Canadian Politics: Boring beyond Belief, or just Dull and Tedious?

[caroljane]

Know where I can buy a Vote for Tommy,Eddie and Mike Tshirt? Suggest gently used vintage clothing outlets or pawnshops.

[Peter]

9 hours ago, caroljane said:

Canadian Boring changes their minds!

Well . . . It's not as fab as English politics (remember the extraordinary Margaret Thatcher?) and The Royals.  

[william.scherk]

Boring beyond Belief, or just Dull and Tedious? From the CBC: 

Quebec seeks to change Canadian Constitution, make sweeping changes to language laws with new bill

[caroljane]

2 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Boring beyond Belief, or just Dull and Tedious? From the CBC: 

Quebec seeks to change Canadian Constitution, make sweeping changes to language laws with new bill

Pure laine, pure langue...

Le meilleure  de Brtitannique, gens du pays.

[william.scherk]

This is as cute as the dry Canadian version of the lying press gets:

Western MP pitches Conservative carbon price with a 24-pack of Pilsner (msn.com)

The linguistic Pil-shot comes in here:

Quote

[...]

The Canadian Press contacted each of Saskatchewan's Conservative MPs and most of those in Alberta to discuss reception to the Conservative party's own carbon-pricing plan. The majority declined to comment, or didn't respond. 

In fact, any mention of the climate policy — unveiled by Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole as a major plank in an eventual election platform — is absent from many of their social media. 

For Liepert, a veteran of Alberta politics, it's obvious the party needs more wins in Ontario to form government and felt it was time to shed its anti-carbon price stance. 

“If you start from that premise, that Canadians have grudgingly accepted a carbon tax, then how do we pivot away from having a position where we will cancel the carbon tax?”

Pitching the Conservatives' fuel price comes down to persuading people it's not a tax, he says. It's also what O'Toole, who ran as the "true blue" candidate in the party's leadership race, has rigorously maintained. 

“Let me give you this analogy: When you go to the liquor store and you pick up a 24 case of Pilsner, there's a 10 cent per can levy attached to that, correct?," said Liepert, describing how he sells the plan. 

"And they’ll all agree with that, and I say, ‘You don’t consider that a tax do you?' And they say, ‘Well no, because I get it back when I take my cans back.' 

And I say, ‘Well bingo. Same thing with this.'"

Liepert says most people tend to "grudgingly agree," with his answer, but there are always those who will feel "a tax, is a tax is a tax."

Besides what to call it, Conservatives say what distinguishes their party's proposed carbon price from the Liberals' is when people pay it, their money will be sent to a savings account that is like a rewards card. They'll then be able to use the money in that fund to make government-approved environmentally friendly purchases.

A climate of skepticism surrounds the Tory policy and its future chances of becoming law. The choice between a heavily-entailed registered "savings account" for your Pilsner bottles ... and a straight-up tax credit seems clear.

If the idea was to pander to Ontario voters and usher in a bold national climate plan for debate and discussion ...

 

[tmj]

Being Americanly ignorant of Canuck politics, did the legislators that 'levied' the cans run on platform for creating such a levy, or was it just a legislative edict sans platform plank ?

Was there a national Pilsner can plan or spirited debate ?

[william.scherk]

5 hours ago, tmj said:

Being Americanly ignorant of Canuck politics, did the legislators that 'levied' the cans run on platform for creating such a levy, or was it just a legislative edict sans platform plank ?

Without looking, I'll guess that industry led the way in a North American context -- for botllers of soft drinks in the post-soda counter era, local fizzy-drink makers found it economic to buy back local empties to refill, rather than freighting in new ones. I remember learning this in my way north hometown. The bottler of brand name colas would collect the branded bottles, and mix up the varied syrups and CO2 with local water, avoiding the expense of a very long land or sea route ...

I don't know when state and provincial authorities wrote laws and regulations to "help" ... 

Quote

Was there a national Pilsner can plan or spirited debate ?

The nation does not meddle in provincial affairs, I'm told. Pilsner, needless to say, is almost a heritage brand these days. Check out the label. 

Read from another angle, yes -- the Conservative plan is a policy plank for the next election. The Conservatives hope to replace the present national regime of "revenue neutral" tax on emissions with their own thing once Trudeau is defeated.

