Can’t say I thought of this. But I don’t disagree. I actually suspect it’s deeply correct. Bribes are how politicians in the corrupt dictatorships of the world communicate and make decisions.
Trump isn't the one stalling. That would be Carney, the guy who said that ONLY HE could "get a deal", which got him your vote.
Ever since, he has done everything possible to prove to you that he does not WANT a deal. Mostly, he is doing this because he knows that you will blame every bad thing which happens in Canada (failing economy, food prices, corporate flight, etc.) on his convenient boogeyman, DJT.
Actually Canada's economy is not failing. I also think that Carney believes that no deal is better than a bad deal. The August 19 tariffs will affect just 5% of our exports and although I am very sympathetic to those that will be affected, I think we need to and hopefully will not sign a deal and just let those tariffs take effect if we cannot get an agreement on the bigger picture tariffs.
No deal is better than a bad deal and frankly, the Americans will hold us to a bad deal but considering who we are dealing with, what faith can we have that they won't just violate a good deal down the line?
Carney should have run on that VERY convenient excuse then.
Maybe he should have also run on "there's no point to making a deal with Trump" too, because that seems to be the other VERY convenient excuse Liberals keep trying to use for their own inaction.
Canada's economy has been flatlined for almost a decade.
Our debt is growing alarmingly fast. Affordability - far from being "the best it has been in a decade" as Carney so famously claimed - in fact, we are leading the G7 in food inflation, and many other inflationary measures. GDP per Capita continues to fall, and the government is doing nothing to stop it. Business insolvencies are at record levels not seen since the Global Recession. Personal insolvencies are following the same pattern. A recent poll showed that 40% of Canadian companies are considering moving their operations (or HQ) out of Canada.
What would it take for you to admit the Canadian economy is "failing"?
From the Fraser Institute: Canada displays a split economic performance compared to the G7. While overall GDP and total growth rank near the top of the group, fast population expansion means GDP per capita lags behind. Inflation has cooled to target levels, but high household debt and productivity sluggishness create distinct domestic challenges.
I agree with this. I didn't agree with the large amount of people who were let into the country without adequate health care, housing and other supports that a society needs to support a large influx of people. Rapid population expansion has been curbed and GDP per capital will rise.
Since Mark Carney took office as Prime Minister on March 14, 2025, Statistics Canada reported that foreign direct investment (FDI) into Canada reached $96.8 billion for the full year 2025—the highest annual inward flow recorded since 2007.
"While overall GDP and total growth rank near the top of the group, fast population expansion means GDP per capita lags behind."
Convert that into plain speaking for the masses, and we are being told that Canada papered over the sagging GDP growth per capita by opening the floodgates for huge surges of immigration. We ended up with the worst of both situations. The immigrants have been shoe horned into a country unable to provide decent shelter, good paying jobs and timely access to immigration services. That's a policy failure, plain and simple. And, we still have the investment flight, stagnant wages and poor GDP outlook.
Not exactly. It is my understanding that the immigration (and to this I mean temporary residents as well - foreign worker program, foreign students etc) issue was a combination of a Justin Trudeau philosophy of Canada being the saviour of the world , not thinking it through. One cannot be the saviour when one cannot provide housing, health care, infrastructure at the pace of the influx. The post COVID so called employment crisis that allowed companies to bring in foreign workers, most being tied to the job/company that they were brought in by and therefore subject to abuses, etc. Finally the decrease in funding of post secondary education thus enticing these institutions to bring in foreign students at astronomical tuition. Finally as a spin off, the springing up of bogus "post secondary education centres" that also enticed students to come in with the promise of permanent residency down the line which they couldn't give or guarantee. It is my understanding that these programs have largely stopped.
MOST of what the Liberals are eager to count as "foreign direct investment" is actually Canadian companies being acquired (bought outright) - quite a few of which were swallowed by American companies.
So is that a good thing? When a company gets acquired, nobody new gets hired, nothing new gets built = this "investment" does nothing but change who owns the company.
