turningrite

All ideologically grounded economic systems are essentially self-limiting as they generate the contradictions and conditions that lead to their own destruction. Call this dialectical process, or whatever other analytical framework might pertain, but it is inevitable. No ideological system can be sustained over the long run without competition. The most prosperous form of capitalism yet devised, the so-called mixed market economy, developed in response to both the decline of colonialist mercantilism and the emergence in communism of a competitive ideology. The decline and fall of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s, accompanied by capitalist triumphalism, resulted in the ascendancy of neo-lib globalism. But neo-lib corporate globalism cannot survive for long if its consequences become so negative that democratic electorates reject it. Some politicians, like Trudeau, think they can soften its hard edges but I don't think they understand the degree of damage their ideology is causing. When it all collapses, as it must do if it fails to adopt necessary reforms, things could get very messy.

You've got to wonder, though, why they're so interested in getting involved if the whole thing is merely virtue signalling mush? It seems odd to argue for something when noting at the same time that it's irrelevant. We saw this with M-103. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I suspect there's a real agenda behind the virtue-signaling and that if we just give it a pass we'll eventually land in a situation where that agenda's been normalized and enshrined in policy and law. And then we'll be stuck with it.

So, you believe in the proposition that two wrongs make a right? Hmmm... I'm skeptical of all governments, left, right and centre. If we don't hold all politicians accountable in real time we get bad government, whatever the ideological preferences of our leaders.

a.) It's clear that the intent is to create special rights intended to limit the ability of voters in sovereign democratic countries to set their own rules. As such, it's an entirely cynical and inherently anti-democratic approach. b.) The more dangerous impacts might be in countries like Canada where ideologically driven politicians might hold up our membership in the pact to argue that we don't have a right to debate immigration and refugee policy. c.) Note that its called the Compact For Migration and not the Compact on Migration. That seemingly minor difference has a significant impact on explaining its intent. To be "for" something is to be bound to promote it. d.) It's all about special rights. That's the point. e.) Sounds like M-103, right? Of course it does. It's another instrument of weaponized ideology. f.) They're not interested in objective "evidence-based" analysis when they insist on control of the narrative and the ability to shut down dissenting voices. Of course, we know that the Trudeau government isn't interested in evidence-based analysis where immigration and refugee policy are concerned. Reportedly, it doesn't even track outcomes for the refugees it allows to enter and remain in the country. And it has no mechanism to more broadly track the real economic impacts of immigration on either newcomers or the existing population. I suspect it's afraid that actual evidence will serve to undermine public support for its policies. Rather, it resorts to ideological posturing and emotional bullying. g.) Of course it doesn't. That's the point of globalism. Everything's a wash, even when it isn't They wouldn't want ordinary working people, especially in democracies, to realize that negative outcomes are in reality predictable and intentional aspects of the globalist agenda. In fact, such outcomes are a feature of the system rather than a bug. As long as the money keeps flowing into the coffers of the globalists, their globalized world is right as rain even if its a nightmare for millions of others.

Actually, the government taxes working Canadians to give the money back to those just below them on the economic ladder who in many cases don't work. That's how means-tested subsidies function. Governments in this country tax employment earnings starting at very low income levels and additionally impose a significant burden on ordinary folks in the form of consumption taxation. Corporations and the rich, and particularly investors, are afforded far greater ability to defer and avoid taxation. A former colleague who went on to work in the field of government housing policy once explained to me the inequity inherent in public subsidies, which most heavily disadvantage those who fall just short of subsidy eligibility criteria. He noted that these poor folks pay the heaviest price and most onerous level of taxation for sustaining means-tested subsidies for which they don't and in many cases won't ever qualify. The middle class, such as it is (as it's eroding every year), thinks it's paying taxes under a "social contract" model whereby its contributions will at least in part be rewarded in the form of stable pensions and adequate health care. The latter is quickly disappearing in the much of the country and the former may well be at risk as the subsidy system becomes increasingly expensive to sustain.

