough.

lol.

Tho in the full article Coyne does not hold back from noting that uh, actually the team is quite shite

quote:

Moreover, while the Liberals, as the party of power and therefore of cabinet posts, have always been able to recruit individuals with a record of accomplishment in other fields, the Conservatives tend to get stuck with the lifers, people who have never done anything but partisan politics and are motivated by nothing so much as hatred of the Grits. Which may explain why the party�s leading lights so often look and sound like campus Conservatives.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2021 17:46

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

mila kunis posted:

Lmao bellwoods is like yuppie central, the biggest litterers in bellwoods were always the kids who come in on the weekend. I don't know if these reddit posts are right wing fantasists or anti-homeless astrotufers from property developers or something

It was the same sort of thing on /r/vancouver when there was the homeless camp in Strathcona Park in Vancouver. So so so many stories of "needles everywhere", of unlikely reports of crime and violence, alongside thinly veiled calls for the homeless to be sent "somewhere else", be vaguely gotten rid of. You'd occasionally read outright calls for the homeless to be killed en masse before the mods would delete the post.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2021 19:25

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Chicken posted:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/playground-planned-for-former-victoria-tent-city-site-1.3833185

Apparently when the homeless camp in Victoria was cleaned up a few years ago they removed most of the soil in the park due to contamination from drugs, fuel spills, and human waste. The above article is the best I could find and I suspect the drugs were the least of the worries there but I don't know for sure. They also turned it into a playground which might have lower tolerance for contamination than if it was going to be something else.

Adding a playground over a former homeless camp may be a bit of clever park programming to dissuade another homeless camp, akin to putting arm rests on a park bench.

I've noticed they've removed soil at Vancouver's Strathcona park as well, but only in the area with the highest concentration of campers. The other areas the park board turned around and re-opened very quickly after just a bit of reseeding. In the areas of dense camping I can't imagine there's any grass left and the ground is probably hard packed (and yeah probably full of bits of litter). Pragmatic landscaping decision here is probably yeah to take away the top layer of dirt and bring in rolls of grass sod rather than try to reseed stuff.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2021 19:39

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Some real breathtaking boomer idiocy here from Hedy Fry

https://twitter.com/HedyFry/status/1418298559514939393?s=20

The BC government has only in the last week just started asking those under 40 to get their second shot.

I doubt almost anyone under 25 has gotten an email to book an appointment.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2021 01:12

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Gros Tarla posted:

Yeah, misread that entirely. Doh.

Added context that maybe gets missed if you're not a British Columbian is that there's been a lot of baseless criticism of young people during this pandemic from both the media and government. John Horgan got a ton of pushback for asking young people to "not ruin it for the rest of us." This sort of inane statement by Hedy Fry goes hand in hand with the narrative of clueless Boomers/GenXers criticizing millennials/zoomers.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2021 16:36

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Goosed it. posted:

It's nice that Adrian Dix is blaming the increased numbers on activities that the government explicitly okay'ed.

https://twitter.com/richardzussman/status/1418684194792742912?s=20

I was in the Okanagan last weekend and I can confirm that almost no one was wearing masks anywhere at all. Welp.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2021 03:29

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Alctel posted:

Just off the top of my head:

Banned corporate donations to parties and capped individual donations
New Mental Health and Addictions ministry combined with a bunch of funding for mental health for kids and teens
Unfucked a bunch of crown corps
High-speed internet project to a bunch of rural communities and reserves
Here in Victoria the province keeps buying up buildings to turn them into supportive housing for homeless people, not sure if that's province-wide
MSP premiums are gone
BC Child Opportunity Benefit
Speculation and Vacancy tax
Froze rates on BC ferries
Cancelled interest on all past, present and future BC student loans
Managed to run a surplus even with all the new poo poo they put out in the first year (admittedly this is more a statement on how mismanaged the budget was under the BC Liberals)

There is actually a bunch more, though a lot of them are kinda technical and small and are more about making the province actually functional again rather than a money laundering operation (I cannot stress how bad the BC Libs were)

Good list. Another significant one is:
* Made big investments in public transit & created a de-politicized, pro-transit culture

The BC Liberals did get public transit built during their time in office (Canada Line and Evergreen Line) but it was constant politicized shenanigans, with the Liberals being on the fence about will it get built or not, not funding it properly and demanding municipalities pony up more money. Unbelievably eventually putting further transit funding to a referendum (that failed!).