In fact USUALLY, getting acquired leads directly to layoffs and "right-sizing" exercises.
Just another example of the cherry-picked numbers the Liberal rely on to make you believe they are doing great things for you.
...next, you can tell me all about those strong April job numbers the Libs are still so happy about (it is August....)
Great answers back and accurate. You really have to look and verify to make sure most of these bragging rights aren't correct at all. Liberals are Houdinis'.
No politician is perfect. I had heard somewhere that politicians lie. Of course the CPC would not do better - they can't even call this crap out for fear of losing their 'base'. Get rid of the socons and peddle hope!~
I'd say that about Trump. What's the point of a deal that is meaningless and won't be honoured the day it's signed? Because if you still trust his word, that's on you.
You should never give someone like Trump anything, because it doesn't register as a mark in your favour. It registers you as a sucker, someone he can get something out of toying with. It will only make him want more, nothing will ever be enough. Your best bet is probably just making yourself no fun to deal with, someone he can't get either a win or even the fun of fucking with you from. If there's nothing in it for him, maybe eventually he leaves you alone. Giving and giving to buy yourself more time isn't preserving anything with a person like that, it's just losing everything more slowly.
Problem is the power imbalance. The US could literally swat Canada like a fly.
If the power was more balanced, say 10-1 sure, but the power imbalance is 50-1, literally.
Canada though had telegraphed loud and clear what our most valuable trade policies are, namely dairy and autos, and the Americans are going to make us pay dearly for that.
You don't have much choice, you know..... He was legitimately elected in a constitutionally valid process that foreigners like you and me have no input into. It's not his job to make foreigners have good feelings about him.
Bribing a foreign leader is "dirty and degrading," swallowing Canada's pride and paying Trump off might be the cheapest and most effective way to protect the Canadian economy.
You know, it has been driving me nuts ever since the orange lunatic became President for a second time. Why in the hell are we even negotiating on anything with this moron? He will change his mind. He will lie. He will obfuscate and will continue to do so as there is nobody to hold him accountable to. And government is trying to get a deal with someone who will change his mind after each Big Mac.
Stop it. Things will suck either way with tariffs or walking away from the table. CUSMA is dead. We should be of the position that 'you guys just let us know when you want to actually negotiate instead of whipping out your manifest destiny for all to see.
In some other world your idea would be worth examining, and, in theory, could work.
But in real Canada, tell that to 500,000 auto & auto parts workers with precarious or disappearing job prospects in the heart of a Federal Liberal stronghold. The collateral damage would be too serious I think. To both the economy and to Liberal electoral success.
They need to hear it: Job losses are assured. Factory closure, no doubt. Mass layoffs, yup.
The thing is that voters will continue to pick the Liberals to form a government because the CPC can't get its shit together. High profile members are flaming each other on X. That and the party needs a new leader - someone to be the anti-Carney - a person who peddles hope to Canadians instead of bitchy grievance after grievance.
People gave Carney the benefit of the doubt. They continue to do so because they have no opposition of any effect whatsoever. The CPC absolutely has become the NDP of the right where the only thing that matters is purity as opposed to helping Canadians.
"Canada, it’s time to swallow our pride...." is the only take away from this satirical portrait of the POTUS. We Canadians - all 37 million of us - have the nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Canada in 2026 of $2.51 trillion ; the nominal GDP of the United States - population 350 Million - in 2026 is $32.38 trillion .... go figure which country needs the other as a trading partner...Eh? 🫣
And yet, their GDP is lower and they are losing jobs, contrary to what is happening in Canada. They are on a slide down.We can add a lot by removing interprovncial protection and do trade actually as one country.
Not a lot of interprovincial trade barriers being removed these days. Or even talked about. Almost as if it was just a great source of announcements in a general election.
