Why can I get plastic bags at the home hardware but I have to settle with paper at the grocery store? Is this just a matter of a store selling hardware to get the good stuff? Or could my home hardware still be working through a stockpile of plastic? I want plastic bags again, dammit! What am I supposed to put my cat litter in? The Line needs to investigate
I absolutely love this podcast. It's one of the few shows for which I NEVER miss an episode.
However, Matt, I beg you to consider lowering your camera to eye level. Looking down at you on the video version of the podcast is really weird. It would be a lot more comfortable if you we looked up at you or the camera was at eye level, but no higher. Something similar to Jen's setup. It's also really weird that you never look at the camera, which I suspect is because of your setup.
As a visual professional, I believe it would make you video version of the podcast much more appealing, which I suspect would increase your chance of getting new subscribers ;-)
I'd be more than happy to give you technical and gear tips if that's of interest.
Matt, when you first commented that you don't know why support for the LPC has dropped (dare I say plummeted) in the last six to nine months I questioned your ability to read a room (aka Canada). Then you talked about mortgages and personal finance and the scales fell from my eyes - you can afford life with few sacrifices and good for you BUT there are a wagon load of us in the 'real world' where we are making sacrifices tokeep the bills paid. I'm on a fixed pension (still getting paid what I first received in 2006) and while I do now draw CPP you can see where my graph is going.
The slow drip, drip, drip, of increased prices and taxes (have I said that I pay $19.60 in carbon tax and GST on THAT tax for $19.10 cents of natural gas!) has finally filled most home financial pails to the breaking point and when we look at Canada we can see where the problems start - Ottawa and the PMO. Banning plastic straws isn't helping any of us pay the bills nor will the next increase in carbon tax. Add to that lavishing money we don't have on battery manufacturers at the time that the market for EVs is dropping off in a lot of countries adn you end up with a government that doesn't really care about the common person in Canada. Oh, let's not forget scandals, lavish personal holidays, lots of travel on our dime and the continual bashing of Canada as racist, andgenocidal adn the labelling of thosee who oppose the LPC policies as undesireables, misogynists etc. etc. and you really are left with no conclusion other than the LPC has completely lost their way and either don't see it (unluikely) or don't really care as most will have served long enough to get the big pension (list any number of them here) and ... well if you don't se it then take off your rose tinted glasses.
Want another example? Ok, at the end of October an aquaintance contacted me to see if I would buy her father's fraternity ring so that she could get the power turned on inher house again. She is retired, living on CPP and OAS and is having a tough time staying ahead of the bills. At that point in October she had not bought any food for three months other than a bit of milk and some fresh produce - she was living on her freezer's contents. She worked for non-profits most of her career and may end up needing their help to survive. THAT is the reality for many in this country.
More? Ok, when my better half retired we were told (ten years ago) that about 50% of fols who retired still had motgages. We scoffed then looked at the six couples we friend around with and only two of the couples were mortgage free and the other FIVE still had mortgages. Fine, they can afford them but eventually the mortgage needs to be renewed and ...
And you wonder why LPC support is falling like a dead bird.
I think you are correct about why the LPC support has fallen but do people actually think that a CPC government will raise CPP/OAS or institute a Universal Basic Income? There was an experiment going on in Ontario with a guaranteed income but Doug "Man of the Folks" Ford killed it as soon as he could. It seemed to me that the smart thing would have been to let it play out and see if it worked but I guess his puppeteers were afraid it would be a success. I don't know what the vast numbers people who can't afford to get by are going to do.
Great podcast, welcome back. It could be coincidence, but I thought it was interesting that Jen mentioned budgeting out the future impact of the rate increase a year ago.
A year ago is when the LPC, up until that point enjoying a certain stable mediocrity in the polls, began a long and mostly uninterrupted slide:
Late December/early January is a time of New Year's resolutions and annual financial planning, and mortgage rates were starting to roll over by January 2023 at 2022's new, higher rates. Positing here that financial stability is a foundational layer of Maslow's hierarchy of political priorities, probably not shocking that the LPC's slide started around then.
What happened mid-summer in 2023 to cause the gap to really open between the LPC and CPC? Maybe it's that after staying flat in March and April, the interest rate jumped another 50 basis points between April and July.
I don't think it's quite as simple as "financial pain makes people hate the current government", but I do think financial pain causes people to see the current government through a different and much more focused lens.
If you're broke and you have a toothache, Liberal slow-rolling on the national dental file isn't an abstract issue.
