MyBrainHurts

Sorry, I seriously disagree with about all of this.

Inequality is what gives the ultra-wealthy their outsized influence in the political economy.

This is about Canadian politics. We have strict rules and limits on donations, advertising and support. Like anything, could probably be better but it's a pretty fair balance.

the government can issue currency essentially at will.

Apologies but this is childishly ignorant. Look to most countries in South America about the consequences of doing so. Inflation is very real and reducing the value of the Canadian dollar hurts those who can afford it least.

Taxes aren’t there to fund services. They exist to reduce inequality.

Absolutely not. Being equally poor without teachers, doctors, roads, defence, I mean my God.

tax the billionaires

We do. You let me know how much you think we do currently, how much more you would like.

And if they leave: we’re better off that way too!

Who needs hospitals, schools, emergency responders etc anyway? At least we won't have dumb ol' rich people anymore!

I remain unconvinced that cuts for austerity purposes are ultimately beneficial, raise taxes on the ultra wealthy instead

never said they would be the sole solution lol.

Okay, so if we're admitting your first plan of tax the wealthy is a little myopic here, which tax breaks are you considering removing? And how will this stop those businesses from instead, setting up shop in a lower tax, lower regulation, larger single market like Americas?

I’d rather not be kissing his ass at all.

How many people should lose their jobs because of your sense of pride? Just curious.

Google won’t leave Canada if we enforce our laws because there are millions of Canadians and they would still make criminal amounts of money.

Read what I wrote about the digital services tax. The concern was not that Google would leave.

And this is why it’s so hard to take centrists seriously

He just descends into mindless sloganning again. Everything I've said can be backed up, whereas your thoughts aren't even consistent in this single thread!

Yeah, I really wonder if it'll be a whipped vote. Part of me wonders if that's why whats-his-name crossed the floor. If they let it be a free vote, then anyone can abstain as they see fit.

Probably have to wait and see some polling on the budget but from casual conversations/reactions, it seems pretty rocking.

Honestly, I wonder how much of that last election loss was just we hated that guy so much. If I remember correctly, there was a yawning chasm between "approval for the Conservative party" and "approval for Poilievre."

But, there's so much in this budget for almost everyone that last month aside, I'd still happily put Carney out there blasting Conservatives for wasting Canadians time etc. But we'll see how it all plays out!

To each their own.

Edit: removed personal details.

If you know anyone who works in government or a quasi governmental agency, they will tell you horror stories of colleagues who couldn't be removed but couldn't be arsed to do anything over the bare minimum (like being sober, showing up and handling at least one file a day.)

There has to be something in between the nihilistic conservative "burn it all down, no more bureaucracy!" and the opposite "every government employee is sacred!" I think a slow reduction through attrition and buyouts seems pretty reasonable and gives enough time to actually find efficiencies and innovations.

removing the carbon cap saying that investments in several sectors would reduce the emissions anyway. A lot of wishful thinking on the budget text, or on the worst case mental gymnastics malice.

A lot of this is through keeping and raising a carbon tax. That makes companies find the most efficient ways to reduce their footprints, rather than the government mandating it for each group. This is the approach favoured by most serious economists and think groups about reducing emissions quickly.

without details what kind of investment they are putting money in

You can look at the "nation building" projects, which include a massive wind farm (green as hell) and a nuclear plant (fairly clean, significantly better than say, oil or gas.)

Okay, but the person to whom I'm responding wanted to save money by taxing them. So, what services would you cut to be rid of the people who are paying for those services?

Good riddance they are a plague. Make them pay their taxes before they leave.

Ummm, did you forget you propsed they would be the solution to our budget woes? Or are you not old enough to pay taxes and don't realize we do those on an annual basis? (Putting aside the fact that most billionaires don't earn it on taxed wages but more that they own unsold stock.)

We are paying more, but guess what bowing down to trump has left us where exactly?

One of the best tarrif rates in the world?

Fucking nationalize shit if they play that game.

Dafuq? You're saying nationalize google?

Jesus though, this is why it can be so hard to take progressives seriously. This is just mindless slogan yelling with zero thought.

Those are two very different parts. Dealing with the American shitstorm is approached with enhanced trade routes etc. You might look at the broad overview here: https://budget.canada.ca/2025/report-rapport/chap1-en.html

On the greener path, sure, there's a new nuclear plant, carbon capture (not my ideal but probably a reasonable compromise with our oil dependent provinces) Wind West Atlantic and of course, holding onto the industrial carbon price. (The only realistic non Liberal government would be the Conservatives who have been opposed to that since inception.)

there are parts I’d like more of

If I had my magic wand, I'd probably like more green projects, probably some higher wealth taxes though disentangling those from capital investment is tricky etc. I'd also like to keep expanding the national daycare program.

other[s] of which I’d like less

Personally, I'm not entirely sold on a massive military budget buuuuuuuuut, I'm not wildly opposed. There are a few tax cuts that I think are a little silly (luxury jets seems fucking dumb. I hope they catch that somewhere else) and frankly, I didn't love the gigantic tax cut at the beginning, though I'm in a pretty privileged position etc.

the public service exists to serve the public, cutting the workforce ends up reducing services.

But what services did we get with our ridiculous expansion of the public service over the last four years?

charge Google for the billions that we were supposed to get before Carney bowed down to trump.

If memory serves, the tax in total, wad supposed to bring in 2 billion. We are paying an order of magnitude more than that to deal with tarrifs affected industries. It seems pretty reasonable to assume something that hits trump's donors so precisely would elicit a reaction that would cost us much more than we brought in.

I’d say tax the billionaires

Sure, I'd like to as well. But there are I think less than 100 billionaires in Canada. Say we could soak them for even another 100 million a year each (which would be extraordinary and almost require some wild changes to the tax code because of the nature of their wealth, but let's put those complications to the side.) Groovy. Until what, 1 in 10 decide it's worth that 100 million plus the existing difference to move to the States or elsewhere. It's a tricky balance and I've yet to see any of our populist "just tax the rich!" really show their math.

Edit: finished my thought after clicking accidentally.

If the Conservatives don’t make it happen, their party may just get its own chance to fail to pass their first budget very soon.

Ha, well put.

We'll see how it all shakes out but if I were the Liberals, I think I'd be itching for this fight and a pretty good chance at taking a majority government.

Maybe I'm discounting partisanship, but I can't imagine Canadians would be happy about another election with America attacking us. (Also, while obviously sample size/anecodatal doesn't count etc my 2 angry Conservative friends seemed pretty content with the budget.)

I think the Bloc has been adamantly opposed for months.

Possibly foolishly optimistic take incoming:

My guess/ferverent hope is that the NDP and Cons don't want another election so soon. The NDP can't afford it and I think the Conservatives wouldn't love the optics. There's also so much in there about protecting the Ontario areas where the Conservatives just made inroads + everyone still hates PP, you have to think an election would be a loser for them.

So, bold prediction/prayer, Cons n NDP allow a free vote with abstentions so they don't have to vote for it but also don't have to trigger an election.