Polievre delivers fantastic Canada first speech this flag day, lays out much policy

[CdnFox]

 

I clipped this to where his wife starts to speak and then he comes on.   This was PP's speech at his Canada First  rally for Flag day (yes, today is flag day)

For those who claim he doesn't talk policy, here you go. 

That was a fantastic and empowering speech, it's very similar to many of of his others but a few new announcements, just a solid performance.  Carney is not going to stand a chance against this guy. And these are the policies we need to get Canada back on track

[BeaverFever]

 

Why Canada’s Oil Sands Aren’t Coming Back

 

I used to be an oil executive. Here’s how market forces, not politics, killed the oil boom—and why new pipelines won’t save the country.

By Ross Belot

 

…Canada’s first oil sands boom was triggered by geopolitics: in 1973, OPEC imposed an oil embargo, creating an artificial shortage that ended decades of crude prices below $4 per barrel.

…Two decades later, in the mid-2000s, an oil sands boom formed again, born from a perfect storm: declining production in traditional oil regions, like the U.K.’s North Sea and the U.S., and China’s skyrocketing demand. The price of crude rose from $13 per barrel in 1998 to over $140 per barrel by mid-2008. The world turned to Alberta’s oil sands once again. Hundreds of billions of dollars flowed into Alberta. 

But exploiting the oil sands was not an optimal way to meet global demand: producing and refining oil sands crude is capital-intensive, energy-intensive and requires navigating harsh conditions and long distances to market. The crude’s poor quality requires high-cost specialized equipment to refine. It was a last resort—difficult, expensive and dirty, but technologically accessible. For example, the 300,000 barrels per day Imperial Oil Kearl Lake project took over $20 billion to build. It also required a pipeline built by Inter Pipeline for $1.4 billion to bring diluent in from Edmonton, and another billion-dollar pipeline built by Enbridge to bring the diluted bitumen to Edmonton. That was all needed before any of that crude left Alberta. 

Meanwhile, horizontal drilling and fracking—a technology that had been inefficient at lower crude prices—began unlocking vast reserves in places like North Dakota’s Bakken and Texas’s Permian Basin. Unlike the billion-dollar requirements of oil sands projects, there is a much lower barrier to entry for fracking: a typical 500-barrel-per-day well would cost only $5 to $10 million to build. The oil flows and refines easily, without the complexities involved with bitumen. Fracked wells produce most of their oil within three years, making them far less susceptible to market changes. 

…The lack of investment in Alberta wasn’t and isn’t because of the government, insufficient pipelines or overregulation. It’s because U.S. fracking is inherently more economic, higher-quality and less financially risky than the oil sands.

The near-term outlook for reviving oil sands is bleak. Gasoline demand has peaked in major markets like the U.S. and China. The International Energy Agency predicts global peak oil demand in the next few years. They’ve also flagged a huge oversupply of crude oil from new global production over the next five years.

The longer-term outlook for crude demand gets even worse as the world goes off fossil fuels to fight climate change. In a scenario where the world successfully fights climate change, the Canadian Energy Regulator predicts the country’s crude production will fall 75 per cent by 2050—not due to Canadian impediments, but purely the lower global demand for crude.

…

When I retired, fracking had already killed interest in major new oil sands investments in Canada. I began writing op-eds to help change the conversation around pipelines and oil sands. In one of my earliest articles in 2016, I explained why Energy East was no longer viable. Yet, here we are in 2025, with Poilievre still promising to revive Energy East and telling people that the lack of pipelines and refineries are the problem. 

As far as Poilievre’s proposals, large-scale oil sands investments aren’t coming back and production will decline no matter what Canada does. The country’s oil sands boom arose out of a time of tight supply, growing demand and limited options. Today’s reality is the opposite of that time. Once we accept this truth, we can focus on preparing this country for the futureinstead of wasting time trying to resurrect a past that has no place in today’s world.