If you have a family member with mental health issues, Liberal (non)regulation of assisted dying isn't an abstract issue.
And if your quality of life is threatened or has already been reduced by high interest rates and a supply-constrained housing market, I suspect most of the usual marquee point-scoring exercises no longer register, at all.
You turn on the news and you start actually listening for political talk about the economy and about housing. If all you hear from the LPC are statements amounting to an elaborate shrug or hushing noises, or the complete absence of talk about it because the LPC is focused on gun control or Israel/Palestine or some other file totally outside your immediate problems, I think disaffection builds rapidly.
My story is similar to the stories of other folks who lost everything thanks to the NEP. The bankruptcy rate rose by 150%. Hundreds of thousands of Albertans lost their jobs. Unemployment rose to 12.4%
You didn’t just lose your house, job, marriage and/or business; you lose your future.
It took me 35 years to re-coup my losses and be able to retire with some money in the bank. You don’t just lose your house and simply buy a new one, you work years and if you are lucky, you get that second house.
You move to a job in another part of Canada – you leave your friends and family and everything that you knew so that you could pay off your debts and survive – you lose your friends.
You give your keys to your car, house, farm and business to the bank.
But still, I was lucky – I could get a job and rebuild for my future. I could move and get a job.
This isn’t going to happen to folks who lose everything now. When people who are over 40 lose everything there is no place to move in Canada. Because the NEP mainly affected Alberta; Albertans became poor and lost everything.
Now people in all areas of Canada are in danger of losing their house, car, farm and/or business(es). But there aren’t jobs all over Canada to move to; and if you find one, where will you live? And there aren’t cheap houses to start over with
Central Canada still doesn’t understand, and appears not to want to. But I think they will learn.
A wonderful intimate look into the sausage-making routine of Canada's two best "political observers" ... sharing their creative process.
But I gotta make a special shout-out, and "thank-you" ... to their new production crew. If slow-witted and/or hearing-impaired listeners like me choose to watch/follow these sessions (at least on You-Tube ) ... there is now a wonderful technical option to "slow" the audio-speed of their dialogue to 75% of actual delivery ... with (somehow magically) ... zero distortion!
Everybody sounds more relaxed, and thoughtful ... and there's time for me to appreciate the occasional "nuances" in the dialogue.
Just "click" on the SETTINGS button (an icon which looks like a gear) at the bottom of the screen.
It's much better ... with no more more leaning-forward and frowning and thinking, "What the fuck did she just say?"
Gotta love technology!!
Thank you, again.
Incidentally, Matt should lower his camera angle ... it looks like he's sitting on a foot-stool. I have a vintage Aeron chair. Much better ... but it's still worth as much as my 2006 car!
I will listen this evening, but to answer your question about Notley - I think Singh resigns after the next federal election and Notley is prepping for a federal leadership run.
Game play it out - Pollievre wins the next election with a majority. Liberals are decimated. So are NdP. Singh resigns. Notley gets leadership and is ready to take on Pierre in 2028/2029. I hope I’m wrong but that’s what I think. (With having no clue of what your guys’ predictions were.)
I know that many people aren’t interested in discussions of Canadian media, but I just want to say that I for one appreciate your commentary on this topic. CBC radio used to have a program (I think it was called “And Now the Details”?), that analyzed Canadian media, but it is long gone. Your discussions help fill that void.
Glad to have you back, I really enjoy the podcast.
Jen hit on an important point with the Liberals slow loss of support: while the popular media narrative is people "blaming" Trudeau for our various problems, I wonder how much of the slide is more of a forward-looking slow realization that this government is completely incapable of addressing the issues? What little energy and political will they have left seems directed at pet projects. By comparison, I look at the BC NDP who were also in charge when everything went downhill but who at least seem to be getting credit for taking meaningful steps to address them.
On Sabrina Maddeaux: she's a unique voice who I'm both happy to have running for office and to have had writing for a major newspaper. I'm cautiously optimistic she can have some influence on Poilievre as I think her ideas can help modernize the Conservative party. But I can definitely see why it's not a great look for the National Post, even though she never exactly tried to hide her partisanship.
I don’t think the collapse in Liberal support is going to be linked to a discrete event. Instead, we’re seeing the effect of an accumulation of factors that’s finally reached a critical point. There’s a lot of phenomena where things can degrade steadily with only a small perceptible change in function. After they reach a critical point, further degradation results in an accelerating loss of function that can appear like it’s occurred suddenly.
