CanPol Megathread: Big Changus

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Blood Boils: Dec 27, 2006; Its not an S, on my planet it means QUIPS

I liked his Wisers commercial

# ? Jan 1, 2019 19:33

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 4, 2024 02:52

Yellow Ant: Feb 28, 2016

Happy New Year, everyone!

Worried about the left movement in Canada? Worry no more! There is a musical on the birth of Canada�s union rights coming out in 2019. And I will do my part in pushing the left pro labour agenda by sharing Canadian Labour Congress, Progress Canada, and anti-pipeline posts to passive-aggressively annoy my friends and family.

https://youtu.be/5JllrjJ_XpQ

https://www.facebook.com/100637830002335/posts/2056570651075700/

🎶 Auld Lang Syn... 🎶

# ? Jan 1, 2019 19:36

Pinterest Mom: Jun 9, 2009

hny

https://twitter.com/M_Ignatieff/status/1079786521681629184

# ? Jan 1, 2019 19:57

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

Pinterest Mom posted:

hny

https://twitter.com/M_Ignatieff/status/1079786521681629184

Its amazing how even now he still manages to stand out as the worst leader the Liberals have had in my lifetime. Maybe longer.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 20:26

Hand Knit: Oct 24, 2005; Beer Loses more than a game Sunday ...
We lost our Captain, our Teammate, our Friend Kelly Calabro...
Rest in Peace my friend you will be greatly missed..

Pinterest Mom posted:

hny

https://twitter.com/M_Ignatieff/status/1079786521681629184

my own beloved photographer

# ? Jan 1, 2019 21:18

vincentpricesboner: Sep 3, 2006; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Furnaceface posted:

Its amazing how even now he still manages to stand out as the worst leader the Liberals have had in my lifetime. Maybe longer.

Dion was pretty close. If Trudeau Jr didnt finally do the pot thing he would be up there too.

Is there someway we can make Chretien or Martin get back into politics?

# ? Jan 1, 2019 21:31

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Pinterest Mom posted:

hny

https://twitter.com/M_Ignatieff/status/1079786521681629184

the most canadian response

https://twitter.com/paula_daoust/status/1079810466191474689

# ? Jan 1, 2019 21:34

PT6A: Jan 5, 2006; Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

I dislike Dion a lot, as is known, but no loving way in hell he was worse than Ignatieff.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 21:35

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Furnaceface posted:

Its amazing how even now he still manages to stand out as the worst leader the Liberals have had in my lifetime. Maybe longer.

Chretien and Martin did more to hurt people living on the margins of society than probably any other national leaders have done done the establishment of the residential school system. Anyone here who do didn't like Harper but fondly remembers Chretien and Martin is deeply confused.

If you're measurement of leadership is "how many people's lives got worse because of this government" then Chretien and Martin have gotta be at the top of the list at least in terms of the lifespans of most posters in this thread.

zapplez posted:

Dion was pretty close. If Trudeau Jr didnt finally do the pot thing he would be up there too.

Is there someway we can make Chretien or Martin get back into politics?

I too am really nostalgic for the government that eliminated a national standard for welfare and cut federal program spending for housing, healthcare and the like by billions and billions of dollars that were then redirected into taxcuts for rich people an corporations.

PT6A posted:

I dislike Dion a lot, as is known, but no loving way in hell he was worse than Ignatieff.

How is Ignatieff meaningfully different from Trudeau?

# ? Jan 1, 2019 22:00

BGrifter: Mar 16, 2007; Winner of Something Awful PS5 thread's Posting Excellence Award June 2022

Congratulations!

It�s really tough to pick a best Liberal leader of my lifetime but I�m leaning toward giving Iggy the nod. He drat near killed the party, which is more than any other Liberal leader has ever done for me.

Only other possibility is Dion for playing footsie with the idea of a coalition government I guess?

# ? Jan 1, 2019 22:04

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

quote:

Canada�s Harsh �Austerity� Policies Started with Liberals

Don�t make Harper the face of slashed supports for workers. It�s a two-decade tradition.

By Michal Rozworski 25 Aug 2015 | TheTyee.ca

The campaigning Stephen Harper boasts that his tough austerity policies saved the Canadian economy. Lost in the rhetoric are two important facts. As most economists will tell you today, austerity measures are lousy ways to expand jobs and investment. And Harper�s Conservatives were just carrying on the work of their austerity embracing Liberal predecessors.

