turningrite

Unlike the immigration system, the legal system isn't run by government. It's run by a system of largely autonomous self-regulating bodies called "law societies" that are concerned primarily with the interests of their own members rather than with the broader public interest.

That's an underlying problem with the CPC, an umbrella party that had to accommodate the entire spectrum of conservatives from far-right social conservatives on the one hand to the moderate PC faction on the other. Even under Harper there was always a concern that social conservatism would bubble up to the top. There was even a name for the suspicion that it could rise to prominence during Harper's reign - the "hidden agenda." The motion in Halifax to open up the abortion debate in Canada failed but reportedly the motion to deny foreign aid abortion funding succeeded. The social conservatives are still there. If Bernier peels away the economic conservatives, will the CPC become an explicit political home for social conservatives?

Reportedly, CPC delegates in Halifax will vote this weekend on whether to reopen the abortion debate. This is a "third rail" of sorts in Canadian politics and if anti-abortion proponents within the CPC win the situation could well play into Bernier's hand. Were the CPC to transform itself into a socially conservative party, could it even be competitive in a federal election? Whatever his personal views, Harper understood the importance of keeping a lid on the social conservatives in the party.

1.) I believe we do discuss economic policy during elections, even if the discussions are often superficial. But politicians often discuss economic issues in terms costed policies and now this has pretty much become an expectation. Occasionally, as in the 1988 election, we debate substantive economic agendas, as in the case of free trade in that election. 2.) I think that on issues like immigration voters often over time develop a fairly clearheaded impression of whether or not polices are working. It's surprising, too, that this happens in Canada, where the MSM tend to present a one-sided view of immigration which largely reflects the tri-party consensus in Ottawa. The voting public is generally more objective, presumably based on real life experience and observation. I trust the instincts of ordinary voters far more than I do the motives of politicians. 3.) We seem to concur on this. I believe that Canadians are not well-served by having the costs associated with immigration and refugee policies divided on a piecemeal and jurisdictional basis as this undermines transparency and accountability. We're permitted to know what seniors programs cost taxpayers, so why is it problematic to believe that the all-in costs associated with the immigration and refugee programs be disclosed by government? From the standpoint of a preference for logic, efficiency and objectivity, the difference in treatment is absurd. 4.) I'm dismayed at the degree to which the "demographic" argument is so casually restated by politicians as well as by business leaders and in the MSM. I guess our self-serving politicians figure that if tall tales are repeated often enough people will simply believe them. Australia's Productivity Commission, after studying that country's large-scale immigration program, determined that the demographic benefit, which isn't particularly substantial, can't be sustained without the maintenance of constantly high levels of immigration. It concluded that Australia's program generates population growth rather than substantive sustainable change in the country's age structure and ageing trends. Essentially, then, from a demographic perspective, it's a kind of ponzi scheme. And the situation is probably worse in Canada because of the tendency of many younger and more productive working-age immigrants to leave the country following their arrival.

I read the article when it appeared on the CBC site a while back. Interestingly, it contains information about the average cost of providing health care to seniors in this country, which is pegged at $12K per capita annually. Extrapolating the health care burden associated with Trudeau's immigrant grannies and grandpas isn't that difficult. An immigrant who enters Canada at 65 and lives to 85 will on average cost taxpayers almost a quarter million dollars, not adjusting for inflation of course. Not a bad deal if you haven't paid a cent in taxes into the system during your working years, right? Assuming 20 years of longevity in this country per senior immigrant, Trudeau's yearly influx of 20,000 seniors will generate an additional unfunded liability of $5 billion for each annual cohort, again, not adjusting for inflation, and if this level is sustained for a decade will generate a $50 billion unfunded liability, not adjusting for inflation. As our health care system has deteriorated significantly over the past couple decades, we have to wonder whether this is sustainable. Can we afford Trudeaunomics (i.e. unlimited taxpayer money for Lib votes) or will it drive us collectively to the poorhouse?