So, when our natural resources minister suggests a pipeline as the solution to U.S. tariffs, we should think twice. Tariffs on Canadian crude are likely temporary, mostly paid by American consumers, and can be partially offset by exporting out of the U.S. Gulf Coast using existing pipelines. The real question is: who would spend tens of billions of dollars on an uncertain, uneconomic business case for a product with poor long-term prospects? Hopefully not Canada. Trump’s tariffs aren’t going to kill investment in new oil sands plants. Fracking already did that.

 

…

 

https://macleans.ca/economy/why-canadas-oil-sands-arent-coming-back/

 

Edited February 16 by BeaverFever

[BeaverFever]

9 hours ago, CdnFox said:

 

I clipped this to where his wife starts to speak and then he comes on.   This was PP's speech at his Canada First  rally for Flag day (yes, today is flag day)

For those who claim he doesn't talk policy, here you go. 

That was a fantastic and empowering speech, it's very similar to many of of his others but a few new announcements, just a solid performance.  Carney is not going to stand a chance against this guy. And these are the policies we need to get Canada back on track

My take on his speech is that he (mostly) said  the right things in terms of how to deal with Trump, pipelines notwithstanding.
 

He has a point about treating Liberals’ sudden policy reversals on topics such as defence with healthy skepticism given their track record and we should openly question how quickly they would abandon these principles as soon as circumstances appear to change. But by that same note Canadians have healthy skepticism about Conservatives standing up to the USA, especially Republicans, given their track record of sucking up to Americans and allying with Republicans. It was Poillievre’s party and it’s Reform-Alliance predecessor who among other things at various times advocated for increased US integration, adopting the US dollar, adopting the US healthcare system, adopting USA’s lax standards for food safety, consumer protections, pesticide use, merging the Canadian Forces into the US military and so on. It was Stephen Harper himself  who protested Chretien’s obviously correct and decision to not join W Bush’s illegal and obviously fraudulent invasion of Iraq. Harper didn’t even try to dispute the very obvious fact that the  purported justifications for the war were clearly false, he simply said it’s Canada’s duty to fight any war America tells us to and to jump whenever USA tells us to jump. Harper even went so far as to pen an op-ed in the wall st journal condemning Canada’s very correct decision to avoid the war begging Americans for forgiveness. It’s great that Harper has now come out to say if PM today he would sooner “impoverish the country”  than bow down to USA  but it’s an 11th hour conversion. 
 

And for a flag day speech celebrating Canadian identity it’s worth remembering that historically the conservatives opposed a Canadian flag and having any identity separate from the UK

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

But by that same note Canadians have healthy skepticism about Conservatives standing up to the USA, especially Republicans, given their track record of sucking up to Americans and allying with Republicans. It was Poillievre’s party and it’s Reform-Alliance predecessor who among other things at various times advocated for increased US integration, adopting the US dollar, adopting the US healthcare system, adopting USA’s lax standards for food safety, consumer protections, pesticide use, merging the Canadian Forces into the US military and so on. opposed a Canadian flag and having any identity separate from the UK

I think you're pretty grossly overstating that and many of those were in fact democrat policies. It is often been joked for example that canada's conservatives are basically America's Democrats, although that's probably slightly less true these days as the democrats have taken a hard turn to the left.

And going back to reform alliances a little silly. That would be like saying that liberal policies and NDP policies are exactly the same because the NDP supported the liberals.

The conservatives have often liked many of the ideas that the republicans also like, they prefer less control over firearms, they prefer supposedly lower taxation although to be honest looking at the deficits in recent years they probably differ a great deal on financial policy in that regard these days. But that is not the same thing in the slightest as having close ties with republicans.

When it comes to America harper negotiated vastly superior free trade in lumber deals, to go on the other hand actually got us a week or deal. Mulroney got us a spankingly great free trade deal against Ronald Reagan. A deal that was so good that despite running on canceling it the liberals under cretchen actually kept it in place without change.

I think you would have a hard time actually pointing at policy for any of the conservative governments in the last 30 years that showed any favoritism at all with the republicans.

