Canadian Politics, Federal, Provincial or otherwise.

[Ollumhammersong]

So between the upcoming Federal election, the ongoing Ontario provincial election, possible Trump tariffs and whatever else is likely going on that is simply being drowned out by the tidal wave of crazy shit ongoing in my country. Someone mentioned in a different thread that there should be a Canadian political thread, as there seems to be a sizable number of Canucks that frequent this website. 

So I figured i'd get this started. 

One thing I have to thank Trump for, is stabilizing & civilizing Canadian politics, even just in the short term. This country was a mess politically going into the new federal election and alot of people were largely dejected and growing increasingly cynical about the political scene in general. But Trump did the impossible, he somehow aligned all major political parties and nearly all premiers to stand shoulder to shoulder and focus on a common threat. And for anyone who unfamiliar with Canadian politics. Getting the NDP, PC, Greens, and Libs to unite on anything is.... just wow. That's damned impressive. 

The premiers and house of Commons aren't debating about whether we should respond, but how. It's not a question of should be diversify exports, simply with whom do we diversify with. There's not a lot of friction or partisianship regarding this issue. Even the issue of streamlining interprovincial trade and regulations, for decades there wasn't any real push or effort to do anything about these absurd barriers, because we could always sell goods to America or Europe, so it wasn't seen as a problem worth tackling. Now there's a real change in the wind, and enough public panic and anger that this might actually get done before the end of the calendar year if the next PM can properly ride and maintain this momentum. 

It would be amazing and a huge boon to our self sufficiency and economy if these barriers can be knocked down or harmonized. 

[Lyrical]

Just speaking as someone from Nova Scotia.  I wouldn't get too excited.. 

In Nova Scotia our Premier is basically currently giving the polite Canadian version of "drill baby drill" speeches and altering existing environmental protection policies to "free up land for development and mining"

Also Pierre or PeePee as everyone I know calls him (the leader of the federal Conservatives) is being very cagey and/or quiet about his opinions on many of Trumps policies as they pertain to our social infrastructure including things like Healthcare, LGBTQ+ rights, etc etc...

United politically? I would say no... United against Trumps tariff plan against Canada, yes... but that's a no brainer for any politician. Also, even on that issues.. best to look close at PeePee's responses. They are very Trump like in their lacking of any real response or plan. Mostly just a lot of PeePee taking shots at the Liberal responses without offering anything substantial of his own.

About the concept of opening up more free trade amongst the provinces themselves, it would be a huge boon for our economy but many provinces have a degree of protectionism that might act as a stumbling block to those things. And here in Nova Scotia, our premier just sees this as an opportunity to try to get oil pumped into the province for distribution from our port... in a world where the environment is burning down around us and this guy is just going straight for the easy financial solutions with the worst possible impact... in case you didn't know... He's a conservative. Surprised yet? He talks like a moderate then pokes away at things like a typical right-winger... Never trust them, don't trust any of them.. they'll burn the world down around us for extra dollars for their wealthy backers/lobbyists.

on a side note...

I'm pretty positive that I'm not on board with this new plan for Canadian self-sufficiency if this is the direction it's taking

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-27-information-morning-ns/clip/16109825-protecting-wilderness-areas
CBC Nov. 19, 2024
" Environmental groups are concerned about an uptick in forestry operations on public land that they're working to protect."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/miners-praise-n-s-premier-s-call-to-lift-uranium-ban-but-environmentalist-calls-it-a-dead-end-1.7439604
CBC Jan 23, 2025
"Miners praise N.S. premier's call to lift uranium ban but environmentalist calls it a 'dead end'"

https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/environmental-non-profit-groups-challenge-n-s-premier-on-resource-extraction
Chronicle Herald Jan 29, 2025
"Environmental non-profit groups challenge N.S. premier on resource extraction"

Also, PeePee is by far the favourite to win the next federal election. He's a Canadian reflection of a young Trump, along with his core demographic MAGA-lite Canadian conservatives. Times are gonna get dicey in Canada over the next year or two.. That's if PeePee doesn't just bend the knee to the god-savior tangerine tyrant and make us the 51st State for a few bucks. Which i believe is a terrifyingly strong possibility.

[Ollumhammersong]

I would say we are united. United over a single issue, and admittedly we don't know how long this sense of unity will last. But we've seen a level of national pride I don't remember ever seeing in my lifetime before. Even Quebecers are waving the flag and saying 'on guard for thee' Which just amazes me. Even if this just lasts for another couple weeks, the wave of national pride is still incredible.

As for Poilievre, ya I'm a little disappointed in him too because he's mostly using the impending tariffs just to take snipes at the liberals and Trudeau from the sidelines and he could be taking a higher road here. But he's also the person that almost immediately brought up breaking down internal barriers for trade, so i will give him credit for getting that conversation started. Sure it wont be easy to get all the provinces to agree on everything. but the conversation is started and we actually have some momentum, large scale public interest, and a ticking clock element to force the premiers to get shit done. 

I also agree that Poilievre is a populist to be sure. But I don't share the opinion that he would sell out Canada, Hell if anyone was going to do it, it would be Doug Ford. He is the guy most often compared to Trump. Yet he's staunchly been saying 'fuck you'. I'm actually surprised because he was an outspoken supporter of Trump before this shitshow started but is also leading the charge of 'Canada is not for sale'. The only politician I could see actually supporting the idea of Canadian statehood is Alberta's premier. She's been disturbingly quiet about this whole tariff thing since it started. Then again she's in quite the scandal as I understand and seems to be just keeping her head down in general right now and trying to keep her job.

I will say that I am pleasantly surprised by Trudeau, I am one of the many Canucks that felt like he grossly overstayed his welcome, but he's handled this tariffs situation wonderfully and gave one of the best speeches of his tenure when he talked about retaliatory tariffs and buying Canadian. It's good he's ending his career on a high note and being a calm, reasonable voice that this country needs. It's a shame it took this long, and looming economic collapse for that to happen. 

