Considering the combustible nature of Donald Trump, it will be very attractive to Liberals to frame the ballot question on The Bully and cloak themselves in the Maple Leaf and romp to victory.
If I was a Conservative strategist, I would continue to focus on the cost of living crisis and remind voters that the same crew is still driving the Liberal agenda and how is that working out for us? I think that the Liberals recognize the dangers of that territory and want to talk about anything but that.
And, the real wild card is how Trump (and Musk) will view the looming Canadian election? Will Trump bulldoze himself into the daily election narrative, or decide to go on the down low? Will Trump openly denigrate the Liberals and by inference support a Conservative election victory? The Conservatives must be hoping that Trump disappears or is distracted during our election process because his insertion into a campaign is bad news, anyway you slice it.
There’s a new issue around trade and U.S. relations that didn’t exist in any urgent form six months ago, so obviously Poilievre will need to continue to address it. But he would be a fool if he accepted the idea that it should be a single issue campaign, and that all the affordability issues he has pushed for years should be shelved in favor of the ballot question Carney prefers.
There’s no evidence one way or the other on how good Carney would be at foreign relations with the Trump admin, as much as his people would like us to believe it’s pretty much the same skill as setting interest rates. There is a mountain of evidence that Carney is willing to push up the cost of living in pursuit of his ideological goals.
His own statements - he says we need to "invest" a minimum of $80 billion per year in "climate initiatives". He criticises Trudeau for spending too little (a mere $15B per year) on fighting climate change....
He wants to HIDE (and increase) the carbon tax, which has been driving inflation.
He wants to HIDE the deficits he runs up by splitting operational and capital budgets (an accounting trick)
You have assumed rather than demonstrated that he expects such investments to be wasteful. An $80 billion investment in climate initiatives may or may not be economically productive, you have baselessly assumed that it would not be to the point of undermining cost of living, and that Carney *knows* that it would not be.
I have assumed nothing other than "Liberals gonna Liberal", and I am basing my assumptions on their track record over the past decade.
This idea that rampant spending can be packaged as "investment" is NOT a new idea.
...in fact, this was EXACTLY the rationale the Liberals gave when they created the Canada Infrastructure Bank in 2017, and the Canada Growth Fund in 2022 - BOTH of which still exist.
Carney proposes creating a third "investment" program - WHY?
What will this new fund do that the other two could not? He has already told us it will SPEND MORE. My conclusion is that this spending will impact affordability, as has in fact been the case this past few years.
As for the carbon tax, this is an old argument. YES a pure carbon tax (as originally designed by those Nobel winning economists) would be the best way to reduce emissions, but the Liberals did not implement that plan, now did they?
The Nobel winning idea was to introduce a punishingly large carbon tax, and simultaneously LOWER TAXES by an equal amount to the amount this new tax would raise, while eliminating all other regulations and emission caps so that the market could force behaviours.
...which is not at all what the Liberals built - NOR is it what Carney now proposes.
I share your skepticism of a third investment program, but you cannot logically leap from such skepticism to claiming that "Carney is willing to push up the cost of living in pursuit of his ideological goals". If the negative economic implications are obvious to you, that does not make it necessarily obvious to him.
The truth is that his policies and his agenda have been vague (which is worthy of criticism in itself), so there's as much or more reason to believe that his proposed fund will never come to fruition as there is to believe that it would come to fruition in a bad way.
There is nothing baseless about suggesting that increasing financial support of green initiatives is a losing proposition economically. Is the folly of Germany dismantling their nuclear power abilities prior to Putin invading Ukraine something you have not heard of?
An initiative can be "green", successful, and contribute mightily to GDP (salaries for families, increased money velocity.) As just a few examples, there are heat pump manufacturers and installers doing very well, as well as solar panel manufacturers, control systems, and storage for the same. These were all considered green and I remember well when solar was fringe.
The correct strategic choice is a "green" initiative that is also profitable, (the profitability part being a childish blind spot for the LPC the last 10 years.)
I am not arguing about whether "support of green initiatives is a losing proposition economically" - the devil will be in the details of whatever spending initiative may or may not be put forward. I was objecting to the claim that Carney *knowingly* would harm the economy or increase the cost of living in pursuit of ideological goals, a proposition for which there is no evidence.
Canada cannot make a major difference in the climate fight. Much like throwing a bucket of water on the Central California Plain it will not make any significant difference. We need to ‘invest’ in our military otherwise we will have no allies left. If we want a country we must align ourselves with like minded nations. Europe won’t want us if we bring nothing to the table except platitudes. 6-7 years to reach a level of defence spending that is now seen as obsolete is just too long. We need Europe’s help to patrol our eastern and northern coasts to protect both Canada and Greenland. We need to be seen as a protector of Europe with at least a couple of Sqns of fighters and surveillance planes. Our number one priority is not Trump, it’s Canada and rebuilding our internal and external structures. Trump wants to renegotiate every treaty. We can’t win because he won’t accept defeat, so we basically have to ignore him and be ready for what wrath he bares. The Zelensky debacle demonstrated what dealing with Trump brings. Keep our eye on the aim, Trump is a diversion.
Also, what is more important to Canadians, sparring with Trump or stopping the crime that’s taking over our streets?
"GS" may consider those wasteful or not wasteful... I can't say.
BUT.. it's inescapable that those things he mentioned will all cost money. which means it's indisputable that they will all raise the cost. of living in the short term. (The long term is debatable.)
By that logic, practically all government spending increases the cost of living, though. Or at least any government spending that does no give immediate economic benefits (something that is difficult to generalize about, since every economic transaction always involves someone somewhere in the economy accruing new wealth).
I think this is absolutely going to be the thinking of the Conservatives.
The problem is that the cost of living crisis is now inextricably linked with the Donald Trump crisis. If you think COL is bad now, what happens if Trump sneezes, and the dollar trades at .60 to the Greenback? Our internal issues are radically magnified by the unavoidable reality of our neighbour. And if the CPC doesn't act as if they get that, they risk losing their coalition, IMO. JG
Trump must be at least a bit mollified by Carney's self-sacrifice in moving Brookfield to New York despite the small matter of a conflict of interest. They're both businessmen, sort of, and know the art of manipulation to further their own interests. Libs might be a bit dismayed, though.
Yeah, that's the whole problem right there... people belong to tribes and no evidence to the contrary will move them. I make no assumptions about your tribe... maybe you're a CPC scorekeeper. Maybe I am too along with my other fine qualities, who knows. But I can say from my perspective that your metaphor is obtuse, as the label "G5" fits any number of items as a google search turns up.
Musk gamed the system to rob Canada of Tesla rebates. He and his buddy can only admire the billionaire move of Brookfield to qualify for mandatory investments from the U.S.
To be fair to the conservatives, unless Poilievre starts knitting live fluffy white kittens for all to cuddle to, central and eastern Canadians prefer to believe liberal lies over what their “lying eyes” are showing them because it saves them the hard work of finding out for themselves what the conservatives stand for. Furthermore, since Carney seems to want to steal the entire conservative platform, why not support those whose platform it is? Too much work I guess.
"Carney spoke of moving quickly to build things, create new trade relationships with reliable partners, reduce spending and even, get this, positioning Canada as an “energy superpower,” albeit one that champions both green and petrochemical resources."
Sure, but then Carney has ALSO said he intends to spend $80 BILLION per year on just "climate initiatives" (which Trudeau was spending a mere $15B per year on), so that "reduce spending" item in the above sentence is HIGHLY suspect.
...and I do not believe for a single second that Carney's big plan is to expand the oil and gas sector.
I agree, Carney is hyper focused on “climate change” and how Canada can solve the problem by spending billions in companies supposedly building alternative energy ( notice i didn’t use “green energy “ its about as green as the coal plants china builds every week)
Its a shame the alternative energy slush fund papers were never released ( un-redacted) and maybe they still can be ,
Something else that comes to mind with Carney is that back in the fall of last year , he advised that the Canadian pension plan should invest in Brookfield , which he moved to new york, and likely still owns shares of,
He comes across as very sneaky , and people talk about Pierre bending the knee to trump,
I think Carney would fold before Pierre and run away with billions,
and who knows maybe they both would.
Another thing that makes me nervous is his closeness with China,
We need to stand on our own feet as a country, we need to admit we are a resource country and need to get them out.
One more kick at Carney , where did he get the info that we are the USA’s number 1 supplier of supper conducters ?? Haha!
Scheer handled it badly, but so did the media. Does Elizabeth May still have her American citizenship? She gets a free pass too. Not that I want more attention on her lol
According to Wikipedia: Elizabeth May relinquished her U.S. citizenship in 1978, when she became a Canadian citizen, in accordance with American nationality law at the time.[13][14]
Surprised that you didn’t say more about Carney, his strong attachment to the WEF and a net zero environment….his many lies….thought your article was incomplete because of it….those are the things most of us worry about if this man were in charge,,,,you omitted the fact that he’s been advising Trudeau they say since 2021 and here we are…..
Fair enough….but it’s not conspiracy theory….his past actions speak for themselves..,he may well be a talented bureaucrat but IMO he’s NOT the person to lead 40 million Canadians. You didn’t disappoint…..you caught onto a thread and followed through….i just feel compelled to bring up his history cuz it says a lot about him and I’m disappointed that a person can come from the outside and our process will allow him to wield formidable power.
That’s fine. Your statement of taking us back to yesteryear is obtuse as well. Maybe not WEF but his book lays out the same path those organizations want Western democracies to submit to. I will be interested to see how you spin that going forward.
I’m curious as to where your line is between WEF conspiracism and undesirable WEF influence?
For example is it conspiratorial to disagree with the values, worldview, and policies of the WEF? Or is any mention of Carney’s membership and high level participation in WEF automatically disregarded are conspiratorial tripe, no matter the reasons or basis of opposition. Is it just automatic WEF opposition = conspiracy theorist? Where is your line on this? Please don’t say that the majority of the WEF stuff is conspiracy theorists either. I don’t happen to believe it’s an evil cabal of baby murdering devil worshipers attempting to bring forth a one world government to be ruled by the anti-Christ. But I sure don’t like much of what they preach and stand for, and really don’t like Klaus Vader bragging about infiltrating governments
Matt, you may THINK that you have "lots of time" but I suspect that the time available will be much less than you might expect. My point is that once an election is called, all analysis will be on that election rather than Carney's backstory. Oh, sorry, that's "backstory" as in does what is said currently conform with the religion that he spouted in the past?