The more prudent decision would be to give the pact a big swerve. There's no doubt the Compact for Migration is an intentionally ideological instrument. (The use of the preposition 'for' rather than 'on' is clearly illustrative of this.) We don't need to give ideologues like Trudeau and his cronies any more encouragement to promote and pursue their own globalist objectives. It's time to stand up for democracy and say 'NO' to such globalist nonsense. Canadians can decide on our own policies in relation to migration. Trudeau and his ilk need not hold our hands in guiding us to an outcome that serves a narrow ideological agenda.

There's a good column in today's Toronto Star by Rick Salutin, 'France's yellow vests and the tarsands of Alberta', that addresses the social and economic tensions underlying protests against carbon taxation and, more broadly, environmental policy. As Salutin notes, the globalist neo-libs have in the West imposed an economic model intended to squeeze the incomes of ordinary working people, a circumstance that's being exacerbated by adding the burden of yet new layers of environmental taxation on those who've paid the highest price for globalization, Western workers. If one has to choose between paying a tax and putting food on the table, the choice becomes pretty stark and the decision predictable. While progressives tout the transition to a bright new, renewables-focused, future, they provide no clear path to their nirvana nor any plan to sustain those displaced during the transition. Salutin channels Lenin, noting that real "power lies in the street [i.e. the citizenry], waiting to be picked up by whoever has the guts to take leadership" to impose order in the conflict between the inhumane and unfair outcomes globalization has wrought and the public's reaction to those conditions.

I think you fail to recognize that the real danger is domestic in that in order to bolster their globalist objectives and credentials political charlatans (like Trudeau) might be able to assert that by signing the pact we've agreed to comply with its provisions, however dangerous or nonsensical. There's an interesting article in the G&M where the columnist, while more or less dismissing much of the content of the migration pact as "bureaucratic blah-blah", holds that we shouldn't be too worried because it has no real force or effect. It's an interesting approach to support something on grounds that it's silly and some of it ill-advised but it's okay because it's meaningless: "[It] is a vague, non-binding document full of long-winded, gobbledygook claptrap that includes a few worthy principles and a couple of dumb ideas. But it won’t force anyone to do anything." I suspect the columnist's actual intent is not to support the pact but instead to gratuitously castigate those criticizing it ("right-wingers'). As the G&M piece admits, the pact's apparent promotion of compelled or acceptable speech is clearly problematic. Free speech, of course, is the oxygen of democracy. Without it, democracy withers and dies. The G&M piece equates criticism of the pact with the controversy over M-103. In my opinion, M-103 amounted to a propaganda exercise intended to generate a political wedge, but should we really be participating in a process that affords the anti-democratic globalists a soapbox burnished with the imprimatur of the UN - an institution already confronting a crisis of legitimacy? Sensible nations will no doubt give the pact a big swerve. Canada, apparently, is not such a sensible nation, at least at this time. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-to-right-wingersthe-global-compact-for-migration-motion-is-a-sign-the/

Thanks, I found it under the 'Rest of the World' category. I was looking at the issue from a Canadian perspective and therefore trying to find it under 'Federal Politics'.

Very true. I'm surprised at how few people appear to understand this and likely won't until it's too late.

If he can create enough buzz to force Scheer and the CPC to address controversial topics in order to hold the right and centre-right vote, I believe Bernier's role will be positive. So far, Scheer's approach has been to smile a lot and say very little of real substance. This strategy was tried in the last election by Tom Muclair and look where it got him and his party. Bernier might be the right's only hope to prevent a milquetoast Scheer from fading into the woodwork as Trudeau reads his over-rehearsed speeches, works his social media networks and ramps up his virtue-signalling.

I wouldn't be so certain of this. I understand that most UN declarations have little or no legal force or effect but what would stop the Trudeau government from using a pact like this to argue that debate about immigration can't be tolerated in Canada? Do you trust our political leaders, and particularly those now running the show in Ottawa? If you do, your view differs substantially from my own.