(As an aside: Highways never went through such a challenging process)

The NDP in contrast have made public transit investment boring and not that much of a political issue. It simply gets funded and there's a big road map of what is eventually going to get built. All expectations are that it'll get funded.

It's a much, much healthier atmosphere.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 00:30

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Another Bill posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUrscYwFZns

A pretty good and recent documentary about the feral cat problem in Cornwall, Ontario. It's not super uplifting fwiw.

I watched this a while ago. Good watch imo.

I feel like an underlying story of this documentary is of feral cat problems being an indicator of deep structural, economic issues. It's a story of secular economic downturn, austerity, class separation and provincial negligence.

The town has such deep economic woes that can't come up with a mere $40k to help control this cat problem. I don't know anything about Cornwall, but abundantly clear from the doc that uh, times have not been good.

The province surely recognizes that a large double digit part of Ontario's feral cat problem comes from a single town, and yet is absent, doing nothing. An example of how the province downloads its problems to cities that have weak revenue tools and little ability to tackle these problems.

The only tool that cities have in the toolbox are property taxes, and it's clear that the (relatively) rich in Cornwall see the cats as a poor neighbourhood problem and protest why their property taxes are going up to deal with it.

Wildest question for me that comes out of this documentary is why on earth are costs for neutering cats so much staggeringly higher in Ontario than Quebec? The cat rescuers have to go across the border to QC to be able to afford to do what they do. Really this is the underlying issue that is driving the entire problem. The poor in Ontario literally cannot afford to neuter their cats. Again the province is totally absent here.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2021 20:02

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

I was kinda expecting the election call today because you'd have a day of the whole "going to the GG" bullshit, then a weekend of not much happening, then full blast Monday.

Maybe though you want to start off the campaign on Monday like a rocket ship with the GG stuff super early morning, then pivoting right into some big rally announcement in the afternoon. I dunno.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2021 17:57

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

The Globe has an interview up with Jody Wilson-Raybould that's well worth a read.

This snippit here could have some impact on the upcoming election...

quote:

...
In the SNC-Lavalin affair, the Ethics Commissioner found that Mr. Trudeau sought to improperly influence your decision. Your former cabinet colleague Jane Philpott once said the Prime Minister should have apologized, and moved on. Was that possible?

I think I had said this publicly, and I said this privately to the Prime Minister: I believe when something goes wrong, that you do apologize for it and you work to fix it. I mean, it depends on what the Prime Minister knew or didn�t know, what he was involved with, or wasn�t involved with.

What do you think now? Could it have been fixed? You had talks about staying.

I think the Prime Minister should have told the truth to Canadians.

Did he, in the end?

Well, I don�t know. I don�t think so. My view is very different from his. He did change his lines over and over again at the very beginning. But I mean, the Ethics Commissioner confirmed all of what I said in my testimony before the justice committee. The Prime Minister was in a conflict of interest for inappropriately pressuring me.

I think the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister�s Office have their own interpretations of what they feel transpired. One of them you�ve already mentioned is how there was a breakdown of trust between Gerry and I. I don�t ascribe to that rationale. I certainly don�t think that people � as they say � experience things differently. There is no way to experience pressuring the independent attorney-general to do something that�s against the law � there�s no way to experience that differently in my view.

You have a book, entitled �Indian� in the Cabinet, coming out soon. Have you written about those things in the book?

Yeah, I have. It�s coming out in September. I�ve written about my six years as an MP, certainly as a cabinet minister in the government.

And is it going to be explosive, in your view?

[Laughs] I don�t know about explosive but I imagine it will raise some eyebrows. As the title implies, it�s telling the truth about my experience and what I learned from my experience and provides some pathways forward based on that experience and how we can improve our democracy from an insider�s perspective. So I hope it�s interesting for people.

...

If the election is called on Monday, the minimum 36 campaign period would set the election date at a minimum of September 14. The release date of JWR's book, "Indian" in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power, is September 14.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2021 05:23

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

linoleum floors posted:

Even most cabinet ministers are spineless lackeys

No wonder why, look at what happened to JWR when she actually tried to have some agency. Booted out of caucus and Trudeau booted her pal Philpot too just for the crime of agreeing with her!