In his 1994 budget speech, Paul Martin -- then Canada�s finance minister, later the prime minister -- encapsulated the Liberal message:

�It is now time for government to get its fiscal house in order. For years, governments have been promising more than they can deliver, and delivering more than they can afford. That has to end. We are ending it...Over the next three years, for every one dollar raised in new revenues we will cut five dollars in government expenditures.�

The subsequent austerity drive was one of the most severe in the global north, and remains the foundation for the right�s strategy of death by a thousand cuts carried on by Harper Conservatives.

CANADA�S RUN-UP TO AUSTERITY

The economic environment the Liberals inherited when elected in 1993 was a product of the tight monetary policy carried out in the late �80s. Modeled after Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker�s high-interest approach during the early Reagan years, it was intended not only to dramatically cut inflation, but to restore power to capital. Unemployment jumped from seven per cent to 11 per cent. What�s more, the public debt accumulated during the elevated interest rate era, as well as during the 1990�92 recession, provided a pretext to reshape Canada�s public sector.

A consensus developed that economic and employment growth on their own would not be enough to get Canada out of the recession. On the other hand, the Liberal experts were not in favour of the restrictive zero-inflation experiments that briefly held influence in the Conservative Party. Thus, monetary policy could be loosened, but the screws would have to be put to fiscal policy in order to make Canada more �competitive� -- in other words, to make labor more pliant.

The monetary loosening that followed the early �90s recession pushed interest rates downward and spurred lagging investment and profits. Low rates also meant the Canadian dollar depreciated against its US counterpart, jumpstarting a lagging export sector. Both profits and investment rose as a percentage of GDP through the late �90s and 2000s, all the way up to the 2008�9 crisis. -- M.R.

Taking this longer view of the political economy of Canadian austerity -- and the nature of Harper�s conservatism -- isn�t just crucial to making sense of the present. It provides more stable ground to fight for a less austere future.

The first round of Liberal cutbacks were quick and deep. A greater share of government expenditures redirected towards debt repayment created additional false scarcity of funds for direct spending. Spending on federal government programs and transfers to provinces, cities, and individuals fell by over five per cent of GDP from 1993 to the turn of the millennium. Spending growth did not just slow: absolute expenditures decreased.

Reduced fiscal transfers to provinces put the squeeze on local governments. Since the 1990s, Canada has seen provincial governments -- not just governed by Liberals and Conservatives, but also by New Democrats -- impose austerity further down the line. Since provinces are responsible for many basics like health, education, and welfare benefits, shrinking transfers have further eroded the working class�s social wage. Privatizations, workfare schemes, tuition increases -- all were applied (unevenly) across the country.

Overall, the sharp turn to austerity created a more punitive welfare state. While Canada�s economic growth in the mid to late �90s fed off that in the U.S., the character of its reforms was also in line with the Clintonite agenda. There was a similar push to create conditions for business expansion even less encumbered by working class demands. A major strategy was an attack on the social wage -- public spending on goods, services and income supports for people in Canada.

Depressed wages, rising personal debt

One major social program that is the responsibility of Canada�s federal government -- and provides a good example of the transformations wrought by austerity -- is unemployment insurance.

The Liberals ate into the real value of benefits and made eligibility requirements more restrictive. While just over 80 per cent of Canada�s unemployed received jobless benefits during the early 1990s, this percentage fell to about 45 per cent by the early 2000s. Most unemployed workers no longer received any benefits. Alongside curtailed access, the dollar amounts of benefits were frozen, making them more difficult to survive on with each passing year.

When workers know they are less likely to get state support, they are also less willing to go out on a limb to demand wage increases, form a union, or otherwise try to better their working conditions. Changes to unemployment insurance were part of a reorientation towards more flexible labour markets and a lower social wage. Business was helped directly, too: their unemployment insurance contributions fell by over a third.

The OECD�s measure of real unit labor costs grew at an average rate of just 0.5 per cent per year between 1993 and 1999 and 2.1 per cent in the first decade of the 2000s, both down from an average of 6.6 per cent over the previous two decades.

Decreased labour costs were reflected in stagnant real wages for most workers throughout the �90s and 2000s. The depreciating Canadian dollar further cut into wages with higher prices for imported consumption goods. Finally, the social wage provided by public programs and transfers fell under Martin�s austerity budgets.

