I would refer you to my other comment made.

I don’t see a comment that speaks to numbers. You said they are “banning guns outright”. If you mean “banning SOME guns outright”, then it would be correct, but of course almost everyone thinks some guns should be banned outright. But not all guns are banned outright, you can still own and buy guns.

Please show me a poll showing that 25% of Canadians are single issue gun voters. (I know gun owning families (avid hunters) who had no problem voting for a Liberal PM.)

You are spreading disinformation, because it is not true that guns are banned “outright”. Specific classes of firearms are.

But How many more votes are really at stake thru your (apparently) favored pet issue? How many Canadians who would consider voting lib do you really think are single issue gun voters?

Oh damn. I’m sorry to hear that. Wishing them the best recovery possible and a manageable transition into the new norm.

True. Also could be they lower the price point due to lack of demand, and that pulls in folks who otherwise wouldn’t have traveled to compensate somewhat. But they probably also have less money to spend and would do shorter trips…

I hope Europe and Asia get the message…

Bonus also is you are not creating value that is directly fueling the unfolding nightmare there.

A bit tangential, but I’ve been reading (listening) to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Unfreedom – it’s helping provide so much clarifying perspective to understand what is being done to us and why it is working. I highly recommend it! I fell like its giving me new tools to communicate and understand the nature of our predicament.

(Sorry, I got carried away trying to process my thinking here, and this is longer than I meant…)

Base narcissism may be the entire explanation here, but I think we should also be considering other possibilities. They are playing raw power politics, unanchored from norms and laws, and they have a long-term strategic vision: they know exactly what they are planning to do over the next 10 years and it is the culmination of plans that have been in motion for at least the last 50+ years. Obviously it includes extending the American empire.

Trumpism has so far been based on driving division and then weaponizing resentment and propaganda to mobilize, pacify, or mislead their side of the divide. But they also feed off the outrage of the opposing side: Trumpism wins by replacing rational discourse and fact-based consideration with partisan outrage and impulsive agitation.

The fact that Trump has been able to drive our country to increasing its own internal discord – bi-polarizing the electorate, sapping the left, stirring up fringe actors to trumpet factious images and rhetoric, while we have allowed our information systems to be overrun by deliberately manipulative propaganda campaigns from domestic and foreign reactionaries – All of this shows that the tactics of Trumpism work here. His reach can determine outcomes. This current election we were able so squeeze out a slim majorty win rejecting Trumpism. But it was indeed Trumpism on the ballot and there is ~2% difference in the popular vote! The fact that they were able to make the election about their divisive program, and then nearly win, seems worth celebrating in the context of a multi-decade program.

Now, that doesn’t explain why they would celebrate this particular outcome. But, had PP won now, it would be very awkward to move towards annexation, since it is wildly unpopular, and it would make no sense from the US side for the Trump admin to be demonizing a leadership and party who was obviously aligned with their values. Moves to that affect, and the reality that conservatives tend to make life worse for most people, would mean a likely backlash against the Cons in the next election.

However, with Carney and the liberals leading (by the slimmest coalition), Trumpism will be able to:

• Develop a deepening sense of grievance and outrage against liberal, “woke”, “socialist”, “left” within the large, benighted swath of our domestic population.
• Move more aggressively to increase animosity towards Canada in their base in the US (it will take years to get to the levels they will need to mobilize for more aggressive annexation attempts. But it is coming along pretty quickly: ).
• Every hardship that they force upon thru their economic warfare they will blame on Carney on the Liberals, and the Cons will join in this Charade.

So, in short, I am worried that his satisfaction here is fully justified, based on their strategy.

I am not saying it would have been better for us in any way had the Cons won, tho. What I am saying is that this may be a move both sides needed for their best strategy, and I just hope we can fix some of the systemic dynamics that they are counting on driving our system into their hands.

part of the psyop is to claim a large or majority view, then push the view, normalize it, get even the opposition to validate it and respond to it.

I am completely opposed to U.S. imperialism, but it’s important to note that Puerto Rican’s are U.S. citizens.

The person you are replying to is an anti immigration advocate. It’s all they talk about and they’re only point in any issue.

Uh… do you know what contribution he made to 2008? Or are you just free associating “banks” and “2008”?

Carney’s actions as Governor of the Bank of Canada are said to have played a major role in helping Canada avoid the worst impacts of the 2008 financial crisis.