Details: Carbon pricing in Canada - Wikipedia

Quote

Saskatchewan never had a carbon pricing system and other provinces—Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Alberta—have opted out of previous provincial carbon tax systems. Revenue from the federal GHGPPA, which came into effect in April 2019, is redistributed to the provinces, either through tax credits to individual residents or to businesses and organizations that are affected by the tax but are unable to pass on the cost by raising consumer prices.^[5][2] The Province of Saskatchewan challenged the constitutionality of the GHGPPA in the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan and lost in May 2019.^[6]

According to the National Post, the Conservative Party of Canada attempted to "make the carbon tax the single issue" of the 2019 federal election campaign.^[7] This argument did not succeed, as the Canadian voting public supported parties that also supported the carbon tax, leading CBC News to declare Canada's carbon tax to be "the big election winner" and "the only landslide victor" in this election.^[8]

On March 25, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the 2019 appeal of the provinces of Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan, ruling in Reference re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act that GHGPPA was constitutional.^[9]

Oil and gas-rich Alberta was the first jurisdiction to put a price on emissions.

Edited May 17, 2021 by william.scherk
Caught the other, obvious valence of tmj's query.

[Jules Troy]

What? Shit grows better in a greenhouse when you add carbon dioxide?  Who knew!

[william.scherk]

Upsides and downsides ... the humans, they are ingenious.

[Jules Troy]

Haha!

[Strictlylogical]

Watching a bunch of self-satisfied and self-hating meddling polite do-gooder tyrants with a case of "big-brother-US envy" enslave themselves into a backwater of insipid virtue-signaled mediocrity...

is simultaneously absolutely beyond belief AND dull and tedious.

[Peter]

22 hours ago, william.scherk said:

If the idea was to pander to Ontario voters and usher in a bold national climate plan for debate and discussion ...

Canada Dry?

[caroljane]

On 5/17/2021 at 12:46 PM, Strictlylogical said:

Watching a bunch of self-satisfied and self-hating meddling polite do-gooder tyrants with a case of "big-brother-US envy" enslave themselves into a backwater of insipid virtue-signaled mediocrity...

is simultaneously absolutely beyond belief AND dull and tedious.

Is self-satisfaction strictly compatible with self- hatred, Strictly Logical? And please supply a list of tyrants noted for their politeness.

Thank you so very much in advance!

[Strictlylogical]

18 hours ago, caroljane said:

Is self-satisfaction strictly compatible with self- hatred, Strictly Logical?

I cannot speak from experience (to your disappointment I am sure), but there is a certain consistency with those who are consumed with a hatred for everything on earth including themselves to be eminently satisfied, in fact proudly self-martyred (so to speak) with that kind of self-hatred.  How else can a culture of small envious people who vilify the rich or successful arise without a hatred of the good for being good... and hence at least partly... the archetype of that small wrinkled hating thing hating those good parts of the psyche within.

The Canadian Liberal and the NDP might be already be worse than the Marxist-leftist wing of the US Democratic party, but darn it of those Yanks aren't doin' their dangdest to out Marx them Socialist Canucks.

 

18 hours ago, caroljane said:

And please supply a list of tyrants noted for their politeness.

Any neighbor who would say "please", "sorry", and "thank you" to your face, but would have no quandry robbing you blind in your sleep to keep their party's corrupt politicians in power, squashing your right to free speech, or forcing you to risk your life with mediocre state run healthcare or at least trying to guilt you into not "jumping the queue" (as if one exists) by seeking healthcare in a freer country..

The little tyrant next door, might smile at you in the street, but would grin at the chance to have you shackled and cowed by her leftist strong men.

I need not list them, they are legion.

 

I do not know you personally, but perhaps

You might have seen that tyrant in the mirror, if you ever had the secret wish to force others against their will, not because they violated anyone else's rights but because you wanted to see them suffer, because you wanted to equalize their success with other's failures, you wanted to violate the rights of those innocent not because of their incompetence and disability but because of their competence and ability, because you wanted to knock them down a notch or two, for being successful... because you wanted to eat the rich, and strike out at the good for being the good, because you wanted to lash out in your own shame... or perhaps you no longer see that tyrant in the mirror,

or indeed, perhaps in fact, you are one of the lucky few who never saw it.

 

Trust me, as a person raised in a mixed economy, semi-socialist state, rife with a culture of altruism, and dominated by progressive education over the last 5 decades, I indeed was one of those tyrants in the mirror and next door.

Now I know better.

 

I see what you did there with the politeness.... quite funny.  I observe that the statement I have heard: "Canadians are polite, but Americans are friendly", as an aphorism is quite true, very much, most of the time.

