Wow, I hope you feel better after getting all of that out. I see your frustration clearly, you are someone who believes in core liberal values but struggles with how Liberals govern. I’m 63 years old, during my life no Prime Minister has left office because it was time for new ideas- they all leave because we are sick of them and want them gone( except Joe Clark who was asked to leave for telling the truth about raising gas taxes). Perhaps we should have term limits on Prime Ministers (not parties). Then all party leaders would know they have limited time and all other MP’s would know that they should express their ideas because they could be the next leader. Just a thought.
The party desperately needs renewal and some serious soul searching after they get shellacked next fall. I think it’s especially important for the Liberals because there’s little by way of internal debate for what the party should stand for. It’s mostly just stand with the PM and stay with the sinking ship. Like you said, the caucus airs grievances privately but never in public. Everyone falls in line and I don’t know how helpful that is for the Libs’ post Trudeau prospects. Even the most competent of ministers like Anand will be associated with the Trudeau way and it’ll be hard to carve out a new identity for the party. It’s just a really gloomy time for centre left politics in Canada right now. There’s little by way of intellectual debate to respond to the issues of the day, it’s more so platitudes on preserving decency and other derivatives of “Tories Bad” than anything properly substantive. The fearmongering becomes especially ineffective when your paycheque is being eaten up by rent and escalating grocery bills. How they haven’t realized this yet is beyond me
Dear goodness such handwringing over such small stuff. SNC? WE? None of this even registeed. Inside baseball stuff. Tge Globe? Fife's been running hit pieces forever.
All I know is I'm 55 and in fine shape, my elderly mom has a banger of a pension and so will I.
Poilievre might win, but if he does his life will be a living hell of daily protests and recriminations. Why? Quite simply he's a Conservative and that's a little weird, no?
Perhaps SNC & WE didn't register with you, but it certainly registered with me. Great that you're in 'fine shape' and your mother as well. Other people not so much.
When it comes TFWs we all have a short memory. In 2022 there was a real need for workers. Employers did increase salaries and still could not find the people to fill the jobs. I know that experts like Mike Moffat claim that this is a great opportunity to innovate and increase productivity, but to innovate companies need to have reserves that they can use to invest and time for the innovations to take effect. And after Covid these reserves were depleted. The more likely scenario is that companies would have gone bankrupt or closed stores/restaurants without additional workers.
Had the government not increased TFWs in 2023/2024, we could have very well been in the situation that young Canadians had trouble finding summer / part time jobs because too many Tim Horton’s and various stores had closed because they were not able to open the doors when the country came out of Covid.
Now, where I do agree is the communication. The Liberals are trying, but there is so much noise out there, it is hard to hear them.
Regarding housing, the federal government can make the claim that they have stepped up and are doing their part. But they cannot do it alone. Provinces and municipalities need to do their part too. It is time to callout their failures.
One small point. I think it's a bit early to celebrate the Liberals' national childcare program. I haven't seen any systematic study, but anecdotally it clearly favors the middle (especially upper middle class) versus the working class. First, the days and hours of operation are designed for parents who work 9 to 5 on weekdays, not those who have to do shift work or irregular hours (or long hours). Second, there are long waiting lists, but somehow the higher income parents get their children in first. It's probably because they are better at gaming the system, but it's also partly because the system wasn't primarily designed for them. See Quebec's experience to date.
But what can you expect from a government that had a Minister for the Middle Class, but no Minister for the Working Class -- or for ordinary Canadians in general.
Doing a little homework isn't difficult. Each province delivers Trudeau's program.
I live in BC where, on average, 35,000 children per month receive support through the Affordable Child Care Benefit (ACCB) "Spaces in the $10 a Day ChildCareBC program reduce the average cost of child care from $1,120 a month for full-time, centre-based infant care to $200 a month for the same service, saving families an average of approximately $920 a month per child."
I suspect the Libs were worn out by Covid, as were we all...
The national mood is more whiny than I can ever recall, over several decades of watching Canadian politics closely and working for all three parties in the West and in Ottawa.
But I would urge "progressives" to get a grip!
Just because the Libs have made mistakes and run out of energy, as all governments do, does not mean we can be complacent about the risks posed by the Conservative alternative.