# ¿ Aug 13, 2021 01:52

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Did someone say Small Business?

quote:

Conservative Leader Erin O�Toole announces plan to rebuild Main Streets

Saint-Hyacinthe, QC � Today, the Hon. Erin O�Toole, Leader of Canada�s Conservatives, introduced his plan to rebuild Main Streets across the country and help small businesses get back on their feet and create jobs.

�Canada�s small businesses employ millions of people and have been hit hard by the pandemic,� O�Toole said. �They need real support to help rebuild or restart their business and hire back workers � and that�s exactly what Canada�s Recovery Plan will deliver.�

To restore the one million jobs lost during the pandemic and rebuild Canada�s Main Streets, a Conservative government will introduce the Rebuild Main Street Tax Credit. The new incentive will give Canadians an opportunity to support small businesses by providing a 25 per cent tax credit on amounts of up to $100,000 that someone personally invests in a small business over the next two years.

A Conservative government will also introduce the Rebuild Main Street Business Loan, which will immediately make available interest-free loans of up to $200,000 to help small and medium businesses, with up to 25 per cent forgiven depending on revenue losses. These loans are significantly more generous than the Liberals� $60,000 Canada Emergency Business Account loan, which fell short of the needs of thousands of eligible businesses.

In addition to the Rebuild Main Street Tax Credit and the Rebuild Main Street Business Loan, Canada�s Conservatives will introduce a Canada Investment Accelerator tax credit, which will provide five per cent back for any capital investment made in 2022 and 2023, with the first $25,000 to be refundable for small businesses.

�Canadian small businesses have given back to their communities in countless ways � whether it was sponsoring the local kids� soccer team or raising money for charity,� said O�Toole. �A Conservative government will have their backs and ensure we secure the future for Canada�s Main Streets.�

Free money to Doctors/Lawyers/Dentists to invest in some strip mall or some poo poo that they'd have invested in anyway.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2021 21:00

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Discussions with my dumb conservative family really drive home how means testing poisons social programs and holds back their development.

Simple back of the envelope math reveals that in every way my brother's family is better off with $10 a day daycare over the Conservative childcare tax credit, though he immediately dismissed the $10 a day program because "it's years away and it'll never arrive" and "it'll be means tested so much I'll probably not get any benefit anyway." There's no trust with the government to actually deliver, and the Conservative tax credit is trivial to implement so yields immediate benefit.

The sad thing is that he's probably right.

Even if means testing the program is the most efficient way to do it according to some economist, by cutting a chunk of the populace out of the program, you create a new segment of political opposition to it, which works against the creation of said program.

Edit: There's some psychology of "means testing = I don't get anything" at play too I think. Even if this program was $20 a day for him because he makes too much money, he'd still be better off than now (and probably the Conservative program) but I don't think people are thinking along these lines.

Edit edit: Funny thing is I don't even know if this program will be means tested, but by means testing some things, it's like an infection that spreads to everything else where people start to presume it will be and government is simply leaving the details out. (Again it's about lack of trust in the government)

Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Aug 29, 2021

# ¿ Aug 29, 2021 21:25

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

lololol

quote:

First Nations leaders endorse Liberal candidate while at an NDP event

Two First Nations leaders from Manitoba endorsed a Liberal candidate running in the province's north while standing next to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at a campaign event.

Singh and two NDP candidates seeking re-election met with Manitoba First Nations leaders in Winnipeg last week to discuss some of the pressing issues facing Indigenous communities like housing and mental health.

While the chiefs said they were thankful Singh and his team organized this t�te-�-t�te during a busy election campaign � they said they would be backing Liberal candidate Shirley Robinson over NDP incumbent Niki Ashton in the Churchill�Keewatinook Aski race because they want more Indigenous voices in Canada's Parliament.

Singh promised to renew Canada's relationship with First Nations people after a traumatic year when preliminary investigations at a number of former residential school sites across the country indicated hundreds of children could be buried on the grounds. He said Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is not doing enough to find the First Nations children who may be in these unmarked graves.

"The consciousness of Canada was shaken after the first discovery of the first 215 kids. ... It is pushing us to go beyond the words that we've heard from leaders in the past � we need action," Singh said at a press conference after the meeting, referring to the Kamloops, B.C., findings earlier this year.

