Zeitgeist

Canada is just the designated resettlement country. Since we now refuse to make any significant military contributions, we make up for it by being the place for migrants from problem places to live: Syrians, Ukrainians, etc. It’s the new race to the bottom on wages and quality of life. It’s good to help people in crisis, but we should be at the decision making table to ensure such crises don’t unfold in the first place. The war in Ukraine was entirely predictable and preventable. Canada isn’t given a seat at the geopolitical decision-making table because our government clearly won’t fight for Canadian interests, so why should they be trusted to fight for the interests of humanity at large? Our leaders worry too much about fluff that doesn’t matter, like gender expression and throwing money at green energy tech that’s insufficient to power a healthy democratic civilization.

The left of which you are clearly a radical member caused most of our inflation: irresponsible overspending, carbon taxes, over-regulation of oil and gas, Biden’s cancellation of Keystone, Trudeau’s new regulations that allowed BC’s communist-green radicals to block energy and resource development through endless consultation… Your side has driven up the cost of living beyond the reach of the workers you pretend to support. It’s just fake green-woke rhetoric and bad policies that won’t fight climate change but will destroy people’s finances, opportunities, and energy security. Under the NDP-Liberals Canada is just a resettlement site run by international puppet-masters where the quality of life is lower and the cost of living is higher than it was several years ago. Alberta is wise to protect its interests against this irresponsible federal government.

I’m not especially concerned about making foreigners civilized or even about which cultural groups are coming, though it does have to be recognized that not all cultures are equally supportive of our democratic and cultural traditions (and that should be considered in immigration policy). I like having many different cultural backgrounds, food, music, etc. in Canada. I’m asking what the value is of substantially adding to our population when we clearly can’t support the current population with our infrastructure and there’s nothing to compel people to move north. Basically everyone is crammed into the narrow band along the US border and Great Lakes. It means we’re paving over scarce arable land and destroying the quality of life for the people who already live here in terms of commute times, home prices, air quality, and general cost of living. If we had an excellent network of convenient, fast commuter rail lines and the population was more evenly distributed between even the near north and south, I would be more supportive. Boosting immigration has become a mindless, reckless attempt to grab future voters by making them feel beholden to the state. All that’s going to come of adding 500,000 immigrants per year is that Greater Toronto and Vancouver will get more expensive and harder to get around. Our ESL educational supports and social services will continue to be stretched and our social cohesion will be challenged as more people without western democratic traditions try to strip women of rights and lead us to more Chinese hive mentality totalitarian styles of managing large masses of people. It likely means more surveillance and top-down dictates to manage the unruly masses. It certainly is a threat to individual rights, especially when we see how rights are compromised when our public health system can’t support the population’s health needs in a public health crisis. The easy to understand and navigate smaller Canada that was laid out in Victorian times is essentially turning into nondescript uniform vertical sprawl and future St. Jamestown ghettos. How is this desirable? I understand that some of this is inevitable and we’ll need some immigration to replace our workers. It certainly makes a mockery of our “climate action plan” if you believe that such plans can make a difference. For years I’ve believe in a graduated citizenship process that has a northern residential requirement for a minimum number of years. It would make neglected communities more viable and create a steady supply of labour for northern resource development and manufacturing. Eventually some of these settlements would take off. Canada doesn’t have a St. Petersburg. Our northernmost major city, Edmonton, isn’t very far north considering Canada’s northern reach. I don’t see much value in building endless walls of condos along the north shore of Lake Ontario or the watershed around Greater Vancouver. It’s fine to build Hong Kong in the Toronto Port Lands and former industrial lands in places like Hamilton but erasing the historic charm and character of countless neighborhoods makes Canada less attractive.

How about genetically modified veggie options?

What about a hormone-induced option with puberty blockers?

It’s sick to have a “natural governing party” as our Liberals are described. I guess other parties are unnatural with “unacceptable views.”

Yes but we have elections, so it’s a democracy…Lol. Hard not to be cynical about “the system” when you see how oppressive it can be. So much compromise, fabrication, and dysfunction. Basically live according go your values and try to make positive change where you can.

It seems the Star desperately wants Poilievre to be as much of a sell-out as their editorial board. I know you and Exflyer want to catch him out as well. Misery loves company. There’s only one federal political option in Canada, the Communist — I mean Liberal — Party of Canada.

I really think at this stage in our development, all government subsidies to media should be dropped along with CanCon rules. The bureaucracy is expensive and unnecessary. Those creators who have entertaining and persuasive products will succeed and those who don’t won’t. Let’s get rid of these gate keepers who decide what has value for public consumption. It’s time to lean out the CRTC.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are those whose denial is so deep that they can’t face facts. So you admit that Trudeau invoked an act but canceled it just before the vote he needed to have go his way in the Senate to approve it. You think that Trudeau suddenly didn’t want the act that just two days prior his entire party supported in the House? Lol

Anyone with half a brain knows that Trudeau scrapped the EA that his party fought so hard to maintain because the Senate was about to vote and it didn’t look like the act would be supported. I do have a good sense of character. Trudeau, Freeland, Lametti, Mendocino, and most of the Cabinet came off looking like power hungry manipulators. It was disgusting actually. I remember people overseas watching Canadian Parliamentary Question Period for the first time. It was clear that a modern western democracy was pushing hard to curtail rights in significant ways. The mandates, EA, freezing of accounts, and vilification of legitimate protesters were unprecedented in Canadian history, really in world history. Comparisons were drawn to protests in Eastern Bloc Europe and even 1930’s Germany. It’s a dark period of our history that will forever be associated with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals for a significant segment of the population. You can downplay it, but, Methinks thou doth protest too much. You must know how opposable your arguments are, yet you persist to fight like the Holy Grail limbless knight. It’s Quixotic.