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

Harper even went so far as to pen an op-ed in the wall st journal condemning Canada’s very correct decision to avoid the war begging Americans for forgiveness.

Sure. Americans went to war and a lot of Canadians felt we should have been beside them as we always have been. Harper was wrong and the liberals called that one correctly, but again you would have a tough time showing that that was because it was a republican in power. Conservatives have been just as eager to go and just as supportive when democrats were the ones starting the wars.

I think you're conflating I believe that some of the American ideals are good and worth considering with some sort of connection with the republican party. I think that they just think those ideas are good and it has nothing to do with the party that came up with them. Like Poilievre said, it doesn't matter what trump says we should be dealing with our fentanyl problem because we should be dealing with our fentanyl problem for our own sake. He's not siding with trump. He's just saying the guy's got a valid point and we've got a real problem and we should be dealing with it

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

My take on his speech is that he (mostly) said  the right things in terms of how to deal with Trump, pipelines notwithstanding.
 

He has a point about treating Liberals’ sudden policy reversals on topics such as defence with healthy skepticism given their track record and we should openly question how quickly they would abandon these principles as soon as circumstances appear to change. But by that same note Canadians have healthy skepticism about Conservatives standing up to the USA, especially Republicans, given their track record of sucking up to Americans and allying with Republicans. It was Poillievre’s party and it’s Reform-Alliance predecessor who among other things at various times advocated for increased US integration, adopting the US dollar, adopting the US healthcare system, adopting USA’s lax standards for food safety, consumer protections, pesticide use, merging the Canadian Forces into the US military and so on. It was Stephen Harper himself  who protested Chretien’s obviously correct and decision to not join W Bush’s illegal and obviously fraudulent invasion of Iraq. Harper didn’t even try to dispute the very obvious fact that the  purported justifications for the war were clearly false, he simply said it’s Canada’s duty to fight any war America tells us to and to jump whenever USA tells us to jump. Harper even went so far as to pen an op-ed in the wall st journal condemning Canada’s very correct decision to avoid the war begging Americans for forgiveness. It’s great that Harper has now come out to say if PM today he would sooner “impoverish the country”  than bow down to USA  but it’s an 11th hour conversion. 
 

And for a flag day speech celebrating Canadian identity it’s worth remembering that historically the conservatives opposed a Canadian flag and having any identity separate from the UK

In respect of your honest and fair evaluation I will point out a couple things I didn't like.

I felt that his focus on John a McDonald, which is a little new whereas most of the rest of his stuff he said before, is a little misguided. While I absolutely do believe that John a should be held up as a hero and the father of confederation that he is, and while I also agree that it shouldn't be lawful to tear down statues or public works, I feel it could be divisive to make that a front and center issue and I have serious qualms about passing laws to jail people rather than some form of other punishment for tearing down a statue in protest. Trudeau is the most divisive prime minister we've ever had and we need very much for the next prime minister to be looking at how he can bring all people together.

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

20 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Sure. Americans went to war and a lot of Canadians felt we should have been beside them as we always have been. Harper was wrong and the liberals called that one correctly, but again you would have a tough time showing that that was because it was a republican in power.

A lot of Canadians? On a personal basis, beyond the National Post, I encountered very few interested in joining America in Iraq and that number dwindled to nothing pretty darn quick. Chrétien showed excellent judgement there. Blair’s decision to send troops ruined his reputation among Labour voters in Britain. 

[Army Guy]

4 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

My take on his speech is that he (mostly) said  the right things in terms of how to deal with Trump, pipelines notwithstanding.
 