Do you see competence or long-term vision under Poilievre's leadership?
And re the TFWs in Montreal, the govt is in fact reining in the program across the country.
The pandemic required urgently bringing in workers who would do the jobs Canadians refused to do, esp in the food industry. Many young Canadians will never again want to work in places like slaughterhouses, certain health and elder care jobs, restaurant kitchens, etc.
And of course some companies have exploited the looser rules, because that's Canada.
These are tough challenges, and a government cannot simply force companies to raise wages.
Now is a good time to debate what kind of country we want to be.
Do we want to rely on a pool of desperate foreign labour, like the US and Europe?
Or do we want to keep building our immigrant society?
a friend of mine has worked on the Hill for almost two decades in a role that interacts closely with MPs. only once when drunk she slipped and commented on one, Justin Trudeau. She said he was an extremely nice man, but shockingly dumb dumb dumb dumb. And we have learned he is an introvert that accepts advice from very few. So here we are, and my only surprise is the rest of the MPs have chosen self immolation rather than jettisoning him. i assume their calculus is to let him singularly wear the defeat. what is terribly saddening is this is about all of us, and not just them and their petty little career aspirations. i thought some of them were better than that, but no.
"As much as Stephen Harper was not a specific threat to my right to marry,"
The Liberal Party legalized same sex marriage in 2005. The Conservative Party fought that law for 11 years until 2016 when Rempel pushed to stop fighting it. The party voted 60/40 to cease opposing the law. ELEVEN YEARS IT TOOK THEM TO STOP SHITTING ON GAY PEOPLE. And today they shit on rainbow flags. So... very little progress on that front.
Stephen Harper was absolutely a specific threat to your right to marry. The only reason you were able to marry is thanks to the Liberal Party. I very much doubt the current iteration of the conservative party is still in favour of same sex marriage. Rempel's been backbenched and 100% of Poilievre's front bench is social conservatives.
As for "The Liberals are Failing Canada", I agree but my reasoning differs from yours. The Liberal Party continues to be a trickle down neoliberal party with a smidgen of care for the poor. It waffles between supporting the cruel right and the left wanting more social security and in the end appears weak.
I'm also fed up with Trudeau but the Liberals have no one to replace him. He is the reason the Liberals won in 2015. Freeland IS NOT an option. She has no charisma and her delivery is awful. The tedium of her voice, the sniffing, the nasal drone...AWFUL. She can't help it but she can't be the leader of the party, period. Leaders, love em or hate em, have to have charisma. She has none. Mark Carney might be an option. He reminds me of Paul Martin, a serious and respectable person with the smarts and the chops to understand and support economies. People respected Paul Martin so Carney might work. But he's not in the wings. The only person who can beat the Populist Poop named Poilievre needs to be a force of nature, a political warrior.
Bloomberg Business says the Canadian economy will have the fastest growth of G7 nations in 2025 and inflation is coming down. The problem is this good news means little to people who can't find an affordable rental or save enough to afford a home. If the Liberals had had a crystal ball in 2020 and foreseen the outcomes, perhaps they would have responded sooner but they didn't and neither did anyone else.
But if they "are failing Canada", Poilievre will be a bulldozer shoving Canada into a grave. That much I'm certain of.
A lot of the reason why support for the Liberals has cratered is on execution. Liberals have big dreams but how to pay for it and how to execute? Eventually that matters.
The Liberal Party in its modern iteration has always been for and about boomers. In the 60s and 70s it was hippy Trudeaumania building universities and colleges where tuition was almost free. In the 90s, their prime working years, it was all about tax cuts. Now their demands are for free a la carte health care and for Old Age Security even for millionaire home owning seniors. If those boomers are from the Ottawa Valley and West Island, the last bastion of the LIberal Party, even better.
But like the boomers, the Liberals are also passing away. History will judge the Liberal Party as a political vehicle for Canadian boomers, nothing more. That, and leaving the bill to the Gen Z kids without the sense to leave Canada.
Wow, I hope you feel better after getting all of that out. I see your frustration clearly, you are someone who believes in core liberal values but struggles with how Liberals govern. I’m 63 years old, during my life no Prime Minister has left office because it was time for new ideas- they all leave because we are sick of them and want them gone( except Joe Clark who was asked to leave for telling the truth about raising gas taxes). Perhaps we should have term limits on Prime Ministers (not parties). Then all party leaders would know they have limited time and all other MP’s would know that they should express their ideas because they could be the next leader. Just a thought.
