The Maple Leaf Lounge

[PoorSailorsAirline]

I wish Trudeau had stepped down earlier this year...

I wish he’d done it last year. Things weren’t looking this bleak for the Liberals then, but they weren’t rosy. His family situation could have been a cover if he so chose, and it would have given a new leader and cabinet some leeway. There was an editorial in the Globe & Mail this afternoon beseeching JT to call a leadership contest immediately, but then on the evening news their view was that Singh has really locked Trudeau into the next election, because the party can’t risk a snap election with no leader.

Singh did what PP practically ordered him to do, then PP spent the day insulting and deriding him and the NDP anyway. Liberals have been pretty stunty and underhanded in how they’ve deployed the Labour Minister lately, but handing a landslide to PP means parliament won’t even behave shadily—they’ll openly and gladly steamroll labour while they dismantle every other Liberal and especially NDP priority achievement of the current gov’t.

So…congratulations I guess to the NDP, who picked a hell of a time to grow a pair? Sort of a pyrrhic victory when this is a pretty easy future to predict.

Singh sat on the fence for so long it collapsed no matter what side he wanted, because I’m sure this was driven internally. Trudeau sacrificed not just his marriage, his influence, and his respect, but he’s also basically wiping out years of future Liberal party candidates and influence, while likely handing such a vast majority to the opposition they can make sure almost nothing of his legacy remains. And Poilievre seems too high on his own supply to realize a lot of his new supporters aren’t voting for his party, his platform, his candidates, or him, they’re just voting for the one not named Trudeau. I try to stay optimistic but this mess just gets messier all the time. Even if (when?) Poilievre wins, I have no idea why the man wants so badly to take over an inflationary economy with signs trending towards a broader recession in a world of mounting trade wars—especially in a caucus with that many rookie MPs, and a new mix of urban/suburban and likely more centrist MPs into the fold. We’re going to need more than a three word slogan on a T-shirt.

Maybe (oh man…I hope) there will be a Biden -> Harris style moment for JT and the Liberals. But if they do, it basically needs to come out immediately… Maybe, if that happens and the Liberals actually execute well, Poilievre just gets a minority.

If New Years 2025 brings a majority-Poilievre/Trump combo, I might decide to emigrate to a more stable part of the world. Like Chernobyl.

 

[Marc]

justin the boy blunder seems the only one who doesn’t thing he should quit..

One of the party’s big electoral organizers has up and quit. Probably doesn’t want deal with the fallout from the election cos trudope won’t take a fucking hint.

As for the ndp, Singh could make himself party enemy #1 if he triggers an election as the party is trying to keep officer in B.C and looking to win office in Manitoba with elections in both provinces in the near future.

The distraction and drain of a federal campaign is not what they want.

 

[Owain Taggart]

So yesterday started a big change downtown, as the city started demolishing several buildings that have had successful businesses in them. The city bought the buildings and kicked out the tenants in order to provide space for a new events centre to replace our aging 60 year old arena that has been in talks for more than a decade at this point. The one holdout is the Wacky Wings. Remains to be seen whether we actually get a new arena out of it or another in a long line of disasters caused by city council.

 

[Marc]

hi-ho-hi-ho it could be off to an election we go becasue trudea is stupid fuckwit who can't take a hint over comprehend that his approval rating couldn't stink more if was last week's fish and it's going to take the party with him.

Bloc Québécois says it will try to topple Trudeau government at first opportunity

Trudeau's government now stands at the mercy of Jagmeet Singh's NDP, the last remaining official opposition party that has not said it would declare non-confidence in the Liberal administration.

www.thestar.com

 

[rivkah]

We're on a roll for elections! Just had one in BC, then I tuned in to coverage of Saskatchewan's yesterday. The campaign part is annoying to me, but voting and seeing what we get seems to be my kind of political involvement!

 

[Avro Arrow]

We're on a roll for elections! Just had one in BC, then I tuned in to coverage of Saskatchewan's yesterday. The campaign part is annoying to me, but voting and seeing what we get seems to be my kind of political involvement!

Welcome to the board, @rivkah !

