turningrite

There was a fascinating column by Anthony Furey on Trudeau's behavior in yesterday's Toronto Sun: 'Trudeau's re-election strategy? Call everyone racist'. As Furey notes, "This constant referencing of “the politics of fear” is itself a form of fear-mongering, where Trudeau and his top advisers want you to believe that there are mean and nasty people lurking behind every corner that you must fear and that only he can protect you from." In fact, it's plain old-fashioned top-down paternalism on Trudeau's part. What gives this trust-fund fop the right to condescendingly lecture the rest of us who for the most part have worked and paid taxes since completing school while he flitted from one transitory experience to the next until he landed in daddy's old job? He got the PM role with the thinnest resume in modern Canadian history. He scarcely showed up for the audition, as his poor attendance record as young MP attests. Too bored, maybe? https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/furey-trudeaus-re-election-strategy-call-everyone-racist

1) So uttering the word "elites" now amounts to profanity? You're kidding, right? That's ridiculous as well as immature. 2) See above. 3) Just do the math. 100% - 43% = 57% opposed. It doesn't even require new math. 4) Okay 5) No, I'm saying that provided people felt relatively secure the globalists got away with their shenanigans. Once the system fell apart, it was a differnt story. 6) - 7) I've given up on the NDP in general. I wonder if the government can do anything well? Redistribution has been a failure. Our health care system is a mess. Leave people alone. Allow them to keep and spend their own money and most would probably be better off. I used to classify myself as what some would now call "progressive" however I've utterly lost faith in the notion. I'm like a reformed smoker where progressivism is concerned. I think those who like it would be better off to quit.

As a disabled retiree, I can assure you the health care system is a mess, at least here in the GTA. I've been hospitalized in the recent past, spending endless sleepness nights on an emergency room gurney as an "admitted" patient waiting for a bed to become available, and during the wait having to share an often filthy bathroom with dozens of other patients and their visitors. Try brushing your teeth at a sink covered in hair and vomit, as I have had to do. I won't return to hospital unless I'm in a coma. Otherwise, I'll simply decline at home until I reach a state where I can persuade somebody to approve an assisted death. It really is that bad. I sometimes wonder whether the approval of assisted suicide amounts to an admission that the health care system can't and won't be improved.

1) Pot(ate)to, pot(ah)to 2) "Elites" is commonplace terminology. 3) I dislike gratuitous personal insults and have ended discussions on here when people engage in such behavior in the absence of any apparent interest in legitimate debate. By and large, though, I apply the "sticks and stones" principle. 4) Free trade was a major issue in the 1988 general election. The party that won, Mulroney's PCs, imposed free trade (the FTA) on the basis of about 43% of the popular vote. Were it a referendum, the proposition would have lost. As for the current situation, prior to Trump's emergence polling suggested Canadians were equivocal about NAFTA's impact but this changed after Trump's election, no doubt influenced by alarmist media coverage that with few exceptions has presented NAFTA as vital to country's well-being. When the elites and their media acolytes tell people to feel very insecure it's amazing how effective the pitch can be. 5) I don't think you read my commentary closely. According to Zakaria's review, what happened in 2008/09 was a collapse in support for capitalism in most of the major Western economies, leading to a populist reaction against a panoply of capitalist policies and pet projects. Canada, however, was identified as notable exception to the populist reaction to the great recession, but not for the reason(s) progressives would likely assume to be the case. If you're going to summarize a point, please be precise and accurate. 6) I have no clue what you're trying to ask or say here as the point seems nonsensical. Again, please clarify. 7) Okay. 8) The elitist consensus is the commonly held economic and political agenda promoted by the economic elites and their political and media servants. It's a pretty commonly understood concept. Please read Noam Chomsky. His work has been around for quite a while. 9) Progressives constitute a faction on the left and centre-left of the ideological spectrum whose adherents promote and support specific kinds of policies, usually grounded in identity causes and/or redistributive logic. In Canada, they tend to support either the Liberal party or the NDP at the federal level. Party affiliation is less important to them than is policy perspective. In the recent Ontario election progressives shifted their support significantly from the discredited Liberals to the NDP, although they didn't shift it to a sufficient degree to permit the NDP to form government, for which many Ontarians are thankful.

I'm just playing with his Chinese nickname, little potato, but I like your clever alternative interpretation as well. I have long found it difficult to take him seriously although he's now veering into territory that renders him plainly ridiculous.