My longstanding thoughts on what I can only describe as a predicted shit-show of leadership race:
1) The PMO long-ago decided it was going to blatantly tilt its resources and influence to secure Carney as Trudeau’s successor. By any other historical political standard in this country, this leadership race was saturated with arguable interference from the outgoing regime to hand-pick its successor, while the caucus and membership allowed it to happen in broad daylight for all to see.
2) The Liberal party boasted 400k members as of the registration cut-off date; but (to my knowledge) not once would they detail how many of those were new membership sign-ups as a result of the race versus existing membership lifers?
3) Given that only roughly 40% of the liberals membership bothered to vote in the leadership, speaks to the uninspired/unmotivated base they have; which I view as a clear weakness going into a federal election. But as this Line article correctly points out: this entire process was merely to give the Liberals someone else who had a chance of performing better than Trudeau would in an unavoidable general election this year. That process has now completed, with Trudeau’s preferred candidate being coronated as expected. But aside from message, what’s expected to really change? The devil is always in the details, which Carney (like Trudeau) has been evasive about.
4) The candidate slate was uninspiring to begin with. Many more preferred/suitable people could’ve or should’ve ran but opted not to; all in favour of rallying behind Carney. I can’t help but link that to the Trudeau PMO influence/meddling, too. At the end of the day, the candidate pool was limited to a close Trudeau-ally in Carney who sat back and relied on his central bank governor roles and other private sector experience, alongside Trudeau’s longtime right hand in Freeland who ardently defended Trudeau’s policies, along with fellow Trudeau parliamentary fighter Gould and some former MP nobody ever heard of. Well done Liberals *slow clap*. I suspect that’s why 60% of liberals didn’t bother to click-vote at the palm of their hand. Again, not a good sign for liberals going into a general election when compared to the last Conservative leadership race.
5) As long expected, Carney is now the man. But for how long? He has no seat, no political experience, no mandate, no communicated plan, no way of avoiding a confidence vote if he reconvenes parliament, and most importantly of all — he has no experience whatsoever in working long hard hours. He’s a banker. Bankers are arguably among the laziest of professionals. Politics, especially as Prime Minister, is a 24/7 demanding gig, and Carney is no spring chicken. I seriously question his ability to keep pace with the demands of the job itself, which will certainly be more intense during this Trump presidency. That’s quite the career/life culture shock for any newbie and requires more energy than I’m sure Carney has ever expelled in his life.
Like many, I sense a spring election coming. I expect interesting campaigns between Carney and Pollievre. I expect Carney will present as serious but he’ll make unavoidable gaffes as he learns and grows along the way, which will be exploited. I expect Pollievre will be strictly measured in his messaging but more quick on his feet in debate. I expect the nation to tune out the other leaders. I think Carney will be a tough sell in Quebec, which the Liberals need to try to retain to have a fighting chance. Ontario is also under pressure for Liberals, which they also need. One thing is for sure, we need an election, now, so we get a government with a clear mandate, and a parliament that can assemble and function. The gong show is over, now let’s get on with it and let Canadians have their say.
> By any other historical political standard in this country, this leadership race was saturated with arguable interference from the outgoing regime to hand-pick its successor
This is a GOOD THING. A BIG failure of Mr. Trudeau is that he didn't do it 5 years sooner.
It's absurd that our Prime Ministers act as if they will govern forever.
I mostly agree with your post, although I would not put Carney's work ethic into question. You don't get a PhD, author multiple books, or chair and sit on various boards without working considerably long hours.
The low turnout in the LPC leadership contest would have been affected by voting difficulties. I have no idea how many members ran into technical difficulties, but there are documented instances of members verifying their IDs successfully and yet not receiving the ballots.
1. Carney may have won the leadership in a landslide, but I suspect the LPC membership electorate and the general population have wildly different takes on the state of the country and that this will be reflected in their corresponding votes in the (hopefully soon) upcoming general election.
I would draw a parallel to the recent US election where the democratic and republican candidates were pretty much forecast to be neck and neck right to the end, polling bias and all that...
Let's not forget that we just spent 9 years of being gaslit, accused of racism, misogyny and holding unacceptable views, while having our bank accounts frozen for upholding our right to protest peacefully. I'm hoping the majority of Canadians will not forget nor forgive that.
2. Freeland lost because she's a deeply unappealing, karen-like figure that spent whatever little political capital she had in the last 10 years of a Trudeau government. That stain ain't never coming off.
It was found in public opinion polling that the majority of Canadians supported the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the squashing of the lawless occupation of Ottawa by "truckers". If the Liberals lose the election, it will be in spite of, not because of, the crackdown on the convoy.
> If the Liberals lose the election, it will be in spite of, not because of, the crackdown on the convoy.
Don't be so sure. I doubt I'm the only opponent of the convoy protests who also sees the LPC crackdown as absolute mess exposing the LPC as a bunch of incompetents.
Put it this way. I bet we both have 100% confidence that Jean Chrétien would have handled the exact same scenario with a skill that would make the Justin Trudeau responses look like they were high school kids. It's not a partisan thing... it's an incompetence thing.
Are you disputing the accuracy of the polls I am referring to, or are you claiming that the public mood about the convoy has changed since the polls were taken?
I'm not saying anything about the polls. I'm saying that in terms of pure governing skill... how effectively the government achieves government objectives... the LPC really, really, REALLY sucked at it during the convey protests.
I'm also saying that Jean Chrétien would NOT have sucked at it. I might have loved or hated whatever he would have done, but I am VERY sure he wouldn't have sucked at achieving his goals.
It should never have been up to the federal government to solve the convoy problem. Ottawa's municipal police should have been able to enforce the law, and in the event that they could not do so, Doug Ford should have used the resources of the Ministry of Transportation to remove the trucks.
That said, I maintain that in an identical situation with a municipal and provincial governments failing in the very same ways…. the current leadership of the LPC is a pale shadow of what previous LPC (or conservative) leadership.
Yes, but there wasn't a plan or process to do it. Just the same way there wasn't a plan or process to clear the first nations off of the Via Rail tracks before. The federal government just sat on their thumbs and waited for the next crisis too.
Yes, the problem in Ottawa was a mutiny in the municipal police who took advantage of the arrival of the truckers to compel the resignation of a Chief they already disapproved of. "Never let a crisis go to waste!" as someone said.
Speaking as someone named Karen, I really wish people would stop using my name to describe assholes who happen to be women. Crystia Freeland may not be a great politician, but she's not an asshole.
You mean "uppity woman who doesn't know her place is doing what a man says"?
Because that's what "Karen" means... It's a way of dismissing a woman out of hand who has the temerity to talk back to a man or stand up for herself and the way you know this is that there's no corresponding sex-coded term for a man who does EXACTLY the same thing.
By your own definition, uppity means "arrogant, presomptuous" or "aspiring to a rank or position higher than one deserves or is entitled to" which is pretty much what I was going for and hardly the exclusive territory of women.
It's a matter of competence, which in the way I meant it, would apply equally to an incompetent man.
The strong vote for Carney fits the Liberal pattern of fixating on The Strong Leader as the solution to their electoral woes. This time seems a bit more desperate, though, and Carney’s trouncing of his opponents on the first ballot says a lot about the Liberals’ depleted talent pool. This party used to the Natural Governing Party and a magnet for the talented and ambitious: that advantage has faded away as losses stripped away the veneer of electoral inevitability and party infighting pushed out capable people. I’m not sure what Carney really brings to the table other than a CV as a central banker. He certainly doesn’t address the Liberal weaknesses in areas like defense, foreign policy, or even health care.
I’m not particularly impressed by Poilievre. He’s a partisan attack dog by nature, and I suspect Stephen Harper never trusted him with a substantive cabinet portfolio for a reason. He’s also tapped into the rancid right wing populist political current that’s more motivated by invective and spite than a coherent political theory. I have no desire to turn over Canada’s government to a political wrecking crew like we’ve seen in some jurisdictions when they bring the populists into government. Electing him looks like a risk, but still seems like a better option than a Liberal party with a terrible record of governance and no real understanding or recognition of their failures.
I’m deeply worried about how big city and particularly Toronto voters react to Carney. They’ve been the linchpin to Liberal support even after Trudeau’s scandals and failures were apparent as early as the 2019 election. Toronto voters also kept granting governments to the McGuinty-Wynne provincial Liberals for their fiscally incontinent, incompetent, and terminally political governments. If Carney calls an election immediately, he might eke out a win. I think that’ll prove disastrous because it’ll just put a temporary veneer on the rotten Liberal apparatus. If Carney lets the clock run out until fall, I suspect the reality that nothing’s really changed will reassert and the Liberals will finally be turfed. That sort of error and defeat would be an odd tautology proving that Carney lacked the political chops for the job.
Did the Liberals slump in the polls because of their policies, or because their Leader had what Andrew Coyne calls the Hippie King personality, and they were really tired of having that personality at the helm? I think that we will agree that Carney has no proven ability to manage and meet political expectations, though.
Harper may not have appointed Poilievre to any senior role, but it will always reflect poorly on his judgment that he appointed Poilievre to be Minister of Democratic Reform instead of Michael Chong.
Pollievre had two ministerial positions. Also everybody else who had ministerial positions is probably dead or retired. I think that is the best you are going to get out of the old Harper government.
Poilievre "did fine" in a role where he publicly mocked hundreds of democracy experts who criticized his bill, before humiliating himself and the government with a climbdown and compromise with the same experts whom he had so mocked?
We don't need a weak minority government. But my wish is for a Conservative majority. We need to stop throwing money at everything and come up with an actual plan for the country. I don't see Carney building pipelines,
The pipeline discussion is a great talking point for politicians eager to catch the wave of current trends but in the end, it will be pipeline construction and oil companies who will decide whether pipelines are worth the financial risk. There will need to be demand for the product and a serious recalibration of the regulatory process and a lower tolerance for activists in the hearing stages that strangle projects to death.
Yup. The activists may have been cut off at the knees though as Musk has pummeled USAID and revealed that a lot of leftist environmental activist groups were funded by them as part of that body's dole out to NGO's. I always wondered where they got their money, now we know. Thanks America (not).
In general, I agree with your blistering assessment of the current crop of Liberals. As I said in my own comment, posted well after you got yours "on the board", they are nothing if not cynical. Nonetheless, you also wrote the following statement:
QUOTE
Electing [Pierre Poilievre] looks like a risk, but still seems like a better option than a Liberal party with a terrible record of governance and no real understanding or recognition of their failures.