************

As for environmental concerns..... Ya.... that's all I can really say. I know that sounds callous and uncaring of me, especially in text form. And I fully acknowledge that we can't be blind to potential environmental concerns of future economic projects, be also can't let it hamstring us and block us from doing anything. Because we clearly can't keep going on as we have been. Over reliant on a relatively narrow variety of exports, and on a single trade partner. America has proven to unpredictable and unreliable, because even when Trump's term is done there is now the very real risk of someone else just like him or potentially even worse being elected and then we have to deal with that person's bullshit rhetoric. Nothing we do will have zero environmental impact. So if that is the criteria that needs to be met before we can do something, then we're really fucked. We can't do anything that has an environmental impact, but we also clearly can't carry on as is because it leaves us open to potentially crippling economic coercion that could potentially fuck up our country for years, maybe a full decade. And I don't think that's hyperbolic for me to say. We are so reliant on the US for our economy that if they do go through with this tariff bullshit, even for six months, This could take years for us to recover from

We should proceed with care with whatever economic path we end up taking, but we need to proceed none the less, because let's face it, we have to do something. If not reviving the energy east pipeline, or funding new mineral extraction projects than what? We can try bolstering manufacturing exports like cars, or invest in new factories to produce new goods, but that still requires us to import minerals and materials from other countries, and expand existing factories to meet increased output. If anything that makes us less self sufficient and we would still have to build new rail lines to ship these manufactured goods out to ports anyway. 

We need to diversify what we export and who we export to, that simply has to happen going forward. There's a near universal consensus on that. We either send goods west to places like South Korea, India, japan, etc. Or east to Europe. That also means we need to build some kind of transport infrastructure and that has to lead to one of the coasts, be it Vancouver or the Maritimes, and this means building Pipelines, railway tracks, highways, etc. We need to send our goods somewhere and we need to get those goods to the necessary ports somehow. And it would need to be proper shipping ports, Somethings can be shipped by air but not everything. 

[Ollumhammersong]

To be clear. I'm not saying the environmental concerns aren't important or shouldn't be addressed. They aboslutely should be addressed and whatever we do as a nation, be it manufacturing, harvesting or extraction or what have you. We need to proceed with as low environmental impact as we can manage and be constantly mindful and watchful of that impact. 

I'm just saying we can't just halt everything over that. Again, we need to do something. And if not minerals or oil, which this country has in spades and nearly the entire world is willing to buy, then what do we do instead?

[Esoterica]

I almost feel like I'm American and not Canadian so maybe I should not comment here but I do have a cousin who married a Canadian and lives over the border now and I worry for her and the country as much as I do my own.

But here is my question. We are in Michigan, a hop and a skip from you guys, and my mom says you will become the 51st state in time. Do you think honestly there is any chance of that happening? Do you think the tariffs are Trump trying to bully Canada and Mexico into this?

[Ollumhammersong]

To put it bluntly, no. Things would need to get real bad here before we would even think about considering folding ourselves into the US.

Most Canadians define ourselves, for better or worse by 'not being American' we take an enormous amount of pride in that. More than we should perhaps. We consume alot of American TV and movies as does most of the world. But Canadians overwhelmingly like being Canadian.

We're polite to a fault, but we also know we can get passive aggressive and petty, and if sufficiently pissed off we get downright cruel. This is why so many Canadians are eager to shut off power exports to the US. Myself included, When we get pissed we can get vindictive fast and we don't like being patronized or goaded.

We're well accustomed to the US looking down on us as their 'little brother to the north' but no one up here that I've ever met actually likes being referred to as that.

Truth be told many Canadians actually look down on America and Americans. The way Americans look at Florida and 'Florida man' headlines is how many of us see the whole United States. It's one of our douchier habits, and few of us would admit to it even if pressed. But ya.... it's a real sentiment. Many of us privately view Americans at best as friendly, generous and good-hearted but kinda dumb. Or at worst as a nation of Bible thumping, Gun toting, cousin fucking hillbillies. Basically many Canadians kinda view ourselves as better people, precisely because we're Canadian and not American. Again, one of our douchier habits, and very few of my countryman would ever admit to this. But I was born, raised and lived here for over thirty years, met people from many different provinces..... it's a real sentiment.

As a nation we're overwhelmingly more liberal than the US and most Canadians would see statehood as a step backwards in more than one respect. Gay rights, Healthcare, guns, etc.

I'm not saying this to be a dick. Just to highlight, this is what the idea of US statehood is up against. 

Not just Canadian national pride, which is far stronger than many Maga types probably realize. But also a hundred and fifty years of a sort of mild racism. Mixed with Our desire not to be drawn into the horror show that is the US Healthcare system.

Many of us would willingly suffer under tariffs and have our government cut all but the most necessary diplomatic  ties with the US rather than become American citizens.

[Ollumhammersong]

As far as Trump's goals with these tariffs. My personal opinion? Yes, he would be over the moon if Canada was absorbed into the US and that is a genuinely attractive prospect.  He wants to go down in history as one of the greatest presidents in US history.


When Trump tweets out A map like this he genuinely wants it to be a reality. But I also believe that even he knows it's far fetched. I think he does want to take all of our manufacturing jobs, he wants America to buy nothing from us and only sell goods to us. He wants a deal so lopsided that he gets unconditional resource rights within our country while also getting paid for the inconvenience. 

So the point of the tariffs is to hurt Canada and Mexico to the point where we are theoretically willing to sign any deal to make it stop no matter how one sided.

[Blythe]

American here--I'd love to learn more about Canadian politics, but...I know almost next to nothing about it & I'm a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out where to start learning. So I'm really grateful to see this thread.

Could any Canadians in here link me to some good sources for a beginner's 'crash course' to learn about Canada's parties and government? And maybe if you have any interesting blogs/articles to read in relation to current relations between the USA/Canada that you feel are particularly on-point?

In recent years I'm really realizing just how important it is to get out of my own bubble and get to learning about other countries and how they do things--and I'm realizing how much I don't know about the USA's closest neighbors and it's...I'm kind of embarrassed I don't know more, but would like to fix that. I really should have been doing this earlier, but...well, never too late to learn, I suppose?