"We want to be allies and we want to be standing shoulder to shoulder, to walk a path of justice, of respect, of dignity, walk that path acknowledging that we should be working with Indigenous communities as nation-to-nation partners," Singh said.

But the two regional chiefs on hand, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Arlen Dumas and Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO) Grand Chief Garrison Settee, made it clear that their loyalties lie elsewhere � at least in one race.

Ashton, a long-time NDP MP, is running for re-election against Robinson, a former First Nations band councillor from Cross Lake, Man., in the province's northernmost riding.

Settee said he has "nothing but respect for Jagmeet Singh on a personal level," but he's endorsing Robinson's candidacy over the NDP incumbent.

"The candidate that is running for our riding � she's Indigenous, and we want Indigenous people to get involved in this process," Settee said. "We have a vested interest in what happens in Canada when it comes to Indigenous people and we continue to support Indigenous people as they run."

The MKO, which represents 26 First Nations in treaty 4, 5, 6 and 10 areas of Manitoba, is officially "non-partisan," Settee said, but "we support all strong leaders."

"We will always advance our First Nations candidates," Dumas added. "I think that it's time for a fresh start in the north and I absolutely support Shirley Robinson for her candidacy," he said, as Singh and the NDP contingent stood on behind him.

Sette stepped forward and said, "I concur with that comment."

Ashton, who is not Indigenous, has been a long-time advocate for Indigenous and northern issues in Ottawa, pressing for an inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and for clean drinking water on reserves, among other issues. She easily won the seat in the 2019 election with more than 50 per cent of the vote.

Ashton was not at the NDP press conference where Dumas and Sette backed Robinson.

Asked about the First Nations leaders endorsing Robinson, Singh said Friday that "it should be really clear that I support my candidate."

"Niki Ashton has been a strong voice for Indigenous people and has a proven record, and New Democrats, in general, have shown that we are backing up our words with action. People can't afford another four years of this Trudeau," he said.

Robinson has appealed to First Nations people in the riding � in which about 75 per cent of the people identify as First Nation, M�tis or Inuit � to send an Indigenous person to Ottawa.

"We form the majority in this riding," she recently told a group of chiefs, as reported by the Thompson Citizen, a local newspaper. "What we need is a strong voice from a native speaker inside the halls of influence. We need an Ininiw voice in there. I am eager and ready to be your voice," she said, using the term for a Cree-language speaker.

"Sitting across the floor from government year after year does nothing to advance our dreams as Churchill�Keewatinook Aski communities, whether it's reserves or municipalities," she said, while touting past Liberal investments in the riding.

The Liberal government has made Indigenous issues a priority while in government, flowing billions in new funding to end drinking water advisories, repair First Nations schools, set up a new Indigenous-led child welfare system and revive Indigenous languages lost over centuries of colonialism, among other commitments.

On the residential school issue, the government has earmarked more than $300 million to help communities with their searches.

But Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has also faced criticism for the slow pace of change on some pressing issues � the government has promised to implement all of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action, but work remains on many of them � and for ongoing legal action related to children's services. While 109 long-term drinking water advisors have been lifted on Trudeau's watch, 51 remain in 32 communities.

The end of the road for Niki Ashton?

# ¿ Aug 31, 2021 17:48

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

I live in Vancouver East which is a guaranteed NDP seat until the heat death of the universe, and Jenny Kwan requires no assistance by me to win, so instead I've donated some money to the Vancouver Granville candidate, who may have been a longshot were it not for the fact that the Liberal Candidate turns out to have been a home flipper. Now I feel the NDP candidate at least has a shot and gently caress me if that home flipper guy wins during a housing crisis and I didn't lift a finger to help.

The NDP candidate is Anjali Appadurai, a young (first time?) politician. She is Climate Justice Lead at Sierra Club BC �which seems like good enough credentials for me. As we've seen with Ruth Ellen Brosseau, you can be a newbie outsider without a lot of experience and still work hard and do a good job in parliament.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2021 17:21

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

On a question around Indigenous affairs and mass unmarked graves being discovered, Blanchet immediately seemed to ignore the question and try to pivot somehow into accusing Singh and the Liberals of using the issue to call Quebec racist and like man maybe line that came off more nuanced in French (as I was watching the english dub) but that seemed loving insane to me???