END QUOTE
I'm afraid that electing a government led by Poilievre would be more than "a risk". He has staked everything on turning the "Conservative" Party into a cheap imitation of the MAGA party down south.
No amount of disdain for the Liberals justifies voting for that, in my view.
It’s going to be interesting when Carney has to put on the batting helmet and take some real questions instead of the softball lobs that have come his way since he announced his candidacy. If I’m a Conservative my first pitch would be on Gaza and then wait for all the Palestinian supporters already in his caucus lose their shit regardless of question or reply. The leader may have changed but not so much the sitting members of the LPC. Light em up and watch the burn.
I think the assertion, strongly made by Gerson and Gurney, that the ballot box question WILL be “who is best to deal with Trump” (or some variation of that) is wrong. Or, at least, it is significantly more nuanced than presented.
Doug Ford tried desperately to make Trump the question in last week’s Ontario election and largely failed. Affordability was still the biggest issue. Tariffs impact affordability, but the question on voters’ minds was still affordability and not “who’s the best to take on Trump”.
I’d suggest the US election gives a similar preview - voters were concerned about Trump’s mannerisms, authoritarianism, etc., but it was ultimately pocketbook issues that mattered. Narrowly, but still.
The dispatch acknowledges some nuance in noting that the Liberals are tired and the Tories are rich, which essentially means that the issues might not matter as much as fundamentals. I’d suggest that that is the more correct opinion than that Trump will swing this election (intentionally or otherwise).
I’m not sure there’s been an issues poll showing “Trump” as the top issue. Gerson and Gurney should temper their assertions without research to back it up.
I’d argue he’s more of a spectre in the background than a sword of Damocles. I think it’d be a huge mistake for Poilievre to “pivot” to a campaign focused on Trump. He should acknowledge the issue, but you cannot conflate ‘media attention’ to an issue with ‘voter importance’ of an issue.
If you don't think $TRump is the issue then we are doomed as a nation. The Europeans have woken up. NATO is dead. They cannot rely on the US to lend support WHEN the Russians invade. Poland is working on getting nuclear weapons. France has promised support to Poland in that area. Germany is rearming (German military stocks are hitting new highs).
What do you think we should do when $TRump sends in the US military into northern Canada in a pretext to defend the Arctic, or to take control of the electricity utilities, pipelines, rare earth mines. WAKE UP!!!!!
The issue is that Canada has slacked off for decades. The dems weren't any more pro-Canadian. They just weren't as outwardly musing as Trump is. We need a PM who can focus on improving Canada. We don't need any more anti-Americanness. We're currently running the country like we deal with healthcare. Enough of the "we're not the US." There should be more to "We are Canadian" than poutine.
Fully agree. Too much of the discourse focuses on "standing up to Trump" rather that strengthening Canada. The former offers an emotional release by playing to Eastern Canada's United Empire Loyalist hang-ups, while the latter would involve work. Canada needs to massively improve its productivity. That will involve difficult discussions around delivering health and education more efficiently and effectively, clear lines of accountability between orders of government, deregulation of protected industries, balancing operational budgets mostly through austerity, removing barriers to infrastructure development and encouraging entrepreneurship to drive innovation. Wrapping each other in the maple leaf could be regressive if it leads to greater protectionism or expansion of government.
I said “who is best to deal with Trump” won’t be the question on most voters’ minds when they go to vote.
For example: I care deeply about balancing the budget and increasing military spending, and they’re important issues that this country needs to address. However, I do not think most voters will be thinking about “who is most likely to be fiscally responsible” when they vote.
There are a ton of issues pressing to the nation, almost none of which voters care about. And in this coming election, I’d hazard most voters will be more concerned about grocery bills and mortgage payments than they will be about NATO and Trump.
My point is that the question must be who is best to deal with $TRump. We are in the first part of the war which is an economic tariff war. Soon to start will be a cyber/propaganda war, including millions of dollars to those groups of Canadians who support a 51st state. $TRump is an agent of chaos. We need to be prepared.
I agree that there are turbulent times coming, but I strongly disagree that the sole focus must be Trump. Canada has enough stuff to fix that can compensate for the orange man. Things we should have fixed a long time ago. We should focus on that.
You can’t run a government speculating on what Trump may or may not do next. You will fail. You can, however, run a government that does good things for this country and our people, irrespective of who’s in the White House. That’s what we should do.
Running a campaign on “who is best to deal with Trump” and selecting the boring lefty technocrat or the pugilistic apple eater on that basis is a disservice to the massive internal problems facing this stagnant country.
It would be monumentally worse to let Trump distract from the failure of Trudeau’s record or the plans (or lack thereof) of the frontrunners.
And, importantly, I think most Canadians will think that way and the politicians should too.
I think the assertion that the ballot box question will be "who is best to deal with Trump" is exactly what will be on the mid of voters because they know the "who" will determine the "how."
As much as I want to vote for PP, he has offered little other than opposition, and simply failed us when we need his first instinct to be to defend our sovereignty.
Well, I don’t think any of what I said was an endorsement of either party but rather just a comment on the ballot question. You can insert partisanship wherever you want, as you have done in fairly typical fashion by criticizing the opposition leader for “opposing.” I don’t buy for a moment that you have ever liked Poilievre, let alone considered voting for the conservatives.
But let me accept your argument for a brief moment because that’s all the time it deserves.
Let’s be very clear: the governing party spent its time in office destroying any semblance of Canadian identity. We don’t venerate our military history, that’s fascism and our military is a joke. We don’t talk about the positives of ‘what it means to be Canadian’ because to this government and this PM, being Canadian was to be in a state of sin for all of the wrongs we’ve perpetrated in the past. There is no Canadian identity in a post-national state, and you should be ashamed for believing that being patriotic is proper and acceptable.
To suggest, as you have done, that the Liberal party is now the one best positioned to defend Canada against a foreign threat is to wilfully and fully bury one’s head in the sand.
How many of these Liberals tried to cancel Canada Day last summer? Not even 1 year ago? But the OTHER guy isn’t patriotic enough? The OTHER guy hasn’t done enough to prove he loves and supports this country?
And now, when we face a foreign threat, those same craven Liberals want us to decry that other guy and vote for them because Pierre hasn’t done enough to prove his Canadian bona fides? When the best thing that Trudeau can say when asked what it means to be Canadian is “not American?”
I'm not sure of your point, but think Trudeau resigned, no?
Yes, I've never liked Poilievre, to be clear. When the CPC picked him, I thought he was an empty suit who wants to be PM, with an ego as big as Trudeau, and no ideas other than quips about the "other guy." "Gotcha" does nothing for my vision of the future and, to repeat myself, his hesitation when we needed a Canadian first, made him look weak.
As I said in the initial comment (or perhaps one of the follow-ups) tariffs/trade war/trump threats undoubtedly impact the issue set.
However, I don’t think the average voter will think “I need to decide my vote based on who I think best to fight Trump, because that will make life more affordable for me.” I think the calculus is “I’m struggling to pay my bills because of inflation, slow job market, Trump/trade war, stagnant economy, etc., and I want the next leader to do things to make my life more affordable.”
The thing that gets me about Freeland’s total is that she averaged just under 33 votes per riding. She has been deputy PM for years. Presumably she had leadership aspirations, and knew one day the job would become available. She set off the race herself when she knifed Trudeau!
Even if no existing Liberals voted for her at all, could her team really not sign up 34 people per riding? For free? I am not an organizer but have worked on leadership campaigns, and I’ve signed up more people than that in my riding plenty of times. When they had to pay. She only got 188 votes in her own riding of University Rosedale. Which contains the largest university in the country. Astonishing.
Dictatorships commonly end with a knife in the back. If you read "An Indian in the Cabinet", Jody Wilson-Raybould gives a sense of how MPs were treated and how the show was run. This is the opposite of grass roots.
While Freeland was a journalist, I respected her and her work. The thing that got me about her was when she left journalism to sell herself out to Trudeau. In my view she showed a cardinally bad judgment on a fundamental matter. So it was, 'bye dame, you are no good'.
The current CPC is "Hard Right" in affectation only, if what you mean by that term is limited to "being a bit cantankerous and snarky". Thus far, they are continuing the tradition of watering down conservatism so as not to frighten anyone, that's why all we've got is "axe the tax" and "stop the crime", because they haven't dared to move beyond anodyne slogans
Yes I know you were referring to the factions by their position relative to eachother. Not to quibble over terminology but I think that conservatives openly referring to the Poilievre faction as "hard right" would be like if Liberals referred to the Trudeau LPC as the "communist" faction, that term has enormous baggage
Yesssssssss .... Matt, "there are factions" but you can also say that "there are factions" in the LPC and the NDP that are hard left.
And so on and so forth. My point is that the issue is not the "factions" in any of these parties but it is the parties themselves and their parties' publicly espoused policies that on should concentrate on.
Please allow me to put it differently: it seems to me that much is made of the "hard right" side of the CPC but virtually no one really pays attention to the "hard left" sides of the LPC or the NDP. Is that because the "hard left" is non-existent [I don't think that is so] or perhaps because "hard left" is seen by many in the media as something like "boys will be boys" and so forth. That "boys will be boys" attitude has been very rightfully scorned in many other phases of society so perhaps some more widespread critical thinking about attitudes in political parties might be appropriate.
The most obvious is the embrace of the "living tree" method of interpretation without a judicial philosophy of what gets grafted on beyond "whatever we believe is in the public good".
That is a good thing. A certain amount of contention between Parliament and the Supreme Court is healthy. The Liberals, and to a lesser extent the Harper Conservatives, acquiesced to the Courts on too many occasions leading to, for example, the ridiculous duty to consult indigenous groups on use of their "traditional" lands.
What riled me up during the speech was Carney repeating the line that he has a plan and Poilievre doesn't. I'm trying to give Carney a fair shot here. I know Poilievre has a plan but does Carney really have one?
I get the impression he is trying to position himself as the safe hands, guy who knows what he is doing, boring banker. If he doesn't have any plan, are we even sure he is who he is claiming to be?
I'm a bit confused by this. Yes, Carney has agreed with the CPC to scrap the cap gains tax, and the carbon tax as it now is, but he's also talked about fixing the productivity problem, finding new markets, lowering spending... and he's an economist with decades of market and fiscal management experience.