He has a point about treating Liberals’ sudden policy reversals on topics such as defence with healthy skepticism given their track record and we should openly question how quickly they would abandon these principles as soon as circumstances appear to change. But by that same note Canadians have healthy skepticism about Conservatives standing up to the USA, especially Republicans, given their track record of sucking up to Americans and allying with Republicans. It was Poillievre’s party and it’s Reform-Alliance predecessor who among other things at various times advocated for increased US integration, adopting the US dollar, adopting the US healthcare system, adopting USA’s lax standards for food safety, consumer protections, pesticide use, merging the Canadian Forces into the US military and so on. It was Stephen Harper himself  who protested Chretien’s obviously correct and decision to not join W Bush’s illegal and obviously fraudulent invasion of Iraq. Harper didn’t even try to dispute the very obvious fact that the  purported justifications for the war were clearly false, he simply said it’s Canada’s duty to fight any war America tells us to and to jump whenever USA tells us to jump. Harper even went so far as to pen an op-ed in the wall st journal condemning Canada’s very correct decision to avoid the war begging Americans for forgiveness. It’s great that Harper has now come out to say if PM today he would sooner “impoverish the country”  than bow down to USA  but it’s an 11th hour conversion. 
 

And for a flag day speech celebrating Canadian identity it’s worth remembering that historically the conservatives opposed a Canadian flag and having any identity separate from the UK

Does it have to be just about tfacts the liberals have suddenly did a 180 on, things like the Carbon taxes, for no other reason as they are unpopular with canadians, whatever happened to it is a climate crises, we are doing it for the planet all of that got chucked out the window because it was unpopular with Canadians, so climate crises is more about getting votes than it is the saving of planet......

Pipelines another major 180, and i get it you're the expert, but what about pipelines for LNG the next step in fossil fuels replacement...Liberals waged war with pipelines and gas exploration to ensure getting more fossil fuels out of the ground would be next to impossible, along with extraction of any of our resources...and while there may not be a demand for Bitumen today, it will takes years to build this pipeline , creating jobs and saving atlantic Canada from giving it;'s money to foreign oil producers who's human rights policies are far from ours...again more jobs and more money staying in Canada...not to mention being less dependant on the US refiners

But enough about those glaring problems what about the rest of the issues, like housing, the under funding of almost every federal department, the glut of federal employees who entitled views now demand to work from home...CBC demanding more federal tax dollars to give to their Execs....Canada post who can not seem to profit or stay competitive, the gross Over spending that has lead to increase inflation, the budget will balance itself...our international reputation has been damaged to the point where our allies think of us as unreliable allieds....

The liberal party is not offering up much in the way of new policies, in fact they are stealing most from the conservatives...which leads me to think Carney is nothing more than a new leader a new face on the same suit, same policies, same liberals that everyone once thought were garbage....how quickly we Canadians are fooled....

I have not heard of any Conservative polices of today threatening to bring in any US current policies...in fact i hear the exact opposite that canada is not for sale we will fight to the end even if it breaks us....Sounds like a guy who means business, and is not talking about taking any us policies and making them our own...

Ah yes the liberals crown jewel " We did not take part in the gulf war" which is a huge lie, we had Canadians soldiers in both Gulf war, sailors in the gulf on armed ships F-18 providing CAP, ground forces a mobile hospital, along with Infantry to guard them...General Hillier was second in command of a US division...we may have not played a huge role but we were there....It was not a feather in Canada' hat, it was a disappointment that when a close allie need our help and support we had said no to the media and yet had sent or given permissions for Canadians to go into battle with US forces...and give up military forces to participate in closely related missions like patrolling the gulf, and providing air combat cover...

Judging PP on past bosses he has had is a little bit unfair, kind of like me judging all liberal MP's for all Justin's mistakes i mean lets be clear Mark Carney has been advising justin for several years now, can we hold him accountable for that.

 

Edited February 16 by Army Guy

[Queenmandy85]

Mr. Poilievre's comment, "I'm not aware of any other genders than man and woman," nailed it for me. With a view that abysmal, even if he could magically eliminate all greenhouse emissions, I would never vote for a candidate with those biggoted views. That is unfortunate, because my MP is an excelent Member, inspite of being in Poilievre's social credit caucus. I was planning to hold my nose and vote for him, even after having lived under Bennett's bastards for 20 years and then again when his spawn was appointed Premier of BC. 