[Ollumhammersong]

Sure thing, happy to help

These videos form a pretty good Cole's notes overview of how our government functions. The delivery is a little dry buy the information is solid and unbiased.

But the most important difference between how congress works compared to parliament, and the relationship between the Prime minister (our chief governing officer of the nation) and the legislature (parliament). In the US the chief Governing officer (President) is an expressly separate legal entity from congress. He has different duties, powers, responsibilities and as more often than not at odds with congress to get the shit he wants done. You can have a republican president and an overwhelmingly democrat congress and the country just continues on with that arrangement until the next scheduled election. Even if that creates total deadlock and no legislation gets passed for two or more years.

In Canada our legislature elects the Prime minister from amongst themselves (theoretically they can pick anyone, they just always choose from the party leadership), and the prime minister must maintain a simple majority approval from the current parliament to keep running the show. Which means the Prime Minister and his cabinet serve at the pleasure of parliament, not the other way around. So if an election happens and you have a Liberal prime minister suddenly facing down and overwhelmingly conservative House of Commons, they will vote him out of office within a couple weeks. Also if our prime Minister just does something completely insane and incites mass panic, confusion, etc. He can experience what's called a 'vote of no confidence' and be removed from office without needing a general election to be called.

Imagine a system where you don't vote for president directly, you just vote for your local rep for the lower house of congress, and every four years your house of representatives gets to decide whether or not to keep the current president in office or pick someone else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-LxSNNpEdU - General overview of how parliament is organized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4cRYJ1ADd8 - general overview of how political parties work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJVPiQ5GJas - a good guide on the relationship between federal and provincial governments.

Again the delivery of these videos is pretty dry, but the information is solid. He has other videos going deeper on specific areas, our constitution, the Charter of rights and freedoms, etc. 

[Blythe]

Hey, thank you so much!! I'll be going through those videos later. I appreciate you taking the time out to write that post and compile those vids, Ollumhammersong! :)

[Ollumhammersong]

So now there's 25% on steel and aluminum (America imports 3.2 million tonnes of aluminum from Canada per year, so that's a pretty bold move)

And there's a potential 50-100% tariff on Canadian cars. This is going to get rough, particularly in Ontario.  

[Ollumhammersong]

So Poilievre held a 'Canada First Rally' a little Trumpish but that's kinda the mood in the country right now. Media has been throwing that accusation at him for a few years now but honestly, As a Canadian maybe we fight fire with fire? It's tough, and I know alot of Canadians on this site in particular probably aren't fond of the man but he more than likely will be our next prime Minister. Apparently this rally was shockingly well attended, filled the hall and then some, even during the worst snowfall of the year they were turning people away at the door because of capacity. 

I just don't see anyone but Carney winning the Liberal leadership, and well.... Carney was a big voice in Trudeau's government and his ideas and advice are at least partially responsible for the grossly inflated and bullshit state of our housing market, overwhelmed healthcare and generally economically stagnant state of our nation right now. That will be held against him during his campaign and rightly so. People are pretty fed up, the carbon tax is really unpopular in the middle of an inflation crisis and huge numbers of people can't get a doctor. 

The NDP and Jagmeet are a joke right now. They're going to likely lose a good portion of what few seats they have and based on some mumbling I hear from some NDP friends there may be a call for him to officially resign as leader after this election if it goes really badly for them. 

I'm not sure If I really want Poilievre to win, but I don't really want Carney and the liberals in charge any longer, and certainly not the NDP.

[Lyrical]

The state of the Canadian economy, housing market, and all the rest of it are all a product of the world economy in general post-Covid lock downs. The big picture is challenging to see but it has more to do with COVID recovery, global conflict, and rapidly aging population demographics (that change the way money is spent/moved around).  Did things like bringing in immigrants are a rapidly inflated number cause issues? Maybe a bit, but if we didn't do it than our demographics would cause our population to age out of relevance and would have resulted in other problems. There's no easy or painless solution here. No, the Liberals are not responsible for all our woes. In fact, I feel the opposite. They are responsible for us maintaining as much economic stability as we did have, it could have potentially been a lot worse. Our country survives through an economic policy that very carefully balances expenses with social programs. Sometimes that means we suffer a little (IE: not enough doctors & nurses) but it's still a much better situation on the ground for your average Canadian than it is for your average American.

Also there is no inflation crisis, this is a myth perpetrated by Pierre and his Conservatives. The inflation we are experiencing is on par with other developed countries around the world including North America and Europe.

IMF - Inflation rate, average consumer prices (annual percent changes)   (NOTE: if you slide it back to 2024, we were lower than the USA)
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PCPIPCH@WEO/WEOWORLD/VEN

[Ollumhammersong]

I mean maybe nova scotia didn't notice the immigration spike and subsequent crunch it had on housing and healthcare. but we certainly noticed it in Ontario. Canada's population has grown by more than 5 million in the last ten years Three million of that just in the last five years. That is a massive increase over a short period of time and most of them ended up right here in Ontario. it's absurd and unsustainable levels of growth, there was no way our civil services wouldn't buckle under that kind of strain. 

I know Nova scotia has seen some influx. But only about 5% of your provincial population non permanent residents. Roughly 10% of your entire provincial population are non native born. Where as here in Ontario over 40% of all immigrants to Canada end up here. So the problems of housing and healthcare shortages are much more acute here.

Only 160,000ish nova scotians are Without a doctor, vs over 2.5 million Ontarians and the comparisons go on. This isn't about suffering 'a little bit' without a doctor, doctor and housing shortages are being experienced all over the country, but most accutely here. There's simply been too much immigration over the last few years and our civil infrastructure just can't keep up. The term 'Hallway healthcare' has become a thing in this province to describe the overcrowded nature of hospitals, clinics and emergency wards. 