I've also hear PP talk about what not to do. If he's talked about anything positive, an area of focus to rebuild the economy, I've missed it and he needs to do a much better job.
PP's inability to be a strong CANADIAN, defend our sovereignty, his appalling hesitation... gives me as much pause as the LPC baggage Carney carries.
In a party that has never produced or encouraged a female PM and only promoted non-uppity Stepford Wives to cabinet, and is dominated by Quebecers with their lite version of Mexican traditional Machismo, the real surprise is that Freeland got as many votes as she did.
The Carney couple seemed almost skeletal, not that that matters I guess. But I was shocked at how 'lean', they both looked. People cannot forget that he is again PM for the Liberals party of Justin Trudeau with Butts and Telford in the background.
On the bright side, I am so glad that Trudeau is gone and perhaps we will not be accosted by his strident dramatic visage any longer...Please, I hope he is just gonzo...gone, gone, gone.
Poilievre and the Conservatives get bashed every time they do anything or mention anything that steps outside a safe zone...a zone that the progressives defined and are still controlling at the sidelines. I would like to see a louder promotion of their policies and even, gasp, attack the Liberals past, present and future. Not sure it would work with all, but it would with me. Bring it on baby.
Trump said Poilievre is not MAGA...he should lean into that a bit, just a bit. I get sick and just so tired of hearing that he is 'maple-syrup MAGA' as the forgotten Gould puts it. If he and the Conservative backgrounder could get him to speak with Trump and show that he can work with him. He can and will.
Poilievre for the win. Let's put the Liberals back in the bushes for as long as possible. The rest of the country outside Quebec and Lower Ontario and Metro Vancouver needs it.
Also, I believe that the NDP may not even make party status this time around. Poor Jagmeet...time to realize that he has undermined his party to their potential annihilation. Burnaby, are you listening.
They couldn't pick Freeland. She came with far too much "Trudeau baggage"...see also Hillary Clinton. They had to step away from anyone who had served in Trudeaus' government or they were writing the Conservatives ads for them.
The Conservatives with their "Carbon tax Carney" ads still don't seem to get it. I hope the writ is dropped soon so we can see what everyone actually has planned. Because from the top down, our leaders need to stop being "self-proctologists". It's time for actual action.
Despite the usual partisan cheering this weekend, the Liberals themselves seem to realize they’ve failed and need to be replaced. That’s why they’ve run towards the messianic outsider figure. The problem for them is that their party had been tailored as a channel for Trudeau’s personality and brand for over a decade: will it simply adapt to serve a new personality? Does Carney have the skills needed to fill that role? Is there anything left of the Liberals to help Carney with the Trudeau core gone?
I agree they couldn't pick Freeland. The approach the conservatives have taken has never been solution-focused. The biggest liability Poilievre has to deal with is Poilievre himself. For me, he is unlikeable and seems to take some pleasure out of being that way. Might be a lovely warm guy in private but the guy we see in TV is angry all the time it seems. I suspect that unlikability is one reason the polls have turned on the Tories. Yep, you can be unlikeable and prime minster, they all tend to be unlikeable in the end. But in this time of global madness, I think people would like someone who isn't just another angry voice on a planet full of angry people.
I really don't understand this obsession with likeability. Who really cares if the person you're voting for is someone you would want to have a beer with? It is literally never going to happen, so "so what"?
If you've actually listened to Poilievre, or watched ANY of his videos, he doesn't come across as angry at all - he comes across as a good debated, someone who does his homework and comes prepared with facts and figures.
In fact, the ONLY place he comes across as angry is in Question Period - that lovely tradition we have where opposition politicians ask pointed questions and get ZERO actual answers back from government. At least, that;s the way it has worked while Trudeau has been in office.
...pretty sure you would be angry too, by the time you've gotten 53 different evasions in response to the same reasonable question.
I actually like Poilievre and think he would make a good PM. He can think on his feet, but he's also knowledgable on a lot of stuff. And if he didn't have good ideas that appealed to a lot of people, the Liberal party wouldn't be stealing them.
It was no different when Harper was in power; it's a parliamentary tradition. I'll be curious what Pierre has in his platform. What he comes across as is arrogant and obnoxious while lacking substance. We'll find out if he has any when the platform comes out.
Perhaps when people talk about Poilievre's likeability, what they really mean is to refer to his policy ignorance resulting from blinkered partisanship. Yes, he has a strong personal capacity to retain information, but any and all information that he absorbs will always be predicated on the assumption that Conservatives Are Always Right on All Things. He has no capacity to listen to non-Conservatives with any consistency, and he has and would produce ignorant legislation accordingly.
His position differs from the Liberal position of "Liberals are always correct on all things" in label only. He is a mirror image of the party he has been fighting.
How much have the Liberals listened to Conservatives this past ten years?
ALL of your criticisms are partisan only, and have nothing to do with "likeability".
No, the Liberals do not have leadership that believes that only Liberals are always right. Every government resists caving to criticisms up to a point, but this government would not have been able to sustain a minority government this long without being willing to accept at least a couple of ideas from the NDP.
Poilievre's CPC cannot and will not cooperate positively with any other party.
The libs slow walked their commitments to anyone who didn't suffer their new ideological mind-virus. They made them in bad faith to cling to power. The Libs under Trudeau set the bar low for collaboration or transparency and have a long way to go to earn our respect again.
Part of that I think is that the Conservatives are furthest to the right on most policy questions, in a country that just likes leftists better. The Liberals have decades of tradition of horse-trading with the NDP in minority governments....and then trying to crush the NDP in the next election. Conservatives inherently don't have allies in the HOC because all the other parties are Leftist, especially now.
I have no idea if the Conservatives or any party could form a Government with Bloc Québecois support. It sounds like a contradiction in terms.
The only reason "Unite the Left" has never got off the ground is that the near left and the far left hate each other. But if it ever did, we'd have LibLeft governments forever.
I don't think any of things are reasons for or against liveability... because they all apply just as well to Justin Trudeau and he topped liveability for a LONG time. So clearly you can be tops on liveability and still have all of the following.
* Blinkered partisanship
* policy ignorance (I don't really think about monetary policy)
* My party is ALWAYS right and the other party is ALWAYS EVIL
* incapacity to listen to other side with any consistency
Heck when you put it that way, they seem like twins. I mean, they don't *look* like twins, but based on those things, we're definitely dealing with twins.
Oh my gosh, you really believe that Poilievre speaking as a Conservative is something surprising. He is a Conservative. What is he supposed to speak like.
Most Conservatives do not mock non-Conservatives nearly to the extent that Poilievre does, especially non-partisan academics and civil society organizations.
Maybe. But for me he comes across as petulant and it isn't just question period, it's all the time. You might have liked his apple chewing question but for me he came across as an enormous rectum.
Yikes! People like people who are like them. And you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. My first impression is the same now as when he had slick hair and nerd glasses; angry and petulant. High school dickhead communication style. Hey if you like and trust him that's fine. I just don't.
I have never seen Poilievre 'angry'...even during the HOC 'debates'. If he ever was, do you not think that the captured media would not have jumped on it en mass? I do.
Considering the combustible nature of Donald Trump, it will be very attractive to Liberals to frame the ballot question on The Bully and cloak themselves in the Maple Leaf and romp to victory.
If I was a Conservative strategist, I would continue to focus on the cost of living crisis and remind voters that the same crew is still driving the Liberal agenda and how is that working out for us? I think that the Liberals recognize the dangers of that territory and want to talk about anything but that.
And, the real wild card is how Trump (and Musk) will view the looming Canadian election? Will Trump bulldoze himself into the daily election narrative, or decide to go on the down low? Will Trump openly denigrate the Liberals and by inference support a Conservative election victory? The Conservatives must be hoping that Trump disappears or is distracted during our election process because his insertion into a campaign is bad news, anyway you slice it.
There’s a new issue around trade and U.S. relations that didn’t exist in any urgent form six months ago, so obviously Poilievre will need to continue to address it. But he would be a fool if he accepted the idea that it should be a single issue campaign, and that all the affordability issues he has pushed for years should be shelved in favor of the ballot question Carney prefers.
There’s no evidence one way or the other on how good Carney would be at foreign relations with the Trump admin, as much as his people would like us to believe it’s pretty much the same skill as setting interest rates. There is a mountain of evidence that Carney is willing to push up the cost of living in pursuit of his ideological goals.
"There is a mountain of evidence that Carney is willing to push up the cost of living in pursuit of his ideological goals."
What examples do you have in mind?
His own statements - he says we need to "invest" a minimum of $80 billion per year in "climate initiatives". He criticises Trudeau for spending too little (a mere $15B per year) on fighting climate change....
He wants to HIDE (and increase) the carbon tax, which has been driving inflation.
He wants to HIDE the deficits he runs up by splitting operational and capital budgets (an accounting trick)
...what more evidence do you need to see?
You have assumed rather than demonstrated that he expects such investments to be wasteful. An $80 billion investment in climate initiatives may or may not be economically productive, you have baselessly assumed that it would not be to the point of undermining cost of living, and that Carney *knows* that it would not be.
Economists would soundly discredit your argument that carbon taxes increase inflation: https://watermark.silverchair.com/jvad020.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAA04wggNKBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggM7MIIDNwIBADCCAzAGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMbIIMbhZW54aBWH5fAgEQgIIDAQZyj67vQDZBcjhi5tvds4JU2fIkyaVu2IZU9KMhVPX5W8eoD3tz60deBHOwEYjVhyANbger2wQcZLFnD3Ubr1AS21rr5mItOTn2bODvz_7ue0IWc3YIOvlIUBfdiTn_fsykTyobxyDgSJpgXuvYK1IAUyK4oLxHT8yc8ICCLbm3FzXihfMQN9M9E552Xp9A54FTFXhNioTcDcrU2_wJ5YlMyRgY-_1ZFtVPX2ZtTguY5W6hjmgLKXKfZ3e-ySF6oeruG1TYqO25cZjo9kfuUrst8L1DyT_EsD-GePwFuumVWiuKVCIjZQpBQ9Urtrt-j9EN2CfTCO5xarNpwZRxbE4sHCU07wOErgdn1MNgG_wuZNv_vuohufwpvjL9xgXcdLYIspdBoOgt1R5Y7obVa6fZdMn_uo_qa1aECm7DP1QKP00jT5gLRpAkhyPV_KQbxpvSKqsQQvkLxq--uQjf8j-L696diAFHwWzxCwm4NhGyR0tX9KUVGGS3DmW9L-M6SJdSoljqTbdrwiw_VkRJFvzV46_iVy5pciGrx6n62m0ybMzlUx-eANrhp-WsDOkR_LZk3DepANoRzWDepxEQARHBPGbVqZqnRVo_am7mWtL7Qj4neOwgFhLa_ETL8_X91IUTZ0bOhdgWZPN_z6rG-CP8YXjO7R4Jy4KkiR9XTeefoNxc24jfmMPliu43mre2u_BmDTmXNFdljKtmh9gFYgS3PNIs2dnUtRLju8wsYT0VJzBdJi9K43_3DuC7ZWMxg0NpWF_n89gpxLIzRhuqslXUGotCCaX8HywjDc47QxhIyMxcWSf0x0jYeq0bqRt9I5f8LjgztBO17KbFUUmD529JjsTYpPe1NLyf_yZtHbW5pC8iM1OxUCKTiYazBkqmOqdKnrLIafRTuOm2o1LlcUFgyYQdBmkWYhsfa4TQEt6mU3PVfvCM8E5BE9i5vgLro-PcHU3r3pqoPthH2DqKMuno0pRjHDi9fXOl_zqxrmaaEq066JGTjbp8vo661aA22fo
I have assumed nothing other than "Liberals gonna Liberal", and I am basing my assumptions on their track record over the past decade.