 

 

Not all Canadian politicians are as I allude to above, THIS guy can actually be quite impressive from time to time:

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

SL,

That was an impressive bit of personality analysis. (I'll leave it to readers to decide for themselves if this applies in whole, in part, or not at all to Carol as a human being.)

The way you did it formed an archetype. I like it...

Michael

[caroljane]

13 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

SL,

That was an impressive bit of personality analysis. (I'll leave it to readers to decide for themselves if this applies in whole, in part, or not at all to Carol as a human being.)

The way you did it formed an archetype. I like it...

Michael

Of course you would like it, you unfeeling brute, connecting the name of a Respectable Widow like myself to such unwholesome thoughts.

Archetype is a little overblown for this feverish feat of the imagination, stereotype is more like it, and maybe you could persuade your new amigo to disclose the mixed economy altruist hell he endured before he learned better. He gives the impression it wasn't Canada but he doesn't claim proud Americanism either. He knows all about us but remains a cipher himself.

Having  vowed not to be negative during this holy season I will congratulate you on continuing to attract different  and intriguing characters td the site. SL is our first reformed tyrant, and I hope not the last.

I don't know why that bolding appeared and I can't  get rid of it but I m not whining, just informing, honest!

meekly,

Old Lady Lynam

[william.scherk]

 

On 2/10/2011 at 7:54 PM, caroljane said:

To all our dear friends and trading partners, we wish you,

as ever,

Good Night and Good Neighbours

A Milk War in 2021 could get fraught, but will likely have less loss of life than the Pig War of 1859, which the Queen joked about during her 1976 state visit to the USA (in Seattle).

Biden administration launches trade dispute against Canadian dairy industry

-- I mention the Pig War because it's the last time Great Britain almost came to blows with America.

I wonder if the ultimate milk villains are those who built up the immense strategic cheese reserve. Cheese should maybe not be a source of fear.

Edited May 25, 2021 by william.scherk
Edit box was acting French; I blame the Quebec Act

[caroljane]

2 hours ago, william.scherk said:

 

A Milk War in 2021 could get fraught, but will likely have less loss of life than the Pig War of 1859, which the Queen joked about during her 1976 state visit to the USA (in Seattle).

Biden administration launches trade dispute against Canadian dairy industry

-- I mention the Pig War because it's the last time Great Britain almost came to blows with America.

I wonder if the ultimate milk villains are those who built up the immense strategic cheese reserve. Cheese should maybe not be a source of fear.

Anything but another Pig War! Those pigs do not fight fair.  An ancestor of mine was permanently disabled by razor-sharp trotters deployed by the enemy.

Another challenge looms on our usually unclouded horizon in the sometimes-porcine shape of Chris Christie,who is calling on Biden to force Trudeau to let vaccinated Americans into Canada, or else!  

Will  American presumption never end?  This is the worst insult since the premiere of Argo.

[Peter]

TORONTO (Reuters) - The remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children, a discovery Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as heartbreaking on Friday. The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978, according to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation, which said the remains were found with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist. "We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify," Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir said in a statement. "At this time, we have more questions than answers."

[Strictlylogical]

7 hours ago, Peter said:

TORONTO (Reuters) - The remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children, a discovery Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as heartbreaking on Friday. The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978, according to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation, which said the remains were found with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist. "We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify," Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir said in a statement. "At this time, we have more questions than answers."

The politics of archeology?  

Discoveries of WW1 and WW2 era massacres and genocides must be dominating the ongoing politics in Europe… given the number of atrocities all throughout the continent, throughout history and the relatively recent past (last century or so)… I see no way it won’t absolutely dominate politics for millennia.

[william.scherk]

13 hours ago, Peter said:

TORONTO (Reuters) - The remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found at the site of a former residential school for indigenous children, a discovery Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as heartbreaking on Friday. The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978, according to the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation, which said the remains were found with the help of a ground penetrating radar specialist. "We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify," Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Chief Rosanne Casimir said in a statement. "At this time, we have more questions than answers."

Residential schools were the most efficient way to extirpate native culture and language. The tragedies of the efficient Indian Act were the core subject of a national commission that brought forth a report in 2015.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

6 hours ago, Strictlylogical said:

The politics of archeology?  

Discoveries of WW1 and WW2 era massacres and genocides must be dominating the ongoing politics in Europe…

Canada's legacy is its own, although rooted in a legal regime installed by the British Crown. Here in British Columbia, native peoples and local bands still struggle with the legacy. The discovery of remains in Kamloops brings a century of pain to the fore yet again.