Given that Quebec's finances and economy are generally in good shape it's kind of surprising that Couillard's party isn't more popular. It would be interesting to know why this is the case. It's also interesting that Francophone Quebecers appear to be shifting to the right. With a population that's ageing more quickly than is the case in the rest of the country, with the exception of Atlantic Canada, you have to wonder if this suggests a trend? I've noticed that with sovereignty at a low ebb in Quebec there's less interest in the current election than has in recent decades generally been the case. There seems to be very little discussion about it here in Ontario even among my friends and acquaintances who are exiled Quebecers.

Racist? How so? Are Canadians not permitted to question immigration, refugee and multicultural policies even though these things are the subject of political debate in pretty much all democratic jurisdictions. I don't like Trump's style, nor his authoritarian instincts. But Americans who voted for him wanted to shake up their political establishment. They may well have bitten off more than they can chew. For purposes of comparison, Bernier is a moderate conservative.

I watched a TV news item the other day indicating the government has responded to confidentiality concerns, saying the online sales system will be set up to ensure that privacy rights apply. But call me skeptical.

I'm skeptical of the kind of consultation usually conducted by mainstream parties. As you might recall, Trudeau's government went through such an exercise when first elected mainly to justify a policy approach on immigration that it had long intended to follow. The Lib consultation was risible. I gave up on it after having to endure the introductory propaganda and I believe that relatively few people actually participated. Trends in recent polling on the kinds of concerns Bernier has raised seem pretty clear. Many Canadians feel we can't economically and/or socially adequately absorb the sheer volume of immigrants/migrants now coming into the country. Many voters are concerned about the deterioration in the quality of life, particularly in big cities where transit and health care infrastructure as well as the availability of reasonably affordable housing simply haven't kept pace with the rapid and constant influx of newcomers. Were the newcomers being spread evenly across the country, perhaps these concerns wouldn't be as acute, but that's not happening. Successive governments have botched immigration policy by not considering and responding to its broader impacts. I think a lot of Canadians believe, in effect, that we need breathing room to catch up to this. It's not rocket science.

My take on the "morally corrupt" comment is that it likely reflects Bernier's frustration with the CPC's tendency to practice the same kind of identity and interest group politics the other two mainstream parties do. The biggest clue to this is his criticism that if Scheer becomes PM we'll just get a slightly improved version of the current government, or Trudeau-lite, as some might have it. Bernier obviously believes we need to do politics differently and that a majority or populist view needs to be applied to policy development. I think a lot of Canadians likely agree with him. At least a couple delegates indicated yesterday they were receptive to Bernier's message when being interviewed on news coverage of the CPC's Halifax convention. I suspect that sentiment is even more widely shared among grassroots Conservative supporters. As Toronto Star columnist Tim Harper noted in his column today, Bernier's appeal shouldn't be underestimated. Personally, I think that if he's serious about promoting a populist agenda, Bernier may well have the field to himself. If populist sentiment appeals to, say, 35 to 40 percent of eligible voters and the other three parties are competing for the remaining 60 to 65 percent, Bernier might truly shake up Canadian politics.

When I was still working and interacting with a lot of people, I ran into many immigrants, whatever their credentials, who were disappointed in general at the lack of substantive employment opportunities in this country. The professional qualifications issue is long-standing, though, and not some recent "racist" attempt to hold immigrants down, as some would have it. My white mother, who immigrated to Canada from the U.S. in the early 1950s, couldn't get her American university degree or credentials recognized here upon arriving. She was told that only Canadian and/or British qualifications were accepted and that she'd have to go back to school to work in her field. Professional protectionism is a generations old reality.