This idea that rampant spending can be packaged as "investment" is NOT a new idea.
...in fact, this was EXACTLY the rationale the Liberals gave when they created the Canada Infrastructure Bank in 2017, and the Canada Growth Fund in 2022 - BOTH of which still exist.
Carney proposes creating a third "investment" program - WHY?
What will this new fund do that the other two could not? He has already told us it will SPEND MORE. My conclusion is that this spending will impact affordability, as has in fact been the case this past few years.
As for the carbon tax, this is an old argument. YES a pure carbon tax (as originally designed by those Nobel winning economists) would be the best way to reduce emissions, but the Liberals did not implement that plan, now did they?
The Nobel winning idea was to introduce a punishingly large carbon tax, and simultaneously LOWER TAXES by an equal amount to the amount this new tax would raise, while eliminating all other regulations and emission caps so that the market could force behaviours.
...which is not at all what the Liberals built - NOR is it what Carney now proposes.
I share your skepticism of a third investment program, but you cannot logically leap from such skepticism to claiming that "Carney is willing to push up the cost of living in pursuit of his ideological goals". If the negative economic implications are obvious to you, that does not make it necessarily obvious to him.
The truth is that his policies and his agenda have been vague (which is worthy of criticism in itself), so there's as much or more reason to believe that his proposed fund will never come to fruition as there is to believe that it would come to fruition in a bad way.
There is nothing baseless about suggesting that increasing financial support of green initiatives is a losing proposition economically. Is the folly of Germany dismantling their nuclear power abilities prior to Putin invading Ukraine something you have not heard of?
That is too general a statement.
An initiative can be "green", successful, and contribute mightily to GDP (salaries for families, increased money velocity.) As just a few examples, there are heat pump manufacturers and installers doing very well, as well as solar panel manufacturers, control systems, and storage for the same. These were all considered green and I remember well when solar was fringe.
The correct strategic choice is a "green" initiative that is also profitable, (the profitability part being a childish blind spot for the LPC the last 10 years.)
I am not arguing about whether "support of green initiatives is a losing proposition economically" - the devil will be in the details of whatever spending initiative may or may not be put forward. I was objecting to the claim that Carney *knowingly* would harm the economy or increase the cost of living in pursuit of ideological goals, a proposition for which there is no evidence.
Canada cannot make a major difference in the climate fight. Much like throwing a bucket of water on the Central California Plain it will not make any significant difference. We need to ‘invest’ in our military otherwise we will have no allies left. If we want a country we must align ourselves with like minded nations. Europe won’t want us if we bring nothing to the table except platitudes. 6-7 years to reach a level of defence spending that is now seen as obsolete is just too long. We need Europe’s help to patrol our eastern and northern coasts to protect both Canada and Greenland. We need to be seen as a protector of Europe with at least a couple of Sqns of fighters and surveillance planes. Our number one priority is not Trump, it’s Canada and rebuilding our internal and external structures. Trump wants to renegotiate every treaty. We can’t win because he won’t accept defeat, so we basically have to ignore him and be ready for what wrath he bares. The Zelensky debacle demonstrated what dealing with Trump brings. Keep our eye on the aim, Trump is a diversion.
Also, what is more important to Canadians, sparring with Trump or stopping the crime that’s taking over our streets?
"GS" may consider those wasteful or not wasteful... I can't say.
BUT.. it's inescapable that those things he mentioned will all cost money. which means it's indisputable that they will all raise the cost. of living in the short term. (The long term is debatable.)
By that logic, practically all government spending increases the cost of living, though. Or at least any government spending that does no give immediate economic benefits (something that is difficult to generalize about, since every economic transaction always involves someone somewhere in the economy accruing new wealth).
I think this is absolutely going to be the thinking of the Conservatives.
The problem is that the cost of living crisis is now inextricably linked with the Donald Trump crisis. If you think COL is bad now, what happens if Trump sneezes, and the dollar trades at .60 to the Greenback? Our internal issues are radically magnified by the unavoidable reality of our neighbour. And if the CPC doesn't act as if they get that, they risk losing their coalition, IMO. JG
Trump must be at least a bit mollified by Carney's self-sacrifice in moving Brookfield to New York despite the small matter of a conflict of interest. They're both businessmen, sort of, and know the art of manipulation to further their own interests. Libs might be a bit dismayed, though.
Nobody cares about that other than CPC score-keepers.
Trump is a business man like Carney, and my foot is a transportation device like a G5.
Yeah, that's the whole problem right there... people belong to tribes and no evidence to the contrary will move them. I make no assumptions about your tribe... maybe you're a CPC scorekeeper. Maybe I am too along with my other fine qualities, who knows. But I can say from my perspective that your metaphor is obtuse, as the label "G5" fits any number of items as a google search turns up.
Musk gamed the system to rob Canada of Tesla rebates. He and his buddy can only admire the billionaire move of Brookfield to qualify for mandatory investments from the U.S.
To be fair to the conservatives, unless Poilievre starts knitting live fluffy white kittens for all to cuddle to, central and eastern Canadians prefer to believe liberal lies over what their “lying eyes” are showing them because it saves them the hard work of finding out for themselves what the conservatives stand for. Furthermore, since Carney seems to want to steal the entire conservative platform, why not support those whose platform it is? Too much work I guess.
Try not to despair although I have had a few moments myself like that. I have to believe that my fellow citizens can see through the Liberal dreck.
I sure hope you're right!
"Carney spoke of moving quickly to build things, create new trade relationships with reliable partners, reduce spending and even, get this, positioning Canada as an “energy superpower,” albeit one that champions both green and petrochemical resources."
Sure, but then Carney has ALSO said he intends to spend $80 BILLION per year on just "climate initiatives" (which Trudeau was spending a mere $15B per year on), so that "reduce spending" item in the above sentence is HIGHLY suspect.
...and I do not believe for a single second that Carney's big plan is to expand the oil and gas sector.
Do you?
I agree, Carney is hyper focused on “climate change” and how Canada can solve the problem by spending billions in companies supposedly building alternative energy ( notice i didn’t use “green energy “ its about as green as the coal plants china builds every week)
Its a shame the alternative energy slush fund papers were never released ( un-redacted) and maybe they still can be ,
Something else that comes to mind with Carney is that back in the fall of last year , he advised that the Canadian pension plan should invest in Brookfield , which he moved to new york, and likely still owns shares of,
He comes across as very sneaky , and people talk about Pierre bending the knee to trump,
I think Carney would fold before Pierre and run away with billions,
and who knows maybe they both would.
Another thing that makes me nervous is his closeness with China,
We need to stand on our own feet as a country, we need to admit we are a resource country and need to get them out.
One more kick at Carney , where did he get the info that we are the USA’s number 1 supplier of supper conducters ?? Haha!
A person with three passports absolutely has a big carbon footprint and is therefore a climate hypocrite.
Good point !!
And also didnt CBC ( and the liberal party ) go nuts when Andrew Scheer was running and has dual Canadian -USA citizenship?
He was born into this , he didn’t choose it like Carney did, but………crickets
Scheer handled it badly, but so did the media. Does Elizabeth May still have her American citizenship? She gets a free pass too. Not that I want more attention on her lol
I didnt know May had dual ,
I believe what we have come across is another reason to defund the cbc ,
And we just simply cant afford it anymore
She was born in the USA and spent a fair bit of her childhood there. Moved here as a teen? Would have to double check that
According to Wikipedia: Elizabeth May relinquished her U.S. citizenship in 1978, when she became a Canadian citizen, in accordance with American nationality law at the time.[13][14]
Not a chance. His wife might have him by the nether regions on this.
Surprised that you didn’t say more about Carney, his strong attachment to the WEF and a net zero environment….his many lies….thought your article was incomplete because of it….those are the things most of us worry about if this man were in charge,,,,you omitted the fact that he’s been advising Trudeau they say since 2021 and here we are…..
We'll have lots of time to discuss Carney. The first piece we wrote didn't touch on literally every issue. This shouldn't surprise you.
Also, we aren't going down the WEF conspiracism rabbit hole. If that's your expectation of us, we're going to proudly disappoint you.
Fair enough….but it’s not conspiracy theory….his past actions speak for themselves..,he may well be a talented bureaucrat but IMO he’s NOT the person to lead 40 million Canadians. You didn’t disappoint…..you caught onto a thread and followed through….i just feel compelled to bring up his history cuz it says a lot about him and I’m disappointed that a person can come from the outside and our process will allow him to wield formidable power.
That’s fine. Your statement of taking us back to yesteryear is obtuse as well. Maybe not WEF but his book lays out the same path those organizations want Western democracies to submit to. I will be interested to see how you spin that going forward.
I’m curious as to where your line is between WEF conspiracism and undesirable WEF influence?
