For each part “Pierre is weird”, there should be three parts “Get shit done”. Because that is the other part that Liberals can borrow from the Democrates in the US. Each time the Liberals point out the old wood fetish of Pierre, the Liberals should also bring up how many seniors are now receiving dental care, how much parents are saving on childcare and how many affordable housing units will be built using federal support in the coming years.
Having said that, there are other issues for the Liberals to focus as well. There is something extremely fishy with these bots on Twitter claiming to have visited a Pierre rally in Northern Ontario. Either the CPC is paying for this, which is not a good look. Or some other entity, possibly foreign, is paying for it, which is even a worse look or even illegal. If I would be advising the Liberals, I would make sure that this does not get ignored.
I'm one who doesn't hate Trudeau. He may not be the most likeable guy, but how could I not want to vote for the government that:
- came roaring out of the pandemic with an economy so hot, interest rates had to rise to compensate. Without the government intervention giving money to low and middle income families affected, we would have been in a severe recession if not depression
- created a new tax bracket especially for the 1% to pay for increased benefits to low income earners and seniors
- increased the Canada Child Benefits that reduced child poverty by 40% and lived the families of 300,000 children out of poverty
- enhanced the Canada Pension Plan to compensate for less working age people in the future
- underscored a woman's right to choose
- created legislation to protect LGBT people from predatory conversion therapy practices
- brought in medically assisted dying that was 20 years overdue
-legalized cannabis
-tighten gun control legislation
-introduced carbon pricing in line with the rest of the world that added more money to working people's pockets
-did the work to lift 145 drinking water advisories leaving only 31 still in progress
Show me anything more impressive than that in Poilievre's policies.
"Poll denialism?" How many times do YOU have to see polls be wrong then? Especially when an election hasn't even been CALLED yet FFS?
I know you pundit types are trying to make a living just like the pollsters, but COME ON.
Quit with the wannabe AMERICAN shit when it's one of the hallmarks of Canadian pride and identity that we are NOT THEM.
Timing is all in politics as we have just seen. I think the Liberals are just keeping their powder dry and giving the cons enough rope to hang themselves.
Yep, the Liberal Party, as an institution, seems unable to internalize the idea that people are voting against them, not for someone else. If Singh hadn’t nuked his good will and credibility over the past few years the Liberals would be doing worse. If the NDP did what the Democrats just did and swapped Singh for even an unknown replacement-level leader, I bet the Liberals drop another five points overnight
To some extent it is better for the Liberals that voters are currently voting against them rather than voting for somebody else. If voters are fully committed to voting for somebody else, it would be a lot harder to win them back.
Having said that, there does seem to be sentiment in the Liberal party that it is unfair that the voters right do not like them as much as a few years ago. Well, life is unfair, it is a completely useless sentiment. Make your case of your accomplishments and lay out a vision for the next 5-10 years. Ignore the rest.
I suppose that Mr. Trudeau could still step aside. But that wouldn't leave much time for a leadership convention and then building a new image for the new leader. Canada is not like the U.S. We can't turn our leadership around on a dime.
So Mr. Trudeau will lead the Liberals into the next election. That does not bode well. From what I can see, Mr. Trudeau seems convinced that the trouble is not with him and his leadership, but rather with the poorly executed communication of his excellence. Attacking Mr. Poilievre will open Canadians' eyes, and they will naturally flock to the one great leader, who will save them... from barbarism, of course.
The polls are a snapshot of where we are today, and things can certainly change before election day. But trusting to luck is not a strategy that I would advocate. The Liberals should take the polls seriously and refurbish their image -- if they can. As Mr. Scrimshaw says, that is far more important than attacking the other guy, even if less fun.
It’s quite sad actually that the only liberals’s strategy so far this summer has been to copy an attack line from the democrats while there has been multiple angles to attack PP.
Meanwhile, Trudeau has been hiding in Tofino for the past two weeks and now he is doing a secret tour of Canada. Like everyone else, the PM has absolutely the right to take time off with his family but, when you are 15-20 points behind your opponent , you shouldn’t disappear from the public radar for weeks. In addition, some his ministers are already looking for new jobs (e.g. Seamus a couple weeks ago and now Pablo Rodriguez) and I don’t think this trend will stop without a dramatic shift I think for good and bad reasons his personal brand is broken beyond repair and he should have left already. I know some of you may scream “Kim Campbell” at my suggestion but I don’t think someone could do worst at this point and it may help the liberals winning a couple points back.