The alcohol sales barriers between the provinces are about the taxes the provinces collect on alcohol. New Brunswick doesn't want New Brunswickers to avoid NB taxes by buying beer in Quebec. It's not that NB alcoholics like Quebec beer better, it's just because it's cheaper. If NB allowed Quebec beer to be sold in NB liquor stores, but taxed with NB taxes, few New Brunswickers would bother buying it, because Quebec would still want to collect its taxes on its beer sold in NB, making it more expensive, not less.
And for wine, Ontario has a provincial wine industry that demands protection. If Ontario drinkers can buy BC wine legally in Ontario instead of having to smuggle it, they might buy less Ontario wine. Can't have that, can we?
This is real money, not a vague idea of a Canadian federation. So small wonder progress is slow on removing interprovincial trade barriers.
Well, it means less for everybody in taxes if taxes are equalized. Alternatively, maybe all should raise their taxes on alcohol, even better, as it is a carcinogenic that costs us all in cancer diagnoses and treatment cost through the health care system. Analogue to tobacco sales, higher taxes means less sold and healthier people. We should start with the provincial liquor stores, the dealers in most provinces. So, protection of its people is the mandate of the provincial governments, not the alcohol producers, in my opinion. I say, raise all taxes on alcohol, and the wine producers can maybe focus on producing good non-alcholic beer and wine, and make more from every bottle.
Provincial governments don't see it that way. They know they make most of their alcohol tax revenue from "problem" drinkers. They set taxes to maximize revenue, not to minimize consumption. (They know that people who "really need" a drink will pay more for it.) They say they want people to drink "responsibly" (i.e., less) but they really don't. Alcohol is enormously lucrative for governments to tax, and brings in much more revenue than would be saved in car crashes, health care, and abandoned children if people drank (much) less.
Anyway, this isn't about moralizing about what governments should do to improve the health of their populations. It's an explanation of why progress on reducing inter-provincial trade barriers is so slow. New Brunswick imposes much higher taxes on alcohol than neighbouring Quebec does. To protect that revenue stream the NB government has to prevent NB residents from bringing booze home from Quebec. It will never agree to reduce tax to match Quebec, nor will Quebec drinkers be willing to have Quebec taxes raised to match New Brunswick.
All this talk about being strong, cooperative, and united in the face of American aggression breaks down as soon as money enters the chat. Which shows no one is really serious about this.
What we need is sober information that most Canadians do not have.
The gift incidents in this article are from cultures that gift give as a normal part of social relationships. Most Canadians do not understand cultures where returning or refusing a gift has consequences that reverberate regionally and internationally as people who are dissed try to save face. This author would do well to fill us in. Where is that information?
Our elbows up actions don't hurt the US as a whole, although some Canadians may like gloating that we've hurt a few Americans a bit. I doubt that Canada has anything that we could restrict with impunity. All hat no cattle Central Canadians tend not to realize how vulnerable they are should the Dems, that earlier threatened to shut off the taps at Mackinack, get to it.
TDS sometimes gets to the point of thinking that it's fun to work up the reading public.
Sadly, the international consequences of ignorance could be huge. Maybe it's a good thing that Canada is so Liberal and therefore so economically weak that what we say and do is of little consequence.
Without laws, norms or political consequences constraining what used to be "end your career, go to jail, and permanently have your name spat upon" levels of corruption, I think we are going to increasingly see overt bribery as a political tool on both sides of the border. It's often relatively cheap compared to the alternatives.
In the depths of the Trudeau era where the government seemed to make burning money and ruining as many of the country's institutions as possible its apparent overriding policy goals, I thought to myself: how much cheaper it would be to pick enough MP's to bring down the government and figure out how much it would cost to make them retire and go live out their days on an island somewhere? What? $5-10M each? Maybe not even? A drop in the bucket compared to what they were wasting staying in office.
More recently, we see Mark Carney avoiding the annoyance and expense of an election by just bribing his opponents and obtaining a majority. A couple of generations ago both elements of that scheme - the bribery and the unelected majority - would have been seen as unprecedented assaults on democracy. Now not so much.