3 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

And for a flag day speech celebrating Canadian identity it’s worth remembering that historically the conservatives opposed a Canadian flag and having any identity separate from the UK

To be sure, but we were Conservatives. CPC is not that party. It is not my Party. On Feb. 15, 1965, they lowered the Canadian Red Ensign for the last time and I wore a black armband to school. John Diefenbaker sacrificed his political career to stand up for the 40% of us who supported the Canadian Flag (The Red Ensign) adopted on Sept. 15, 1945 as Canada's official national flag. (My great uncle, God rest his soul, designed the Pearson Pennent, but I love him anyway).

I came around eventually.

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

A lot of Canadians? On a personal basis, beyond the National Post, I encountered very few interested in joining America in Iraq and that number dwindled to nothing pretty darn quick.

There were tons. Had it been up to the western provinces we would have been there for sure.

Quote

Chrétien showed excellent judgement there. Blair’s decision to send troops ruined his reputation among Labour voters in Britain. 

I don't know how good is judgment was, but at the end of the day he was right and you have to call  a spade a spade. Many people believed the Americans when they said there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction and that turned out to be wrong.

One of the primary differences between the right and the left is I'm perfectly capable of admitting when the right makes a bad decision. That is not something the left is ever capable of doing, even when it is so obvious and so painful that even a child can see it.

But again you have utterly failed to present any evidence that this is due to some sort of tie between the conservative party and the republicans. Which was supposedly your point.

So what you appear to be saying is that you have realized you were wrong and you were foolish to even say it but you are going to try and dance around that by changing the subject to something where you were correct. I get why you'd want to do that but it still makes you look childish

Edited February 16 by CdnFox

[CdnFox]

55 minutes ago, Queenmandy85 said:

Mr. Poilievre's comment, "I'm not aware of any other genders than man and woman," nailed it for me. With a view that abysmal, even if he could magically eliminate all greenhouse emissions, I would never vote for a candidate with those biggoted views.

 

What a liar you are. You are absolutely adamantly opposed to him back when he was running for the leadership and would never have voted for him under any circumstances regardless. Your mindless liberal drone, you're not voting for anybody but them. You devoted for Trudeau again if he was running. You're a bad Canadian as far as your duty is a citizen goes and you don't care about the right choice for Canada you only care about supporting your tribal team.

Pretending you were really on the fence there and couldn't decide BUT... then he said THAT and....  give me a break   LOLOL. 

Meanwhile Trudeau is pocketing taxpayer dollars and saying anyone who has concerns about the vaccine is  a bigoted women hater and you're like "give me more of that guy!" LOL!

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

One of the primary differences between the right and the left is I'm perfectly capable of admitting when the right makes a bad decision. That is not something the left is ever capable of doing, even when it is so obvious and so painful that even a child can see it.

Actually, I am willing to admit errors. I was wrong about Russia. I thought it was on the road to reform and peace. Romney was right and Obama was wrong there. 

 

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

But again you have utterly failed to present any evidence that this is due to some sort of tie between the conservative party and the republicans. Which was supposedly your point.

So what you appear to be saying is that you have realized you were wrong and you were foolish to even say it but you are going to try and dance around that by changing the subject to something where you were correct. I get why you'd want to do that but it still makes you look childish

I don’t know where you get any of that from. I would regard myself as a centrist and a pragmatist. 

Edited February 16 by SpankyMcFarland

[Queenmandy85]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

What a liar you are. You are absolutely adamantly opposed to him back when he was running for the leadership and would never have voted for him under any circumstances regardless.

You have been misinformed. I supported a Conservative in the leadership campaign, Jean Charest. I did not support the social credit candidate, Pierre Poilievre. 

Politics is a sport. Your party affiliation is your team. We play hard, but like any sport, it is not whether you win or lose, it is how you play the game. I would never cheer for Mooky Betts, but I respect him as a player. My teams are important to me, whether it is the Blue Jays or the Progressive Conservative Party, but win or lose, we shake hands after the election or the game. Unfortunately, my  political team has been down graded to the minors, ala Doug Ford. If Ford was willing to run federally, I would vote for the candidate from his party in a heart beat.