The epoch-making feature of Carney’s tenure as governor remains the decision to cut the overnight rate by 50 basis points in March 2008, one month after his appointment. While the European Central Bank delivered a rate increase in July 2008, Carney anticipated the leveraged-loan crisis would trigger global contagion. When policy rates in Canada hit the effective lower bound, the central bank combated the crisis with the non-standard monetary tool “conditional commitment” in April 2009 to hold the policy rate for at least one year, in a boost to domestic credit conditions and market confidence. Output and employment began to recover from mid-2009, in part thanks to monetary stimulus. The Canadian economy outperformed those of its G7 peers during the crisis, and Canada was the first G7 nation to have both its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment recover to pre-crisis levels.

I agree that such tax reform (and other regulatory measures) is really needed.

But, if the units are purpose built for affordable housing (as proposed federally in https://liberal.ca/housing-plan/ , for instance), this should at least not fall into the investor problem, no?

IMO one of the really critical takeaways of this historical survey given the current climate is this: The claim that immigration has caused the crises is completely B.S. With the dynamics in place to drive the crises, increasing population can exacerbate the problem on the margins, but population growth didn’t cause the problem and deportations won’t fix it.

We need systemic fixes, like public development of purpose built affordable housing and regulation to prevent finalization of the human right to housing.

Worth noting that https://smartvoting.ca/ projects a better outcome for greens, NDP, and libs using strategic voting. But I respect your view, and in general I agree that a minority lib government in coalition with the NDP would be preferable. But with what is at stake, it just seems like too big a risk IMO to not be really clearly working the levers of power that are available to progressives.

I would also really encourage us to not spread complacency and an assumption that the polling will foretell outcomes. Polling in the current climate has proven to be really iffy (see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-polls-were-mostly-wrong/). Demographic shifts, new media and habits, and generally instability make this stuff really unpredictable. We should vote like our country depends on it.

We all know that immigration needs sensible reforms. And we all know that there is a housing crises. The question is whether immigration “created the housing crises”. But the cost of housing has outpaced incomes globally. If it were just created by immigration, then shouldn’t the prices balance out globally as countries that lose population get more housing availability?

Surely the pressure from immigration aggravated the housing crises, but it did not create it. The crises has been building for at least 50 years. It is created by the financialization of housing and the withdraw of public investment in affordable housing.

Housing is a human right, because it is a basic necessity for living a decent and secure life. When you let core needs be met entirely by the market, without any social support to guarantee access, the profit motive will inevitably squeeze the population to extract more and more upside.

In any market, maximum profits can be made when there is high demand with a restricted supply. By surrendering housing entirely to increasingly unregulated markets, the production of housing becomes prioritized based on return on investment, and that means in order to attract capital housing production and sales have to be more profitable (for some segment of available investment) than other investments, such as mining, oil, finance, etc. If not, any capital would just flow to those more profitable avenues. As a result, we get luxury housing when we need affordable housing and we get unproductive sprawling, overly large single family homes when we need medium density housing near urban centers.

So then, is it any surprise that think tanks and corporate interests that want to drive forward market deregulation to maximize profit potentials will try to tell us to blame immigration for “creating” the crises that is actually due to the very deregulation they want to advance?

Caveat Emptor:

• Tornto Sun is US owned by Post Media which is 66% owned by Chatham Asset Management, a hedge fund with close ties the Republican party and which contributed to Trump’s takeover in the US. Post Media has an explicit rightwing political agenda.
• The source of the report, is the Fraser Institute, a “libertarian-conservative” think tank dedicated to market deregulation (so called “free markets”).The Fraser Institute receives millions in foreign funding including notable US sources. The institute does not disclose their funders, but we know that they are at least partially funded by the U.S. Koch brothers, who were primary instigators of the corruption that is eating the US alive.

You don’t have to be a “fan of the established order of capitalism” to see that moving towards authoritarian hyper-nationalism, destroying international trade relations, and tanking the economy to consolidate power for oligarchs is bad.

1.5 million immigrants in a year isn’t a “little too far”. The UN called it modern slavery.

This is misleading and arguably just a lie. AFAICT, the UN did not infer anything from the amount of immigration, only from the conditions and treatment of the immigrants: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/09/1140437 – those two things may have some connection, but it is obviously mediated.

If you want to help the poor then reducing demand is the first step

According to what economic or social theory? Why isn’t progressive taxation, redistribution, improved social welfare, stimulating industry, or improving education the first step?

Why do you assume that the problem is caused by the poor people seeking opportunity rather than caused by the landlords and corporate oligarchs extracting profit?

This is wrong! Unless you are OK with letting the country become a reactionary vassal state of the US empire, we need to vote strategically. First check whether your riding needs strategic voting (or via https://smartvoting.ca/ or https://www.strategicvoting.ca/, and you can cross check with your preferred polling reports – e.g. https://338canada.com/). If it does not, only then vote for whoever without throwing your vote away.

We need a progressive coalition.