Under what other thread? It would be helpful to know. I searched to see if there was discussion on this topic elsewhere on this site and didn't find anything under any obvious thread.

I believe the decline of the middle class in Western countries is an inherent and inexorable objective of corporate globalism. We're being fooled and misled in this country by governments that simply mask the serious impacts of globalism with ever more subsidy programs. We have created a permanent and growing subsidy class. Ultimately, of course, there won't be enough money to support this strategy. But governments want to distract us from the economic carnage of globalism with artificial narratives about things like racism, diversity and accommodation, where they and a chosen coterie set the terms of discussion. All commentary that undermines the directed narratives is deemed unacceptable, deplorable, or worse. Can democracy actually survive this nonsense?

Several issues have emerged to suggest that the Ford government is less prudent than many might have expected would be the case: 1.) The fiasco over French language services indicates that Ford isn't one to ponder the implications of impetuously made decisions. 2.) His government's pot implementation plan has been clumsy and has done little other than keep the illegal market humming along. 3.) Yesterday, Toronto's city council proposed a massive raise to office budgets to compensate for the reduction in council's size mandated by Ford's government, thus wiping out most if not all the savings Ford touted. This was as predicable as cold winter weather in the Arctic. 4.) Criticism of the process for choosing a new OPP head honcho suggests that Ford doesn't understand the reasonable limits applicable to running a provincial government in a jurisdiction with 14 million people. Did the risk of an appearance of a conflict of interest never occur to him? 5.) And then, this morning, I read that Hydro One's attempted purchase of an American utility has been rejected by a state regulator on grounds of political interference in the corporation's affairs. Among other concerns, Ford got rid of the 6 million dollar man but now, reportedly, Hydro One and presumably its ratepayers are on the hook for a penalty amounting to well over 100 million. Was such an outcome never considered? Come on Doug, you're going to have to realize that you're not running a fiefdom here. Gut decisions can have very real and sometimes negative consequences.

A column in today's Globe and Mail ("To right-wingers, the Global Compact for Migration motion is a sign the sky is falling again") castigates critics on grounds that, well, they're overreacting because the pact is essentially legally meaningless anyway. Whaaaat? So why are we signing it if it has no practical force or effect? Is it just more virtue signalling on the part of Trudeau's government or are Canadian policies going to be impacted by our membership in this club? Even the G&M columnist criticizes the tone and content of much of the pact's verbiage, noting that aspects of the pact, including language could serve to restrict the ability of media to criticize immigration policy, are essentially untenable in a democracy. Oh well, it looks like the globalists will have their way on this as seems to be the common practice under Trudeau. Hopefully next year's election will replace our current ruling party and we'll get a sensible government that rejects this kind of globalist nonsense.

Trump is a product of the failure of the political elites in his country to acknowledge and consider the implications of the policies they've put in place over the past three decades, which have served to harm large segments of the population. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum and Trump was able to sense discontent and occupy the leadership void. Trump's temperament and policies are erratic and it remains to be seen whether he can overhaul the global trading system, which in and of itself is a laudable goal. At least he seems to realize that the current economic paradigm isn't sustainable. I'm not sure what to say about Doug Ford? I don't think he has the intellectual depth to understand the forces driving public discontent. He ran without an actual platform and won an election where voters reacted with revulsion to a deservedly unpopular Lib government (much of the inspiration for which is now sitting at the Lib PM's side in Ottawa). Ford apparently thinks Ontario voters were actually voting for him when in fact he was in large measure a convenient beneficiary of public discontent. Any other PC leader would likely have won a majority. Ford's 'Government for the People' slogan is quickly emerging as a euphemism for something quite different. I'd like to think Ford is basically harmless but this might be wishful thinking.