Much like the Butterbox Babies, and the Irish mothers and baby homes mass graves discovery, the cruelties and atrocities that come to light in modern days can illuminate the harms of "good" institutions.

While I was living in Prince George, the Catholic diocese was forced to sell its land base to provide settlements for victims of brutality at its schools.

Given my country's history, we have no moral standing to instruct Americans on its own legacy.

Here's just a tiny sample of testimonies given across the land:

Truth, reconciliation comes to Prince George

One by one, the survivors of residential schools spoke into a microphone on Monday in Prince George and gave a glimpse of their lifelong pain and trauma.

In Chilliwack where I live, the native peoples have made great progress in economic and social development in the last three decades, taking on more and more self-governance.

An accounting of what led to death for the children whose remains were found is necessary, and local, regional, provincial and national media wrestle with the issues made raw once again.

 

[Strictlylogical]

6 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Residential schools were the most efficient way to extirpate native culture and language. The tragedies of the efficient Indian Act were the core subject of a national commission that brought forth a report in 2015.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Canada's legacy is its own, although rooted in a legal regime installed by the British Crown. Here in British Columbia, native peoples and local bands still struggle with the legacy. The discovery of remains in Kamloops brings a century of pain to the fore yet again.

Much like the Butterbox Babies, and the Irish mothers and baby homes mass graves discovery, the cruelties and atrocities that come to light in modern days can illuminate the harms of "good" institutions.

While I was living in Prince George, the Catholic diocese was forced to sell its land base to provide settlements for victims of brutality at its schools.

Given my country's history, we have no moral standing to instruct Americans on its own legacy.

Here's just a tiny sample of testimonies given across the land:

Truth, reconciliation comes to Prince George

One by one, the survivors of residential schools spoke into a microphone on Monday in Prince George and gave a glimpse of their lifelong pain and trauma.

In Chilliwack where I live, the native peoples have made great progress in economic and social development in the last three decades, taking on more and more self-governance.

An accounting of what led to death for the children whose remains were found is necessary, and local, regional, provincial and national media wrestle with the issues made raw once again.

 

Unless bad legislation is still on the books, no matter how historically or culturally significant, it should not be in any way considered political, and certainly not in the context of a country with a proper existing governmental system.

[william.scherk]

54 minutes ago, Strictlylogical said:

7 hours ago, william.scherk said:

An accounting of what led to death for the children whose remains were found is necessary, and local, regional, provincial and national media wrestle with the issues made raw once again.

 

Unless bad legislation is still on the books, no matter how historically or culturally significant, it should not be in any way considered political, and certainly not in the context of a country with a proper existing governmental system.

I'll take the pronoun in the middle, the 'it,' as referring to the accounting I consider necessary, the work of the graves, and take 'political' as 'partisan' and agree. In kind but not in genre, the grave work in Bosnia is non-partisan.

What is most likely to happen is a formal process of investigation. If the Kamloops child burials took this long a time to come to light, there may be more unmarked ground to probe for the bones of children. 

If I've ridden off to the wrong hills with It and Not Political, please let us know.  

[Strictlylogical]

On 5/29/2021 at 10:39 PM, william.scherk said:

I'll take the pronoun in the middle, the 'it,' as referring to the accounting I consider necessary, the work of the graves, and take 'political' as 'partisan' and agree. In kind but not in genre, the grave work in Bosnia is non-partisan.

What is most likely to happen is a formal process of investigation. If the Kamloops child burials took this long a time to come to light, there may be more unmarked ground to probe for the bones of children. 

If I've ridden off to the wrong hills with It and Not Political, please let us know.  

This event is Canadian news, for sure. 

 

Investigation is of course necessary whenever bodies are found to determine what happened, if there was foul play, and if possible to bring the guilty to justice (if the deaths recent enough).

History is also a crucial part of culture and knowledge.  If old enough, I suspect anthropologists and/or historians would be interested in excavating and documenting things, to widen our understanding of what happened.

 

Insofar as NO ONE currently in government or not, thinks the State should kill, or inadvertently cause the deaths, or hide the fact of the deaths of persons within its care, there is, at the moment, no POLITICAL ISSUE to debate, it is not politics.

[Jules Troy]

Well it’s official, Keystone XL is officially dead.  Fuck you Biden.  Guess we will be selling our oil to China instead.

“When those who produce everything need permission from those whose produce nothing, that society is doomed,”

Pretry prophetic...