EvilJoven posted:

The next 4 years are most likely going to be terribly unremarkable.

THC posted:

‘I spent two weeks being called a baby-killer’: Chris Alexander QQs about the campaign that cost him his job (w/ video)

“We’re still the party that sees reality as it is, doesn’t want to go on some hippy-trippy jaunt down memory lane and put marijuana in the windows of every store,” he said in an interview Tuesday on Ottawa’s Sparks Street.

“We’re trying to deal with the real issues that Canadians are facing. And we’ll continue to do that.”

The Liberals have promised to legalize and regulate pot but haven’t actually said it would be in the windows of every store.

And Alexander takes issue with the way his opponents characterized the Tories’ stance on immigrants and refugees, especially in the wake of a photo of three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi lifeless on a Turkish beach, which focused the world’s attention on a refugee crisis many feel Canada and other countries have failed to act on with urgency.

This scrutiny only increased when Kurdi’s Canadian aunt said she’d tried to get members of his family to Canada only to have them refused.

“I spent two weeks being called a baby-killer by other MPs and by people in the media. That was not pleasant.”

The Liberals and NDP took citizenship, immigration and refugee issues for “pretty unpleasant purposes,” Alexander charged.

“That’s the story that people insist on telling, that we are cold-hearted Conservatives, that we’ve never done the right thing. And it’s wrong,” said Alexander.

“We started bringing Syrian refugees to Canada on a large scale in January,” he said. “But nobody covered it. Somehow it became divisive that we hadn’t brought them all, by the middle of the campaign.”

Canada has resettled 2,500 Syrian refugees since 2013. Global News and other media organizations have been covering the issue extensively over the past two years.

Alexander predicts Liberal leader Justin Trudeau will have trouble following through on his promise to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year.

“Nothing’s impossible, but cost, safety, the operational standards for which Canada is renowned, are all issues,” he said.

“We have the best record in the world for refugee resettlement because we do it well. We meet certain standards. We check out who people are. We make sure human smugglers aren’t involved. We make sure identity theft isn’t involved. We make sure people are who they say they are. We make sure criminals don’t benefit from Canada’s generous refugee policies. When you start moving large numbers of people in short periods of time, all of that can be compromised.”

As Global News has reported, Canada doesn’t have the best record in the world on refugees, although we have taken in more than the United States. Advocates have argued there’s no reason Canada couldn’t bring in more people while maintaining security standards.

Alexander also takes issue with the campaign’s focus on new laws that gave him the authority to unilaterally strip dual citizens of their Canadian citizenship if they were found guilty of terrorism.

The Conservatives were accused of making it an election issue when they announced during the campaign their intention to strip the citizenship of people arrested on terror charges almost a decade ago. Justin Trudeau kept the issue in the headlines, repeating “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian” in his speeches and saying that the Conservative change was creating two classes of citizens – something that Alexander believes was a mischaracterization.

“Suddenly we ended up in a campaign talking about second-class citizens? That concept does not exist in Canadian law. It should not exist in public debate. We did not introduce it to the debate. When it was introduced by the party that’s now won the election, we didn’t counter it enough,” he said.

“We don’t have room in this country for poison like that and people deserve in an election to know what the law actually says, the protections they enjoy in this country, what opportunities they enjoy in this country compared to virtually every country in the world. But that failed to be communicated.”

vyelkin posted:

If Trudeau is smart, this is already the perfect spin for the story. "This is something Harper should have done ten years ago, but he didn't, and now we have to clean up his mess."

Psawhn posted:

I don't really drink alchohol, but it seems lots of CanPoli Goons talk about it lots, and I came across this article.

http://www.onbeer.org/2015/10/alberta-shifts-the-beer-playing-field/


So... is this bad because taxes? Good because local breweries? Or bad because local breweries are poo poo?