Virtue signalling doesn't always work out well for Trudeau. The best example is his now infamous tweet that appeared to encourage 'irregular' migrants to leave Trump's America for Canada. The fiasco triggered a downward slide in the polls for Trudeau's party. He was able to recover from this self-inflicted wound largely by getting credit for the NAFTA/USMCA deal although I believe there's far less to this accomplishment than many tout. The biggest problem heading into 2019, though, is the lack of a compelling alternative. I tend to agree with Bernier that the CPC under Scheer is a slightly improved variation on the Lib party. If voters "in the middle" don't see a compelling alternative to Trudeau, is it likely they'd vote his party out? A lot can happen before next fall, of course. It's possible we're facing a recession, which is never good for an incumbent government. The refugee mess is nowhere close to being cleaned up. Canada's energy industry is facing a crisis that Trudeau seems utterly incapable of resolving. Trudeau's environmental policies, including implementing a carbon tax in Ontario in 2019, could well backfire. Carbon taxes aren't economically neutral and we've seen in recent weeks in France that anger over them can diminish public support for a sitting government and derail its policy approach. And then there are the unknowns relating to problems that we simply can't predict. But without a compelling political alternative and in the absence of major gaffes from this point forward Trudeau's government could easily be re-elected.

In Canada's larger cities immigration and other issues like the economy, housing, access to health care and the environment are inextricably linked. Any program that like immigration costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars to support automatically impacts other policy areas. I'd like to see Bernier's party present a fully developed platform, which would at least force the other parties to respond. The Libs will probably stick with a formula that for them has worked to date and the NDP is hopeless but I'm hoping that if Bernier can gain any momentum and influence he can force the CPC to become more assertive on important policy issues. My ideal 2019 election outcome would see a CPC minority government backed by Bernier's PPC. Bernier has said that the current iteration of the CPC is essentially Lib-lite. If voters are merely offered a choice between the Lib party and a pale imitation of it, is it likely that we'll see the any change in Ottawa next year?

Most people won't realize what is happening until it's far too late to correct course. We have an inarticulate empty suit as PM who simply serves the interests of corporate globalism. How could things possible go wrong? Too few seem to understand the risks and even fewer seem willing to contemplate the answers they'd get if they objectively considered the implications of the globalist agenda. At least Trump, as erratic and inconsistent as he can be at times, seems willing to stand up for his own people.

That's my impression as well. Those who aren't interested in following politics between elections don't look beyond the veneer. And Trudeau gets a lot of media coverage, including in the U.S. media, which usually take a swerve where Canada is concerned. He's touted as the anti-Trump and that it seems is enough to keep him in the lead, well for now at least. I worry that with apparently weak leadership in the other two mainstream parties Trudeau will get a free pass next year. That's why I hope Bernier can inject concerns about immigration into the election debate and force all the parties to put their cards on the table. Unless Canadians are presented with real policy options and choices, I suspect Trudeau will simply read his well-rehearsed but vacuous stump speeches and many voters will give him the benefit of the doubt. His background is in acting, right?

This may be a concern in the Ottawa region, but I suspect it has little practical application elsewhere. I know of people who live in Toronto who speak French who say it provides them little or no economic advantage, particularly in employment. Yet we see some who are clearly not impacted by government imposed bilingualism reflexively trumpeting moves like that that made by Ford. Why? The official obsession where I live is "diversity" rather than bilingualism and it raises concerns about even more insidiously discriminatory policies and practices. One can acquire skills in another language, for instance, particularly if one is taught another useful language at an early age. One cannot for the most part become or choose to become "diverse" by any practically available means.