This all is the end game of a purely transactional society, where no central values exist, or are expected, other than power, right?
Much as many people disagree with it, floor crossing is a feature of a Westminster Parliamentary system. It always causes much uproar, but did not cause the downfall of Canadian democracy in years past and won’t today either.
I should also add that every MP in the Liberal government was elected. In Canada, we do not vote for a government. We vote for an MP. To call Carney’s government unelected betrays a misunderstanding of Canada’s electoral system.
A "feature" that until recently was reserved for one-off aggrieved MP's to make a good-faith protest against their party or a policy they disagreed with, changing nothing.
Until now it's never been used en masse to change the character of government. Mostly because previously this would have resulted in accusations of undemocratic dealings, bribery, and general sliminess that would backfire against the party that tried it.
Haha "I vote for the candidate not the party" says almost nobody genuinely. I reject this as total nonsense.
Reject it all you want. It does not change the fact of what I wrote.
I do think that floor crossers should subject themselves to a bye-election to ensure that the individual continues to represent the interests of the constituency.
Worse still, I think the majority of Canadians vote based on party leader in a messed up pseudo-presidential system we mentally copy from the US, complete with primary-style drawn-out leadership races known nowhere else in the developed British-derived world.
Mandatory by-elections would be a big improvement in cases of floor crossing. At least that's a check on buying power without some direct popular consent. I think this will inevitably have to happen because with recent precedent there is nothing stopping way more extreme abuses.
I agree with your description of our weird pseudo-Westminster, pseudo-Presidential system. You picked up on my admittedly idealistic view of our electoral system.
I am reading a biography of Winston Churchill at the moment. It is very interesting to read how the Westminster system is supposed to work. The PM and his PMO in Canada has far too much power. We end up having a President inside a parliamentary system.
Canada is in desperate need of extensive democratic and government reform. Too bad nobody within 100km of our politics has the inclination let alone the steel balls needed to do it.
But why would the Governing Party want to risk its new MP by making him submit to a by-election? Take what you won. He can stand for election as a Liberal in the next general. The voters can show their displeasure then. Maybe he "should" submit to a by-election, but the only mechanism that could make this happen is nullified by Party/Government interest.
Theoretically, the MP doesn't represent the interests of his constituency anyway. If he did, his constituents should be thrilled to know they now have an MP on the government benches with more chance to throw them some pork. Rather, the MP is supposed to be elected because the local yokels believe he is best among their lot able to work for a strong Canada. (Unless he's a Bloc MP. You don't see them crossing the floor except for Lucien Bouchard himself going the other way to start the Party.)
The terms I believe are “finder’s fees” and “commissions” or the invention of one of former PM Mulroney’s nameless functionaries “Payment for services to be rendered in the future and recognized at that time”. ( or similar wording) This involved the reported 200 to 300 thousand dollar bills provided to Mulroney by German arms dealer Karl-Heinz Schreiber. Afterwards through some special tax rule involving Quebec and Revenue Canada only half the income was considered taxable 😆
I feel dirty just for having read this, like I want to go have a nice swim in a lake and get the ick off.
Wellllll ..... yes ... But, really, what alternative are you suggesting?
Or maybe we could just give him the CBC? That way we could get 2 birds stoned at once.
I Imagine the executives summoned before him like an episode of The Apprentice.
It would be more watchable than the actual show.
Can’t say I thought of this. But I don’t disagree. I actually suspect it’s deeply correct. Bribes are how politicians in the corrupt dictatorships of the world communicate and make decisions.
And how those involved with corrupt corporations from alleged democracies communicate and make decisions, as well.
“America has the best politicians money can buy.” Will Rogers
That's pretty funny! But it might even work!
He's always wanted a football team, and I bet Rogers would be willing to give up the Argonauts.
It would probably work out for their fans too, since the new ownership would just ignore the salary cap.