How would we implement a term limit in a Westminster system though? They're elected as MPs, not PMs. It'd be a fundamental change to the system.
Remember when Poilievre said no politician should stay longer than two terms? He's been there 20 years. LOL.
Yeah, it's just not a realistic thing to be able to do in our system.
The party desperately needs renewal and some serious soul searching after they get shellacked next fall. I think it’s especially important for the Liberals because there’s little by way of internal debate for what the party should stand for. It’s mostly just stand with the PM and stay with the sinking ship. Like you said, the caucus airs grievances privately but never in public. Everyone falls in line and I don’t know how helpful that is for the Libs’ post Trudeau prospects. Even the most competent of ministers like Anand will be associated with the Trudeau way and it’ll be hard to carve out a new identity for the party. It’s just a really gloomy time for centre left politics in Canada right now. There’s little by way of intellectual debate to respond to the issues of the day, it’s more so platitudes on preserving decency and other derivatives of “Tories Bad” than anything properly substantive. The fearmongering becomes especially ineffective when your paycheque is being eaten up by rent and escalating grocery bills. How they haven’t realized this yet is beyond me
Dear goodness such handwringing over such small stuff. SNC? WE? None of this even registeed. Inside baseball stuff. Tge Globe? Fife's been running hit pieces forever.
All I know is I'm 55 and in fine shape, my elderly mom has a banger of a pension and so will I.
Poilievre might win, but if he does his life will be a living hell of daily protests and recriminations. Why? Quite simply he's a Conservative and that's a little weird, no?
Perhaps SNC & WE didn't register with you, but it certainly registered with me. Great that you're in 'fine shape' and your mother as well. Other people not so much.
Google Andrew Scheer and SNC Lavalin.
Life is a lot different in English Canada. The kids aren't alright and are pissed that the oldsters ran up the debt and left them the bill.
Take a deep breath, Evan.
When it comes TFWs we all have a short memory. In 2022 there was a real need for workers. Employers did increase salaries and still could not find the people to fill the jobs. I know that experts like Mike Moffat claim that this is a great opportunity to innovate and increase productivity, but to innovate companies need to have reserves that they can use to invest and time for the innovations to take effect. And after Covid these reserves were depleted. The more likely scenario is that companies would have gone bankrupt or closed stores/restaurants without additional workers.
Had the government not increased TFWs in 2023/2024, we could have very well been in the situation that young Canadians had trouble finding summer / part time jobs because too many Tim Horton’s and various stores had closed because they were not able to open the doors when the country came out of Covid.
Now, where I do agree is the communication. The Liberals are trying, but there is so much noise out there, it is hard to hear them.
Regarding housing, the federal government can make the claim that they have stepped up and are doing their part. But they cannot do it alone. Provinces and municipalities need to do their part too. It is time to callout their failures.
Thanks again.
One small point. I think it's a bit early to celebrate the Liberals' national childcare program. I haven't seen any systematic study, but anecdotally it clearly favors the middle (especially upper middle class) versus the working class. First, the days and hours of operation are designed for parents who work 9 to 5 on weekdays, not those who have to do shift work or irregular hours (or long hours). Second, there are long waiting lists, but somehow the higher income parents get their children in first. It's probably because they are better at gaming the system, but it's also partly because the system wasn't primarily designed for them. See Quebec's experience to date.
But what can you expect from a government that had a Minister for the Middle Class, but no Minister for the Working Class -- or for ordinary Canadians in general.
Doing a little homework isn't difficult. Each province delivers Trudeau's program.
I live in BC where, on average, 35,000 children per month receive support through the Affordable Child Care Benefit (ACCB) "Spaces in the $10 a Day ChildCareBC program reduce the average cost of child care from $1,120 a month for full-time, centre-based infant care to $200 a month for the same service, saving families an average of approximately $920 a month per child."
Oof, now that's a rant!
I suspect the Libs were worn out by Covid, as were we all...
