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PM Mark Carney's Canada

@Northern Light

This was you just 6 years ago:

There is absolutely no magic in 2% except fueling arms sales for the military-industrial complex.

Canada spends a highly respectable 1.3%, a top 20 spender on military world wide, is the #21 ranked military in the power index cited above, and that compares with our population at 38th.

We are not now, nor will be the rivals of the Americans, the Chinese or the Russians; at least in terms of conventional forces.

We rival a host of other middle powers, which is about what we should be doing.

A modest, strategic increase in investment to deal with replacing badly aged combat aircraft, and stepping up arctic capability is reasonable. A suggestion for much more is grossly irresponsible.

2% of GDP would result in an increase of 12.5B a year!

No sane person would justify that in the current circumstances.
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Post in thread 'PM Justin Trudeau's Canada' https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/pm-justin-trudeaus-canada.24514/post-1442996

We all make bad calls. I hope you (and others who shared that view) reflect on how y'all got it wrong.

Imagine where we'd be if Trudeau understood the threat and took it seriously. But I'm guessing the median Liberal had exactly your view and completely misread the threat to the future.
 
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urbanclient said:
I probably detest Pierre Poilievre less than the average Urban Toronto member, but I think even the staunchest supporters of the Conservatives can recognize that Carney is well spoken here:
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I thank God everyday that this man chose to run and won. I have zero doubt that PP would struggle to meet this moment. He'd play "Own the Libs" the whole time instead of leading. Mark Carney's strength is that he doesn't look like a guy who cares about politics. Just a guy who cares about doing the right thing. He really is technocrat Daddy.

I hope I have a better Conservative option at the next election. I hate this populist crap. Make politics boring again.
 
kEiThZ said:
People need to stop pretending that is just all about the right wing bros. There's genuine reasons young people in Canada are frustrated. Every year that goes by, there's simply more and more CPC voters accruing due to demographic turnover. If things don't improve, I expect a Conservative tsunami as soon as Trump is no longer a pressing threat to Canada.
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Well, there was a Conservative tsunami before Trump won...
 
kEiThZ said:
Those aren't just Liberal policies. The CPC supported it too. Especially right after COVID. But when Trudeau proved tone deaf in 2023, the Liberals came to own that failure.
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Technically you are right. Liberals love to harp on about TFWs being a Conservative invention. But the Cons never got even close to the Liberal population growth rate, even ignoring the post-COVID surge.

TFW is only one out of dozens of temporary visa avenues into Canada. For example the labour mobility sections of the TPP signed under Trudeau:

“As faulty as it is, the current TFW program at least requires some evidence that the employer couldn’t hire a Canadian to do the job. The TPP lets big companies bypass even those meager safeguards. The labour mobility sections of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are like the Temporary Foreign Worker Program on steroids [...] This deal would fundamentally transform the Canadian labour market for the worse by creating an underclass of exploitable workers with fewer rights.” —Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan. April 19, 2016 https://afl.org/trans_pacific_partnership_is_the_tfwp_on_steroids/

Compare that with Trudeau's op-ed in the Star from 2014 about how the Conservative TFW program is so 'broken': https://www.thestar.com/opinion/con...cle_c27f214f-1fa2-5fdf-af61-5a7642e4eb7c.html
At best, he didn't know he had to look out for Galen Weston, Ted Rogers and friends. At worst, he was straight up grifting.

In practice, it was wholly a Liberal party decision to jack up immigration for all 3 categories at one point or another. 1. Citizenship; 2. Permanent Residents; 3. Temporary + non-PR residents (there is a slight difference).

The large jump in immigration numbers pre-COVID went largely unnoticed by the home-owning class. But the insidious economic malaise was definitely worsening (immigration outstripping housing supply was/is only part of the larger problem). Also, the net migration was very likely higher than StatsCanada's numbers, with the discrepancy widening over time due to the cumulative effects of undercounted visa overstays. Overstays are still a problem today as there is very little enforcement.
www.theglobeandmail.com

Most immigrants with deportation letters are still in Canada, CBSA figures show

Data show that 14,609 people were sent letters informing them they are facing deportation between 2016 and May, 2023
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

In 2022, mainstream media including the presumably centre /centre-right Globe and Mail was carrying water for the Liberal immigration policies by focusing only on permanent residency admissions per year: thereby hiding the true population growth from net increases in temporary residents, and the often-overlooked contribution of citizenship grants. The latter contributes a small, but still real increase in Canadian residents.

1768965308359.png
 
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gabe said:
The left used to own the youth vote. This is a huge swing and is bad news for us Libs/NDP voters :(
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The ghost of this actually played out in the last federal election. And I'd almost look at it as the divide btw/the demo formed through legacy media vs the demo formed through new media--the Cons know how to seize the attention of demos who grew up barely knowing the CBC or G&M even existed, as they were so remote from their everyday growing-up lives. The "literates" vs the "post-literates"--and the "literates" are increasingly like those who were into classical and jazz in the "Dazed & Confused" era. (And yes, concentrated more among the urban-core educated/cultural class.)
 
Admiral Beez said:
The left became identity-focused while the right focused on affordability. I know which I’d follow if I was young.
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And re my point about literacy vs post-literacy: if there's anything "unaffordable" and hence dispensible these days, it's a newspaper subscription, or any sort of tangible print media. Whereas aside from carrier costs, Youtube influencers and social media is perfectly "free".
 
adma said:
And re my point about literacy vs post-literacy: if there's anything "unaffordable" and hence dispensible these days, it's a newspaper subscription, or any sort of tangible print media. Whereas aside from carrier costs, Youtube influencers and social media is perfectly "free".
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If you have a library card, download the Press Reader app, and you can read the print editions of the Toronto Star, NVT, WSJ, Foreign Affairs, Economist, Canadian History, and magazines on every topic for free. It's not theft either, as the library pays the publisher for every download. Best of all, you can download what you want to your device and read it later offline, such as when traveling.
 
adma said:
And re my point about literacy vs post-literacy: if there's anything "unaffordable" and hence dispensible these days, it's a newspaper subscription, or any sort of tangible print media. Whereas aside from carrier costs, Youtube influencers and social media is perfectly "free".
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Your other options are copy+paste the legacy media e.g., Star or Globe & Mail article into archive.is or similar internet archive, or use a paywall remover software or browser extension. archive.is works for Wall Street Journal too.
 
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