Jorghnassen posted:

Getting rid of it was not surprising in itself (it was profoundly stupid, but not surprising given Harper's policies), the baffling part was replacing it with a more expensive, less reliable survey.

vyelkin posted:

The way to tackle obesity is not to say "Buck up, fat people, you lazy slobs, and buy a gym membership!" It's to go to the source and regulate food producers to stop literally poisoning children in order to get them addicted to food that will slowly kill them.

Brannock posted:

Actually, yeah, you're not too far off there. Companies have been getting much, much better at designing processed foods that are difficult to stop eating. "Once you pop, you can't stop", right?

The other thing here is you're conflating population-level issues with personal-level issues. The solution to solve a population-wide problem is very rarely going to be the same solution to solve personal problems. Telling all of North America to suck it up, eat less, and move more isn't going to solve poo poo, but it will absolutely work for an individual as long as that individual is honest with themselves and honest in their effort to change.

Aagar posted:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rona-ambrose-will-support-inquiry-into-missing-murdered-indigenous-women-1.3308463

Excellent news, the now official opposition is totally on board to support an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women!

I am completely convinced that after a decade of actively trying to squash this, the CPC is now totally on board with getting to the bottom of this issue, and it is a breath of fresh air to see that they will support the LPC, even though the LPC has a majority and can order it even if Harper threatens to stand in the House topless.

Is this the new strategy then? Have every CPC MP come out and say that they were really progressive after all, but because of big, bad Harper they were all muzzled and couldn't speak the message that they wanted to promote? Not that I don't think there's a lot of truth to that, just that it seems a day late and a dollar short to try and jump on the bandwagon now. Also, it seems logical to conclude that if they actually were so vehemently opposed to Harper in spirit, why did they toady along instead of speaking out? Rather spineless "leaders" - who else would they kow-tow to if put into power again?

Helsing posted:

Government regulated weed sounds pretty awful. Decriminalization would be much more preferable.

Arabian Jesus posted:

Its almost like they say one thing during the campaign only to do something opposite once elected. Hmm...

Ikantski posted:

Maybe the increased tax on the 1%ers will cover the tax break for the 45k-125k people but we'll be borrowing money to give the tax break to the 125k-200k folks. Which seems a little silly, there are probably better things to borrow for. I don't think they announced details today though, they might still change implementation details?

Duck Rodgers posted:

It's too bad that minimum income is already being framed as a program only for 'the most impoverished.' In all likelihood we'll end up with a negative income tax that gives the Liberals the opportunity to cut all sorts of other social safety net programs. In fact that's how it already being framed:

DariusLikewise posted:

Except that this isn't a true Minimum Income plan that the Ontario Liberals are introducing. Its a top-up which still pretty much welfare for select people with a ton of bureaucracy.

Helsing posted:

The thing with minimum incomes is, in the immortal words of the philosopher Michael Ironside, "Something given has no value". It would be an inherently unstable political arrangement, especially in today's economically unbalanced society.

The old Fordist economy, which delivered relatively high wages and a modicum of economic stability to a broadly based 'middle class', was protected by a strong and politically active labour movement. When a significant degree of the workforce is unionized that has ripple effects on the rest of the economy, one of which is to create a relatively even balance of power between labour and capital. This is why it tooks decades of incremental change and local battles before the labour movement was effectively broken and forced onto an entirely defensive posture.

If you just pass a law giving people minimum incomes there's very little to stop the next government from coming in and changing the law again. The minimum income will raise labour costs and it will be a highly visible example of a progressive economic policy, something that most businesses would be opposed to as a matter of principle (few modern businessmen welcome new sources of non-market income for their workers).

Any kind of sustainable economic redistribution requires some kind of permanent institutional support system. You can't just pass a law and go home, you need to have some kind of social force that remains permanently in place to protect these policies from the inevitable backlash.

