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Ken Schultz's avatar

A quick point in response to the headline of this column: "This election we'll get what we deserve"

[I speak only about the headline as I will wait for the video, complete with close captioning, to get the full experience.]

Hmmm..... "... what we deserve ..." I can only hope that we do not get what we deserve as the truth is that the electorate of Canada, after many decades of ineptitude, hypocrisy at wanting free stuff without paying for it and passing the cost to future generations and just general stupidity, getting "... what we deserve ..." is truly a threat to frighten anyone who is sentient.

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B–'s avatar

"Pierre was too chickenshit to come on the Line." Which party leaders were brave enough to be interviewed on the Line? I think I missed them.

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John Bower's avatar

Let's be honest, Carney is trying to sell us the same old pig with a bit of lip stick slapped on it. If anyone really believes that he and the party are really turning 180 degrees from where they were headed just three months ago is smoking something that Unsmoke Canada can only dream of providing. That voters are prepared to believe the lipstick pitch, that Carney is in it for us (when all evidence shows otherwise - read Bermuda, Isle of Mann, "I wasn't involved in moving ... and the list goes on) is truly frightening. You can claim the polls are wrong but how can anyone, apart from the LPC Kool-Aid drinkers, support another four years is just astounding!

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

Like the Unsmoke Canada reference.

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Wesley Burton's avatar

I totally buy the argument that Trudeau could have done better if he wanted to and that the party just let him do a shit job. He should have started planning his exit after the 2021 election. The party also should have been pushing him on that.

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Jerry Grant's avatar

I seem to remember a couple of editors calling the Liberal MPs "gormless weasels".

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B–'s avatar

There were times when I thought Trudeau truly wanted us to fire him and was deliberately trying his damnedest to give us reasons to. But we Canadians just kept shifting the line that shouldn't be crossed so that no matter what he said or did, we deemed it okay.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

Only a certain portion of Canadians gave Trudeau, the Troodas the Judas, The Forever Idiot King, constant passes and endless forgiveness. Those with the amnesiac minds of the toddlers. Those who are now voting Liberal, for the Conflicts Of Interest Emperor Marx Carney.

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Glen Thomson's avatar

“the party just let him do a shit job” you nailed it right there! Our political parties are brain dead. A political party should be a place of intense, urgent policy debate!

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Chris S.'s avatar

I do believe that Trudeau was uniquely, historically bad. 😂

Will listen later.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

Yes. Therefore Trudeau II was a massively consequential PM, in a uniquely, historically bad massively destructive way.

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Beric Maass's avatar

HL Mencken said: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard”

Good and hard coming in hot.

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Jerry Grant's avatar

I am one of the ones who said "why didn't we fix the border," I guess. Did we fix the border? The $1.2 billions was all back-ended, and only included $86 million for this year, enough to run those two Black Hawks.

Danielle Smith put boots on the border and went to the US to boost Alberta O&G. No tariffs.. Doug Ford and Mark Carney blustered and experimented with counter-tariffs. Aluminum, steel and autos were tariffed.

"Elbows up" is good for campaigning, but terrible for the economy.

What would have happened if Trudeau had taken Trump seriously and showed up at Mar-A-Lago with policy proposals? You say Trump is unpredictable, so maybe a few promises to deal with the fentanyl and immigrant problems perceived by US intelligence would have worked, like Smith's efforts did. Dealing with fentanyl and finally doing background checks on immigrants would be good for Canadians, even if it is bad for Liberals.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

"Elbows up" is absolutely puerile fakey bullshit. Destructive in reality and good for halfwits with no actual situational awareness.

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George Skinner's avatar

If Canada ends up with a Liberal majority government on Monday, the country will probably be suffering a serious case of buyer’s remorse by the end of the year. Carney’s a political neophyte. His experience in business is investment, and not at the level where he was running organizations that *do* things and deliver services. That could be OK for a finance minister, or even a PM with a solid cabinet that would allow him to act as chairman of the board and delegate to others. However, the Liberal caucus he inherited didn’t have that skill or talent. The civil service is a flabby mess. He’s going to be trying to operate a broken machine, he’s not a mechanic, and I don’t think he’s going to have any to call on.