How was austerity mitigated once the �90s boom ran out of steam? In short, debt and housing wealth. The fall in government borrowing as a result of Liberal deficit-fighting was offset by a rise in household borrowing, reducing the public debt but increasing private debts. (Rolling back the welfare state means more people borrow to stay afloat and spend more on basic services.)

Divisive housing boom

As in many parts of the world, including the U.S. and the U.K., Canada�s housing sector took off after the 2000 bust. This divided the working class. For those who owned homes, housing became a crutch, a valuable asset to borrow against or downsize, making up for the lower social wage and stagnant incomes left after the �90s expansion. For those who did not own a home, rising prices and rents became a further source of daily struggle.

The federal Liberal governments of the 1990s ended the mission of directly providing public housing, capping funding and offloading responsibilities onto Canada�s provincial governments. The number of new units of social housing built sunk from around 20,000 in 1993 to under 2,000 in 1998.

New financial products were the wave of the future to which the Liberals harnessed their housing strategy. This included the commercialization of the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation, greater access to mortgage finance, and increased competition. All of these moves helped lay the foundation for the coming rise in housing prices and greater working-class stratification.

At the same time, those whose private wealth multiplied and ended up on the �winning� side of the housing disparity could be convinced to support austerity policies, even as that same austerity ate away at shared public wealth.

Interestingly, while the acceleration in house prices and personal indebtedness was similar in Canada to that in the U.S. and the U.K., Canada did not implement the same degree of financial deregulation. Without the economic and political clout of a big financial centre like New York City or London, Canadian regulators were able to exercise some control over the financial sector, while still allowing for a stable and very profitable banking oligopoly.

House prices, asset values, and debt levels continue to climb in Canada with only a small hiccup during the 2008�9 global crisis. Since 2000, growth in the value of housing assets has consistently outpaced the growth of the economy.

But rather than idly speculate how big Canada�s housing bubble is and when it will burst, it�s far more interesting to further explore the role played by housing in sustaining Canadian austerity and to consider its effect on a possible broad-based working class politics.

Myth of �expansionary austerity�

The 1990s in Canada are often held up as an example of �expansionary austerity� -- austerity that is not only accompanied by but also causes growth. If this sounds a bit nuts, it is. In fact, even economists from the International Monetary Fund have thoroughly debunked the idea: growth that occurs during most bouts of �expansionary austerity,� including Canada during the Liberal-led �90s, would happened anyway.

Indeed, crediting austerity for sparking Canada�s 1990s growth ignores several factors: first, Canada benefited from strong U.S. expansion, especially given the strength of export growth; greater integration through NAFTA only solidified how closely Canada followed the U.S. boom of the mid- to late �90s. Second, fiscal austerity was accompanied by an aggressive monetary loosening that resulted in low interest rates and a depreciation of the exchange rate; alongside more flexible labor policies, these improved profits, investment, and growth. Resource booms also played a role in driving wage growth and reducing unemployment in some regions.

But hawkers of austerity around the world continue to cite 1990s Canada as model case. Within Canada itself, the �90s is still mythologized, especially when all the major parties engage in the �fiscal stewardship� game during election campaigns.

Around 2000, the Liberals switched their focus to returning the �fruits of austerity� to the public, and the Conservatives continued this practice. While working-class incomes were padded to soften the blow of a falling social wage, the gains went disproportionately to the wealthy: there were tax reductions across the board, including cuts to taxes on corporations, top incomes, and capital gains. Between 1993 and 2011, after-tax incomes for the top quintile grew three times as quickly as they did for the bottom quintile (and nearly twice as quickly as the middle quintiles).

At the same time that politicians shifted to cutting taxes, the spending to GDP ratio stabilized: it is comparable today to what it was in 2000. Similarly, per capita federal government transfers to individuals (pensions, unemployment benefits, child benefits) in real terms are today just below the high point that occurred right before the Liberals came to power.

The making of a consensus

The austerity implemented by the Liberals, starting with the 1994 budget, helped shift the political consensus sharply to the right. The Conservatives, riding a wave of public resentment against the Liberals due to corruption scandals, were first elected to a minority government in 2006. After five years of governing with the tacit support of the Liberals, the Conservative Party finally gained a majority in 2011.

Austerity under Stephen Harper is less interesting, partly because the task has been easier. The Conservatives have been happy to keep the ship sailing in the same direction. Far more striking is how easily the party was able to implement a short bout of Keynesian countercyclical policy in the immediate aftermath of the 2008�9 crisis.