Blanchet attacked Singh twice on "calling Quebec systemically racist" and I think Singh held his ground here (albeit in english dub).

In the press conference after, an anglo reporter asked Blanchet if he thought systemic racism existed in general or just not in Quebec, and Blanchet dodged that question.

All of this seemed like it would be near career ending anywhere else but it's Quebec so I guess it plays different :shrug:

Also both Blanchet and O'Toole were proclaiming that there's a huge job shortage because of CRB and CRB needs to be cut. Singh was the only person that pushed back on this idea, noting that CRB is less than minimum wage and that the workers were not there to be found because of low wages. (Also literally they all probably got new, better jobs months and months ago when they were laid off initially)

# ¿ Sep 3, 2021 17:18

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Gonna be lol if Shachi Kurl's debate question to Blanchet, which has whipped up the Quebec media into wrapping themselves in the Quebec Flag and writing a bunch of nationalist garbage, results in a BQ surge and some dumb chaos outcome like the Libs losing.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2021 01:48

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

https://twitter.com/BravoDavenport/status/1437033007089602565?s=20

The party that will lower the deficit the most with $0 new revenues is the most fiscally responsible

# ¿ Sep 12, 2021 19:12

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

https://twitter.com/MumilaaqQaqqaq/status/1437045244554620929?s=20

Only thing I've ever got out of my 30+ years of watching the red and blue teams trade back and forth is legal weed, lower taxes, and insane spikes in house prices. Of course these things are more important than the basics like drinking water, and housing.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2021 00:14

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Sorry to post nonsense from Michael Geller, who will be familiar to anyone who follows Vancouver real estate as a notorious boomer moron, but I just wanted to talk a bit about the whole "jurisdiction" issue and how it seems to play so badly for the NDP and Singh.

https://twitter.com/michaelgeller/status/1438225903599841283?s=20

Taking this condescending tweet at face value for a moment: Is there any actual difference between how the Liberal Party has been working with the provinces to build childcare, versus the NDP's plans to create pharmacare/dentalcare etc?

I feel like I'm being completely gaslit by the media here when they completely ignore that the Liberal Party has been deeply involved in provincial jurisdiction with medicare and oh so recently childcare, while at the same time they are admonishing Jagmeet Singh for "not understanding" jurisdiction, and his apparently wild and crazy plans to "meddle" in provincial areas of concern by working to create universal pharmacare.

As I see it there's really only one move the feds are ever capable of making here, which is to dangle a giant pile of money in front of the provinces in exchange for creating a program that meets some national standards. Seems to me that this is what the Liberals are doing with childcare and what the NDP would be doing with pharmacare. The Libs/NDP are doing the same thing, with the only difference being their priorities and drive in when they would be doing this.

Where's the difference? Is there any difference?

Are these people hearing something in what Singh is saying that I'm not hearing?

I feel like I'm going crazy when I am constantly reading poo poo like what Geller tweeted here that implies there is some massive insane thing Singh is suggesting. What I'm hearing from Singh sounds entirely reasonable and exactly akin to what the Feds are currently doing with childcare.

Of course it's not just morons like Geller implying there's some difference. Geller is referencing the interview on the CBC National that Rosie Barton did with Singh, where she was heavily suggesting there was something majorly off with Singh's approach to pursuing deals with the provinces and aggressively interrogating him on this.

Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Sep 15, 2021

# ¿ Sep 15, 2021 21:27

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

A takeaway for me of this election is that the Liberals are, using a sports analogy here I guess, pretty drat good on defence.

Like the NDP put out a fairly ambitious, but not at all crazy, environmental platform, enabling them to critique the Liberals for not being ambitious enough, and within a day or two, out of the woodwork come these environmental economists eager to talk about how bad the NDP plan is. There's a news cycle out of this and then in the debates Trudeau is able to leverage the point to hammer down Singh when Singh tries to talk up his environmental plan, with Trudeau saying the plan got a failing grade.

It's all masterful work here by the Liberal team.

The NDP need to fire their strategists because they really need people that are going to be ready for this sort of pro stuff from the Liberal side.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 16:54

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Kraftwerk posted:

Even still I don't think debates impact election results much.