Add onto this Carney’s apparent lack of expertise beyond finance, and things get worse. Is he going to take a crash course on defense, security, health care, and housing, or will he simply follow the established Liberal orthodoxy? I suspect it’ll be the latter. Unfortunately for us, the best case is likely that like the 1993 Chretien government, Carney’s expansive, expensive ambitions founder on fiscal reality and he’s forced to pivot hard towards the center by financial and geopolitical circumstance.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

Or may he will just wreck Canada entirely and then laugh in our faces for being foolish enough to elect him - with ample barely legal - or maybe not legal - underhanded manipulations from the Laurentian Sleazoid Class. Buyer’s remorse by the end of the summer.

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john jerke's avatar

I get Jen wants her butter but until the US reinstates testing for ecoli/salmonella/avian flu etc in its meat/dairy/poultry products - I'll be fine w supply management thanks

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Terry O'Keefe's avatar

Can’t we as a country say that no company, wherever they’re based, is allowed to sell meat/diary/poultry products in Canada that haven’t been tested for ecoli/salmonella/avian flu etc ? If there’s valid health reasons for that (and I assume there are),it sounds like something we should be able to enforce.

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B–'s avatar

There are absolutely ways to test this. Other items get imported all the time that have risks for E. coli, salmonella, etc., such as lettuce and fresh fruits and vegetables. Dairy has become a sacred cow, and it's really quite silly. Consumers would have a choice. Elbows-uppers could buy Canadian watery butter, and the rest of us could buy butter from France. Previous cross-border shoppers could stick with US milk and cheese, although I really don't understand why they would want to 🤣

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George Skinner's avatar

Yes - food safety regulation doesn’t require supply management, as evidenced by the sectors *without* supply management, such as pork and beef production. Those sectors also do just fine competing with other world producers.

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Wesley Burton's avatar

They are far from the only market. Supply management has killed potential deals with the UK and Europe.

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john jerke's avatar

oh I know. just in terms of the discussion of this particular pod - granting the Americans greater market access given.the lack of food safety they want to inflict on their own populace - doesn't feel like a net benefit to us

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Ryan and Jen's avatar

Supply management and food safety/quality are two different issues, but the dairy cartel has been very effective in conflating them.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

I want my butter too, but must agree with this. My secret: you may find pretty decent butter 82 % + at ethnic delis or ethnic corner stores. I do. I will say no more 'cuz I do not want the nosey annoying feds to spoil it for me.

Do your own legwork and you may be pleasantly surprised. Same for great yoghurt and cheese.

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B–'s avatar

I make my own yoghurt, albeit with supply-managed Canadian milk.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

I also used to for a while. I like most the 6 % Balkan style plain. You have to mix milk and cream in this country. Pricewise and fiddly-wise, I found I might just as well buy the Balkan. If the milk and cream prices were what they should be, home-made would definitely make sense.

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B–'s avatar

I just use homogenized milk. Works well for us.

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John Matthew IV's avatar

Supply managment does not cover beef or pork or lamb. I don't see people dropping dead from eating those products.

In fact, many food recalls come from vegetables.

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Jerry Grant's avatar

Canadians are happy with palm oil in their butter.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

NO. At least not all Canadians. For those who know the old fashioned types of butter before the palm oil and from other places, the taste is not "right".

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Jerry Grant's avatar

Sarcasm. We are no better than the Americans for messing with milk.

We aren't concerned with the bovine somatotropin in milk that the cow produced naturally, but inject some to prolong the milking and we go bananas. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea, but screaming that bovine somatotropin is a toxin is just wrong. (I can be corrected if I got the science wrong).

So it is illegal in Canada and we probably don't test for it. Wanna bet whether no farmers are using it?

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

Is OK kind of sarcasm. Wakes people up. I figure the use of some science is acceptable, but must not cross into blatant misuse, so we need to keep tabs on that in all kinds of ways.

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MGS's avatar

I think about this Eric Hoffer quote a lot the last few years...

"Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves."

Jen, I know we hate discussing COVID but glad(?) to hear you mention the parallels. Im seeing some some afterimages of 2020/21 in people's behavior related to this election (particularly the "elbows up" stuff, the middle finger-boomer-guy and related memes), and it's been more than a little triggering...