That BC election was nail-bitingly close! For Saskatchewan, I'm not a fan of Scott Moe, so I wasn't really thrilled with that result. (Granted, I don't live in either of those provinces. )

 

[Marc]

We're on a roll for elections! Just had one in BC, then I tuned in to coverage of Saskatchewan's yesterday. The campaign part is annoying to me, but voting and seeing what we get seems to be my kind of political involvement!

you really want to part of work the a a polling station I did that for the 2020 provinciial election. Boy that was a long long day. Started at 8am, polls closed at 9pm then tear down and was 10:30 before we could leave. Fortunately I just had a 5min walk up the road.

Next time around I might see if I can be one of the people to feed the ballots into the machine.

My wife is a constituency assistant for our MPP who was re-elected so she was happy.

ford is still a bit of nozzle but if we gonna have a tory government, he's a lot better than the utterly batshit insane smith in Alberta and the transpobic prick who just lost in New Brunswick or poilievre.

 

[rivkah]

ford is still a bit of nozzle but if we gonna have a tory government, he's a lot better than the utterly batshit insane smith in Alberta and the transpobic prick who just lost in New Brunswick or poilievre.

Just a thought: You won't get people (politicians or otherwise) to change by name-calling, but maybe conversations about compassion, manners, and the interconnectedness of all nations/peoples would be beneficial for both sides of whatever issue is at hand.

The paragraph above might indicate why I'm not a fan of politics, but find the election process itself interesting!

 

[Timewalker]

Just a thought: You won't get people (politicians or otherwise) to change by name-calling, but maybe conversations about compassion, manners, and the interconnectedness of all nations/peoples would be beneficial for both sides of whatever issue is at hand.

The paragraph above might indicate why I'm not a fan of politics, but find the election process itself interesting!

Here's the thing. When you live in the province run by the batshit insane Smith who is a certifiable narcissistic, scientifically illiterate sociopath, fingerwagging about (gasp! manners (gasp!) from people who don't have this issue really isn't appreciated.

One of the policies the UCP intends to debate at their AGM next month is doing away with vouching for elections. If passed, that means homeless people and anyone else who lacks whatever the government decides is valid ID will have been disenfranchised.

Of course they can't imagine why a homeless person might want to vote. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that it's politicians who decide what services the homeless can and can't access, could it?

Another thing they plan to debate is a "celebration" of carbon dioxide as a "critical nutrient" of life, rather than as a pollutant and contributor to climate change. Maybe the fire that burned down part of Jasper a few months ago wasn't big enough to make a dent in their myopic, scientifically-illiterate little minds?

 

[Owain Taggart]

We're on a roll for elections! Just had one in BC, then I tuned in to coverage of Saskatchewan's yesterday. The campaign part is annoying to me, but voting and seeing what we get seems to be my kind of political involvement!

Always nice to meet another Canadian, and I don't think we already have anyone here from Saskatchewan, so welcome!

Funny story: On a roadtrip, out west to Oregon in 2017 to see the eclipse, on our way back we had decided to take the road back up through Canada. We were about 100km out from Moosejaw when we suffered a tire blowout. This happening on a Friday, (and why do breakdowns almost always occur on weekends??) nothing that could help us was open on a Friday afternoon, so we ended up spending the entire weekend there after being towed to the Canadian Tire and getting a hotel. We managed to make the most of it by having fun visiting the town, including visiting the underground tunnel exhibits. Fun little town

And this doesn't even count the earlier breakdown we had on the same trip right as we were exiting Billings, Montana, necessitating us to duck back in and find a repair shop that could take us on short notice.

 

[rivkah]

I'm actually in BC. I've been through Saskatchewan often, though, with road trips growing up. I also have family that lives in Saskatchewan, so I was interested in that election. Of course, I also have family in Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick... Not sure if anyone's still in Manitoba now, but one grandfather lived in Winnipeg... We spread out quite a bit!

 

[Avro Arrow]

Well, that is definitely not the outcome I wanted. Don’t know what our neighbours were thinking.

Batten down the hatches, Canada. Things are going to get rough.

 

[Marc]

Well, that is definitely not the outcome I wanted. Don’t know what our neighbours were thinking.

Batten down the hatches, Canada. Things are going to get rough.

I'm not sure they really were thinking.

They're in for a hell of an economic shock and will take us over the cliff with them.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Another Albertan here. Not happy either. Got some major "this time we're doing the Babylon 5 Earth arc RIGHT" vibes.

Mark

 

[Owain Taggart]

Well, that is definitely not the outcome I wanted. Don’t know what our neighbours were thinking.

