Canadian Politics

So just Trump being Trump then. I see...

What, you thought Trump actually had a point for once?

This is a man who demands his security briefings be condensed into one page of bullet points and spends most of his time watching TV and/or tweeting. You think he's bothered to seriously review trade policy?

And yeah, the USA's dairy has some pretty serious problems. We even had a friggin' cheese surplus which devalued the cheese last year. This has precisely jack and shit to do with Canada.

edited 20th Apr '17 7:52:02 PM by M84

In actual good news, the CRTC has upheld Net Neutrality.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/canada-just-ruled-to-uphold-net-neutrality

The CRTC really has spent the past several years proving that they're on the side of the consumer, since they've spent this whole time shooting down really bad ideas from the telecom companies.

Bell will probably try to challenge this, but it's going to be really hard for them to convince Parliament since A), Parliament usually defers to the CRTC anyway and B), lobbying is way less of a thing in Canada, so all Bell will be able to do is talk about how it benefits the telecom companies, and the big internet companies can talk about how it will stifle innovation and seriously hurt the internet ecosystem.

Net neutrality was ever controversial in Canada?

And going with Bell on this issue would be political suicide for the Liberals.

No, a few Telecommunications companies aside.

Not really. The big telecom companies just have a habit of pitching really awful ideas to the CRTC (the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission), like per-byte billing (which would mean charging for internet like you get charged for cell phone data) and mandatory data caps on everything, and the CRTC shoots it down because it's blatantly anti-customer.

This is especially a big deal right now because Net Neutrality is on the verge of falling apart in the US and in Canada, it's just a couple steps away from literally being enshrined in law if Parliament holds it up, if Bell is dumb enough to try and challenge the ruling. Like I said before, there's no real way to make removing Net Neutrality look pro-consumer.

edited 21st Apr '17 10:33:20 AM by Zendervai

And now the US is looking at levying 24% duties on softwood lumber.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wilbur-ross-softwood-tarrif-1.4083968

This might hurt them more than it does us (housing prices are a bastard if this goes through), but if it escalate into an outright trade war...

edited 24th Apr '17 8:21:49 PM by Rationalinsanity

...

<_<

>_>

Oh fuck it!

Yeah, this'll backfire. A lot of companies buy Canadian lumber because it's the only stuff in their price range that isn't complete garbage. Good luck building houses without any soft lumber.

And the thing about the Crown lands creating an unfair advantage...not really. It's still private companies doing the logging, but due to the way the land was initially distributed literally anything that isn't specifically designated as being the property of a private entity is Crown Land. Well, technically, the entire country is Crown land. Everyone just has incredibly generous leases.

But, I'm pretty sure I've said this before, Canada is ultimately a net producer. We have to sell the stuff we produce to be functional. The US is a net consumer, so they have to buy stuff to stay functional. Causing a trade war creates negative effects way faster for the consumer because they lose their source. It can seriously hurt the producer as well, but it takes a bit longer, since there's more than one market, or at least that's the theory I've seen.

edited 24th Apr '17 8:44:45 PM by Zendervai

Hence why Ottawa is rushing to finalize trade deals with China and the EU.

Kevin O'Leary dropped out, and endorses Bernier.

He's not wrong on many of those points.

edited 26th Apr '17 3:15:38 PM by Ghilz

Have to say that I didn't see that coming. Guess its Bernier's race to lose now.

It's gonna be a massive change, especially with the last debate tonight. that and the recent Trump shennanigans for timber and milk might lead to some interesting exchanges.

I suppose a few of the other big shots, namely O'Toole and Schneer could come up from behind.

Please no. Trudeau has been such a breath of fresh air. I'd hate to see him go.

Gotta disagree, Trudeau's pretty dumb.

At least he's finally trying to stick up to the mouldy orange though with his ridiculous lumber and dairy ramblings.

Trudeau's attitude is refereshing but often he's sort of light on content. His first year in particular was very light in legislation. Holding inquiries and consultations is nice, but it's not getting much done. His economic stance is also worrying. A lot of spending and not as much "How we're getting out of that deficit we're building"

Other stuff like his assisted suicide law which was so half baked the Senate bounced it twice before they finally got it workable (and even then people both side of the debate are still grumbling).

I mean, I like the guy, but I wish shit was more thought out.

edited 26th Apr '17 12:45:10 PM by Ghilz

Eh, ain't nothin' wrong with deficit, so long as it isn't in foreign currency.

I hear Ontario is doing a basic income pilot project, introducing pharmacare and rent control. Is Ontario some type of utopia?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13557705350A64895500&page=694#17344

It's less a utopia and more an unpopular and incompetent Premier desperately looking for some way to salvage their shitty approval rating.

edited 28th Apr '17 12:28:32 AM by M84

And the rent control is more like dumping water on the out of control inferno that is the Toronto housing market.

And when we say unpopular, we mean that Kathleen Wynne has a 12 percent approval rating. When the provincial elections happen, the Conservatives will probably win.

I don't want to vote Conservative, but luckily, my local MPP is an NDP guy who's been around for like 20 years now, and genuinely knows what he's doing. I guess that's what you get when you live in a combination factory and university town.

So what exactly did she do to earn herself that level of unpopularity?

Basically, the electricity bills. Ontario has the highest electricity bills in North America and it's because of some really stupid deals and initiatives that she and the previous government pushed. We sell electricity to New York at a loss and eat the prices ourselves, if you have a solar panel attached to your house, you not only get a discount (which would be reasonable), but you get paid for it, in some cases more than you would have paid for electricity normally, and she's in the process of privatizing the hydro companies, while keeping random chunks of the infrastructure, thus increasing costs in the long run.

She also has a habit of blowing tons of money on initiatives, lying about how much it costs, then when the initiative collapses saying, basically, "Oh, well, at least it was an experience!"