Mr.Poilievre will be appointed Prime Minister after the next election handily without my help. What will happen then is he will govern along the same lines as the previous government because he has spent his life desperately wanting the job, he is not about to jeapordize his re-election by jumping the guardrails. He will follow the guidence of his coaches (the courts and the senior public servants) or he his contract won't be renewed.

Mr. Poilievre's ill informed threat about gender was nasty. Those kinds of remarks are inappropriate in any sport.

Edited February 16 by Queenmandy85

[eyeball]

4 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Conservatives have been just as eager to go and just as supportive when democrats were the ones starting the wars.

Yeah, I guess they didn't think the joke was funny.

7 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

But by that same note Canadians have healthy skepticism about Conservatives standing up to the USA, especially Republicans, given their track record of sucking up to Americans and allying with Republicans.

And this is precisely the reason I refuse to support spending on defense...there's just too much of a chance it'll go towards joining America on some rampage.

[eyeball]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Many people believed the Americans when they said there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction and that turned out to be wrong.

Sure many believed the evidence, I mean they even had real comic books and everything.

They've been huffing conspiracy gas for decades down there.

[eyeball]

The Canada First thing completely eschews a cooperative collaborative approach the world needs more than ever - nationalism is the last thing it needs...take America for example.

In any case I think what PP really means is the Right First, which also seems to be another one of Trump's foreign policy objectives given the hard-boiled crew he likes running with.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Actually, I am willing to admit errors. I was wrong about Russia. I thought it was on the road to reform and peace. Romney was right and Obama was wrong there. 

Yeah I don't recall you mentioning that but sure whatever

 

Quote

I don’t know where you get any of that from. I would regard myself as a centrist and a pragmatist. 

Actually truth be told I confused you and beaver. The points you were responding to were a conversation I was having with Beaver. Beaver made the point that the reason for conservatives doing these things was because of close ties with the republican party. I pointed out that they did these things and clearly it's not because of ties to the republican party and you jumped in the middle of that and I forgot who made the original comment.

Although in fairness if you're going to jump in the middle of a conversation like that you really need to address the original comment as well and you didn't.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, Queenmandy85 said:

You have been misinformed. I supported a Conservative in the leadership campaign, Jean Charest. I did not support the social credit candidate, Pierre Poilievre. 

If you supported jean charest, That I was informed correctly and you are a liberal. There is no such thing as a social credit candidate, and just so you're aware because you are obviously uneducated to the extreme in politics the social credit party actually was a left-wing borderline communist party in its inception

Quote

Politics is a sport.

Only to illiterate retarded people with IQs that rivel a slugs.

Quote

Your party affiliation is your team.

No, Canada is your team. Canada is who you are supposed to be loyal to. Canada is what is supposed to matter above all others.

When conservatives realize their party had become corrupt they destroyed it because Canada deserves better than a corrupt party. They rebuilt from scratch through a painful process and now have something they can be proud of.

But to liberals all that matters is winning the game I guess. You don't give a shit about the suffering that your party is causing. You don't give a crap about the damage being done to Canada. You haven't got a patriotic bone in your body except when you feel you can use it to exploit things.

You are basically a crap person. You make trump look good, you have no interest in any of the values that you claim to and how you're trying to sell us the idea that oh I almost voted for pp but oh then he said this one thing.... And it's a thing that you don't even have beliefs in. You don't care about that you're all about the bigotry and hatred.

But at least you admit it now so I suppose that's nice 🙄

[SpankyMcFarland]

Dear Reader, I watched the whole speech, around an hour, so that you don’t have to. It wasn’t bad. Obviously it wasn’t meant for me. Let’s say I’m a Habs fan here trying to offer advice to the Leafs. Tricky.

I’d give it 7/10.

Pros:

Good joke about the wife. Self-deprecation is always a safe way to warm the crowd up esp. as he often comes across as fairly cocky. 

Delivery. Accomplished, as usual, fluent and with good cadence. A few flubs esp. in French.