Actually, Canada is not doing particularly well. According to polling, fewer than half of Canadians now identify themselves as belonging to the middle class - down from 70 percent less than two decades ago - and many are only hanging on to that designation by carrying substantial debt. Canadian public policy is aimed at masking the true costs of corporate globalization. Governments increasingly hide our economic problems behind a subsidy system that eventually we won't be able to afford to maintain. The officially reported unemployment rate is low but doesn't reflect relatively stagnant wages and a declining labour market participation rate (i.e. the percentage of working age people who are engaged in the workforce), suggesting that the unemployment rate is no longer a reliable indicator of economic health or stress. That record numbers languish on social housing waiting lists, homelessness is rampant in our largest cities, child poverty rates remain high and the health care system is on life support in much of the country suggests that all is not well in the la la land of sunny Justin. The fact that we're subsidizing people merely to raise their children illustrates the extent of the failure. There is no longer any realistic relationship between incomes and living costs. I believe that one U.S. study illustrated that rents have risen by something in the range of 40 to 50 percent in excess of inflation since the 1970s and home ownership costs have risen by more than 70 percent in excess of inflation over the same period. The situation in many of Canada's large urban centres, and particularly in the heavily immigration-impacted Toronto and Vancouver regions, is likely much worse. Trudeau babbles on about the middle class when he has no apparent understanding of its actual plight and concerns. He's an empty suit who's more obsessed by image than he is interested in substance and is more concerned about satisfying party donors and Lib-leaning lobbyists than he is about ordinary Canadians who don't have access to trust funds.

Quebec's plan is prudent. Who does Justin Trudeau speak for anyway? I heard him on the TV news mimicking the corporate line, prattling on about labour shortages. Where, exactly, are these shortages and why is the government not simply targeting specific shortages? My guess is that big business wants the government to continue to permit it to utilize the immigration and foreign worker programs to practice wage suppression. The Trudeau government also appears intent on catering to other special interests including the too-powerful immigration industry and ethno-cultural lobbies. Increasing the number of sponsored seniors, or sponsored relatives in general, seems unlikely to help the economy. I have educated friends who live in the GTA who can't find ongoing work. Too bad they're over 50, I guess. Mr. Trudeau and his cronies apparently think they should be put out to pasture. The federal government should create a national job bank where employers are obligated to post all positions they say they can't fill before they can bring in workers from outside of Canada. And let's monitor the cases where Canadian applicants are rejected. A friend told me that he was informed by an agency that some companies simply interview Canadian candidates on a pro forma basis in order to satisfy the requirement that they demonstrate a lack of suitable and available domestic candidates, which if true seems to amount to gaming the system. The employment environment for job seekers has become so arcane and fractured since the federal government effectively abandoned the field that it's almost impossible for workers to identify available opportunities. Let's fix that and let's see if a transparent and objectively monitored marketplace proves whether actual shortages exist. In the meantime, kudos to Quebec. It's putting its own workers and people first. Were Canada as a whole to adopt this approach, immigration intake numbers would fall to 180 to 200 thousand a year, which seems far more realistic than one million over three years, which is Trudeau's target.

1.) You raise Hungary as an example, which is interesting. While only 40 percent of its primary school students study English as a foreign/second language, according to the Pew Research study I link notes this rises to 82 percent by upper-secondary school. Even in historically Anglophobic France, an extraordinarily large percentage of students study English. Where you state that "[a] difference exists between a language's popularity among students and the actual rate of success of that language," I trust you're excluding English in your analysis. English has become pervasive throughout much of the world, to the extent that I've read that some governments are trying to resist its influence and counteract its popularity. I read a piece not long ago about Latin American kids who learn English adopting it as their default mode of interaction. It seems it's viewed by these youngsters as "cool" to speak English, presumably due to the influence of English-language popular culture. 3.) You place a lot of store in the B&B Commission report, which I think in practical terms offers a somewhat skewed perspective. While much of the analysis relating to the status of French may still apply, my assumption is that any study or analysis of the role of other languages was insisted on by representatives from various ethno-cultural communities, who no doubt were represented at hearings and sought consideration of their interests. It likely doesn't bear any relationship to the practical role and influence of what are sometimes referred to as "heritage" (i.e. non-official) languages. French has a historical and legal status that elevates its role even if outside of Quebec it often appears to hold declining influence while the role of immigrant languages is generally informal and often transitory and runs into the reality that the English language is an assimilative juggernaut. One of the problems of Canadian multiculturalism is that it undermines the need of immigrants to quickly integrate by learning English and in so doing exacerbates immigrant isolation and economic inequality.