So you’re saying there was no EA in effect. Ignore facts and get ignored.

You’re so ignorant of facts it’s sad. After he invoked it he had to go to Parliament to extend it. You can say “approve”, but it had already been in place on executive order like a war measure. You’re a fraud.

Then why did Trudeau ask to extend the EA? All that debate and voting on extending the EA only to revoke it two days later just before the Senate vote? It was very clear that the Senate was lining up to depose the EA. Trudeau would have been isolated.

Breaking up the country would allow us to ditch the communist eco-fascists in BC. ?

This is how Canadians justify government overreach and creep towards totalitarianism: Look at how bad it is in China. Canada isn’t China. Lol

You’re such an uncritical apologist for the government. I stand by my opinion that you’re not who you claim to be. Use of the EA was a failure of leadership. Much could’ve been done to de-escalate the situation and resolve the tensions with a fair and reasonable plan to remove the mandates and other measures which should’ve been communicated as extraordinarily and temporary. Many vaccinated people thought that they were unnecessary. More than half the country didn’t vote Liberal or NDP, yet half the country was essentially ignored and treated as lesser beings.

Well in order to discuss things like facts, truth, and well-informed opinion, one has to believe that such things exist and are attainable. One must also believe it’s possible to establish a critical distance from one’s cultural influences. That last point is tricky. We’re all products of environment and genetics. Even those factors can influence each other. Political point of view is shaped by our ethics, experience, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, so many things. It’s hard to know what drives us. It always has been, but in the Information Age so much is about how our thoughts are shaped by ideas and persuasion. The state and media can influence us a great deal.

Wow you’re out to lunch. Trudeau revoked it only because he knew the Senate looked like it would vote against it. He was trying to assert more power and authority. Moves like the freezing of bank accounts were unprecedented in a democracy. Freeland gloried in it.

That’s the truth of the matter. It’s one thing for Canada to consistently take the left-wing socialist policy menu, but we can’t even do that right. Where are the high speed trains? Where is our value-add high tech manufacturing? Where is the quality of life that we claim is better than the Americans have? People here have to work in second and third jobs to be able to afford a home. That home is getting smaller. Our transportation, food, and energy costs are rising fast. Our infrastructure is aging and insufficient to meet the needs of our major cities. The southern edge of Canada feels as packed as Belgium and we’re developing over our best land, yet when we intensify our growth in narrow corridors we get vertical sprawl. The growth has to happen in the north, but who wants to move to colder areas where it’s getting harder to develop our resources? It feels very much like Canada is relying on its past glories to attract immigrants for no clear reason. What will adding millions of immigrants do to improve living conditions? Is it just about filling jobs after people retire? There’s no vision driving our policies and what kind of country we want to have. There’s no discussion about goals. Where’s the beauty, joy, opportunity, creativity? If anything we are more divided and have less confidence in the value of Canada as a nation-state, because the federal government seems only to favour certain Canadians and certain provinces. Any moves to take advantage of our strengths are usually portrayed as anti-environment or colonialist. Our federal government has failed to represent national interests and all Canadians, in my opinion, but of course half the country supports this government. This period feels like stagnation or even regression.

Trudeau is destroying Canada in unprecedented ways and I can’t believe that you don’t see what a divisive, anti-democratic, naive, and grossly unqualified phoney he is. You’re not alone in your obliviousness, however, which explains why Canada is in so much trouble. I participated a bit with the local riding Conservatives and met the candidate who lost in the last election. I saw the candidates for leadership of the Conservatives speak and was impressed by Poilievre. He was smart and effective, so I don’t know if he has much chance in our radical left unconstitutional cultural context.

It’s the same tax and spend slush fund by another name. It will have no impact on the advertised cause, “fighting climate change”, but it will give government more money to fund its unaccountable projects. It’s called government overreach. It’s wasteful, expensive, ineffectual central planning that makes us all poorer. There’s nothing we can do about it except hope that sense returns to public sentiment in the next election despite the constant fear mongering and vilification of political opposition by government and state-funded media. I wish I believed our situation could improve substantially, but too much disappointment for too long has pushed me to look outside Canada for greener pastures.

Well we care. Some minds change sometimes, even if people don’t always want to admit that their minds have changed. My main point is that the big reductions to greenhouse gas emissions will accelerate over time and have some leaps. Inflicting pain on ourselves now won’t change the outcome for climate change. In fact, making people poorer today makes climate change worse because less educated people have bigger families generally. The world will be so vastly different technologically centuries from now that it’s beyond the horizon of predictability. I have the distinct impression that we will be looked at as the suckers who nearly destroyed themselves fighting various non-crises, believing in unscientific oddities like 58 genders, and promoting people to positions of power and authority based on superficial reasons rather than merit. We will be seen as a darker age.

Exactly

The best way to reduce climate change today is to lower the cost of living so that populations become more educated, improving technology and lowering population (as educated people generally have fewer kids). With regard to Covid, people must be free, period. China has a lower Covid death rate and is an oppressive nightmare. We locked down primarily to protect our failed healthcare system. That’s why poor infrastructure (healthcare, long term care, etc.) and high costs (on energy, etc) actually make you less free. People should be free to make medical decisions for themselves and risk a shorter life if a better life is more important to them. This is about our way of life. Freedom has tremendous value, as evidenced by the millions of immigrants who seek it.