It's not the only issue plaguing us, but people in Ontario especially are pretty fucking pissed about it. Especially as at the same time violent and non violent crime rates in almost every major city has increased to some degree in this province. Hell in Hamilton shootings have gotten so bad that revenue Canada actually relocated their office for fear of worker safety. And lets not forget about the massive car theft ring that operates out of Toronto, to which the Toronto constabulary actually said, and I shit you not Just leave your car keys outside on your porch at night, so the thieves can more easily steal your car......

Ya..... fuck that. There are days when I feel that the US may have the right idea with things like Castle doctrine. If the police aren't going to step up and do their jobs to keep me and my home safe, then at least let me do it myself.

I'm not saying that all these crimes are being committed by immigrants, I know very few are. But in conjunction with the first problem of living in an overcrowded province with criminally low access to healthcare and a housing market that requires you to win the lottery just to have a hope of affording something. It's just adding fuel to the fire and telling people to just suffer a little bit and deal with this isn't working in Ontario anymore. We're just fucking fed up. I feel that my province is going to vote for whichever party promises the most hardline stance on Immigration in the next election. and it seems a good chunk of the country right now shares that opinion

As for maintaining economic stability? Debt to gdp is now 107% since trudeau took over. At this point 54.1 billion dollars from our national budget is just paying interest off our national debt. We are in no way shape or form a more fiscially stable country right now. Historically Liberal governments have given this country unprecedented economic growth, like under WLMK, and I personally maintain that Pierre Trudeau was the greatest prime minister we've ever had. Trudeau had a good first term. He did alot of good in legalizing weed, bringing back the long form census office, etc. 

But the inflation crisis is definitely real. Just because this is on par with what other countries are experiencing, doesn't mean it isn't a problem. It just means it's a really big problem. I mean hell, not that long ago the official inflation rate was at 8% if you go back just to 2023 where our 8% was much much higher than the US rate of 3.4% of the same year

[Lyrical]

Don't take everything you see/hear in the media at face value. Most of that is sensationalism. Nothing is ever perfect and wanting improvements is a good thing. Very little of what you said though has anything to do with the reasons that you think it is.

Again I can't stress the importance of immigration enough. The population increase was required so we don't suffer demographic collapse as all the baby boomers stop spending money and go into retirement.

Our birthrate isn't sustainable. For a healthy economy a country requires a birthrate of 2.1/woman just to sustain population.

Canada's Birthrate is only:  1.26  (that is demographic and economic collapse level of severity, much better than places like Russia, China, or South Korea as examples but it's still a very bad number)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canada-lowest-ever-fertility-rate-1.7338374  (Sept 2024, links in article to Stats Can)

We need young adults(immigrants) to add to our labour pool in order to fuel our tax base and support the country as a whole (which includes all our social programs)

---

Then you talk about number of people without doctors. The numbers don't tell the truth because those numbers are not per capita.. if you calculate it at percentages those numbers should be approx:

15.8% of people in Ontario are without a doctor
16% of people in Nova Scotia are without a doctor

that's based on your numbers, so technically the numbers are worse here(Nova Scotia) but that's all well within standard margin of errors

It is also a misreading of the information. We have medical care and our hospitals are open to all.

Also, be careful, cause if you blame current government for that you are overlooking that fact that hemorrhaging medical professionals is also largely because they are aging out. The boomers are retiring. Those immigrants you don't want are the labour pool that needs to come here to train (or re-certify) to fill those positions that we need. No new young people means no new medical professionals (or at least not enough of them.)

----

Violent Crime rates? Yes, they are up. But talking about that immediately after talking about immigration raises questions about where the blame is being pointed?

It's well known that crime rates and substance abuse issues increase during times of economic hardship. They go hand in hand. I'm not going to cite a source cause it's well documented. The entire world is recovering from economic hardship due to Covid lockdowns and Canada is not alone in this struggle with a rise in crime in developed nations. ((Side note: lock downs that were required to keep the world from dying... being lax with lockdowns results in a lot of extra deaths, just compare per capita number of deaths by countries and lock down rules and the evidence is clear. Canadian lockdowns saved a lot of lives))

But let's be clear, while the media will have you believe it's some massive crime problem throwing around crime stats about rise in crime... We DO NOT have a crime problem in Canada.

If you want stats, feel free to browse the numbers and do a bit of Google searching

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/violent-crime-rates-by-country

What we have here in Canada is a rise in criminal activity that does need to be addressed but we have not suddenly become the crime capital of the world. In fact while our violent crimes have exceeded per capita in the US, our violent death rates are still much lower (see link above for details.)

---

Inflation isn't a Liberal government issue. I already pointed out world stats on that subject. And the links I gave show across the board inflation numbers for every year.

Recent past and present issues are a direct result of Covid recovery. The world didn't just have a cold, we had a pandemic. That takes time for the world to adjust and everything else that's going on,isn't making it easier. IN fact if you want to blame anyone for inflation you can blame the USA and it's trade war with China (the global leader in goods). Our economy is tied to the USA. Even if we can fight it some, we are still always going to ride the roughly same approximate highs and lows as they do.

Inflation is a world problem. And our future inflation numbers are going to go up, again because of the USA... not because of the Liberal government. A few tweaks here and there in our economy just smooths out the bumps it doesn't have any sort of radical affect. We are not an underdeveloped nation at the total mercy of a single policy (or some random crypto scam.)

Also your link was for CPI which doesn't take into account our total economic picture which is why I linked a more robust IMF graph in my previous post. CPI is based on snapshots of a set of primary goods but doesn't reflect actual overall requirements to maintain standards of living. CPI is a narrow focus. Also, you compared the US inflation number to Canada's CPI.. if you're going to compare you need to compare CPI to CPI

Note CPI (as per the graph you linked):

America was 9.1% in June of 2021
Canada's was 3.1% in June of 2021

America was 2.9% in Dec 2024
Canada's was 1.8% in Dec 2024


Source:  US Bureau of Statistics (CPI)
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2025/the-consumer-price-index-rose-3-0-percent-from-january-2024-to-january-2025.htm

[Ollumhammersong]

I'm by no means against immigration and never said I was. I do get how that may have been read between the lines, But I also did say pretty clearly that I knew immigrants were not the cause of the crime increase. I wholely recognize the low birth rates of our nation and that immigration can be a positive. But like most needs it does need to be carefully controlled. My argument is that too many were being allowed in too quickly and that the rate of overall population growth, particularly in Ontario was far outpacing the existing our various civil infastructure's ability to cope.