This is the kind of creative thinking we need right now!
spray-paint a curling stone gold and give it to him
Love it!
Trump isn't the one stalling. That would be Carney, the guy who said that ONLY HE could "get a deal", which got him your vote.
Ever since, he has done everything possible to prove to you that he does not WANT a deal. Mostly, he is doing this because he knows that you will blame every bad thing which happens in Canada (failing economy, food prices, corporate flight, etc.) on his convenient boogeyman, DJT.
If you still believe him, that's on you.
Actually Canada's economy is not failing. I also think that Carney believes that no deal is better than a bad deal. The August 19 tariffs will affect just 5% of our exports and although I am very sympathetic to those that will be affected, I think we need to and hopefully will not sign a deal and just let those tariffs take effect if we cannot get an agreement on the bigger picture tariffs.
No deal is better than a bad deal and frankly, the Americans will hold us to a bad deal but considering who we are dealing with, what faith can we have that they won't just violate a good deal down the line?
Carney should have run on that VERY convenient excuse then.
Maybe he should have also run on "there's no point to making a deal with Trump" too, because that seems to be the other VERY convenient excuse Liberals keep trying to use for their own inaction.
Canada's economy has been flatlined for almost a decade.
Our debt is growing alarmingly fast. Affordability - far from being "the best it has been in a decade" as Carney so famously claimed - in fact, we are leading the G7 in food inflation, and many other inflationary measures. GDP per Capita continues to fall, and the government is doing nothing to stop it. Business insolvencies are at record levels not seen since the Global Recession. Personal insolvencies are following the same pattern. A recent poll showed that 40% of Canadian companies are considering moving their operations (or HQ) out of Canada.
What would it take for you to admit the Canadian economy is "failing"?
From the Fraser Institute: Canada displays a split economic performance compared to the G7. While overall GDP and total growth rank near the top of the group, fast population expansion means GDP per capita lags behind. Inflation has cooled to target levels, but high household debt and productivity sluggishness create distinct domestic challenges.
I agree with this. I didn't agree with the large amount of people who were let into the country without adequate health care, housing and other supports that a society needs to support a large influx of people. Rapid population expansion has been curbed and GDP per capital will rise.
Since Mark Carney took office as Prime Minister on March 14, 2025, Statistics Canada reported that foreign direct investment (FDI) into Canada reached $96.8 billion for the full year 2025—the highest annual inward flow recorded since 2007.
"While overall GDP and total growth rank near the top of the group, fast population expansion means GDP per capita lags behind."
Convert that into plain speaking for the masses, and we are being told that Canada papered over the sagging GDP growth per capita by opening the floodgates for huge surges of immigration. We ended up with the worst of both situations. The immigrants have been shoe horned into a country unable to provide decent shelter, good paying jobs and timely access to immigration services. That's a policy failure, plain and simple. And, we still have the investment flight, stagnant wages and poor GDP outlook.
Not exactly. It is my understanding that the immigration (and to this I mean temporary residents as well - foreign worker program, foreign students etc) issue was a combination of a Justin Trudeau philosophy of Canada being the saviour of the world , not thinking it through. One cannot be the saviour when one cannot provide housing, health care, infrastructure at the pace of the influx. The post COVID so called employment crisis that allowed companies to bring in foreign workers, most being tied to the job/company that they were brought in by and therefore subject to abuses, etc. Finally the decrease in funding of post secondary education thus enticing these institutions to bring in foreign students at astronomical tuition. Finally as a spin off, the springing up of bogus "post secondary education centres" that also enticed students to come in with the promise of permanent residency down the line which they couldn't give or guarantee. It is my understanding that these programs have largely stopped.
I would suggest speaking with young people to get a real taste of what the economy is doing.
MOST of what the Liberals are eager to count as "foreign direct investment" is actually Canadian companies being acquired (bought outright) - quite a few of which were swallowed by American companies.