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Craig's avatar

In my view this was the best The Line Podcast that I have listened to as a loyal subscriber for at least a few years now - and that is intended as high praise as there have been so many excellent drops by Jen and Matt along the way. Canadians/Canada/the Developed World/liberal democracies are in or on the precipice of so many real predicaments and crises at this moment in time. Not all of them will end in a bad/worse case scenario result - but a lot of them will. An inevitable painful reset is underway and the degree security and societal prosperity we have enjoyed for the last 80 years or so are coming to an end. At a domestic and political level, the reality is that any party that engaged in a honest discussion of the issues and how they really propose to deal with them would be destroyed in an election. There are real costs that real people will be paying to address/mitigate these issues - and nobody wants to speak to these out loud. It is a feature of our party based democratic system that the influential people within those parties do not think beyond immediate to mid-term election/popularity implications and strategies - they are capable of much more but become dominated by the electoral prospects calculus of what sells vs what is right. Aggravating this lack of seriousness is that if feels like personal and societal integrity is at an all time low and self-interest is at an all time high.

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Craig's avatar

... Canadians are guilty of insularity and wilful naiveness, begetting our longstanding national condition of complacency and inertia. Now, more than ever, we need objective thought leadership and serious respectful debate. Now, more than ever, we need meaningful, thoughtful, independent and balanced journalism.

This may be too amibitous for the Line to take on as currently configured (and I know that the Line already does this to some extent) but I would love to see a dedicated comprehensive ongoing series of expert pieces/discussions on the issues and problems that we face and policy proposals for how we as a society/country could address these issues. I for one would be willing to pay a higher subscription cost to help fund such an undertaking.

Regardless ... thank you Jen and Matt and your contributors for providing Canadians with a forum for the thouhtful, informed, honest debate we so desperately need.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

There is a "DONATE" button easy to find and available.

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Craig's avatar

I am aware and already put my money where my mouth is.

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Sean Cummings's avatar

I enjoyed this podcast quite a bit. For me, I believe we are adrift in a perfect storm of either disbelief that our closest neighbor to do this to us, to, who is the best leader to negotiate/handle Trump. Jen laid it out quite well that by tomorrow Trump changes his mind, etc. The thing is, one has to be deluded to believe that you can negotiate with a pussy-grabbing, convicted felon, world's worst business man, dictator waiting to happen, mega-douche. Because, you can't. Stop thinking he can be negotiated with. I think JG explained how isolated America is making itself become and how the rest of the world is starting to create its own solutions to what is happening in America. I'm so sick of it.

The state of our national dysfunction has been laid bare by the pandemic, Trump and tariffs. Our national disunity is on display for all to see. Th two parties that can actually form a government in our country are the same men and women, just different brands.

Global circumstances are exposing how utterly unserious this country has become. Plastic #$#% straws. Jeebus.

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Megan's avatar

I will sound terribly glib here, but i want to thank TheLine for somehow making me laugh through all of this. If someone had told me 6 months ago of this *gestures wildly * situation and said I'd be giggling through my rage? I'd have never believed it! So thank you all. Gerson's column made me belly laugh! (Rageful laugh, but a laugh nonetheless). Thank to you all. Keep up the good work!

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Neil S's avatar

Sadly the deeply unserious version of Canada will continue on. Falling further behind the rest of the world. Forcing the smartest of our youth to leave. Continuing to vote for more entitlements paid for on the backs of the future generations. It is a dangerous downward spiral. Sadly until all the boomers are gone, and we hit Argentina levels of stupidity I don’t think anything will change. Never has. We are a complacent lazy country. My spouse and I are Gen X. Our children are mostly grown, and our parents are almost gone. I foresee us leaving Canada in the next couple of years because there’s really nothing here for us any longer, especially when our health system has its final collapse. I have encouraged all our children to look for opportunities elsewhere in the world. One point I’d like to make about USA versus the world. Is that while Jenn and Matt are correct the US is not bigger than the rest of the world. It does however have enviable demographics and I’m a firm believer that demographics are your destiny. There are only a handful of countries around the world that have the demographics that will have a very positive impact on their future. The rest of the countries are in a rapid decline. We are one of the declining countries. Nothing we can do at this point will change that. I believe population collapse is a real thing. It’s going to be interesting times for our children.

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NotoriousSceptic's avatar

True. Did not give a like 'cuz these facts are making also me uneasy.

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DrummerDave's avatar

Maybe we’re also not hearing policies around issues like supply management etc. because we may need to hold some cards in our hand for trade negotiations? Then again, maybe not.

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Neil's avatar

Hope it doesn't happen, but if you do end up in El Salvador at least you can speak Spanish

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