Immigration is good, as you say it's healthy to a nations growth and economy when managed properly. 

I also recognize that crime rates are relatively low compared to global metrics. But they are still on the rise, and that is worth addressing and shouldn't just be dismissed as a trivial concern. And no where in my post did I say we were suddenly as bad as what Ecuador or Columbia. I know very well we aren't at that level, But also, Just throwing up a map that says 'hey this number says Canadian crime is low, look at this chart and see the colours' doesn't mean much when you're in one of those cities that is experiencing that increase like I am. (Hamilton, if you're curious. And that shooting that prompted the CRA to pull out of the city happened outside the building my sister works at. So this hits a little closer to home for me. Hamilton's been economically depressed since the 90s, but it's never been this and never this brazen.)

I am also well aware that we face a problem with aging tradesmen and physicians. But this is where I can and will get on the governments case. It's been almost ten years they've known about this problem. It was a concern ten years ago, and it's a real problem now. One they only very recently started to address. They've had years to ease the accreditation process, raise the number of physicians and nurses who are allowed to take this test per year, lower the cost of this test to make it more affordable, and a host of other bureaucratic issues that could have been addressed in the last ten years, but they really only started making movements on it in 2022-2023. Even then it was mostly talk and there hasn't been much actual progress on this. But the governments of Quebec, Ontario & Alberta estimate that they have collectively about 5000 of these internationally trained physicians who either are waiting in a years long line to take the accreditation test, and can't practice until then. Or can't afford the fee immediately upon arriving and have to work to save up before putting their names on the waiting list. And this bureaucratic hold-up is both for foreign trained doctors nurses, dentists, etc.

To be clear, I have no issue with these immigrants and never said I did in my previous post. My issue is with the mass immigration policy our government has recently decided to adopt, not the concept of skilled immigration as a whole.

And on the note of skilled immigration, well our government isn't doing much about addressing the trades either with this immigration policy. Only a small number of immigrants actually end up going into the rapidly depleting skilled trades, most go into lower skilled labour with a notable minority into tech & engineering.

So again, the government is doing a pretty bad job of addressing these critical labour shortfalls via immigration. It's let in a huge amount of immigrants, more than our housing, healthcare, and provincial institutions could reasonably handle. All while only a shockingly small percentage were eligiable for skilled trades and medical accreditations. And many of those it did let in are being forced to wait years at times to recertify before they can actually join the labour force in the needed capacity.

So ya, this is something I can kinda get mad at Trudeau about. Sure there was covid, which stalled everything for a time, but he was in office five years before covid with a majority government for his entire first term. He could have got the ball rolling on these fixes a decade ago. But here we are.

Now I grant you, it's not just him. Provincial governments all over the country were equally slow to pick up on this issue. Trudeau is not the only man to blame on this. Pretty much every provincial government in the country dropped the ball on this one, as did Harper's government before. They all waited until it became a looming crisis before actually showing some gusto and getting the ball moving.

To say nothing about the lack of investment in domestic trades schools all this time. Right now everyone seems to be rushing to pump money into trades schools and apprenticeship programs. That's great and all but it should have been done years ago not at the 11th hour.

As for the economy. Sure we are closely tied to the US, and the sanctions on Russia hit us hard. But if anything that also leans into what I was saying before. As a nation we really, really need to shift strategies and stop being reliant on a single trade partner with a single product. We need to diversify and do it quickly, again this isn't just Trudeau, pretty much every government for the last several decades has been okay with just selling oil to the US as an economic solution. Thankfully we're finally seeing how precarious this whole arrangement really was.

I mean, lets face reality. The government loves to throw around claims like this, where Canada is outpacing nearly all other G7 nations in terms of total PPP growth. But when you can't afford rent or a home then it doesn't mean much to the average person. Total national GDP growth isn't the same as gdp per person. Besides, GDP per person in Canada hasn't actually improved a whole lot and sure, again, covid happened. But other g7 countries seem to be pulling out of it better than we are and showing gdp growth per person where as we slumped for the last couple years. Even the countries with lower GDP per person are still showing growth where we're falling. We can only say 'well covid happened' for so long. And if we are tied so much to the US's highs and lows, why didn't we grow at least similar to them even when Biden was in office? We grew a little for a couple years, then dipped again while they continued to go up. This was all well before the Trump tariff threats. 

[Ollumhammersong]

We are tightly entwined with the US economy to be sure. But we're not just blindly following it like a S&P 500 or market stock. And the regulations in our economy are a great thing to prevent massive bubbles and bursts and keep things stable. But we also clearly haven't been growing all that much in the last decade. Even in the pre-pandemic years of his tenure. Overall GDP growth maybe, but not on a per capita basis. 

Harper's overall GDP per person growth was about 0.5% per person over his whole tenure, where as Trudeaus was only 0.3%. Sure his overall GDP growth was higher, but that only affects a small number of very wealthy people tied to a few key industries.

I dislike Harper as much as most Canadians do and heartily agree that he left the Prime ministers office as something of a dumpster fire for Trudeau to clean up. Trudeau simply made some bad calls during his tenure. Like I said, skilled immigration is good, but the problem with mass immigration of lower and unskilled workers is that it doesn't actually bring all that much growth to the economy. It boosts employment numbers and can stabilize the economy. But it doesn't lead to a lot of growth, and just makes other services like housing more expensive by increasing demand faster than supply. 

As for his early economic attempts. I almost can't fault his logic. He spent large while global interest rates were low early on in his. Borrow while money is 'cheap' and reapl the benefits later, not terrible logic, It's just too bad it never really paid off. And it just led to a huge spike in spending and national debt accruement. Even when global interest rates started to rise again the spending didn't stop because once the budget is raised it's really hard to lower it back down. And we simply didn't get all that much per capita growth out of all this spending. 