The austerity consensus was strong enough that, given the risks to the incomes and assets of the capitalist class, a spike in public spending (largely on one-off projects) was brought in without significant opposition from elites. In a way, this only shows how neoliberalism has no new ideas for dealing with the crises it creates, resorting to Keynesian remedies that are abandoned once accumulation is reassured.

As Canada�s financial sector survived, commodity prices continued to boom, and global contagion was limited by the efforts of central banks, the Conservative expansionary program proved to be extremely short term, largely confined to one budget cycle. Elites gambled that they didn�t have to worry about a temporary increase becoming the seed of something larger, and they were right -- the year after the stimulus was passed, the Conservatives were returned with a majority and spending fell back to record lows. Canada�s austerity had shown itself adaptable to circumstances.

Slow motion austerity

Since the crisis, the Conservatives have returned to the pattern of slow motion austerity, most recently paying out dividends to elites via additional tax cuts and regulatory changes that further distribute gains to top income earners.

Political opposition is slowly rebuilding, but the working class remains weak and largely unorganized. There are divisions between public and private sector workers, between those who have gained from housing wealth and those who haven�t, between an older organized base and new generations of low-wage service workers who have never known a higher social wage.

Meanwhile, austerity complemented and bolstered profit margins for two decades, punctuated only by the two most recent crises in 2000 and 2008�9. Profit rates recovered quickly from the bottom of the 1990�92 recession, bouncing back to their pre-recession high within a few short years.

They haven�t really looked back since, despite the changing fortunes of the U.S. economy and a significant period of Canadian dollar appreciation in the 2000s. One important change, however, is that economic growth and attendant profit growth in Canada after 2000 has been driven much more by domestic consumption than by exports. To what extent this may be a source of future weakness remains to be seen.

Today, the electoral arena is composed of parties broadly committed to cutting spending over raising revenues, continued austerity over any significant move to expand the social wage, and capital over workers. The Conservatives have been able to escape strong critique because of the lack of organization in the face of this consensus on austerity. They are once again the favoured party of elites, retaking the crown of the largest recipient of political contributions from the Liberals.

The Conservatives have also deftly exploited social fault lines. They have stoked fear to chip away at civil liberties, played to their right-wing base by scapegoating migrant workers and attacking environmentalists.

It bears repeating that neoliberalism doesn�t just mean that state expenditures are cut -- austerity is aimed at specific expenditures and particular groups. Alongside the cuts to the social wage, some state spending has been redirected. The Conservatives have increased spending on the military and the security apparatus. War and terrorism have been used to increase the size of security and surveillance forces and divert attention from domestic political economy when convenient. And public investment is increasingly beholden to private management and capture, in particular through the use of �public-private partnerships.�

Depersonalizing politics

In the same way that Harper is not the source of everything wrong with Canada today, Martin was not the source of the pain of austerity during the 1990s. It�s time to depersonalize our politics and return to political economy. While both Martin and Harper undoubtedly left a personal mark, they are both part of larger and longer shifts in economic and political power.

The Canadian experience is unique in its particulars, but also representative of much that has transpired in the United States and elsewhere. An austerity consensus carries the day. It is hard to imagine sizeable increases in social spending. When they are made, promises that might benefit the many and return some of the lost social wage to the broad majority of workers have to be bought off with new concessions to the few.

There is now more than one generation that has grown up with austerity and little else. Despite, or perhaps because of this, the youngest generation today is more inclined towards left politics than any other. Yet the space for even modest social-democratic politics has rarely been narrower. This opening and closure exist side-by-side in contradiction. To make the contradiction a productive one, we need an honest appraisal of political forces and how power operates: a political economy of the present.

Upon this foundation, we can create a political space that rekindles the imagination -- one that has less risk of falling into a mythologized, and wholly false, vision of the 1990s. Going back further, we also need to come up with more than simple nostalgia for the postwar prosperity, whose contradictions created the lumbering monster that still chews at our horizons.

Stopping and reversing austerity in Canada, as anywhere, requires an honest assessment of the forces allied in its favour. A consensus that has emerged over decades will not be broken easily. While putting a single man�s face to it may be useful to start the conversation, we will need to go further, examining the systemic challenges that prevent a parting with austerity -- whether the slow-simmering kind Canadians are now experiencing, or sharper variants.