I don't believe that arguing for a minimum income based on efficiency is a particularly persuasive pitch. It's the kind of policy that requires (political) force, rather than gentle persuasion, to be enacted and then maintained. Arguing for it on primarily technocratic grounds misunderstands the political dynamic that is necessary to actually redistribute wealth. Social classes and groupings receive payouts from society that are commensurate to whatever they have the strength and organizational capacity to demand from the system.

Helsing posted:

Maybe. That's broadly how Healthcare has worked out: nobody will do more than minor tinkering with transfer payments because the program is so popular with the public. The truth is, though, that part of the reason healthcare is so succesful is that many of its beneficiaries (i.e. old people) are well organized and politically conscious.

My sense is that a minimum income would be much more vulnerable to political attacks though, in the way that welfare and employment insurance have been steadily reduced and diminished without provoking a sustained public outcry or backlash.

RBC posted:

Reading the judgement on ghomeshi is sad. The judge literally says that because the witness couldn't remember what kind of car ghomeshi drove, she can't be trusted to recall herself being sexually assaulted.

quote:

[16] After about half an hour Mr. Ghomeshi and L.R. left the pub. He drove her to her car that was parked a short distance away. L.R. had a clear and very specific recollection of his car being a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle. It struck her as being a "Disney car", a "Love Bug". She said she was impressed that he was not driving a Hummer or some such vehicle. The "Love Bug" car was significant to her because it contributed to her impression of his softness, his kindness and generally, that it was safe to be with him.

...

[35] One of L.R.'s clear memories was simply, and demonstrably, wrong. She testified at length about Mr. Ghomeshi's bright yellow Volkswagen "Love Bug" or "Disney car". This was a significant factor in her impression that Mr. Ghomeshi was a "charming" and nice person. However, I find as a fact that Mr. Ghomeshi did not acquire the Volkswagen Beetle that she described until seven months after the event she was remembering.
[36] In a case which turns entirely on the reliability of the evidence of the complainant, this otherwise, perhaps, innocuous error takes on greater significance. This was a central feature of her assessment of Mr. Ghomeshi as a "nice guy" and a safe date. Her description of his car was an important feature of her recollection of the first date. And yet we know that this memory is simply wrong. The impossibility of this memory makes one seriously question, what else might be honestly remembered by her and yet actually be equally wrong? This demonstrably false memory weighs in the balance against the general reliability of L.R.’s evidence as a whole.

quote:

The message for genuine sexual assault victims should be very reassuring.

Helsing posted:

A living income is a lot more expensive than most people seem to realize. It would involve a massive reworking of the government's fiscal framework to actually implement it, and most of the savings are based on the assumption that you'd eliminate other government programs. On its own the living income also doesn't protect against price increases that could rapidly eat into the gains of a living income.

Obviously on the most simplistic level it makes intuitive sense to fight poverty by giving people money. But it's a policy that seems to ignore political reality by trying to enact massive redistribution without changing the underlying power relations of the economy.

In the mid 20th century the labour movement and various organized groups of citizens were bulwarks supporting the creation and maintenance of the welfare state. Who is going to play that role if we implement a basic income? What constituency is going to exist to ensure that landlords don't gobble up all the extra money in the form of higher rents? What consituency is going to stop the next government from slashing the basic income (wouldn't that be a neat trick, Party A implements basic income and removes welfare, Party B gets elected five years later and cuts basic income in half without restoring welfare. A progressive policy just directly lead to the halving of a vulnerable population's income).

To be clear I've got nothing against a basic income in principle but I think it's been turned into something of a false idol for the left. The basic problem is that working people lack political power, and a narrow band of elites have way too much power. I don't believe you can solve anything without addressing that imbalance.