The national mood is more whiny than I can ever recall, over several decades of watching Canadian politics closely and working for all three parties in the West and in Ottawa.
But I would urge "progressives" to get a grip!
Just because the Libs have made mistakes and run out of energy, as all governments do, does not mean we can be complacent about the risks posed by the Conservative alternative.
Do you see competence or long-term vision under Poilievre's leadership?
And re the TFWs in Montreal, the govt is in fact reining in the program across the country.
The pandemic required urgently bringing in workers who would do the jobs Canadians refused to do, esp in the food industry. Many young Canadians will never again want to work in places like slaughterhouses, certain health and elder care jobs, restaurant kitchens, etc.
And of course some companies have exploited the looser rules, because that's Canada.
These are tough challenges, and a government cannot simply force companies to raise wages.
Now is a good time to debate what kind of country we want to be.
Do we want to rely on a pool of desperate foreign labour, like the US and Europe?
Or do we want to keep building our immigrant society?
a friend of mine has worked on the Hill for almost two decades in a role that interacts closely with MPs. only once when drunk she slipped and commented on one, Justin Trudeau. She said he was an extremely nice man, but shockingly dumb dumb dumb dumb. And we have learned he is an introvert that accepts advice from very few. So here we are, and my only surprise is the rest of the MPs have chosen self immolation rather than jettisoning him. i assume their calculus is to let him singularly wear the defeat. what is terribly saddening is this is about all of us, and not just them and their petty little career aspirations. i thought some of them were better than that, but no.
"As much as Stephen Harper was not a specific threat to my right to marry,"
The Liberal Party legalized same sex marriage in 2005. The Conservative Party fought that law for 11 years until 2016 when Rempel pushed to stop fighting it. The party voted 60/40 to cease opposing the law. ELEVEN YEARS IT TOOK THEM TO STOP SHITTING ON GAY PEOPLE. And today they shit on rainbow flags. So... very little progress on that front.
Stephen Harper was absolutely a specific threat to your right to marry. The only reason you were able to marry is thanks to the Liberal Party. I very much doubt the current iteration of the conservative party is still in favour of same sex marriage. Rempel's been backbenched and 100% of Poilievre's front bench is social conservatives.
As for "The Liberals are Failing Canada", I agree but my reasoning differs from yours. The Liberal Party continues to be a trickle down neoliberal party with a smidgen of care for the poor. It waffles between supporting the cruel right and the left wanting more social security and in the end appears weak.
I'm also fed up with Trudeau but the Liberals have no one to replace him. He is the reason the Liberals won in 2015. Freeland IS NOT an option. She has no charisma and her delivery is awful. The tedium of her voice, the sniffing, the nasal drone...AWFUL. She can't help it but she can't be the leader of the party, period. Leaders, love em or hate em, have to have charisma. She has none. Mark Carney might be an option. He reminds me of Paul Martin, a serious and respectable person with the smarts and the chops to understand and support economies. People respected Paul Martin so Carney might work. But he's not in the wings. The only person who can beat the Populist Poop named Poilievre needs to be a force of nature, a political warrior.
Bloomberg Business says the Canadian economy will have the fastest growth of G7 nations in 2025 and inflation is coming down. The problem is this good news means little to people who can't find an affordable rental or save enough to afford a home. If the Liberals had had a crystal ball in 2020 and foreseen the outcomes, perhaps they would have responded sooner but they didn't and neither did anyone else.
But if they "are failing Canada", Poilievre will be a bulldozer shoving Canada into a grave. That much I'm certain of.
A lot of the reason why support for the Liberals has cratered is on execution. Liberals have big dreams but how to pay for it and how to execute? Eventually that matters.
The Liberal Party in its modern iteration has always been for and about boomers. In the 60s and 70s it was hippy Trudeaumania building universities and colleges where tuition was almost free. In the 90s, their prime working years, it was all about tax cuts. Now their demands are for free a la carte health care and for Old Age Security even for millionaire home owning seniors. If those boomers are from the Ottawa Valley and West Island, the last bastion of the LIberal Party, even better.
But like the boomers, the Liberals are also passing away. History will judge the Liberal Party as a political vehicle for Canadian boomers, nothing more. That, and leaving the bill to the Gen Z kids without the sense to leave Canada.