Some of his social programs have been great. The 10$ childcare is a fantastic move, if you can get it. There's a real shortage of childcare facilities that actually operate under this rule, and many childcare services are more low-key where a local neighbourhood lady basically runs it as a private business out of her house charging a lot more than 10$ a day. And some of these facilities are actually leaving this program in certain provinces because they aren't getting compensated enough. Basically the feds implemented this program, advertised it to the country but then told the provinces it's their job to figure out how to fund it and just kinda wiped their hands of it, but still claim it as a political win. Apparently there are a lot of grey areas and unanswered questions about what expenses would or wouldn't be covered by the program and by which government.... , which caused some of these facilities to lose a lot of money then pulled out of the program entirely, Apparently that is being re-negotiated and clarified now between Ottawa and the premiers. And it seems like no one at the federal or provincial level realized how expensive funding a national childcare program would actually be and grossly underfunded the whole ordeal. 

It's good that he cracked down on foreign home investment, though it would have been better it he forced the existing investors to sell back onto the domestic market but that would be a hard battle to win. We still haven't seen that revised war time housing plan go into effect though. Some of that hold-up is provincial, but some of that is federal foot dragging. Would be nice if there could be some movement on that. Probably the most realistic option to reduce housing costs. 

Back when Chretien was in office he had similarly high spending habits and high debt to GDP numbers. But the difference there was that we had an undeniable economic and general standard of living boom under Chretien. Some of the best this country had seen in a long time. we just haven't seen those kinds of returns, even during his early years and even with all this total GDP growth. It's just not trickling down. At best we're a little lower than we were pre-pandemic with GDP per capita, where most g7 nations are equal to or higher of GDP per capita by now. I'm pretty sure Italy has actually seen the highest per capita and household income growth of any G7 nation. Good on them.  Someone over there is making some good fiscal plays.

At some point you have to look at the man in charge and ask, 'hey buddy, what exactly was your plan here?'

[Lyrical]

TLDR:  Feds in Canada are not responsible for all the stuff that the blame seems to be pointed at. It's more provincial issues than Federal.

Trade certifications and Healthcare are the domain of provincial governments.

The federal government only provides a portion of the funding, they don't have a mandate over either the certification process or education of people in the workforce. That's provincial. And the federal government brought in the immigrants/fresh bodies. It's up to the provinces to utilize that workforce. Same goes for housing, that's both a provincial thing and a municipal level policy issue. The land is there and the new workforce is there, what the provinces do with that is up to them.

Policing is also a provincial thing, especially where you live in Ontario as you have the OPP for policing which means the Fed RCMP do very little. We don't need laws changed. We just need to keep working on an economy that while is having some hiccups is doing a far bit better than most of the rest of the world. Since crime is a symptom of economic & social health (see previous links and articles and links within those for more). It is pointless to compare any other previous Canada fed gov to the current one because none of them had to deal with a global pandemic. It's literally a different world.

((NOTE: even RCMP in provinces are paid for by the provinces, so it's up to the provinces to determine how much of a presence that they want. So each province has both a "Federal Detachment of the RCMP and a Provincial Detachment that perform separate functions. The Fed RCMP are like the FBI in the USA, where the Provincial portion are more like "State Troopers" in USA terms."))


I'm not trying to be an apologist for the Fed Liberals. I know there are problems but certainly nothing any of the other parties are offering is going to be better. Everything the other parties are offering is so much worse. Conservatives are aiming for Trump-like policies(cut & slash), and the NDP are naive and want to spend significantly more than the Liberals are spending. The Fed Liberal party are the only party that we really stand a chance with. The Conservatives might bring down the budget but at the cost of slashing programs and cutting out the feds out of many programs overall. That will not be better and under heavy trade tariffs against the US, it's going to hurt the social infrastructure programs that are designed to help us weather these types of economic storms. Note: Hurting social programs like the Conservatives want to do is also known to be a direct cause of increased criminal activity.

I had a lot more to add but I'm going to leave it at that.


... I will add something totally random though... There is a growing Marxist Communist movement in Canada and honestly that philosophy will solve almost all of our problems. I'm not being facetious, I'm being genuine. Note: Marxism is not the same as Chinese or old school USSR communism, those things are bastardizations of a legitimate philosophical form of governance and leadership.  https://communist-party.ca/

if we want a real change than at least some of these principals should be considered along with various forms of European and other democratic systems. Surely there is a middle ground somewhere that would work. I've always considered Canada to be a good middle ground of capitalism and socialism but I'm no political expert.  All i see is the danger that with the power swinging to the conservatives we are staring at the very frightening possibility of becoming more American in our governance and that terrifies me.

[Ollumhammersong]

Oh believe me i'm aware of the difference between what the province and the fed control when it comes to things like housing and accreditations. But there is a lot more of this on the feds side than you realize. Things they can do to speed up these processes.

Going back to doctors, sure the provinces have their own licenses that need to be obtained. But that's the last part of a ITP's journey to full accreditation. Now the provinces really need to pull together to sort their shit out too and streamline those licenses, and they should probably standardize to a degree because right now it's all a jumbled mess and doctors can't easily transfer between provinces. 

But the three federal steps that come before the province liscense exams are often cited as the most bureaucraticly frustrating hurdles and where the bottleneck really is. Usually that starts with skilled trades or other high profile workers like doctors trying to use our 'express entry' service with immigration. Which is the most poorly named program in our entire government. A notoriously difficult barrier of entry even for people with high, in demand skills and fluent 'english as a second language' Express entry has been criticized for years for being unreasonably strict, which results in applicants being rejected, appeals denied or their forms simply being ignored because they weren't filled out 100%, but the applicant wasn't told this who they just end up waiting for months with no word from the immigration office as to what's going on or why they were denied. This is depressingly funny because it's designed to fast track the very people we are trying to bring in to fill our critical labour shortfalls. 