For example is it conspiratorial to disagree with the values, worldview, and policies of the WEF? Or is any mention of Carney’s membership and high level participation in WEF automatically disregarded are conspiratorial tripe, no matter the reasons or basis of opposition. Is it just automatic WEF opposition = conspiracy theorist? Where is your line on this? Please don’t say that the majority of the WEF stuff is conspiracy theorists either. I don’t happen to believe it’s an evil cabal of baby murdering devil worshipers attempting to bring forth a one world government to be ruled by the anti-Christ. But I sure don’t like much of what they preach and stand for, and really don’t like Klaus Vader bragging about infiltrating governments
Matt, you may THINK that you have "lots of time" but I suspect that the time available will be much less than you might expect. My point is that once an election is called, all analysis will be on that election rather than Carney's backstory. Oh, sorry, that's "backstory" as in does what is said currently conform with the religion that he spouted in the past?
So, we will see.
My longstanding thoughts on what I can only describe as a predicted shit-show of leadership race:
1) The PMO long-ago decided it was going to blatantly tilt its resources and influence to secure Carney as Trudeau’s successor. By any other historical political standard in this country, this leadership race was saturated with arguable interference from the outgoing regime to hand-pick its successor, while the caucus and membership allowed it to happen in broad daylight for all to see.
2) The Liberal party boasted 400k members as of the registration cut-off date; but (to my knowledge) not once would they detail how many of those were new membership sign-ups as a result of the race versus existing membership lifers?
3) Given that only roughly 40% of the liberals membership bothered to vote in the leadership, speaks to the uninspired/unmotivated base they have; which I view as a clear weakness going into a federal election. But as this Line article correctly points out: this entire process was merely to give the Liberals someone else who had a chance of performing better than Trudeau would in an unavoidable general election this year. That process has now completed, with Trudeau’s preferred candidate being coronated as expected. But aside from message, what’s expected to really change? The devil is always in the details, which Carney (like Trudeau) has been evasive about.
4) The candidate slate was uninspiring to begin with. Many more preferred/suitable people could’ve or should’ve ran but opted not to; all in favour of rallying behind Carney. I can’t help but link that to the Trudeau PMO influence/meddling, too. At the end of the day, the candidate pool was limited to a close Trudeau-ally in Carney who sat back and relied on his central bank governor roles and other private sector experience, alongside Trudeau’s longtime right hand in Freeland who ardently defended Trudeau’s policies, along with fellow Trudeau parliamentary fighter Gould and some former MP nobody ever heard of. Well done Liberals *slow clap*. I suspect that’s why 60% of liberals didn’t bother to click-vote at the palm of their hand. Again, not a good sign for liberals going into a general election when compared to the last Conservative leadership race.
5) As long expected, Carney is now the man. But for how long? He has no seat, no political experience, no mandate, no communicated plan, no way of avoiding a confidence vote if he reconvenes parliament, and most importantly of all — he has no experience whatsoever in working long hard hours. He’s a banker. Bankers are arguably among the laziest of professionals. Politics, especially as Prime Minister, is a 24/7 demanding gig, and Carney is no spring chicken. I seriously question his ability to keep pace with the demands of the job itself, which will certainly be more intense during this Trump presidency. That’s quite the career/life culture shock for any newbie and requires more energy than I’m sure Carney has ever expelled in his life.
Like many, I sense a spring election coming. I expect interesting campaigns between Carney and Pollievre. I expect Carney will present as serious but he’ll make unavoidable gaffes as he learns and grows along the way, which will be exploited. I expect Pollievre will be strictly measured in his messaging but more quick on his feet in debate. I expect the nation to tune out the other leaders. I think Carney will be a tough sell in Quebec, which the Liberals need to try to retain to have a fighting chance. Ontario is also under pressure for Liberals, which they also need. One thing is for sure, we need an election, now, so we get a government with a clear mandate, and a parliament that can assemble and function. The gong show is over, now let’s get on with it and let Canadians have their say.
Yes, for a party that constantly rails about democracy, they really are the least democratic of the bunch.
> By any other historical political standard in this country, this leadership race was saturated with arguable interference from the outgoing regime to hand-pick its successor
This is a GOOD THING. A BIG failure of Mr. Trudeau is that he didn't do it 5 years sooner.
It's absurd that our Prime Ministers act as if they will govern forever.
I mostly agree with your post, although I would not put Carney's work ethic into question. You don't get a PhD, author multiple books, or chair and sit on various boards without working considerably long hours.
The low turnout in the LPC leadership contest would have been affected by voting difficulties. I have no idea how many members ran into technical difficulties, but there are documented instances of members verifying their IDs successfully and yet not receiving the ballots.
Two comments:
1. Carney may have won the leadership in a landslide, but I suspect the LPC membership electorate and the general population have wildly different takes on the state of the country and that this will be reflected in their corresponding votes in the (hopefully soon) upcoming general election.
I would draw a parallel to the recent US election where the democratic and republican candidates were pretty much forecast to be neck and neck right to the end, polling bias and all that...
Let's not forget that we just spent 9 years of being gaslit, accused of racism, misogyny and holding unacceptable views, while having our bank accounts frozen for upholding our right to protest peacefully. I'm hoping the majority of Canadians will not forget nor forgive that.
2. Freeland lost because she's a deeply unappealing, karen-like figure that spent whatever little political capital she had in the last 10 years of a Trudeau government. That stain ain't never coming off.
It was found in public opinion polling that the majority of Canadians supported the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the squashing of the lawless occupation of Ottawa by "truckers". If the Liberals lose the election, it will be in spite of, not because of, the crackdown on the convoy.
> If the Liberals lose the election, it will be in spite of, not because of, the crackdown on the convoy.
Don't be so sure. I doubt I'm the only opponent of the convoy protests who also sees the LPC crackdown as absolute mess exposing the LPC as a bunch of incompetents.
Put it this way. I bet we both have 100% confidence that Jean Chrétien would have handled the exact same scenario with a skill that would make the Justin Trudeau responses look like they were high school kids. It's not a partisan thing... it's an incompetence thing.
Are you disputing the accuracy of the polls I am referring to, or are you claiming that the public mood about the convoy has changed since the polls were taken?
I'm not saying anything about the polls. I'm saying that in terms of pure governing skill... how effectively the government achieves government objectives... the LPC really, really, REALLY sucked at it during the convey protests.
I'm also saying that Jean Chrétien would NOT have sucked at it. I might have loved or hated whatever he would have done, but I am VERY sure he wouldn't have sucked at achieving his goals.
It should never have been up to the federal government to solve the convoy problem. Ottawa's municipal police should have been able to enforce the law, and in the event that they could not do so, Doug Ford should have used the resources of the Ministry of Transportation to remove the trucks.
I can’t disagree.
That said, I maintain that in an identical situation with a municipal and provincial governments failing in the very same ways…. the current leadership of the LPC is a pale shadow of what previous LPC (or conservative) leadership.
Yes, but there wasn't a plan or process to do it. Just the same way there wasn't a plan or process to clear the first nations off of the Via Rail tracks before. The federal government just sat on their thumbs and waited for the next crisis too.
Yes, the problem in Ottawa was a mutiny in the municipal police who took advantage of the arrival of the truckers to compel the resignation of a Chief they already disapproved of. "Never let a crisis go to waste!" as someone said.
Speaking as someone named Karen, I really wish people would stop using my name to describe assholes who happen to be women. Crystia Freeland may not be a great politician, but she's not an asshole.
> karen-like figure
You mean "uppity woman who doesn't know her place is doing what a man says"?
Because that's what "Karen" means... It's a way of dismissing a woman out of hand who has the temerity to talk back to a man or stand up for herself and the way you know this is that there's no corresponding sex-coded term for a man who does EXACTLY the same thing.
By your own definition, uppity means "arrogant, presomptuous" or "aspiring to a rank or position higher than one deserves or is entitled to" which is pretty much what I was going for and hardly the exclusive territory of women.
It's a matter of competence, which in the way I meant it, would apply equally to an incompetent man.
Trudeau is also a Karen... there you have it.
Stop looking for problems where there are none.
The strong vote for Carney fits the Liberal pattern of fixating on The Strong Leader as the solution to their electoral woes. This time seems a bit more desperate, though, and Carney’s trouncing of his opponents on the first ballot says a lot about the Liberals’ depleted talent pool. This party used to the Natural Governing Party and a magnet for the talented and ambitious: that advantage has faded away as losses stripped away the veneer of electoral inevitability and party infighting pushed out capable people. I’m not sure what Carney really brings to the table other than a CV as a central banker. He certainly doesn’t address the Liberal weaknesses in areas like defense, foreign policy, or even health care.
I’m not particularly impressed by Poilievre. He’s a partisan attack dog by nature, and I suspect Stephen Harper never trusted him with a substantive cabinet portfolio for a reason. He’s also tapped into the rancid right wing populist political current that’s more motivated by invective and spite than a coherent political theory. I have no desire to turn over Canada’s government to a political wrecking crew like we’ve seen in some jurisdictions when they bring the populists into government. Electing him looks like a risk, but still seems like a better option than a Liberal party with a terrible record of governance and no real understanding or recognition of their failures.
I’m deeply worried about how big city and particularly Toronto voters react to Carney. They’ve been the linchpin to Liberal support even after Trudeau’s scandals and failures were apparent as early as the 2019 election. Toronto voters also kept granting governments to the McGuinty-Wynne provincial Liberals for their fiscally incontinent, incompetent, and terminally political governments. If Carney calls an election immediately, he might eke out a win. I think that’ll prove disastrous because it’ll just put a temporary veneer on the rotten Liberal apparatus. If Carney lets the clock run out until fall, I suspect the reality that nothing’s really changed will reassert and the Liberals will finally be turfed. That sort of error and defeat would be an odd tautology proving that Carney lacked the political chops for the job.
Did the Liberals slump in the polls because of their policies, or because their Leader had what Andrew Coyne calls the Hippie King personality, and they were really tired of having that personality at the helm? I think that we will agree that Carney has no proven ability to manage and meet political expectations, though.
Harper may not have appointed Poilievre to any senior role, but it will always reflect poorly on his judgment that he appointed Poilievre to be Minister of Democratic Reform instead of Michael Chong.
policies, aggravated by the leader, but definitely policies.
- divisive identitarian bullshit
- fiscal incontinence
- incompetence and mismanagement
- likely corruption, combined with decreased transparency
Pollievre had two ministerial positions. Also everybody else who had ministerial positions is probably dead or retired. I think that is the best you are going to get out of the old Harper government.
I like Michel Chong a lot, perhaps Harper saw Poilievre as more ready than Michael. I don't know. He did fine in the role though.
Poilievre "did fine" in a role where he publicly mocked hundreds of democracy experts who criticized his bill, before humiliating himself and the government with a climbdown and compromise with the same experts whom he had so mocked?