So is that a good thing? When a company gets acquired, nobody new gets hired, nothing new gets built = this "investment" does nothing but change who owns the company.
In fact USUALLY, getting acquired leads directly to layoffs and "right-sizing" exercises.
Just another example of the cherry-picked numbers the Liberal rely on to make you believe they are doing great things for you.
...next, you can tell me all about those strong April job numbers the Libs are still so happy about (it is August....)
Great answers back and accurate. You really have to look and verify to make sure most of these bragging rights aren't correct at all. Liberals are Houdinis'.
To quote MG - the Liberals will say anything and do anything to win an election.
Read Canadian Returnee's Substack today. Carney isn't perfect but do you really think that the Conservatives would do better? I for one do not.
https://canadianreturnee.substack.com/p/why-imperfect-beats-incompetent-in?r=g1pg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
No politician is perfect. I had heard somewhere that politicians lie. Of course the CPC would not do better - they can't even call this crap out for fear of losing their 'base'. Get rid of the socons and peddle hope!~
🤦♀️
I'd say that about Trump. What's the point of a deal that is meaningless and won't be honoured the day it's signed? Because if you still trust his word, that's on you.
You should never give someone like Trump anything, because it doesn't register as a mark in your favour. It registers you as a sucker, someone he can get something out of toying with. It will only make him want more, nothing will ever be enough. Your best bet is probably just making yourself no fun to deal with, someone he can't get either a win or even the fun of fucking with you from. If there's nothing in it for him, maybe eventually he leaves you alone. Giving and giving to buy yourself more time isn't preserving anything with a person like that, it's just losing everything more slowly.
Problem is the power imbalance. The US could literally swat Canada like a fly.
If the power was more balanced, say 10-1 sure, but the power imbalance is 50-1, literally.
Canada though had telegraphed loud and clear what our most valuable trade policies are, namely dairy and autos, and the Americans are going to make us pay dearly for that.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I do not like living in "Trumpworld".
You don't have much choice, you know..... He was legitimately elected in a constitutionally valid process that foreigners like you and me have no input into. It's not his job to make foreigners have good feelings about him.
Bribing a foreign leader is "dirty and degrading," swallowing Canada's pride and paying Trump off might be the cheapest and most effective way to protect the Canadian economy.
You know, it has been driving me nuts ever since the orange lunatic became President for a second time. Why in the hell are we even negotiating on anything with this moron? He will change his mind. He will lie. He will obfuscate and will continue to do so as there is nobody to hold him accountable to. And government is trying to get a deal with someone who will change his mind after each Big Mac.
Stop it. Things will suck either way with tariffs or walking away from the table. CUSMA is dead. We should be of the position that 'you guys just let us know when you want to actually negotiate instead of whipping out your manifest destiny for all to see.
In some other world your idea would be worth examining, and, in theory, could work.
But in real Canada, tell that to 500,000 auto & auto parts workers with precarious or disappearing job prospects in the heart of a Federal Liberal stronghold. The collateral damage would be too serious I think. To both the economy and to Liberal electoral success.
They need to hear it: Job losses are assured. Factory closure, no doubt. Mass layoffs, yup.
The thing is that voters will continue to pick the Liberals to form a government because the CPC can't get its shit together. High profile members are flaming each other on X. That and the party needs a new leader - someone to be the anti-Carney - a person who peddles hope to Canadians instead of bitchy grievance after grievance.
People gave Carney the benefit of the doubt. They continue to do so because they have no opposition of any effect whatsoever. The CPC absolutely has become the NDP of the right where the only thing that matters is purity as opposed to helping Canadians.
"Canada, it’s time to swallow our pride...." is the only take away from this satirical portrait of the POTUS. We Canadians - all 37 million of us - have the nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Canada in 2026 of $2.51 trillion ; the nominal GDP of the United States - population 350 Million - in 2026 is $32.38 trillion .... go figure which country needs the other as a trading partner...Eh? 🫣
And yet, their GDP is lower and they are losing jobs, contrary to what is happening in Canada. They are on a slide down.We can add a lot by removing interprovncial protection and do trade actually as one country.