Maybe his real thought process is such that if you don't agree with his lollipops and unicorns platform and won't support his party you must be evil. Real people understand the real costs of Canada's unrealistic immigration and refugee programs, which are suppressing incomes, increasing housing prices and rents and limiting access to necessary health care. Why worry about letting in more grannies and grandpas who've never paid taxes here or irregular/illegal migrants who get better government-funded health care benefits than do Canadian seniors. Trudeau and his cronies would no doubt get front of the line service if ill and otherwise would likely sneak out of the country for care. They wouldn't be denied access to necessary health care, as I have experienced. I suspect few of them wouldn't spend endless nights sleeping on an emergency room gurney as an admitted patient and be forced to share an often filthy bathroom with dozens of other patients and visitors, as I have done. No, we're just labelled as racists for being upset at having to deal with such indignities after having paid taxes for decades.

Yup, Trudeau's rant today was total nonsense. The issue it raises is whether he has any comprehension of the real world.

Well, our little potato(head) is apparently at it again, essentially appearing to call all Canadians who are critical of his refugee policies racists. As polling suggests a majority disagree with his government's approach on refugees, isn't he really saying that most of us are racists? And in other news today, his government is increasing the number of foreign grandparents it will permit to immigrate to this country, who no doubt will add an additional burden to an already pathetically threadbare health care system. Is Trudeau for real here? Has he lost it and is he trying to force his party to replace him before the next election? The guy has got to be replaced. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-defends-his-reaction-to-heckler-pledges-to-call-out-hate/

I think there's too much focus here on the relationship between religion and fascism. Most religions tend to amount to closed ideologies and where monopolistic religious ideology is combined with state control, religion and fascism are entirely compatible. In a secular state, or even one governed by the philosophy of strict separation of church and state, this cannot happen. Corporate capitalism, a more modern institution, is also entirely compatible with fascism, and more insidiously so. It's been argued that a fascist regime can more efficiently accommodate capitalism than can a democratic one. Trudeau is certainly a fan of the ability of at least one prominent undemocratic regime to efficiently get things done in the absence of the inconvenient need to obtain voter consent. The new globalism of the past three decades seeks to undermine nation-based democratic institutions and replace them with unaccountable corporate-focused institutions. This is the risk we in the West need to focus on. Yes, keep an eye on religion, which can be a corrosive force, but we must pay attention to the institutional risk posed by institutional globalization. Islam is a distraction.

Of course it's just lip service on his part. He does and says what his corporate masters tell him to.

Obviously, you haven't read many of the mainstream media commentaries which have been critical of delays in disclosing substantive information to the public about the Danforth investigation. Christie Blatchford's National Post piece a couple weeks ago quite succinctly summarizes the problem: "And in the Hussain case, where there is much public interest and a sort of imposed chill on the police until the SIU part of the probe is complete, surely the unit could both put a rush on the job or be a little more transparent about the issues, if there are any, that are complicating its task." It should have been a simple task to figure out whether a police bullet killed Mr. Hussain and determine whether the case even properly falls under SIU jurisdiction. The legitimacy of the justice system in any democracy is premised on public confidence in the openness and objectivity of the system. In this we are failing, and the Danforth investigation is a stark illustration of this. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-absence-of-police-answers-on-toronto-danforth-shooting-leaves-rumours-and-nonsense

Wrong! Under the Canadian Constitution, immigration is a shared federal/provincial responsibility. You need not take my word for it, just read the federal government web page linked below, which states: "Under Canada’s Constitution, responsibility for immigration is shared between the federal and provincial/territorial governments." Clearly, Ford has every right to take a stand on immigration and refugee issues. It is his government's legal right to do so. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operational-instructions-agreements/agreements/federal-provincial-territorial.html

I think we should delineate between projects that are funded via public subsidy in comparison with privately funded projects. In the early-to-mid 1990s many social housing complexes that were built in the Toronto region (and maybe elsewhere in Ontario?) were co-ops or similar projects that entailed the establishment of volunteer boards focused on meeting the needs of identifiable target groups. These boards did not as far as I'm aware put up their own money to build these projects. I know of a couple of these in downtown/central Toronto as friends have lived in them, but it's my understanding that neither specifically excludes consideration of members/tenants from outside the specified target groups provided applicants otherwise meet financial eligibility (i.e. subsidy) and/or functional (i.e. disability, age, etc.) criteria. In fact, it's my understanding that they can't discriminate. I suspect it is much more difficult to apply public obligations where privately funded projects are concerned.

A drive-by slur, I suppose?