Poilievre was young at the time and the perfect fit for the attack dog and other controversial roles
-he could trial controversial ideas with less blow back on the senior party leadership
-he had lots of career ahead of him to recover from any personal block back
I sincerely hope Carney believes a quick election would allow him to eke out a win.
Drop writ, let;s find out.
We don't need a weak minority government. But my wish is for a Conservative majority. We need to stop throwing money at everything and come up with an actual plan for the country. I don't see Carney building pipelines,
The pipeline discussion is a great talking point for politicians eager to catch the wave of current trends but in the end, it will be pipeline construction and oil companies who will decide whether pipelines are worth the financial risk. There will need to be demand for the product and a serious recalibration of the regulatory process and a lower tolerance for activists in the hearing stages that strangle projects to death.
Yup. The activists may have been cut off at the knees though as Musk has pummeled USAID and revealed that a lot of leftist environmental activist groups were funded by them as part of that body's dole out to NGO's. I always wondered where they got their money, now we know. Thanks America (not).
I blame activists for a lot of the problems Canada currently faces.
In general, I agree with your blistering assessment of the current crop of Liberals. As I said in my own comment, posted well after you got yours "on the board", they are nothing if not cynical. Nonetheless, you also wrote the following statement:
QUOTE
Electing [Pierre Poilievre] looks like a risk, but still seems like a better option than a Liberal party with a terrible record of governance and no real understanding or recognition of their failures.
END QUOTE
I'm afraid that electing a government led by Poilievre would be more than "a risk". He has staked everything on turning the "Conservative" Party into a cheap imitation of the MAGA party down south.
No amount of disdain for the Liberals justifies voting for that, in my view.
It’s going to be interesting when Carney has to put on the batting helmet and take some real questions instead of the softball lobs that have come his way since he announced his candidacy. If I’m a Conservative my first pitch would be on Gaza and then wait for all the Palestinian supporters already in his caucus lose their shit regardless of question or reply. The leader may have changed but not so much the sitting members of the LPC. Light em up and watch the burn.
Love it. It would also play into Trumps leanings on the Middle East.
I think the assertion, strongly made by Gerson and Gurney, that the ballot box question WILL be “who is best to deal with Trump” (or some variation of that) is wrong. Or, at least, it is significantly more nuanced than presented.
Doug Ford tried desperately to make Trump the question in last week’s Ontario election and largely failed. Affordability was still the biggest issue. Tariffs impact affordability, but the question on voters’ minds was still affordability and not “who’s the best to take on Trump”.
I’d suggest the US election gives a similar preview - voters were concerned about Trump’s mannerisms, authoritarianism, etc., but it was ultimately pocketbook issues that mattered. Narrowly, but still.
The dispatch acknowledges some nuance in noting that the Liberals are tired and the Tories are rich, which essentially means that the issues might not matter as much as fundamentals. I’d suggest that that is the more correct opinion than that Trump will swing this election (intentionally or otherwise).
I’m not sure there’s been an issues poll showing “Trump” as the top issue. Gerson and Gurney should temper their assertions without research to back it up.
I’d argue he’s more of a spectre in the background than a sword of Damocles. I think it’d be a huge mistake for Poilievre to “pivot” to a campaign focused on Trump. He should acknowledge the issue, but you cannot conflate ‘media attention’ to an issue with ‘voter importance’ of an issue.
If you don't think $TRump is the issue then we are doomed as a nation. The Europeans have woken up. NATO is dead. They cannot rely on the US to lend support WHEN the Russians invade. Poland is working on getting nuclear weapons. France has promised support to Poland in that area. Germany is rearming (German military stocks are hitting new highs).
What do you think we should do when $TRump sends in the US military into northern Canada in a pretext to defend the Arctic, or to take control of the electricity utilities, pipelines, rare earth mines. WAKE UP!!!!!
The issue is that Canada has slacked off for decades. The dems weren't any more pro-Canadian. They just weren't as outwardly musing as Trump is. We need a PM who can focus on improving Canada. We don't need any more anti-Americanness. We're currently running the country like we deal with healthcare. Enough of the "we're not the US." There should be more to "We are Canadian" than poutine.
Fully agree. Too much of the discourse focuses on "standing up to Trump" rather that strengthening Canada. The former offers an emotional release by playing to Eastern Canada's United Empire Loyalist hang-ups, while the latter would involve work. Canada needs to massively improve its productivity. That will involve difficult discussions around delivering health and education more efficiently and effectively, clear lines of accountability between orders of government, deregulation of protected industries, balancing operational budgets mostly through austerity, removing barriers to infrastructure development and encouraging entrepreneurship to drive innovation. Wrapping each other in the maple leaf could be regressive if it leads to greater protectionism or expansion of government.
I agree.
That’s not what I said.
I said “who is best to deal with Trump” won’t be the question on most voters’ minds when they go to vote.
For example: I care deeply about balancing the budget and increasing military spending, and they’re important issues that this country needs to address. However, I do not think most voters will be thinking about “who is most likely to be fiscally responsible” when they vote.
There are a ton of issues pressing to the nation, almost none of which voters care about. And in this coming election, I’d hazard most voters will be more concerned about grocery bills and mortgage payments than they will be about NATO and Trump.
My point is that the question must be who is best to deal with $TRump. We are in the first part of the war which is an economic tariff war. Soon to start will be a cyber/propaganda war, including millions of dollars to those groups of Canadians who support a 51st state. $TRump is an agent of chaos. We need to be prepared.
I agree that there are turbulent times coming, but I strongly disagree that the sole focus must be Trump. Canada has enough stuff to fix that can compensate for the orange man. Things we should have fixed a long time ago. We should focus on that.
You can’t run a government speculating on what Trump may or may not do next. You will fail. You can, however, run a government that does good things for this country and our people, irrespective of who’s in the White House. That’s what we should do.
Running a campaign on “who is best to deal with Trump” and selecting the boring lefty technocrat or the pugilistic apple eater on that basis is a disservice to the massive internal problems facing this stagnant country.
It would be monumentally worse to let Trump distract from the failure of Trudeau’s record or the plans (or lack thereof) of the frontrunners.
And, importantly, I think most Canadians will think that way and the politicians should too.
Then you don't need an economist, you need a psychologist specializing in megalomaniacs.
I think the assertion that the ballot box question will be "who is best to deal with Trump" is exactly what will be on the mid of voters because they know the "who" will determine the "how."
As much as I want to vote for PP, he has offered little other than opposition, and simply failed us when we need his first instinct to be to defend our sovereignty.
Well, I don’t think any of what I said was an endorsement of either party but rather just a comment on the ballot question. You can insert partisanship wherever you want, as you have done in fairly typical fashion by criticizing the opposition leader for “opposing.” I don’t buy for a moment that you have ever liked Poilievre, let alone considered voting for the conservatives.
But let me accept your argument for a brief moment because that’s all the time it deserves.
Let’s be very clear: the governing party spent its time in office destroying any semblance of Canadian identity. We don’t venerate our military history, that’s fascism and our military is a joke. We don’t talk about the positives of ‘what it means to be Canadian’ because to this government and this PM, being Canadian was to be in a state of sin for all of the wrongs we’ve perpetrated in the past. There is no Canadian identity in a post-national state, and you should be ashamed for believing that being patriotic is proper and acceptable.
To suggest, as you have done, that the Liberal party is now the one best positioned to defend Canada against a foreign threat is to wilfully and fully bury one’s head in the sand.
How many of these Liberals tried to cancel Canada Day last summer? Not even 1 year ago? But the OTHER guy isn’t patriotic enough? The OTHER guy hasn’t done enough to prove he loves and supports this country?
And now, when we face a foreign threat, those same craven Liberals want us to decry that other guy and vote for them because Pierre hasn’t done enough to prove his Canadian bona fides? When the best thing that Trudeau can say when asked what it means to be Canadian is “not American?”
Give me an absolute break.
I'm not sure of your point, but think Trudeau resigned, no?
Yes, I've never liked Poilievre, to be clear. When the CPC picked him, I thought he was an empty suit who wants to be PM, with an ego as big as Trudeau, and no ideas other than quips about the "other guy." "Gotcha" does nothing for my vision of the future and, to repeat myself, his hesitation when we needed a Canadian first, made him look weak.
Is the question: "who’s the best to take on Trump" not a question of affordability?
As I said in the initial comment (or perhaps one of the follow-ups) tariffs/trade war/trump threats undoubtedly impact the issue set.
However, I don’t think the average voter will think “I need to decide my vote based on who I think best to fight Trump, because that will make life more affordable for me.” I think the calculus is “I’m struggling to pay my bills because of inflation, slow job market, Trump/trade war, stagnant economy, etc., and I want the next leader to do things to make my life more affordable.”
The thing that gets me about Freeland’s total is that she averaged just under 33 votes per riding. She has been deputy PM for years. Presumably she had leadership aspirations, and knew one day the job would become available. She set off the race herself when she knifed Trudeau!
Even if no existing Liberals voted for her at all, could her team really not sign up 34 people per riding? For free? I am not an organizer but have worked on leadership campaigns, and I’ve signed up more people than that in my riding plenty of times. When they had to pay. She only got 188 votes in her own riding of University Rosedale. Which contains the largest university in the country. Astonishing.
Dictatorships commonly end with a knife in the back. If you read "An Indian in the Cabinet", Jody Wilson-Raybould gives a sense of how MPs were treated and how the show was run. This is the opposite of grass roots.
While Freeland was a journalist, I respected her and her work. The thing that got me about her was when she left journalism to sell herself out to Trudeau. In my view she showed a cardinally bad judgment on a fundamental matter. So it was, 'bye dame, you are no good'.
The current CPC is "Hard Right" in affectation only, if what you mean by that term is limited to "being a bit cantankerous and snarky". Thus far, they are continuing the tradition of watering down conservatism so as not to frighten anyone, that's why all we've got is "axe the tax" and "stop the crime", because they haven't dared to move beyond anodyne slogans
There are factions within the CPC. The "Hard Right" faction of it is currently in power. How hard right that is is up for debate.
Yes I know you were referring to the factions by their position relative to eachother. Not to quibble over terminology but I think that conservatives openly referring to the Poilievre faction as "hard right" would be like if Liberals referred to the Trudeau LPC as the "communist" faction, that term has enormous baggage
Kind of like the hard marxist, communist and anarchist side of the NDP. With the Liberals they try to hide the grifters. To no avail, we see you.