Yes, Poilievre is weird. The Liberals need to press their knee into the necks of Conservative women who are a cascading hot mess right now. The Status of Women committee need the funding levels it experienced back in 2015 with fresh vision. This isn't "woke." It will put the Conservatives on the backfoot. The environment is also a particularly weak topic for the Cons and the Liberals and NDP have ample time to make the case for significant changes to the economy and get in front of each seasonal disaster. Evan, I'm not sure where you've been hiding, but Trudeau was in Alberta yesterday and BC before that and in the media each day. When he wasn't on Friday, CTV news gave a brief critique of the goddamn community garden near Parliament. Slow news day! Hello, I like slow news days. He has had an extremely busy itinerary and still remains a likeable guy, for better or worse. He wasn't at Stampede because he was at NATO at a pivotal moment in the world. Pretty understandable!
If anyone replaces Trudeau, it should be Sean Fraser or Marc Miller or someone with enormous and engaging charisma.
Perhaps someone can explain the immigration issue to me? What are the issues to get in front of exactly? Sincerely curious.
Canadians generally are in favour of immigration. That is true for all parties, unlike the situation in many other countries. The problem is with the rate of immigration. Over the last eight years, the Liberals have ramped up the numbers to a level that is unsustainable. We as a society cannot accommodate them if they come in at this rate. The numbers put pressure on housing, health care and, to a lesser degree, education. This is a major reason, if not the main reason, for the shortages we are seeing these days. Canadians aren't stupid -- they are making the connection.
Again, this isn't anti=immigrant. Rather, it is for a saner immigration policy.
Re: "Immigration": we must be very clear and careful to not confuse Temporary Foreign Residents with the immigrant stream.
The latter is fairly stable around 400,000 and gradually rising; the former increased dramatically in 2023 to about 900,000.
About a third were TFWs: Temporary Foreign Workers who are mostly seasonal farm labourers.
Another third were foreign students, enticed here and used to subsidize Canadians' post-secondary education (esp in ON, which took 50% of all international students in Canada).
The other third were 300,000 Ukrainian refugees.
This last group arrived under the radar (without the fanfare of Syrians) yet has likely caused severe pressures on housing and the subsequent reduction of foreign student visas.
Furthermore, the feds granted this group unlimited visas, very rare and potentially problematic.
This policy happened without public debate or scrutiny. It has become a textbook case of a well-intended policy decision that has produced several negative knock-on or downstream effects.
It might even be one of the main torpedoes sinking the Liberals.
Freeland's battle vs Putin is understandable and commendable. But in this case, the open door policy seems misguided and naive.
For each part “Pierre is weird”, there should be three parts “Get shit done”. Because that is the other part that Liberals can borrow from the Democrates in the US. Each time the Liberals point out the old wood fetish of Pierre, the Liberals should also bring up how many seniors are now receiving dental care, how much parents are saving on childcare and how many affordable housing units will be built using federal support in the coming years.
Having said that, there are other issues for the Liberals to focus as well. There is something extremely fishy with these bots on Twitter claiming to have visited a Pierre rally in Northern Ontario. Either the CPC is paying for this, which is not a good look. Or some other entity, possibly foreign, is paying for it, which is even a worse look or even illegal. If I would be advising the Liberals, I would make sure that this does not get ignored.
I'm one who doesn't hate Trudeau. He may not be the most likeable guy, but how could I not want to vote for the government that:
- came roaring out of the pandemic with an economy so hot, interest rates had to rise to compensate. Without the government intervention giving money to low and middle income families affected, we would have been in a severe recession if not depression
- created a new tax bracket especially for the 1% to pay for increased benefits to low income earners and seniors
- increased the Canada Child Benefits that reduced child poverty by 40% and lived the families of 300,000 children out of poverty
- enhanced the Canada Pension Plan to compensate for less working age people in the future
- underscored a woman's right to choose
- created legislation to protect LGBT people from predatory conversion therapy practices
- brought in medically assisted dying that was 20 years overdue
-legalized cannabis
-tighten gun control legislation
-introduced carbon pricing in line with the rest of the world that added more money to working people's pockets
-did the work to lift 145 drinking water advisories leaving only 31 still in progress
Show me anything more impressive than that in Poilievre's policies.
"Poll denialism?" How many times do YOU have to see polls be wrong then? Especially when an election hasn't even been CALLED yet FFS?
I know you pundit types are trying to make a living just like the pollsters, but COME ON.
Quit with the wannabe AMERICAN shit when it's one of the hallmarks of Canadian pride and identity that we are NOT THEM.
Timing is all in politics as we have just seen. I think the Liberals are just keeping their powder dry and giving the cons enough rope to hang themselves.
Yep, the Liberal Party, as an institution, seems unable to internalize the idea that people are voting against them, not for someone else. If Singh hadn’t nuked his good will and credibility over the past few years the Liberals would be doing worse. If the NDP did what the Democrats just did and swapped Singh for even an unknown replacement-level leader, I bet the Liberals drop another five points overnight
To some extent it is better for the Liberals that voters are currently voting against them rather than voting for somebody else. If voters are fully committed to voting for somebody else, it would be a lot harder to win them back.