Not a lot of interprovincial trade barriers being removed these days. Or even talked about. Almost as if it was just a great source of announcements in a general election.
Funny that, while the fight is about American alcohol on our shelves, the provinces are having a hard time with allowing alcohol on each others' shelves, but they are making moves. Change is slow. https://globalnews.ca/news/11974771/canada-premiers-interprovincial-alcohol-sales/
The alcohol sales barriers between the provinces are about the taxes the provinces collect on alcohol. New Brunswick doesn't want New Brunswickers to avoid NB taxes by buying beer in Quebec. It's not that NB alcoholics like Quebec beer better, it's just because it's cheaper. If NB allowed Quebec beer to be sold in NB liquor stores, but taxed with NB taxes, few New Brunswickers would bother buying it, because Quebec would still want to collect its taxes on its beer sold in NB, making it more expensive, not less.
And for wine, Ontario has a provincial wine industry that demands protection. If Ontario drinkers can buy BC wine legally in Ontario instead of having to smuggle it, they might buy less Ontario wine. Can't have that, can we?
This is real money, not a vague idea of a Canadian federation. So small wonder progress is slow on removing interprovincial trade barriers.
Well, it means less for everybody in taxes if taxes are equalized. Alternatively, maybe all should raise their taxes on alcohol, even better, as it is a carcinogenic that costs us all in cancer diagnoses and treatment cost through the health care system. Analogue to tobacco sales, higher taxes means less sold and healthier people. We should start with the provincial liquor stores, the dealers in most provinces. So, protection of its people is the mandate of the provincial governments, not the alcohol producers, in my opinion. I say, raise all taxes on alcohol, and the wine producers can maybe focus on producing good non-alcholic beer and wine, and make more from every bottle.
Provincial governments don't see it that way. They know they make most of their alcohol tax revenue from "problem" drinkers. They set taxes to maximize revenue, not to minimize consumption. (They know that people who "really need" a drink will pay more for it.) They say they want people to drink "responsibly" (i.e., less) but they really don't. Alcohol is enormously lucrative for governments to tax, and brings in much more revenue than would be saved in car crashes, health care, and abandoned children if people drank (much) less.
Anyway, this isn't about moralizing about what governments should do to improve the health of their populations. It's an explanation of why progress on reducing inter-provincial trade barriers is so slow. New Brunswick imposes much higher taxes on alcohol than neighbouring Quebec does. To protect that revenue stream the NB government has to prevent NB residents from bringing booze home from Quebec. It will never agree to reduce tax to match Quebec, nor will Quebec drinkers be willing to have Quebec taxes raised to match New Brunswick.
All this talk about being strong, cooperative, and united in the face of American aggression breaks down as soon as money enters the chat. Which shows no one is really serious about this.
This piece didn’t land well for me. Perhaps I am losing my sense of humour.
DV, I am not certain that it was meant as humor.
Exactly.
What we need is sober information that most Canadians do not have.
The gift incidents in this article are from cultures that gift give as a normal part of social relationships. Most Canadians do not understand cultures where returning or refusing a gift has consequences that reverberate regionally and internationally as people who are dissed try to save face. This author would do well to fill us in. Where is that information?
Our elbows up actions don't hurt the US as a whole, although some Canadians may like gloating that we've hurt a few Americans a bit. I doubt that Canada has anything that we could restrict with impunity. All hat no cattle Central Canadians tend not to realize how vulnerable they are should the Dems, that earlier threatened to shut off the taps at Mackinack, get to it.
TDS sometimes gets to the point of thinking that it's fun to work up the reading public.
Sadly, the international consequences of ignorance could be huge. Maybe it's a good thing that Canada is so Liberal and therefore so economically weak that what we say and do is of little consequence.