Yesssssssss .... Matt, "there are factions" but you can also say that "there are factions" in the LPC and the NDP that are hard left.
And so on and so forth. My point is that the issue is not the "factions" in any of these parties but it is the parties themselves and their parties' publicly espoused policies that on should concentrate on.
Please allow me to put it differently: it seems to me that much is made of the "hard right" side of the CPC but virtually no one really pays attention to the "hard left" sides of the LPC or the NDP. Is that because the "hard left" is non-existent [I don't think that is so] or perhaps because "hard left" is seen by many in the media as something like "boys will be boys" and so forth. That "boys will be boys" attitude has been very rightfully scorned in many other phases of society so perhaps some more widespread critical thinking about attitudes in political parties might be appropriate.
I'm not sure I'd even characterize it as "hard right" so much as "populist right".
Poilievre's CPC is openly musing about invoking the Notwithstanding Clause, a precedent that Harper was reluctant to ever entertain.
Are you trying to pretend that the Courts haven't mutated in the past ten years...?
If you think that they have, please feel free to elaborate.
The most obvious is the embrace of the "living tree" method of interpretation without a judicial philosophy of what gets grafted on beyond "whatever we believe is in the public good".
I don't believe that the "living tree" method of interpretation started only in the last decade, though.
No, quite right. That particular stupidity in our judiciary started long before that.
That is a good thing. A certain amount of contention between Parliament and the Supreme Court is healthy. The Liberals, and to a lesser extent the Harper Conservatives, acquiesced to the Courts on too many occasions leading to, for example, the ridiculous duty to consult indigenous groups on use of their "traditional" lands.
Things have changed on that.
What riled me up during the speech was Carney repeating the line that he has a plan and Poilievre doesn't. I'm trying to give Carney a fair shot here. I know Poilievre has a plan but does Carney really have one?
I get the impression he is trying to position himself as the safe hands, guy who knows what he is doing, boring banker. If he doesn't have any plan, are we even sure he is who he is claiming to be?
Carney does have a plan - it's the plan Poilievre has been laying out for two years.
Carney has shamelessly stolen all the talking points.
...except Poilievre actually intends to do all the things he has been verbing the noun about.
Carney is just saying them to get elected.
I'm a bit confused by this. Yes, Carney has agreed with the CPC to scrap the cap gains tax, and the carbon tax as it now is, but he's also talked about fixing the productivity problem, finding new markets, lowering spending... and he's an economist with decades of market and fiscal management experience.
I've also hear PP talk about what not to do. If he's talked about anything positive, an area of focus to rebuild the economy, I've missed it and he needs to do a much better job.
PP's inability to be a strong CANADIAN, defend our sovereignty, his appalling hesitation... gives me as much pause as the LPC baggage Carney carries.
Friend, Carney has proven quite a while ago (lies and deceptions) that he does not deserve any shot, let alone a fair one.
In a party that has never produced or encouraged a female PM and only promoted non-uppity Stepford Wives to cabinet, and is dominated by Quebecers with their lite version of Mexican traditional Machismo, the real surprise is that Freeland got as many votes as she did.
The Carney couple seemed almost skeletal, not that that matters I guess. But I was shocked at how 'lean', they both looked. People cannot forget that he is again PM for the Liberals party of Justin Trudeau with Butts and Telford in the background.
On the bright side, I am so glad that Trudeau is gone and perhaps we will not be accosted by his strident dramatic visage any longer...Please, I hope he is just gonzo...gone, gone, gone.
Poilievre and the Conservatives get bashed every time they do anything or mention anything that steps outside a safe zone...a zone that the progressives defined and are still controlling at the sidelines. I would like to see a louder promotion of their policies and even, gasp, attack the Liberals past, present and future. Not sure it would work with all, but it would with me. Bring it on baby.
Trump said Poilievre is not MAGA...he should lean into that a bit, just a bit. I get sick and just so tired of hearing that he is 'maple-syrup MAGA' as the forgotten Gould puts it. If he and the Conservative backgrounder could get him to speak with Trump and show that he can work with him. He can and will.
Poilievre for the win. Let's put the Liberals back in the bushes for as long as possible. The rest of the country outside Quebec and Lower Ontario and Metro Vancouver needs it.
Also, I believe that the NDP may not even make party status this time around. Poor Jagmeet...time to realize that he has undermined his party to their potential annihilation. Burnaby, are you listening.
For me, I hope we have an election soon.
They couldn't pick Freeland. She came with far too much "Trudeau baggage"...see also Hillary Clinton. They had to step away from anyone who had served in Trudeaus' government or they were writing the Conservatives ads for them.
The Conservatives with their "Carbon tax Carney" ads still don't seem to get it. I hope the writ is dropped soon so we can see what everyone actually has planned. Because from the top down, our leaders need to stop being "self-proctologists". It's time for actual action.
Despite the usual partisan cheering this weekend, the Liberals themselves seem to realize they’ve failed and need to be replaced. That’s why they’ve run towards the messianic outsider figure. The problem for them is that their party had been tailored as a channel for Trudeau’s personality and brand for over a decade: will it simply adapt to serve a new personality? Does Carney have the skills needed to fill that role? Is there anything left of the Liberals to help Carney with the Trudeau core gone?
Stay tuned......it's going to be fun to watch because I have no idea if he can do it either.
I agree they couldn't pick Freeland. The approach the conservatives have taken has never been solution-focused. The biggest liability Poilievre has to deal with is Poilievre himself. For me, he is unlikeable and seems to take some pleasure out of being that way. Might be a lovely warm guy in private but the guy we see in TV is angry all the time it seems. I suspect that unlikability is one reason the polls have turned on the Tories. Yep, you can be unlikeable and prime minster, they all tend to be unlikeable in the end. But in this time of global madness, I think people would like someone who isn't just another angry voice on a planet full of angry people.
I really don't understand this obsession with likeability. Who really cares if the person you're voting for is someone you would want to have a beer with? It is literally never going to happen, so "so what"?
If you've actually listened to Poilievre, or watched ANY of his videos, he doesn't come across as angry at all - he comes across as a good debated, someone who does his homework and comes prepared with facts and figures.
In fact, the ONLY place he comes across as angry is in Question Period - that lovely tradition we have where opposition politicians ask pointed questions and get ZERO actual answers back from government. At least, that;s the way it has worked while Trudeau has been in office.
...pretty sure you would be angry too, by the time you've gotten 53 different evasions in response to the same reasonable question.
I actually like Poilievre and think he would make a good PM. He can think on his feet, but he's also knowledgable on a lot of stuff. And if he didn't have good ideas that appealed to a lot of people, the Liberal party wouldn't be stealing them.
Likeability became essential when politics collided with TV.
Accept it or find another hobby, lol.
It was no different when Harper was in power; it's a parliamentary tradition. I'll be curious what Pierre has in his platform. What he comes across as is arrogant and obnoxious while lacking substance. We'll find out if he has any when the platform comes out.
Perhaps when people talk about Poilievre's likeability, what they really mean is to refer to his policy ignorance resulting from blinkered partisanship. Yes, he has a strong personal capacity to retain information, but any and all information that he absorbs will always be predicated on the assumption that Conservatives Are Always Right on All Things. He has no capacity to listen to non-Conservatives with any consistency, and he has and would produce ignorant legislation accordingly.
His position differs from the Liberal position of "Liberals are always correct on all things" in label only. He is a mirror image of the party he has been fighting.
How much have the Liberals listened to Conservatives this past ten years?
ALL of your criticisms are partisan only, and have nothing to do with "likeability".
No, the Liberals do not have leadership that believes that only Liberals are always right. Every government resists caving to criticisms up to a point, but this government would not have been able to sustain a minority government this long without being willing to accept at least a couple of ideas from the NDP.
Poilievre's CPC cannot and will not cooperate positively with any other party.
oh c'mon Stefan, lol.
The libs slow walked their commitments to anyone who didn't suffer their new ideological mind-virus. They made them in bad faith to cling to power. The Libs under Trudeau set the bar low for collaboration or transparency and have a long way to go to earn our respect again.
Champagne Jaggy was easy to manage.
Sometimes you just go off the rails.
Part of that I think is that the Conservatives are furthest to the right on most policy questions, in a country that just likes leftists better. The Liberals have decades of tradition of horse-trading with the NDP in minority governments....and then trying to crush the NDP in the next election. Conservatives inherently don't have allies in the HOC because all the other parties are Leftist, especially now.
I have no idea if the Conservatives or any party could form a Government with Bloc Québecois support. It sounds like a contradiction in terms.
The only reason "Unite the Left" has never got off the ground is that the near left and the far left hate each other. But if it ever did, we'd have LibLeft governments forever.
I don't think any of things are reasons for or against liveability... because they all apply just as well to Justin Trudeau and he topped liveability for a LONG time. So clearly you can be tops on liveability and still have all of the following.
* Blinkered partisanship
* policy ignorance (I don't really think about monetary policy)
* My party is ALWAYS right and the other party is ALWAYS EVIL
* incapacity to listen to other side with any consistency
Heck when you put it that way, they seem like twins. I mean, they don't *look* like twins, but based on those things, we're definitely dealing with twins.
Oh my gosh, you really believe that Poilievre speaking as a Conservative is something surprising. He is a Conservative. What is he supposed to speak like.
Most Conservatives do not mock non-Conservatives nearly to the extent that Poilievre does, especially non-partisan academics and civil society organizations.
and... THAT behaviour is pretty endemic in the LPC as well. The LPS has been deaf, paternalistic, arrogant and condescending to anyone not aligned.
Goodness, Stefan, let's be real. They were tanking because of their attitude (typified by the hippie king), and bad policy leading to bad results.
Most academics I know are partisan, with a well documented bias to the left, just like the media. Lots of civil society organizations as well.
Maybe. But for me he comes across as petulant and it isn't just question period, it's all the time. You might have liked his apple chewing question but for me he came across as an enormous rectum.
For me it's not policy. The apple chewing smarmy moment put me off him.
Yikes! People like people who are like them. And you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. My first impression is the same now as when he had slick hair and nerd glasses; angry and petulant. High school dickhead communication style. Hey if you like and trust him that's fine. I just don't.
...you think Carney is MORE "like you"?
I find that difficult to believe.
I have never seen Poilievre 'angry'...even during the HOC 'debates'. If he ever was, do you not think that the captured media would not have jumped on it en mass? I do.