And the express entry system again, despite being obsensibly for bringing in skilled workers, Is even more strict when grading tradesmen than it is grading medical workers or people like engineers. The whole grading system needs to be updated to improve fairness and reduce bias against certain professions which were not considered as in demand years and years ago as they currently are, (and apparently was due to be updated this year? we'll see if that actually happens). It's also bias against skilled workers who don't already come to the door with a job offer in hand, that apparently is a huge detriment in the eyes of the point system. You need to already have connections in the country to be a skilled worker here. 

then you need to see the medical council of Canada for some additional exams if you're an ITP. These can also take a long time as they are not held on demand but certain times of the year, allowing only a limited number of ITPs each time. Now these tests are difficult (as they should be. High standards in healthcare are good) but just getting to take the test shouldn't be this hard. And that's before we go into the cost of these exams, which are not cheap and are often thousands per attempt. and you may need to take 3-4 of these exams total to even be able to proceed to the provincial liscense stage. 

These are things that are under the federal government's ability to fix and streamline. None of these things are the province's problem to fix. The provinces can only work with whomever makes it's way through this paperwork mess. The provinces can nominate people, but That's still a barrier to skilled workers just trying to get in who don't already have connections in our government and major construction and contracting firms. 

As for policing, my entire problem is that I know the RCMP don't do anything in my province. The issue is the O.P.P don't seem to be doing fuck all either. And I mentioned that it was Toronto municipal constabulary who made the dumb comments about leaving car-keys outside. So public faith in them right now is about what you'd expect after that disaster of a press conference. And as a Hamiltonian, ya.... the less said about the state of my city the better.

 Local policing dropping the ball obviously isn't Ottawa's fault.... mostly. But it's Ottawa's economic policy that leads to the rise in crime. As you say crime is largely an issue of economics and social health, neither of which has been been too hot in this country lately. At least on a per capita basis. And good relative to the world, still isn't good enough in the eyes of many. 

Ultimately the feds steer the ship, and they're responsible for what happens to the crew, good or bad. Ya there's things they can't easily do because of the provinces, or at least not do exactly the way they want. But a good PM needs to learn how to work with the provinces, not tell them what to do. It's a pretty important part of the job. They can't be ordered to do anything unless it's a national emergency and they tend to resent anyone that tries. Take this wartime housing thing. A great idea, standardized mass producable homes. Too bad every province has a different building code and different land restrictions as you say. The smarter thing would have been for the feds to let each province do their own version of this program that was in line with provincial standards instead of trying to force a top-down solution on the provinces that is going to run into just... a whole lot of hurdles. 

Yes there are issues at the municipal and provincial levels but mostly only in the large cities. There are plenty of small towns across Canada salivating at the idea of suddenly having a hundred affordable homes built in their community that could bring a hundred new young families in to revitalize these smaller dying townships. Hell in Ontario some remote northern towns were so desperate for new residents they gave parcels of land away for free to anyone willing to move there. Along with waving many of the local building fees and whatnot. 

As for the marxist party.... All I will say is that as a fellow Canadian I respect your right to vote as your conscious dictates, but I politely and firmly disagree that marxism is the solution to this country's woes. Or any other country's woes for that matter.

Tldr, some problems are absolutely on the province or even the cities to sort out. But there's a lot the fed could have been doing this whole time. They just weren't until it became too big of a problem. 

[Ollumhammersong]

I myself am a Card carrying liberal from a family of mostly staunch, lifelong liberal supporters. If you couldn't tell from my praising of Pierre, Chretien, William Lion Makenzie King, Willfred Laurier, etc. Some of the Best Prime ministers we've ever had were liberal PMs, and some of the worst *Cough* Diefenbaker & Mulrony *Cough* were conservative.

Justin (and the party underneath him) just ain't one of those. To be clear, I don't think his legacy will be awful, It just wasn't that good. He overspent with little to show for it in the long term. Routinely made an embaressment of himself and the country with his over the top outfits while on foreign visits. He let himself get slapped around by Trump publicly which wasn't great for national pride or confidence (though he did show some great backbone recently). And dragged his feet on several important issues that were known problems back when he was first elected, and that should have been addressed much earlier in his tenure.

But among the list of great Prime ministers I do count the odd Conservative like Sir John A. naturally, but also Robert Borden, I've actually been thinking about him recently. He ran on a campaign of the dangers of tying Canada too close to America economically and the many dangers that would expose Canada too, culturally and fiscally. 

That's the kind of idea we need right now and I just don't hear that out of the babbling five that are the current liberal party frontrunners. There's talk about re-tweaking the carbon tax and cutting middle class taxes and the usual liberal party promises. I don't actually hear an economic plan out of any of them in regards to adjusting trade balances and exports with other nations to make us less reliant on an increasingly unpredictable and unreliable united states. 

I know you're not thrilled about the idea of new pipelines to the eastern shore for environmental concerns. Totally valid, I just happen to believe that these pipelines, or infrastructure investments like them are going to be necessary going forward if we want to be economically stable and protected as a nation. 

We're not just having a few fiscal hiccups right now as you call them. These tariff threats are exposing a pretty big and serious problem baked into the foundations of our current trade network, And this has the potential to spiral out of control hard and fast unless we find ways to insulate ourselves against it. We can't keep steering the ship in the direction we've been going, and we're clearly a lot closer to being wrecked along the rocks than we realized. because even if this does blow over today, there's always the fear it comes back with the next man in the white house.

Right now almost every economist in the country is pushing for this. We are in a precarious situation as a nation right now and the conservatives are the only party really talking about trade diversification. The NDP are like you said, Naive and they never had nor likely ever will have a cohesive and sensible economic plan. 

I don't love everything the conservatives are promising either. The liberal candidates are just offering the usual party line of 'cut middle class taxes and increasing spending' Sorry Carney, but that really hasn't worked too well over the last ten years. The liberal candidates aren't promises much of anything really right now. They're all kinda wishy washy. Even about the tariffs. They just say 'We'll stand up to him!' but don't go into detail of what that might look like and just follow up with 'wait until the election!' hardly inspiring. 

