About fricken time the Liberals and NDP came to an agreement to stop the never-ending short election cycle. This should have happened last year. Now let’s get some movement on electoral reform, the #ClimateCrisis, and reconciliation, among many other files the parties can agree on. The Greens are also likely to support many bills.
Yes! This is a great day for Canada. Dental care shouldn't have been rolled back in the 1980s, and pharmacare has been a long time coming.#cdnpolihttps://t.co/CzNKQXEeUj
Yes Gord, yes you should be. Just like every free-thinking Canadian should be. Our Official Opposition party is a party of insurrectionists, racists, and fascists.#cdnpolihttps://t.co/nUZCf7przz
And it’s not that Conservatives don’t understand, many do. It’s that they just don’t care, and have calculated they’ll get more mileage from misinforming voters.
If Pierre Poilievre and Candice Bergen are having a tantrum, something good for Canadians probably just happened
This is how a minority govt is supposed to work. It benefits everyone. Most of this country are centrists, with left leaning social beliefs. With the far-right ravaging the CPC, this is a good move https://t.co/N794zJRpZc
"The Prime Minister should work with the people occupying downtown Ottawa!"
– CPC, February 2022
"How dare the Prime Minister work with the NDP!!"
– CPC, March 2022
— Barney Panofsky's Best Intentions (@mynamesnotgordy) March 22, 2022
CPC in October 2021: How dare Trudeau call an expensive, unnecessary election! CPC in March 2022: How dare Trudeau form an agreement with the NDP to ensure we don't have another expensive, unnecessary election!
How on earth can a majority of members of parliament decide the direction of the country, within the constraints of the constitution? Who would design a system like that?
Canada is a normal settler-colonial country with a dark history of genocide against Indigenous peoples
Canada is still fighting Kamloops residential schools survivors, and their descendants, in court.
N2N was there in 2018 and they long suspected there were mass graves on the grounds of the former school. See our story below. Nothing has changed. https://t.co/l2c0CaWVRk
Canada’s bonehead Prime Minister, in an effort to look more like Boris Johnson, has turned up in an old photo sporting a culturally inappropriate turban costume while wearing what is now, finally widely recognized as racist, blackface makeup.
Fewer years ago than when the Prime Minister dressed in blackface as a young adult and teen among sheltered & ignorant friends, the #CPCracists' leader was a young MP railing against the rights of homosexuals, while addressing the country in the House of Commons.#elxn43
This latest photo is not to be confused with the one manufactured by the Conservative Party to characterize the PM as a brown person shutting down oil production in Alberta.
The Right Honourable guy has a tattoo of First Nations imagery on his shoulder, I’m pretty sure he must have a whole closest stuffed full of inappropriate cultural appropriation. If Canadians come to their senses before polling day, they can elect a PM who wears a turban appropriately, or one who stands shoulder to shoulder with First Nations people as they’re arrested for defending unceded territory from invading oil companies.
Half of the kitty cats just walked by to sniff my hand only to keep walking as I started to pet them, so they wouldn’t be mistaken as being too interested in more petting. Charlie just came up to me again, and left when I tried to pet him.
In good news, Hubble found that an exoplanet about 110 light years distant, happens to have watery clouds in the Goldilocks zone. That means if we got as-fast-as-light transportation, it would take only 110 years to find out if there’s life there without radio transmission capabilities.
In less good news, the Canadian election is officially underway. Traditionally my blogging picks up during a campaign, and this one will likely stimulate blog posting every other day or so. My early impression is that the media will make its usual effort to characterize the race as 2-way despite there being multiple parties. This is particularly dangerous this time because a Conservatives are run by a do-nothing who works happily with racists and religious zealots.
Meanwhile, the NDP are taking out their rage from slipping into 4th place in Ontario, and other parts of Canada, out on the Greens. Watch for a whole lot more horrible things said about Elizabeth May. The other day she apparently became a separatist, and I’m certain next NDP headquarters will try to convince people that she’s a flying green people eater.
Election 2019: – the Liberals attack the Conservatives – the Conservatives attack the Liberals – the NDP attacks the Greens – Max Bernier attacks the international foods section at Loblaw’s #elxn43
CBC has a history of providing a substandard democracy experience for its owners, the Canadian public. Over a decade ago I organized a Regina protest in front of CBC Saskatchewan to object to the broadcasting corporation’s exclusion of Elizabeth May from the leaders debate. Years later she managed to win a seat anyway, and now the Greens are polling nationally about even with the NDP. Excluding her was obviously a partisan choice by the public broadcaster.
CBC security hassling a protestor to ‘not block the entrance’, during the opening prayer.
Yesterday, people across Canada gathered, including in Regina, to protest CBC’s lack of interest in hosting a Leaders Debate on the climate emergency that Parliament has declared. Several parties have a plan for a Green New Deal, and the public would benefit from hearing a structured debate from the leaders of those parties explain how they envision the Canadian economy will change to meet the pressing need the world is feeling to meet this crisis.
It’s clear the CBC is willing to put more effort into sensationalizing a murder investigation, than into the most life threatening political issue of our time.
