Open for Business: Canadian Politics 2019

I do know who TR is, yes, and I can't think of an exact Canadian analogue for his ilk, thankfully. I do find it telling that EL is among his apologists, though (not to mention TR was a correspondent for EL's Rebel Media).

All I'm saying is that while that video is indeed relevant and interesting, you'll be hard pressed to find a Canadian ILXor willing to discuss it without shooting the messenger when the messenger is Ezra fucking Levant.

Fair enough - apologies all. Be patient with us, especially if Trudeau doesn't survive this

For the record, I wasn't indirectly trying to defend Trudeau. He fucked up hard.

Yeah, Levant sucks but that thread is fine.

Best course for the Grits might be for JT to resign and someone clean like Freeland (or JWR herself?) to take over? Wonder if the NDP could capture the centre-left now.

trudeau isn't going to resign though i wouldn't have thought. ego.

Corruption always looks so stupid

I can't see Trudeau resigning over this either.

give it 8 months!

yeah I guess I should have clarified and said, not anytime soon. anyway

One thing that strikes me about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, apart from the obviously egregious ethics of it all, is what it says about the attitudes leading L/liberals actually hold towards the institution of liberal democracy.

— Luke Savage (@LukewSavage) February 28, 2019

OTM

Liberals need to pay a heavy price for this. However, there is an alternative universe where the liberals let SNC-Lavalin sink for these 10 years and the results are horrible. I have no doubt the NDP or the Conservatives would have pressured the exact same way. The real question is not how come the Liberals did this, it is how come one EPC company has so much power in our country? This is where I hope NDP will lead instead of just shitting on Trudeau.

what does that even mean?

ndp should really focus on the populist angle that both the liberals and conservatives are in the pocket of big business and bay street and don't represent hard working canadians blah blah blah

how come one EPC company has so much power in our country?

From the Hudsons Bay Company to Bombardier, when have such companies ever NOT had massive power in Canada?

If the NDP cared about hard working canadians, and I have no doubt they do, they would have taken the same exact position as the Liberals with regards to SNC Lavalin and their possible ten years ban on federal contracts. The company represent 8000 employees in Canada alone. If you have ideas on how to challenge that SNCL monopoly on EPC in Canada without disrupting the industry at large and creating massive unemployment in selected areas then I am all ears, socialist slogans blahs blahs blahs don't do it for me. Nor would a NDP campaign that doesn't offer solutions to this problem other than <lol trudeau sucks>.

Yeah I'm for the rule of law and separation of powers personally

yeah that's what Andrew Scheer is saying.

andrew scheer otm

lord knows there were no scandals under the CPC

much as I hate JT, I have such a horribly sinking fucking feeling about what comes after him

yeah it's going to be the tories and it's going to be v bad

It's going to be really bad if Trudeau gets away with an another electoral win too.

elaborate please

Not as bad as Scheer duh. But considering what just happened I wouldn't want the Canadian electorate to give Trudeau a sense of impunity and invincibility. Last time it happened in Canadian politics, with the liberal, it really sucked.

VHS, are you saying, in essence, that SNC Lavalin is too big to fail (or be prosecuted)? Nationalization would be one answer to that.

now you're talking my language

the NDP are so, so badly in need of a sharp leftward lurch and it drives me nuts that so many party rank and file don't agree

I believe if it is too big to fail it is too big to be nationalized, I think it merely moves the same problems from one location to another. An idea I have and have to verify is to gradually discriminate larger companies in favor of smaller companies on provincial and federal projects, so these smaller companies acquire the skills and workers to grow and it caps SNCL to become too huge to ever create this dependence. Pump equity into midsized companies like Stantec so they can diversify the amount of projects they can deliever (I think they don't have energy projects for example), it could also create a more balanced industry. Finally SNCL who is already kinda big, should not be able to buy smaller canadian firms but maybe that's already the case, I would have to check. Something similar to the big five banks is what I would aim for like over the next 20 years. It's easier to do for infrastructure than for aviation, which is the other similar big engineering problem Canada has. These are ideas they might be really bad.

"These are ideas, they might be really bad" <--not a bad NDP slogan actually

I would not trust a nationalised SNCL with a lib and cpc governement anymore than I do now.

hahaha xp

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shuffle cabinet Friday. https://t.co/sMfbCWrnLG #cdnpoli

— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) March 1, 2019

That’ll help

yup, crisis averted!! JT's generational political instincts strike once again

sigh

the ‘jobs’ thing makes no sense

Could you expand on that? The whole economic angle seems fuzzy to me.

pic.twitter.com/LLfN8bSyrV

— Dril MP 🇨🇦 (@cdnparliawint) February 28, 2019

This guy has such a hate-on for teachers.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-ontario-school-boards-hiring-freeze-budget-1.5038662

So glad I'm getting out. We've had like 13 sick leaves in our school this year (including at least three stress-related), even though we have a really small staff. If class sizes go up, and there are more splits next year, it'll be chaos.

― clemenza, Saturday, March 2, 2019 5:31 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A teacher friend was telling me last night about an increasing problem of violence in the classroom because of increased integration of special ed students into regular classrooms without adequate support.

Cuts to disability support in Ontario are also worrying. We're hearing about v elderly people who are losing home care (something that would be less expensive than institutionalized care in the long term) hours. (Ours haven't been touched, thankfully.)

I take it your friend teaches high school? Nothing like that where I am (and we actually have a contained class, so there's not as much integration; the girl who joins my class for art is angelic). Don't get me started on the lack of support for regular-stream kids with IEPs (not the fault of the support teachers--they're overwhelmed with paperwork). It'll all get worse for as long as Ford's around.

No, he teaches elementary school (but is a spec ed specialist, tbf)!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/philpott-resignation-trudeau-snc-lavalin-1.5042411

Jane Philpott, one of Justin Trudeau's most trusted ministers, announced today she has resigned from cabinet as the Liberal government's crisis over the SNC-Lavalin affair deepens.

he's fucked, but so are the rest of us

when PM Scheer and Trump meet for the first time I'm going to be upset

Ugh. Fuck all of this.

If Trudeau resigns I would see no problem following the party of JWR vs Scheer.

NB: Singh is a lame duck because lol Quebec.

One heartening thing about this whole debacle are the two women, Philpott and Wilson-Raybould. I'm trying to imagine similar actions within Trump's orbit and...it's impossible. (Cohen to a degree, but speaking out now is kind of risk-free for him.)

Singh is also just lame tbh