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PM Justin Trudeau's Canada

pman said:
While I despise the Trudeau family project to remake Canada, I do wonder on what grounds you say Trudeau fils is our worst ever.
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That's what I was wondering. Didn't get an answer, really.

I don't think we're getting one. :(
 
MTown said:
That's what I was wondering. Didn't get an answer, really.

I don't think we're getting one. :(
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How do you answer a question like that.
I am not going to dig up references for everything.
how about how Justin Trudeau is the first PM to increase the deficit (or switch from surplus to deficit in his case), during a non-recesion - since Pierre Trudeau did it.
I have produced charts before showing Harper with best jobs and GDP growth in G7 (and a close second best on debt). Trudeau is about #4 or 5 in G7.
First PM guilty of Ethics Act violations.
Acting so immature a high school student council would be embarrassed.
I will admit though that I didn't do comprehensive research for PM's in Canada's first 75 years.
 
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Kim Campbell took the PC party from a majority to two seats. I know she wasn't the PM for long, but that isn't good.

I am concerned that if the CPC gets into power next year, they will pander to the SoCons and try to loosen gun laws.
 
BurlOak said:
After 2 years, I think we can give Trudeau the title of worst government ever
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I wouldn't go that far. They are definitely not as competent as I thought they would be, given the talent he has on the bench.

BurlOak said:
From top to bottom, pretty well every minister, this has been a disaster.
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Again. Wouldn't go that far. There are some competent ones that you just never hear about. I doubt Marc Garneau or Ralph Goodale are faring poorly at their jobs.

BurlOak said:
It's hard to imagine anyone was foolish enough to vote Trudeau i
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I'll cough up to voting for him the first time. Change was due. Harper's conservatives were getting stale. I was expecting a slightly more left leaning version of Chretien/Martin in Trudeau. Boy was I wrong. Unless they address som priorities that are important to me, it'll be very difficult to vote for them again.

MTown said:
can agree with the first bit, but I don't think most people who supported him had any knowledge of how incompetent he actually is.
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On paper, the Liberals have have a ton of talent. He's got a three star general on the bench, and several Rhodes scholars, a combat veteran and an astronaut in government. You don't expect a cabinet of that caliber to fair poorly. Even if they have a weaker PM. In practice, Trudeau doesn't seem to leave much room for his ministers on the stage. And that's probably leading to a lot of the failures we see.
 
Videodrome said:
Kim Campbell took the PC party from a majority to two seats. I know she wasn't the PM for long, but that isn't good.

I am concerned that if the CPC gets into power next year, they will pander to the SoCons and try to loosen gun laws.
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I would argue that Campbell did not have time to prove what type of PM she was. She was a terrible campaigner, or more likely, she paid for Mulroney sins. The same can be said of John Turner a decade earlier. Even Joe Clark, who was in a minority government for about 9 months, did not really have enough time on the job to be adequately judged. I think 2 years is a reasonable length of time to make a judgement.
 
pman said:
Thanks for addressing my question, BurlOak. It sounds like you’re as concerned with the federal deficit as I am. In that case, we’ll have to give a big shout out to Mulroney as well.

https://bigotryliesfear.wordpress.c...ederal-debt-came-under-stephen-harpers-watch/
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One does have to consider the economic conditions at the time. Harper had the best record in G7 for job creation and for GDP growth and was a close 2nd for least increase in Debt.
I have made the analogy about 50 goal scorers in hockey. back in the late 70's and 80's, tons of people scored 50. Then in most of the 1990's (after the Penguin Cups), there was virtually none. I'd say you look at the best players within the era.

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Agree to some degree with Mulroney, although he did get the debt to GDP ratio under control (after P. Trudeau's excessive spending), until the next recession. It taught us a valuable lesson that only a fool runs a deficit in non-recessionary times.
 

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Videodrome said:
Kim Campbell took the PC party from a majority to two seats. I know she wasn't the PM for long, but that isn't good.
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Campbell was a scapegoat for the Mulroney government.

Charest was good times, but if David Orchard had won that leadership race to the sell-out liar McKay then things really would have gotten interesting.
Speaking of which, Elsie Wayne was my fav MP when I was a kid.
 