Really great leadership by the Liberals cutting and raising eligibility requirements for practically every form of support for poor people while cutting taxes on income and capital gains and presiding over the origins of our asset-bubble driven consumer spending.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 22:09

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Best Liberal leader of our lifetimes was probably Tom Mulcair.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 22:10

ChairMaster: Aug 22, 2009; by R. Guyovich

I don't know how many more times you're going to have to explain that the Liberals are literally the same thing as the Conservatives in almost every way before anyone in this thread understands it, dude.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 22:37

Furnaceface: Oct 21, 2004

Helsing posted:

Chretien and Martin did more to hurt people living on the margins of society than probably any other national leaders have done done the establishment of the residential school system. Anyone here who do didn't like Harper but fondly remembers Chretien and Martin is deeply confused.

If you're measurement of leadership is "how many people's lives got worse because of this government" then Chretien and Martin have gotta be at the top of the list at least in terms of the lifespans of most posters in this thread.

I too am really nostalgic for the government that eliminated a national standard for welfare and cut federal program spending for housing, healthcare and the like by billions and billions of dollars that were then redirected into taxcuts for rich people an corporations.

How is Ignatieff meaningfully different from Trudeau?

I meant in terms of damage to the party itself. I am very aware and have been very vocal about my hatred for Chretien and the magnitude to which he attacked the social safety net of the country. But our media has done a loving amazing job at painting over all that so his legacy will never be seen as harmful to the country or the party. Martin will get less praise and media attention and most likely stuffed into the closet of history to be forgotten despite all the lovely rollbacks on regulations he oversaw. He too wont be seen as hurting the party though.

ChairMaster posted:

I don't know how many more times you're going to have to explain that the Liberals are literally the same thing as the Conservatives in almost every way before anyone in this thread understands it, dude.

Most people here are well aware of the old "Campaign from the left, govern from the right." mantra the Liberals live by. Its just lost in todays toxic political climate. So much so that "slightly less lovely Conservatives" is apparently a bar too high for even our supposed left wing party to get over.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 23:14

vincentpricesboner: Sep 3, 2006; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

We've already had this argument like 10 times in this thread, but if you think Chretien and Martin were garbage PMs, I'd love to know what PMs you think were good in the past 20 or 30 years.

# ? Jan 1, 2019 23:15

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

zapplez posted:

We've already had this argument like 10 times in this thread, but if you think Chretien and Martin were garbage PMs, I'd love to know what PMs you think were good in the past 20 or 30 years.

I hate to break it to ya but Chretien started his decade long reign of terror very nearly 30 years ago, so that leaves a whopping slate of Kim Campbell or Mulroney to choose from.

:thunk:

# ? Jan 1, 2019 23:26

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

zapplez posted:

We've already had this argument like 10 times in this thread, but if you think Chretien and Martin were garbage PMs, I'd love to know what PMs you think were good in the past 20 or 30 years.

Two decades where inequality got worse, life got less affordable, jobs became more precarious, housing prices skyrocketed to unsustainable highs and we collectively decided to shrug off any serious action on the environment represents and I'm not even allowed to have a serious political opinion unless I can say something nice about one of the Prime Ministers who was in office during that time?

# ? Jan 1, 2019 23:44

RBC: Nov 23, 2007; IM STILL SPENDING MONEY FROM 1888

Pinterest Mom posted:

hny

https://twitter.com/M_Ignatieff/status/1079786521681629184

lol

# ? Jan 1, 2019 23:45

EvidenceBasedQuack: Aug 15, 2015; A rock has no detectable opinion about gravity

Helsing posted:

Two decades where inequality got worse, life got less affordable, jobs became more precarious, housing prices skyrocketed to unsustainable highs and we collectively decided to shrug off any serious action on the environment represents and I'm not even allowed to have a serious political opinion unless I can say something nice about one of the Prime Ministers who was in office during that time?

But you see the rich got richer
:capitalism:

Ugh. People remembering fondly the Chrétien/Martin austerity years make my skin crawl. Those years were difficult for my family and the future looked bleak.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:02

vincentpricesboner: Sep 3, 2006; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Someone has to be one of the better PMs since the 80s. Are we really saying Mulroney was the MVP? Or someone who wasn't even elected into office?

Some serious "no good president" poo poo going on. Reminds me of the uspol threads where people try to say that jfk and Clinton were bad presidents.

vincentpricesboner fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jan 2, 2019

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:22

ChairMaster: Aug 22, 2009; by R. Guyovich

zapplez posted:

Someone has to be one of the better PMs since the 80s.