Debates are overrated, but I think they set the narrative for the next morning and subsequent few days of coverage.

leftist heap posted:

I dunno what sort of strategist is gonna overcome the fact that the consent manufacturing apparatus is largely 100% set against them no matter what they do.

I mean, I don't think the NDP had any sort of expectation or plan for how they'd deal with any push back on their plan. Certainly they didn't have any experts that were in their corner that they could bring out.

Doesn't seem like the NDP strategists were prepared for a push back on the message. They should have been.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2021 18:09

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Watch the government not even ban Huawei from 5G infrastructure after all this.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2021 02:28

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

From the Research Co "exit poll"

quote:

Practically half of Canadian voters (49%) say they voted for the candidate in their riding who had the best chance of defeating a party they disliked, even if the candidate they voted for was not their first preference.

I knew that strategic voting was a thing, but goddamn ~50%? Holy poo poo the system is broken.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2021 01:55

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Instead of trying to tackle climate change using an obvious direct method like um, building more housing in walkable, transit oriented areas, City of Vancouver is bringing in expensive parking passes for owners of ICE vehicles city wide.

https://twitter.com/fabulavancouver/status/1443259602766680072?s=20

These $500/$1000 parking passes only apply to new 2022 vehicles, so the bulk of people aren't gonna get dinged by this. Tbh I can't see too many at all getting dinged by this, as someone that is buying a brand new car most likely has somewhere covered to park it.

Lol as if that $3 per night overnight charge is ever gonna be charged to anyone.

Like sure fine I guess, let's raise more revenue to put toward climate action (which is where the revenue from this is going, car chargers etc), but the whole thing seems wildly performative to me. The real people that will be raising the revenue here are regular folks now paying $45 that were paying $0 before.

Biggest impact will be that some households finally get around to using their garage for car storage instead of junk storage, to get off the street and not have to pay, which seems like a good thing.

Femtosecond fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Sep 29, 2021

# ¿ Sep 29, 2021 20:17

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

but but that's provincial jurisdiction, so the proper thing for the PM to do is sit around and watch things get worse.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2021 01:15

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

Quebec Investor Immigrant Program was a major back door. Plenty of wealthy used this and immediately moved to Vancouver and Toronto.

quote:

The data, which includes both primary and secondary applicants, showed that 57,935 investor immigrants who came through Quebec were living in Canada as of 2016.

Nearly 28,000 of them (48.3 per cent) were living in B.C., while almost 22,000 (37.9 per cent) were in Ontario.

Only 6,050 investor immigrants who came through Quebec (10.4 per cent) were living in the province at that time.

We now also know that there was heaps of tax evasion related to this as people bought property while also claiming poverty level incomes.

IMO though seems like the more significant source of wealth distorting local real estate markets likely came from Canadian permanent residents in Hong Kong (of which there are hundreds of thousands) simply buying Vancouver/Toronto condos as investments just the same as locals do. It makes perfect sense why they'd do so, as real estate in Hong Kong is even more expensive than real estate in Vancouver.

I agree that the foreign buyer boogie man has been dramatically overstated as an explanation for Vancouver's housing woes, though I do think we can say that it was having some sort of impact on the housing market. We know this because as soon as the BC NDP's Speculation tax was brought in, which made having an empty pied a terre property enormously more costly, suddenly overnight several major condo projects changed into being purpose built rental projects. From this we can discern that developers knew that there was a significant part of the condo buyer market that was oriented toward buying pied a terres, and significant enough that creating a condo product in the absence of that market no longer made financial sense.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2021 19:31

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 16:29

Femtosecond: Aug 2, 2003

I feel like this is the beginning of a nightmare scenario where Ontario Libs somehow are able to ram through ranked ballots, and the public conversation across the country around "electoral reform" shifts from being about PR vs FPTP to instead being about Ranked Ballots vs FPTP (a win/win situation for the Liberals).

Accordingly the entire "electoral reform" activist movement is extinguished for a generation (or forever) as Canadians are told that ranked ballots are "better than nothing" and the Fed Libs finally successfully implement Ranked Ballots and bring about a return of alternating Red/Blue Majorities instead of the permanent minority governments that we've been trending toward.

https://twitter.com/robertbenzie/status/1449086957578067972

# ¿ Oct 16, 2021 00:19

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