In my world, this is something you observe with hydrogen fuel cell performance as the catalyst degrades - every time you lose half the catalyst, you lose a certain amount of power output. The degradation mechanism happens at a steady rate, so it takes a long time to burn through that first half to 50% of the original. Losing the next half (50% of the original to 25%) takes half the time. The next half (25% to 12.5%) is even faster. If you plot out the loss of performance vs time, it looks like a sudden hockey stick-shaped inflection, but it’s actually just the effect of a steady rate of degradation.
Another more familiar example is the Canadian health care system, which could absorb cuts to capacity vs demand for years, then reached a point where it seemed like there was a sudden increase in dysfunction. That was pre-COVID, which added even more stress to the system.
Looking at the decline in support for the Liberals, it’s hard to point out any specific event that’s got greater explanatory power than any other. That seems to support the idea that it’s a phenomenon like the ones described above. Nothing critical, no “straw that broke the camel’s back”, just a steady grind of accumulating dysfunction.
There was a guaranteed income program run in a small part of Manitoba years back and it was successful but was killed off as well and I confess I don't recall why. i suspect there was a fear that if you get something for nothing then that is what you wil do - nothing. The plan was a top up of your wages but that might also encourage employers to keep wages low as the 'government will take care of the people.'
In the end, I don't begrudge unemployment payments, even though I paid in for my whole career without ever drawing a dime, but I do object to those who play the system and do just the minimum to get on the pogey again.
I do feel a lot of sympathy for seniors on the limited incomes tehy can draw from CPP/OAS as receiving the GIS seems really difficult to obtain.
Minimum basic income was subjected to a bigger test during COVID with CERB payments, and validated most of the concerns regarding disincentives to work and inflationary effects.
Why can I get plastic bags at the home hardware but I have to settle with paper at the grocery store? Is this just a matter of a store selling hardware to get the good stuff? Or could my home hardware still be working through a stockpile of plastic? I want plastic bags again, dammit! What am I supposed to put my cat litter in? The Line needs to investigate
I absolutely love this podcast. It's one of the few shows for which I NEVER miss an episode.
However, Matt, I beg you to consider lowering your camera to eye level. Looking down at you on the video version of the podcast is really weird. It would be a lot more comfortable if you we looked up at you or the camera was at eye level, but no higher. Something similar to Jen's setup. It's also really weird that you never look at the camera, which I suspect is because of your setup.
As a visual professional, I believe it would make you video version of the podcast much more appealing, which I suspect would increase your chance of getting new subscribers ;-)
I'd be more than happy to give you technical and gear tips if that's of interest.
Matt, when you first commented that you don't know why support for the LPC has dropped (dare I say plummeted) in the last six to nine months I questioned your ability to read a room (aka Canada). Then you talked about mortgages and personal finance and the scales fell from my eyes - you can afford life with few sacrifices and good for you BUT there are a wagon load of us in the 'real world' where we are making sacrifices tokeep the bills paid. I'm on a fixed pension (still getting paid what I first received in 2006) and while I do now draw CPP you can see where my graph is going.
The slow drip, drip, drip, of increased prices and taxes (have I said that I pay $19.60 in carbon tax and GST on THAT tax for $19.10 cents of natural gas!) has finally filled most home financial pails to the breaking point and when we look at Canada we can see where the problems start - Ottawa and the PMO. Banning plastic straws isn't helping any of us pay the bills nor will the next increase in carbon tax. Add to that lavishing money we don't have on battery manufacturers at the time that the market for EVs is dropping off in a lot of countries adn you end up with a government that doesn't really care about the common person in Canada. Oh, let's not forget scandals, lavish personal holidays, lots of travel on our dime and the continual bashing of Canada as racist, andgenocidal adn the labelling of thosee who oppose the LPC policies as undesireables, misogynists etc. etc. and you really are left with no conclusion other than the LPC has completely lost their way and either don't see it (unluikely) or don't really care as most will have served long enough to get the big pension (list any number of them here) and ... well if you don't se it then take off your rose tinted glasses.
Want another example? Ok, at the end of October an aquaintance contacted me to see if I would buy her father's fraternity ring so that she could get the power turned on inher house again. She is retired, living on CPP and OAS and is having a tough time staying ahead of the bills. At that point in October she had not bought any food for three months other than a bit of milk and some fresh produce - she was living on her freezer's contents. She worked for non-profits most of her career and may end up needing their help to survive. THAT is the reality for many in this country.