Feel free to provide a single loving reason why. While you're at it go ahead and explain why you think this country is headed anywhere different from where America is now while you're doing so, and why you think that a lot of that poo poo didn't start in the 80s.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:25

RBC: Nov 23, 2007; IM STILL SPENDING MONEY FROM 1888

the only good pm is a dead one

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:28

BGrifter: Mar 16, 2007; Winner of Something Awful PS5 thread's Posting Excellence Award June 2022

Congratulations!

RBC posted:

the only good pm is a dead one

Even most of those were terrible.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:30

ChairMaster: Aug 22, 2009; by R. Guyovich

zapplez posted:

Reminds me of the uspol threads where people try to say that jfk and Clinton were bad presidents.

Jesus Christ, the guy who wanted to invade Cuba, backed a coup in Iraq, escalated in Vietnam, and didn't give a poo poo about civil rights and waited until his hand was forced is almost as good as the rapist who destroyed the American welfare system, ramped up mass incarceration, invented the banking system that destroyed the country's economy, and was only popular because he could play saxophone and cheated on his horrible wife.

It is in fact very possible for every American president to be bad, because America is a loving awful country whose leaders do not give a poo poo about it's people or the people of other nations, or of the world at large. They're the primary cause of the destruction of the loving world, you simple-minded child.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:44

ChairMaster: Aug 22, 2009; by R. Guyovich

ChairMaster posted:

It is in fact very possible for every American president to be bad, because America is a loving awful country whose leaders do not give a poo poo about it's people or the people of other nations, or of the world at large.

This part applies to Canada too, by the way.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:47

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

zapplez posted:

We've already had this argument like 10 times in this thread, but if you think Chretien and Martin were garbage PMs, I'd love to know what PMs you think were good in the past 20 or 30 years.

What are the good things Chretien and Martin did that made you think they were good PMs?

BGrifter posted:

It’s really tough to pick a best Liberal leader of my lifetime but I’m leaning toward giving Iggy the nod. He drat near killed the party, which is more than any other Liberal leader has ever done for me.

Only other possibility is Dion for playing footsie with the idea of a coalition government I guess?

Dion probably, for taking the environment seriously and being willing to form a coalition to oust Harper.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:48

The Butcher: Apr 20, 2005; Well, at least we tried.; Nap Ghost

RBC posted:

lol

Something something about the overly played up relationship between Canadian identity and the land and all.

But god drat. That there is a man who has never portaged a canoe in his life.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:49

Rime: Nov 2, 2011; by Games Forum

ChairMaster posted:

Jesus Christ, the guy who wanted to invade Cuba, backed a coup in Iraq, escalated in Vietnam, and didn't give a poo poo about civil rights and waited until his hand was forced is almost as good as the rapist who destroyed the American welfare system, ramped up mass incarceration, invented the banking system that destroyed the country's economy, and was only popular because he could play saxophone and cheated on his horrible wife.

It is in fact very possible for every American president to be bad, because America is a loving awful country whose leaders do not give a poo poo about it's people or the people of other nations, or of the world at large. They're the primary cause of the destruction of the loving world, you simple-minded child.

Blues & Greens.

Beware anyone unwilling or unable to admit that whomever they prefer may be filled with shitlords, and just parrot the populist messaging of their preferred team. These types and their voting patterns are why democracy has largely collapsed in the west.

See also: Obama.

Rime fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Jan 2, 2019

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:58

vincentpricesboner: Sep 3, 2006; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

vyelkin posted:

What are the good things Chretien and Martin did that made you think they were good PMs?

Dion probably, for taking the environment seriously and being willing to form a coalition to oust Harper.

Well for one I thought they were better than Harper or Mulroney or Trudeau Jr. When everything is subpar, there still has to be a best of a lovely bunch.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 00:59

Powershift: Nov 23, 2009

zapplez posted:

Well for one I thought they were better than Harper or Mulroney or Trudeau Jr. When everything is subpar, there still has to be a best of a lovely bunch.

pick your favorite STD

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:01

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

zapplez posted:

Well for one I thought they were better than Harper or Mulroney or Trudeau Jr. When everything is subpar, there still has to be a best of a lovely bunch.

What specific things did they do that were better?

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:04

Arabian Jesus: Feb 15, 2008; We've got the American Jesus
Bolstering national faith

We've got the American Jesus
Overwhelming millions every day

vyelkin posted:

What specific things did they do that were better?