Undoubtedly, the IRA's objective was to attack institutions on British soil, including in Northern Ireland, that it saw as complicit with or emblematic of British colonial power. It also had a policy of providing prior notice of its attacks in order to limit human carnage.

I tend to agree with this view. Thomas Walkom has written in the Toronto Star about why moving away from the NAFTA regime might not be such a bad thing, after all. We should pursue sectoral agreements and work with major trading partners to reform the WTO regime, which is sorely in need of updating. To me, the most salient aspect of the article you link is where it notes that our current trade policy is focused on "an unreliable American partner" and that reforming NAFTA does little or nothing to ameliorate this weakness. During the free trade debate in the 1980s, my businessman father (who married an American) was highly skeptical of pursuing free trade with the U.S., noting that the country was and always will be an "America-first" society.

The role of the SIU in suppressing details of the investigation into the Danforth shooting is extremely problematic. I cannot think of another democratic jurisdiction where similar suppression would be tolerated. Reportedly, the Danforth gunman killed himself. If this is so, the matter should simply revert to the procedures that govern normal police investigations. Even if the police did kill the suspect, it's been pointed out no real controversy would likely emerge. There is nothing apparent in this case that raises concerns about the legitimacy and/or legality of police action, suggesting that the purpose of suppressing details relates to some other factor or to other factors. In my opinion, the manner in which this whole matter has been handled undermines public confidence in the objectivity of the system. Democracy is not well-served by smoke screens.

4) The economic elites exert enormous control over both our politicians and our media. This is hardly a controversial or even anymore a contentious position. And what do you mean that I'm using "ridiculous" language to describe others? Please provide examples. Self-styled progressives on this forum often derogatorily refer to those who disagree with progressive views as being racists, xenophobes, bigots, and even worse. Have I done this in challenging your views? I hardly think so. As I've said elsewhere, I believe the fatal conceit of progressive thought in this country is to view all opposition to progressive thought as being in some fashion morally compromised. 5) The elites and their political servants inexorably pursue change over time based on their own interests. Complex societies can't be turned on a dime but there's little doubt that starting in the mid-to-late 1980s economic globalization and its associated policy manifestations gained a seemingly intractable foothold in Western societies. This was particularly the case in the Anglo-Western world. The result has been an increase in the influence of the corporate agenda and its priorities and a decline in democratic influence. A reaction has set in throughout much of the Western world, loosely defined as populism, although this hasn't occurred in Canada. P.S. Over the weekend I read a review by Fareed Zakaria in the NY Times, in which he discusses a book ('How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World' by Adam Tooze) that addresses the aftershocks of the 2008/09 recession. Canada is identified as an outlier among major Western countries in avoiding a populist reaction against the major tenets of elitist corporate globalization, including large-scale immigration. But the main reason for this is not what our progressives might imagine, i.e. our open and tolerant policies. Rather, it is the fact that Canada was spared the worst of the recession's impacts, particularly due to its more stable banking sector. This suggests that political complacency was bought and maintained by relative economic stability. If this is the case, it means that our leaders are walking a tightrope where implementing disruptive globalist policies is concerned. If they fail, the consent they've manufactured for their policies (as Chomsky et al. might have it) might quickly evaporate as well. The elitist consensus that dominates among our political, economic and media elites has survived to this point, but can it do so into the future? It's a fascinating question, I think, but one our self-styled progressives seem unwilling to contemplate. So focused on false moralism, they've been co-opted into the service of the corporate agenda, and most likely have no comprehension of this.

1.) Her commentary contains no substantive or objective analysis (i.e. stats, polling results). It simply reflects her ideological views and opinions, which is fine in its own right but doesn't render her comments any more relevant than those of anybody else. And the concluding tweet is undemocratic in both tone and content. In an actual democracy, citizens shouldn't simply defer to their leaders. Rather, they should be skeptical and hold them to account. 2.) What does a park in Winnipeg have to do with anything I've said here? There are hotheads on both sides of the ideological divide. You should also address the attack on the Sir John. A. statue in Montreal and the Toronto Sun photographer who was reportedly assaulted at an "anti-hate" rally in Toronto if you're trying to make an argument about intolerance. Further, I don't believe we know much if anything about those involved in the Winnipeg incident. Is there any proof at this point that it was racially motivated or amounted to anything more than teen vandalism. After the fake hijab attack incident in Toronto earlier this year, we should be skeptical about these things until details are known. You seem anxious to attribute racial discord to events on an 'a priori' rather than evidentiary basis. 3.) That's her opinion. Also, there are many problems with our immigration and refugee systems. A federal government study, which wasn't released to the public but was obtained via an access to information request (see article about the study in link below), illustrates that the rosy view of immigration generally presented by our leaders isn't particularly accurate. 4.) That's your opinion, but the broad CBC-Angus Reid poll on multiculturalism released in 2016 suggests that Bernier's views reflect the concerns of a solid majority of Canadians. You seem to take the view, then, that most Canadians are ignorant bigots. And yet, studies show that Canada is among the most tolerant countries on earth. You don't appear to comprehend that one can be critical of immigration and/or refugee policy without being a bigot, and that, in my opinion, illustrates the fatally undemocratic conceit of "progressive" thought at this point in our history. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canada-struggling-to-absorb-immigrants-internal-report-says