Bernier's move could actually help the CPC if it actually takes note of and is willing to speak to the concerns of the large percentage of Canadian voters who are clearly uncomfortable with current immigration, refugee and multicultural policies. It would be shocking in any other democracy that all our major parties have effectively self-censored on such matters for so long. There may well be an elite consensus on these matters in Ottawa but there clearly isn't a similar public consensus, and politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Whether that vacuum is filled by Bernier's group or by a more responsive CPC, Canadian voters deserve to have their concerns addressed and debated. I don't concur with your view that immigration policy is too complicated to address, which I believe you stated in another post. What would you say about economic policy, then, which is much more complicated? It's paternalistic to hold that voters can't effectively deal with complicated issues. And immigration isn't really that complicated anyway. Bernier and/or the CPC should start by addressing its many costs as we're generally, and often not honestly, fed a diet of propaganda extolling its assumed virtues without being provided much if any evidence to justify the optimism. Australia, which largely copied Canada's system a few decades ago, fairly recently examined the failings of its immigration policies, concluding among other things that the "demographic" argument that's often mindlessly recited to justify high immigration levels doesn't actually stand up to objective scrutiny. We don't need to reinvent the wheel to understand the faults in our system. We just need politicians who are willing to be open and forthright. If nobody else is willing to break away from the ridiculous Ottawa consensus, then I'm with Bernier all the way.

Harper, unfortunately, was never very good at understanding the zeitgeist in this country. He was a better PM than Trudeau, but that's setting a very low bar for purposes of comparison.

Be not afraid. If Bernier provides a clear alternative to the tri-party consensus, at least going forward Canadian voters who dislike the status quo won't be able to say they weren't provided a clear choice. This will hold if either the LPC or CPC prevails in 2019. Bernier apparently believes that real change simply isn't possible within the current CPC. And we all know what we get when the Libs are in power. And the NDP? I won't get into what kind of disaster an NDP government might bring. So, with Bernier's party, we might at last have a real choice in that the tri-party elitist consensus will be challenged. If the status quo prevails, well, we'll get the government and country we deserve, may the deity of our choice help us all!

1.) At present, I can't see the Libs taking more than about 35 or 36 percent of the vote. The NDP seems to be holding its own, albeit it's distinctly in thrid-party position among the three major traditional parties. We'll have to see how polling shakes out over the next six months. If Bernier's group gains little or no traction, he and the CPC might try to patch their differences. But don't count Bernier out. His views on immigration, refugees and multiculturalism have attracted widespread support, including among Lib and NDP supporters. And he's open to being flexible on trade issues like supply management. Whether these things change voting intentions remains to be seen. It should be fascinating to watch, though. 2.) As above, let's see. I believe a recent poll indicated that trade and immigration issues remain top-of-mind among Canadian voters and if this is so Bernier represents a different perspective than do the traditional mainstream parties who are fighting each other mainly on variations of the same policies. Polling on issues like immigration and multiculturalism suggest Bernier's views could pull support from the traditional parties. Immigration alone might not make voters jump but if any proposition has come to be recognized as valid in Canada over the past couple decades it's that Canadian voters, except perhaps in Atlantic Canada, are increasingly untethered to traditional party loyalties.

I don't think the 2000 election presents a good example for comparison. The Alliance Party was mainly a regional party grounded in its Reform support in Western Canada and was too associated with social conservatism to appeal to a lot of moderate voters, while the BQ, which won 44 seats, was explicitly a regionally based party, fielding candidates only in Quebec. Bernier's new party is aimed at appealing to voters across the political spectrum and across Canada. I think there's a lot of fatigue with Trudeau's brand and the CPC under Scheer seems to be treading water while the NDP remains, well, listless, disconnected and hopeless. And the BQ has almost disappeared as a political force. There is no other party or movement in Canada that reflects pan-Canadian populist concerns on many issues and in this vacuum Bernier's group might appeal more to voters than many might assume to be the case. An article in yesterday's Globe and Mail indicated that Bernier retains strong grassroots support among CPC members. If there's a substantial movement of these supporters to Bernier's group in conjunction with disillusioned Lib and NDP voters, many of whom according to polling are receptive to Bernier's views, the Canadian political landscape could face a considerable shakeup. And the "none-of-the-above" voters who shun the traditional mainstream parties as being incorrigibly corrupt and/or disconnected from the public mood might at last have something new to support. The trick for Bernier at this point will be to avoid any association with social conservatism, the appeal to which sabotaged prior efforts to attract centre and centre-right voters to alternative parties.