Decent start about the trade war and Canada’s history with a Kennedyesque moment about burdens and prices made for a TV clip: “We will never be the 51st state. We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country”.

“Help is on the way.” Mrs. Doubtfire said something similar: help is on the way dear. 

Nice story about the Dubé family he stayed with as a boy in Quebec. Should have had more of that. His likeability is a vulnerability he should be working on. 

Restoring in-person citizenship ceremonies. I can’t imagine anybody openly opposing that. 
 

Cons:

Length. The Gettysburg Address is celebrated partly because of its merciful brevity. Now I know every federal political speech is greatly lengthened by bilingualism but my butt doesn't know that. I would have preferred less on the policy front today and fewer points overall. 

Tone. This isn’t 2024. We’re in a sudden national crisis and people expect politicians to work together. He’s still ahead because many voters beyond the core Tory base have decided to give him a chance but there is still a question mark over whether he is too Trumpy or divisive to bring the country together at this perilous time. This exact speech would have been better last year or after the election is called. Realistically, the base voters have nowhere to go. It’s the new voters he must work to keep. 

Armed forces. Not exactly a mistake, just hard to believe given the enormous task ahead. I’ve been hearing big talk on the issue since I came to this country - and usually before elections, just like this. A mention of Goose Bay caught my attention there. We’ll see.

Edited February 17 by SpankyMcFarland

[CdnFox]

31 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Dear Reader, I watched the whole speech, around an hour, so that you don’t have to. It wasn’t bad. Obviously it wasn’t meant for me. Let’s say I’m a Habs fan here trying to offer advice to the Leafs. Tricky.

I’d give it 7/10.

Pros:

Good joke about the wife. Self-deprecation is always a safe way to warm the crowd up esp. as he often comes across as fairly cocky. 

Delivery. Accomplished, as usual, fluent and with good cadence. A few flubs esp. in French.

Decent start about the trade war and Canada’s history with a Kennedyesque moment about burdens and prices made for a TV clip: “We will never be the 51st state. We will bear any burden and pay any price to protect the sovereignty and independence of our country”.

“Help is on the way.” Mrs. Doubtfire said something similar: help is on the way dear. 

Nice story about the Dubé family he stayed with as a boy in Quebec. Should have had more of that. His likeability is a vulnerability he should be working on. 

Restoring in-person citizenship ceremonies. I can’t imagine anybody openly opposing that. 
 

Cons:

Length. The Gettysburg Address is celebrated partly because of its merciful brevity. Now I know every federal political speech is greatly lengthened by bilingualism but my butt doesn't know that. I would have preferred less on the policy front today and fewer points overall. 

Tone. This isn’t 2024. We’re in a sudden national crisis and people expect politicians to work together. He’s still ahead because many voters beyond the core Tory base have decided to give him a chance but there is still a question mark over whether he is too Trumpy or divisive to bring the country together at this perilous time. This exact speech would have been better last year or after the election is called. Realistically, the base voters have nowhere to go. It’s the new voters he must work to keep. 

Armed forces. Not exactly a mistake, just hard to believe given the enormous task ahead. I’ve been hearing big talk on the issue since I came to this country - and usually before elections, just like this. A mention of Goose Bay caught my attention there. We’ll see.

Good breakdown - pro tip, watch the recording after and you can skip the french (or skip the english if you swing that way instead) and save yourself about half the time  

[Queenmandy85]

I have given Prime Minister Trudeau credit for the good things he has done such as the new NAFTA deal and the response to the deadly Covid pandemic. 

Mr. Poilievre deserves credit for the one time he spoke about the primary value of Canadian Conservatives. On September 15, 2022, he gave a moving speech in tribute to our late Queen. I would urge him to do more to build on that Conservative raison d'être by becoming more of a Conservative activist to restore the central role of the King in our government. 

While Canada 338 polls show the grits have jumped 61 seats and the CPC has dropped 46 seats in the last month, we can still be confident Mr. Poilievre will be appointed Prime Minister by summer.