The Washington Post published an interesting piece a few years ago rating the world's countries on their tolerance. Lebanon and India were the two worst, while the Anglo-Western, Scandinavian and several Latin American countries were the most tolerant. Yet, at whom are screams of racism usually directed? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bb24c41d56f7

Do you think posting the views of a single academic proves your case? Academia has become a focal point for ideological bias in non-STEM fields in the West in general and in Canada. The scariest comment in the string in the last, where Ms. Tolley states: "Citizens take their cues from opinion leaders. Don't underestimate the importance of leadership." Isn't this an avowedly elitist perspective? She might as well have said the plebs take their cues from their betters. Revolutions have been fought in the West to overturn this view. We should consider whether real democracy can survive this kind of elitist progressivism.

I'm not sure whether any of the instances you reference entail substantial public funding and/or ongoing public subsidy. Privately funded institutions and projects have greater latitude, presumably within certain limits, to define their client groups, however on principle it seems very problematic to me that publicly funded social housing can be designated for the exclusive use of specific ethnic, racial or religious groups.

1.) Oh my, I've hit a nerve. If you don't believe we're being manipulated you've become desensitized and lost perspective. Occasionally, glimmers of objectivity are permitted to seep through the haze of officially sanctioned messaging - perhaps, if I want to get truly cynical here, to create an aura of objectivity - but not often enough to render our media truly independent. The editorial gist of most news outlets is pretty firmly locked down. We're told what we should and even must believe. We're informed about things the government and elites want us to know. A fairly recent CBC piece demonstrated the degree to which government manipulates information about our immigration program in order to sustain public support (link 1, below) and a piece in a Postmedia news outlet last year exposed the result of a federal government study, which was never publicly released, which illustrated growing concerns about Canada's ability to absorb high levels of immigration (link 2, below). But rosy views still dominate media coverage, in conjunction with government and corporate objectives. Should we be surprised? 2.) Everybody you know holds these values, including workmates? You apparently live in splendid isolation. The media in this country in conjunction with the economic elites and their political servants communicate consensus or "acceptable" positions on issues like immigration and multiculturalism. If you think "everybody" believes the elite perspective, perhaps you didn't see the CBC-Angus Reid poll a couple years ago illustrating the extent of skepticism about the sunny ways view of multiculturalism. (link 3, below) 3.) What "example" are you referencing? Please be more specific. 1. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-public-support-1.4619762 2. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canada-struggling-to-absorb-immigrants-internal-report-says 3. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/poll-canadians-multiculturalism-immigrants-1.3784194

Here in Canada it would fit right in with our tribal multicultural model - except maybe for the Christian part. There was a story in the news a while back where a physically disabled young man and his mother were denied housing in a publicly funded complex in Toronto because they didn't belong to the religious faith that sponsored the project. (Hint, it wasn't Christian.) And public authorities defended the situation. Bizarrely, the situation was justified on grounds that other publicly funded buildings are equally exclusionary, but it would be interesting to see what would happen were these other groups to openly exclude members of minority faiths. I have a good friend (who isn't himself Catholic) who lives in a seniors building that was sponsored by a Catholic group, where the residents represent a panoply of cultures and religions. We in Canada tolerate segregation - on a selective basis.

I watched a news broadcast on a private network the other day where the news anchor seemed equally dismissive of Bernier's comments. A 'tsk, tsk,' tone was clearly prevalent in her presentation of the issue. Canada's mainstream media, with few exceptions, tend to mimic elitist political perspectives. It's a highly concentrated industry that's reflective of what Noam Chomsky and others have characterized as the "propaganda model," which functions to sustain public support for government and corporate agendas in capitalist democracies. We often don't even realize the extent to which our attitudes are being shaped and manipulated.