Cohen said Trump’s bluster and brow-beating should not be taken seriously. “My advice to my Canadian friends is: Don’t give him the pleasure of getting upset.”
Fuck that.
I’m staying upset and I’m channeling all that upsettedness into doing my damnedest to defend my country and push me out of my comfort zone.
I’m channeling it into optimism and hope for the Canada we can build together after we kick our dependence on the Americans to the curb.
I deeply appreciate that you took the response in the context it was meant. The medium of text is hard sometimes and when I see a rant emerging from my passion I worry that it can be misconstrued.
The NDP had to work with what they had. Having never had a majority, they couldn't pass any of their bills. I can bet my top dollar that they would have done something about the bread price fixing, about the price gouging at the groceries, about minimum wage employees not getting any reward for working and keeping stores open for the public during a gobal pandemic.
This is a specific area of complaint that I have with Singh. Because this area is a no-brainer win for them but they played it so incredibly centrist.
What we need from the food security issue — people not being able to afford food — is actual change. Trudeau and Singh were very happy to bring up the CEOs to lecture them on how mean they were, but this was a PR stunt not actual change.
In this case I believe there are two approaches that make sense. One would be to use a market-oriented approach and use competition laws to break up monopolists and prevent mergers and ensure that regulations do not stifle new entrants.
The other approach would be to have the government to use the grain that we grow in Canada and hire Canadians to bake that into bread and sell the bread at a break-even rate. And not just for bread, any type of essential food product that the market is failing to deliver. Like a national scale Farmers Market.
But the NDP doesn’t propose that they propose price caps. Price caps betray a fundamentally ignorant understanding of how markets work, and could cause real harm from food shortages.
However I am convinced from reading Carney’s book that he understands the market-oriented solution I outlined earlier. I have not seen specifics on his plan in this area but I am confident that he knows what a good market-oriented plan would be.
But this is why I say that I want the NDP (and hell even the CPC if I’m dreaming) to put out better alternatives. Because if Carney is elected and fails on this we need to jettison him and replace him wiry someone who can deliver results. Becuse results is what we need.
They also would like to implement better tax laws so wealthy people pay their fair share.
Agreed. Specifically I believe a land value tax and other wealth tax, along with a crackdown on tax havens is absolutely needed. The NDP should begin and end every speech on this point and hell use it as a comma.
Yeah what you suggested is pretty darn radical. Seizing properties and things like that is too much. This will scare away any foreign business that wants to establish themselves here and chase away much needed jobs and investments.
This is a good point and you’re absolutely correct that we need to ensure that overly punitive measures don’t scare away new entrants either domestic or foreign.
So yeah seizing a company should not be the first resort but it should be on the table for cases of extreme and persistent corruption. And maybe that wouldn’t be the favourite on Bay Street but I can imagine the general public being on board for this.
Because people are genuinely sick of the status quo. I can’t prove this but in my head canon, if this election was Charlie Angus vs JT vs PP, I think the LPC would be wiped off the map and the NDP would have a real shot at winning. Maybe that’s a stupid thing to believe, I’m not a pollster but that’s the energy I get from talking with my friends and family and acquaintances.
You made many other good points but I have to leave it at that for now. I appreciate your perspective.
For sure but I want to be explicit they are only right by coincidence.
As I said, I don’t believe cons are saying this from a place of good intentions. So I agree with that. Yes, the complaints are hypocritical.
But I also don’t think it’s at all funny to joke about how the Chinese government puts a bounty on our people. In our own country! This is a real thing that is happening to real people.
That said, I’m wiling to hear out the full context on it. I can’t imagine a context that would make it okay, but there are lots of things I can’t imagine. But as it stands with the context I’m aware of it’s completely unacceptable.
So it’s not about agreeing with the conservatives or not. I don’t. I’m literally going door-knocking in a few hours to help get the vote out to ensure they do not win. A friend of mine who is rather old is volunteering in Carleton trying to unseat PP and I donated heavily to that riding in order to support them.
But also, I do not accept that we should allow our candidates from any party to make light of the abuses that the Chinese government is heaping on Canadians. Even candidates from a party I explicitly am supporting .
“Schadenfreude” would be a great name for a roller coaster
An obscenely rich asshole — one who is currently dismantling the democratic institutions of a country where many my friends and family live — is asking who derives joy from his company collapsing around him.
The answer to his question is… us. We do. The punchline is that the people taking joy in his self-inflicted failure are the entirety of his former customer base and beyond.
When I posted this in bsky last night it found some extremely modest virality so I thought some folks here might enjoy as well.
The Conservatives are not doing this to stand up on principle against China or stand with Chinese Canadians. They are doing this to help them win a seat, and to embarrass Carney to help win them seats elsewhere. Period.
This candidate should resign or be involuntarily replaced. This should not be considered a partisan issues, because while I am supporting the liberals in this election these types of vile “jokes” are unacceptable.
Vendors are not out there for fun, they sell goods for profit.
Price caps on groceries will result in either the companies hiding profits upstream; or food shortages. We don’t need feel good economics policies that do nothing at best and harm at worst.
This is irresponsibly dangerous policy. The socialist response to market failure should be providing a government alternative for food distribution if the market fails. To heavily fine and break up or disband the companies which cheat and steal.
We deserve better, do better
Instead of and not in addition to? Hell yes.
Please send them a message of support for doing this
I like your idea of setting self goals with a built-in reminder system. This is a mindset I’ve been trying to adopt more in my life and it’s been very successful when applied.
However I also want to counterbalance that against an impact of replacing my existing device which is not compatible with those and is a perfectly usable machine. Particularly because of the costs and the waste from upgrading devices before it’s needed.
But maybe I’m under-thinking this because of inertial and it just being easy to punt it to another day. I could sell my current device and buy a used compatible device and this wouldn’t be an excessive cost nor generation of electronic waste
Thank you for the push.
I’ve used Linux since 1996, so that doesn’t bother me in the slightest
I should have mentioned that but I’m a bit self-conscious about being the “I use arch btw” people. Even though I do use Arch, btw.
Why do you feel pollution per km is an appropriate metric?