Didn't get Canada involved in Iraq

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:13

Tochiazuma: Feb 16, 2007

zapplez posted:

Well for one I thought they were better than Harper or Mulroney or Trudeau Jr. When everything is subpar, there still has to be a best of a lovely bunch.

Yeah, but you used 'good' as a descriptor. Being the best of a bunch of shitheels still doesn't make you 'good'.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:24

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

vyelkin posted:

What specific things did they do that were better?

Legalized gay marriage

For all the Libs are just as bad as the Cons cynicism remember that the one place the conservatives are unequivocally worse is social justice.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:34

ChairMaster: Aug 22, 2009; by R. Guyovich

Being slightly better than the worst people in the world is nothing to brag about. You're letting them get away with atrocities as long as they play to your favorite particular social issue of the moment, even if they take years and years to do anything meaningful about it while actively loving over as many vulnerable people as they can.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:45

vincentpricesboner: Sep 3, 2006; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Tochiazuma posted:

Yeah, but you used 'good' as a descriptor. Being the best of a bunch of shitheels still doesn't make you 'good'.

Really depends how you use the English language. Like, whens the "best" time to get a flat tire?

Its kinda like how Canada is a pretty good country. Sure, we have 1000 problems, but when you compare this country to the rest in the world, we are definitely in that top 10%.

ChairMaster posted:

Being slightly better than the worst people in the world is nothing to brag about. You're letting them get away with atrocities as long as they play to your favorite particular social issue of the moment, even if they take years and years to do anything meaningful about it while actively loving over as many vulnerable people as they can.

I have no idea what Chretien did that was pandering to a social issue. Unless you count the Shawinigan Handshake, which was probably my fav political moment of the 90s.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:47

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

You can mostly thank the courts for same sex marriage in Canada. The Liberals were following the Supreme Court's instructions when they enacted the Civil Marriage Act.

Wikipedia posted:

Between 2002 and 2005, courts in several provinces and one territory ruled that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples constitutes a form of discrimination that is prohibited by Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and struck down the federal definition, requiring that those jurisdictions register same-sex marriages. The first ruling required the Federal Government to draft legislation recognizing same-sex marriage, but later rulings brought the new definition into effect immediately in the jurisdictions concerned. Canadian jurisdictions thereby became the third in the world to allow same-sex marriage, after the Netherlands and Belgium. By July 2005, same-sex marriages were legally recognized in all provinces and territories except Alberta, Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, encompassing over 85% of Canada's population of roughly 31 million people.

The Federal Government announced in the summer of 2003 that it would not appeal the decisions, and would draft legislation to allow same-sex marriages across the country. The bill was put before the Supreme Court of Canada to ensure that it would withstand a Charter challenge by those who oppose same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court heard arguments on the draft legislation in October 2004, and in December of the same year, declared the proposed definition of "marriage" as being consistent with respect to all matters referred to in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and as falling within the exclusive legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada.[47]

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:48

infernal machines: Oct 11, 2012; we monitor many frequencies. we listen always. came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. it played us a mighty dub.

I'm saying there's no need to be an absolute loving moron and ignore the ways the Conservatives are actively more harmful. The Liberals are bad both fiscally and socially, but they are by any objective measure less bad than the Conservatives.

Helsing posted:

You can mostly thank the courts for same sex marriage in Canada. The Liberals were following the Supreme Court's instructions when they enacted the Civil Marriage Act.

Again, the difference is they didn't fight it. There are still Conservatives that are to this day talking about repealing gay marriage.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:48

vincentpricesboner: Sep 3, 2006; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Helsing posted:

You can mostly thank the courts for same sex marriage in Canada. The Liberals were following the Supreme Court's instructions when they enacted the Civil Marriage Act.

Its still pretty disingenuous to say Libs and CPC are exactly the same degree of bad. Hell, you still have idiots that are sitting MPs for the CPCs that like to ponder about reopening the abortion debate.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:50

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# ? Jun 4, 2024 02:52

ChairMaster: Aug 22, 2009; by R. Guyovich

Wow no poo poo, it's almost like a dozen people have been saying "the Liberals are the same poo poo as the CPC except they pretend not to be racist, sexist, and homophobic" for years and years in this thread. You sure are proving a point contrary to that, or arguing with a person who definitely exists, and not just defending the second worst people around for no good loving reason at all.

# ? Jan 2, 2019 01:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > CanPol Megathread: Big Changus

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