Without laws, norms or political consequences constraining what used to be "end your career, go to jail, and permanently have your name spat upon" levels of corruption, I think we are going to increasingly see overt bribery as a political tool on both sides of the border. It's often relatively cheap compared to the alternatives.
In the depths of the Trudeau era where the government seemed to make burning money and ruining as many of the country's institutions as possible its apparent overriding policy goals, I thought to myself: how much cheaper it would be to pick enough MP's to bring down the government and figure out how much it would cost to make them retire and go live out their days on an island somewhere? What? $5-10M each? Maybe not even? A drop in the bucket compared to what they were wasting staying in office.
More recently, we see Mark Carney avoiding the annoyance and expense of an election by just bribing his opponents and obtaining a majority. A couple of generations ago both elements of that scheme - the bribery and the unelected majority - would have been seen as unprecedented assaults on democracy. Now not so much.
This all is the end game of a purely transactional society, where no central values exist, or are expected, other than power, right?
Much as many people disagree with it, floor crossing is a feature of a Westminster Parliamentary system. It always causes much uproar, but did not cause the downfall of Canadian democracy in years past and won’t today either.
I should also add that every MP in the Liberal government was elected. In Canada, we do not vote for a government. We vote for an MP. To call Carney’s government unelected betrays a misunderstanding of Canada’s electoral system.
A "feature" that until recently was reserved for one-off aggrieved MP's to make a good-faith protest against their party or a policy they disagreed with, changing nothing.
Until now it's never been used en masse to change the character of government. Mostly because previously this would have resulted in accusations of undemocratic dealings, bribery, and general sliminess that would backfire against the party that tried it.
Haha "I vote for the candidate not the party" says almost nobody genuinely. I reject this as total nonsense.
Reject it all you want. It does not change the fact of what I wrote.
I do think that floor crossers should subject themselves to a bye-election to ensure that the individual continues to represent the interests of the constituency.
Worse still, I think the majority of Canadians vote based on party leader in a messed up pseudo-presidential system we mentally copy from the US, complete with primary-style drawn-out leadership races known nowhere else in the developed British-derived world.
Mandatory by-elections would be a big improvement in cases of floor crossing. At least that's a check on buying power without some direct popular consent. I think this will inevitably have to happen because with recent precedent there is nothing stopping way more extreme abuses.
I agree with your description of our weird pseudo-Westminster, pseudo-Presidential system. You picked up on my admittedly idealistic view of our electoral system.
I am reading a biography of Winston Churchill at the moment. It is very interesting to read how the Westminster system is supposed to work. The PM and his PMO in Canada has far too much power. We end up having a President inside a parliamentary system.
Canada is in desperate need of extensive democratic and government reform. Too bad nobody within 100km of our politics has the inclination let alone the steel balls needed to do it.
But why would the Governing Party want to risk its new MP by making him submit to a by-election? Take what you won. He can stand for election as a Liberal in the next general. The voters can show their displeasure then. Maybe he "should" submit to a by-election, but the only mechanism that could make this happen is nullified by Party/Government interest.
Theoretically, the MP doesn't represent the interests of his constituency anyway. If he did, his constituents should be thrilled to know they now have an MP on the government benches with more chance to throw them some pork. Rather, the MP is supposed to be elected because the local yokels believe he is best among their lot able to work for a strong Canada. (Unless he's a Bloc MP. You don't see them crossing the floor except for Lucien Bouchard himself going the other way to start the Party.)
Unconventional and absurd, but so is Trump. Sadly for Canada, I can't say Andrew is wrong about the state of things.
The terms I believe are “finder’s fees” and “commissions” or the invention of one of former PM Mulroney’s nameless functionaries “Payment for services to be rendered in the future and recognized at that time”. ( or similar wording) This involved the reported 200 to 300 thousand dollar bills provided to Mulroney by German arms dealer Karl-Heinz Schreiber. Afterwards through some special tax rule involving Quebec and Revenue Canada only half the income was considered taxable 😆