Helsing posted:

Helsing posted:

The Overton window doesn't just automatically shift when a new policy gets implemented. The actual process is a bit more muddled and confused in practice. For instance, support among American voters for social security or medicare is extremely high but many of these same voters have strongly anti-government views. They unironically declare "government hands off my medicare" and see no contradiction in demanding more government support for themselves despite bemoaning the welfare bums who continue to suck on the government's teat. Similarly I know guys in Canada who rant endlessly about overly generous government pensions but who love Canadian healthcare.
...
What I believe this thought exercise demonstrates is that developing, implementing and then defending a public policy is a really complicated endeavor. Yes, we need concrete and actionable goals, but we also need a theory of social change that will give us the strategic insight and tactical flexibility to actually win the inevitable political battles. It's not enough to have a policy that, in theory, solves the problem.

The implication of all this, in my mind, is not that basic income is a bad idea or an unworthy idea, but rather that in its current form it's an incomplete one. It's all well and good to say that it would be better if the government distributed wealth more evenly. What I'm saying is that actually implementing and defending a policy will be hard work.
...

This has been a long post so I'll wrap up here, but I have one final thought to add: history can be a helpful guide here. And my interpretation of history (which you're welcome to challenge if you've got some good counter examples) is that successful reforms come from the demands of social movements, typically demands that take decades to formulate and implement.

So, having typed that mountain of words, I'll just conclude by saying that basic income could be a good plank within a larger platform, but if its just a one-shot change to the current system that leaves the power relations of society untouched then I'm skeptical that it could 1) be implemented, 2) be maintained and 3) be at an adequate level to actually address the underlying problems.

quote:

I am broadly supportive of the concept of a basic income but I see it more as a starting point for a debate. In my opinion the left has been much too quick to sacrifice any kind of broadly based theoretical understanding of society or of how power operates in society. Ever since the intellectual and material collapse of Marxism the left has been really gunshy about actually theorizing society.

quote:

This is pretty ironic because if you look at the Democratic primary in the USA it seems like a big part of Bernie Sanders appeal is that he's offering a generalized critique of how money has corrupted politics rather than just proposing a list of reforms he'd implement.

Jan posted:

Sure, pretty much all genetic improvements that see their way to the public are done in a careful, controlled environment. But statistics being what they are, there's always the faint possibility that you're introducing a gene modification that's beneficial in most respects, but happens to interact with a different gene in such a way that causes it to drift unpredictably and perhaps out of control. That genotype you observed making cabbage more resilient to insects and parasites might turn other species in the same genus into uncontrollable weeds with practically no value, until the Earth is covered in them. It's unlikely to happen, but all it takes is one honest mistake that spirals out of control.

Pinterest Mom posted:

Yikes.
https://twitter.com/Colettod/status/718470941823643648
https://twitter.com/Colettod/status/718469435682648065

EvilJoven posted:

Technically taking a sick day when you aren't physically ill is abuse of sick days even if the reason behind you calling in when you're physically fine is because your job has become so poo poo that you wake up one morning and know that your two choices that day are to either call in sick or go to work and just spin and scream until they drag you out on a stretcher.

Ron Paul Atreides posted:

The fact that this is once again the managements doing rather than the workers should be all the prompting the Trudeau gov should need to depose the loving worthless trash Harper appointed but the Liberals have so far been all to keen to continue with conservative poo poo on other labour policy stuff so I won't hold my breath.

Ikantski posted:

I get that, I just don't see how it's worse than the Hydro one sale. A convenience highway leased for 1b vs 14b of province wide electrical infrastructure permanently sold? H1 sale is objectively worse.

Pinterest Mom posted:

That figure is, what, sourced to the PC government in the late 90s, referencing land purchases from the 1950s-1970s? I'd be skeptical of that figure unless I could see how it was calculated, I suspect it was inflated to make a point.

odiv posted:

Thank you. It would be nice if news outlets did the same.

I just have this horrible thought that loving infowars type idiots are going to concoct some conspiracy false-flag nonsense and he will be the lightning rod for their poo poo.

David Corbett posted:

To be fair, there's a collection of people out there - of diverse political beliefs - who reject any information that does not agree with their preconceived metanarrative. It seems every terrorist out there has his own legion of apologists and deniers.