Batten down the hatches, Canada. Things are going to get rough.

Yeah, he's shown that he doesn't like Canada as an ally, and his rhetoric directly led to the encampent in Ottawa that was full of violence and vitriol and funded by the likes of people like Musk, in an attempt to overthrow Trudeau. I know not everyone likes Trudeau, but that is not the Canada I identify with.

I very much fear what that means for Canada going forward.

Sweeping tarrif changes ahead, even on items itself imports like steel and aluminum, which are needed for auto parts. Things like this only hurt themselves in the end, causing higher overall prices.

"Welcome back to an administration that put national security tariffs on the Canadian aluminum that its own military buys to make a point no one understood," said Flavio Volpe, head of Canada's auto-parts lobby association, referring to Trump's past tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/election-analysis-harris-trump-1.7374844

 

[Marc]

Yeah, he's shown that he doesn't like Canada as an ally, and his rhetoric directly led to the encampent in Ottawa that was full of violence and vitriol and funded by the likes of people like Musk, in an attempt to overthrow Trudeau. I know not everyone likes Trudeau, but that is not the Canada I identify with.

I very much fear what that means for Canada going forward.

Sweeping tarrif changes ahead, even on items itself imports like steel and aluminum, which are needed for auto parts. Things like this only hurt themselves in the end, causing higher overall prices.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/election-analysis-harris-trump-1.7374844

they also get a big chunk of electricity from Canada so that's gonna jump in price and that's gonna kick the regular consumer twice - first when their power bill goes up and then when the costs of the products they consumer goes up cos electricity is now more expensive for the business sector.

trump seems to think that adding tariffs to everything will suddenly on shore all production (never mind that the businesses will have to pay Amercian wages and establish supply chains etc) it's simply not going to happy over night or in his second term.

They'll take facilitieis will take years to build on and put into production, infrastructure (transport,energy etc) will need to be ugprades and that'salso going to take years and the tax payers will be on the hook cos businesses will play state against state to see who gives the best.

Never mind that the state will probably never see an return on investment - just look at the foxcomm plant in wisconsin that was going to be chip fab and last I saw it was going to be LCD panels and even then it was iffy. Initial prediction was return on investment time if it happened would be between 20 and 30 years.

 

[Owain Taggart]

they also get a big chunk of electricity from Canada so that's gonna jump in price and that's gonna kick the regular consumer twice - first when their power bill goes up and then when the costs of the products they consumer goes up cos electricity is now more expensive for the business sector.

Yeah, I forgot about that. That comes from someone who fundamentally misunderstands trade to the point of hurting themselves. And I bet you, the first thing consumers will do is wonder why their bills are so high, then he'll point the finger at Canada and they'll get angry at Canada.

The irony in Trump's 'Made in America' initiative, is that he expects these factories to produce, yet at the same time, he's anti-union. If he's such a great businessman as he claims to be, he'd realize that unions are practically a necessity in certain industries. He can't have it both ways.

I consider Canada to be a Silent Partner. We've always stood by their side, helped them in times of war, both in resources and soldiers, and even in times of distress such as 9/11, such as Gander, etc. We've never said much, never asked for much, yet we're always ready to do our part. And this is the thanks we get? The very idea that we're not contributing enough with our military feels like a slap in the face. Canada's always been contributing, all throughout its history, often more than its share, never asking for anything in return. Some Canadians even took up arms and fought in the American Civil War, even when it wasn't 'our' war to fight. Because that's how we are, in our very nature.

 

[Avro Arrow]

"I can't believe anyone would vote for Trump," says smug Canadian man planning to vote for Poilievre

OTTAWA - A smug man from Canada wasted no time this morning chastising Americans for re-electing terrifying liar and felon Donald Trump, despite the fact that he plans to vote for terrifying liar and asshole Pierre Poilievre in the next Canadian election.

thebeaverton.com

 

[Owain Taggart]

Not to mention it's satire But even so, it's close enough to the truth to be a terrifying prospect.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

"I can't believe anyone would vote for Trump," says smug Canadian man planning to vote for Poilievre

OTTAWA - A smug man from Canada wasted no time this morning chastising Americans for re-electing terrifying liar and felon Donald Trump, despite the fact that he plans to vote for terrifying liar and asshole Pierre Poilievre in the next Canadian election.

thebeaverton.com