Bernier's move sets the cat among the pigeons, so to speak. There are several possibilities as to how this might work out. There might be an attempt by Trudeau and his MSM acolytes to freeze Bernier out. But given the availability of Twitter and other social media coverage it's more difficult these days to manage controversy in this fashion. Bernier likely won't appeal only to grassroots CPC members but polling suggests his views on immigration, refugees, multiculturalism and even trade could draw supporters from Lib and NDP ranks as well. I suspect that if his movement quickly achieves double-digit support, mainly drawing away CPC supporters, a merger might be attempted in which Bernier would have considerable leverage to set the terms. If his movement zooms into contention with the two big mainstream parties, all bets will be off. For sure, it's too early to pop champagne corks, but this applies as well to supporters of all three major mainstream federal parties. As I said, the cat is now among the pigeons. Let's see where the feathers settle. It looks like Canadians might have a real choice in deciding on the country's future, which would be a huge change.

Maybe he'd just farted? Some find that amusing. Seriously, though, it's not uncommon for people to smirk or laugh when they're nervous. I believe it's seen as a mechanism for diffusing tension. Trudeau will now have to debate and defend some of his cherished but controversial policies in public. His angry outburst in Quebec last weekend suggests he won't enjoy this.

Of course she, like any other citizen, is entitled to a voice. One might expect political partisans to drag her reputation through the mud for having the temerity to raise presumably unpleasant and inconvenient issues directly with the cosseted Trudeau, but I was taken aback to hear such commentary from MSM types. Are MSM outlets now an arm of the sitting government, I wondered? If they are, real democracy is well and truly a thing of the past in this country.

That's actually not correct. Although Canadian free speech protections are considered among the weakest in the democratic West (despite the Charter, all you Charter absolutists), the right to criticize politicians has become more firmly established in jurisprudence in recent decades, grounded in the principles of fair comment and the right to comment on matters of public interest. As Quebec isn't a common law jurisdiction, these principles may apply somewhat differently there, but I suspect that where they've been delineated by the Supreme Court they apply in Quebec as well.

I'm sure Scheer is a nice enough guy. But what does he represent that's substantially different from the Trudeau government's policy approach? Scheer might be willing to round off the rougher edges of the current regime's policies but isn't likely willing to boldly go where our conventional mainstream parties have refused to tread, or in other words, to promote rational populism. "Stay the course with a few tweaks" is not in my opinion what this country needs at this point in its history. At least if Canadians have a clear and obvious alternative at the ballot box we'll all have to accept the result if voters opt for the status quo, or a watered down version thereof.

He's got my support. Don't count on a Trudeau victory in 2019. Bernier will pull support from all three conventional parties. Given political volatility in his home province, he could sweep the place, which at the very least would likely deny the Libs a majority. A minority parliament with a governing CPC-Bernier coalition might be just the right solution for Canada at this time. Putting issues like immigration and refugee policy and identity politics squarely in the electoral debate will in my opinion advance the integrity of Canadian democracy.

I suspect you're a troll. One can shift to the right without going all Trump. My views were once more-or-less on the progressive side of the spectrum, until I figured out the left in this country has become a sham. Now I make up my mind on an issue-by-issue basis, which presumably you do not do.

We'll see what he does at his press conference today. But if he forms a splinter group and is able to attract even 10% of potential voters it could prompt a merger attempt on the part of the CPC before next year's election where Bernier could have a huge impact on setting party policy. I suspect a large percentage of the party's rank-and-file membership agrees with the gist of his views on issues like immigration, refugees and multiculturalism. At this time, provided he intends to remain on the federal stage rather than jump to, say, the CAQ, he holds some very important cards. Let's see how he plays those cards if he chooses to keep his focus on Ottawa.

There's speculation today that Maxime Bernier could start a new political movement or party. If he does, at least some topics, including immigration and refugee policy, will become matters of public debate, thus breaking the consensus imposed by the current tri-party cabal in Ottawa. I think it's time for fresh air, and it's long overdue that public attitudes and concerns be considered regarding contentious matters. At the very least, a new political movement, should it draw considerable support, could pull other parties in the direction of reflecting broadly-held views in this country. Trudeau, you might just have real competition to contend with! https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-maxime-bernier-to-make-announcement-ahead-of-conservative-convention/