[Queenmandy85]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

I almost voted for pp but oh then he said this one thing....

Homophobia and transphobia are a big thing. You are treading on that road described by Martin Niemoller.

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me."

 

Edited February 17 by Queenmandy85

[CdnFox]

1 minute ago, Queenmandy85 said:

I have given Prime Minister Trudeau credit for the good things he has done such as the new NAFTA deal and the response to the deadly Covid pandemic. 

Mr. Poilievre deserves credit for the one time he spoke about the primary value of Canadian Conservatives. On September 15, 2022, he gave a moving speech in tribute to our late Queen. I would urge him to do more to build on that Conservative raison d'être by becoming more of a Conservative activist to restore the central role of the King in our government. 

While Canada 338 polls show the grits have jumped 61 seats and the CPC has dropped 46 seats in the last month, we can still be confident Mr. Poilievre will be appointed Prime Minister by summer.

Trudeau screwed up both of the things you mentioned. He returned with a worse NAFTA deal than we had before and his pandemic response was horrid. He wound up causing us to get vaccines far later than we should have. The good work done on the covid front was done by the premiers

As to summer, I think this is going to go one of two ways and I'm still not sure which.

The fact is the polling that you're seeing is not nearly as rosy as the reality. So carney is going to have a challenging choice to make. He can either go short or go long. He can walk out of his acceptance speech for the liberal leadership and straight into the Gg's house and call an election, Or he can point out to the NDP that they're like 12 in the polls right now and find a way to work a deal with them and extend the election date one way or another to the constitutional maximum of fall 2026 claiming that addressing trump is an emergency that requires a response and this is no time for an election.

The advantage to going short is that he might still get the last dying Embers of that leadership bump and that may help him out. The advantage of going long is that he would be able to establish that he is completely different than Trudeau and really get his name out there while at the same time not only money into his private coffers which is what his goal is in the first place per year and a half and establishing connections that he will use for his trade later

It will likely depend on the polling he sees and a little bit on the polling the ndp sees. But right now I'd say it could go 50/50 so we may have a new leader by summer or we may very well not

[eyeball]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

When conservatives realize their party had become corrupt they destroyed it because Canada deserves better than a corrupt party. They rebuilt from scratch through a painful process and now have something they can be proud of.

What corrupt conservative party? There's been a few now. If you mean the same one that spawned Poilievre then wtf are you babbling about? Proud of what?

[CdnFox]

Just now, Queenmandy85 said:

Homophobia and transphobia are a big thing. You are treading on that road described by Martin Niemoller.

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me."

What a complete load of crap. 95% of the leftists here express homophobic and transphobic statemens all the time, i haven't' seen you call a single one out. 

Nor is it homophobic in the slightest to say there's only two genders. It's not really even transphobic. And did you notice that when he said please educate me on which other ones there were the reporter couldn't offer a single example.

It's fair to say that gender is a spectrum and people slide back and forth between male and female on that spectrum and always have, and maybe a different points for different things. But there's just two genders and that has absolutely nothing to do with transgenderism which literally means to cross genders

If Trudeau said something similar do you still vote for him because he's on your "Team" As you put it and you don't give a flying F about transsexuals or Canada or anything else you just want your team to win

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, eyeball said:

What corrupt conservative party?

So you spent the day being stupid and you've decided that maybe if you play stupid it'll look better when you actually are stupid later   

In fairness it could be a few. The social credit party of British Columbia was destroyed over corruption. But I was of course referring to the federal pC party which was reduced to I believe two seats. They no longer exist.

The CPC is a party to be very proud of. They're big scandals of the day where that one of their ministers had a $14 glass of orange juice and they tried to force a senator to pay back money to the taxpayers. Some of the liberal scandals under the last three liberal prime ministers, and really Paul Martin doesn't deserve to be in there.

I know these are tough times for you. The liberal party is disgusting and it's supporters are disgusting and there is zero to be proud of. The NDP is really no better at this point. I can only imagine the utter shame you on the left must feel looking at your circumstances and what you've done