More? Ok, when my better half retired we were told (ten years ago) that about 50% of fols who retired still had motgages. We scoffed then looked at the six couples we friend around with and only two of the couples were mortgage free and the other FIVE still had mortgages. Fine, they can afford them but eventually the mortgage needs to be renewed and ...
And you wonder why LPC support is falling like a dead bird.
The scales are still on your eyes. The issue, as expressed, wasn’t why the support tanked. It was why it tanked when it did.
My point was that it was the accumulated drip, drip, drip of issues Matt
I think you are correct about why the LPC support has fallen but do people actually think that a CPC government will raise CPP/OAS or institute a Universal Basic Income? There was an experiment going on in Ontario with a guaranteed income but Doug "Man of the Folks" Ford killed it as soon as he could. It seemed to me that the smart thing would have been to let it play out and see if it worked but I guess his puppeteers were afraid it would be a success. I don't know what the vast numbers people who can't afford to get by are going to do.
Great podcast, welcome back. It could be coincidence, but I thought it was interesting that Jen mentioned budgeting out the future impact of the rate increase a year ago.
A year ago is when the LPC, up until that point enjoying a certain stable mediocrity in the polls, began a long and mostly uninterrupted slide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election
And if we look at a chart of Canadian interest rates, we see they go to the moon between July and December 2022.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/the-bank-of-canada-might-be-done-with-rate-hikes-here-s-a-timeline-of-how-we-got-here-1.1988268
Late December/early January is a time of New Year's resolutions and annual financial planning, and mortgage rates were starting to roll over by January 2023 at 2022's new, higher rates. Positing here that financial stability is a foundational layer of Maslow's hierarchy of political priorities, probably not shocking that the LPC's slide started around then.
What happened mid-summer in 2023 to cause the gap to really open between the LPC and CPC? Maybe it's that after staying flat in March and April, the interest rate jumped another 50 basis points between April and July.
I don't think it's quite as simple as "financial pain makes people hate the current government", but I do think financial pain causes people to see the current government through a different and much more focused lens.
If you're broke and you have a toothache, Liberal slow-rolling on the national dental file isn't an abstract issue.
If you have a family member with mental health issues, Liberal (non)regulation of assisted dying isn't an abstract issue.
And if your quality of life is threatened or has already been reduced by high interest rates and a supply-constrained housing market, I suspect most of the usual marquee point-scoring exercises no longer register, at all.
You turn on the news and you start actually listening for political talk about the economy and about housing. If all you hear from the LPC are statements amounting to an elaborate shrug or hushing noises, or the complete absence of talk about it because the LPC is focused on gun control or Israel/Palestine or some other file totally outside your immediate problems, I think disaffection builds rapidly.
I think this is right, fwiw. JG
There is a larger cost to losing your home.
My story is similar to the stories of other folks who lost everything thanks to the NEP. The bankruptcy rate rose by 150%. Hundreds of thousands of Albertans lost their jobs. Unemployment rose to 12.4%
You didn’t just lose your house, job, marriage and/or business; you lose your future.
It took me 35 years to re-coup my losses and be able to retire with some money in the bank. You don’t just lose your house and simply buy a new one, you work years and if you are lucky, you get that second house.
You move to a job in another part of Canada – you leave your friends and family and everything that you knew so that you could pay off your debts and survive – you lose your friends.
You give your keys to your car, house, farm and business to the bank.
But still, I was lucky – I could get a job and rebuild for my future. I could move and get a job.
This isn’t going to happen to folks who lose everything now. When people who are over 40 lose everything there is no place to move in Canada. Because the NEP mainly affected Alberta; Albertans became poor and lost everything.
Now people in all areas of Canada are in danger of losing their house, car, farm and/or business(es). But there aren’t jobs all over Canada to move to; and if you find one, where will you live? And there aren’t cheap houses to start over with
Central Canada still doesn’t understand, and appears not to want to. But I think they will learn.
But on the bright side the Oilers are on a roll.
A wonderful intimate look into the sausage-making routine of Canada's two best "political observers" ... sharing their creative process.
But I gotta make a special shout-out, and "thank-you" ... to their new production crew. If slow-witted and/or hearing-impaired listeners like me choose to watch/follow these sessions (at least on You-Tube ) ... there is now a wonderful technical option to "slow" the audio-speed of their dialogue to 75% of actual delivery ... with (somehow magically) ... zero distortion!
Everybody sounds more relaxed, and thoughtful ... and there's time for me to appreciate the occasional "nuances" in the dialogue.