That $12 million in public funds that went to Canada’s second-richest family could have funded some needed and highly desired Indigenous-run renewable energy projects in the North: https://t.co/lpkdzCgMLt
“I want my tax dollars to go to education, healthcare, police and fire services, and infrastructure…not to profitable private businesses. There is something very wrong with this.” – Ms. Kurtz
This should be a joke. Loblaws/Superstore conspired to fix prices on bread. Why aren’t they exempt from Government funding for a period of time after that [unprosecuted] crime? Hmm, where have I recently heard about a large too-big-to-fail Canadian company attempting to evade prosecution for a crime against society, by appealing to the Liberals (and Conservatives)?
Minister McKenna, you lack good judgement if you thought of promoting this shame with a media event, and posting it on your Twitter. Corruption like this is supposed to be a private moment. “Let them eat price-fixed cake products from the Weston bakeries.”
I like energy efficiency as much as the next guy. Okay, probably a bit more than the typical guy. Yet I have a bit of a problem with the Government of Canada giving money to effing Loblaws to improve their energy efficiency. Is there no Ma & Pa grocer left in Canada to give these millions of dollars to to accomplish the same reduction in emissions, while requiring Loblaws meet a minimum standard, or have them simply respond to the [too-low] carbon pricing that just went into effect? You know, the one you put in place to inspire businesses to find innovative ways to build in efficiencies? Asking the Liberals for money isn’t innovative, nor is Liberals paying billionaires more millions of dollars. Those are older than my record collection.
You may be a Liberal reading this, and thinking, “You can’t say that, what if it helps the Conservatives win because this shows that the Liberals are beholden to Big Money, and that they support corrupt businesses with Government dollars.” Except you wouldn’t say that out loud because you’d use a thought bubble if it even crossed your mind.
Easy for you to say- some of us do not have other options. Makes this even more infuriating.
Christopher Bird explains what it’s like to be a reasonable Canadian observing Canadian political struggles of the largest 2 parties in their efforts to govern:
I don’t particularly like Justin Trudeau – he showed some promise but has been a massive disappointment on multiple levels – but he is, when you get down to brass tacks, a bog-standard centrist politician. He’s a white dude with some policy chops who embodies the Liberal Party ethos of “we are the natural governing party,” which means A) they care about getting the policy right (for their value of “right” which, for example, doesn’t entirely coincide with mine) more often than not B) but it’s not out of any sense of altruism or compassion, but rather because doing government right means you stay in power and that’s where every Liberal believes they deserve to be.
That said: there is a massive ocean between my dislike of Justin and the Canadian right’s dislike of Justin, which is this weirdly *animated* thing. It is performative and it is active and it is virulent and it is spiteful in a way that honestly doesn’t come close to my dislike of, say, Doug Ford, because when someone asks me why I dislike Doug Ford I have an actual list of Bad Things Doug Ford Has Done; without the list he would just be another dumb, loud conservative, and there are simply too many of those to hate him for being one.
Doesn't it count under the "tortures people" square?
The Liberals’ climate plan is an oxymoron, if you want to survive.
Butts/Trudeau/McKenna made some progress past the Conservatives’, but ultimately their legacy is buying a fossil fuel pipeline during a climate crisis. That’s like bringing a propane tank to a house fire, then calling it a bucket brigade.
“But John,” you might ask, “What progress did the Conservatives make?”
Glad you asked. They limited new coal plants to no new ones after 2030, and set a totally unhelpful limit generations from now, on some other pollution.
Give the ultra-knowledgeable @CanadianGreens the nod if climate change is your issue. Trudeau isn't getting the job done. He kept Harper's inadequate GHG targets. Plus you can't trust Trudeau's promises. He lied straight out when he promised electoral reform in 2015.
I've heard that Liberals are announcing an EV rebate soon. Great! (3 years late, but better late than Conservative.) A few important points for them to consider: 1. #climatechange is real, which Liberals acknowledge, but they need to act with urgency to lower emissions.#cdnpolipic.twitter.com/LgsWrAXjdT
This means people who buy cars need to first of all NOT buy an EV to replace their gas burning commuter vehicle. “Whattt?” you’re saying. If everyone who has a car now continues to own an EV instead, we still won’t make it below our emissions target for 2030. What instead?
2. Invest in public transportation e.g. @VIA_Rail, @YQRTransit, #carsharing, and safe biking and walking infrastructure in our cities and even between our towns.
3. Encourage a switch to EVs, but also give financial incentives if people switch to the bus, or train, or ebikes. You could buy Canadians 3 ebikes for every $5000 spent on one automotive rebate.
4. If you rebate the purchase of new EVs, also offer it for used EVs. Adoption happens faster if a used $15000 LEAF is 33% less @ $10,000. A $37000 @NissanElectric for $32000 isn’t as affordable.
A rebate that applies to only new cars may be what automakers want, but we’re in this huge mess *because* politicians did what automakers wanted. Instead do what Canadians want and need, and make low-carbon transportation super affordable, please.
There’s no reason why Canada can’t set a 100% electric personal vehicle goal today. Please sign this petition to tell our heel dragging Liberal government to get on it. There are huge benefits to EVs over gas burners, with cleaner air as only one of the perks. They save owners lots of money too over complicated combustion engine vehicles.
I hope Saskatchewan beats Manitoba in signature count. Right now, we’re neck and neck with them.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 