jadero

@[email protected]

Just a Southern Saskatchewan retiree looking for a place to keep up with stuff.

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With Trudeau on the ropes, Liberals contemplate the next election with hope and anxiety ( www.cbc.ca )

The polls are not good for the Liberals — in fact, they're struggling to overcome the 15 to 20-point gap that separates them from the Conservatives. But those close to the prime minister like to point out that their leader is used to being underestimated and performs well under pressure....

jadero ,

This is the closest thing to a solution they will find. It's too late to switch leaders. That might have worked a few months after the last election, especially if it had been coupled with a bit quicker action on the expansion of Medicare.

Now it's their turn to take one for the team. We've been voting liberal instead of our true preference in order to keep the Conservatives from destroying our country. Now they have to go hat in hand to the NDP and hammer out a different voting system and put it in place before the next election. If they don't, the Conservatives will take power and it will be their fault.

jadero ,

And the truly horrific part is that their advice further guts the civil service. That leaves us in a position where we have to hire fake experts as a substitute for the actual experts we used employ.

jadero ,

Forget all the "not actually first" and "misleading headline" stuff. If we can do this on donations, probably mostly from people only a paycheque away from needing a food bank themselves, imagine what we could do with an actual social system funded by properly taxing wealth, high income, and corporations. We could turn that headline into something approaching reality.

jadero , (edited )

Maybe if the mandatory service were installing fiber to rural areas the way we managed to get copper out there or dealing with infrastructure (especially water and schools) in Indigenous and remote communities. Maybe health care or emergency response.

But guns and bombs? No thanks.

Also, I'm old enough to be exempt by any rational measure. If it came to a vote, my vote shouldn't be counted.

jadero ,

I agree. I'm also not a huge fan of rebranding "military conscription" as "national service". There have been people talking about "national service" in ways that specifically excluded military service. This feels like yet another case of the right stealing a term from the left and redefining it to suit themselves. It's something they have been doing with national and religious symbols and slogans forever as a way to hide their true intentions.

One thing I find particularly concerning is that military conscription has generally been reserved for invasion or active defense. What are they not telling us?

jadero ,

Yes, that too!

Canadian Home Prices "Need" To Be High To Pay For Retirements: PM - Better Dwelling ( betterdwelling.com )

Canadian real estate prices have surged in almost every market, with a typical home price doubling in many regions. A median household in major cities like Toronto and Vancouver would need to save over 20 years for just the down payment, more than 3x the historic average. Seems absurd? The outlandish scenario was apparently a...

jadero ,

I thought pensions and RRSPs were supposed to pay for retirement.

Housing is for living in. Maybe some small- and medium-sized business in rental housing because not everyone wants to own.

But investment commodity or retirement vehicle? Sounds dangerous!

jadero ,

Or moving to SK

Same thing. (Or was that the joke?)

Lifelong SK resident.

jadero ,

My favourite was a report that showed a percentage increase in profit that was higher than the percentage increase in revenue. Is that not the very definition of "higher margin?"

jadero ,

Being an art teacher isn't an excuse. Everyone should have a basic grasp of the issues and I would argue that being a teacher in any subject elevates that from "should" to "must."

I would hope that art is in our schools not merely to promote a leisure activity but to examine different ways of viewing the world. Doing that requires more than just drawing counterfactual maps.

jadero ,

But a basic understanding of the Israel/ Palestine conflict doesn't include being able to recognize the borders of Israel/Palestine from a child's art project.

Why not? I have only a high school education and some trade school, all before 1980, and have what it takes to not screw up like this. Surely a university educated person charged with the responsibility to guide our children through complex issues should be held to at least that standard.

jadero ,

No doubt, but this isn't about the general population, but someone who is supposed to be trained in the ways of making sure that they're not leading kids too far astray.

jadero ,

Too many people have no concept of how great the change is. We got married in the late 1970s. My wife's high school education and receptionist job was enough to get us into a decent 2-bedroom apartment, buy her a brand new motorcycle, and pay for my schooling in a trade. My trade was enough to upgrade our apartment, pay for my hotrodding hobby, let her quit to stay home with our son, buy a camper for weekend trips around the province and vacation trips around Canada and USA, all while saving enough for a down payment on a house with double-digit mortgage rates.

A few financial setbacks (extended layoffs mostly) meant starting almost from scratch (we kept our home but lost all savings and investments) in the early 90s and completely from scratch (lost our home, too) in the early 2000s. It took both of us to barely afford the same apartment of our youth. We finally gave up in 2011, changed careers and moved into a 1968 mobile home on a leased lot in the middle of nowhere. We're back to being able to afford leisure, although on a much, much smaller scale than in our youth.

We're still in that 1968 mobile home on a leased lot. It has apparently quadrupled in value since 2011, so if we were forced to start over again, it would be out of reach. We'd be homeless.

Divorce? Fortunately, that has never been on the table, but it's been at least 2 decades since we'd have been able to contemplate single life from a financial perspective.

jadero ,

They did eventually get around to mentioning in passing some of the reasons this particular program fails in some ways. It would have been a much better piece if they had started with the objective to compare and contrast programs that actually work (Medicine Hat, last time I looked) and those that don't (this one, apparently).

jadero ,

I agree, but a big part of whatever problems there are with this program is that the various agencies aren't actually holding up their end of the bargain.

The program really should be primarily true social housing, not this public-private partnership, but the checks and balances should at least work.

jadero ,

An interesting contrast here. Air Canada is forced to honour an erroneous committment made by its service department. Government of Canada is not forced to honour a committment made by its service department.

I could understand it if the error was discovered and acted upon in a reasonable time, but over 30 years? That's just not acceptable.

jadero ,

I don't think it's fair to lay current economic landscape squarely at Trudeau's feet.

I agree. There is plenty of blame to go around. Trudeau, the other leaders, the MPs, and the very parties themselves going back to at least 1990 are to blame.

There is virtually nothing that can't be traced back to changes in policy enacted by, supported by, and tacitly accepted by literally everyone involved.

Changes to EI that gutted the power of non-union employees.

Changes to business and labour policies such that "society owes me a business" and "nobody owes you a job" attitudes were fostered, then cemented.

Any subsidy or tax reduction or public funding of anything that generates private profit.

Complete dismantling of a world-leading social housing program.

Gutting civil service in favour of consultants and industry association advisors.

Allowing already weak anti-monopoly legislation to gather dust in a drawer.

The focus on the financial health of the stock market instead of the financial health and stability of the general public.

The idea that industry can self-regulate potentially damaging behaviours. It's never happened. It never will.

And my favourite, running the country like a business. Every employer runs their business as a dictator. Who the hell thinks that's the right model for running a country?

jadero ,

Counterpoint: a very large fraction of the population is one unexpected bill away from insolvency. It doesn't seem unreasonable to impose a similar fear on corporations for actual criminal activity.

Yes, that's me saying that a corporation breaking the law should have to legitimately consider closing it's doors. In some cases, forced closure should be part of the actual penalty.

jadero ,

My (counter) point was that much lesser crimes committed by an individual would have completely destroyed the life of the perpetrator and probably their family. Yet high fives all around when a corporation has to put up with a couple of years of lost growth just because a number is too big for an individual to properly comprehend.

jadero ,

... more consistency with our competitors...

They don't sound like competitors, but partners; collusion, no competition.

What happened to "competition lowers prices"?

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