@BurlOak, I just wanted to know what you were basing your qualification of Trudeau as the worst PM ever on.

The deficit thing is a bit of a wash. Supplying deficit charts without historical context is just numbers in a vacuum. It doesn't really tell the story. Deficits aren't always bad, either. Whether or not we need them right now is a good question though.
Do you read the Globe and Mail, @BurlOak?
There was an essay this in this past week-end's edition by Tony Fell entitled 'In Justin Trudeau's Canada, We Still Can't Get Anything Big Done'. I rather think you'd enjoy it.

@kEiThZ has a good point about the calibre of some of the current ministers. Ralph Goodale has been top-notch competent since I can remember, for example. I have a lot of respect for him.
 
What a disappointing budget. That's it for me personally. I can't vote for them again.

They don't seem to care about governing. Only identity politics. A different breed of incompetence from the Conservatives. But incompetence nevertheless.

I cut a cheque to both the national campaign and local riding in 2015. For the Liberals. Might consider doing that for the conservatives soon.
 
kEiThZ said:
What a disappointing budget......
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We're in agreement on this part.

For me, there were a few things I was hoping for; I wasn't expecting miracles, while the budget had a few good items, all in, its very disappointing.

First, I think its important to judge a budget by what the government is billing it as. In other words how closely do the details adhere to the rhetoric.

Clearly there were 2 flagship items in the budget; the whole gender pay gap related issue and investing in addressing the woes of our aboriginal communities, particularly on-reserve.

I'll give them points on the latter, while there remain a host of other issues, some monetary, others not, there is clearly a substantial investment to address water quality issues, and health and education deficiencies on-reserve.

On the former, however, the rhetoric is fine, but the substance is all but absent.

Put aside whether you think addressing the gender-pay gap is a pressing issue...

Did they actually do that?

I would argue that the most obvious, easy to fix part of that gap is maternity/parental leave pay, which reimburses only 55% of income.

Since women take the majority of said leave, indeed, the maternity portion is open only to them, they spend up to a full year earning 55c on their own dollar, never mind what their male partner (if applicable) is earning.

File under 'duh' that if you want to reduce the pay gap, you lift the reimbursement rate for maternity/parental leave.

Washington (state) is moving to a sliding scale so that low-income parents get up to 90% of income reimbursed, Quebec is at 75% across the board; California is moving to 70%; Canada is at 55%

If you don't want to bump E.I premiums too much, phase-in the change, by raising rates only for the maternity leave portion; leaving parental leave lower in the near-term; and/or offer a shorter parental leave at a higher compensatory rate ( so 20 weeks, instead of 35), which would allow 96% reimbursement w/no new money.

Instead of such measures, we get a dedicated paternity/2nd parent leave, which will only barely address this issue, and only in so far as it lowers the pay of the 2nd partner.

Not effective at all.

I don't mind the paternity leave, but it doesn't address the issue they claim they are addressing.

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Beyond the 'big 2' there are some good investments in the environment and science/research.

That's nice

But I'm more concerned with what isn't there; we continue to see a tax system loaded w/tax expenditures (deductions and variable rates) The Liberals committed to streamlining these.

They haven't.

If you did so, you could invest a portion in deficit reduction and give the rest back as lower-taxes, with the benefit directed primarily to low and lower-middle income earners.

This would be economically beneficial, in line w/promises, and generally help women, and minorities disproportionately as well (due to more falling into the lower income tiers)

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On pharmacare, so far, its a stall tactic. Not impressed.

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Finally, coming off a very good economic year for Canada, the deficit should be much lower.

To be me that's not a right/left issue; as $ going to interest don't go to social programs, and we also need fiscal wiggle room for the next downturn.


All in all, while the budget isn't terrible, its not impressive either.

Lacks cohesive vision, doesn't put enough $ where the rhetoric is; and isn't fiscally prudent enough for my liking either.

It certainly won't make me vote for Scheer.....

But the NDP and Greens are gonna get another once-over if the Libs don't produce something much better next year.
 
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