Having said that, there does seem to be sentiment in the Liberal party that it is unfair that the voters right do not like them as much as a few years ago. Well, life is unfair, it is a completely useless sentiment. Make your case of your accomplishments and lay out a vision for the next 5-10 years. Ignore the rest.
I suppose that Mr. Trudeau could still step aside. But that wouldn't leave much time for a leadership convention and then building a new image for the new leader. Canada is not like the U.S. We can't turn our leadership around on a dime.
So Mr. Trudeau will lead the Liberals into the next election. That does not bode well. From what I can see, Mr. Trudeau seems convinced that the trouble is not with him and his leadership, but rather with the poorly executed communication of his excellence. Attacking Mr. Poilievre will open Canadians' eyes, and they will naturally flock to the one great leader, who will save them... from barbarism, of course.
The polls are a snapshot of where we are today, and things can certainly change before election day. But trusting to luck is not a strategy that I would advocate. The Liberals should take the polls seriously and refurbish their image -- if they can. As Mr. Scrimshaw says, that is far more important than attacking the other guy, even if less fun.
It’s quite sad actually that the only liberals’s strategy so far this summer has been to copy an attack line from the democrats while there has been multiple angles to attack PP.
Meanwhile, Trudeau has been hiding in Tofino for the past two weeks and now he is doing a secret tour of Canada. Like everyone else, the PM has absolutely the right to take time off with his family but, when you are 15-20 points behind your opponent , you shouldn’t disappear from the public radar for weeks. In addition, some his ministers are already looking for new jobs (e.g. Seamus a couple weeks ago and now Pablo Rodriguez) and I don’t think this trend will stop without a dramatic shift I think for good and bad reasons his personal brand is broken beyond repair and he should have left already. I know some of you may scream “Kim Campbell” at my suggestion but I don’t think someone could do worst at this point and it may help the liberals winning a couple points back.
Yes, Poilievre is weird. The Liberals need to press their knee into the necks of Conservative women who are a cascading hot mess right now. The Status of Women committee need the funding levels it experienced back in 2015 with fresh vision. This isn't "woke." It will put the Conservatives on the backfoot. The environment is also a particularly weak topic for the Cons and the Liberals and NDP have ample time to make the case for significant changes to the economy and get in front of each seasonal disaster. Evan, I'm not sure where you've been hiding, but Trudeau was in Alberta yesterday and BC before that and in the media each day. When he wasn't on Friday, CTV news gave a brief critique of the goddamn community garden near Parliament. Slow news day! Hello, I like slow news days. He has had an extremely busy itinerary and still remains a likeable guy, for better or worse. He wasn't at Stampede because he was at NATO at a pivotal moment in the world. Pretty understandable!
If anyone replaces Trudeau, it should be Sean Fraser or Marc Miller or someone with enormous and engaging charisma.
Perhaps someone can explain the immigration issue to me? What are the issues to get in front of exactly? Sincerely curious.
Hi Rebecca
Canadians generally are in favour of immigration. That is true for all parties, unlike the situation in many other countries. The problem is with the rate of immigration. Over the last eight years, the Liberals have ramped up the numbers to a level that is unsustainable. We as a society cannot accommodate them if they come in at this rate. The numbers put pressure on housing, health care and, to a lesser degree, education. This is a major reason, if not the main reason, for the shortages we are seeing these days. Canadians aren't stupid -- they are making the connection.
Again, this isn't anti=immigrant. Rather, it is for a saner immigration policy.
I hate it when you’re so right, Evan.
And this time you are spot on.
Thanks.
We needed this.
Re: "Immigration": we must be very clear and careful to not confuse Temporary Foreign Residents with the immigrant stream.
The latter is fairly stable around 400,000 and gradually rising; the former increased dramatically in 2023 to about 900,000.
About a third were TFWs: Temporary Foreign Workers who are mostly seasonal farm labourers.
Another third were foreign students, enticed here and used to subsidize Canadians' post-secondary education (esp in ON, which took 50% of all international students in Canada).
The other third were 300,000 Ukrainian refugees.
This last group arrived under the radar (without the fanfare of Syrians) yet has likely caused severe pressures on housing and the subsequent reduction of foreign student visas.
Furthermore, the feds granted this group unlimited visas, very rare and potentially problematic.
This policy happened without public debate or scrutiny. It has become a textbook case of a well-intended policy decision that has produced several negative knock-on or downstream effects.
It might even be one of the main torpedoes sinking the Liberals.
Freeland's battle vs Putin is understandable and commendable. But in this case, the open door policy seems misguided and naive.