Just "click" on the SETTINGS button (an icon which looks like a gear) at the bottom of the screen.
It's much better ... with no more more leaning-forward and frowning and thinking, "What the fuck did she just say?"
Gotta love technology!!
Thank you, again.
Incidentally, Matt should lower his camera angle ... it looks like he's sitting on a foot-stool. I have a vintage Aeron chair. Much better ... but it's still worth as much as my 2006 car!
I will listen this evening, but to answer your question about Notley - I think Singh resigns after the next federal election and Notley is prepping for a federal leadership run.
Game play it out - Pollievre wins the next election with a majority. Liberals are decimated. So are NdP. Singh resigns. Notley gets leadership and is ready to take on Pierre in 2028/2029. I hope I’m wrong but that’s what I think. (With having no clue of what your guys’ predictions were.)
Welcome back!
But, ugh... This Sabrina Maddeaux thing is such inside-baseball-boring... Like discussing cap space in hockey.
Yes, but a great platform for us to try to get free subscribers to pay up because that's funny. JG
I know that many people aren’t interested in discussions of Canadian media, but I just want to say that I for one appreciate your commentary on this topic. CBC radio used to have a program (I think it was called “And Now the Details”?), that analyzed Canadian media, but it is long gone. Your discussions help fill that void.
Glad to have you back, I really enjoy the podcast.
Jen hit on an important point with the Liberals slow loss of support: while the popular media narrative is people "blaming" Trudeau for our various problems, I wonder how much of the slide is more of a forward-looking slow realization that this government is completely incapable of addressing the issues? What little energy and political will they have left seems directed at pet projects. By comparison, I look at the BC NDP who were also in charge when everything went downhill but who at least seem to be getting credit for taking meaningful steps to address them.
On Sabrina Maddeaux: she's a unique voice who I'm both happy to have running for office and to have had writing for a major newspaper. I'm cautiously optimistic she can have some influence on Poilievre as I think her ideas can help modernize the Conservative party. But I can definitely see why it's not a great look for the National Post, even though she never exactly tried to hide her partisanship.
I don’t think the collapse in Liberal support is going to be linked to a discrete event. Instead, we’re seeing the effect of an accumulation of factors that’s finally reached a critical point. There’s a lot of phenomena where things can degrade steadily with only a small perceptible change in function. After they reach a critical point, further degradation results in an accelerating loss of function that can appear like it’s occurred suddenly.
In my world, this is something you observe with hydrogen fuel cell performance as the catalyst degrades - every time you lose half the catalyst, you lose a certain amount of power output. The degradation mechanism happens at a steady rate, so it takes a long time to burn through that first half to 50% of the original. Losing the next half (50% of the original to 25%) takes half the time. The next half (25% to 12.5%) is even faster. If you plot out the loss of performance vs time, it looks like a sudden hockey stick-shaped inflection, but it’s actually just the effect of a steady rate of degradation.
Another more familiar example is the Canadian health care system, which could absorb cuts to capacity vs demand for years, then reached a point where it seemed like there was a sudden increase in dysfunction. That was pre-COVID, which added even more stress to the system.
Looking at the decline in support for the Liberals, it’s hard to point out any specific event that’s got greater explanatory power than any other. That seems to support the idea that it’s a phenomenon like the ones described above. Nothing critical, no “straw that broke the camel’s back”, just a steady grind of accumulating dysfunction.
Like I said, air from the balloon. It’ll collapse suddenly even if the leak is stable.
Shared from BBC: Australia to halve immigration, toughen English test
check out this article: https://bbc.com/news/world-australia-67609963
They recognize the problem and are doing something about it.
Being protested is an absolute badge of honour. I'm sorry that it hit you hard along with the travel but you should be so proud.
There was a guaranteed income program run in a small part of Manitoba years back and it was successful but was killed off as well and I confess I don't recall why. i suspect there was a fear that if you get something for nothing then that is what you wil do - nothing. The plan was a top up of your wages but that might also encourage employers to keep wages low as the 'government will take care of the people.'
In the end, I don't begrudge unemployment payments, even though I paid in for my whole career without ever drawing a dime, but I do object to those who play the system and do just the minimum to get on the pogey again.
I do feel a lot of sympathy for seniors on the limited incomes tehy can draw from CPP/OAS as receiving the GIS seems really difficult to obtain.
Minimum basic income was subjected to a bigger test during COVID with CERB payments, and validated most of the concerns regarding disincentives to work and inflationary effects.
I think one or both of you would be a welcome addition to the political landscape!