Are the liberals the right answer here? I dunno, probably not. Are the Conservatives right? I dunno, probably not. But one is offering more of the same while the other is at least pitching a reasonable economic solution to a real problem that needs to be addressed right now. 

Maye my mind will be changed in the coming weeks. The writ wont drop until April most likely so there's time for the liberals to actually put together a plan. 

[Al Terego]

The federal government only provides a portion of the funding, they don't have a mandate over either the certification process or education of people in the workforce. That's provincial. And the federal government brought in the immigrants/fresh bodies. It's up to the provinces to utilize that workforce. Same goes for housing, that's both a provincial thing and a municipal level policy issue. The land is there and the new workforce is there, what the provinces do with that is up to them.

Then the Feds should have worked with the provinces to make sure the immigrants and refugees they brought in would be successfully integrated into the workforce and society.  The fact that they brought such a large number (figures suggest ~150K) with nary a plan is on them.

There was a survey that showed that privately sponsored Syrian refugees had a significantly higher chance of successful integration than government sponsored ones.

I'm not trying to be an apologist for the Fed Liberals. I know there are problems but certainly nothing any of the other parties are offering is going to be better. Everything the other parties are offering is so much worse

Nope.  I'm done playing the scare game.  A government that messes up must be shown the way out with extreme prejudice, regardless of demagoguery of how the alternatives would be worse.  That's the only way of holding the politicians accountable, and I will do everything in my power to help them learn that lesson, so help me the FSM.

The way I see it, the Federal Liberals are liberal in name only (as evident by the way they pushed C-11 and C-18. Regardless of one's position on the issues, threatening to investigate those who offered objections was crossing a line.  And don't get me started on other issues). It wasn't always the case, and in fact I used to be a staunch supporter, even saying that "friends don't let friends vote Conservative".  Well, if the Libs can do an about-face, then so can I.

There is a growing Marxist Communist movement in Canada and honestly that philosophy will solve almost all of our problems.

Usually when someone tells me that a movement or a philosophy -- any philosophy -- "will solve almost all of our problems" my suspicion meter goes of the charts, but I'm inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt, so this time I will assume that you have information that I lack and will politely ask you to provide examples of states in which Marxism solved almost all of their problems.

[Ollumhammersong]

My father has always said, 'Governments aren't elected, they're evicted' I've always thought that an accurate summary of the election process. 

And I wasn't going to mention it on this site just because I assumed I am one of the only Canadians on here who holds this opinion. But I vehemently disagree with how bill c-21 is being rammed through via 'order-in-council', ignoring the rules and processes of the governments own 1974 firearms act, unwillingly conscripting the post office workers to participate when the RCMP refused to collect these guns citing danger to their own lives. Denying firearms owners their right to appeal as entitled to them by the 1974 firearms act.

They are implementing this ban in the worst way possible, that will set terrible precedents that the government's own laws and promises can't be trusted when they become inconvenient, can be freely disregarded by the court and the RCMP going forward. That a Canadian doesn't even have the right to a formal appeal even when explicitly promised by law. 

If anyone looks at the state of bill C-21 and doesn't see how it sets a terrible precedent for future abuse in other areas of law and order.... I just don't know what to say. 

It leaves a terrible taste in my mouth as a Canadian, and it was just done to buy votes in the big cities and marintimes mostly. But it still doesn't solve the actual issue of gun violence and shootings because all levels of policing, RCMP, provincial and even Toronto municipal admited on record that this ban wouldn't solve the problem because over 90% of gun crime in Canada is comitted with guns smuggled from the US.

So Canadian rights are being potentially trampled for only a marginal 3-4% decrease in gun crime. 

[Ollumhammersong]

Apologies, I just re-read this, its the 1977 firearms act, not sure why I got that date mixed up

[Lyrical]

There is a lot being said here but for me what it comes down to is that I will vote Liberal. It doesn't matter if Trudeau or someone else is the leader, the alternative to that will only be the leadership of the Conservatives and that is not a road that I want to go down. I disagree with almost every perspective that I see being issued here. It feels far to much like the voice of the Conservatives warping the issues into anti-Liberal voices. I mean Gun Control? I can't fathom how anyone would be against any form of that on any level. It boggles my mind.

Nothing being said can justify allowing the Conservatives to have power with their anti-enviroment, anti-LGBTQ+S, and anti-women's rights agenda.

Every time they have ever held power they cowtow to corporate greed and erode our social infrastructure. If you don't vote Liberal in the next election you are allowing this to happen and it's on you for being short sighted. The Conservatives both in Canada and in the USA will do direct harm to entire communities of people just like the one here on Elliquiy and to everyone that struggles to get by in the country of Canada.

It's on everyone in the USA that voted for Pumpkin Spice Palpatine. It's their(USA) fault they have a fascist dictator that is stripping them of their rights and attacking the rest of the world economically (as well as themselves.) If you allow the Conservatives to gain power here (Canada) because you feel some need to vote against the Liberals out of spite than it's your fault too. Simple as that. You will be allowing us to join the insanity of small c conservative fascism. Remember that when you choose to spite vote or skip your vote out of misguided beliefs and agendas.

It terrifies me to see any Canadian basically regurgitating any part of /or slice of the rhetoric that the Conservative party of Canada uses to attack the Liberal Fed party because it's like watching the MAGA movement unfolding in Canada by slowly distorting the truth and reality of both governance and the world around us.

Vote Liberal for this reason in our next federal election, I implore you.

John Stuart Mill, 1867 “Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”

[Ollumhammersong]

Yes I can be against gun control when it's being implemented extremely poorly and is a way that is so legally questionable. There is a right and a wrong way to do something, and when the government succeeds in implementing a law the wrong way it sets a new precedent that's ripe for exploitation. 

Even if the law being implemented was something I would support morally, I can't condone it if it is done in a legislatively reckless manner. This isn't a conservative/liberal partian issue, and it absolutely shouldn't be considered one. This is about how we want laws to be adjusted and passed in this country. 

Via orders in council, which is no better than what Trump is doing with executive orders. 

Or via the proper, democratic method of parliamentary debate and voting.